Case 23. 5 (House at the Edge of Town)

23:32/ 04-18-2011--- Hector and I were in a field, up to our knees in mud, cow shit, innards. Rain was torrential. Hector was disheveled, dragging his paralyzed leg and still unable to stop screaming. My bazooka shoulder was stiff and sore and somewhat burnt from firing so many times and the flesh of my legs was getting scratched and burred as I ran. My pants were still out there, somewhere, trying to kill me. Thus, I was, at that particular moment in time, quite pantsless. The laughing came from all around us.

21:00/04-18-2011 --- "So, where are we going?"
"Shit, man, my Dad's. I told you this."
"Yeah, but--maybe I've been mistaken for the last decade or so that I've known you, but it seems your Dad's been dead the whole time."
"There's always been some dispute."
". . . like?"
"Like maybe he's not dead."
"I understand."
"Don't BS me. You're dubious."
"Well, once again, maybe I'm mistaken, but didn't we attend his funeral as adolescents? Didn't I offer support and et cetera during that time of need for you?"
"Well, maybe that funeral was just for show, like. Like maybe my eminent father wanted to, like...fake his own death!?" (heavy-browed expression aimed at me, meant to endow a certain significance to that statement.)
". . . .why for?"
"To avoid his creditors. Muahahaha!"
"Penis-toucher."

We were just outside the edge of S_______,  near a small town where Hector grew up. Here, the scenery quickly becomes corn. Corn aplenty to feed the legions of the damned. Corn so plentiful and conspicuous that you'd shit corn just by breathing the air. (i.e, "But, I haven't eaten corn in months!" "Hmm, didn't you drive through Missouri last week?" "Yes..." "A-HA!") Seen from the air, this part of the state would make you anemic with boredom. This is the dusty brownish-yellowness that we were driving through. Hector at the wheel, me kicked back in the back seat, applying pressure to brow ridge just above my nose. I had a ridiculous headache and mild nausea. The reason for my absentee from the front seat was the latch that allows the seat to lean back or forward was broken and the seat was stuck in a torturous forward angle.

Hector grew up here, in M_____________, pop. 1433 and dropping steadily. No man's land. There's a Food Saver and a gas station with rotating ownership. Some factory out somewhere processes animal corpses into edibles but most of the employment is agricultural. Hector himself grew up on a farm, though his dad's main interest lay elsewhere. Ostensibly, he grew corn and raised cattle. Or rather, a cluster of sickly-looking cows. Fact is, Gomez Isildor S______ was (is?) a Mad Scientist. Under his big hay-filled barn was a Frankenstein laboratory (pronounced in the Romanian fashion) like no other; apparently funded in part by big mysterious government grants and from various, equally mysterious patents Dr. Gomez had on the market. This is all information relayed to me by Hector throughout the duration of our friendship. Dr. Gomez died when I had known Hector for about a year; during the time leading up to that, I stayed over at the farm on several occasions. Only years later I learned the nefarious purposes Dr. S______ had established for the various quotidian farm appurtenances around the house and land: the weather vane doubled as a lighting rod in various reanimations; the pond a dumping ground for failed experiments; the dead-eyed, stitched-together farm hand whose body parts would fall off in nearly always farcical situations actually a reanimated corpse. Etc.

After Dr. S_______'s apparently dubious death some of the land auctioned off; the house and land immediately around stayed in the possession of Mrs. S________, who moved to S________ with Hector. She never sold the place, and it came to a certain amount of dilapidation. The last time I was here was a few years ago on a cool Halloween night, with Hector. The windows were dark. The lawn grass was short, laid low by the last few frosts. In the distance kids trick-or-treated, and Jack-o-Lantern glows could be seen vaguely from the farm. Hector and I sat on the porch and drank, he reminisced. The barn loomed heavy and black. After a couple hours we got spooked-- we felt watched, on top of being slightly jaked-- so we left.

Now we were in M____________, approaching the outskirts of town. The sky was darkening after the sun finally set and the light faltered. I was still nursing my aching head and wondering what the hell we where doing here, really.

"There's something you need to know about me and my past, Matt. It has to do with my Dad and his horrifying experiments.---" Just then, the bass line to "Psycho Killer" by The Talking Heads came thumping through the radio, and we rocked out like awesome for the next four minutes and twenty seconds.

"That was fucked, dude. Anyway, my dad was more or less assassinated by our one and only government. He, as you know, was a Mad Scientist, and he'd provided certain nefarious services for the government over the years, including an hilarious episode involving reanimating JFK's brain. Well, his experiments became more and more monstrous and weird. He began engineering his own beings, and he created a chemical that could animate pretty much anything and put that thing under his control. The government got pissed when he refused to sell this control-juice for sex and gambling purposes, so they killed him. Little did they know, you can't really kill a...Mad Scientist!!!" 
 "Why did you say it like that? I already knew your dad was a Mad Scientist."
"...Maybe."
"So, anyway, your dad's still alive. Have you known this whole time?"
"No. Someone left a zombie gorilla in my closet this afternoon. I pieced it all together after the struggle and I had time to reflect on what it all meant. My dad was sending me a message."
"What message?"
"'I'm still alive, you useless bitch.'"
"Oh."
"I suspect some serious shit's going down at the farm tonight."

21:30/4-18-2011: Serious shit is going down at the farm. I'll dredge the very depths of my powers of describing horrifying scenes and give you a polite look into the funky shit that made God leave the room. Firstly, we could see something destructive was happening from the black smoke drifting skyward from the corner of town. The plume was shaped like Angelina Jolie's face glowering like Satan's own chambermaid and shooting laser beams from her eyes while spouting ancient Lovecraftian curses. Close to that, I mean, in terms of terror-inducing-ness.

"Hector. See, I think you're dad can take care of this. Let's get some beer."
"Particular reason the pitch of your voice has elevated three octaves, Matt?"
"Shitting myself does that to me. Seriously dude you should've told me about this serious shit happening."
"Serious shit's been happening every time we leave the house lately; haven't you noticed, man? Why would this time be any different? You're the one who should be prepared for this shit."
". . . "
"Plus, I gotta check on my dad, man."
"The man who attempted to murder you with a zombie gorilla?"
"That's just his way, man. Don't talk about what you don't know."
"Right, then. I'll sprout some nuts and take this shit on."
"Please do."
"Pull over here. Me thinks it would be unwise to pull up in the car like a couple putzes."
"Now you're talking."

Hector pulls the car into a little inlet carved into the cornfield. He goes around to the back of the Nissan and opens the trunk. "Ehh...do you want the mosquito-mister or the fire extinguisher?"
"The fuck happened to your shotgun and ax? If those are my choices, neither."
"Yeah. Fuck. I kinda dropped the ball on this one. Sorry."

So we char into the cornfield, towards the house, armed only with our wits and machismo.  It was fuckin' itchy, but you know. The smell of exploding grows stronger as we approach the battle-torn farmhouse, and at about the hundred-yard line, we stop to scope out the situation: Humvees crowd around the house, various inimical-looking, heavily armed military types stand about them, a tank with its barrel-thing or whatevs still smoking after launching an explosion-causing object into the house. I apologize for the jargon. After the shock of seeing these things, even more shocking things became apparent: an army of reanimated corpses and animated normally non-living things are storming out of the house towards the soldiers.

"We need to make either a run for the basement or the barn," Hector says.

"Hell yeah!" is exactly what I say.

Hector doesn't drag me to the basement, which is somewhat closer. Somehow, we avoid attention. In the basement, accessed through double doors set at an angle at the side of the house (the only house I've ever seen that actually has that basement-entry setup.) The basement is muggy and dark, smelling of wet dirt and failed unholy experiments. "There's an access to the barn through here," Hector says. Somewhere around here is when we're assaulted by a pair of moth-eaten granny panties. These had been animated, you see, by Hector's dad's animation juice. They fly into Hector's face. "Holy shit," I yell, "are those your mom's?" This potential tickles my sensibilities. Hector (muffled): "YyyyeaHHFFOOOOHHKKKHhhheaddHHHGGGIIIITTTTOOFFFAHHHHAAAHHH!!" This and his frantic clawing induce me to decide to help him. The two of us are able to get the infernal underwear (best semi-alliteration I can come up with) off Hector's face (tehe.) The darn things just keep flyin' around though, til finally I'm able to get a hold of 'em and stretch 'em tight across the floor. "Dude, find something to hold down the panties!" I tell Hector. He's caught his breath by now, if you've been concerned. He vanishes then reappears with a crowbar. "HiiiYAAAAAAHH!!!" When frightened and mildly offended, Hector does a pretty good kung fu master bit. Anyway, the underwear. . . dies, and in the underwear's. . .er, death-throes, the underwear vomits neon blue juice all over my jeans. If you're dubious about the concept of the underwear vomiting, I can't help you. You're just an unimaginative little vermin.

We make our way to the subterranean tunnel leading from the basement to the barn, and, meantime, I notice that my pants simply aren't willing to cooperate with my intentions for them. This is an entirely foreign experience. Suddenly, my jeans stiffen, and I stop in my tracks. "Hector, what the fuck?!"

"Aw, shit, Matt. You got Dad's juice all over ya."
"EW! What do I do?"
"Those jeans ain't yer own anymore dude. They obey a new master. 'Fraid you gotta strip 'em off."

A sudden, unwelcome tightening at the crotch dismisses my qualms about taking off my pants. I wrestle them off, wad 'em up (with some difficulty) and toss 'em into the dark, back the way we came. They straighten in mid-air, land on their, um, feet, and run off, laughing hysterically.

Having witnessed many horrors before this day, I recover sooner than a lesser man would've. Anyway, we soon reach the barn. This is/was the base, essentially, of Dr. Gomez's operations. The barn is heavily fortified, full of diodes and lightening rods and gauges, and has its own theme music. Coming up through the floor hatch, Hector and I enter the control station. "What the fuck?" Hector utters, "You ain't my Dad!" The recipients of Hector's obviousness-stating were a trio of Missouri Good Ol' Boys; fuckin' hillbillies. They were standing around the various monitors/control apparati and hyuking, whoo-boying, and square-dancing, drinking measurably from their XXX jugs. Yup, classic 'necks. 'Necks at the con. They were dallying, also, with various controls, and they seemed to be pretty much the root cause of the goings-on out in the yard. "I said, 'What the fuck?'!!" Hector shouts. The Hillbillies turn around.
"Who the fuck are you?" All stretched vowels, augmented syllables.
"This is my Dad's house, bitches! Get the fuck out!"
"Whoa, there, wetback,-"
"WHAT! did you just call me? Where the fuck's my Dad?"
The leader of the troupe, a skinny specimen with an unnaturally small head and large hair, raises a scatter gun at us, says "We just came here for a good time now, so dontcha go spoilin' it for us." Hector's silent. We raise our hands.
I chime in, for better/worse: "Hey, so. . . what's actually going on here? How'd you hic--guys wind up here?"
"Like I said, we's just here for a good time. Found o' bunch a crazy shit in this here barn, started foolin' around with it. Now we're taking on the fuckin' feds with a army of the undead."
"Verily. Say, do you redne--chaps have a plan for getting out of here?"
"Oh no, boy. This here's a. . . stand off!" 
Just then, a lesser 'billy calls out, "Whoo-boy! They's breachin' the walls!"  The closest monitor shows some sort of infiltration organ of the army scaling the walls of the barn, the military types having apparently discovered this as being the originating point of the terrifying army of zombies and pants. Lead hillbilly calls out, "Boys, shit just got real," or some other masculine cliche.

Hector and I take the opportunity to scramble back down the hatch and back to the basement. In the basement, we hear a struggle from some far corner, a flashlight beam flails wildly, a man is being strangled. In the wild, uncertain light, we see a uniformed dude with what seems like my pants wrapped around his necks. A giggle uttered by my pants' fly confirms this. "We can do nothing here," I offer. Hector sees the wisdom in this, and we abscond up the stairs leading into the house.

The house is a nightmare abattoir; We stumble through the typical aftermath of any zombie/military show down. Viscera slippery and ropy impedes our progress, and wild laughter from dark corners indicates the unseen presence of animated pants. I then notice that the soldier corpses are, indeed, all missing various items of clothing. I feel a cold chill, until I realize something else. A brand new, loaded-seeming bazooka and a satchel of bazooka rockets (*Authorial interruption: see here, gentle reader, that not only do I not have any fucking clue what I'm talking about, I'm also too freakin' lazy to harbor an inclination to even look into knowing what I'm talking about. My rationale: I'm a story-teller, godammit, not a Guns & Ammo columnist.- MS*) is laying right next to the pile of unidentifiable corpses beside me. Victory air punch. "Take these," I say, handing Hector the rocket satchel. I hoist the bazooka and stumble out the front door with it.

The front yard is similarly a scene of Romano-esque horror. The tank and other vehicles have been over run by the undead and stuff. Body parts are everywhere! Clumps of zombies indicate the locations of the serious body piles; they're feeding. As of right now, the two of us are inconspicuous. I arm the bazooka.

After the explosions, Hector and I are the only moving things in the yard. Craters mark the former locations of zombie-clumps and indicate the girth of my manliness. Hector is in awe of me, pretty much, even in my boxers. Noise comes from the barn; apparently the hillbillies are still taking on the feds.

"Dude, we should get the fuck outta here while we have the chance."
"I don't know, I feel like my Dad. . ."
It's begun to rain rather heavily. 
"'Feel like your Dad' what?"
"I feel like there's more going on here than a troupe of hicks playing zombie-master."
"Can we ponder this over beers fifty miles away?"
"But the zombie gorilla. . . that was, like, our thing, man. . ."

At this moment, the hicks burst through the barn doors, a-whoopin' and a-hollerin', apparently celebrating their just-won barn-battle. They've changed, though. They've transformed into something. . . awful. Spines jut out from incongruous places; legs bent back at the knees like grasshoppers'; the occasional eyeball peering from the stomach/shoulder/crotch/etc. They spot us and shriek inhumanly-- yet somehow still with a hick accent. The leader hick-monster points at us; a barb flies from his hand and sticks Hector in the leg. Hector begins screaming. I'm out of rockets and already dropped the bazooka anyway. We notice something; Dr. Gomez's animation goo is leaking out of various wounds, etc., on the 'neck-beasts' bodies.

23:30/ 04-18-2011-- We run.