Cannibal Corpse, M/C

The first thing he did was pull the bluesteel Combat Mag in one quick motion like a gunfighter unleathering his Navy six. Just in time, too, for a big hulking Cannibal Corpse whose face was more maggots than face stepped up to the edge of the ditch, grinning, his flat black eyes filled with secret triumph. Well, what do we got here? But what he got instead of easy meat for the chewing was the business end of the Mag and then Slaughter squeezed the trigger. The Mag boomed and a .357 round went right through the zombie’s forehead, coring him, sliding through his skull like a drill bit and taking most of what was inside out the back of his head. In fact, when the slug went through, the impact broke his skull part and the top of his head jumped three inches like a hat blown up in the wind and came right down in a splash of red/black slime and the zombie folded right up.

Of course, the rest of the Disciples were hardly standing still during this time.

Apache Dan and Shanks were still on their bikes, jousting with the Cannibals, Fish was on the road shooting zombies off their mounts and Moondog had his machete out and was busy decapitating the downed Cannibals. What he didn’t see was a huge walking slab of carrion descend on him with a lead pipe, but Jumbo did. By that time he was on his sweet ‘54 Panhead like a knight that realized he’d almost missed the fun. He roared into the fray and when the big zombie was bearing down on Moondog, he popped a wheelie and slammed the front tire right into the side of the corpse’s head.

They both went down and just as quickly, they were both up, going at it bare fisted.

Slaughter climbed out of the ditch and saw what he wanted right away: the Cannibal Corpse with the hatchet. Among the other patches on his leather vest was one that read: VICE-PRESIDENT. St. Louis chapter and not Kansas City, but still…Vice-Prez.

He saw Slaughter.

Slaughter saw him.

They charged at each other, the Cannibal holding up his hatchet and Slaughter unsheathing his Kukri. It would have been so much easier to pop the zombie with the Combat Mag, but that’s not what Slaughter wanted. Sometimes, in the thick of battle with so much indiscriminate, impersonal killing going on with guns, there was a call to the knife. A need to swing and taste blood. Smell it. Feel it. To watch your prey go down dead. Maybe it was an instinctual thing, but he had felt it before.

The Cannibal came at him with a high-pitched war cry that was somewhere between a howling wolf and a mad dog. Black ribbons of slime flew from his mouth and a slop of maggots was expelled from his left nostril.

“Come on!” Slaughter called out at him. “Bring your gamey ass on!”

The Cannibal vice-prez came in with wild slashing motions of the hatchet which, although not controlled, were fast and vicious and much more powerful than Slaughter expected from a deadhead. He got under them and around them and lashed out with his left foot, catching the vice-prez in the back and throwing him forward.

He brought the Gurkha knife around, the eighteen-inch blade just missing the back of the zombie’s neck. The vice-prez whirled back around, making a chattering/cackling sound and lunged.

Slaughter dropped back, slid on the gravel and went on his ass.

The zombie struck out with the hatchet. Missed. Brought it down again and Slaughter rolled away, scrambling to his feet.

The vice-prez swung his hatchet.

Slaughter swung his Kukri.

The blades clattered in mid-air and Slaughter felt the numbing shock of it right up to his elbow. He danced back as the hatchet came again and then again. He spun around and slashed open the zombie’s chest, and it would have been a near-fatal cut for a living man but to this deadhead it was just a flesh wound.

He got out of the way of the hatchet, slashed at the zombie’s arm, made contact, peeling free a chunk of greening meat. And the hatchet came within inches of his face but the swing threw the vice-prez off balance and Slaughter leaped. He brought the Gurkha knife down with full-force into the zombie’s face and it sounded like an axe splitting black oak.

The zombie cried out, its last good eye shattered in a splash of yellow serum. A rancid blood poured from his split face, a thick and curdy sort of blood that was squirming with graveworms. He swung the hatchet and Slaughter ducked under it and brought the Kukri into the back of his neck. The zombie gagged out clots of tissue in a vomit gush of bile and blood.

He dropped the hatchet.