Zombie Drug Run

By C.G. Banks

Frederick Paol is a small-time drug runner who's been playing the averages too long. When a shifty friend of his turns him on to the Franklin brothers in New Orleans, his life goes into a dark spiral. Because the most psychotic of the two tries to play him, and Paol is not a guy who will take that lying down. In a completely irrational moment, he invites the brother to come along on the run and they soon find themselves in the jungles of Bogota, Colombia. Fighting back-stabbing drug dealers and a terrible storm, things go from bad to worse until Paol finds himself alone and hunted by a ghoul dredged up from the very pits of hell itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.G. Banks
• Release date: Jun 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310564086

C.G. Banks

C. G. Banks is the pseudonym of some other guy. These are the kind of stories I like. Hope you like em too. Thanks.

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zombie drug run

C. G. BANKS

ZOMBIE DRUG RUN

Published by C. G. Banks at Smashwords

Copyright © 2014 by C. G. Banks

All rights reserved. This includes the right to reproduce any portion of this book in any form.

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Prologue

Lester the pimp had just finished up pissing down his leg. The knife he had at his throat had caused him to do that. His two bitches weren’t much good to him either, and he didn’t know, maybe they’d pissed themselves too. Rags had been stuffed into their mouths, held in place by doubled lengths of piano wire. Shit like that had a way of taking the fight out of you.

His eyes grew wider still as the monster pushed forward. The monster with the thickly-cabled forearm choking him into the goddamn sheet rock. Suddenly he recalled the whispered prayers of his long-dead grandmother, drifting up now as if through the floor itself. And as he squirmed there, he suddenly did feel her very close, somehow unglued in Time, a ghost he would soon be joining.

He tried pushing away from the wall but the monster's breath stopped him. The blade eased deeper and he screamed. The monster said something he couldn’t quite make out.

He suddenly knew there would be no help, here, ever.

He rolled his eyes back to the girls, pushed back behind the stained couch. A thin line of drool ran out between his teeth as the monster repeated what he must have said before.

...you understand me? the pimp heard, almost engulfed by the faint, trailing cacophony of sound that traced nothing but the edge of oblivion. He tried hard to focus.

What? he coughed.

The girls, man. The girls, you fuck. They’re not all I had in mind. I said, 'Do you fucking understand me?' The monster's lips broke back over a clean, white fence of polished teeth.

Lester’s eyes watered, everything in the room was floating around like the place was going to explode. Blood dripped from his chin. He began to cry.

Oh that’s good. I like that, the monster said.

Lester, recognizing the form of his death in the room, tried for a bargain, anything, teetering there on the very brink of dissolution. Look, man! I doan give a shit about da bitches! Do wha’eva you want! and on and on with the same old promises and silliness.

The monster’s diamond eyes clouded over. The forearm dug deeper. When it leaned sensuously closer the pimp felt its hard dick close upon him but he was helpless. There was nowhere to go. What's that? the monster asked.

Only a superhuman effort allowed the pimp to spit out what he did. The bitches, man, the fuckin bitches! Ya cun have 'em! Do wha’eva ya want! I never seen ya, any a this shit! My mutha's grave, man, fuck I swear…! His legs gave out and the monster pressed into his chest again. More promises blubbered unintelligible until his voice rose to a shriek again as the blade went deeper.

I've already got the whores, you stupid prick, the monster said. Then the blade rammed upward and as far as the pimp knew everything in the room blurred to a milky white. Lester’s feet hammered at the littered floor and through his gold-capped, front teeth the monster could just make out the dull glint of the knife. It watched with almost childish curiosity as the pimp flailed away to nothing. Then it dropped the body to the floor and gave it one massive, final kick.

The monster backed away from the corpse. There was blood on the cuff of its sleeve. It turned and wiped it on the wall, near the wet spot where the pimp’s sweating head had pressed moments before. Then it turned slowly, intimately aware of the effect it wished to inspire.

It moved languidly over to the other two. As always, it'd been careful to fulfill the preliminary, giving them each another handful of cash before beginning the real business.

It grabbed the edge of the couch and flung it away from the girls with as much forced rage as it could muster. Then it said, tenderly, menacingly, Look at you. It shook its sleeves down so that they were no longer bunched about its forearms. One moment, fine, the next... It snapped its fingers. It laughed.

Sandy tried to squeeze behind Doris’s big ass, but the larger whore had wedged as close to the wall as she could. The maniac had just deep-sixed Lester. It wasn't the first pimp she'd seen offed, but it was undoubtedly the worst...and the closest. She tried to keep her horrified eyes away from the corpse but a morbid, irrational urge bid her back.

Dead Lester lay crumpled and discarded like old clothes thrown down in a basement laundry. Blood streamed off his body in slow undulations, carrying bits of paper and cigarette butts with it. The black handle of the knife protruded stiffly out from his chin, causing his mouth to contort like some broken puppet’s. His half-lidded eyes crossed toward his nose. Sandy suddenly felt a heavy, slumping weight fold onto her back, and she fought back with her elbow to get the other bitch off.

Her head was suddenly wrenched up, knee high to the monster. It smashed its foot into her nose, the reverberation banking off the walls of the shitty room. Oddly, she felt no fear now. The monster bent down low to throw the bigger whore away, grabbing them both by the hair and manhandling them like toys. It jerked Sandy around to face it but found her eyelids tightly shut. It licked a drop of blood from the pulp of her nose, ran its tongue across her forehead. Open your eyes, it said softly. There was a studied passion in its tone.

She didn't respond.

It wrenched her head back again, and her muffled groan brought the smile back. She opened her eyes just slightly. Tried to make out the swimming image before her, and gradually became aware the monster was holding something up in front of her face. How many? she heard in her dream-world, time after repeating time. But it was so hard to tell; the fingers (it was definitely fingers, she saw that now) floated in a deep murk, were only cloudy shadows against a violent background of red. But the incessant question continued. She grunted once and the monster banged her head against the wall. Bursts of light went off in her mind. Did that look like one to you!? Twice more it smashed her head against the wall. She felt herself begin to lose consciousness and decided to bank a guess. Even at the dead-end of her unfortunate life, she still clung bitterly to the faint wisp of survival.

She grunted twice, as loud and as clear as she could with the bastard rag in her mouth. For just a second there was no response; she kept expecting to be slammed into the wall again. But nothing happened. The fingers waggled in front of her face. Yes, she thought. There were two.

Good, fine, the monster growled. It brought the fingers back a little as if to give her a better view. She held on, squinting.

And with the same brutal force the monster had used to skewer Lester’s brain, it jammed its hand forward in lightning quickness, the pointer and middle fingers pronged out. They punched into Sandy's eye sockets with a greasy pop, sending her body into an electric spasm. Then, slowly, it closed its grip, and stood, pulling her away from the other whore by her face. It dragged her across the room and tossed her onto the heap of Dead Lester. Then, wiping its gored fingers on the wall, it squatted to pull the knife from the cooling pimp.

When it turned around the bigger whore was starting to squirm a little. It smiled, glad all the excitement wasn’t over. It paused to check the Rolex, pleasantly surprised to find it was only eight.

By the time the monster finished it was a quarter past midnight and the floor was so tacky with blood and gore every step was sticky. In the dark hallway of the deserted building, the monster changed into running shorts and a tee-shirt, packed the rest of its bloody clothes into the leather workout bag it'd left by the door hours earlier. It left the gaslight burning, hoping the whole fucking building would burn down.

The monster's name was Samuel Franklin. By the lucky hand of fortune (one that had regrettably missed the hapless corpses left behind) its father was a shipping magnate in New Orleans with all the power and influence that came with the title.

It whistled as it made its way back to the 280 Z.

Chapter 1: The Meeting

Frederick Paol pushed away from the bar and checked his watch. He was meeting the new guys in the Warehouse District and the information handed down was slight to say the least. Such was the business. He had the plane to move whatever needed to be moved and the balls to do it. Standing up, he felt the three whiskeys scratching at the back of his throat, but even so, it helped him feel more secure. Discomfort was like that. Never let yourself get too relaxed, that was the motto, brother.

He had a little less than an hour.

He shuffled out to the sidewalk, watching the traffic mash by on Magazine. Soiled newspapers lined the gutters, flyers on every street pole, people pressing themselves into every commercialized niche they could possibly squeeze themselves into. Not even four o'clock in the afternoon and already some bum had fashioned himself a rotten, cardboard pallet in the alcove of a deserted porn theater. Fucking loser. Better to let him rot where he lay.

Frederick made his way to the curb for a taxi. He was meticulous about his dress when conducting business; he'd seen tourists in their ridiculous, garish outfits stand with their dicks in their hands for hours waiting. He’d seen failing salesmen sweating in bars over botched assignments. The cab rolled over to the curb in about a minute.

It splashed a muddy spume across the sidewalk, narrowly missing a strolling couple nearby. Then it idled in a wet hunch near the Bus Stop, fuming noxiously while Frederick walked up. He grabbed the handle and opened the door.

Where to, buddy? the cabby said, all the while digging some grotesque chunk from between his teeth. Frederick grimaced and turned away, closing the door to stare out the window.

Corner of St. Claude and Poland.

The docks, eh? Quizzical mouse-eyes peered back at him hungrily by way of the rear-view mirror. The smell of cigarettes, stale coffee, and body odor hung in the air like a load of clothes fermenting in grease. Frederick nodded and cracked the window.

The cabby pulled away from the curb. Got business out at the docks, do ya? he insisted.

Frederick gave the man a cold stare and cleared his throat. Here’s the deal, buddy. I need to be at a meeting very shortly and I don't have time to dick around with small talk. Do us both a favor and step on it, could you? Then he turned back to the window. The cabby shut his mouth, although he did find a grating and ill-defined radio station that was almost as bad as his chatter. Frederick let it go, taking the lesser evil, continually watching the buildings that passed so he could center his thoughts on something besides this shit-crate.

When the cab exited St. Claude to Poland, Frederick leaned forward and touched the cabby on the shoulder. This is far enough, he said. The cabby pulled over to the side of the road, fuming but thinking better of voicing any opinion. Even though they were still several blocks away from his destination Frederick could take no more; the smell inside was claustrophobically rank.

He flung the door wide and stepped out to the curb, digging in his back pocket for his wallet. He balled up a twenty and plunked it in through the open passenger window. The cabby grunted like a pig, throwing in some incoherent comment under his breath which Frederick also let slide as he waved the guy off and walked away, never looking back. The cab peeled out to the street and sped away.

He kicked along the dirty sidewalk, summing up the neighborhood right and left. Derelict buildings lined both sides of the road, but just ahead he could see block after block of warehouses. Trucks rumbling along the roads. Square miles of choked, confined space rich with rats and inventory, whether hospital beds or brown heroin wrapped neatly in vacuum-sealed packages. An immediate sharp burst from the whistle of a huge freighter somewhere close on the river. Then the ominous chop of a paddlewheel either docking or leaving the wharf.

Shortly ahead, he caught sight of the office-front sign. Franklin Warehouse. Lincoln had told him the old man owned a sizable chunk of the international shipping trade passing into and out of the Port of New Orleans, and as far as he knew, the old man was on the up-and-up. It was his two sons Frederick was meeting. Lincoln had also told him they diverted the old man’s money not infrequently to charter private planes. And that’s where Frederick came in.

This contact, Lincoln Thomas, was a Vietnam vet who'd been in and out of prison ever since the waning days of Nixon. Even so, Frederick had let him set up the meeting. The difference now was he hadn’t been pinched in a while and times were tight. Somehow the old hippie knew these rich assholes. As ridiculous as it seemed, Lincoln had at least a passing knowledge of every scumbag and assorted deep-pocket this side of the Mississippi River.

Frederick had the 9mm stuffed snuggly at the base of his spine. He knew if the guys were professionals they'd find it, but he liked the insurance in case they weren’t. This way, if they didn't let on they knew he was packing, he'd know they were a bunch of fucking amateurs (in which case he'd decline their business), and if they did, they'd also know he wasn’t messing around. If it all went to hell he had a knife in his boot.

Frederick strolled into the parking lot. It was littered with trash from a recent festival and the northeast wind that trailed among the District’s corridors. At a corner of the building he noticed an old black man with a gas-powered blower in his hands, hastening the trash into an adjacent vacant lot. He lifted his head and offered a small nod as Frederick came on.

Three cars were parked near the entrance. Two of them late model clunkers, but the one situated directly in front of the door was a sparkling, forest-green Lexus. The temporary tag was still taped to the back windshield. Frederick ambled slowly past, pausing only slightly to gaze inside. Sure enough, loaded. Fucking rich kids. The bastards had probably never worked an honest day in their lives, or needed to, but for some unknown reason, they chose to dabble in the drug trade. His background was somewhat different.

He'd returned from 'Nam with a monkey the size of Rhode Island on his back and a pilot’s license in his pocket. The later was just fine, but the former had spurred a mindless robbery ten years ago that had served him up eight, piping hot years in Angola State Penitentiary. He had ceased fearing any retribution for evil deeds after this time in hell; those dark nights and brutal days were something that just never left. But since then no legitimate airline in the States would even consider giving him a job, so he'd been forced to take up other pursuits.

On the up side, however, he'd never taken another drug since. That is, if you didn’t consider alcohol a drug. One had to make allowances.

He came to the door and pulled it open, noticing the distinct beep of the alarm system as he passed inside. He looked at the smiling girl behind the desk. Frederick didn't figure either of the clunkers outside was hers; she probably balled the guy who owned the Lexus. She looked it; she had the right mouth, and you could just get a hint of cocksucker in the way her eyes flashed. Right now she had the phone to her ear, but motioned that she'd be with him in a moment. He stood idle, sizing up the room, moved over and sat down in a plush leather chair which still smelled of the manufacturer. He placed his hands in his lap and watched her with a shadow of a grin on his face. She caught his attention again and in fine fashion made a face that silently affirmed the person on the other end was a jack-off she’d be glad to be rid of. Frederick wondered how many times she rolled her eyes like that in a day.

The walls of the office were crammed with black and white photographs of massive, sea-going vessels. Some showed strange men on expensive rigs holding up glittering speckled trout and amberjack. The more recent shots were in color, but in fewer numbers. Frederick guessed the novelty of such dominion had worn off sometime around the advent of colored film, and the subsequent memories had been washed over by the effervescent and cloying scent of money. He was still scanning the wall when the secretary addressed him.

So how can I help you, sir? she asked.

He looked across the room with the same grin, suitably expanded, already feeling his dick stirring from the sheer weight of her voice, and that was quite a trick.

I believe you can, he replied. I've got an appointment to see William Franklin, Jr. I'm a little early, I know, but if you would let him know I'm here.

He's in the back, she said shuffling through a heap of papers on the desk as if something important might suddenly escape. She pulled something free, glanced at it, and then turned her attention back on him. Mister Frederick Paol? she questioned, crucifying the pronunciation horribly. He corrected her politely. It’s Pay-ole he said before nodding. The girl blushed and assured him she was sorry. He's meeting with Samuel and Tom right now, but he told me to send you in when you got here. She made a move to stand but Frederick stopped her.

No, please. Don’t bother. If you’ll point me the way I’ll do just fine. She smiled back before pointing to a beat-up shop door off to the left and down a short hall. Frederick could hear no sound of labor within. Yes ma'am, he said with the greatest care. You have a good day. He passed through the hall and pushed the door open. Walked into the dusky warehouse within, leaving her staring at his back as the door slowly closed.

It was a lot bigger inside than it looked from the street. Two five-ton ceiling cranes rested quietly overhead in their greasy tracks, and most of the floor space was packed with row upon row of heavy metal shelving, extending practically to the ceiling like monolithic steel trees. Cardboard containers of all sizes and shapes lined the expansive shelves, and Frederick wondered briefly at the cost of maintaining something like this.

Over to the right he saw a small office. A thin glow of light threw itself against the grimy window. The door was slightly ajar and he could hear voices inside. Frederick walked over and tapped lightly on the door jamb. The sound of voices ceased immediately. Then, after a beat: Frederick Paol? pronounced right.

That is me, he replied, pushing the door open and stepping inside. There were three men, two of them impeccably dressed, the third enveloped in a pair of soiled workman's overalls. This one loomed in a reversed, broken-backed chair set slightly apart from the other two. The butt of a cigarette hung limply from his mouth. One of the nicely-dressed young men stood up and offered his hand. The overalled Bull stood up too and walked over. Frederick knew the routine. While he shook the nicely-dressed man's hand he held his left arm away from his body so the sweaty Bull wouldn't have trouble frisking him. Frederick felt the hand reach the small of his back, grimaced a little as his coat was whisked back and the 9mm extracted. He turned with to watch the lackey examine the gun.

The handshake ended. Nice piece, Hand-Shake affirmed as he offered Frederick a seat next to the man who could only be his brother. Frederick grunted a languid assent as the Bull shot the magazine from the butt before handing the gun back. Frederick accepted it silently, studying the man's eyes. This was one you’d not want to turn your back on.

Yes, it is, Frederick replied. The Bull turned around and made his slow way back to the chair. Frederick leaned forward, moving aside his coat