Chapter the Next: The Next Chapter

"If you don't quit being so annoying I'm going to go make out with Dar, Captain."

"No you won't."

"No? Why not?"

"Because if you get anywhere near his fucking mouth I'm gonna knock his fuckin teeth in. With YOUR head."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

"I hate you."

Since neither of them could remember who had spoken last Lucy and Cam both fell into silence.

“I want some gum.”

“Shut up.”

There were no more zombies to whale on. The Cleaning Lady was a thing of the past. Even his own body, the only thing Cam had left in life that his mama gave him, had said sianara. The only thing in the world now was a sick-ass stink that wouldn't let up. Cam reached for Lucy’s right tit and squeezed it without thinking (it was sorta nice having these things so handy all the time, kinda stress relieving.) He wanted to kill something. But the only thing in the world left to kill was steering the ship behind where Lucy and Cam sat in the bow. God, how he fuckin’ hated that. Dar, Captain, captaining the ship. All the stupid little fuck needed was a stupid little fucking white hat.

As though he’d known Cam and Lucy were thinking of him, Dar, Captain left the helm and approached. A deep gurgling strangled sound came out of them as Lucy groaned and Cam chuckled. Good! Let the fuck head come forth! Maybe he’d say something stupid and Cam could kill him. They didn’t need him anyway. Cam could drive a freakin ship his own damn self.

Lucy and Cam stood up to greet him. “Well, ma’am, I can’t tell what direction we’re headed,” Dar, Captain said. “The compass is busted.”

The compass is busted? Fucking pansy. Lucy and Cam stared at him a moment, then Cam scrambled to their feet. Cam caught Dar, Captain by the arm with no trouble, then heaved him, with only a little more trouble, over the side of the ship.

“I can’t swiiii. . . .” SPLASH! said Dar, Captain.

“Yo fuckin’ ho!” yelled Cam over the side. He slapped Lucy’s tit in self-congratulations.

“Would you knock that off?” Lucy said. “Just because you can grab my boob anytime you want doesn’t make me a ho.”

Cam wouldn’t even honor that with a reply.

“And what’d you do that for, anyway? He was useful.”

“Useful like a saddle on an atom bomb. Guy was a fuckin’ prick, I did us a favor. I can drive the fuckin’ ship myself.”

“Pilot.”

“Huh?”

“You pilot a ship.”

Cam wouldn’t even honor that with a reply. He got behind the big wheel, grabbed the spokes, and spun it so hard it went around in a blur until it jerked against something and stopped. The ship spun around and faced another direction. Heh, this was easy.

"You don't know which way you're going," Lucy pointed out.

"So?" he said. "What, are we gonna miss the fuckin' turn for McDonald's or something?" Not that Cam ever ate McDonald's. Cam never ate anything but jerky and power bars and whiskey. These things were all in short supply these days. He thought Lucy might have something to say about that diet, anyway.

Lucy knew they were supposed to be going to find Virgil, but damned if she knew which the hell way to go.

'Damned if she knew which the hell way to go'? Wow. Cam was rubbing off on her in more ways than one. She couldn't believe it was her hands that were spinning the wheel this way and that as though it weren't connected to a rudder at all, as though her hands weren't connected to a brain at all - let alone two brains. She didn't have any better ideas at the moment, and she was tired of fighting. What did she care what Cam did?

She ignored him as profoundly as possible for the next two and a half hours.

Then the ship hit something.

"What the fuck was that?" Lucy said, clinging to the helm as she and Cam nearly hit the deck.

"Don't know," Cam said, and whipped the helm around - but it stuck on something and would not budge further either way. "What the . . . ?" Cam said.

They ran to the side, not even arguing about whether it was "port" or "starboard", and peered over.

The zombie goo was solidifying. The ship had grounded on . . . well, on the ground. Lucy had thought that the zombie apocalypse was the most horrifying thing she had ever seen. Then that certainty had been supplanted when the zombies had turned into a gooey necromantic sea. This development had made Lucy wish for the simple days of the zombie apocalypse when the undead had been shambling around the earth looking for flesh to consume. Ahh, those were the days. But what Lucy saw now eclipsed both the days of shambling undeath and the zombie sea, for all the zombie matter was congealing. The parts were coming back together. But they were not congealing in any semblance of anything remotely biologically, or even necromantically, possible.

A giant mutated mass of zombie flesh with human-sized arms connected to human-sized legs, humanoid hands protruding from humanoid heads. Eyes everywhere. Mouths everywhere. Teeth sticking out of hairy unidentifiable patches of hairy places. The giant mutant rose to it's hundreds of feet (and hands and heads) on it's five legs (and arms and pelvises). It's four heads rolled limply on it's six necks. It's eight arms flailed like tentacles. As parts continued to join to it's legs, it rose above Lucy and Cam, silhouetted against the cloudy sky.

Zombie Kong.

For the first time Lucy began to understand that the zombie apocalypse was the end of the fucking world. It hadn't seemed real before. Maybe because she'd been in high school, where it seemed like every day the world died a little more. The zombie apocalypse had, in a way, been the obvious conclusion to high school. But this? She could never have foreseen this.

Then multiple zombie eyes spotted Lucy and Cam and a massive, rumbling groan issued from Zombie Kong out of every mouth all over it's body.

"RUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!" Cam screamed.