American Revenant: Dead South
By
John L. Davis IV
© 2017 John L. Davis IV- All Right Reserved
Cover photos by Kelly Boggiano
Cover Model – Preston Bennett
Cover design and layout by Emily Royal
1
In darkness a young boy tossed and turned, his sleep abused by nightmare. Memories, distorted by time and fear, play across his sleeping mind like a discordant harp, occasional notes of tenderness and peace warped by painfully piercing dissonance.
Matthew Cormier twisted and flailed briefly, knotting himself up in the thin blanket. He awoke with a shout caught in his throat. Sweat dripped from his nose onto his wrinkled and worn t-shirt.
Matthew reached out in the dark, easily finding the flashlight he left in the same spot each night before going to sleep. He clicked the button, weak light filling only part of the small room. He sat on the floor in his bedroll for several minutes while his heart slowed, breathing deeply, staring into the room with pensive tears floating in his eyes.
The weak light began to flicker as he lanced it around the small shack, examining his surroundings.
“Need to find some more batteries soon.”
Muttering to himself had become a way of life for Matthew Cormier in the nearly three years he had been on his own.
Slapping the flashlight, he was able to stop the flickering long enough to shine the light on a small wind-up travel alarm clock he had found in a thrift shop. He had set it using his grandfather’s old pocket watch, which he wound every morning when he wound the alarm clock. It had become automatic, something he did without thinking.
For Matthew Cormier, life was protocol based on habit. His daily walks around the junkyard checking the perimeter, the time he spent practicing with his knife or bow, even his toilet time, all of it took the form of ritual.
There was little else to do for a fourteen-year-old surviving alone during the zombie apocalypse.
The clock read 3:45 a.m.
The flashlight flickered again. Matthew glanced around the shack once more. Satisfied it was only nightmares that had awoken him, he clicked off the light.
He lay in the dark, eyes open, for half an hour before sleep regained its hold over him.
2
Matthew stood just inside the open door of the shack, looking out into the junkyard. He had already walked the perimeter, checking each of his makeshift alarm systems and the various deadfall traps he’d created since he had moved into the yard almost three years ago.
Inside the shack he set the only offensive measure he had created; an axe, its handle shortened to ensure it would smash the face of any zombie when it swung down from its position suspended above the door. He had rigged it so that it could be triggered by a lever mounted to the wall near the floor where he slept, or by someone opening the door once it was set when he went away. A hidden pull cord threaded through a tiny hole in the building would re-engage the lockout device, so that he could re-enter without worrying about setting off his own trap.
He had spent several weeks refining the design, scavenging most of the parts he needed from the wrecks in the junkyard. Cables and cords pulled from trunks and beneath hoods of cars; zip ties and wire carefully removed and used for various applications. The junkyard was the perfect place for a young man with ingenuity to spare.
Having engaged the axe, Matthew carefully closed the door and surveyed the surrounding yard for a moment.
“No one around. A-scavenging I will go.”
The shack was in the center of the junkyard, hidden among stacks and valleys of rusting vehicles. A narrow gravel road led from the shack, around a leaning stack of cars to the main gate, which was cocked slightly ajar. The gate made a horrible squeal when opened, so Matthew tended to leave just enough room to squeeze in and out. No one bigger than him was getting through the gate without making some noise.
Stepping out onto Fordoche Bayou Road, he looked both directions and started off to the east, heading for the nearby village of Morganza.
***
Matthew pressed his back firmly against the rough siding of a small house, looked around to ensure that no zombie had seen his approach then reached into the pack at his feet, withdrawing a folded map.
The map of Morganza and the surrounding area was crisscrossed with hand-drawn grid lines. Numbers ran across the top, and letters down the side. Matthew would place a checkmark over a house or business once he had cleared it of anything useful. When nothing in a grid remained to be looted he would cross out the entire grid square with a large X. Of the one-hundred grid boxes on the map, only seven were left unmarked.
“Pickin’s are getting pretty slim,” he muttered.
Once he verified the grid he was in and that the building had not been looted before, Matthew quietly refolded the map and slipped it into a side pocket of the worn backpack. His Samick Sage take-down recurve bow and tube of arrows jutted from the top of the pack, the zipper holding it in place.
He stepped out from the wall, slung his pack, adjusted the machete in its sheath on his right side and the hunting knife hung from his belt on the left. Satisfied and comfortable, he stepped around the corner of the house and made his way slowly to the porch steps.
“Matt Hew, warrior of the Cormier tribe sidled slowly along the temple wall, watching for followers of Cothak Tah,” he muttered as he watched where he placed his feet. “He reached the temple steps, meeting no resistance. The massive warrior gazed up the long stairway, knowing that deep inside the temple may await the undead followers of Cothak Tah, the evil wizard-lord.”
Carefully placing his feet, Matthew made his way up the wide steps of the porch to the front door. The outer screen door was open several inches; years of disuse had warped it until it had lodged in place.
Matthew glanced back over his shoulder, checking the yard and street behind as he placed his hand on the edge of the door and began to pull. The weathered door squeaked and cracked as he pulled it open just far enough to squeeze through to the inner door.
“Matt Hew pushed; the heavy stone door grating on ancient grit as he forced his way into the temple.”
Matthew slid the machete from its sheath with his right hand as he pushed the door wide, the squeak of the hinges making him cringe. Extending his head through the door, he took a moment to gaze around the dusty family room. A musty smell, like an unused attic, filled his sinuses, surprising a sneeze from him.
He stepped into the house and closed the door.
“The dark temple danced with shadows, light from braziers hung along the great stone walls doing little to dispel the pervasive darkness. Matt Hew knew that inside the temple wondrous treasure lay, enough to feed a village for many weeks, possibly years.” Matthew walked through the small family room, into a dining area, and then the kitchen.
He knew he had to check the whole house before he could begin to scavenge.
He returned to the family room, staring down a hallway with five doors, two on each side and one at the far end. “Probably a closet,” he said aloud.
Matthew sucked in a breath. “I hate this part.”
He went to the first door along the hallway, grasped the doorknob and turned. The door swung open easily, revealing a sewing and craft room. Bolts of cloth slotted into a rack on the wall, hung near a newer model sewing machine. At least he thought it was newer, he didn’t know much about sewing machines.
A table with various beads and baubles was snugged into a corner of the room. Several types of glue guns, a heat gun and another rack with spools of thread, string and copper wire rested on the table, next to
pliers and a small hammer.
“Well aren’t you crafty.”
Smiling at his own play on words, he left the room and opened the door across the hall.
The zombie lurched through the door as if it had been leaning against it. Lifting its arms as it stumbled forward, the dead thing grabbed for Matthew, for meat.
“Damn it!”
Matthew backpedaled, slamming into the wall. He raised the machete and hacked at the zombie’s right arm. Bone cracked and Matthew could feel the vibration through the blade and up into his own arm.
He kicked out with his right foot, aiming for the zombie’s knee. Again, bone cracked and the zombie lurched forward.
“Well, craptastic.”
Matthew slid along the wall, down the hall, toward the next door, trying to put some distance between himself and the hungry dead thing.
The zombie now lumbered heavily, its gait ruined by the boy’s kick. Matthew made it all the way the end of the hall, his back toward the door he believed was a closet.
The zombie came, its mouth opening and closing, teeth snapping together with a sickening clack. The lips had long ago rotted away.
Matthew braced himself, raised the machete, and took two steps forward. He used his momentum to add heft to his swing, bringing the long blade down hard.
The zombie took another half step and crumpled to the floor, falling over its cracked knee. The machete pulled free as it fell, stinking gore dripping from the blade as Matthew stooped and wiped it clean on the carpet.
“Matt Hew cleaved the undead demon’s head in two and continued on his quest undeterred.”
Matthew stopped outside the next door, catching his breath.
The room was a bathroom, and Matthew stood with his hand on the doorknob, taking in the scene.
Inside the tub lay a skeleton, bits of dried skin and hair still clinging to dusky bone. Its right arm was draped over the far side of the porcelain tub; its left arm was inside, bony fingers of the hand still wrapped around the handle of a rusted revolver.
Matthew could see the hole in the top of the skull, a dark ragged spot in the middle of the head, towards the back. He chose not to interpret the dark Rorschach image of dried gore on the white tile behind the bathtub. It, too, had a ragged hole in the center.
Matthew nodded. “Yeah, a hot bath sounds really, really good.” He backed out of the bathroom and closed the door softly, unconsciously offering respect for the deceased.
With two doors left to check, Matthew chose to leave the door he believed to be a closet for last.
Skirting the stinking body on the floor, carefully avoiding the muck pooling from the gaping wound in the skull, Matthew stepped to the last door and threw it wide.
The bedroom was all frills and bright colors, dolls and a dollhouse; teddy-bears everywhere, and on the bed a zombie, a young girl.
She was bound to the bed with several blankets that had been tied to the side rails of the bed frame. “That must be your mom in the bathtub, huh? I’m sorry, but I killed your dad. He wanted to eat my face. You do, too, I suppose.”
The zombie girl must have been in the bed for a year or more, unable to feed her hunger. The rotting skin of her face had begun to slide back, drawing her features backward, exposing teeth and rings of red around her eyes. The rolling orbs of her eyes almost seemed to spin freely in their sockets.
Matthew’s stomach turned.
He kept talking as he walked toward the bed, understanding his purpose in this room at this time and dreading it. “Your dad and mom couldn’t bring themselves to do it, could they? They couldn’t put a bullet in your head. They knew what you would become and they still couldn’t do it.”
Matthew could hear the faint trace of contempt in his own voice.
The girl’s teeth snapped softly. She turned her head to the side, following Matthew. He could hear a wet noise as part of her scalp pulled away, sticking to the pillow behind her head.
“I figure you were about seven, huh? My sister, Sadie, she was seven. I wish I could have helped her, but I ran. My mom told me to and I did. I was eleven, and terrified and I couldn’t do anything but run.”
Matthew now stood close to the bed, his heart thudding hard in his chest.
The zombie tried to rise again, teeth biting at the air.
Tears welled in Matthew’s eyes as he watched the rotten thing on the bed. “I’m sorry, Sadie. I’m so sorry.” The tears tracked down his face as he lifted the machete. He rested the tip of the blade against the dead girl’s temple and pushed.
***
Matthew finished scavenging the house, finding enough to fill his pack and then some, including a package of D-cell batteries. He moped his way back to the junkyard, mind heavy with thoughts of his family.
By the time he’d made the uneventful walk back and emptied his pack, Matthew had decided to return to his family home in New Roads. He missed his family, and the few photographs he carried were becoming a tenuous connection to the life the dead had devoured.
With daylight slowly dwindling away Matthew walked his rounds, checking that all was secure and safe for the coming night.
He settled in for the evening, picking at a meal of canned pasta and crackers. He left half the can uneaten and the crackers mostly untouched.
Stretching out on his sleeping bag, he lit a candle and dug through the large stacks of comic books piled on the floor next to a box of paperback novels. Even the absurdity of a superhero comic failed to dispel the sadness he felt.
He stretched out, pulled the thin blanket up to his chin, and blew out the candle.
Matthew began to cry quietly as he thought about his dead family and visiting his old house in the morning.
His tears somehow felt less shameful in the dark.
3
With morning rituals complete, Matthew secured the shack and headed for the gate, where he grabbed a dark blue mountain bike leaning against the inner fence.
He had fitted the bike with a front and rear rack, and a plastic milk-crate was strapped to each rack with bungee cords. He slipped his pack off, set it in the milk-crate behind him and pushed the bike through the gate.
Normally he would walk, but the journey to New Roads was over twelve miles. If he had any hope of getting back to the shack before nightfall, he would have to ride. Matthew was always a little hesitant to take the bike out. It could be noisy, was difficult to be stealthy on, and in the rare event that he encountered other living people, it was challenging to hide.
The junkyard quickly disappeared behind him and only minutes later Matthew was turning south on Warranka Road. He cruised easily down the narrow two-lane blacktop, often leaning back and releasing the handle bars, the wind of the ride catching his dark brown hair.
In the past three years Matthew had traveled many of the back country roads of Pointe Coupee Parish. Most were just like Warranka Road, nearly empty of abandoned vehicles, as if most of the parish had simply gone home to die when the world went dark and dead. He rode with his arms thrown wide, as if he were preparing to take off in flight.
He flew past empty fields that would no longer see planted crops, though he had from time to time picked various vegetables from plants that grew from seeds dropped by their predecessor, volunteer plants his grandfather had called them. He planted a few seeds in tubs and buckets inside the junkyard, with only a small amount of luck at growing his own produce.
Warranka Road turned east on to Callegan Lane West, then two miles to Callegan Lane, turning back to the north for two-thirds of a mile. At the corner of Callegan Lane West and Callegan Lane, Matthew passed The Mount Era church and cemetery. The unpaved parking area next to the church was packed full of cars.
Matthew shuddered to think what the inside of that house of worship looked like after three years.
Down the road from the church, Matthew passed by the old gun shop, which sat just off the highway, on the service road. Though he was comfortable with guns; his father had taken him shooting
many times between deployments, he had made a choice early on after the lights went out to stick with quieter weapons like his bow, or the machete.
To him it was sensible. When any noise could bring the shuffling dead from miles around, a gun felt impractical, adding more danger than it was worth.
Besides, it had forced him to become far more proficient with his takedown recurve bow.
Matthew took a right on Morganza Highway and pedaled hard, wasting no time. The remaining nine miles to New Roads went quickly, silent except for the noise of the bike’s tires on the highway.
When Morganza Highway turned north, Matthew exited, crossing Portage Canal on Parent Street, leading into New Roads. He followed this until it met with Berthier Street. It was at this intersection that he dismounted the bike and walked it onto the train tracks running parallel to Parent Street.
Matthew’s heart sank a little at the sight of his home town and the decay that was settling in. New Roads was small, its pre-zombie population hovering around five thousand. Buildings were beginning to crumble where fire and violence had opened them to the elements. Weeds and small trees forced their way through walkways and the porches of homes that were either empty or inhabited by the dead.
Matthew swiveled his head back and forth, watching down streets as he passed by, careful of the noise his tires made in the gravel along the side of the railroad tracks. This place now seemed foreign, a place someone had made up, a quiet Louisiana town, re-imagined as a bad dream.
At Richey Street Matthew steered the bike away from the tracks, veering on to the tree-lined lane. Home was close, just down at the end.
He stood still for a moment, staring down the overgrown street, his eyes already wet. He knew what to expect in his house. He wanted to go home, it was his whole reason for returning to New Roads. Now, standing at the end of the street, knowing his old house was only blocks away, he wanted to turn and ride hard, back to the junkyard, back to the safety zone he’d built around his life.
American Revenant (Short Story 2): Dead South Page 1