Mountain Dead

by Jason Sizemore

  Let me take you back. So this kid’s dad was the pastor over in Weatherly. A pretty good one too, by all accounts, even though he was one of these new-age hippie type of holy man, you know, with the rock band in church and all, and the little gold cross, like, pierced in his ear, which is important to the story, got it? Evangelical Lutheran. He’s the one that started that shelter pantry halfway place for the Mexicans and all in that old dispatch building on Hudsondale. So, this guy’s pretty occupied with his flock and all and family time and all that keeps coming second fiddle to the needs of his growing spiritual community and like most kids, this kid just wants a bit more of dad’s attention—no matter how much you give ‘em it’s never enough, right?—and this kid’s no dummy. He’s seen his old man in church and knows his father loves the band, loves the choir, the music, man. This guy, like, plays bass for the band and sings with the choir and all that hippie shit and the kid’s never seen his dad more joyful than when he’s singin’ out to the Lord, you know. Grows up watching this. So, kid’s taking to his piano lessons, hanging around at rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday nights and eventually dad proudly drags him out in front of the whole congregation, maybe ten years old, to sing some kinda song together. Proudest moment of the kid’s life, you know. I remember watching Laura, my oldest, pitch a shutout once and she, she had this look… You know? Anyhow, so they got this shared love of music now and wasn’t more than a couple years later and the whole world goes to shit. As chance would have it, pastor dad is down in Mexico on some kinda mission trip with a dozen other fine Christians when it starts. Building houses and shit like that down in Piedras Negras. I imagine there are worse places to be when the world ends, but can’t name one now. So dad and two older sisters get eaten by Mexican zombies and kid and mom are left up here to fend for themselves. She didn’t make it long, turns out. But the kid somehow got through it—Like we did, you know—who knows how, and downtown Weatherly is fucking gone, not as bad as Hazleton of course, but still gone, and this kid ends up hiding up here on Broad with just about everyone else. And this is like a year later and one day these kids up there are fucking round with this zombie torso, you know, a crawler. Already’d Louisville Sluggered its teeth out, and they’re just kinda fucking with it is all, and this kid keeps burning it with this lit stick, you know, and every time he does, the thing moans a little louder. Same moan, you know. I mean, each one sort of has its one sound, but pretty soon he’s using just that one note and the rhythm to get this thing moaning out fucked-up versions of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and ‘We Will Rock You.’ And the whole camp is laughing so fucking hard, and this kid sees people happy, you know. Real happy. So he starts trying out new stuff and one day, he and his pals get hold of just a head, one left over from a little Friday Night Fights, you know, and they just wanna kick it around and all, but he wants to try something out. He wants to make the zombie head moan, you know. Just the head. Get it to make sound. I mean, Christ Almighty, gotta be the worst fucking sound you ever heard, right. But next thing you know, he’s jamming this, like, raft pump into the zombie’s throat, trying to produce sound. That’s all it is, really. Air. Those days we went out, he showed me how it worked after, you know. Even let me play a little, I took some piano myself back in the day. He’s got all these books and shit, tried all sorts of stuff. With lungs, without. With jaws, without. With tongue, so on. Eventually, he’s got these heads down to the bare minimum. You know how we make sound? Air comes up the lungs, through the trachea and into the, ah, larynx— looks just like a shaved honey pot, you know — and the air makes these vocal things in these larynx vibrate, releases air up through the, ah, pharynx and out the mouth. Knee bone connects to the shin bone, you know. So he figures if he control the air going in, he control the sound going out. Simple. After that, just a matter of getting hold of some heads and trying out different tubing. Garden hose, duct tape, bendable PVC. Even tried the hoses and splicers out of an old radiator kit a couple times. Next thing you know, he’s got a couple up on a table, each with its own sound and so he’s kinda playing notes, you know. Starts preaching a little then, about what it all means. Sing a new song, faith in the Lord’s plan, and all that. And so he sets up shop up there on Beryllium, cause there aren’t hardly ever zombies and now it’s six months later and Arlene’s telling me ‘you gotta go see this pastor’s kid.’ So the thing of it is, is the heads eventually go bad. Rot out, you know? Because they’re not feeding on nothing. How that works exactly, you’d best ask someone smarter than me, all I know is, every couple months, he gotta go out and fine a new head or two. Ones with the right pitch. The right tone. So this kid takes a couple of volunteers out and about to find the new members of his choir. And we’d been going there a couple months now and so I agreed to go along this time, because A, it would get Arlene off my back some, and B, I actually thought this kid was actually doing something kinda worthwhile, you know? Well, the first day, it was me, Eddie Desson, and this young guy named Canzler and because two of us were originally from Hazleton, the kid thought we could start looking over town there. He’d never been down that way and I hadn’t been down in a year myself to tell the truth. I mean it’s still crawling, you know. Funny, when I was a kid, there was this guy who use to hang around Vine and Chestnut, crazy motherfucker we all called The Mangiacavallo. Old miner turned bum who looked like a fucking troll, a hundred years old probably, and we’d throw bottles and shit at him and he’d chase us and all, and we knew if he ever caught us, no thank you… Mangiacavallo means ‘horse eater’ and there weren’t no doubt this rickety motherfucker would eat you if he ever nabbed you, and fuck me if Hazleton ain’t now full with, like, forty thousand real-life mangiacavallos all stumbling around familiar grounds looking for something to eat and so we got about a mile from the city that day and said fuck that shit about getting any closer. We found a couple stragglers out there but the kid just kept shaking his head. First he’d, like, close his eyes and listen, you know. Listen to each moan while we messed with them. ‘Not the right tone,’ he’d say. The right tone, funny. Mariah fucking Carey could have been down there, we didn’t care. This kid was gonna have to look somewhere else, you know. The next day, we took him over to see Big Daddy Duser, you know. Maybe there was something we could just trade for, you know. And Duser’s always got a dozen or so to choose from up there with all the girls, goats and gasoline. So we’re walking this kid through the one barn, where he got ‘em all chained up. Most of ‘em have had their jaws and teeth knocked out already. For mules, security, whatnot. Hell, usually he cuts the voice box out so you don’t have to hear that shit when you buy one, but he had a couple that still had sound. Kid would close his eyes, listen. Nah, he said. Duser told us he could get the kid whatever he wanted. Kid tried humming the right sound he was looking for but no one seemed too optimistic that’d lead to something. It was another couple days of this, heading down toward the city. Eventually, we took one down wandering up Stockton. A teen just like the kid, we figured. Don’t even think he particularly liked her sound, but was all getting antsy. We had the axes and took the legs first to get her down, you know, then the arms and choppy right in the middle. Kid had a hammer for the teeth and jaw and all. Real pro. When he was done, we loaded her up into the bag, and all the while, I was both pissed at Arlene for sending me out on this bullshit errand, and, also, enjoying myself because I was away from, you know, all her snippy comments and Bible talk. I was out, you know, doing something constructive. The girl was ‘ok’ he admitted, but not exactly what he was looking for and five days in now, he says he wanna try the churches. The ones down in Weatherly, says he’s gotten some good chorus members there before. So we head down and spend damn-near half the day just trying to get around this cluster of zombies who’ve set up shop on Third. I mean it’s probably close to sunset before we even reach the second church, and Steve’s yelling at this kid that we gotta get the fuck outta here, and kid’s going ‘just another minute,’ and closing his eyes and listening. There’
s gotta be twenty of those things down there, wandering in and out of the church doors, between the pews and all. Then he finally hears it, you know. Kid’s whole face lights up. ‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ he says. And we’re just thinking fanfuckingtastic, cause now we can get the hell outta here. No way we can operate out here in the open, so we just take out the legs, wrap the head, and get this one into the canvas bag to clear out. Fucker’s squirming the whole way out of town but we drug him up da mount’n some but it’s too dark now so best just get back to home base, you know. Well, here’s the thing. We’re back in the kid’s workspace and his shelf of little choir heads are watching us from across the room as we shake this new one out of the bag and it’s rolling around the floor and we get that head wrap off to take care of the teeth and all and the kid stops us. This thing is moaning and flopping around, and this kid just keeps getting closer. Head cocked like a dog listening, you know. And next thing, the pastor’s kid is right next to this thing and leaning in to hear better, and he’s kinda toeing it with his sneaker, you know, trying to get it over on its back for a better look. Next fucking thing you know, the kid’s like crying and shit, sobbing, really, and we’re all looking at each other like what the fuck and then, then, goddamn if this thing’s now grabbed the kid by his leg and is pulling him down. I mean it happened like that. And then the kid’s screaming and this thing’s got a damn good bite on him pulling away muscle and t-shirt and all in one chomp and the blood is squirting out all over the place and Eddie slips and falls on his fucking head. And this Denzler guy and I start hacking away and its too late. This kid, you know. And he’s all like ‘Dad,’ ‘Dad’ and then it’s like, fuck me. It’s all right there, man. I mean, I look down at this zombie on the floor and his mouth is filled with half this skinny kid’s chest and he’s got this gold cross earring and all. And I didn’t know what that meant yet, but I did, you know? And this thing is still chomping away on the meat in its mouth and the kid reaches out. Wants to touch this thing. His… Must have took him damn near two years to walk back. And now I’m thinking about my daughters and all again, and, and how I’d… So the kid bleeds out right there and it’s not a minute later when, you know. So we, you know. And Eddie and Denzler got the fuck out of there, but I couldn’t leave. Just couldn’t. Kept thinking about my girls and all. And this kid…. So I did the best that I could, I guess. He had all those books and I’m pretty good with my hands. Took me all through the night and well into the next day. But I think I did a pretty good job. Put him and his dad right up top where they can, you know, sing together again and all. Forever. Or for awhile, at least. And they’re the best two on the whole bunch, I swear to God they are. Last show, must have been twenty people in that room. I can’t quite play like the kid yet, of course, but that’s getting better too. Couple things I’m still wanting to try out with, you know, like clutching the vocal chords maybe for different pitch but that I’ll figure that out soon enough. Which, of course, explains all that stuff in the kitchen. I mean, Arlene’s head and all, you know?