by D. S. Black
She said nothing. She watched his shadowy face barking like a devil hound; she continued slurping on her chocolate shake. Then she felt the cup’s contents splash cold onto her face. She closed her eyes and tried to calm myself. She breathed deeply.
Only a moment in time, only a moment in time.
“Yeeehawww! Bitch you are mine!”
She stared daringly up at him. His eyes burned with madness and tears. Snot and tobacco juice spurted from his mouth and nose.
Another streak of lighting lit up the road and a herd of deer darted across the dark asphalt; there pretty white tails high in the air. What happened next is what she thought death would be like— at least what she thought it was like back then—a darky misty void where the slight echo of the living is faint but hearable. Cause after waking up and seeing the paramedics, she knew she was alive, but she also knew a few moments earlier she existed only in a dark world full of strange and soft voices; her world had been turned black. The lights had gone out and she didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.
When she gained her senses, she stared around and saw Barley being lifted on a stretcher, well, she didn’t see him exactly, because his was DOA and covered up with a white sheet. She'd broken his heart and he died for it. The tragedy was that she didn’t really care. The guy was sounding more like a crazed animal that needed to be put down. So, while laying around the hospital with a broken arm, three bruised ribs, and a hell of a concussion, all while drugged on pain killers—she concluded Barley’s untimely death wasn’t so untimely after all; indeed, may have been a blessing, both for her and the pathetic redneck woman he would have eventually married, beaten, and impregnated. This would continue the violent Thomas lineage started by his granddad, Ted Thomas. Barley had spoken with great pride while telling her about how his granddaddy “strung up enough niggers to keep this town safe and pretty.”
Years later, as spit fire freshmen in college, she fell in, at least for a short time, with a crowd of hippy types; the people who are not really hippies, have no idea what it even means to be a sixty’s soul child, but none the less wear tie-dyed shirts, flowers in their hair, and smoke a shit ton of weed. It was with this group that she traveled to a little festival called Sun Shine in the Pines, which isn’t anything but a swelling of more soul child wanna bes crowded in the trees of the hick county of Marlboro, SC.
This trip wouldn’t have been much of anything but a sad distraction of drugged up yahoos dancing around like colorful arrhythmic zombies, had it not been for the loss of her, once whether important, virginity. It all happened in a fast bang; Tyler Bledsoe was in and out faster than sweat could drop off her face.
His breath smelled like burnt weed pipe resin and he stank from a least two days without a shower. He climbed off of her, and fell over onto his side of the tent, reached and grabbed a glass jar, popped the top, removed a pre-rolled joint, took a red Bic lighter from his left pocket, struck it, and lit the joint.
5
Her baby sister. She was just a kid. Hell, they were both just kids back then. Her sister wore a black cap and gown. Mary was then a senior at College of Charleston, go Cougars. Her sis just graduated Socastee High and was a spitting image of a Greek goddess. Her dark brunette locks curled up and flowed out from under her cap. She’d just stepped off the stage and Mary embraced her tightly, “Momma would be so proud.” Mary said.
Her momma had died when Mary was in eighth grade. Her lungs had turned black with cancer from decades of relentless chain smoking. Those last few months of her life were unbearable to watch. Vomiting, hair loss, and her father’s grim and pain covered face, with lines that said I’d take the Vietcong jungles over this any day.
Her momma’s face had sunk in so far in those last days. Just a pale and patsy whisper of a woman. “Death ain’t nothing but a thing. Just something we all I have to face.” Momma said while lying flat on her back on the hospital bed. The room smelled of cleaning liquids and her daddy sat in a corner chair staring out the large window, down at the roof of another hospital wing. Momma held Mary's hand with her left and Sarah’s with her right. They stood on either side of the bed. “Your daddy’s seen plenty of death. Aint that right baby?”
Her daddy just kept staring. He didn’t say a word. That was his way when he was in a lot of pain. Just plain silent. Mary always wondered what went through his mind in those moments. He never spoke about the war, at least not in detail. Nothing about the loss of friends or holding the entrails of his good buddies. But she knew he saw his fair share of hell. Mary could see it in his eyes, and while momma laid there dying, his eyes stared out like he was watching the war happen right there in front of him. “Your daddy has his ways. Don’t mind him. He will mourn how he wants.”
“Momma.” Sarah said with tears dripping. Mary watched her sister’s tears drip like rain droplets; then her own started to fall.
“Heaven aint so far away baby. Don’t cry for me. Things can only get better from here. Always remember, good people don’t die, they resurrect.” Momma said. She was a religious woman, raised by a stout, tall, and red headed fire breathing backwoods southern Baptist. He’d died of cancer to, the same kind. The Lord seemed proud to take his most faithful while leaving the skeptics behind to use their death’s as evidence of His nonexistence. But, looking down at Momma’s dying face, all Mary could think of was a poem she once read by some unknown, wanna be poet:
Old man sleeps, bones ancient, mind tired, skin splotched
Old man weeps, lost years, dead wife, broken heart, forgotten dreams blotched
Old man falls, unsteady, unready, broken bones, ripped skin blood falls
Old man dies, weak heart, people gather, people cry, six feet down old man decays
Momma wasn’t an old man, but that poem floated in Mary's mind while Momma breathed her final breathes. Momma's dreams died that day, blotched out of existence, now just a dead wife and mother. Her years lost and wasted, only religious nonsense and two daughters to show for it. A few days later people gathered, people cried, and Momma drifted down six feet under and joined the ancient bones that had since melted away, back into the earth as ashy decay.
Death is that way though, always ready to take you away, at any moment, on any day. Creeping around the corner, just waiting with an incurable cancer, a drunk driver, a busy day with a hot cup of coffee while crossing the street and a bus driver that didn’t get enough sleep, oh yes, death is always waiting; it’s a plague that kills people over and allows them to rise back up, hungrier than ever for the thoughts of others, the ideas, the philosophies stored inside the mind, encapsulated in the brain. That’s what they want, they want a chance to think again. That’s why they crave the brain. They want the chance to dream again, an insatiable hunger for knowledge, that’s all the undead bastards want, a chance to live again. The world grew addicted to pop culture, TVs, smart phones that made people dumb and complacent and caused humanity to take for granted all the wonders of the modern age, so nature decided to put everyone all on their ass and took it all away; figuring since no one wanted to use their reasoning powers anymore, then no one wanted to think, dream, and create, so nature took it all away, humanity’s death; Mother Nature’s final gift to the bipedal hominids.
6
Sarah was still in grade school back when Momma died, but years later, staring at her sister in her cap and gown, and those locks of dark brunette chocolate; Mary could see momma, or at least what Momma should have been had she not smoked herself to death. Mary and her sis were close as any sister could be. And on that fateful day, when humanity’s death came and took the old world down to hades, Mary and Sarah had spent the prior week together. They didn’t go out that day. They'd stayed home where Netflix helped try and heal wounds of a recent breakup.
“Who needs a man?” Sarah said as she sipped her red wine from a coffee mug. “All I need is my sister and this TV, and may be that cute nephew of mine.”
“You can have him, but I warn you, he’s spoil
ed to the bones.” Mary said.
“Not too worry, as long as QVC keeps their stretch pay option, I can buy him all the video game consoles his heart desires. And really, sis, a PS3? Come now…” She sipped her wine, and then BAM!...
…The front door shook hard. Mary jumped up in a start. “Somebody wants in, must be that bastard Cole, looking for me.” Sarah said.
“God… you didn’t drag a stalker to my home did you?” The banging turned to soft moaning and then scrapping on the wood. Mary put a hand on her sister’s shoulder, “No, you stay right here. I’ll get rid of him.” Mary didn’t like overbearing men, and she especially didn’t appreciate some crazy asshole fucking up her door. A few feet in front of the door is a closet where all the jackets are hung, along with a baseball bat she always kept, just in case; this time the just in case turned out to be a lot uglier than she'd ever thought possible.
The eye she saw when she looked out of the peep hole was like staring into white hot fire. The man, the thing, jerked back a few feet from the door, then slammed himself into the hard wood with a clumsy thud. The face was pale with a hint of green and those eyes… they burned like a white sun. His tongue hung out of his mouth, black and red. She didn’t recognize him. She never understood what caused him to stumble on her doorstep. And, at that time, she didn’t know that the Fever was spreading rapidly all over the world.
“Tell him I don’t want to see him and we’ll call the cops if he doesn’t leave!” Sarah shouted from the living room.
Mary didn’t say a word. She just stared at those eyes. Her heart rate was starting to climb. Then a loud BANG! from a gunshot caused her to jump. It came from somewhere down the block.
She lived in a small neighborhood close to campus, but far away enough so that she didn’t have to worry about frat houses or house parties. Most of her neighbors were old and retired. It’s what she loved about that area, the peace and quiet. The well-manicured lawns. The jingle of wind chimes. The little old ladies wearing neon pink wind pants walking little dogs.
Nature decided to end all that and the gun shot caught the dead man’s attention and he jerked his way off her steps, onto the lawn, and out of sight.
The rest of the day, her and Sarah watched the news; and kept an eye on the doors and windows. She couldn’t get her husband or her son’s cell phones. Just ringing.
But her dad called. He said he was on his way to her. He said the dead walked. He said to lock and load and kill anything that didn’t look normal.
She never saw her father, husband, or son again.
7
Now, laying passed out from alcohol and rage, right dab in the middle of the City of God, Mary heard a mighty explosion; her town house shook. Gun fire erupted from somewhere outside. Shrieks of fear cried out. She looked out of the window. A loud blast broke the window and sent her flying backwards. She crashed hard against the wall. Her face and hands bled. A large shard of glass cut into her leg. She looked down. It was in deep. She stumbled to her feet, holding the wall for support. She worked her way out into the hallway and then fell down the stairs. People were rushing by the exit doors of the apartment building. She crawled to the door way and peered out broken panes of glass. Soldiers. She saw soldiers. Camouflaged men marching through the streets killing anyone they saw.
(lock and load)
She ignored the pain in her leg and ran over to the closet. She opened the door and removed an AK-47. She moved back to the only unbroken window, squatted, moved the dark blue curtain over just a bit and peered out. The screams were getting wilder and the gun shots continued to ring out. People were being murdered in the streets. Kids, women, men, it didn’t matter.
The only thing worse than the dead are the living, especially when they wear uniforms. Uniforms give men a sense of authority and the conviction that all their deeds are justified, regardless of how deplorable and gruesome. That’s something her daddy told her years ago. He was drunk that night and gave her a rare story about the war. Tears ran down his eyes, “We shot up an entire village. Kids, old people, you name it. We thought it was all justified. We had on uniforms, didn’t we? That’s all a man needs to forget all decency, a fucking uniform.”
Back when she'd joined ROTC, she didn’t believe any of that. But, now, looking out and seeing the murder in the streets, she knew her daddy was right. All a man needed was a uniform.
(my sister!)
The image of her Sarah’s dying body crossed her mind like a waking nightmare.
Mary Jane’s leg hurt like hell, but she had to get to her sister. She had to get past the uniforms and find Sarah.
She rushed out of the house and onto the streets. Gun shots were everywhere. Screams of dying children. The laughs of soldiers. More gun fire. She ran through the streets. Her heart raced faster than her feet could move.
A back alley ran along the entire length of the town houses; she disappeared into the dark alley. She stayed in the black shadows as soldiers rushed by. She could smell their hate. She could hear their joy of killing; she could see the spittle dripping from their mouths like rabid dogs; their eyes bulged and seemed to pulse with mad pleasure.
She moved through the darkness, her gun held in front of her; but now her hands shook. Tears ran down her face. Death was everywhere. Humans dying all around. Death owns this world. Humanity’s death so close to its final completion; the extinction of the human species was well in its final stage.
Another scream. A little girl stumbled into the darkness; Mary Jane froze, watching.
A dash of moon light highlighted the girl; she held her stomach as blood gushed out of her. She was screaming. “Mommy! Mommy! They shot my mommy!”
A solider, tall and lanky, moved into the alley behind her. His pistol raised, his teeth shining yellow and rotten in the moon light. A hot flash exited the barrel and tore the little girl’s skull open. Mary Jane put a hand over her mouth and puked into her palm as he took out his member and drenched the little girl in yellow. He zipped up and left the girl lying dead, and took his killing elsewhere.
Mary ran past the little dead girl and nearly slipped in a slathering of her gray brain matter. She didn’t look down. She kept moving forward.
My sister. Please god. Don’t let this happen to my sister.
8
Guns crackled and blasted. Screams kept screaming. Mary kept moving in the shadows. In the distance, she saw her sister’s town home. She saw her window. She saw shadows inside. She heard more screams, like someone was being ripped and torn apart from the inside out. The echoes of death raged in every direction. No end in sight. No hope for life. No savior coming. No late night infomercials. No fun days at the mall.
“The kids all dead, mom. Didn’t you hear? The kids are all dead.” She spoke out loud. She tasted the vomit. The bile was dried on her hands. She heard a raucous of laughter then a woman pleading. “Don’t kill my baby! Don’t kill my sweet baby!” Then a gun shot, then the sobbing mother’s cry of pain.
“Yeah mom! The kids are all dead! Didn’t you hear?” Mary spoke to herself. She stopped for a moment and realized her pants were wet. She hadn’t peed herself since she was four. But now she was drenched. This is all that’s left, a pee stained world, full a pea brains with guns and a healthy appetite for torture. That’s all that can survive now. Just darkness. Just pure evil. No good people left. The goods one left will die out or turn bad soon enough.
She suddenly felt bitterly cold, like she was tossed into an ice cold January. All around she heard them at once. Dead voices. All speaking in union. It was not the screams of the living, but cold whispers that seemed to scream in her ear. Too many. Too fucking many. She shook with fright and chill.
She knew the voices. She knew them well. It was the people dying out there on the street. All the people she'd helped in the past year screaming.
“I can’t help you! I can’t help anyone!” She screamed.
The voices disappeared until she heard only one, and like a frozen vice grip,
something grabbed her arm and held her still and screamed at her; she felt the cold rush of its voice: soon, soon you will help!
And then all around her the world changed, and she saw the lives of people that used to walk and talk in this town. Little kids, mothers holding babies, and boys on skate boards. Men in business suits marched by, hustling to whatever meeting they needed to get to. Mary saw them, but it wasn’t really them. It was just an echo of what used to be—just a faint echo of their former lives. Their faces weren’t right, their bodies whisper thin, hollow, and transparent; they roamed in a freezing memory, a flash back of lost lives—and they swirled around her faster and faster, rushing past like shooting stars, and then…
…it was over.
The hot and smothering July night returned. Above her she saw the stars twinkling. She didn’t know how long she'd been standing there, but the gun shots had slowed. The death was nearing completion. She was once again staring down a dark and shadowy back alley and now she needed to get to her sister.
She ran as fast as I could.
9
She charged into her sister’s townhouse. The wood floor creaked under the weight of her boots; the air smelled of blood; a clock ticked, ticked, ticked time away on the wall. Her sister’s body was laying in the middle of the floor. Her clothes were torn off, her bare skin visible via a bar of moon light shining in through a double pane window. Sarah laid face down in a pool of her own blood. Her panties were still on, but half torn and pulled to the side.
Mary dropped to her knees as tears pooled in her eyes. She dropped her gun and crawled on all fours till she reached her sister's dead body. The body felt warm. After a tearful grunt she forced her over and saw that her throat was cut open, from ear to hear, like a sick and disturbing smiley face. Her skull had been stabbed with a large knife.
She held her as best she could. She was dead. She was the final kind of dead.