Darkest Days: A Southern Zombie Tale

by Layton, James J.

  At Daniel’s feet, his daughter breathed her last. The handle of a kitchen knife protruded from Sylvia’s sternum ending the long trench began inches above her genitalia. Both the small and large intestine rolled to the side. The stomach had been pierced by the blade and sat in the abdominal cavity deflated like a punctured tire.

  Tommy blindly rushed toward the monstrosity but Bryant grabbed his collar holding him back. Eric grabbed a chair from the pile blocking a window and swung it at the ghoul’s head. The being that was formerly Daniel Rogers threw its arm up in a defensive gesture. The chair caused some damage, but most of it was deflected to the arm and not the target. The fight or flight response in the lower brain caused the creature to lunge forward. The hands displayed better motor control than the older zombies and the ravenous beast easily wrestled Eric to the ground with primitive but effective grapples.

  Bryant kicked the creature in the face from his position on the side of Eric. It fell onto its back flailing and gnashing its teeth. A strange gurgling combined with a high-pitched whine pierced his ears. Eric stood back up on shaking legs and walked over. Father O’Brien joined him and both men began stomping on the twisted face of the former survivor. The monster swiped at their legs trying to defend itself and stand back up. Bryant quickly stepped forward and placed his foot on one of the creature’s forearms pinning it to the carpet. Cara followed suit with the other arm. The destruction of one of their number became a bizarre ritual. Everyone present suddenly took part in stomping and kicking the writhing shape beneath them. Not because it took the entire ensemble to kill it, but because each one of them felt the need to participate. Many would have called it a “mob mentality”. The anger spread from person to person like a virus replicating and moving to a new cell. Without warning, the entire group shared the same contorted expression of pure hate. The beast cried out in a sad, weak voice. The priest felt a chill and thought the sound resembled “Anne”. The struggling creature tried to lift its arms. The feet pushed against the floor, attempting to move away from the attackers. The soles of its shoes found no purchase and though the body took massive amounts of punishment, it eventually stopped moving.

  The congregation felt the rage and fury drain from their faces. The alien-ness of the monster temporarily filled them with righteous anger. After the wrathful intoxication passed, each of them felt a mixture of shame and satisfaction. It was a combination that some of them had not felt before. Others recognized it as the feeling that accompanied an immoral act that still provided emotional gratification.

  Bryant turned around feeling his stomach sour. He saw Tommy standing in front of him, clenching his fist but not moving. The look in his eyes said it all. He was angry with them for killing his father. He was angry with his sister for not listening to all the warnings. He was angry with his father for getting sick. He was mostly angry with God for letting all of this happen to his loving father and his sister. Sylvia opening the door, Dad getting too close to a sick mommy, the strangers killing Daddy all made sense on some level, but God’s passiveness appalled him. There was no logic to it that he could see. He wanted to hate all the regret filled eyes staring at him, but he could not. Deep down, even at his young age, he understood what led each person to that collective reaction. He had felt it too.

  Bryant had to break the gaze. The addressed everyone quickly and business-like. “Let’s take the bodies up to the roof. Eric,” Then he swiveled his head to the next available body. “Martin, will you two help me?” They silently nodded. As they lifted the mangled body of Sylvia and exited through the stairwell, each of them felt the secession of Tommy’s accusing gaze.

  ***

  On the roof, the three males set the father’s body down and groaned. Minutes earlier after placing Sylvia on the roof, Bryant put a bullet in her head at the insistence of Eric. “Just in case she tries to come back.” After the deed, Martin appeared morose and Bryant just stared out at the sea of hungry corpses, but Eric spoke enough for all of them. In the midst of wrestling with their actions, the two adolescents also had to listen to Eric’s stream of consciousness. “That ladder was a bitch. If that Dad weighed any more, I’d have chopped him up and tossed him up a piece at a time. The kid was okay though, not too heavy. How do you think the boy looked?” The incessant dialogue stemmed from guilt, a side effect of his emotional state.

  Bryant broke the doctor’s chatter. “The boy’s name is Tommy. And by the way, he looked fucked up after watching his Dad disembowel his sister and get bludgeoned to death by complete strangers.”

  Eric’s mind had glossed over the trauma that the young boy had suffered. He found it easier to concentrate on himself. Besides, kids possessed very malleable minds. He probably already accepted it as another unexplainable event of the grown-up world. Eric looked down in shame. Only a few hours of living in a kill or be killed world and he had grown into a calloused bastard. “It’s only your professionalism misinterpreted.” The voice urged him not to blame himself. It was the fault of everyone else for not reading him correctly.

  He felt he needed to make some form of sacrifice on his part as recompense for his insensitivity. He could only come up with one thing of value. “Would you like to know something about me, a secret?” Eric blurted the offer before thinking through the end result. Years of hiding his dirty past would be wasted. In only a few seconds, all the weight and effort he had strained under in every town would come to an end. For better or worse, it would be over. Realizing that, his heart sped up.

  The sudden offer of emotional vulnerability caused everyone to stop. The two younger men eyed him with interest. Martin leaned in showing a little more of his curiosity than Bryant who sat poker-faced but ears cocked nonetheless.

  Eric began. “I’m not from here. I never really had a home. My family moved around a lot. After I left for college, I still stayed in the habit of relocating on a regular basis just to keep the little secret hidden. You don’t know what it’s like to have to wear a mask every single day. I have never been true to myself, but now after coming close to death so many times in one day, I have to be honest.” He paused to gather his strength.

  Martin impatiently urged. “Come on, tell us!” His vocal ejaculation shattered the dramatic tension filling the air.

  Eric still felt tension in his chest, despite Martin’s lack of reverence for the situation. The doctor breathed deeply through his nose, closed his eyes momentarily and spoke. “My parents were first cousins.”

  For a moment, everyone fell silent. Bryant commented first. “Come on man, I thought it was something major. This is the South.” Martin let out a small titter of laughter.

  Eric shook his head. “Damn it, I’m being serious.”

  Martin lifted his head. “So are we. You are a single doctor in a small town. Do you know how awesome that is? Money, looks, the whole deal. No one’s going to blame you for something that you have no control over.”

  Eric laughed, feeling relief as the oppressive weight lifted off his shoulders. “You know, the breeze feels nice up here. If it weren’t for the catastrophe below, I’d really enjoy hanging out like this. It reminds me of college sneaking on to the roof of our dorm.” His mind drifted back to previous years and a time when he felt the potential of a world yet to be as he looked out from the rooftops with his friends. Now, however, he looked out on a different world than he imagined during his sophomore year.

  Far below the reminiscing man of medicine, the undead scraped and clawed at the locked doors. Some of them broke away from the throng to mercilessly hunt anything living.

  The rest of the night belonged to the creatures. As the survivors tried to sleep, the newly dead walked without tire, without exhaustion. They had no need for sleep or rest and their numbers grew.

  ***

  Stephanie sat down with Tommy and watched him try to half-heartedly read a Bible story from his book. She did not know what he was holding and tilted her head trying to read the title. Straightening up, she used her hands to s
mooth the hair that fell out of place. “Which story are you reading?” He shrugged his shoulders in response. “You know which one you’re reading. Is it Jonah and the whale?”

  Tommy shook his head. Raising his head and looking her in the eye, he slowly spoke. “Abraham and Isaac.” He turned the book in his hands and showed her the illustration. A wild-eyed Abraham lifted a stone knife with both fists high above his head. Below him, docile and complacent, Isaac laid motionless for his father. The child’s eyes pierced Stephanie’s. “God stopped Abraham. Why didn’t he stop my father?”

  She frowned, not knowing how to respond. Just a child herself, she felt tempted to shift the blame and tell him to ask an adult. To a child that young, sometimes teenagers were adults. In the end, she waited him out.

  Tommy shut the book and tucked it under his arm. He walked out of the room to seek out an isolated spot to think. As he ascended the stairs, he once again wondered about the nature of God. Coincidentally, everyone in the church had been wrestling with the same thoughts since the previous day. He did not understand that they suffered the same doubts. Not being privy to most of the adult conversations, he assumed that grown-ups not addressing the issue meant that they possessed an unshakable faith. He thought about asking someone the burning questions within him but held back, afraid of the answer.

  Everything that he had been taught about God seemed to unravel in less than one day. The image of a just God shattered under the mindless, impersonal death sweeping the town clean of life.

  Cara had a slightly different view. She, Bryant, and Eric were of one mind on the subject of divine intervention. The scientific method would lead them to salvation. They had already discovered how to kill the zombies. Soon, they would make other discoveries enabling them to survive.

  Eric lectured to an attentive audience, even though he was rehashing information they had covered the night before. Tommy walked in and when the adults gave him no direction to leave, he sat down and listened with keen interest. His faded smile came back at the thought of sliding under the radar and hearing conversations not intended for his virgin ears. “The behavior these creatures exhibit indicates that the frontal lobes are inactive. The lower brain is what keeps them searching for food.” Tommy wanted to ask if everyone had more than one brain, because he had never heard of that before. Scared at the prospect of being sent out for interrupting and then missing the rest, he sat immobile and quiet. “This area of the brain would also control the instinct to reproduce but for some reason this drive seems totally abandoned. If they truly are dead and have no heartbeat, this is easily explained in the males because no blood is flowing to the penis in order to make it erect.” Tommy covered his mouth at the sound of the p-word. Then, sensing that no one else felt any humor in Eric’s language, the boy suppressed the urge to giggle. “Also, we can’t count on them starving to death. As Bryant demonstrated with the severed head, the head stayed alive several hours until we finally destroyed it by killing the brain. This hints that they have no need for internal organs including the digestive tract. That means that they take no nourishment and have no need for food other than to sate a primitive instinct to feed.”

  Tommy stealthily slid across the carpet a few inches and then pushed himself up to his feet. “Adult conversations aren’t that interesting.” In truth, he left the room because the things the doctor said were frightening him. He didn’t understand it all but understood enough to worry. They would never starve to death. The only thing they wanted to do is eat. That was all he really needed to know.

  ***

  The sun broke through the tree tops and gleamed off the hood of Rick’s black S-10 as he drove away from another broken shop window. Someone had beaten him to the ammunition inside. The whole time he skulked around the looted ruins, he thought about the church and ways to gain entrance. He had something worked out, but the only kink was lack of a phone. If he played the game right, he could barter his way in. The church would be poorly stocked for a siege. Ammo and groceries could get him in and he had to get in. If not, the next time he slept, he would be dead. They would shuffle forward, arms outstretched, wanting his warm flesh. The thought of lying there helpless as they approached made him shudder as if he could already feel the cold hands gripping him.

  When Rick finally made up his mind, his hands turned the wheel angling the vehicle into a grocery store parking lot located in between the housing projects and downtown. The particular Shop and Save he looked at through burning, bloodshot eyes most affluent people of the town did not use. Hence, it was small, dingy, and deserted. Cars rested at crazy angles, ignoring the lines underneath. Two met in twisted bumpers and bent hoods. A teenage boy, now deceased, aimlessly pushed a shopping cart up and down the sidewalk. As he neared, the automatic door would slide open as the sensor activated. After a few seconds, it would close and quietly glide open again on the boy’s return trip.

  Despite the prolonged yawns stretching his mouth, Rick felt energized. How fast could he scoop canned food into bags and sling it into the truck? Those things would converge pretty quickly once he was discovered. He grinned at the thought of it. “Look out for Billy Bad Ass!” His fist hit the steering wheel for emphasis. He revved the engine and sped at the boy, attempting to block the door with his vehicle. The grill shattered the boy’s hip and his torso ricocheted off the hood. The shopping cart launched off the end of the sidewalk and into the street, sounding out with a metallic rattle. Now the entrance was protected. He could still use the exit door and cut down on the number able to get in. He marveled at his own ingenuity and entered the shop.

  Right inside the door, Rick stopped to pull a shiny, stainless-steel buggy from a short row in front of the checkouts. He quickly sped down the produce aisle, very aware that this trip required haste. After only a few feet, a body blocked his path flanked by racks filled with heads of lettuce periodically wetted by misters at the top of the display. As he stopped the cart, a small cloud of flies radiated away from the elderly woman’s carcass and landed back on the seemingly endless food supply. He steered the cart around her, one wheel nudging her hand and sending the pests scattering once again.

  Rick reached the end of the aisle having seen only useless perishables and turned the corner by the meat department. He stopped the cart and sharply drew in a breath. A bulky zombie in a butcher’s apron, sans arm, waddled around the bunkers making thick gurgling sounds. The behemoth had not noticed him yet and Rick slowly slid his hand into the belt of his jeans and drew out a pistol. The former butcher turned and looked at the young man. The eyes had already clouded with what the young man assumed were cataracts, but was actually the color and texture of a dried out eyeball. The mouth opened wide in anticipation of food, sending a mixture of syrupy blood and black bile oozing from its maw, dripping onto the shiny floor. Rick laughed in a desperate way as the little voice in his head announced itself. “You know him.”

  Keeping the sight on the monster, Rick responded vocally. “I do not. I never shopped here.”

  “Still, it’s a small town. You recognize him. He was probably a neighbor.”

  “Shut up.” His voice came out even and controlled.

  “Is he the father of one of your friends at school? Is he a supporter that cheered you on every Friday night at the game?” The familiar voice taunted him, distracting him from the duty of killing that abomination walking toward him.

  “I’ll bet you’ve killed a lot of former friends over the past twenty-four hours. You’ve just been too busy to notice.” He recognized that mocking voice. It was the same one he sometimes used on people at school.

  “Survival. No emotion. That’s how I’m going to make it.” He defended.

  “Think what you will. In the end, you’re a selfish prick who abandons his ethics the moment he has an excuse to.”

  Rick pulled the trigger, filled with hate toward that obnoxious head-voice, feeling that firing his weapon would kill the chatter. The voice did not need to find a chink in his armor, f
or it was already inside. Nonetheless, the loud rapport of the weapon silenced it as the beast’s bone cracked and the speeding piece of metal pierced the fragile gray matter. The body slumped to the floor, landing with the legs splayed and the remaining arm twisting under the girth of the stomach.

  Rick scooted the cart around that body also. He suddenly felt the urge to whistle. And why not? The voice had shut up and he was killing the bad guys. He deserved to enjoy himself for a moment. Pluckily, he continued through the store picking out the items he needed. When he found the Ramen noodles, he slid his arm past the product and just pulled forward sweeping the entire shelf worth into his basket. Next, he attacked a large display of tuna. Then he added canned vegetables and assorted canned fruits, and something that went by the vague and ominous name of “canned meat product”.

  Rick briefly paused to lament that Fayette was a dry county. Anything alcoholic would be good at that point. He had developed a taste for any type of beer. When one was underage, one had to drink what was available. He came to the last aisle, which was just a valley of bread, and saw an undead girl of about five on her hands and knees, feasting on a middle aged woman. Rick noticed the blade of a meat cleaver embedded in the adult’s head. His eyes lingered over the gory details. The wedding ring on the woman’s left hand sparkled, catching the fluorescent rays and reflecting back. The meat of her thigh had been ravaged by large bites all the way down to the bone. The girl was occupied, not even noticing the interloper.

  Rick wanted to vomit, but did not think that he had anything left to come up. His body surprised him with the things that it could accomplish. Despite having no food in his stomach, the churning hydrochloric fluid spilled over his lips and onto the floor. The acidic bitterness caused him to double over. As the sick flood rocketed out, the girl tore off an inch wide strip of meat, causing his belly to convulse and spasm once more.