by Hawk, J. K.
He had a nice house, not as big as I once had with my parents, but it was warm and cozy. A stone fireplace roared with a numbing crackle and a comforting warmth. The random sparks and pops of the flames chewing their way into the wood allowed us both to relax. However the boarded up windows were just another reminder of what the world behind them had become.
Old Ben's block of wood slowly got smaller and smaller, and soon began to resemble a person. He was careful around the face, making sure to get every little detail, he was really good at it too. As he worked the knife he told me things about himself and his family, he really liked to talk and rarely asked me any questions.
He had a wife, Nicki, who he said was the most beautiful girl in Connecticut. He also had a son, Joseph, who wanted to be a race-car driver. He spoke a lot about Joseph. I could tell he really loved him. He said he had moved his family north, just before the Hungry's came. He had got a good job at a warehouse or something, not too far from where we were.
Looking around curiously, I asked, “Where is Joseph?” He stopped cutting, and only his eyes rose to meet mine with such sadness.
“Joseph - Joseph and his Momma got sick a few months ago,” a big crocodile tear ran down his cheek, “I had to lay them to rest in the back yard.”
I wished I hadn't asked, I missed my family too and knew how he felt. So I got up and hugged him tight, he did not return the hug, instead he just let me hold and comfort him. His tears collected in my hair, the moist sadness sinking deep into my skin. For a moment I could see them both - Nikki and Joseph. They were holding hands and smiling at me, Old Ben was right, she was very beautiful.
“It's okay, I'll be your family now.” I said as I squeezed him tighter. I could tell he wanted to pull away, but I wouldn't let him, and after a moment he rubbed my head and asked.
“You want something to eat?”
Standing up I nodded yes and he quickly got up to make me some oatmeal. He didn't say any more while he heated up my food on the fireplace, not once did he look over at me. Still I watched him, fumbling around with a spoon as he stirred the boiling oats. The oatmeal wasn't that good, but I didn't tell him that, I don't like to be rude. But, those packages of oatmeal with peaches that my mother cooked for me in the microwave were much better. His was just a big thick clump of tasteless oats, and still I ate every bit of it, I was quite hungry after all. It was definitely better than some of the things I had eaten when I was on my own.
Old Ben took care of me for a long while, feeding me and keeping me safe. It was the longest place I had stayed since mommy and daddy got hungry. It was nice, I even thought of it as my new home, I was happy and Old Ben was too. In a way he reminded me of my grandfather, so I like to think of him as just that. Old Grandpa Ben, of course I never called him that, I think it would have embarrassed him.
We would do all the daily chores together, collecting and chopping wood, searching old houses for leftover food, actually we searched for pretty much anything of use. Old Ben even taught me how to shoot a gun, but I didn't like it, they are just too darn loud.
“A gun will save your life, sweetie.” He would say to me. He seemed to be a smart man, so I listened close and learned everything. I became a pretty good shot too, I even surprised Old' Ben, I think he was even a little jealous. Especially the day I came back from the forests with three wild-rabbits, which Ben stewed up with some taters and onions.
The second winter with Old Ben was the roughest, we were running low on both food and fire-wood. It seemed everyday was even colder than the one before in what appeared to be an endless winter. So cold that rarely did we venture outside. Instead we sat inside by the warmth of the fire and whittled.
I became quite good at it too, I made a horse, a frog and even an elephant all from memory. Of course Ben helped me with the details, I had broken three trunks before he took over for me. We had even made a string puppet together, he carved the body and head, and I whittled the legs. Unfortunately I lost it the following summer while running from a hungry herd.
For some reason Old Ben fell into sadness during that winter. I could hear him crying at night, over and over he would whisper, “Nikki, I'm sorry.” Sometimes, but not always, I could even hear him fiddling with his gun while he whimpered in the dark. He must have been cleaning it, I'm sure of it. A few times I tried asking him what was wrong, and he would just say, “Nut'n sweetie.” But I knew that there was something, something horrible, which made me worry even more. I think it had something to do with Nicki, but I can't be too sure. He was also drinking a lot more during those months, nasty smelling stuff in a thick glass bottle. It was a pretty gold-colored liquid which he always called his Happy Juice. But, to me, it smelled like sweaty old Foot Juice. He even offered me some one time, but I refused.
During those months he became even fonder of me, kissing me more and more. He would gently kiss my forehead and my cheeks, my ears and even my hands. After a while he began to kiss my lips, like mommy use too. It didn't bother me much, but it seemed to bother him. After every kiss he would gently push me away and start to cry some more. I don't know why, but it always made me cry too.
One night, around Easter I think, when the snow was all gone and the robins had returned for spring, Old Ben had finished a bottle of his happy juice and quickly began to act oddly, more than usual. He was stumbling from one side of the house to the other, punching the walls and shouting out in anger.
“Joseph! Pick up your god-damn room!” he yelled, I tried to remind him where Joseph was but it was like he couldn't hear me. I had wanted to grab his arm or shoulder to get his attention, but I dared not. I had never seen him so angry, and it scared me.
“Who the fuck was that, Nikki!” He screamed while pointing a knife at the wall. “You best not even think of cheating on me, I'll cut you bitch!” It was also the first time he had ever spoke of Nikki that way, never before was there any hate when he mentioned her. I'm not sure if it was just his imagination or if this was something that happened in the past, and still I dared not ask.
Again he began to cry some more, “I'm sorry baby, you know I love you.” It was odd how his emotions changed so quickly, but always from anger to sadness. His Happy Juice must have been spoiled, or maybe he just hadn't drunk enough of it.
This went on for a long while before he became tired and flopped himself down into his chair, and continued to cry even harder. I walked up to him and gently ran my hands through his curly hair, he just closed his eyes, not willing to look at me. There was an awkward moment of silence, at least for me, which went on far too long.
“It's okay Ol' Ben.” I said.
“You’re a sweet girl.” He finally said as he opened his eyes and stared back at me. Gently he ran his fingers over my cheek, his skin was like sand against my own. He pulled me close and kissed me on the lips again, but this time it was much harder than before. His mouth was open and he kept pushing his tongue between my lips and into my mouth, I didn't know what to do. His breath smelled really bad and tasted even worse, but I quickly forgot about it when his hand moved around me and squeeze my butt so very hard.
It hurt and I wanted to pull away, but instead I just let him do it, I didn't want him crying anymore. But like before, he soon pushed me away and looked off as if embarrassed. Maybe it was me who was doing something wrong. I wasn't exactly sure. But, soon he spoke again, this time in a quiet raspy voice.
“I'm sorry, Mia, I'm so sorry.” he said as he stood up and walked outside. I didn't follow him, I figured he wanted to be alone, so I just sat there for a moment, thinking about what just happened. I had walked in on my parents making love once, but it was at night and I did not see much, so I was not sure what I should have done. “Maybe he just wanted me to squeeze his butt too,” I had thought.
Soon I moved off to the kitchen to get a drink of water to wash out the bad taste from my mouth. I definitely did not understand how he could drink that Happy Juice, the taste made me want to throw up. Maybe it’s like cou
gh-syrup, that stuff always made me gag but also made me feel better.
A sudden crack of thunder made me jumped back, dropping the glass of water which shattered across the floor like diamonds glistening in the fire-light. But it wasn't thunder, I was sure of it, it was a gunshot. I quickly ran outside to see what he was doing, but unfortunately it was too dark and I could not see a darn thing.
“Ol' Ben!” I called out, but there was no answer. He liked to night-hunt, so I went back inside and sat down on his chair, waiting for him to come back with a nice rabbit or even a raccoon. Or maybe he shot one of them thieving coyotes, or even a scary Hungry.
Before I knew it, I was asleep, and I opened my eyes to the sun already up and the robins chirping gingerly outside. Immediately I rushed and checked Old Ben's bed, but he was not there. So I walked outside thinking that maybe he was stacking more wood, or cutting up last night’s kill.
He was not, I found him laying bloody and motionless next his wife and son's graves. He must of gotten sick too because he used his big gun to put himself down. He looked peaceful though, almost happy, even with all that blood. He was with his family now, and with Jesus. I wished he hadn't left me alone though, but I knew he was better off this way, better off with them.
Over the next couple of days I dug a grave for him, right next to his wife and son. Pushing him into the hole took forever, he was quite large, but I finally got him in. I crossed his arms over his chest, just like I'd seen on TV one time. Then I gently covered him with his blanket, to keep him warm, as well as placing a couple bottles of his happy juice beside him. I wasn't going to drink it so I figured he'd want some in heaven.
After burying him I made a nice grave stone out of a big flat rock I had found outside. I gathered a few crayons I had seen in the house and decorated it with flowers, and in the center I wrote;
“OLD BEN, A VERY NICE BLACK MAN.” He would have liked that.
When it was finished, I said a quick prayer, something simple I made up since I don't remember any from church. I only cried for a moment, just enough to let go of a good friend. Then, I walked away as the sound of a lone loon cried out from the falling dusk, a peaceful farewell to Old Ben.
supplemental;
It was sad to think that a grown man, a man with so much good in him, was so stricken with isolation that he had almost taken advantage of this poor little girl. Even worse is that this girl, so innocent and naive, knew not what he was doing. It was probably best for her that he ended his own life.
After she buried her own savior she would soon be forced to leave that house. The dead had begun to gather nearby, and she feared that they would soon find her. So she moved on, seeking shelter and food wherever she could. Cautiously she traveled from one small town to the next, searching for any living to take her in.
She has yet to speak of the events that led up to me finding her in the forest that day, or to even explain the scars on her body. I assume she spent a good year wondering the roads alone, sleeping in abandoned buildings and cars, and trying to find food where ever she could. Maybe she was just lucky, but her unknowing will to survive still surprises me.
Recording Mia's experiences has made me realize that I have yet to transcribe my own accounts of those events during The Great Outbreak. My own will to survive. So now it only seems fitting to jot down my own bleak plunge into this New World Disorder. These are just some of the few memories that I can account for, after all these years it seems that memory has faded, which is for the best. They are my memories of the fall, memories that will serve no purpose, except for the undying curiosity of a lost little girl.
1st Day, 1st Outbreak Moon;
Before the fall of man, some would have claimed that the idea of a corpse walking on its own was outlandish and absurd. And yet, to these same people, a man walking on water made perfect sense. Least to say, this same man died, then allegedly walked on his own. I do not call myself a religious man, and God and I have had our differences, yet the similarity between the world’s demise and the words of an ancient people have not gone unnoticed. The fact still remains that the human race, aside from their faults, are an intuitive species. Foreseeing the future is only a matter of exploring our own imaginations with an open state of mind. If man can imagine it, then chances are it can and will happen. Most would have scoffed at this, the thought that the Bible, or any other religious text, could be nothing more than an imagination running untethered. However, even at the height of our civilization there were signs of this phenomena everywhere.
A perfect example came from the fantasy television show Star-Trek. After the first airing, its reviews were quiet poor. Being called an Outrageous Farce of Godless Fantasy. Just forty years later and the imaginations of one man had begun to unfold before us. Computers, so smart that they could fly vessels on their own and some could even talk. Wireless communications devices that allowed you to stay in contact with everyone, everywhere. And to think we were only on the verge of advanced robotics.
Now that was Star Trek, which I myself was a big fan, but an even bigger fan of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. I, and few others, saw this fictitious entertainment as an imminent possibility, and not because of the words in some old book. As did ancient man, we could see the signs that everyone else ignored. But unlike ancient man, we did not foresee this as the penance enforced by an all-powerful being, rationally we foresaw it simply as the blunder of man.
The first real indications of the outbreak began as a well contrived Government farce, a cover-up as some would call it. Just a few unusual reports on the nightly news over the course of a few months. Incidents mentioned only once, and then never followed up on. It was as if these odd news-bits had fallen through some temporal crack, but obviously, it was more conceivable that they were unjustly censored by the goons of government.
One report was of an unusual flesh-eating bacteria, spreading with concern up and down the east-coast. Then revised to be nothing more than an isolated incident, thus soon forgotten. Eventually reports of random attacks by deranged criminals, criminals so out of their own minds that they would tear the flesh from their victims. Questions were even raised that local law-enforcement had used excessive force, inflicting multiple gun-shot wounds to stop these mad-men. The government simply attributed it to a new street-drug, aptly named Big-Betty, which was sweeping the nation. Just one example of the many, many, cover-ups. It was understandable that drugs can make one more violent, and seemingly stronger, but not bullet resistant.
The CDC even released a mock PSA on how to prepare and survive a zombie-apocalypse, which they posed as a fictional worst-case-scenario. However, with a hush-hush executive order, the page was removed from public access. The media clowned around with the idea, referring to it as the Walking-Dead Craze, just an idiotic new fad. No one, aside from a select few, took any of it seriously. And our beloved President, with an atypical attempt to cool the media frenzy, addressed the nation to steer everyone's attention to more trivial matters.
“There is no Zombie Outbreak!” He exclaimed.
In conformation, the hype quickly subsided, and the media also became hush-hush in regards to subject. The sheep continued on with their lives, oblivious to what was about to come. Although there was still the occasional report within online blogs, as well as Twitter and even Face-book, but most saw it as commonplace internet crock. Tall Tales, such as anarchy in the streets of foreign cities, public cannibalism and complete social break down. Countries like; Egypt, Germany, France and even the UK, had quietly declare Martial Law. Even the obliteration of Hong Kong by a strategic nuclear strike, a last-ditch effort of the Chinese government. Unfathomable events, never once mention in the Main-Stream media, which proved just how much pull governments had on our own strings.
At first, I too was guilty of ignoring the signs, but there was always this inkling that something big was about to happen. And when it did, I wasn't truly taken by surprise. To be honest, for years I had longed the day that I'd watched the world
burn. For Nature to reclaim her rightful place as queen of the Earth. A piece of me is still emotionally attached to this new world, and yet, there's something else in me that regrets my selfish aspirations.
It was May, maybe April. I had just finished given a lecture at Cambridge, Native American vs. Australian Aborigine; a Comparative of Ancient Civilizations. Sounds boring enough, however the history of our ancestors has always fascinated me. How they lived and survived in a technology deprived and hostile world, but more enticing was their belief systems. The patterns of human assumptions which fed the evolution of faith are openly displayed throughout history, it only takes an unclouded mind to see them.
Not far from that lecture hall, at Mag's Diner, I was elbows deep in a big greasy plate of steak-tips smothered with onions, peppers and mushrooms. It was my last meal, to be overly dramatic, and one that I shall never forget nor ever enjoy again. As I sucked down the rest of my beer, I paid no attention to the other patrons, but instead to a loud commotion building up from outside the diner. Ominous shouts and screams from up the street, just out of sight of the diner's dirty windows. Other patrons heard it too, their curiosity overcoming them as they rushed to the windows to see what was amiss.
The traffic outside had stopped in place, drivers were becoming increasingly agitated, honking their horns and pounding on the roofs. Left and right obscenities rose above the racket and crude hand gestures flew up into the air. Boston had always been lewd at times, but never like this.
Without warning, one of the drivers dropped his shifter into reverse, violently smashing into the taxi behind him. Then, without hesitation, he shifted back into drive and slammed into the van in front of him. Frantically he repeated, to and fro, maneuvering unsuccessfully into the opposite direction. He was adamant about his cause, but there were just too many vehicles, bumper-to-bumper. His feeble attempts to flee the jam only created more panic and chaos, choking the street into an inevitable deadlock.