Humanity's Death: A Zombie Epic (11 page)

Andrew’s body breathed softly and jerked from
time to time. The rain poured over his closed eye lids, down his
cheeks, and trickled against the sled. As she pulled him along
through the dark Palmetto wilderness; Andrew's life flashed before
his mind's eye.

He was at a grocery store. It was right after
he, Jack, and Candy rescued Jody and Papa from the nursing
home.

He drove the Humvee carefully down highway 17.
Death was everywhere; bodies of those that recently met the final
death were being ripped apart by zombies. Sweat dripped down his
face, and civilization slipped before his eyes. It was all
happening so damn fast. He felt sick and excited; he saw a large
yellow school bus. Kids screamed inside. Some of them had turned
and were tearing into the others. The face of a little blonde girl
stitched into his mind that day and never left. She pressed hard
against the glass, and behind, two boys, no older than nine, tore
out her organs with tiny hands while she stared out of the school
buses escape door.

But that wasn’t what caused him to bring the
Humvee to a screeching halt. As he drove past the Piggly Wiggly, he
saw a tall brunette running with fast even strides into the store;
he knew those legs; he may not have seen them in years, at least
not in person; but he'd know them anywhere.

“What the hell!” Candy screamed as he brought
the Humvee to a fast stop and jumped. He didn’t say a word or look
back as he ran through the crowd. He moved fast around zombies that
reached out but failed to get hold of his flesh. The store was
cold. And people screamed all around. The aisle dividers lay in the
floor, knocked over like dominoes. He moved his head back and forth
frantically, “Sally! Sally!” He didn’t see her. He ran down the
bread aisle. Nothing but a zombie eating the stomach out of a
little boy. The boy was still alive and screamed for his mother to
stop eating him, to please stop eating him!

“Sally! Sally!” He ran past the zombie mother
feasting on her son, and ran the frozen foods. There she was. He'd
found her. Oh god, please no... he was too late.

Sally Fighart’s body, lean and curved with
muscle, pressed against a glass freezer door that once held the
milk. Two dead men chewed into her. One pulled the protein from her
neck in gobs of bloody muscle. The other looked as though he was
humping her leg as he pulled long strands of meat from her torn
skin.

In those last moments, Miss Fighart, the Olympic
gold medalist, the once breast less and pimple faced little girl,
looked right at Andrew; and for a moment he saw her smile as the
zombies munched into her. Her head jiggled back and forth but her
eyes never left his. From behind him, grabbed him.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind! You fucking shit
tard!” Candy pulled him along with Jack. He let them guide him past
the dying and screaming people, out the door, back to the Humvee
where Jody sat waiting with his hands on the wheel. The door
slammed as he was forced into the back, and as the Hummer rumbled
away from the screams and mayhem; Andrew wept for his Sally.

11

Now Andrew laid on the sled, delirious. The world
around him rushed by in dashes of green and brown. From somewhere
in front of him, though she sounded a thousand miles away, came the
voice of his captor.

“Dumb worthless hag! Tramp they calls me! I was
once a good woman. They didn’t care bout my past, only bout what
happened. Weren’t my fault. Weren’t my fault what those boys did to
me. Those rich boys back when I was young. Used me up, turned me
out. Now look at em. They all dead. I’m right here.”

Her words fell on Andrew’s ears in fuzzy wisps,
the sounds barely audible, like some strange and ghoulish nightmare
where he knows he is being pulled to his death but can’t do a damn
thing to stop it. Her black shadow danced over his eyes as he tried
to look up and get a glimpse. But his head couldn’t stay upright
and fell back hard against the sled. So he just stared up at the
green canopy and wept.

“Tears ain’t gonna save shit boy. I cried once
to, ya know? Didn’t do me a bit of good and it aint gonna do you
either. Yous just a boy. And boys hurt girls like me. They use em
up and spit em out. Not now though. Oh no. Good lords done gone and
turned the tide. Now I bring the tears and causin the pain.”

Andrew’s sobs continued. The jerk of the sled
jostled him around. He felt a powerful dose of nausea and green
bile erupt from his mouth. He couldn’t turn to spit it out and it
began filling up his throat and causing a sickening garbling
noise.

“Oh no you don’t boy! Not that easy!” The woman
came to a stop and walked over to Andrew. His body was turned to
the side and old hands slapped his back hard, causing the bile to
spill out of his mouth and onto the ground.

“Thatta a boy. Can’t let ya spoil. You fine meat
son. Hell, we alls just meat.”

His vision cleared and he was left on his side
as she pulled him deeper and deeper into the dark and wild
wilderness. As the day grew darker, his eyes closed and he kept
them closed. His legs hurt under the thick straps holding him down.
What was happening? He'd been doing so well for nearly a year,
hardly any troubles considering the nature fo the New World. Then,
just like that, the tables had turned.

No, this can't be happening. All a dream, just a
bad dream that would end soon. He’d wake up and see his Sally
Fighart at any moment. “Just a dream Drew! Wake up you dirty
scoundrel. Didn’t you hear? I made varsity this year! Aren’t you
happy for me?”

“Yes Sally, course of I'm happy for you. But…
why did you have to go and start dating Barry Darkwood? You always
said…”

Sally had cut him off, “I always said I’d never
date a preppy.”

And Barry Darkwood wore his polo’s flipped up
around the collar like some flashback to the 80s. His fancy cars,
he had three of them, all paid for by his dear ole father, Judge
Barry Darkwood the first, which of course made Barry Darkwood the
second biggest asshole in all of Horry county.

By junior year Sally had turned into a red fire
bomb of a sexy looker. Her breasts developed into full C cups and
her once long, thin, bird legs radicalized into lean mean running
machines and her rump as a firm piece of muscle that perked its way
into every high school boy’s lingering, horny field of vision.

And she’d
fallen for Barry fucking Darkwood, the single biggest prick in all
the land. And Sally took it further when Andrew pointed this out,
“Yeah he does have a big prick. And I tell you now… I
like
it.”

“Great. He is just the all in one package.”

“I call him The Total Package.”

One year later, much to Sally’s dismay and
dripping tears, Barry Darkwood forget she existed after he
disappeared in the California college scene, two thousand miles
away. She'd held on to Andrew like a sad puppy. “You can’t trust
men with big cocks. That’s what I am taking away from this. Never
trust a man with a big cock.” She’d then slipped her hand into
Andrew’s pants and made the confirmation that he possessed the
qualities of a fine, trustworthy, and decent man. After that
moment, despite his obsessing calls, Andrew never saw or heard from
Sally again until that fateful day at the Piggly Wiggly.

Those days died and Andrew’s haze started to
lift. The old woman rambled her autobiography, jumping from story
to story without offering much consistency. She once been a real
looker. A real doll. Something everyman wanted. Then she was a
little girl, just a play thing for her brothers and daddy. Used her
up, spit her out. We all’s just meat after all. Then them boys done
found her and used her in a dark alley. Then she was in love with a
real man. A real winner. Donny Jumper she called him. A real
winner. Then she was back at a hospital holding Donny’s hand.
Cancer they said. Couldn’t save Donny. He died for sure. We all’s
just meat after all.

Then she was homeless. Not a penny to her name.
People throwing rocks at her. Calling her names. She started to cry
then made herself stop. “Gonna show yous some pain now!” She turned
and in a revengeful fit raised her foot high a kicked Andrew hard
in the temple. A shiny white shimmer glowed in his mind and he
heard a high pitch ringing. Then the dragging commenced, this time
in silence.

12

Wild life croaked from the dark trees. Rain was
falling hard now and his head pounded with nauseating pain. His
throat felt like sand paper and the green around him blurred in a
haze of dizziness. He shut them tightly. He transported his mind
back to a moment in time when hot sparks flew against his face
mask. He was helping Tommy Tyler—who owned Tommy Tyler’s Auto Mart
and Mechanics.

Tommy stood over him rubbing his double chin. He
wore a white t-shirt that clung over a big fat belly that hung over
a thick brown belt that overshadowed his crotch. His arms were thin
rails and his head shined a dingy brown under the car garage’s
florescent lights. “Looking good Drew! Just like new.”

“
Always
happy to help.” Andrew said as he pulled the mask up and rested
against a 98 blue Dodge Ram. Andrew had on a faded gray Hanes
t-shirt with a front chest pocket. He reached in his front pocket
and removed a pack of Marlboros
—
the shorts, and grabbed a Bic lighter he’d stuffed in the
plastic covering the card board box that housed the cancer. He lit
it and took a long drag and blew out a hot cloud of smoke, each one
a perfect ring. Above, the florescent lights flickered. He’d taken
up smoking not long after Sally had left. Then not long after that,
he’d found his broken heart felt better dipped in a bottle of Jim
Bean; and of course he still enjoyed Randy's doo doo weed. Which he
had desperately wanted to get to right away. He had hated these
trips to Tommy’s garage. He knew Tommy was a crook. The worst kind
of crook. The kind that sold you a shitty car, knowing full well
that it would leave you high and dry the moment the one-week
warranty ran out.

He’d recently lost his job at the Swamp Pipe
Company and was forced to draw unemployment. A week before he’d
lost his job he'd seen the head line in the Palmetto Times: HORRY
COUNTY’S OWN SALLY FIGHEART HEADED TO THE OLYMPICS; by the time
she'd won the gold he'd found him a new job at Iron Caster's
Welding, INC. He was happy for her of course. He had to be happy
for her. But why did she have to just up and leave him like
that?

Tommy the Crook was still standing over him and
his cigarette had burned down to the filter. Tommy was almost
shouting with his eyes focused on the ceiling. His abnormally long
chin moved up and down, up and down. “The mother fucker calls me
screaming. Says he wants his money back. His money back! Can you
fucking believe that? I told him to go straight to fucking hell.
The bastard then threatens me with a law suit. I told him to go
ahead and waste his fucking money. Look at the goddamn warranty
asshole! That’s what I told him. Exactly what I fucking told
him.”

Andrew had sat and nodded, remembering the image
of Barry Blackwood’s palm on the back of Sally’s head. He’d
followed them over a mile and finally watched as they parked in
front of Barry’s parent’s ten thousand square foot house. He
watched in horror and a strange delight as Sally’s brunette head
went up and down. He agreed with himself that is was more than just
a wee bit creepy to follow them around. And, after masturbating,
sitting right there watching that patch of brown go up and down; he
knew he probably should seek help. The only help he ever found was
in the bottle of his new best friend, Jimmy Bean and games of beer
pong at Randy's home while his mom and dad were gone out of town;
he developed a keen skill for a winning beer pong.

But he pushed on, day in and day out, always
telling himself, “Its OK. Everything is going to be OK.” It became
his slogan. His only way of holding onto his sanity. While he
showered, “Its OK. Everything is going to be OK.” While he used the
toilet in the morning, “Its OK. Everything is going to be OK.”

Back then,
sitting on the floor of Tommy’s greasy garage, he said softly in
his mind,
its OK. Everything is going to be OK
.
Then Tommy was gone and so was the garage, the florescent
lights, and the cold concrete floor. Now the cackle of lightening,
mad thunder, and hard rain poured over his body. The old woman was
still silent, accept for the occasional grunt as she jerked him
along down what now felt like a well beaten path. Her dark shadowed
crept along the trees. “Almost there boy. Oh yeah. Almost
there.”

Andrew suddenly realized everything's not gonna
be alright.

13

Andrew forced himself to turn onto his back; then
pushed his chin against his chest and looked at his strapped down
body. The ties were nylon and clicked tightly around him with metal
buckles. The sled itself was red. He wiggled a little. Then his
heart started to pump. His mind cleared completely and for the
first time since this woman entered his life, he was fully aware
that she intended to kill him. Not just kill him, but make him
scream and suffer. Sweat pushed out of his forehead in large
droplets. Sally was dead. Tommy was dead. Barry Blackwood’s huge
cock was dead. And he was about to be dead to, if he didn’t find a
way out of this. He forced himself to breath slowly, one long
breath at a time, then said in a low whisper: “It’s OK. Everything
is going to be OK.”

Where had she come from? How did this happen?
His mind was leaping from one end to the other trying to figure out
how in god’s name this was happening. Where was Candy? Where was
Jack? Where in Christ’s name was this woman taking him? The
questions spilled over into desperate tears. He cried like a
helpless child. Sally was in those tears somewhere, dripping down
to the earth. So was Papa and the girls. Jack. Jody. Every person
he’d ever loved and cared about flowed out of his eyes now. His
last gift to the world was a tearful plea: “Let em be OK. All of
them. Let em be OK. Papa. Candy. Jack. Jody. Oh and you Sally. I
miss you!” He burst into pathetic sobs, causing snot to drip from
his nose. “Oh Sally I loved you! I love you my queen!”