Humanity's Death: A Zombie Epic (13 page)

(
murderer!
)

(
babykiller!
)

The soldiers were now sliding the pontoon on the
shore. They looked to be talking about trying to secure it to the
top of the Humvee. Candy aimed her revolver for one of their heads.
Then the crackle a radio on one of their belts caused her to stay
her trigger finger.

The man turned and looked in her general
direction.

She didn't budge.

He was walking casually closer, speaking loudly
into the radio. "A hell of a find, Sarge! A Humvee and a pontoon
boat... Nope. I don't see em... Wait a second...holy shit!"

The rain had washed away some of her tracks and
the drag marks from Andrews final ride. But, now, the radio man
spotted them; then he spotted her.

Her first bullet split Radio Man's head. The two
other had stayed at the Humvee and turned fast, almost fast enough.
Her second bullet burst a hole through the next soldiers right eye,
exited through the back of his skull and splattered his buddy red.
The man fell backwards and took cover on the other side of the
Humvee.

The radio crackled alive on the ground with
questions. What is your situation? Do you copy? Hello? Tom, are you
there!"

The man jumped up from the other side and
sprayed an erratic spurt of bullets from his rifle; the hot lead
zipped passed Candy, leaving her unscathed. “Come out, come out,
wherever you are.” Candy said in a soft monotone as she entered the
clearing, making her way to the Hummer.

A wild voice came from the other side of the
Jeep. “You just fucked up! I mean, you just fucked up big! You go
any idea who you messin with!”

Candy squatted down and stared under the Hummer.
The man may be jacked up and feeling strong; but that bear
intelligence just failed him. She picked up Radio Man's rifle, a
AR15 (seemed like everybody's carrying them these days), aimed it
deftly at the man's exposed ankle and fired. Hot blood shot from
his leg in a red spurt and he fell to the ground, dropping his
rifle, screaming. She now ran around the hummer, quickly walked up
to him, and kicked the rifle out of his reach. He was looking up at
her, his big bug eyes pulsing in his skull. “You going to regret
this, fucking bitch!” He spat at her. She smiled.

“You have clue what you just did? Who you just
fucking crossed? You red headed, stupid fucking cunt! The Militia
will have your fucking head in a goddam slin—”

She blew his brains out. The report of the rifle
echoed over the smoggy land, the hot humid air, and reverberated
over the black water. Somewhere a flock of birds took flight.

She examined
their uniforms. This was some new hell; this wasn't the City of God
guys. She was almost certain of that. They had a basic patch
stitched on their arms with skulls and rifles crossing each other
with only two words in bold capital lettering:
THE MILITIA
.

Chapter Five: Final Night in the Swamp

1

Darkness
surrounds Jack while a bar of swampy moon light drifting through an
open window streaks across his face. For a moment, he thinks he is
still unconscious. Slowly his nervous system reminds him of the
pain coursing through his body. The smell of infection is
nauseating. Breathing causes exhaustion, his eyes barely stay
open.
How
did this happen? What in god’s name was I thinking?
He thinks, gritting his teeth
in agony. Outside the world is dark, frogs are burping, and
something is moving. Where is she? It hurts so much. The rustles
grow louder and he realizes he hears footsteps. The door opens. For
a moment, he sees a dark and dead figure, full of ragged and
jaggedly sharp teeth standing in the doorway, staring at him, ready
to eat him in his oh so vulnerable condition. He welcomed it,
wanted it. He couldn’t kill himself properly, so let the dead man
standing in the darkened doorway do it for him.

But then the figure walked out of the dark
shadow and Candy’s face appeared. She was covered in blood, her
eyes exhausted with madness; a deep madness embedded inside her.
She mumbled something, as though she was talking to someone,
someone real. Jack saw nothing, just his cousin walking over to him
with a bag. A bag that turned out to be his savior.

She opened the bottle of antibiotics and fed
them to him, handing him a glass of water she’d left beside his bed
before she left, back when she was still Candy the Sheriff’s
deputy, or at least what little was left of that person. The police
uniform was now gone. The kind spirited blue eyes that once
sparkled were now cloudy and gray, an angry, tired mist surrounding
her pupils.

“
Candy…”
Jack’s voice croaked in pain, but he forced himself to continue:
“Where is
—
“

“Hes dead, Jack. Andrew’s dead.”

Jack said nothing. He was now not only in great
amounts of pain, but now shock had drove back into his mind. Dead?
Another one bites the dust. Just like that? Yep, just like that he
thought miserably. Nothing sacred left in this god forsaken land.
He felt the tears welling behind his eyes and didn't have the
strength to stop them. They gushed down his ripped face, stinging
like a bee stings.

“Open up, Jack. I found antibiotics and pain
pills.”

He did as she said. He swallowed the pills and
laid back down. He stared at the ceiling trying to remember how all
this had happened. Why had they ever left? This was all his fault,
he was sure of it. Did he want to know how? No. Yes. No. “How did
he die?”

“Not tonight Jack. I think we have more to worry
about than just those religious crazies now. I don’t know for sure,
but got a bad feeling about it. I need to lay down for a bit. We’ll
talk later.”

Jack watched her walk away and right before she
stepped out of the room, he once again saw her speaking to the
floor, as though someone (or someones) were standing their
listening and talking back. She’s lost her mind, that’s it. And
soon he would too.

Andrew. Gone. No. They are all dead. Only him
and Candy? It can’t be. How? Why? Only twenty-four hours ago,
they’d all been laughing together, hopeful for a better future in
spite of the worlds current condition. He thought of late night
sleep overs with Andrew. How he'd kept Andrew awake by poking him
with one of their grandfather's canes. He thought of the beach
trips. All the many and wonderful beach trips. Him, Andrew, and
Candy could barely sleep the night before, staying up late talking
about all the fun they would have. Was it really possible he was
dead? Not just Andrew, but Papa, and the girls to? All the good
times, all the memories now lost in the sands of time? How could
they be dead? It seemed like only yesterday that they'd been kids,
playing in their underwear, blankets tied around their necks and
flowing behind them like super hero capes. All the sandcastles they
built, then watched as the ocean swallow them. The sands of time.
The goddamn fucking sands of time. He thought of going out to
dinner, sun burned and happy. Papa's wild laughter. The whole
family together, smiling, laughing. Eating gator nuggets, drinking
sodas, and the loud and wonderful laughter, the laughter of
children, of carelessness and freedom—the sounds of the Old World.
The Dead World.

Hey Drew! Where you going? Can't be dead old
man! We still have too much to do. Got to get married, have babies,
and all that jazz. Come on now, Drew! Stop fucking around, and come
on back. We've got too much living to do, you know?

A strong wind suddenly shook the old shack
violently for a moment, and Jack thought it would cave right over,
like the big bad wolf was hoofing and puffing, and blowing his
house (his life, yes, his whole existence) down. Down for the
count, never to get up again. Down like Apollo Creed, and the world
was full of Clubber langs [what is this?] and big bad wolves, who
wanted nothing more than to destroy everything and everyone. Jack
was quite certain life had lost all meaning. He didn’t know that
something else was happening. A supernatural something. A ghostly
something. A call from beyond the grave. He had no idea that what
he’d seen Candy doing was not a sign of her losing her mind, but
instead, was the only chance of survival him (and anyone) truly
had. A dead hope from two little girls that had been eaten
alive.

2

Candy fell onto her queen bed, face first and closed
her eyes. She could smell Jody's odor on the side next to her. His
heavy indention still there. She fell into a troubled sleep. She
dreamed of horrible things. Wretched, bloody things. Jody screaming
and begging for help. Her girls being ripped into, gorged open;
Papa looking up at her with those dead, dreadfully scary eyes.
She'd put him down and buried their bodies; now in her dream, her
nightmare the bodies rose up and chased her. She ran and screamed;
they were going to catch her; she knew it. Then she was suddenly
back in that small shack where Andrew's body still laid; she saw
him looking up at her with is dead eyes. He spoke and blood spat
out of his mouth, but she could still hear his words. “Everything's
gonna be OK. Don't you worry, now.” But his face was melting; the
skin pouring off the bones in heavy and hot clumps; his eye balls
rolled out of his skull and fell to the floor, a bloody string was
still attached to them going leading up to is eye sockets; the eyes
themselves looked up at her and one of them winked.

A cold hand touched her shoulder. She jerked
around and saw Jody; he was bloated; his skin a dead purple and
blue; his tongue hung from his mouth, swollen and dripping blood.
His eyes stared at her and then burst with a bloody pop.

Her nightmare changed; she was now in her old
back yard. She stood at their grill. She wore Jody's old cooking
apron. Something was burning on the grill; she looked down and saw
that it was arms and legs; too small to be adult, and saw Tamby's
little blue bracelet, the one she got in her Christmas stocking one
year. Then all around her the yard was burning, their small cottage
caught fire, the windows bursting, scattering glass onto the
burning lawn. She became aware that the yard was filled with open
caskets, and now the bodies sat up like vampires waking just after
dusk. She saw her girls looking at her from the caskets, side by
side; Jody was a little further over to the right, looking at her;
Pap was cackling loudly; she saw Andrew sitting up in his, the fire
engulfing him.

They were
all screaming, “
Murderer! Babykiller! Murderer!
Babykiller
!”

Someone walked out of the burning house; it was
Jack; his face was mangled and burning; he held a pistol in his
hand, raised it to his head, and pulled the trigger; she watched,
frozen in nightmare's cold grasp, unable to move, unable to speak
or breath; Jack's head exploded in a flash of blood and skull; then
laughter; they were all laughing in their caskets; laughing at her
and pointing. “Join us! Join us! Join us!” They stared chanting
over and over; she still couldn't move; she wanted to scream but
noting would come out. “Join us! Join us! Join us!” She felt at
thought she was going to explode with madness; a raging insanity
was building in her brain like a cancerous tumor growing; she felt
it eating her sanity in thick gulps.

Her nightmare continued like that trough out the
night. She tossed and turned, sometimes screaming out loud; sweat
drenched the sheets under her. Beside her—

3

Her girls stood
as translucent, wavering figures. They watched her as she slept.
They didn’t disappear, instead, just stood there like timeless
statues of protection and wisdom. The past and future, time itself,
didn’t mean anything to them now. They saw the path they all would
take. The path Momma, Jack—and people they’d never met while still
alive—Duras, Okona… they could see slave girls, they could see a
woman… Mary Jane and another… Tasha. They saw them trapped and
scared, surrounded by evil men. Men doing drugs. Men holding out
their private parts. The men they knew they were here to stop.
Candy’s little girls didn’t know how they’d gotten here. They
couldn't see exact locations, streets, and cities; they could only
see the larger picture of what was coming, and even then only in
fast and strange images, sometimes names and faces. They couldn’t
remember what had happened. They didn’t remember the Plateye
creature. They didn’t remember Papa attacking them and how they
were too confused and scared to stop him. They didn’t remember the
pain of this old grimy hands ripping their stomachs open and the
blood spurting as he feasted on their guts. All they knew was that
here they were and here was their Mama, and here was a path they
had to take her on. They knew something else too… but it was more
of an instictional knowing, not anything they knew how to
conceptualize much less verbalize. Their was a power in them they
didn’t understand, but knew that it was important. A power of time.
The power of memory, at least the memory of others. And they could
sense
others
around
them, all over the place. Other dead people, other ghosts. Some
with happy motives, some neutral, others with a dark evil that
shadowed their minds from time to time, and caused them both to
shiver with a fear that no living creature could endure. A dead
fear. It was a hollow and and empty, except for a boiling rage that
echoed its hatred for all life. They knew it controlled… The
Mountain King. The man they knew they’d have to see destroyed, less
he destroy what is left of the people they loved. They saw the
path, but the path was by no means certain or without its traps set
along the way. They saw someone else, someone that didn’t answer to
anyone save for… Chaos. A lost soul filled with despicable hatred.
They could sense his sad spirit, but it was solely independent—a
spiritual wild card. They saw another man. He had a sweet soul. An
old soul. Pinky. Pinky and a Native American. They could see the
man called Duras and the man called Okona, and could feel the
hatred they shared of each other, but also the love that would
eventually bind them on the path being laid ahead. They saw the
bright eyes of children, hardened children, but living and
determined children none the less. They saw their part to play,
they felt the cool calm of the lead child, the brazen courage that
ran through all of them. It was pure…. The Mudcats… they were a
pure band of energy, a life force representing all that was good in
the world, a light shining bright, a beacon of hope in humanity’s
darkest of nights. They saw a confused and sexually deviant man. He
was a smart and conniving man. A man that preyed on innocence. He
sat beside the Mountain King, helping the dark forces that caused
them to shudder with cold and lifeless fear. While standing—if you
call it standing, more like floating, barely in the physical
world—above their sleeping mother, who had lost herself for a short
time; they were here to fix her, to bring her back onto the right
path, the path of decency and love. They were her conscience now,
her spiritual guide. But so many road blocks are set up on the
path, dangerous pitfalls with sinister men. They could see those
men. Men like the Corporal Mullinax, a dark soul of utmost
depravity. A drug and sex lusting maniac of the highest order and
one that controlled the dank souls of soldiers congregated in that
stadium of horror.