Humanity's Death: A Zombie Epic (27 page)

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 spoiled
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.

Always remember, good people don’t die, they
resurrect
.

Just then, a loud crack came from behind
her—

She tried to turn around—

Blackness.

Chapter Eleven:
Allies

1

Okona walked out of the tree line holding a long
stick with a white flag. He silently prayed to himself that he
wasn't about to get shot for a delusion or a hallucination. They
had tracked Duras and his men, silently and stealthily.

“We could kill him right now. Be done with it!
This is fucking madness!” Tasha had said as they moved through the
trees. “Over a fucking vision?”