Genesis Virus

by Pinto, Daniel

  The Boss pats Phillip on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Phillip slaps his hand away. “Don’t.”

  The Boss says. “Relax. I’m not trying to fuck you.”

  “What do you want now?”

  The Boss dusts his hands off. “One of my men hasn’t checked-in in a few days. The rain has finally past. Accompany me to check it out.” Said like a request, but is a clear-cut demand.

  Phillip takes in the sunset. “If we don’t make it back in time, I’ll never see my daughter again.”

  “Then we should get going.” The Boss slams the hood.

  On the road, the Boss is holding the window panel. “Try not to hit every bump.” There is a green flash on the horizon and nothing else for miles. “Keep going that way.”

  The Jeep’s high beams flicker on and the Boss is squinting in the passenger seat with his hands on the glove compartment. “Phillip lets turn back.”

  Phillip puts the car in park and cranks his window up. He feels silly afterwards because the Jeep is a soft top.

  “What’s that?” The Boss opens his door wide and continues to look in the dark as if an optical illusion image will form if he stares long enough without blinking, finally says, “stay with the car,” stepping further away from the Jeep.

  “My ass.” Phillip keeps the engine running, he closes his door without a sound and joins the Boss, his meal ticket. Phillip moves horizontally, crossing his legs with each stride; his boots are wet and heavy. Gnats swarm in the headlight beams. The Boss is walking with his hands to his side and chin held high. Once the men step outside of the headlight coverage, the Boss raises a gun and his flashlight in opposing hands; Phillip switches the thin flashlight on, Duck-taped to his gun, holds a knife in his free hand and moves against the Boss’s back. Post-rain mosquitos feast on the men’s shield-less skin. The air is stuffy and the ground loose.

  The Boss stops. “It’s so dark, we could be walking in a mansion on a moon for all we know.”

  Phillip whispers. “What did you see?” All this for one guy.

  The Boss swallows hard. “I heard some-”

  Something jumps between the men knocking them both to the ground; the man has one eye, bites on his thighs, and blood over the rest of his face. Phillip swings the gun and fires, the Boss shoulder bumps him to the ground, and the light radiates the man’s face for a split second. The man uses his stomach to produce a guttural croak. “Run.” Then flaps back to the mud. It’s the young man who looks like David, who the Boss was speaking to on Phillip’s first day on the outside. Now, the real reason, we’re out here, for the Boss’s surrogate nephew.

  The Boss scoops up the man with two hands and positions him over one shoulder and runs for the Jeep.

  Phillip feels the ground rumble, his heart is in his throat, he grabs the gun and rolls under the small cliff’s undergrove. Zombies run and jump over it like antelope, burying Phillip deep in soft dirt and worms. He’s motionless in the shallow grave like a corpse, waiting for a zombie to make the first move. The mud coating is cold, but due to his massive body heat, it dries and cracks like oven cooked brownies on his skin.

  The earth tremors subside. Phillip blasts through the dirt like a rocket. He rather be eaten than buried alive. He runs forward into darkness. My way home. He fires a single shot into the air. An idle zombie is standing next to him, appearing instantaneously as if from another dimension. Phillip sticks his fingers inside the roof of the zombie’s mouth and thrusts his hand up and out of the zombie’s face, taking teeth, a nose, and an eye out. He rips the flashlight off the gun, wipes the lens clean, and runs further away from where the Jeep was. It’s nowhere to be found. He clears the mud packed deep in his ears, the night gets louder.

  Ten minutes later, he can no longer run and is dragging his legs one at a time in the thick mud with his mouth hanging open. Matted grass and mud soup pulls his body down harder with each tug. Is this the end or the beginning?

  His legs are pencil lead covered in a cast of a three-inch coating of mud and grass sludge. The ground has a manure viscosity. It couldn’t be…either way, I’m knee deep in shit. Body submerges for a stretch of time.

  Falling over after each step, his shoulders are tired from absorbing the shock of catching himself. He can hear smacking and splashing when he stops to catch his breath. They don’t get tired, fuck…but are fragile, keep moving. His stick-cane sinks deeper snapping into two; his knees buckle, bringing him down to a pool of water. He swallows a few cups of brown water and shoots it out like a spitting cobra. The mud on his face has solidified into one expression. Tired.

  He crawls up and out of the puddle grasping at straws. Mud is seeping out of his boots and the cold air is freezing his lungs. He stumbles forward focusing on the stars, not what’s behind him. The lion’s heart, Regulus star.

  If you stop and shoot, you might as well shoot yourself in the face. Off in the distance, light bugs blink on and off. Nature’s Morse Code for: No one is coming to save you.

  A zombie grabs both of Phillip’s shoulders and that puts a fire in his belly, he drags the zombie forward like a scarecrow made of straw with its legs flapping in the wind. The zombie slips and falls face first with mud down to its throat. Phillip is dragging one leg through the mud like a stroke victim. He fights the urge to yell in frustration. He knows the Boss is not coming back for him, so he continues to press forward through the endless hall of dark doors. The Boss is allowing me to kill myself.

  The ground is somewhat firmer, Phillip stops to catch his breath and his next step makes him sway forward. Afraid to turn around, but does so with the grace of a music box dancer.

  As far as the flashlight reaches, he sees over two dozen zombies in thick morass mud, some stuck, some standing still on one leg like flamingoes, some crawling with no legs and the rest are moving forward in a methodical rate for a sound long forgotten and felt. The human heart beat, a ticking clock for them to synchronize with.

  Phillip points the gun at the toiling zombies with his finger on the trigger, his hand wobbles. All the zombies have dead branches piecing through their bodies like the Wound Man illustration incarnate. He ejects the clip, pulls the slide back, and puts the gun and clip in his two front pockets to reduce the chances of mud clogging it. The mud on his face is cracking like cheap paint, revealing the old ugly history underneath.

  Something swishes from behind his legs, keeps moving, then sharply taps his back. He hastily turns to catch his sneaky attacker, falls, then feels quick thrusts to the stomach and gusts of wind up his nose. He grabs whatever it is by its long neck and stabs it in the belly, returning the favor, killing the limpkin, the crying bird. He tosses the bloody limp body to the zombies.

  His path has lead him to a drop off, there’s no turning back and now it makes perfect sense why no one was in front of him. He knows what he has to do, but stands still like the duty-bound zombies, watching them without pity or hate. They have a job to do and so does he. Phillip takes in a deep breath, steps down the steep hill, once he does, he has to keep running forward because it feels like he’s falling forever into a black hole and must keep moving on its accretion disk to stay upright. He feels weightless running down the hill with his arms waving in the air trying to balance himself, his heels skate throughout on the drought-ridden slope. Then his ankles twist and his legs cross each other, and the built-up forward momentum spins him in the air like a beach ball. Each of his shoulders have a agonizing turn, slamming into the rock bottom, there’s no trees to hold onto or rocks big enough to kill him, there’s only pain that has to be endured. He misses the everlasting mud field.

  He spits out mud, awaken by the crashing thumps encircling him. Rolls to the side and hears whining from a child lost in the dark. Unbeknownst to Phillip, he’s resting on a zombie’s back, who’s sinking a foot into the chunky mud. Phillip shakes as he stands up like a man changing a light bulb with the zombie as the support ladder; he jumps as far as he can and tumbles. He finds his star and
adjusts his course. Phillip jogs in the dark with the flashlight in his hand like a baton. These things are not attracted to light, that would be stupid.

  He sees two long lights ascending the hill like gigantic tusks cutting the night sky; he jumps and waves his arms like a cheerleader on steroids, addicted to the light. The Jeep sits on the hill, watching him jump higher with each jump as he runs towards it. Laughing and toying with him. He advances on heavy feet, with one hand behind him holding back death.

  Fuck this, nobody makes it. He points the gun at the Jeep and fires a shot, hitting the windshield. The Jeep descends the hill. Phillip stands squeezing the gun with both hands and the Jeep is gaining speed. Round 2 in the game of chicken for Phillip, first was the chopper. He can live with 50-50 odds. The hyperreal Jeep crosses the point of no return. Simulated humans at his back loving the grinding of mud. Phillip turns and runs back to avoid the drifting Jeep, knocking over zombies, bodies snap off, leaving knees in the ground. The Jeep slides left for a while then backwards and into a full circle around Phillip, he jumps to the side, narrowing escaping a tire to the mouth. A field of zombies slows the Jeep down like a line of pylons. Detached moaning heads swallow enough mud to seep out of their ears.

  The Jeep is stalling and the horn performs a minute-long belch.

  Phillip points the gun in the window opening, picks up the Boss’s head from the steering wheel and pushes him back with the gun in his face. His eyes are groggy.

  The Boss says. “I didn’t see you until I heard a gunshot…get in or shoot.” Phillip jumps down from the Jeep and gets to the other side.

  He opens the door. “Where’d the other guy go?”

  The Boss says. “He didn’t make it.”

  “Get Down.” The Boss shoots the assault rifle, hitting two zombies; Phillip runs for the hood, slamming his hand on it giving the dead battery a jumpstart. The back tires spin in place in the muddy treadmill. Music to zombie ears. The gas pedal is hitting the floor; Phillip pulls himself up by the windshield wipers and bangs on the glass.

  The Boss looks into the steering wheel. “Trying.”

  Phillip sits on the hood and fires at the zombies scratching the headlights. Then rolls off the hood, runs to the back of the Jeep keeping his hand on the car. He pushes on the right corner, sinking into the mud, up to his shins. His hands are slipping off the side. Zombies are calm in the dark in front of the Jeep, teleporting from the depths of the unknown from outer space into the radius of the only light for miles. Blobs of flesh held together by layers of mud, lathered with blood. Phillip holds his breath and pushes, his head feels tight with pressure and blood runs from his nose as he tries to lift the car like a World’s Strongman. Only an exercise in futility if one doesn’t try.

  The Boss steps out of the car and fires at the seven zombies dragging their legs in the bottomless mud. Empty. The story of his life. He angles the assault rifle on the gas pedal and runs to the back left side. He pushes and leans his back against the Jeep and walks in place; Phillip’s facing the Jeep and is rocking back and forth, amassing torque. “Fuck this mud.”

  They can hear more zombies all around them, groaning and splashing, but they have not come out of the dark yet. If the men could see the breath of the dead, it would be a low fog. They are taking their time to unleash their stolen humanity on the men. Imagination and anticipation eat at the psyche worst than reality.

  “The Jeep’s engine is going to overheat.” The Boss mimics Phillip; still the Jeep does not budge from its Gordian knot. The Boss kicks into the bumper, “fuck this mud,” he’s breathing hard with his hand over his mouth as he wipes the mud from his eyes.

  Phillip steps into his face. “Lets leave it.”

  The overweening Boss says. “I won’t let mud kill me, copy me.” The Jeep’s tarp hood is missing. He stands on the bumper wrapping his arm around the frame bars and the Boss kicks down at the bumper with the rest of his might. Phillip’s sticking to his original game plan.

  The Boss says. “Watch it.”

  Phillip grabs the zombie with two hands, one hand on the neck, and the other hand gripping the hair. He then shoves the face into the tire; he moves his face to the side and feels chunks of skull in his shirt. The Boss jumps in the air and lands in the mud; the bumper splits into two. He jiggers a piece by his tire and tries to scuttle to put the other in place when a zombie reaches for him. He falls to mud, the zombie sticks his face into the Jeep’s backseat, the Boss gets up and hits the zombie behind the head with the bumper.

  The men are both pushing in sync in a dapple of light, feet grubbing deeper. Nothing.

  Phillip says. “Stop fucking around and push.”

  The Boss ignores Phillip’s blaming. “Wait. On three. One. Two. Three.”

  Palms of mud smear across the back window like black blood under the pale moonlight. Both men ram their shoulders into the Jeep and march in place with high knees. “Again.”

  The vehicle is ginormous in their hands like a tricycle in an infant’s fist.

  In the zenith of their desperation. Mud spins into their faces and the Jeep pulls away and off to the left. It’s a floating gondola in a sea of grime.

  Phillip jumps out of the mud as if it’s the banks of the ocean and runs for the gliding Jeep. He sees the Boss’s face on the ground; the red taillights make him look like he is covered in blood. Moonlighting zombies follow the Jeep and approach from behind the Boss in a pylon surge.

  Phillip grabs the Boss’s hand and jerks him like a sled from the mud to the swaths of grass. You can pull a man to safety, but you can’t give him the will to live. Phillip doesn’t say anything as he lets go and runs for the shrinking red taillights on the drifting Jeep.

  5

  A convivial Thaddeus says. “I had to work hard all day to support my cheating wife’s ass, but other than that she was fantastic...” Matthew and Thaddeus are on the opposite sides of the doorway to the camp reclining with their arms crossed. Thaddeus is about to say the same dirty joke, but is stopped mid- syllable by Matthew. “Heads up.”

  Two people are approaching covered in dry and crackling mud over their entire bodies except for the whites of their eyes.

  Thaddeus points his rifle. “Stop walking.”

  The Boss tells Matthew. “The Jeep broke down miles back.”

  Thaddeus says. “I was getting the men ready to go find you.”

  Thaddeus and Matthew run into the camp leaving the Boss outside.

  Phillip tells the Boss. “We could have probably used those dead bodies to help us with traction. Save us from a helluva lot of trouble.”

  The Boss says. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Thanks for helping me. You didn’t have to.”

  “Neither did you.”

  The Boss walks into camp. “I’ll send for Abigail. It’s a beautiful morning, it shouldn’t be wasted.”

  Phillip sits on the ground, frazzled, looking at the entrance. “I’ll be right here.” Glad to be no longer an ant stuck in a tub of Jell-O. His body is here, but his mind is still out there in the dark, trying to piece the night event together with fuzzy flash cards as memories.

  6

  A beautiful woman walks into a beautiful house on a beautiful afternoon. She reapplies her red lipstick in her reflection off the aquarium glass before she gingerly glides up the spiral staircase in her white blouse and black stiletto heels. Smelling of expensive perfume. Hope in a bottle. The hallway is as silent as midnight, a glimmer of light radiates from the slight opening of the bedroom door in the dark hallway. She nudges it open a bit with her painted toes.

  Her husband Thaddeus is on the corner of their king sized bed with his head down and with his back towards her. The wife puts her soft palm over her mouth and tiptoes a few steps. Strewn about the room are articles of clothing. Unfamiliar.

  Another women is on her knees, donning the wife’s white sheer night gown and is caressing Thaddeus’s manhood between her lurid hotpink lips. Her dark eye-shadowed eyes are closed and her hand is be
tween her thighs. The wife smacks the phone out of Thaddeus’s hand, he looks up like a man that wants to crawl out of his skin, she slaps his startled face to the side.

  The wife looks at the woman’s big breasts. “I can tell why you like this one.”

  The wife pulls the woman by her blonde ponytail off the floor. “Get the fuck out of my house before I kill you, homewrecking whore.”

  The bodacious woman gathers her belongings in her head, but doesn’t moving an inch, says, “I thought he was single, calm down lady,” then sheepishly walks pass the wife. Who has a withering stare tracking her every move. Wife kicks her in the bare ass, “I said get the fuck out. Bitch.”

  Thaddeus stands up in his birthday suit, pointing at his woman friend without his hands. “Now that’s not called for. We’re adults.”

  The other woman turns around with an angry face and her hand in the air preparing to slap the wife. Instead, the wife grabs her by the wrist and throat and slams her into the closet door. Both women’s faces are cherry red. “Let go of me, you crazy bitch.”

  Thaddeus grabs and pins his wife’s arms behind her and he tells the other woman. “You better run.”

  Still in Thaddeus’s embrace, the wife swings her pantyhose legs upwards and scratches the woman’s backside with her heels. The shoes fly off and ricochet on the wall near the door as the skittish woman bustles through the doorway. “Let me go.”

  The front door slams shut and Thaddeus says in a gruff voice. “If I let you go, are you going to calm down?”

  She relaxes her body and uses a bedtime story tone, total opposite of his rough words. “I’m better.” He lowers her down with the utmost care. She lets out a sigh, turns, and slugs him in his glum mouth. “Don’t ever touch me.” He falls back to the bed and bounces to the hardwood floor, there is a hard thump.