Insanity

by A. R. Braun

  I must have been mad-dog tired to have slept for twenty-four hours. I wake up one morning and the monsters are eating my family. Then I wake up the next day watching them eat Rick. This morning will make it three days.

  Her stomach growled.

  I’m so hungry I could eat a . . . oh, never mind.

  Jenna looked around, making sure no Annunaki warriors lurked close by. She raided the vending machines. She climbed into Rick’s truck and ate as she drove.

  When she looked up, she saw an amazing sight. The Annunaki’s spacecrafts were leaving, heading into the star-filled sky.

  “Oh thank God, or the council of worlds . . . or whoever.”

  Not knowing what she was doing, she drove back to her hometown.

  ***

  Jenna climbed out of the truck. She wanted to go back to her house, but what was the use? Her family was dead, and the memories there would not be good ones.

  What she saw made her choke on her spit.

  From what she could see, Jenna realized she was the sole survivor. Everywhere she looked, severed arms and legs covered with dried blood littered the ground. Beetles and cockroaches crawled all over the limbs. So they did leave behind some pieces of meat. They probably hadn’t been able to fit the spare parts of all of humanity into their spaceships.

  In one gutter, she found the severed head of a man. Ants squirmed all over it. Jenna bent over and puked until she dry-heaved, struggling to breath. For a few seconds, she thought she’d choke on the vomit. Finally, the asphyxia abated, and she greedily sucked air into her lungs.

  Apparently, the convicts had left with the Annunaki, because she didn’t see any orange jumpsuits.

  Then she noticed the giant droppings scattered here and there, like huge clogs of dirt. Reeking huge clogs of dirt. The Annunaki had used the landscape as a toilet. The putrid stench made her gag. Sporadically, human eyes stuck out of the stools like corn in human shit.

  Jenna gagged and retched.

  She walked the other streets of her hometown, but saw the same thing everywhere she went.

  “Hello?” she yelled. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  Hellishly, she didn’t find anyone.

  ***

  Jenna travelled to more towns, noticing the gas needle was just above the empty mark. She found the same thing no matter where she went.

  I can’t be the only one left. I couldn’t stand it! What about those people in boats on the sea? What about the ones doing research in the Antarctic? What about the missionaries in places so remote only tribes live there?

  But it looked like a solo mission to her.

  Shaking, crying, PANICKING, she screamed into the night. After ten minutes, she lost control of her nerves. Racing thoughts ensued, making her pace the town. Growing physically weary, she sat on a bus bench but rocked back and forth like a mental patient. Soon, Jenna stood up and paced again.

  After seeing endless severed limbs and realizing this would be her reality . . .

  (forever)

  . . . her mind couldn’t take any more. She ran to the truck, climbed in, started the engine, and put the pedal to the floor, driving toward a brick wall of a business downtown.

  Just before Jenna hit the wall, she saw two army trucks advancing out of the corner of her eye. They’d come to rescue her, but they were too late.

  Jenna blinked. “Nooooooooooooooo!”

  You’ll Be Their Food

  Mowquakwa, Illinois, 2015.

  Goddamn bird flu.

  I’d read about it at the library and seen reports on television. The pestilence spoken of in Bible prophecy was here. The H5N1 avian bird flu crowded the hospitals so that doctors sneaked out before they went crazy. It also jammed up the expressways so people couldn’t get out of the city when the gangs took over and ransacked houses or impersonated the National Guard to steal others’ vehicles.

  Like you, my wife and I didn’t believe it could happen.

  We were wrong.

  A plague in every generation: in 1918, the H1N1 influenza A virus killed fifteen to 100 million people around the globe. In fact, as I studied the subject further, I found that some kind of plague kills about as many people once every century. Go back to the black plague and research it.

  Unfortunately, we were due. This is my story, which will soon be yours.

  ***

  I bent over my wife, Millie, who’d been sick in bed for three days now. She looked peaceful as she slept. Though Millie had packed on quite a few pounds over the years and her red hair had been streaked with gray, she’d given me her best, whether it was cooking, support, or lovemaking. Bending over to kiss her, I wondered why her chest wasn’t rising and falling.

  Cold lips kissed back. Panic swept through my mind like a raging inferno, and I whimpered as I checked her pulse.

  She was gone. “No! Not my sweet Millie. No!”

  I broke down crying. Sobbing into her bosom, all hope abandoned me. Who else would accept the real me and take care of this wretch? I’d never love another. I rose and walked like a zombie to my side of the bed and reached into the dresser. I withdrew my pistol and traipsed into the living room, then dropped into the easy chair.

  The cold and fever had turned into H5N1, and my stomach was so queasy I bounded up and ran for the bathroom. Not making it, I spewed vomit into the garbage can in the kitchen, also splattering yellow and green gunk on the tile floor.

  “Oh no,” I cried while trying to catch my breath. “This can’t be happening.”

  Falling into my easy chair, I couldn’t just wait for the disease to kill me. No life waited without my sweet Millie. The company of my dog and her cat didn’t cut it. Why wait for the pestilence to slowly rot away my insides?

  Trembling, I put the barrel of the pistol to my head and shot myself.

  Unbearable spikes of pain ruined me, and my body went stiff. I couldn’t move my digits anymore or even blink. My heart didn’t beat in my ears, my bowels gave way, I smelled my piss and shit.

  Rancid and squishy, that.

  If I could’ve puked, I would have. Knowing death had claimed me, my mind wondered why my spirit didn’t leave the living room. The problem was that my soul didn’t immediately take flight when I died. A few minutes later, I wasn’t outside of my frame or fading to black.

  Fear with tentacles writhed through me when the cat stalked in.

  My wife’s Persian long-hair fluttered around the house. I could still feel the cushion of the easy chair underneath me and heard the TV droning in the corner. Prissy jumped onto my lap, and I panicked.

  What if the pets ate me?

  The sun’s rays poured through the window and the blinds, making me want to sweat—though I couldn’t—and leaving lines of light on the carpet. Prissy meowed at me, sniffing my nose. She reared her head back and hissed.

  Oh, no! Why can’t I go to the afterlife?

  Animal lovers considered mammals incapable of evil. They didn’t know Prissy. She pissed and shat on the floor when I didn’t dole out the kind of cat food she wanted, and when she didn’t think my wife paid her enough attention, wailing ensued until she got it. Prissy had scratched me as I’d slept and while I’d made love to Millie. What would prevent her from doing so now?

  I felt her soft slight weight shift on my lap as she stood up, then bared her claws. Oh, no, I can’t fight back! Please God, let my daughter and son come over and find me! She swiped at my face a couple of times and then backed away a bit in a crouch with her ears tucked, ready to run if I awoke. When Prissy saw I was defenseless, she clawed my cheeks a couple more times.

  The feline lapped up the blood.

  No feeling was worse than this. If I could’ve managed goose bumps, I would have. Someone walked over my grave. Or, better put, I wasn’t even lucky enough to lay in a grave. Prissy lapped up my life juice as if it was milk.

  She went after my left eye.

  Somebody stop her!

  At first, she just licked my eyeball. I wished I could’ve
shut my eyes and knocked her onto the floor, for the tickling and stinging sensations were unbearable.

  Flashing her fangs, she hissed again and spat.

  Her cat never liked me. Millie had owned Prissy for five years before we’d met. Now a finicky eight-year-old, her hatred for me had never softened. She’d run out of the room whenever I’d come in.

  Prissy lunged with lightning speed.

  She dug her sharp teeth into my eye and pulled, tearing it out. A sickening, squishing sound followed—too much for my ears to bear. If I could’ve screamed, I would have shrieked. The pain was akin to a third degree burn, the kind that makes you pace the room with your mind on fire until it subsides. She masticated the orb as if it was a delicacy.

  God, please, take me and stop the pain.

  No God came as I was forced to watch Prissy gulp it down. She licked her lips. With that, she jumped down and ran into the other room.

  That was nothing compared to when Killer ran in, his tongue wagging out of his mouth, a fully grown black lab. He barked and skidded to a halt right in front of me, cocking his head while saliva dripped from his mouth and fell onto the carpet.

  Oh, fuck me running and hurdling! When will I lose consciousness?

  Killer whined, stretched out on the floor, and put his head over his paws, looking up at me surreptitiously. Abruptly, he bounded up and went in for a closer look. He sniffed my face. The disgusting, putrid breath assaulted me as he licked me with that sandpaper tongue.

  Oh, gross, he won’t stop! Not the blood coming out of my eye socket!

  This brought more pain than I could comprehend. My pickle didn’t end there, however; Killer spotted the side of my head where I’d blown my brains out. When he moved around to the right side of the chair, I groaned inwardly with every fiber of my being.

  Somebody help me! He’s licking my death wound!

  With every swipe of his grating tongue, I winced inside, stabbing pain jabbing me with no remorse. And then . . . oh, dear Lord, then . . . he. . . .

  Ah, no! He’s biting my brains and tugging them out!

  I wanted to crawl out of my skin—that’s the only way to describe the agony. The impasse forced on me by that hound of hell brought explosions of hurt, for after he’d chewed up the parts of my brain that had leaked out, he pulled out the rest.

  How can I think if he’s eating my mind away? Good God, how am I still conscious?

  I started to wonder if this was hell. I’d never been active in the church Millie had dragged me to, usually sleeping through the services and never taking part in volunteer work. Perhaps this was what became of selfish people instead of fire and brimstone, because—as I mentioned before—the pain was congruous to just that: a burning sizzle of torment.

  Killer pulled back and sat in front of me, loudly chomping the brains, knocking his big teeth together and then licking his chops. Killer, you cocksucking son of a bitch. I would’ve buried you in the backyard, not eaten you. The pistol I clutched in my right hand still held five rounds, and if I could’ve, I would have emptied the remaining bullets into the dog and the cat next time they dared to storm into the room. When Killer’s crimson chin was black again, he made his exodus.

  I waited in my solitary Hades, never feeling more alone as I watched day turn to dusk. The only light was the television, playing one of those stupid dance shows I would’ve turned off if I was still alive. That’s what had become of me—left staring at the wall—for the picture from the TV loomed in the corner of my left eye.

  Panic took me like a serial killer.

  A spider climbed close to my eye. Not a wan one that scared only women and children, but a daddy-longlegs. Yet no creature was innocuous to me now. It wasn’t like I didn’t know it was coming; I’d felt it crawl up my bare arm. The arachnid tickled my eyeball as it climbed over it to block my sight.

  Oh, shit! I don’t want to know what those things do when I sleep!

  It pulled from my eye and bored underneath it! Pain like stick pins assaulted me. The torture was akin to what the enemy would perpetuate if I was a prisoner of war.

  The cat trotted in.

  Oh, no!

  Prissy jumped onto my lap, mewling for dinner. Well, I was it. I’d become their food, insanely providing for them one last time, and not in the way I wanted!

  The feline swiped at my face after the spider worked its way out of my eye and crawled up my nose. The cat’s claw caught on my iris, making the erupting sensation of agony worse than belief. I could hear the dreaded hell cat chew the other eyeball. Now I sat blind as chilled blood dripped down my cheek.

  The spider explored—the tickling sensation even worse than when my big sister had inflicted her miasma on me when I was a lad. It feathered through my private spaces and worked its way onto my tongue.

  Ah! Goddamn you, Lord of cruelty! Will you ever take me home?

  The prickling sensation of the spider crawling out of my mouth was followed by the cat sinking her fangs into my maw as she went for another snack. Cold blood trickled down my chin after Prissy yanked off part of my bottom lip and pitter-pattered away.

  Oh God, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!

  It didn’t stop. Killer stomped in and dined on more leaking gray matter. The canine tugged so hard my head slumped to the right. He toppled me from the chair and onto the floor. Killer chomped more brains until none remained, then skulked off.

  How I wished I’d been active in that church now.

  I knew the dead of night had fallen, for crickets chirped outside my window, and with the evening hours came insects. I hadn’t cleaned up after my last supper or taken the trash out. I couldn’t see what kind of bugs—my guess was cockroaches—but feelers and myriads of little legs went into my pants, up my ass, and even into my dickhole. The pinches of punishment didn’t stop. Somebody help me! I can’t even sleep! The critters forced their hard shells into my nut-sack . . . and they ate, oh, God, they ate away my sperm! Stinging pain, like someone poking around with a rusty nail, had its way with me.

  Yes, I’m quite sure this is hell. I think it’ll take a long time for the animals and the insects to consume every ounce of meat from my bones.

  I think it’ll take an eternity.

  Economic Crash

  The economy crashing hit me the hardest. Living in a hickabilly village called Gooney Hill—in a shack—I was on Social Security and had been working a part-time job, but the deficit wiped it out. It was hard enough for a thirty-year-old to find work before. I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from and started doing odd jobs, a tricky thing after losing my truck. It wasn’t very long before my interest in that declined, looking like a gimp shuffling to the other shacks with my window-washing bucket.

  I didn’t talk like Larry the Cable Guy as most of the residents of this village did, so I was able to bag a highfalutin’ woman. My twenty-nine-year-old wife, Hayley—blond, slim, and way out of my league—threatened to leave me. Thank God we didn’t have children. I didn’t want to bring kids into hell-on-earth.

  First was the market bubble, where the prices of stocks exceeded the present value of future income. Most people bought the assets, hoping to sell them for more than they were worth instead of buying them for the revenue they’d generate. Second came the bank run—a sudden rush of withdrawals as the economy went deeper into crisis. Since banks lent out most of their money from deposits—which had severely declined—it became difficult for them to pay back all the deposits people demanded. Third, the stock market crashed. Folks went on buying stocks only because they expected others to buy. Most quit purchasing, and when large numbers of people decided to sell, the price of stocks plummeted. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 came to 2017. Panic ensued.

  Last, the banks went bankrupt. The infamy existed worldwide. When the banks crashed, I lost my disability check and had nothing.

  I also lost control.

  ***

  Hayley blanched as she walked over and put her hands on her hips. �
��What are you doing?”

  “I’m packing my Glock Nine and some clothes and amenities. We’re hitting the road.” The gun had been an under-the-table gift from my father when I’d turned twenty-one. I shot at a target in the backyard regularly.

  She furrowed her brow. “What? The hell you mean, ‘hitting the road’?”

  “Well we can’t stay here! The banks crashed, remember? We can’t pay the rent anymore.”

  She chewed a nail. “We’ll . . .” Her eyes went wide. “. . . borrow the rent from my mom and dad.”

  I took her by the arms, tempted to shake her like a murderer before the first strike. “You don’t get it, do you? Your parents’ bank crashed, too! It’s every man for himself, and it’s dangerous out there. Pack only the bare essentials and bring the tent you used on vacations with your mom and dad. Thank God it’s warm outside.”

  She trembled as she paced back and forth.

  “Do as I say!” I reiterated.

  Hayley traipsed into the bedroom on wobbly legs. I hated to see her like that, but she needed to sniff the java. I walked into the bathroom to check my appearance—God knew why—and my short brown hair lay limply around my head, the bangs getting into my eyes. I flicked the hair back.

  Better get used to long hair. Soon, I’ll look like I did when I was a teenager.

  My thick cheeks and dimpled chin made me look harder than I was. My blue eyes were dark as if I’d morphed into Mr. Hyde, and my complexion had become speckled from taking that damned anti-psychotic.

  That won’t be a problem anymore. I’ve been planning to get off the shit anyway. I hope I don’t lose my mind.

  My black T-shirt read YOU CAN’T READ, SO DON’T BOTHER backwards in the reflection, but it accentuated my blue jeans. All I needed was some leather, and I could’ve been an outlaw biker, which made sense now.

  Hayley came up behind me, putting her soft and warm hands on my shoulders and looking in the mirror. The scent of her Cherry Vanilla perfume wafted over to me. Her soft breasts poked at my back.

  “What are we gonna do, Spooky Tooth?” she asked.