The Dead Won't Die

by Glass, J. B.

  That was on the day everything went trippin', and he'd felt pretty fucked up himself. Zombies and shit! What kind of crazy ass white people nonsense was that?

  Even through the headache and the cottonmouth, though, he knew what was jumpin' the fuck off. Knew it as soon as he saw on the TV all those crazy bitches runnin' out of that hospital at them reporters. Zombie time, baby! Dawn of the Dead and all that bad crazy shit. When there's no more room in hell, dead bitches will walk in West Louisville and nom on niggaz!!!

  He'd got on his cell right away. And of course nobody was answerin'. . All circuits busy, some shit like that. But his bike was out front and he wasn't too far from the projects apartment where they all lived. But he knew those crazy ass zombies was gonna try to bite on him and shit, so first he'd gone down to C-dogs bedroom. C-dog was out like a light with that li'l slut Toneesha snorin' next to him; they'd got through a lot of some pretty primo Jamaican the night before and probably weren't gonna be wakin' up for a few hours. But in the closet he found what he was lookin' for... C-dog never threw nothin' out.

  So it was that when he went out and got on his bike to pedal home, he had C-dog's old football helmet on his head, and was wearing three sweatshirts and two pair of sweatpants over his jeans, plus leather gloves. And weldin' goggles from when C-dog was takin' auto shop at Shawnee, before he dropped out.

  First couple of blocks had been okay. Crazy ass people in the street runnin and screaming and cars driving all over but he kept his eyes open and stayed out of trouble. Cut through parking lots and shit. Got within eyeshot of the apartment building before he saw his first group of what the General's crew would start calling geeks. Knew what they was soon as he spotted 'em, in those ripped up clothes with blood all over 'em, covered in bite marks, eyes rolling like a crazy dog's, screaming their damn fool heads off.

  He'd stood up on the pedals then and really gone batshit pumping away. Needed to beat them to the front door of the building and lock it behind him; if those freaks got inside, everybody was gonna die. He was figuring the apartment building could make a good fort... people would have some food, there were bathtubs and sinks to fill with water... how long could this crazy shit last under a black President? Good ol' Barry would get this shit under control pretty quick, right?

  He just barely beat 'em. Wouldn't have if he'd stopped the bike and gotten off, but he didn't; he rode that fucker right into the side of the stoop and jumped. He'd always been a fast little motherfucker, he cleared the railing, got his feet down, hit on the balls of his feet and ran like a bitch. Got that door slammed closed right in those crazy screaming dead freaks' faces!!!

  Got the key in the front door of the crib and opened it up. Went in yellin' every name he could think of -- everybody in the family. Shoulda been SOMEone home.

  He even yelled his sister's name. He yelled it last because she was the one who would always bitch him out for whatever... shit that was nunna her business, mostly. But when he got no response from anyone else, he even yelled her name.

  No answer. Now THAT shit had scared him.

  Ran down the hall, shoved the door open into his gram's room... and there she was, asleep in the bed. Hadn't heard him over the sound of the TV that had put her to sleep. Watchin' some talk show. Didn't know nothin' was goin' on.

  And then he'd frozen, still as a dope fiend caught in a cop's high beams.

  Because there was a dead woman outside the window, lookin' in through the iron security bars.

  Just starin' in at em at first. Eyes all wide like some fuckin' deer or somethin. Almost goggle eyed. Not somebody who lived in this 'hood, this chick was white. Not bad lookin', if she'd been alive. She wasn't, though, not with a chunk like that bitten out of her neck, and the torn off ends of veins and shit visible in the hole. And another bite mark on her face, leaving a hole right through her cheek you could see her teeth through on that side.

  And then the crazy dead bitch had started screamin' and shakinshakin' that security grill like a gorilla in the zoo.

  And he could hear the bolts that held it into the door frame starting to creak and groan, too. Crazy dead honkey bitch was strong as shit!

  And now there were a whole lot more dead fucks coming, too. He could see them behind the first one, running over, screaming they fool heads off.

  He couldn't remember a lot of what he'd done next. Grabbed his gram and gotten her out, while that zombie cunt was still hollering and trying to tear the bars out of the window frame. Old man Morrissey's truck had been parked just outside the back door, and he knew where the old fuck kept the spare key to it. He'd gotten his nana out to it and inside and for a miracle the sonofabitchin' thing had started up. Driven out of the back lot with a horde of the dead motherfuckers screaming after him.

  Decided to go to the Kroger's over on West Broadway. He and gram could hole up there. There'd be plenty of food and he'd worked floor maintenance at that Kroger's for a couple of months; he knew the backroom could be closed off. Even if these fucking things got into the store, he and gram could stay safe in the back room and he could... he didn't know, sneak out, or something, and get food when they needed it.

  For a truly half-assed plan made up totally on the fly, it hadn't been a bad one. They'd actually gotten there and it didn't look too bad... the back room was defensible, and there was a lot of stuff still in cartons back there waiting to go out onto the floor. They could have lasted a long time... coupla months... in that back room. And there was the drug counter, too; he could get in there if gram needed medicine. Not a perfect plan but not real bad neither...

  But then that crazy ass General had showed up.

  He shook his head. Nothin' to do about it now. Maybe if he could get some bullets...

  He pushed off the wall, grabbed up an armful of flattened cardboard he'd gotten out of the crusher, and went back out on the floor. Somewhere over in the freshly cleaned and sanitized area that had once been the produce area...

  Yep. There she was.

  Deanna Watkins looked up from where she was sitting with her back to a wooden case that had once contained all kinds of crazy fancy breads for rich white folks. That was what the Highlands Kroger was all about; crazy fancy food for rich white folks. Most of that nonsense was gone though... her grandson had spent quite a bit of time today helping these other folks clean up the mess from all that crazy fancy fresh food going bad.

  She didn't feel like an old lady, most days.... it had been her experience that most old folks like herself didn't FEEL old, not really. Inside, they still felt just like young folks, just, kind of befuddled at this being old stuff. It was like some horrible mistake had happened and you didn't know just how to get it fixed, but you kept waitin' for someone to fix it, and let the young person trapped inside the old body out again.

  Well, Deanna knew what the cure was... what the only thing that was gonna let the young person inside her out of her old body again was... and she knew that, even with all her pills and such bein' provided by her grandson workin' for that crazy white man callin' hisself a General, that cure couldn't be put off too much longer.

  The cure was death... the cure was, her Lord Jesus comin' down and carryin' her off in that sweet chariot, praise God. And that sweet chariot was comin' for her, she knew it.

  In the meantime, though, she just had to try to take care of the one grandchild she had left to her.

  And there he was now, walking over to her with some cardboard for them to sleep on. It wasn't a proper bed for an old lady like herself, but these were the End Times... that awful General was right about that, even if he was just as crazy as a shit eating rat about everything else... and people had to be tough. Even old ladies.

  Well. She'd be with her Lord Jesus soon enough, no doubt. No doubt.

  She shook her head as he helped her up, so he could spread the cardboard on the floor. He'd even found something to wrap her up in... one of the canvas sheets that the store had used to cover up some of the display cases, before God's judgment h
ad come down on this world like a cleaving blade. Not a real blanket, but better than the nothin' most of these folks would have to make do with.

  She patted her grandson's hand. "You're a good boy, Derrick," she said, easing herself down again.

  He squeezed her hand back, and then said something that warmed her heart... something he hadn't said in a very long time. He always called her 'gram', so as not to sound like a baby, but this time...

  "Thanks, nana," he said, helping her lay down.

  vii.

  Skip stared at Franklin incredulously. "They're BOTH dead?"

  "I told you," Franklin said, peevishly, still huffing and puffing a little, he'd come down that ladder so fast. "A zombie got up onto the roof. I had to slam that trapdoor closed to keep us all from dying. They're both dead."

  Vivian bit her lip. "Mr. Franklin. I know it was upsettin' up on the roof. But what did you see? Exactly, I mean. Because I'm sure it was very dark and maybe..."

  "It WAS very dark," Franklin snapped. "Until 'Honey' shoved his lighter into that zombie, anyway. I saw THAT, it was like a torch being lit up! That zombie was biting on his hand and then he lit it on fire and it jumped backwards and hit Sheila who was just coming up behind it onto the roof! And they both fell! But I saw it clearly by the light of that burning zombie! Dan got bit by that zombie and then the zombie and Sheila fell off the roof!"

  Skip and Vivian looked at each other uneasily. "That sounds real bad," Vivian murmured.

  Skip shook his head. "If zombies can climb ropes, that's... that's a few steps beyond 'real bad'," he said.

  "Exactly," Franklin said, his voice rising. "Exactly! They could get up on the roof by the dozens now! We can't go up there again!"

  Skip shook his head. "We don't know that either Dan or Sheila are really dead," he said. "We don't know a zombie bite is fatal in the real world, like it always is in the movies. And we don't know Sheila's dead. People can survive a thirty foot fall."

  "You can't go back up there," Franklin said. "I forbid it. I absolutely forbid it. You will put everyone in this store at risk, including the children."

  Vivian narrowed her eyes; Franklin knew THAT look -- he privately thought of it as her 'uppity nigger bitch' look, although he was careful never to say that out loud. Vivian said, softly, "Mr. Franklin, sir, with all due respect, we are NOT leavin' Vicki's parents out there not knowin' for sure that there's nothin' we can do fo' them. We wouldn't do that to YOU."

  "Although we'd think harder about it," Skip said, his voice very dry. He looked at Vivian. "Hon, I'm gonna need you to come up the ladder behind me. Soon as I get that trapdoor open, you need to light a torch and hand it up to me. If there's any critters up there, that'll back 'em off."

  "I will NOT ALLOW..." Franklin started to say. Vivian very calmly put her hand over his mouth.

  "Shhhhh, Mr. Franklin," she said, in the soothing tone she used with her brother's kids. "Don't make ol' Skip point that bad ol' gun at you again."

  "Or hit you over the head with it, again," Skip said, grimly, referring to an occasion several weeks before when Franklin had gotten through seven cans of beer one night and started railing wildly to the empty air about looters and bitches and people questioning his authority, until Skip had had to knock him out with the pistol butt to get him to quiet down.

  Skip had pointed out, at the time, that reality was not a movie or a TV show; when you knocked someone unconscious in real life with a blunt instrument, they did not just wake up a few hours later with a headache. Being knocked unconscious involved serious trauma to the head and brain; at the very least, a person who was actually knocked unconscious by being hit over the head would end up with a concussion. At worst, they'd get a cracked skull and die from it. Which meant that after he'd knocked Franklin out, Skip had fireman carried his limp form out to the back door and spent the next few hours watching Franklin's breathing and taking his pulse. Franklin had come very close to being stuffed out the back door that night... something the other four adults in the Walgreen's had been at great pains to tell him, when he finally did wake up, dizzy and nauseous and disoriented.

  "That goddam gun," Franklin snarled, viciously. "If you didn't have that gun..."

  "Franklin, if I didn't have this gun I'd still mop up the floor with you and three more like you," Skip said. "Now go sit down somewhere and don't scare the kids. Viv..."

  "I'll be right behind you," Vivian said. She'd already walked over to the pile of ready-made torches -- constructed from broom and mop handles wrapped with paper towels -- and gotten two. They were all carrying several lighters each in their pockets; if zombies did manage to get into the store, an open flame was absolutely the best defense against them, as they wouldn't voluntarily come within ten feet of even the smallest fire.

  Skip started to walk towards the maintenance closet... and stopped. He turned to look directly at Franklin. "Franklin, you been a big help to us, and I want you to know that we... I especially... appreciate it. I do." He paused. "Having said that, you are about the most miserable worthless excuse for a man I have ever laid eyes on. And we are down to the line here, Franklin... we are down to the line. You screw us up just one more time, and I will personally expend a bullet on your no good ass and dump you off the roof into the parking lot. You best believe I mean it, son."

  Skip turned and walked away, leaving a flushed, furious Franklin to rage in humiliated silence behind.

  viii.

  Captain Martha Agatha Cass – 'Cassie' to her friends, she hated both her given and middle name – circulated around the new stomping grounds, letting herself be seen. As the General's nominal second in command – and didn't that piss all the other armed officers, who just happened to be male, off no end – it was important that people be aware of her presence. Cass very much believed that authority was almost entirely subjective; you were only a boss if people thought you were a boss. She was bound and determined that the people in the Ad Hoc Christian End Times Survival Battalion were going to continue to think she was a boss... even if it killed them.

  All her life, Cass had had two gifts. One she had known about since early childhood; the other she had not discovered until her late teens. Neither beautiful nor brilliant (Cass got average grades in the few school classes she enjoyed, and average grades in the classes she didn't enjoy, as well, because her father would beat her ass if she didn't; math and sciences came especially hard to her, as she did not have anything like a disciplined mind), Cass had never needed as much sleep as everyone else around her seemed to. Put to bed at 9 pm for much of her childhood, she had early on become very skilled at the art of playing with toys – and, later, herself, while looking at computer porn – in a way that was neither visible nor audible to her parents or anyone else outside her room. She would generally do this until 2 am or so, at which point, she would finally find herself tired enough to sleep. Her mother would wake her up at 6 am to get ready to catch the school bus, and Cass usually found that she herself was more alert and well rested than either of her parents, who had generally had three to four more hours of sleep than she had.

  It was not until she was 17, and she'd joined the Army with her parents' permission, that Cass discovered her other gift – she was a born gunfighter. Cass had always been fascinated with firearms, but as a girl, it wasn't an interest either of her parents encouraged or ever tolerated in her, and she'd learned to hide it from others. In the Army, when Cass had joined, women still weren't allowed to serve in combat, but that day was clearly coming, Training with combat weaponry was more and more being made available to female recruits, and Cass volunteered for everything she could get. The first time she actually took a service issue M9 Beretta automatic pistol into her hand she very nearly came. The first time she was allowed to handle an M16A4 automatic rifle, it had been very nearly a multi-orgasmic experience for her.

  Her natural gift for firearms had quickly and clearly manifested itself; she could break either weapon down to its component parts and reassemble
it in a third of the time of anyone else in her training company – and in half the time it took her drill instructor. She could do it every bit as fast blindfolded – from the very first time she was ever told to. Of course, further practice didn't add anything to the ability; she never got faster at it, and it would have been impossible for her to be more precise or accurate in her movements. But Cass had not yet met anyone who could even approach her speed at it, either.

  She could also fire a weapon with astonishing deadliness. One of the one in a million (at least) born naturals who do not have to 'shoot in' a sniper's weapon, Cass could score deadly hits on targets at medium and long range as casually as she did at short range. It didn't matter if a target was holding still or moving, either; she could hit it just as easily. It also didn't matter to Cass if the target was living or dead, human or animal, white or black, Christian or Muslim. Cass just straight up loved shooting shit.

  Cass did not have a 'favorite' gun, either. One of her drill instructors, faced with the most brilliant natural shooting prodigy she had ever seen, took Cass to her home off base and showed the recruit a basement shooting range and a truly astonishing private ordinance collection, and she and Cass both quickly learned that Cass could perform her ordinance miracles with any weapon at all, from an M1847 Colt Walker pistol to an HK416 automatic carbine.

  She and Cass both also discovered a mutual fondness for vag, which, along with Cass' natural brilliance with firearms, guaranteed her a very high standing in her graduating class, which further guaranteed her officer training... and possibly, a spot on the next Olympics shooting squad. (The drill instructor would not have recommended Cass for an Olympics pussy eating team, even if they'd had one; Cass had neither the empathy nor the natural talent to make a very good lover with either gender. She just enjoyed it when people made her cum. But Cass had discovered early on in public school that it was much easier to find a girl to eat her pussy than a guy, and if she had to give a little back to get what she wanted, she was okay with that.)