by Bryan Smith
Maybe forty minutes had passed since the end of the hallway battle. Most of the intervening time had been consumed with the logistics of evacuating the building before setting it aflame. The actual act of torching the place turned out to be the easy part. A supply shed out back yielded several containers of gasoline and oil. Flammable materials in several strategic areas of the building were soaked and lit with matches and cigarette lighters.
The flames burned brighter as they watched. A window on the third floor—where the re-education classes were held—exploded outward in a spray of glass and wood splinters. Tendrils of flame licked at the outside of the building. Wayne felt a strange kind of pride as he watched the fire spread and consume the building. They had done a good job. Even the resurgent rain wouldn’t save the SIMRC.
Steve’s eyes fluttered as he spoke from the shotgun seat. “It’s…beautiful.” There was an aching wonderment in his slurred voice that made Wayne want to scream. “My god…isn’t it?”
Melissa piped up from the back seat. “Yeah, Steve. It’s beautiful.”
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Wayne knew how close to tears she was, because he felt the same way. His friend was dying. He wouldn’t live even if they took him to a hospital. The infection was spreading fast. Steve already smelled like death and large patches of his skin had turned a livid shade of purple. He didn’t have much time left.
Steve coughed, then managed a weak laugh. “It was worth it. Don’t you fuckers ever…ever…doubt it…fuckers…”
Wayne blinked back tears. “Steve—”
“Mean it, bro.” More weak laughter. “Seeing Melissa spit in Cheney’s face…shit…I know I did a…good…thing…”
“We love you, Steve.” Melissa again, voice more clearly fraught with emotion now.
Steve shivered and coughed, then looked at Wayne through rheumy eyes. “I love you fuckers, too. And Wayne…every time I call you bro…I mean it…you’re like a…brother to me.” The weakest laugh yet. “That…don’t make me a pussy…does it?”
Wayne wiped at his eyes. “Hell no.”
He put the Cherokee in gear and drove away from the SIMRC. He glanced at the rearview mirror and watched the burning building disappear from view. Steve fell silent as they traveled a maze of winding back roads. He spoke up again as they neared a residential subdivision, a shabby patch of land packed with tiny prefab homes. Wayne parked at the curb outside one of the houses and they sat there for a time, watching the dark sky turn slowly to gray. Dawn and the beginning of a new day. At one point Steve roused himself from yet another death-like slumber and made a music request. Wayne shuffled through the tapes in the glove compartment and found Van Halen’s Women And Children First. He fast-forwarded to the song “Fools” and turned the volume up a bit.
Steve grinned and mouthed the words to the song.
He looked at Wayne as the song neared its end and said, “Listen to that guitar. No one shreds like EVH. Had to…hear that…one more time. That’s the sound…of…”
He didn’t say anything else.
21: MAMA I’M COMING HOME
Carol Wade was still asleep and dreaming as dawn broke that day. The dream was the good kind. Some hot and muscular stud between her legs, grinding away at her goods, filling her up with a dick that felt bigger than the largest dildo in her impressive personal collection of sex toys. Then something intruded on the dream, a distant sound like the whisper of wind chimes on a cool evening breeze. The sound came again and the vision of the hunk’s glistening torso dissipated as she rose against her will toward consciousness.
She awoke to find herself tangled in sweaty bedsheets. One of the young men renting the house next to hers was in bed beside her. He looked nothing like the hunk of her dream. He was scrawny, with a pale, sunken chest. He had thin, wormy lips and buck teeth. A faint wisp of a mustache and gaunt cheeks dotted with acne scars. His stomach hitched as she watched him sleep and he made a loud honking sound in his throat.
Carol grimaced.
Robert Redford this boy ain’t.
Hell, he was a nerd. Albeit one grown into his twenties and working in the computer business in some way. Which just made him more of a loser in Carol’s eyes. Anyone could see there was no future in tinkering with stupid gadgets. The boy could have a cushy job in the factory where she worked. She’d been willing to put in a good word for him, but he’d spurned the offer. Sometimes she got the feeling he thought he was better than her, that he was only with her for the easy pussy. Getting his dick wet on a regular basis for the first time in his nerd life, gaining experience that would benefit him when the time came to move on to something better.
Thinking about it stirred a familiar anger, a bitter resentment that was always there. Carol couldn’t stand the idea of anyone thinking they were better than her. Sometimes she obsessed about it, especially when she didn’t have some dim boy around to fuck senseless. The ones she devirginized even sort of worshiped her for a while. But even they would inevitably turn against her. Carol could never figure it out. Seemed everyone she met eventually formed the same opinion about her. That she was trashy. Not fit to mix with decent folk. Well, fuck them.
She watched the boy’s open mouth as he snored.
Even this one, pathetic as he was, would start avoiding her soon if the pattern held true.
She imagined tipping a spoonful of rat poison down that gaping mouth.
Yeah, she thought. Poison your nerd ass.
Let’s see you look down on me then, cocksucker.
Carol gave the murderous notion serious thought. She had never killed anyone on purpose. That hit and run thing years ago had been an accident. Some geezer out walking his little dog at three in the morning got clipped by her Impala. Dumb old man should have known to be looking for drunk drivers. His fault. She still liked to look at her newspaper clippings about the incident now and then, deriving a dark little thrill from the hazy memories every time. How much more exciting would it be to off someone on purpose? She could do it. She thought of the big jar of rat poison beneath the kitchen sink and made up her mind.
This is gonna be fun.
She smiled.
Yeah, there’d be the matter of what to do with the body and explaining things to the cops after Poindexter’s roommates reported him missing, but—
The doorbell rang.
And not for the first time, she realized. She was sure the sound was what had pulled her out of the delicious dream. A glance at the digital clock on her nightstand showed it was barely after 5 am, way too early for anyone who didn’t want her foot up their ass to be ringing her bell.
The bell chimed again and she grumbled a curse. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, found the nerd’s big button-up shirt among a pile of discarded clothes on the floor, and shrugged it on as she stood up and stalked out of the room. She flicked on a light as she entered the hallway, then another as she passed through an archway into the small living room.
“Dear God…” she groaned.
The living room was a disaster. An open pizza box on the floor. Cats nibbling on leftover slices. A wide array of empty liquor and beer bottles clogged every available surface. There were more bottles and cans on the floor. The musky scent of sex was just detectable through the entrenched tobacco odor. The sofa was pushed back from the coffee table. Pillows were on the floor. She vaguely remembered getting fucked doggy style by nerdo in here before taking the party to the bedroom. Hard to remember for sure, what with all the fuckin’ drinking they’d done. That and the groovy pills.
The sound of an engine idling somewhere outside her house made her frown. She kicked her way through a cluster of empty and crushed Schaefer Light cans, circumvented the sofa, and arrived at the window that overlooked her front yard. She pulled back the drapes and saw a green Jeep Cherokee parked at her curb. It was still half-dark out but she was able to make out two murky shapes in the vehicle. She didn’t recognize the car.
Who the fuck?
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The doorbell rang again.
Enough of this bullshit.
She turned from the window and strode rapidly toward the door. She almost felt sorry for the asshole. Anyone stupid enough to wake her at so ungodly an hour on a fucking Saturday deserved the beating they were about to take. She yanked the front door open and an expletive died in her throat.
The Jeep Cherokee’s engine revved and a moment later it sped away from the curb. The driver hooked a left at the nearest side street and was gone.
Carol barely noticed.
Her son was standing on her porch, swaying on his feet, head hung down as he stared at her through glazed, empty eyes. She hadn’t seen the boy in years, hadn’t even seen a picture, but motherly instinct told her it was true. This was her boy, no doubt about it.
He didn’t look too good. Not that she cared.
She recovered from the initial shock and slapped him hard across the face. The blow almost knocked him off his feet. “What’re you doin’ here, shithead? Get back home to your worthless daddy before I call the fuckin’ cops. I don’t want you on my property.”
He just stared at her and made an odd hissing sound.
She frowned. “The fuck’s wrong with you? You turn out retarded or somethin’?” Her face went bright red with rage. “Your daddy better not think he can push your mushbrain ass off on me. I’ll put you on a bus right back to…”
Carol’s frown deepened.
She’d noticed the blood dripping from the boy’s bandaged forearm. Droplets intermittently spattered the painted concrete porch.
She took a closer look at his pale face then and felt the first real flicker of fear.
Too late.
Steve Wade snarled and pulled his mother close.
Carol Wade screamed as her son’s teeth punctured her flesh.
Her last sight as a living creature was the ravening hunger in his dead eyes.
EPILOGUE: MESSIANIC REPRISE
USA TODAY HEADLINE, NOV. 21, 1987
HUNDREDS DEAD IN ILLINOIS
FEDS DECLARE ZOMBIE ‘PANIC’ CONTAINED
Wayne and Melissa fled west to California, arriving in the so-called City of Angels several weeks after the SIMRC burned. Too much had happened to even consider returning to their former lives. Melissa couldn’t stomach the idea of returning to her intolerant stepfather and mother, and Wayne was unable to bear the prospect of facing his father after all he’d done. They supported themselves with various menial jobs along the way.
Melissa realized she was pregnant long before they arrived in Los Angeles.
“Our hearts go out to the families of the dead in Illinois. We can take comfort in knowing that the departed have ascended to a better place and are suffering no more. And I pledge that my administration will do everything in its power to identify the culprit behind this heinous attack on our nation’s heartland.”
—President Ronald in his address to the nation on Nov. 22, 1987
Melissa and Wayne started having sex weeks prior to their arrival in California, but Melissa knew the timing was all wrong. Mark Cheney’s malignant seed had planted the life growing inside her. And though this sickened her, she couldn’t bring herself to abort that life. The baby was born and put up for adoption. Through sheer coincidence, its adoptive parents soon moved to Illinois and Melissa’s child grew up within a few miles of her own childhood stomping grounds.
The child’s name was Melinda, and her childhood was even more troubled than Melissa’s had been. Her adoptive parents divorced and she was shuttled through a succession of distant relatives, including an aunt who eventually sent her to Tennessee to live with cousins.
Melinda grew up to face zombie problems of her own.
“Did you hear the one about the Illinois zombies? No?”
(LONG PAUSE)
(PHOTO OF A STUNNED INFIELDER AFTER A BOTCHED PLAY IS FLASHED)
“You may know them better as the Chicago Cubs.”
(POLITE LAUGHTER, SCATTERED APPLAUSE)
—Johnny Carson, from a Tonight Show monologue
Melissa and Wayne lived with a guilt so crushing their eventual descent into alcoholism and addiction had been inevitable. They had been fully aware, of course, of the second wave of zombie killings initiated by the impulsive act of dropping off their dying friend at his estranged mother’s house. The tail-end of the 80’s turned dark for them, the early 90’s darker yet.
They eventually split and Wayne meandered through the next several years, spending his last months in a shabby apartment off the Sunset Strip, where he was stabbed to death while zoned out on heroin. His killer was never caught. No one cared, especially the police. Just another dead doper.
Melissa had started writing songs in the late 80’s. Dark, brooding, angry songs. She formed a band and assumed lead vocal duties, working as a stripper on weekends to help pay for the band’s gear. The band was a hit on the club circuit. After Nirvana hit and changed the musical landscape, things were wide open for artists like Melissa, who soon adopted the stage name “Nikki Taylor.” Her band scored a major label deal, put out two albums, and had two minor radio hits, “Reform School Junkie” and a punk cover of “Because The Night.” She lived comfortably off the royalties from these songs until her suicide in 1999.
A lengthy criminal investigation turned up evidence of vile crimes probably perpetrated by people in authority at the Southern Illinois Music Re-Education Center. Numerous indictments were handed down as public outrage soared.
The SIMRC was never rebuilt.
And rock and roll lives on.
THE END
Table of Contents
1: ON THROUGH THE NIGHT
2: SUBMISSION
3: GARBAGEMAN
4: LIGHT UP THE SKY
5: CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE
6: VIDEO NASTY
7: JAILBREAK
8: SOMETHING IN THE WAY
9: DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP
10: GIMME GIMME SHOCK TREATMENT
11: PERSONALITY CRISIS
12: PRETTY BABY SCREAM
13: RAINING BLOOD
14: YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL
15: MY AIM IS TRUE
16: BREAK ON THROUGH
17: FRESH FLESH
18: CRASH COURSE IN BRAIN SURGERY
19: STONE DEAD FOREVER
20: BURN THE FLAMES
21: MAMA I’M COMING HOME
EPILOGUE: MESSIANIC REPRISE
