by Black, D. S.
He tried to move, but to no avail. The pain swelled once more, he couldn’t move; he didn’t want to breathe, though his body forced the air in and then out, causing grief mixed with self-hate to plunder his soul. His mind, his heart, every inch of him calling out without saying a word, to please just let him rot, just let him die now.
“Candy.” He barely spoke; it came out as a hoarse whisper.
But she heard him nonetheless. The door creaked open, and she came in carrying something in a brown bottle with a white screw-on lid; she didn’t say a word. In his now left sided vision, mixed with the pain of failed suicide, he saw her tattered police uniform. It was covered in dirt, and the stench of swamp water. Clotted portions of smoke smut blackened the once pristine, and pressed uniform. The odor of a recent fire followed her, and lingered with her every step. Her face was emotionless; her eyes unresponsive, her cheeks smothered in dark soot. She walked with impatience, and stood over Jack for a moment, staring down with blank eyes almost as though he didn’t exist. He felt her firm grip on his chin, and a bandage tore from his face. He screeched in agony.
“Shut up!” She said, and forced his face in the opposite direction. The sound of the brown bottle's top twisting open, and then the striking sting and smell of alcohol smothered his face. His legs jerked, his hand gripped the dirty sheets, and he cried tears of discomfort, hate and suffering.
She wrapped a new bandage on his face; he then heard an old wooden chair scratch against the splintered floor. Candy plopped down beside him. Her stare focused on the floor, and her elbows met her knees. Jack stared at the top of her head; her filthy red hair, meshed with sweat, blood, and soot, half clung, half dangled from her scalp.
“Candy…” Jack murmured.
“I have to go into town. Your wound is gonna get infected soon. The humidity is causing it to fester. That's the last of the alcohol and bandages,” she said.
“Where is Andrew?”
“Outside. I have to go now.” She stood, and walked out of the room without another word.
He laid helplessly, unable to fathom his idiocy. His mistake. His bamboozled attempt to end it all in the face of that scene. Oh God! He ate them, he was gone. Papa, the girls; all gone! Forever. The pain, the horror, and filth he lived in now. The world is gone forever. Nothing left! Gone! He will die soon, he hoped.
Candy and Andrew
1
Candy stood at the edge of the embankment, staring into the dark trees.
“It's okay, Candy. Everything is going to be okay.” Andrew began, “We’ll get through this. Just you wait, and see.” He reached and pulled the engine’s cord. It rumbled alive.
Candy watched as her brother guided the pontoon away from the bank and back into the dark water. He turned, and a cheesy smile spread across his face. His thin arm rose, and he gave a wave. She forced half a smile. He disappeared upstream. She stood for a moment longer and then turned away, moving to the Humvee. Her tattered uniform clung to her body, and sweat soaked through the material. Her mind was also drenched; soaked in anger and confusion, a desire for revenge that seemed impossible to obtain. In twenty-four hours she'd lost her husband, twin daughters, and grandfather. To make all this shit stain that much worse, Jack would die if she didn't find antibiotics. She walked over to the Hummer, climbed in, and slammed the vehicle’s door shut.
The narrow dirt road stretched long in front of her. Both her hands gripped the steering wheel, turning her knuckles white. The suspension kept her steady as the Humvee moved over uneven ground, potholes, and marshy wet spots. The Cyprus hung high on both sides of the road. The tree’s boughs closest to the road dangled over, and early morning fog created a dark misty tunnel.
She pushed a button on the CD player panel. Loud guitar music blasted the sounds of For Whom the Bell Tolls. She reset the song to the beginning and rolled down the window. For a moment, she closed her eyes. Her eyes popped back open. Her look, stern, and hard lines ran down her face like dry rivers.
She turned the music to maximum and rolled down all the windows. She screamed, she screamed again; the noise sounded scared and wild, like some primitive beast was being unleashed. The shadows from the trees dashed across her face, followed by streaks of sunlight. The road that led to highway 17 came into view. She floored the pedal; tears streaming down her face, filling in the hard lines as she bawled madly. The opening to the two-lane black top came into view. She didn't slow down; the Humvee screeched, and nearly flipped as she pulled the wheel hard to the right, steering onto the asphalt road.
The music blared; her pain swirled. Old homes were on either side of the road. Most had no siding; there were a few trailers, an ancient roadside vegetable, and fruit stand. Then came into view, near the edge of the street, a hoard of five dead men jerked their heads up at the sound of the roaring Humvee. She came to a screeching halt. She breathed heavily as she watched them move toward her. She climbed out and slammed the door behind her, walked around the back, and popped the trunk open. In front of her was an AR15, an AK47, and a blood-stained ax. She chose the ax. The Humvee sat idling, For Whom the Bell Tolls set to repeat.
Her chest heaved, and she smiled with a wicked pleasure; she wanted blood, and she was going to have it right now. The sun glistened off her white teeth. She marched with rage filled steps, and drove the ax through the skull of a nearest zombie. The small horde moved for her. She kicked one of them, causing a domino effect. They toppled over onto each other like drunken fools. She ripped the blade out the split skull, stepped up the next dead man like she was going to bat, and swung hard, cleaving the head off. Another one lunged for her, and she met his momentum with the flat head of the ax crushing its face. She twisted around in a fast swirl, and swung the blade with torrid hate, sending its head tumbling onto the road. She screamed, she challenged them to eat her. Mocked them, laughed at them, and screamed again; her civilized mind seemed to have gone on vacation, or maybe it was gone for good.
Dead teeth snarled, and low growls garbled out of their mouths. Their rotted, greenish black arms reached for her. The ax removed another head. She tossed the ax, and it clanked against the road; she removed a sharp, 8-inch KA-BAR fighting knife from a thigh holster. She ran back to the Humvee, reached in and changed the song to Ride the Lightning. Andrews expensive sound system vibrated, contrasting loudly against the vast silence of the apocalyptic roadside.
“Time to die!” She shrieked and ran with speed at the jerking zombies. The force of her boot knocked one of them to the ground. She grabbed another by the back of the hair, forced its chin up, and drove the blade through its skull. Blood and brain matter sprayed out as she tore the blade out. The other dead men leaped onto her sending her down the hard road. The knife fell from her hand, the dead man nipped for her face. She held him at bay by pushing against its chest. The foul breath mixed with rank spit plumed in her face, filling her nostrils with the smell of fetid, rotten flesh and organs; the other zombie growled as it crawled toward her. With her left forearm she held it up, and with her right she removed her revolver, pressed it into the creature's throat, pointed up and fired. Brainy blood erupted like a volcanic explosion. The final beast gnawed at her boot, pulled at her pant leg, and tried to move up her body. She leaned forward, pressed the barrel into its open mouth; arched the barrel up, screamed, and pulled the trigger. Blood exploded from its cracked skull, flew high in the air, and rained down onto the road in a red splatter.
She fell onto her back, breathing hard. Around her, the bodies lay motionless. The sun burned down on her face. Ride the Lightning blared in the background. She laughed, her laughter turned to a maddening cackle. She lay there for nearly an hour.
2
Her mind drifted. She was back home, her girls danced in a circle singing. Jody cooked burgers at a grill; She watched them while she sipped a Bud Light. The sky above them had been cloudless and deep saturated blue; the sun shining bright and friendly. They were going to go see the fireworks later; the Fourth of July was
one of the best times of the year for them. Candy had won the day off during a shooting contest with her fellow officers. She was after all, the best damn shooter in the South; she had the medals to prove it—she'd won the last three Southern Conference shoot offs.
Jody waved her over. The soft freshly mowed, and manicured grass pressed down under her Birkenstock sandals. She always said that the extra money for real Birkenstocks was worth it over paying a little less for knockoffs.
Jody was laughing and jiggling his big belly. “I told ya! Come look here babe,” Jody said. He removed a burger from the grill and placed it on a bun. “Taste the perfection.” She bit into the burger, chewed, and swallowed.
“Perfect,” She said and reached over to slap him on his rather large backside.
“Nice and bloody. Just the way I like it.” She pulled him down to her lips by his shirt and kissed him. “Only my perfect fat man could cook such a perfect Angus burger.”
“Big bellies know best!” he said, giving it another fun-filled jiggle; belly jiggling was a family past time.
The late afternoon sun, burned over their heads as they enjoyed the clear blue day. A lite breeze blew, taking the edge of the humidity. The girls ran up. They both wore matching yellow and blue sundresses that cut off right above the knee. Their hair was pulled back in matching blonde ponytails, and each wore a pink ribbon around the knot. “What’s cookin’ pop?” Tamby asked.
“You still on that kick?” Jody asked. “What's cookin pop,” was their new favorite phrase. “Livin’ the Salt Life” was a close second, and was stickered on the back windshields of their cars.
“Come here, you little burger heads!” Candy said as she chased after them. They ran, and frolicked in the soft green grass. Candy stared back at Jody; he smiled, waved, and patted his stomach. It had been a wonderful day.
Then she was back at the shooting range, not long after she’d graduated top of her class. Sergeant Stack stood beside her. “Best shootin I’ve ever seen from a woman!” Stack was a large black man, with gray showing on the sides of his head. He was what he called a “recovering marine.” He stood at six feet two, around one-hundred-eighty pounds; at fifty-four-years-old he was still a tower of a man.
Candy had stood, her heart beating fast, and her eyes still locked on the target she just filled with holes—dead center. “It ain’t about gender Sarg—it’s about heart. I want to help people, if that sometimes means killing bad guys. That’s okay with me.”
Sergeant Stack patted her shoulder, and held his ash black face high. “Damn right kid, but you know, society don’t always see it that way, and it keeps getting worse for us.”
“I know. If people only listen to the talking heads, they’d think all cops are racist murderers.”
Behind her, her cell phone rang. It vibrated against the wood bench she’d laid it on. She turned, took a few steps, and picked it up. She turned to her Sergeant. “It’s my lovable fat man. Gotta take it.”
Jody spoke on the other line, “So you promised to come? You’re coming, right?”
Candy put a hand on her hip and held her head to the side. “God! I guess… you know I hate that place. The people are as stiff as the wooden pews they sit in.”
“You are getting philosophical on me?”
“It’s just a fact of their nature, hon.”
“Momma loves it when we come. She swears we’re sending the girls to hell. It makes her feel better to see them dolled up and listening to Preacher Ramsey.”
“Listening to that buffoon rattle off his backwoods hate filled nonsense ain't something I like the girls to hear. I detune them every time just to make sure it doesn’t stick. Gays are taking over the country, and taking our kids to hell with them! Is that all that man thinks about? I tell you now, he is gayer than a rainbow on a hot summer’s day.”
“That’s what my sister Betsy says… says she saw him and Johnny Sawyer kissing down by the marshes.”
“Betsy Sue! She gonna be there? If she does, I will go.”
“I’ll make her. I’ll drag her fat ass and promise her a trip to Denny’s and a cheesecake with blueberry and whip cream topping for reward.”
“Jesus Christ almighty… OK, my fat lover, I'll go. I'll take your precious angels and let those horrible people defile and indoctrinate their minds. Then I’ll take ‘em home and do my best to wash their brains clean. What are you gonna do for me?”
“I’ll do that thing you love.”
“What thing?” She said with a smile.
“I won’t say it out loud.”
“You bashful pig! I’m going to stick a fork in you when I get home tonight.”
“And I’ll spoon you till the cows come home.”
She'd giggled. That too had been a good day.
3
She opened her eyes. The day had aged, dark clouds rumbled overhead. She forced herself up; the blood oozed out of the dead bodies around her, she ignored them. The asphalt clicked under her boots as she walked back to the Hummer.
The leather seat crinkled as she slammed the Humvee door. For a moment she just stared, her breathing was rhythmic and slow. She adjusted the rearview mirror, and stared at her reflection. Dried blood caked her pale white face, covering the freckles completely. She opened the glove box and took out a handkerchief, spit on it, and rubbed as much of the blood off as she could. She started the engine, and drove away from the gory scene, making her way down an empty highway 17.
The clouds hung low, and shut out much of the sun. A light sprinkle showered the windshield; she turned on the wipers, the only sounds were the hypnotic back and forth swish of wiper blades, and the soft purr of the air conditioner on low. She was approaching an old Army Surplus Depot. She slowed, and crunched onto the gravel parking lot. No one in sight, neither living or dead. She climbed out of the Humvee, and stepped cautiously toward the front entry doors. She could only see shadowy darkness inside the store. A bell jangled as she opened the door. She paused and gripped her revolver as she waited and listened. Nothing, no sounds. The store smelled like dried oil, and old clothes. Dust settled everywhere, broken shards of glass from busted lights lay on the floor, and cracked under her boots. She stopped for a moment, and listened. Nothing; she moved around the store, a row of World War II helmets sat on a shelf, covered in dust. Black boots covered in more dust set on the shelf below the helmets. The store was a tomb of America's war history. Open netted hats from every era sat on another shelf; empty grenade casings from every war or another. Black and white photographs hung on the wall showing the scenes from different wars.
She stood in front of a tall, narrow vanity mirror. Pale white skin showed through torn and tattered shreds of her deputy’s uniform. The material hung loosely on her body. The badge, smudged with smoke and dark, dried blood hung heavily, barely clinging to a strand of material. Outside, dark bluish gray storm clouds gathered, sunlight disappeared, and a hot bolt of lightning crackled, lighting up the store and flashing in her graying blue eyes. She ripped the badge from her chest, and threw it on the floor, watching as it bounced and rolled away, landing face down on the cold concrete floor. A harsh wind rattled the entry-way doors, and the gush entered the store brushing against her, flowing through her long red hair, breezing against her pale freckled skin. She tore her uniform top off, revealing her hard abs and slender athletic frame; throwing the shirt on top of the badge. Her bra, white and tight against her bosom. She watched her reflection carefully as she removed her belt, then her pants, and stared hard at her white satin panties, clinging tightly against her lean muscled hips. She removed a tight black shirt from a hanger, and pulled it over her body. A ripple of harsh lighting lit the entire store as she pulled solid black BDUs over her hips, and refastened her thick brown leather belt.
She looked over at the front desk, and just beyond the register, sitting on a stool, leaning stiff against the wall was a dead man. Lightning crackled again, and white light lit the dead body. His chin rested against his chest, and ab
ove his head a sign stated: FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS. On his head was a solid black cowboy hat with a wide brim. Candy walked over and hoisted herself over the counter, removed her revolver, and pushed the tip against the man. He didn’t move; she took his hat, and ran her fingers over the brim. She raised it to her nose, and breathed in the scent of old leather. Back in front of the mirror she put the hat on, and pulled it over her brow just above her eyes. Another crack of lightning shook the entire building, and a light rain pelted against the metal roof. Her reflection looked like a ghost against the white light of lightning. She turned and moved through the store, and pushed the exit door open. Another loud crackle of electricity sparked in the sky. A strong gush rushed against her, and her hair blew under the hat. She stepped off the concrete walkway onto the parking lot’s asphalt. Slanted rain blew against her. She stalked to the Humvee, opened the door, slammed it shut, and started the engine.
4
The army surplus disappeared in the rear view. Candy drove down the black asphalt of highway 17. The road rumbled underneath the car, and a loud wispy wind came through a nearly shut window. On her right, the salty sea breeze rushed over, burned, and abandoned beach condos. An old wooden sign read PAWLEY’S ISLAND HAMMOCK SHOP. Dead men jerked around the trees, one found himself entangled in a swinging hammock. At least, 100 zombies wandered the abandoned shopping area. Candy stared for a moment as she zoomed past. Dead men jerked their heads up as she drove by.
A little way up, a large golf course came into view just off the left of the road. More dead men wearing bright, blood splattered and tattered reds, blues and yellows moved aimlessly on the gray and dead golf course grass. She blew past them without a second look. To her right stood an empty restaurant. The sign read HANSER HOUSE. A few zombies moved about the parking lot, bumping into cars at random. She continued down 17, and saw a sign: SAM’S HOTDOGS. A large red and yellow hot dog stood on top of the building, it was an old double wide trailer on stilts. Its windows were shattered. Attached to the hot dog was a noose with a dead man hanging from its grip. The zombie's teeth mashed, and its arms flayed. It dangled in the salty wind and rain. She drove past, and the sight of MARTIN’S FIREWORKS caught her eye. Dead kids bumped against each other in the parking lot. She slowed down, and came to a halt.
