by Black, D. S.
Today I killed my mother. I smashed her head in with her cast iron frying pan.
My name is Mary Beth Parker. I'm from Spartanburg, SC. I'm sixteen. I go (or went) to Spartanburg High School, where I am (or was) a junior honor student. This is the last letter I will ever write. As I stated above, my mother is gone. I had no choice in the matter. She chewed into my shoulder, and then went for my throat. I've wrapped my shoulder up tightly and the bleeding stopped, but the fever is getting bad. The news station is calling it the Fever, with a capital F. I can't leave the house. It's just too dangerous.
Why am I writing this letter? I guess I want to leave something behind. I want my daddy to know what happened. He doesn't answer his cell phone, and I worry the cell towers will go out soon. My boyfriend, Darrel Harris doesn't answer his either. I fear the worst. It is an absolute hell out there, I think the world is ending. So much for Jesus, I guess.
I'm sweating bullets. I'm so hot and dizzy. I laid down in the dark for a while, and felt a little better. That's when I decided I better write this letter before I'm unable to. It all happened very fast with my mother. She came in from shopping and said she'd been bit by a crazy man. She was bleeding badly, so I helped her bandage it up. I told her we need to go to the hospital. She said something was happening and it would be impossible. I turned on the kitchen TV, and the news showed me what she was talking about. People attacking and eating each other. It was like watching a horror movie. I stared at those images flashing on the TV for I don't know how long, and then noticed my mother wasn't talking. I turned around to her, and she looked dead. I panicked and ran to her, shook her, and screamed so loud. Then she looked with a fast jerk, and I saw her eyes. Those dreadful eyes like white fireballs; then she grabbed me, leaned in, and took a chunk out of my shoulder. I pushed her away, tried to grab onto something, but only knocked myself over along with several pots and pans. She came at me, I grabbed the cast iron pan, and SWUNG! SWUNG! SWUNG!
I swear I didn't have a choice! I swear! I swear!
I'm so dizzy. I wish daddy would come home, I think I am seeing things now. It must be the Fever because I'm looking at grandma. She's standing right here, smiling at me. Grandma's been dead for five years.
God, I'm so dizzy.
4
To my family, to my Friends, to my Country,
When I first joined the Army, I did it because I loved America. I loved everything about her and still do. My daddy was career Army, along with my granddaddy. My granddaddy fought in World War II, my daddy Vietnam. I did two tours in Iraq, then another two in Afghanistan before coming back stateside. I never married, because I was already married to America. I never in a million years thought I'd witness her destruction. Not from terrorism, not from an invasion, and certainly not from some damned Fever, but here I am. The last of my unit, holed up in this damn stadium. It was supposed to be a refugee camp. A safe place for citizens to come and wait this thing out. Who the hell were we kidding? The dead walked through our lines like unstoppable plague. We just didn't have enough fucking bullets. Those bastards multiplied so damn fast...
And I did what I had to do, or am I lying to myself? Some of those people ... Jesus forgive me ... they weren’t all infected. The chaos. We just unloaded, killing indiscriminately. I still hear their screams. I’ll hear those screams for whatever is left of my life.
And now we're down to the ammo in our magazines, that's it. The arena is surrounded by the dead. There is no escape, no way we could shoot our way out. There's just too Goddamn many of them. The other units either fled, or were overrun. We held fast, cause we all joined for love of country, duty, and honor. Do those words mean anything now? We're down to the MREs in our packs. I tell you, it's not a lot. I don't know why I'm writing this letter. No one will ever read it. Captain says we might just make a run for it, that's a suicide run of course. There must be at least ten thousand roamers out there. Maybe if we'd made a run earlier like the other units did; they took off when things got bad. When it was clear that we didn't stand a chance. When HQ stopped responding.
I think the stench is the worst of it. I've been around a lot of death; I've disposed of a lot of bodies over my career, but that smell dies off, forgive the pun. The smell of those things out there just lingers and gets worse by the day. They don't sleep, at least I don't think they do. They just wander around and wait ... wait for someone to eat. A lot of them have army fatigues on. Soldiers that got ran through. God! it's hard to look at. Captain says if we can get out, we'll head towards North Carolina and see if anything is left of Fort Bragg.
Something tells me it’s a lost cause, something tells me the human species is finished. It's only been a few weeks since the Fever started.
What will be left of humanity in six months?
In a year?
Tommy “Duras” Morrow
1
He pulled the trigger of his Springfield and watched another dead bum drop to the ground. Look at them, eating my sheeple like that is their right, like that is something they are allowed to do.
How will he ever secure this damn town now, and where the hell is Barney with the 50 calibers?
“Do you see Barney yet?” Duras asked.
“Nope. The son of a bitch is taking his sweet time,” Vice said.
How am I going to win this damn city back? Must be over two thousand walkers. That bald fuck's gonna pay for this.
The sound of Barney’s fifty caliber let loose into the crowd below.
“Barney is finally showing his worth, don’t you think Vice?” Vice stood on the edge of the roof, peering out and down at the stench-ridden crowd as Barney laid the demonic scum to rest. Duras thought it looked like a video game, or like that scene from Predator when they mow down an entire section of forest, but this time it was flesh, heads, guts and arms that went flying; followed by a stream of blood running through his clean well-manicured cobble streets.
The air was humid and hot. The sky, dark gray. The stench of death floated up from the streets. He aimed his rifle out and saw what was once a pretty young thing, all bloody with death. She had on her cheerleading outfit with a big USC inscribed on it; her damn Godforsaken dead titties jiggled like loose coconuts hanging from a tree. He took the shot and she fell for the final time with a split skull, but he doubts she ever had much brains anyway; and how did she ever make it here? USC? Columbia? These dead bums can walk, walk and then walk some more. Screams of death echoed all around; dying kids, dying adults. Just a shit load of dying. The wonderful sounds of the New World, the hymn they lived to now.
He continued firing into the crowd. Vice slapped him on the shoulder. “Say Duras! We can trick ‘em by shooting some fire arrows into those trash cans with gas?” Vice was such a good man with such great ideas, that was why he always kept him close; especially when death mulled around every corner. “Send Rhino and Ice Man down with some gas. Tell them not to get too close to those dead things moving around down there, or else I’ll take their heads off from my wonderfully comfortable position here on this God awfully beautiful roof top.” He kept firing, killing one dead bum after another, till he finally saw Rhino (formerly known as Terry Johnson) with his blackened skin, mouthing something off to his good buddy and compatriot, Ice Man (formerly know as Lance Hawkins). The moment Duras saw Lance looking so much like Val Kilmer, he told him from that minute forward his new name was Ice Man.
He watched him through his Springfield’s site, pushing and filling trash cans with gasoline. Duras made sure to kill any dead thing that wandered too close, and the hot gun Barney fired off was still dropping them in crumbled fleshy rows, all piled on top of each other while the heavens poured their rays down, cooking the filth which Barney and company would have to later burn.
Over to his right, Vice had strapped on his quiver; all full of arrows tipped with sparkler shavings wrapped in cheese cloth, and held together with trusty Elmers glue and thin gauge wire. He had taken the liberty of taping a few full ledge sparklers around
the tip. “Overkill Vice, and a damn waste of some damn good sparklers.”
“We have plenty,” Vice said.
Vice sat a glass of kerosene on the roof’s ledge, and dipped the tip of the arrow, leaving it there marinating for a few minutes. Duras focused his attention back down to Ice Man and Rhino, and they’d successfully placed the cans exactly where they needed them, and did it all without getting bit.
Duras peered around with his scope, taking off a few more dead heads, and then noticed a zombie milling about all by himself, continually crashing into the fence line; stumbling back, then crashing again. He wore a sweater vest that was ripped and torn with a red bow tie, and a bloodstained bright blue striped shirt. On his face was large gaudy glasses like something a librarian, or better yet a professor would wear. Indeed, Duras figured he must have been a professor at some school somewhere, maybe from USC up in Columbia where he enjoyed fucking the young cheerleader whom he decided to follow down here in a death induced delirium; and now that Duras had taken his love’s head clean from her shoulders, the poor dead professor lost his mind, and his bearings could only crash against the cold steel of the perimeter’s fence line.
“Ready to go!” Vice shouted. He moved the arrow from the kerosene, struck a match and lit it. Duras stood back as Vice placed it in his bow and pulled back letting it launch. It flew like a burning sparkling bird, and landed with a fiery explosion in one of the cans.
“Damn good shot! Damn good, sir!” Duras said, and removed a hand wrapped joint from his pocket along with a Bic lighter (compliments of numerous raids on gas stations). He lit it and breathed in the sweet bud’s smoke. A purple haze blend he'd grown in the garden area, and blew out the smoke and coughed, coughed, coughed.
“Let me have a hit.” He handed it to Vice, who took a few tokes before passing it back to Duras. The fires were burning brightly down below, and Ice Man and Rhino had made their way behind Barney. Barney was still busy mowing down zombies, who had become easy targets. Some of the dead mulled around the newly lit fires; Duras and Vice, stoned now and feeling quite nice, took easy aim. Duras with his Springfield, Vice with his scoped AR. Duras always enjoyed the spring and jiggle of his Springfield after each shot. It felt like a reward for being such a great killer of the already deceased.
The sun was coming up, and the smell of death drafted high into the air. The streets were filled with the dead, and now what was left of his men. Led by Rhino and Ice Man, they began gathering them up, tossing them in the red pickup trucks, and hauling them off to the fire pits. They'd made those fire pits some time ago just for the occasional need for burning of bodies.
Then from behind Duras came the voice of Mary Jane. “We made it into the shelters, about 100 of us made it. We lost nearly 200 people.” Duras turned, and saw her face. It was covered in black soot and dried blood, but her bright blue eyes still glimmered through the darkness. Her thin firm frame covered in a tight-fitting black shirt. Her blue jeans, torn in all the right spots, clung firmly against her legs. “What’s that?” He asked.
“I thought you might be hungry. Give me a hit of that.” Duras took a bowl of hot soup from her, and handed her a finely wrapped joint. She lit it, and he sat down against the hard ledge. His Springfield resting beside him, and fed his hungry belly with the spicy soup she made so well. She sat silently beside him, worn out from both fear and anxiety, and blew the sweet-smelling scent of marijuana high into the air. “I needed that,” she said.
“I can tell,” he replied.
Vice had disappeared, and Duras assumed he went to oversee the disposal of the bodies, or more than likely to check on his version of Mary Jane, her little sister Sarah Ann.
“How's Sarah?” he asked.
“Yes, she made it. Too ornery to die, that one. Think I saw Vice running her way on my way up,” she said.
“Oh yes. He'll do that, and of course you both made it. That’s what I love about you two. Ornery, godless, and horny. Just the type of women I need to run a post-apocalyptic religion.”
She said nothing, and blew pot smoke out in different sized smoke rings. He finished off the soup, and stared at her. “What are the people saying?” he asked.
“They're scared.”
“I'll talk with them soon. Give them the hope they need.”
“What will we do now?”
“Rebuild the walls. Go after the people that did this.”
“The tree folk?”
“Yes, the tree folk. Okona.”
“I wish I could come help you kill them. You've never really told me about what all the beef is about.”
He motioned for her to come to him. She came, sat beside him, and handed him the joint. He breathed in the hot smoke, and she laid her head on his chest. Her hair smelled like a fire pit, and he wrapped his arm around her and brought the joint to her lips. She smoked it, and he smoked it; then they just stared at the sun rising.
“I think I told you.”
“Nope. Just that you knew him and hated him.”
“He was a cocky asshole. He bought the comic store across from mine right after I'd beaten the store into the ground. He's a bit younger even with that bald head, and he enjoyed using his endless amount of cash to take me on.”
“He owned other comic stores?”
“Nope.” He took another drag of weed, blew it out and continued. “He did stupid stunts, and filmed them for YouTube. A real sensation, and must have made a lot of cash via the ad revenue.”
“He ran you out of business didn't he?” She said as she took the joint from his fingers.
“Nope, but he would have if the shit hadn't hit the fans. In the end, the dead put us and everyone else out of business.”
Tommy “Duras” Morrow remembered the Old Days sitting in his Comic Haven just off highway 17. Before the bald bastard came and shook up everything, and before the world went to shit. The smell of new comics drafting, his wife's ass as she stocked shelves, and the sound of the kids coming in after school. He especially remembers his little girl, a sweet-faced blonde with locks, and blue ribbons. The nickname “Duras” came from his love of Star Trek. He flew his wife and daughter to the Comic Cons and Trek conventions always dressed as Klingons, most specifically the leader of the Klingon Empire (you guessed it, the Klingon's name was Duras. He even had a bat’leth custom made, and after the shit hit the fans, he sharpened the edges and put it to damn good use. Duras was always a no-nonsense kind of guy, never taking shit from anybody. His body big and strong; just over two thirty pounds, and right at six-foot-five; Tommy “Duras” Morrow was a nerd nobody chose to pick on. Comic Haven had been his dream and a dream he refused to lose, even in the face of the competition across the street. The competition, or Comic Land was formerly owned by a donut eating black man by the name of Andre, and his brother Chris. That was, of course before the arrival of Okona. Tyler Okona. What a cocky little shit. If there had ever been a neck that needed breaking, Tommy thought, Okona needed it the most. When Duras opened Comic Haven, he knew Comic Land was already on its last leg. It didn't take him long to lure what few customers they had over to his new and much larger, flashier store. This all made possible by the added extra of having a coffee shop inside the store which also, much to the dislike of big black Andre, sold donuts. Duras believed he'd won and certainly there was plenty of evidence to back this up. After all, he'd turned a profit within the first year, and was now looking to not only put Comic Land out of commission, but also to lease new storefronts and start his comic empire. Then came Okona. That filthy, bald fuck. With his boat loads of cash and ever so arrogant attitude, not to mention a blistering hot wife that made Debbie Morrow look like a two-dollar bimbo. Well maybe not that bad, but she certainly had an hour glass figure and a booty to go with it, and a pair of perfect tits every man dreams about. And ever since society took a nose dive, the dead walked, and ghosts started showing up (or so he's told, he's yet to meet one). Duras had still got nothing but trouble from Okona. A reckless bandit that
one. An apocalyptic robin hood if there ever was such a thing. Hit and runs.
The possibility that he and Okona would soon depend on each other for survival never crossed his mind.
2
“You okay?” Mary Jane was staring at Duras as he came back to the world around him. He still sat with her on the blazing roof. A few moments had passed, maybe a few minutes, maybe over an hour, he didn't know.
Had it not been for her ... for Mary Jane ... surely, he would have lost what was left of his mind. The guilt over loving someone other than his dead wife caused him great pain. Just lust, that's all. I could never really love another woman, especially not in this hell.
But he could, and he did. He remembered the first night he realized how much he did love her and couldn’t live without her. They'd taken a mattress and sheets out to the burning pits to watch the dead burn in the night.
“I always hated religious scum, but when the shit flies; christianity is an excellent tool. Control and power, that's the ticket.”
“I know babe. You've told me a million, zillion times.”
“Never gets old.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Her hand had slipped under the sheets and gave a solid squeeze; she unzipped him. “Does Tommy need a blow job?”
“I'm the leader of the empire, of course I do. Life is stress.”
She unbuckled his pants, and brought him out into the hot night air. Death blurred in his eyes as the fires burnt the night. The ashy ruin of the Old World. The Before World, but in that moment; he felt alive and powerful. He felt he understood his destiny, as though somehow all this made sense. The rising cloud of smoke rose as Mary Jane felt the gush of joy running down her throat.
As Duras came, he watched the bodies burn; forcing the pleasure to stay inside him, sending his eyes to the back of his head. Dear Jesus, thank you for the world. The world where I reign supreme. I am the giver of dreams, the maker of death. Me and my band of anti-heroes. Together, we...I Control and Own this rabble of survivors.
