“You’d lose your mind, fuhgedit, she’s fuckin’ brilliant dis one. She made that macaroni necklace in school, and I was like, Get outta’here, you made dis ‘ting? It’s fuckin’ bewtiful! you know what I mean?”
Unfortunately, Tommy spent a lot of time at the bar because his marriage was failing—or his marriage was failing because he was spending too much time at the bar, like the rest of us. Either case, Tom always looked out for Stewart and me. He became very concerned when Mom became sick.
“Aye, how’s yo’mom, good? Tell her I said hello, arite.”
Tommy would discretely slip money into my pockets because he knew my father was a cheap, penny-pinching bastard. I never understood why he was always so kind to us until later.
I prayed for him and his family when the Deviant circus came to town, hoped they didn’t get ripped to shreds. The trick is not to think about it.
I’d rather be wrong about someone being dead than alive.
XXX
CHILD’S PLAY
Monday, January 20th, 2014
I nodded off underneath the fig tree on the lawn at St. Christopher’s church one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, after washing down a painkiller or two with half a case of beer. I don’t remember where I was going, but I know I never got there.
I heard something coming down the road in my direction: a clicking of feet and something bouncing and skidding along with it.
“What the fuck is that?” It took all my strength to lift my groggy head and adjust my vision.
Little Elizabeth Holton was strutting, dragging what looked like a large dirty bouncing softball attached to a long jagged spindly thing—no, it was a human skull still attached to the end of its spine.
I brushed the grass off my clothes and decided to follow her. I was always curious as to what these things did in their spare time, so I went in sluggish pursuit without drawing her attention.
There goes that broken skull still skidding along the sidewalk looking back at me—Dink! Dink! Dink! Dink!
Elizabeth turned the corner on Murray Hill where she joined two other Deviant younglings, happily grazing on a pool of blood that streamed from someone’s head like a fresh geyser. Fssppt! Fssppt! Fssppt!
I watched from behind a short bus as Elizabeth slowly knelt beside them and lapped away like a dog that’s been in the sun for too long. Occasionally looking over to the others agreeably, making a creepy baby giggly-gurgling sound from her body, smiling as the blood stained her mouth and teeth. (Mmm, Mmm, good) Suck it up, kids. The iron will be good for your bluish-green complexions.
I couldn’t stop myself from watching.
The woman slumped over the curb with her brain particles tossed all over the ground should have never underestimated the children. Big mistake. The Deviant children are far more mischievous than the adults. It begins with the puppy eyes and the tears; when you get close enough, that’s when they get you. They were like gremlins, sneaky little fucking gremlins.
I wanted to call out to Elizabeth, but there was no reason. I didn’t want to have to force myself into killing her and the other little bloodsucking imps.
Now I avoid children at all costs so I’m not reminded of Kate. It breaks my heart to even have to look at those little bastards knowing that they’re sick or if Kate was.
UNEVEN STEVEN SINGS THE BLUES
Monday, January 20th, 2014
2:44 a.m.
It was a haunting melody, one I would later curse for being stuck in my head for so long. Steven stood beneath the streetlamp in the dark, in a sentimental trance, eyes glazed over, singing the blues for hours after midnight—every night. Uneven Steven was a name I gave him because of the way the left side of his body disassociated from his right. It did its own thing sometimes, but mostly, it did nothing at all. He sang his heart out with that tune every damn time, until both Jane and I started singing along with him in bed—it was contagious.
Black night is falling; it sure is, Steven.
INSIDE YOU
Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014
“Feeling better?” I asked Jane as she sat up in bed this morning.
“Yeah, a little better—just tired.”
“How’d you sleep?”
“Fine,” she answered, immediately putting her wall up and turning her face to the window.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I didn’t,” she groaned and clenched her jaw.
“How about you?”
“Okay, I guess, except for the part where you beat me up at two in the morning,” I smiled—she didn’t. I might have embarrassed her, but I wasn’t going to let her run from me this time.
“Sorry about that,” she let out a deep sigh, again turning her face anywhere else except my direction.
I held her hand and tried to get her to look me in the eye—the bruised one. “You don’t need to apologize, I ain’t mad or nothin’. I’ve been hit by women, bigger and much uglier than you, though you do have a pretty mean right hook.” I wasn’t kidding; she slugged me pretty good. There was a side to Jane that reared its ugly head during those violent fits.
I kinda’ like it when it hurts, maybe for the same reasons she does too—the rush of pure adrenaline. It’s like an undercurrent that surges and spikes when a switch is flipped on, and then you detonate. KA-BOOM! You’re suddenly free from the chains of restraint.
She goes somewhere else, panics, and when it all falls into place, she becomes hard-focused and fights her way out bare-knuckled. I know that place—it’s untapped rage, aftershock from the scarred recesses of your mind.
The muscles in her face tighten, her eyebrows scrunch down, and her eyes scream bloody survival.
I met the Jekyll to her Hyde face to face. I found the crack in the glass. She implodes in her sleep only to pull it together and sleep it off within a few short minutes. It’s hard to determine which half made up the true whole; was she the psychotic parading around as the normal girl, the normal girl trying to subdue the psychotic, or maybe they were a tug of war of equal parts?
“You understand I don’t know what I’m doing when that happens, right?” she said meekly in defense of her nightly outbursts.
I knew she was sincere because she looked me hard and clear in the eye—which is something she never does.
It must be hard for someone who constantly looks distracted or anxiously stares at her feet to snap into focus that quickly.
“I know. I just want to get inside you. I mean, you know what I mean. Not inside you, but inside…You. I did say I’d take care of you, and I meant it,” I reassured her not to upset her. “Let me help you work through this, whatever this is.”
Mild agitation grew over her face and then seamlessly into a smile. I realized I was dueling with the duality of personalities: Jane who was normally timid and shy, and the fierce alter ego that came out at night...or when she was cornered.
“Charlie, I don’t want you to worry. I’m fine, I swear. If I need to talk about something, I promise, you’ll be the first to know,” she said, and kissed me on the forehead before hopping out of bed.
“You’re not a very good liar, but I’ll be here if you need me.”
PILLOW TALK
Friday, January 24th, 2014
I gave Jane something to help her sleep last night because she still complained about seeing glares and lights and had trouble sleeping. Her foot healed quite nicely, but her mind? Not so much.
“No,” she cried, whimpering and tussling in her sleep.
Her words were faint and soft, but I braced myself in case she elbowed me in the face again like she did the other night. I gently rubbed her back, not wanting to startle her. Jane had explosive outbursts, kicking and screaming, whenever she woke from a nightmare until she finally came to her senses and cried herself back to sleep.
She would shut down and became quiet whenever I’d ask who “They” were.
It sounded as though she was speaking to someone in her dreams, if not more than one per
son at times. I found myself staying up half the night carefully trying to decode her ramblings.
Who are the skeletons in your closet, Jane?
The paranoia keeps me on my toes. Lack of sleep, pain, and paranoia is a strange brew.
I looked forward to when Jane opened her eyes in the morning revealing those cool baby blues. I wanted to dive in and swim. I wanted to go deep. I wanted to sink to the bottom because she made me feel calm like Morgan did when she held me. It’s unsafe, but I can’t keep painting over my feelings for her.
I will disappoint. I will crush her when I tell her what awaits us out in the world or mine—maybe she already knows.
Pain.
I am toxic.
There is no question about it.
Pain isn’t as bad until it finds its way into the heart. It will corrupt the trust or it will strengthen it. She can run or she can stand with me. I still didn’t know how to keep her safe other than keeping the truth from her for just a little while longer, but then what? Out there, the world is cold and dead. In here, I put my arms around her and I feel alive. It’s selfish, and it’s cruel. So, instead of telling her the truth—I made my move on her in bed this morning.
Lying beside her, I ran my fingertips down the curves of her back, tightly grabbing her waist, wrapping my hand over her soft stomach and over the trails of scars. I pulled her closer, gently, sinking my teeth and lips into the back of her neck, tasting her until she turned to me doing the same.
Her cool baby blues became stormy and sinister. In that moment, with that look, she changed from being a mousy weakling to a domineering vixen. What the…? The way she looked at me said, “Yeah –I’M GOING TO FUCK YOUR BRAINS OUT.” I wasn’t sure if I was in trouble or in for the ride of my life.
She straddled my lap and pinned my wrists to the bed. Now we’re talkin’.
When she kissed my mouth, I could feel the warmth between her thighs on my groin as I fought the urge of exploding in my boxers. Oh yeah, that’s it, that’s the stuff. She went down on me, kissing and playfully biting my stomach making her way below when…
We both heard Dusty hollering like a lunatic downstairs.
Leaping out of bed, Jane and I raced to the stairs where we found Dusty with his head caught in the banister and kicking Cooper away from his defenseless naked ankles.
“How’d he get out?” I said, investigating the baby gate and the doorway to his bedroom.
“Charlie, really? He’s four feet tall,” Jane grumbled, wrapping herself in a robe.
“Oh, no, why are you putting clothes on?”
“You can’t leave him there, do something.”
“Oh, come on….right now?” I protested. “Okay, I’m not going to leave him, I just…but…no sex?”
Jane stood with her arms crossed and slowly shook her head.
Cock blocked. Thank you, Dusty.
Alpo’s Sirloin Steak smudged his face as Cooper tugged and bit at his pajama leg to get at the empty can of dog food. The words “no,” “mine,” and “shit” flew from his mouth.
He didn’t care if he was about to behead himself in the death grip of the wooden bars. He must have really hated SPAM and potato chips that much.
“No, Dusty! Wait, were you eating dog food?” I couldn’t believe it. He could be onto something here.
I didn’t know if I should have been worried, fall over with laughter, or cry from the swelling pain of blue balls surging in my shorts.
“Hold still, you little shit! How the fu–” I yelled, pulling on his little shoulders and adjusting myself because I was still at half-staff. The only way I could have gotten him out was to get the Jaws of Life from the shed in the back. I tried twisting and easing him out just to avoid going back in to the shed with Peter’s dead body, but nothing I did was working—not even pushing his thick skull back from the other end.
When the pain in my balls started setting in all I wanted to do was strangle the little bastard. “I should leave you here—this way you learn!”
RED HANDED
Friday, January 24th, 2014
I’ve never been a good liar. I’m not good at telling the truth either, for that matter. I have an inability to mask my emotions to thank for that.
When my mother asked the 12-year-old me what “these” were—referring to the stack of wrinkled porno magazines stashed away beneath my mattress—“I don’t know” was the best I could do.
When Morgan found the stash of narcotics in my sock drawer 22 years later, “I don’t know” still didn’t cut it, and she left me.
Jane had no idea what she was walking into when she opened the door and found me in the shed looking for tools with Peter’s rancid body mangled on top of my table saw. The way she looked at Peter—“I don’t know” was the only logical thought that came to mind.
Jane turned white as a ghost, and though she looked like she wanted to scream, nothing came out of her but choked air. I reached for her, but she pulled away and ran back into the house, locking herself in the bathroom upstairs.
I followed her up the stairs, stepped over Dusty, and sat outside the bathroom door trying to find something to say. How could I explain myself without sounding ridiculous?
“It’s not what you think!” I told her. “You’re not going to believe this.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but there are these creatures that look like deranged monkeys, and they’ve taken over our city, and the government isn’t doing shit about it…which is why I’m a hermit living with a kid I found on the street and my dead friend’s dog. At night, these creatures come to the house, which is why my home looks like a bomb shelter and the reason I had to bludgeon someone to death with a hammer. But everything is fine and—that’s the truth.”
I could hear her sobbing again. “Oh, my God, there’s a dead guy in your shed! You’ve been lying to me!” she accused from behind the door.
I hadn’t lied. I just didn’t tell her the truth so she wouldn’t leave me.
I’d forgotten that Dusty’s head was still stuck in the banister—he shouted words he should’ve never heard me say in the first place. I kicked in about four pegs from the banister and freed him so I could return to Jane.
After a few minutes, Jane calmed down. She accused me of taking advantage of her and called me an asshole.
I did what now? I never took advantage of her. She didn’t magically appear in the middle of the street by me snapping my fingers. She’s out of her mind. Screw her. How could I take advantage of someone’s condition when I don’t even know what the condition is?
I give up. I gave her the choice of leaving, but where was she going to go? She has no identity. I still don’t know who she is after God knows how many weeks of her being here. She has no clothes, no money, and no clue to where she even is on the map. If she isn’t going to trust me, then I have no right to keep her here. She’s free to go if that’s what she wants.
I sat in my bedroom after leaving clothes for her at the bottom of the stairs. A few moments later, the front door slammed, and she left without saying goodbye.
That sucked.
I thought maybe I should‘ve kept Jane here in the house against her will. She had a better chance of surviving me than the outside. She won’t last the night out there. I know it. I give it a mile before she’s dead. I give her ten minutes before she’s food. She was a pain in my ass anyways.
I caved.
I grabbed the gun from underneath my bed and got to the foot of the stairs before Jane stopped me in my tracks coming out of the bathroom.
“Jane?”
“Charlie?”
I was glad to see she didn’t leave, but on second thought I guess I really wasn’t.
I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but if Jane was in the bathroom the entire time, that would mean she never left. If she never left, then who unfastened the latches on the door?
I think Jane knew just by looking at my face that this was bad.
“Where’s D
usty?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t confirm what I already knew.
The last time I saw the boy, he was kicking and screaming with his big head stuck in the stairs. The way Cooper whimpered at the door, something told me I was a hair away from being very unhappy.
“Dusty?”
He must have heard us fighting and gotten upset enough to want to leave. Leave? I turn my back for one second…and who taught him how to open the goddamn door anyways?
Jane and I spent a good number of hours outside looking for him, combing every street, corner, and crevice. We raced against the clock and the sun, but Dusty vanished, and it was getting dark.
STRAYS
Saturday, January 25th, 2014
I’ve never been the one to say, “I told you so.”
As Jane and I set out on our quest to find Dusty the following morning, there was nothing I could’ve said to prepare her for what she was about to see with her own eyes—the worst. The virus and the Deviants reduced our world to ruins, and we are weary.
Those who we’ve met along the way—survivors along the roads and the communes—still have no explanation for what happened months ago when the tornadoes touched down and the Deviants inherited the land. All we can do is continue to fight for one more day.
My name is Charles Dudley. I will not die out here in the badlands.
It’s 12:45 p.m., and Jane, Cooper, and I are sitting together in the abandoned and dirty Dave’s Diner in downtown Flushing, watching the rain as it falls and sweeps across the pavement and the parking lot. I used to come here for lunch with my family every Sunday afternoon after church. I would order a cheeseburger deluxe and milkshake, and my father would yell at me for getting food on my tie. Stewart would get whacked upside the head for sticking straws up his nose and flicking the ends out at the family beside us. The pastry display had fresh lemon bunts.
I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 Page 8
