by Javan Bonds
☠☠☠
Easy was angry. “They really burned the fucking house down?”
I nodded my head. I knew he was only mad about losing his trophies. The conversation progressed and I had already described most of the main protagonists and their physical traits.
“Bradley showed up? Awesome, no one here will arm wrestle with me. Is Mary still with him?”
I again nodded and was a bit perplexed. How the hell did my brother know that Bradley was in a wheelchair or had a monkey? He would probably tell me, “Football players are like a brotherhood of awesomeness.”
☠☠☠
“So this comic book guy really has Darth Vader’s suit? Badass!”
My brother didn’t get my geek genes, but everyone respects Darth Vader. I added, “And that janitor, Tychus? I think Gene has some power armor that he should wear.”
“Um, okay.” Easy had no clue what I was talking about, but agreed anyway.
There really wasn’t any point in telling him about Starcraft; or anything else not immediately important. My companions had remained in the hall through our entire conversation; maybe they were just giving me time to catch up with my brother, or maybe Smokes was deathly afraid of seeing any more white penis.
I had described The Oracle’s prophetic abilities in detail. Easy asked, “You think he knows what’s going to happen?”
I shrugged my shoulders as if I wasn’t a firm believer in his zombie gospel. “Ah, maybe. He’s been pretty spot on so far; so who knows? I’m not sure how much detail comes to him, but he’s got the plot points down for sure.”
The door cracked open just enough for sound to come through, “You gays both naked now?”
I sighed before putting my hand over my eyes, “He’s wearing pants now, y’all can come on in.”
“You is dis retard’s brotha?” The Oracle questioned to Easy’s nod, and my friend smiled wickedly before he added, “Y’all sound like twins.”
That was almost insulting. I have to admit that while our voices are similar, that’s the only trait one could use to claim that we were related. Even if I ate steroids three meals a day like my brother does, I don’t think people would start confusing the two of us. In my first journal Smokes said that I sounded like a young, hillbilly Tommy Lee Jones; I would compare my brother’s voice to Matthew McConaughey’s. It’s actually feasible that the two actors are related. Dammit, I wish there was still IMDb!
As I said, we don’t really share much in looks. Besides the fact that Easy is in the running for Mr. Universe and makes me look like an albino midget, he’s bald. Not because–God forbid–he has anything close to a receding hairline. He just keeps his head smooth-shaven. For a guy that spent more money on hair treatment when he was in high school than I’ve earned in my entire life, I was surprised when he decided to go completely bald a few years ago. It was weird at first, but it suits him. There is no way I could pull that off.
I turned from The Oracle and faced my brother. I asked, “When do you think you’ll be able to leave?
“Aka is still hiding in the bathroom, and I need to go talk to her first. But in any case, I’m not sure we can go with you.”
I cocked my eyebrow. “Why not?” I noticed the Oracle over to my side wearing his “told you so, mufucka” grin. I could have smashed it off his face.
Aka had courageously emerged from the bathroom by this point, wrapped in a bathrobe that Easy had given her while trying to convince her to join the rest of us in the bedroom. She now sat on the end of the bed, close to my brother, glaring at me with venomous hatred, which I assumed was partially embarrassment. Seriously, if she’d had something sharp I would probably have moved to the other side of my large friend. She remained utterly speechless, and it was like the disturbing quiet right before the postal worker opens up on innocent bystanders. Other than that initial shriek, I had not heard her make a sound. She could have had a very thick accent, but it probably had more to do with the fact that I was a disgusting deviant who deliberately burst into the room while she and a close family member were involved in intercourse and didn’t deserve, now, to hear her voice.
What can you say after something like that? “Sorry I walked in while you and my brother were doing the no pants dance. Nice boobies, by the way.” Maybe I should simply have given her a thumbs UP?
☠☠☠
15
Mo Journal Entry 8
“YOU ARE SHITTING me!” it was unbelievable what my brother was telling me. Scratch that, it would be unbelievable if my life was not a fucking horror movie. I had hoped to star in a unique, exciting-in-a- mediocre sort of way version, instead of your run-of-the-mill zombie flick, but I guess us mortals gotta take whatever The Screenwriter dishes out.
Easy shrugged his shoulders to tell me it was true. Warden Slice was the typical dictator. She believed she could create a stronger society from the remnants of the old by using citizens as prisoners to farm and work for the community. Maybe her idol was George Orwell.
Holy shit, I had to say it. I asked flatly, “Some animals are more equal than others?’”
My brother nodded sadly. He answered “Yeah, pretty close.”
“So, what happened to all the prisoners?”
He sighed as he began. “We were told some of them escaped when this first started, long before we got here,” he turned green as he continued, “and they fucking executed anyone who got violent. Then they got rid of any of the others that weren’t willing to work, silent protestors, then they took out those folks that just weren’t capable; said they were just taking up needed space as more people flowed in.”
Someone, like Easy, who spent most of his life around me should have known that wouldn’t be enough information. I wanted the whole story. “Well, that wasn’t everyone, was it?”
He looked disgusted. “No, they–they’re–shit, Mo. They’re keeping a bunch chained up in one of the cellblocks during the day and secure them to the outer fence at night.”
I was briefly confused until realization struck me. I began to ask before catching myself, “But why–fuck me! They get them infected on purpose?”
“Well, they always say it’s an accident,” he mumbled. “A pretty damn convenient accident if you ask me.”
The Oracle spoke up and looked at me. “Cracka, why ain’t you been hearin’ me? I told you dat bitch was da bad guy, now we gotta fight our way outta dis shit, an I–”
I interrupted with a mischievous grin, “Wait, how can a ‘bitch‘ be the ‘bad guy?‘”
The seer’s nostrils flared and his eyes grew wide, “Mufucka dis serious man. I’ma…” he just trailed off, shaking his head.
I liked making those quick jabs but I wasn’t about to start arguing with him sincerely. I had been listening; he never said that we should get out of Dodge! He wanted us to make a daring escape and possibly receive at least a casualty. He could have just told me what was going to fucking happen before we left Guntersville and I wouldn’t have even gotten on the plane. Hell! That would mean we wouldn’t have come across The Loner and I definitely wouldn’t have found my brother, so I suppose we had to make this trip. There’s either fate or there’s not. There is, apparently, so that means we can’t fuck it up no matter how hard we try. Smokes’s mantra, "you’s always at da place you is always post to be." flashed across my mind.
I tried to ignore the murderous glare aimed at me by Easy’s fiancée. While he was still green from thinking about murdered people, I asked, “So where does that leave you and the rest of this population?” I explained my twisted thinking at his raised eyebrow, “I mean, how do they keep you in here? I doubt they threaten you with solitary confinement.”
My brother tried to smile through his disgust. It became a scowl. “If you are not a good citizen, one who earns their quota and keeps to themselves, they just won’t feed you. Or,” he said, “they will make you go hunting with a bow and arrow.” I furrowed my eyebrow. He continued before I could pester him. “But if yo
u do something really bad, like fight or kill someone, they’ll put you outside the fence at night with the others and use you as bait until you get bit.”
I looked at my brother with both understanding and wide-eyed confusion. “That’s it? No sex with peevies or zombie transplants?”
The unhealthiest person in the room broke in, “Da fuck wrong witchoo?”
I grew defensive, “It’s a valid question!”
“Dat’s fuckin’ messed up, yo!”
“It’s possible! People do some weird shit!”
“Fo sho. You just some lonely ass cracka thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ some head from da undead.”
I was trying to decide if The Oracle had purposely made a rhyme. I fell back into the memory of the worst blowjob I’ve ever had. It creeped me out that Smokes could remind me of a sexual experience.
☠☠☠
I already wrote that I met my longest relationship, Eternity, on the internet and that she was from Alaska. Before she moved to Alabama, she took a plane trip to visit me to decide if I was a serial killer that stalked fat, mentally challenged women online, or just some poor, lonely slob looking for female companionship. Any female. In that first week she discovered that I was so average that it was almost redundant. I discovered that she was a massive, and massively evil, bitch that I was, amazingly, able to live with. I guess it had to do with my expectations.
The day she arrived was just pitiful and it got worse from there. I was able to locate the airport in Huntsville, which I have never had a reason to visit before, and stood near the elevator waiting for her.
After a brief introduction, we got in my barely functional car and headed to the nearest Walmart, where, as we had previously discussed, she planned to give me a blowjob. If I had ever known a normal female in an intimate way before this, obviously I would have seen the red flags popping up everywhere. Anyway, not many guys turn this offer down, no matter the circumstances. First, I had never been to this particular Walmart and it took me over an hour to find it, though it turned out to be only around (the other) corner from the airport. Looking back, it would have saved me gas if we had just done it in the car, and would probably have been more legal. Alas, I can only plead retardation that began on the internet and didn’t end until fourteen months later when her fat ass finally went back to Alaska.
Anyway, once we entered the store, we found that there was only one bathroom with a lockable door, the family / handicapped bathroom. I’m sure it appeared dodgy to the girl at the customer service desk to see two apparently healthy adults with no kids walk into the family restroom; I wouldn’t know because I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. Once in this bathroom, I stood in front of and facing the toilet. Why? Because that's the only position I have ever taken in a public bathroom. She squeezed in between me and the commode, yes, it was tight, and pulled my pants down as she sank to her knees in front of me.
Before you get too excited here, let me tell you, this experience was the most disappointing sexual act I've ever had, and, well, that's a list it's hard to hit the bottom of. Without as much as a pat on the bottom, she just…started in. I could barely keep a decent hard-on; I mean, here we are at the Walmart toilet, and her technique just sucked–no pun intended. I actually looked down at my hand thinking it would be better if I helped her out a little. Naturally, you don't want to offend someone you hardly know when you are in this position. What if she went all Lorena Bobbitt on me with her teeth? Yeah, that thought helped me along. All I could do was pretend to enjoy it and hoped her badly timed chaffing of my sensitive areas would end soon. I tried to picture Emma Stone, but I was facing a sign that said "Do Not Flush Diapers,” and had to close my eyes.
After entirely too long, I started getting a Charlie horse in my right leg. It gave out and I unfortunately managed to fall forward onto my assailant, I mean my new girlfriend’s, head. When I collapsed onto her, I could see the back of her head bounce off of the toilet bowl like it was in slow motion. In that split-second I could only imagine the aftermath. As I followed her backwards landing spread eagle on the tile floor, on top of her with my pants-around-my-ankles, a mental image of a front page headline flashed through my mind:
“Local College Dropout Murders Internet Girlfriend During Sexual Assault.” I sort of regret that she survived.
We laughed; who wouldn’t? Looking back, it was kind of a high point in our relationship. She tried to get things going again, and, even though I’m not what you'd call a “Minuteman,” after about twenty more agonizingly unenjoyable minutes I just tapped out. She looked up and asked what was wrong and I didn’t know where to begin so I said “I’m just…tired.”
This situation should have clued me in that I was teetering on the verge of the worst mistake of my life. I was impressed, if not proud of her for willing to spend an hour on her knees in that filthy bathroom, the way you’re proud and impressed with a buddy that can eat two hundred wieners in ten minutes. But I was one sorry bastard. I’d never had less fun with a woman in front of me for any reason; I’d just wasted an hour, and I was embarrassed to walk back past customer service. If it weren’t for the certainty of being mutilated then dying a slow painful death, I believe a zombie would have provided me a better time. The relationship went downhill hard from there, and I thank God every day I never have to see her evil, pudgy face again.
☠☠☠
I shook myself from that nightmare while thinking over what Easy had told me so far. Did anyone else notice that The Oracle can carry on dialogue in front of any woman other than Crow? I thought that maybe because Hammer was more of a man than most of us could ever hope to be, he could say anything in front of her. But Aka could be Ms. Universe and he seemed to have no problems blasting “mufucka” out while mere feet away from her, or my mother, for that matter.
Anyway, I looked at my brother seriously. “Wait. You said something about a quota. Why the hell are you in here and not picking co–” before I could finish questioning, Smokes grunted loudly and I turned to stare at him. I completed my question, “Corn? Did you think I was about to say ‘cotton?’”
“Hells yeah Grand Wizard, youse prolly ‘bout to send me out there too.”
Jesus, I slapped my forehead and was about to respond before my brother interrupted the argument with his smugness. “Yesterday I more than doubled my quota so they gave both of us the day off.”
I guess even a communist dictatorship needs to prove that there are benefits to working hard. Of course, my perfect sibling is the example they would use.
A beacon of everything great, I was again reminded of why he’s the FAVORITE.
16
Limbo
SARAH OGLE HAD just finished her midday shift waitressing TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) Grill. She was heading into the courthouse to the offices that had become a temporary apartment for her and her adoptive parents, Randy and Debbie Collins. She had not realized how much Mo’s absence would really affect her. Though he had only been gone for two days, she really missed him. They had not always kept in close contact in recent years. Maybe because he was a friend from before the apocalypse, or maybe because they had been spending more time together since he had saved her and his parents, or perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he truly cared for her–whatever the reason, she just wished he was here now.
Sarah had been through several romantic relationships in her life, but none of them had been much more than flings. Since she had found herself with the Collins family just over a month ago, her life had been moving so unimaginably fast that she had not had the time to even think about relationships, other than her faux-engagement to Walt, of course. After his suicide mission, which took out most of The Villain, she became free of all romantic ties for the first time in recent memory. The image of her best friend, Mo-Mo flashed across her mind, and she realized that he was the romantic tie she wanted. Though she had never let him know that she knew, it was painfully obvious that he was madly in lov
e with her and had been for most of their friendship. She could see now that maybe she had felt the same way for just as long, only the timing just hadn’t been right.
The summer they’d first become friends, they were inseparable. At one point she said to him, “Mo-Mo, sometimes it’s like you’re my boyfriend and I’m your girlfriend.” She could see panic in his eyes briefly, before he laughed and brushed the statement off. She probably would not have remembered that single instance before the end of the world, but now that scene was vivid in her mind. She started contemplating how things would be different between them now if he had only given some kind of answer.
The Love Interest’s inner thoughts were scattered as a man exited the courthouse just as she approached the door. He was a stocky, muscular guy with thin blonde hair and he wore a sinister-looking smile on his face. Not a “I just murdered somebody and got away with it” smile, more of a “I’m about to do something really bad and nobody knows it” grin. She had seen this mischievous look plenty of times throughout her life. She would have to ask Randy who that stranger was.
She moved down the hallway in a jog, feeling she had to hurry; Sarah had never seen this man before, but the look on his face told her that he was about to be involved in something horrible in the place she had quickly taken to as home. It was more than the slight smile of a drunk about to roll a friend’s yard, it was the knowing smirk of a pickpocket entering a liquor store with a wallet full of a stranger’s cash. With each double step, she grew more convinced that the guy she’d passed had the intent of hurting her by hurting the people she loved, ruining her small slice of paradise. She knew it wasn’t really paradise, but it was close enough for her.. There were always monsters at the gates, but she was safe inside. She thought, It’s something like limbo; it might not be forever, but it doesn’t matter.
