George Washington Zombie Slayer

by Wiles, David

  “OK…” Reebcok said.

  “And bump into him hard so he spills his wine upon his shirt,” Washington directed.

  “Um, OKaaaaay…” Reebock said, liking this plan less and less.

  “The Earl Cornwallis will be so angry…” Washington continued.

  “Uh huh…”

  “That he will berate you and grab you and take you to the Contessa’s overseer and order that you be whipped for your stupidity,” Washington continued.

  “Uh-huh…” Reebock said hesitantly.

  “And thus distracted,” Washington happily concluded, “I will be free to speak with Miss Dandridge!”

  “Um…” Reebock stammered.

  “Why, it’s the perfect plan of attack!” Washington happily concluded.

  “It, um, may have a few drawbacks,” Reebock said honestly.

  “Nonsense, good Reebock,” Washington said, ending the discussion. “You have your orders,” he said, patting him on the back and gently shoving him in the direction of the Earl.

  Reebock knew better than to argue and was therefore committed to Washington’s plan of attack, which went exactly as he had predicted. Reebock bumped into Charles the Earl Cornwallis, who spilled his entire goblet of wine across his fine, white silk shirt. Grabbing Reebock by his ear, the Earl howled angrily and dragged him from the reception hall to the cabin of the overseer. The defensive perimeter withdrawn, George Washington approached the startled Miss Dandridge and introduced himself.

  It was love at first sight for the young couple. Martha was immediately smitten with the tall, dashing, handsome, aristocratic gentleman. George, equally enraptured by Martha’s wealth, felt an immediate romantic longing for a woman who retained such an impressive dowry. They spent the rest of the evening together, even after the Earl returned, seething in anger and frustrated at being so skillfully out-maneuvered and un-tottied by Washington.

  After dismissing her slaves for the evening, Martha walked with George on the grounds of the Contessa’s plantation late into the evening, long after the cotillion had ended. But as they passed the plantation stables in the darkness, Washington heard a haunting sound that was like the recollection of a long forgotten nightmare. It was a sound something between a human moan and a growl, a sound George had not heard since his childhood.

  Suddenly, from around the corner of the stable, came a creature much like those George had seen as a child. It was pale and bore the features of a man, with tattered clothing and the wild, savage look of a hungry animal.

  Grabbing Martha’s hand, George pulled her away from the creature. George tried to enter the stable but the closest door was locked. “Come with me quickly,” George said urgently to Martha as they ran towards the distant barn. Entering the structure quickly, George could hear the creature just steps behind them.

  “What is that ghastly creature?” Martha cried.

  “My slave calls them ‘zombies,’” Washington said, scanning the interior of the barn for a weapon he could use against the approaching creature. “Stay behind me,” George ordered.

  Martha screamed as the zombie entered the barn and staggered towards the startled couple. George scanned the assorted pitchforks and sickles hanging on the barn wall until at last he found his weapon of choice. Grabbing a long handled broad axe from a small shelf, he immediately stepped towards the approaching creature.

  The zombie stopped for a second and then reached out towards George Washington. But that second of hesitation was all George needed as he mentally measured the distance between himself and the creature. George swung the axe horizontally, with great strength and speed and the sharp blade connected with the creature’s neck, severing its head from its body.

  Martha screamed again as George killed the creature, averting her eyes from the headless corpse by placing her face against George’s chest, clutching him tightly. The zombie was slain.

  “We must leave,” George said. “Come to my carriage,” Washington urged, fearful there were more of those creatures close at hand. The pair approached the carriage where the recently whipped Reebock sat uncomfortably upon a sore, recently whipped ass in the driver’s seat. George did not wait for Reebok to descend in the darkness but opened the carriage door himself and ushered Martha quickly inside.

  From the darkness behind the carriage, both George and Reebock heard that inhuman growl from their childhood, and exchanged a quick, nervous glance at each other before George stepped into the carriage. Nothing more needed to be said.

  Reebock pulled the horse whip he almost never used from its holder beneath his seat, and giving the two horses a sharp crack, snapped the reins and urged the horses quickly away and into the distance, making good their escape from the demons of their childhood.

  “Thank you, Mister Washington,” Martha cried hugging him. “Oh, my protector!” she cried, hugging him in a most unladylike manner.

  “Will you marry me?” George, ever the tactician, asked the frighted widow

  “Oh, YES, George,” Martha exclaimed. “Yes I will!”

  And with that act of protection, in the carriage ride to safety, one of America’s greatest gentlemen had found himself a fiancee.

  Chapter 5

  The Master of His Domain

  In the full year that they had been married, Martha Washington had asked George on only one occasion about the fearsome creature that had attacked them during their evening walk the first night they met. For his part, Washington had few answers for her.

  What were these creatures? Were they once men? Why did they attack? What had caused their condition? Where had they come from? George had simply hypothesized answers, telling Martha that the creatures were likely once men that had been infected by some corruptive pestilence. Thus sickened and delusional, these poor souls would attack anyone they encountered. He cautioned her that he had seen such creatures before, and that they were deadly and to be avoided at all costs. Thus ended Martha’s inquiry.

  But George Washington knew more then he let on. He knew the creatures were cannibalistic. He knew they sought to devour human flesh. Most shockingly, they were highly impervious to the infliction of mortal wounds by sword or fire. They were ferocious, even when severely injured. And most recently, George had learned that the one certain way to kill the creatures was by beheading them.

  He has also heard rumors regarding these creatures, strange stories and tales told by passing travelers and sailors. In one village where five of these zombies were sighted and later killed, a corresponding number of villagers had “gone missing” at about the same time. In another township, two zombies had been sighted, where previously two of the townsfolk had disappeared. It seemed likely that the missing souls were, in fact, infected and corrupted into becoming the walking dead. The missing people had become zombies!

  George Washington also possessed the one fact that was most important of all: He was nearly certain that the bite of these creatures was the means by which the pestilence was transmitted. If a man were bitten by a zombie, he would die and become a zombie himself! So if a man could avoid the bite of these fearsome creatures, he could thereby prevent his own untimely demise, and an unwanted resurrection and conversion into a zombie.

  Washington did not know why he and Martha were attacked that evening, or where the creatures had come from. Most strangely, he did not know why the body of the creature he had slain had disappeared, or was removed, unreported.

  But as more time passed after he and Martha were married, George Washington put memories of these creatures far from his daily thoughts. He had so much else to do.

  Of all the things that George Washington had done or would ever do in his entire life, he did no job more successfully than that of a wealthy farmer and plantation owner. His new estate at Mount Vernon would become, under his guidance and leadership, one of the most successful plantations in the nation.

  Mount Vernon boasted extensive farmland and stables, a blacksmith, as well as a butcher, a baker and candle-stick maker.
The now thriving plantation soon had hundreds of slaves and produced vast crops of both wheat and tobacco. Washington himself found Reebock’s magical herb in his reference books, and was soon planting and harvesting vast crops of cannabis indica, or marijuana.

  The herb provided a nice, relaxing smoke for Washington on those rare occasions when he felt overly stressed or anxious. But the herb had a more valuable use that Mr. Kindly, now Chief Overseer at Mount Vernon, had found quite by accident. Kindly found that by giving a small amount of the herb to the more defiant and rebellious slaves, he could render them more placid and docile. Thus controlled, they could be more easily handled.

  And so it was that defiant slaves at Mount Vernon were eventually given a weekly allotment of cannabis, and soon became known as “the happiest slaves in America.”

  As a younger man, before his marriage to Martha, George Washington had worked as a land surveyor and later as a British soldier against the French. As a wealthy gentleman farmer, Washington used his knowledge of land and men to greatly expand the facilities at Mount Vernon. Soon the plantation boasted facilities for fishing, flour milling, horse breeding, weaving, and even a distillery for making rye whiskey.

  Washington also established facilities for barrel-making, meat smoking and slave breeding, as well as a dental clinic for the making of dentures. Slaves “volunteered” to donate their teeth to the dental clinic, that they might be used to make dentures for wealthy whites, including George Washington himself. Slaves were paid one cent for each donated tooth, the first time in American history that slaves were given cash compensation of any kind.

  Slave-tooth dentures were greatly welcomed by George Washington, who heretofore had only wooden dentures that were far from sanitary or comfortable. Those wooden teeth also created a problem for George and Martha in the establishment of “physical intimacy.” Doctor Kimble, the Washington family physician, noted in his journal, on 24 May, 1760, that he treated Martha Washington for “wood splintering in her most private feminine and vulval of nether-regions.” The reader may use his or her imagination in this instance.

  George and Martha Washington spent many of those early years together living the busy, full lives of a well-respected lady and gentleman. In their private times, on cold winter nights, they would often sit beside each other near the fireplace, George reading a favorite book, while Martha clipped newspaper coupons. They were wealthy, and yet frugal.

  By Fall of 1764, Martha occupied much of her free time in baking the most exquisite of apple pies, a delicacy for which she became famous throughout all of Virginia. Martha directed her house slave Oprah, one of many former Ferry Farm slaves now moved to Mount Vernon, to spend nearly five hours picking and peeling bushels of green and red apples. Beyonce was ordered to prepare the flour, salt, water and lard for the crust. While Oprah cut the apples and mixed them with nutmeg, brown sugar and salt, Beyonce laid the many pie crusts across the baking pans. Through trial and error over many months, the slaves had perfected the mixture of ingredients to produce pies of renowned sweetness and tartness.

  Martha would often watch with amusement as her two house slaves worked in the kitchen, their faces covered in flour and their heads damp with sweat from the heat of the ovens. Their preparations complete, Oprah would then fill each pie pan with the apple mixture, while Beyonce set each filled pan in the oven for baking until they were a delicious, golden brown. The slaves then placed the finished pies in a pie safe, a giant wooden cabinet with perforated tin doors designed for the cooling and storage of pies and pastries.

  “Has my talented wife been hard at work a-baking?” George would say coming into the kitchen. “Are those her delicious apple pies I smell cooling in our kitchen?”

  “You know very well I have been working like a beast of burden in this kitchen all morning,” Martha would reply. “No pie for you until dinner,” Martha added. “Now scat,” she threatened, “before I go fetch Mr. Kindly and have him tie you to the oak tree for a-whipping.”

  Thus threatened, George Washington would skulk back to his farm ledgers and books and leave the kitchen in the capable hands of his “hard-working” wife.

  Upon leaving the kitchen, George returned to the main house at Mount Vernon, where he ran into his adopted children John, age 10, and Martha, age 9. John was playing with the family dog, Syphilis, by tugging on its tail and attempting to light his floppy ears on fire with embers from the fireplace.

  John was a spoiled pisspot of a child, rude and pouting. He was called by Jackie by his mother and Poopy by his father, for his singular habit of taking a large shit in nearly every room of the Mount Vernon estate. Young Martha was a sweet looking child, more often called Patsy by her parents. The child’s health was poor, and she was often struck with convulsive fits now known as epilepsy. Martha cherished young Patsy above all things, and even George fell in love with his adopted daughter. He had to keep reminding himself that, burdened by epilepsy as she was, the child was most certainly in league with the devil and an evil hellspawn that, being thus cursed, would certainly suffer in hell for all eternity.

  George Washington’s insightful Mount Vernon Journal entry from March, 1765 makes clear his thoughts on his children:

  “This day was one of much consternation. John-Poopy once again took an enorumous shit in the main house, this time right in my study whilst I was out attending to the fields. That little fucker. Upon viewing the odiferous deposit, his sister Patsy laughed gleefully, with so much delight and excitement that she thereupon had one of her convulsive fits, spasming right into the poo pile her brother had so thoughtfully left. Her fit being over, she cried and cried as her favorite dress was a-fouled with crap. The poor child! Her devil fits prove she is beguiled by Satan and doomed for hellfire and perdition. Alas! I love my step-children dearly, and yet they try my patience. I sometimes wish Patsy would return to her master Satan, and take her shit-cannon of a brother with her.”

  In addition to his fatherly duties, George Washington loved foxhunting. It was his favorite hobby and endeavor, this sport of gentlemen. Fox hunting had flourished since the days of ancient Rome, had blossomed throughout Europe for centuries, and was now firmly embedded in the American colonies. With his fearlessness, ample land and his skill as a horseman, the foxhunt was a sport at which Washington excelled.

  The hunt was as much ritual as sport, a combination of men and canine working together to catch the fox, the honored beast of the hunt. The gentleman riders, Washington and neighboring plantation owners, would assemble in their custom jackets and riding pants, gloves, hunting hats and tall English leather riding boots. Traveling ahead, Overseer Kindly released his bloodhounds along a woodland trail to sniff out the scent of the fox.

  Having picked up the fox’s scent, the dogs would race at full speed into the trails of the wilderness, while Mr. Kindly and his two sons flanked the ever-barking hounds, using whips and shouted calls to keep them in a tight group. The riders would then follow behind the hounds, by the quickest route possible, jumping fences and streams, hot on the trail of the cunning fox.

  If the hunt were successful, the hounds would “run down” the fox before he could hide in an underground burrow. In most instances, the riders looked on in delight and shouted their success as the hounds apprehended the honored wily fox and ripped it to pieces in a splendid melee of flying entrails, blood and fur. In rare cases, the hounds “flushed out” the fox towards the waiting riders, where it would be shot with a musket.

  The successful hunters, leading exhausted dogs homeward, would return to the starting point for a tankard of ale, a glass of whiskey, or a goblet of wine, all appropriate celebratory beverages for a successful hunt. Mr. Kindly would secure the remnants of the bloody fox pelt and nail it over the barn door after a good cleaning, a fine trophy of the hunt. And so it was that the crossbeam over the barn door at Mount Vernon was soon covered with tens of fox pelts, victorious remembrances of Washington’s skill and ability.

  In these days of hun
ting and farming and the management of his vast estate, with his wife and children beside him, George Washington lived an idyllic life of prosperity and contentment. Yet somewhere in his bosom, George Washington longed for more, for fame and recognition and an opportunity for leadership. Washington longed for greatness in service to the American Colonies.

  What Washington did not know was that there were decisions being made far across the Atlantic Ocean, decisions that would give him just the opportunities he sought. For the British Empire was jealous of its colonies, and was even now was taking steps to increase its own control of America through increased taxation and imposed regulation. Washington could not yet see them, but there were dark and ominous storm clouds gathering on the American horizon.

  Chapter 6

  Dark and Ominous Storm Clouds

  Gathering on the American Horizon

  Charles, the Earl Cornwallis unlocked his desk drawer and once again opened the envelope that contained his orders from the Advisory Council of His Royal Highness. Noting the royal wax seal of the King, he flipped the tab of the envelope open and read the contents of the letter once again, for the fifth time.

  Confidential, by Order of His Majesty-

  The Year of Our Lord

  One Thousand Seventeen Hundred and Sixty Six

  To The Honourable Charles, The Earl Cornwallis:

  Dear Sir:

  By Order of his Majesty, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Colonel in his Majesties Armed forces in his Colonies on the American Continent. As a member of the British House of Lords, you were previously advised by the Royal Advisory Council of the possibility of implementation of the CONFIDENTIAL plan then designated “Project Z.”

  By Order of His Majesty, you shall make all necessary preparations required for the full implementation of the CONFIDENTIAL Project Z, and are hereby placed in command of those operations in His Majesties Training Barracks in Richmond, Virginia.