American Revenant (Short Story 2): Dead South

by John L. Davis IV

  Matthew jumped over the sprawled woman, scooped his bag from the floor as he darted past her and ran through the door, avoiding a half-hearted swipe from Landry.

  Picking up speed, Matthew ran for the main gate, moving easily around the stacks of cars and junk. He knew the junkyard well; it had been his home for three years.

  He could hear shouts coming from behind him, though he could make out no words. Matthew didn’t look back.

  As soon as the gate was in sight, he put on a burst of speed, slipping through sideways, his pack in one hand, the hatchet in the other.

  Just as he cleared the gate a hand shot out, latching on to the wrist of the hand holding the backpack.

  Matthew’s eyes shot up to find a whiskered, emaciated face grinning a green and black grin at him. His first thought was zombie. He swiped at the arm holding his wrist, slicing deep into flesh. He felt the heavy edge of the hatchet scrape bone as he drew it back.

  Matthew was mildly surprised when the zombie shouted.

  “Damn it! You little shit-head!”

  Matthew back-pedaled, his eyes going wide. The man with the moldy-looking teeth clapped his hand over the wound. Blood poured out between his fingers.

  Matthew bolted down the road, heading in the direction of Morganza.

  “Get back here kid! I’m gonna tear your head off and feed it to the zombies!”

  Feet pounded the pavement behind him; again, Matthew did not look back.

  From the direction of the shack he heard the woman yell, an almost hysterical shouting.

  “Tony, get in here and help! Hurry up!”

  The sound of pursuing feet dwindled and stopped, and still Matthew ran.

  ***

  Matthew felt as if he had always been running. His legs burned, his lungs ached and sweat poured from his wild mop of hair.

  He stopped in the middle of the street and looked around, realizing two things. The sun was going down, and in his mad flight he had ended up in one of the few parts of Morganza that he had yet to clear and mark off his map.

  A car with age-flattened tires sat dead in the middle of the road and Matthew backed up against it, resting his weary legs, as he leaned back the machete still hanging from his bag bumped the side of the car.

  Directly behind him something slapped the window.

  Matthew jumped, turning almost in mid-air. He felt if his heart started drumming any harder it would just pop.

  A zombie had risen from the back seat of the car. He had no way of knowing for sure, but was certain that with the way the flesh was peeling off the hands and sticking to the window in gruesome smears, this thing had been rotting and cooking inside the vehicle for several years now.

  The dead thing lunged forward and its lips mashed against the window, pulling away from black teeth, ripping off and adhering to the window as well. Matthew backed away as the creature tried to bite at him, the sound of its teeth scraping the inside of the glass setting his already frayed nerves on edge.

  He looked up the street, and back the way he had come, then up to the darkening sky.

  “Gotta get inside,” he muttered.

  Thankfully the streets were empty even though he hadn’t been to this area to clear it of dead yet. He moved up a tree-lined walk, the grass median thick and overgrown. Without people to mow them, yards had gone to seed, un-pruned trees spread profusely, dropping their seeds and splitting sidewalks with new growth.

  He passed house after house, dismissing each as too risky to breach and clear in the rapidly failing light.

  Several houses down, Matthew caught sight of a small tool-shed sitting behind a blue-shuttered house. He made for it quickly, horrified at the idea of being stuck outside in the dark in the middle of town.

  Unconsciously, Matthew looked over both shoulders, swiveling his head to ensure no one or no thing watched as he opened the shed door, stepped inside and pulled it tightly closed behind him.

  With the door closed, the inside of the shed was pitch-black. Matthew rummaged inside his pack and withdrew a small flashlight, clicking the button at the base and filling the tiny shed with light.

  The wall on his right was storage; wide hand-made shelves filled with all manner of yard tools, mower parts, quarts of oil and other liquids. Most of the narrow floor space was taken up by a well-kept push mower. A pegboard with various tools hung on the wall to his left. Several longer items, shovels and rakes, leaned against the wall next to the door.

  Matthew found a folded canvas tarp on a shelf. This he unfolded, spreading it out on the dirty, oil-stained wood floor. He sat on the tarp, flashlight pointing up at the ceiling, his backpack beside him.

  He thought for a moment of Casey, of his family, of the time he had spent in the junkyard, fighting to survive and staying as close as he dared to the memory of the family he loved. Admitting to himself that deep inside, he had hoped his father was still alive somewhere and that he was searching for his son; that by staying close he would someday see him again.

  Matthew stretched out on the canvas, curling into a fetal position, sighed once and shut his eyes before clicking off the light.

  9

  Darkness, all-encompassing darkness

  Matthew Cormier, if I have to tell you one more time to clean this room, I’m taking your iPad and putting it in the dishwasher.

  I don’t care if you are my brother, if you don’t give it back, I’m telling Mom!

  Happy birthday, Matty!

  Matty! Matty, Help!

  No, Matthew, run! Just run! Go!

  Matthew, RUN!

  In the blackness a face came forward as if surfacing from dark water. It was the torn and rotting face of the zombie from the car and it spoke with the voice of his father, the rough, black voice of something long dead.

  Come get what you deserve, Matty.

  In the black void of the shed Matthew’s scream fills the tiny space. The scream was accompanied by a rustle and a loud crash.

  The tiny light clicked on, Matthew’s eyes wide and wild as he speared the light around the narrow space. One of the shovels that had leaned next to the door now lay beside him, knocked to the floor when he kicked out in the throes of his night terror.

  Matthew sat there, slumped over, the flashlight in his lap, hand over the lens so that the light was diffused, dim. He could not bring himself to shut it off entirely. He stayed in this position, listening for sounds from outside, even as sleep crept back in.

  He woke several hours later to a faint light coming through a vent at the bottom of the door. He stood, stretching, attempting to ignore the deep ache in his neck and back. The fullness of the pain helped to wake him fully, and in minutes he was ready to leave the shed and move on, away from the small dark space.

  He reached out to throw the door open and paused. Instead of opening it wide, he cracked it the width of a finger and pressed his eye to gap, sucking in a sharp breath.

  Six feet from the door of the shed, two dead lingered. The male zombie was clad in running shorts, and nothing else. Wide patches of skin were missing all over the thing’s body, exposing glistening muscle and rotting fatty tissue. The female zombie, her skirt torn into flapping tatters, milled around the male, aimless, searching for a noise she could no longer hear. Her white blouse was stained in dark gore. The left half of her face had been ripped away, her eye missing and a stub of cheek-bone protruding through gangrenous flesh. A jagged stub of ulna jutted out from a compound fracture, the hole around it black and decaying. Matthew could smell them both, a thick smell that coated the sinuses; he fought his gag reflex.

  He cracked the door again, watching. Though his vantage was limited, he could see no other dead. Waiting out the two zombies was no option, he felt certain the longer they were there the more zombies were likely to join them. Matthew carefully lifted his pack, making sure the machete hanging from it did not drag on the floor. He slipped his hatchet into his belt.

  He considered assembling his bow and quickly dismissed it. At this d
istance, he knew he wouldn’t be able to nock a new arrow before the second zombie came at him and that was only if he didn’t miss his first shot.

  Glancing down at the flat-bladed shovel that had fallen in the night, Matthew nodded to himself, and picked it up, hefting it, gauging the weight. He leaned the shovel against the wall, shrugged into his pack and edged the door open another inch, before grasping the faded, rough wooden handle of the tool again.

  At the gap, Matthew watched, waiting for the right moment. He was anxious, and he thought for a second that the pounding of his heart might betray him.

  “Come on dumb-ass, just do it,” he muttered softly.

  Pushing the door open slowly, hoping to keep the element of surprise for another moment, Matthew stalked forward, slightly crouched until he was less than two feet from the milling female zombie.

  The second zombie turned just as Matthew propelled himself forward with his legs while thrusting the shovel out with his arms. The blade connected with a thunk and a crack of bone, sinking several inches into the back of the woman’s head. Her weight threatened to tear the shovel from his hands as she dropped to the ground.

  The second zombie groaned, reaching for Matthew, who was only steps away now.

  He gave the shovel a solid jerk, stumbling back a step as it popped free with a wet squelch. Lifting the dripping blade, Matthew thrust out shakily, catching the thing a glancing blow that only succeeded in peeling away a wide flap of skin that stuck to the blade of the shovel.

  The zombie shuffled to the side, unbalanced by the blow. Matthew took a second to center himself and thrust once more with the shovel, this time connecting solidly, the blade slicing between the zombie’s eyes at an angle and sinking deep into the skull.

  The groans stopped instantly and he released the handle as the zombie crumpled. The heavy shovel handle bounced and wavered as the zombie hit the ground; the skull cracked loudly. A large chunk of the creature’s face tore away and bone cracked again, splitting the skull wide open as the shovel tilted sideways and fell to the ground.

  Matthew took several deep breaths, his face twisting in disgust at the sight of the inside of the zombie’s head. He glanced around, relieved to see that no other dead were nearby.

  Shrugging his pack higher on his back, Matthew moved away from the carnage, his step cautious but determined; the walk of a young man who knows exactly where he is going.

  He made almost three blocks before he stopped walking and ducked behind a car. Several dead were out roaming the street. He wondered if his night-screams had drawn them out.

  He waited and watched, looking for the most opportune moment to continue. Three dead, staying close together, shuffled past, silent except for the rustle of their feet on the pavement.

  Morganza was a small town, and he had cleared much of it in the intervening years. He knew the streets would be far worse in another town, a larger one.

  Once the dead had shuffled past Matthew stood and stepped out from behind the car. He watched the dead and not the ground at his feet.

  The empty drink bottle he kicked bounced across the pavement, the noise sounding like a parade of loud, off-tempo drums. The bottle rebounded off the far curb and came to a rest.

  The dead turned almost as a single entity, their eyes tracking the noise, then settling on Matthew.

  Frustrated, his shoulders sagged, then he took off at a dead run, ignoring the creatures now pursuing, pushing to put distance between the trio of hungry dead and himself.

  He charged headlong for several blocks before seeing a familiar house, and he angled up off the street and through the weedy yard.

  He barely slowed as he came around the corner of the house.

  He ran face first into a massive zombie.

  10

  The dead thing was huge, well over six feet tall and had to have been a body-builder before he died. Thick muscle moved beneath gray-green skin; the zombie reacted far more quickly than Matthew would have thought possible, reaching out and snatching at him, grabbing the strap of his backpack on his right shoulder.

  Matthew’s eyes grew wide and drops of sweat flung from his hair and face as he tried to jerk away. The creature’s grip was vise-like.

  Looking up into the zombie’s face, at the peeling, raw patches of skin, Matthew felt a swell of terror expand in his chest. He jammed his left hand under the thing’s jaw as it leaned in, mouth gaping, readying for the bite that would end him.

  He grappled with the thing, turning, shifting, his mind a cacophony of fear. In the midst of it he could hear voices calling him from memory.

  No, Matthew, run! Just run! Go!

  Matty! Matty, help!

  Matthew, RUN!

  Matthew’s other hand dropped to his belt, and he yanked the hatchet free, nearly dropping it in his haste and terror. He brought the hatchet up, the angle odd, and swung. The steel head bit deep and bounced off bone.

  The zombie had no reaction to Matthew’s attack. It continued to press forward against Matthew’s hand, his fingers forced under the skin, into cold, rotting flesh.

  He brought the hatchet high while still grappling with the dead thing and swung hard. Flesh and bone separated with a wet snap and suddenly he was free from the iron grip.

  “I’m not running!” he shouted at the voices of memory.

  Shoving hard, strips of skin ripping away from the zombie’s neck as it stumbled backward, unbalanced, Matthew drew the blade back and swung. The hatchet slammed into the zombie’s face, splitting a wide gap. He yanked the hatchet free, splattering himself with thick, almost black blood.

  Cords stood out on his neck, his face burning red as rage replaced fear.

  “I’M NOT RUNNING ANY MORE!”

  The hatchet crashed down once more, cleaving deep into the zombie’s face, splitting the skull. It fell to the ground, the bloody handle of the hatchet sticking up from its face at an angle.

  The zombie’s dismembered hand still clung to his pack strap; he reached up and tore it away, flinging it down and hitting the fully dead thing in the face with it.

  Standing over the body, his chest heaving, Matthew could no longer hold his tears at bay. The fear and rage, the violence of it all and the deep sadness conspired against him. Over the motionless corpse of a freshly slaughtered zombie, Matthew stood and wept.

  Using the tail of his shirt, he wiped his eyes and his nose, stooped down and tore his hatchet free with a grunt, wiping the head of it on the zombie’s clothes.

  Standing to his full height, Matthew looked back in the direction of the junkyard, home for so long now. A dark line of smoke twisted into the air, and he knew the coals the woman scattered when she fell had caught, setting the shack on fire.

  “Goodbye,” he said with a soft sadness.

  Turning away from the dead, turning away from the smoke, turning away from the last connection to home, Matthew walked toward a narrow opening in the thick trees.

  Ten minutes later Matthew stepped from the coolness of the woodland path onto a narrow, warm stretch of gravel beach along the edge of the Mississippi.

  A short, narrow dock of rough-hewn logs jutted out into the water; a 12-foot aluminum jon-boat bobbed gently in the river, moored to the dock with a faded length of rope.

  Matthew knelt on the dock and removed the blue vinyl tarp covering the boat, wadding it up and stuffing it beneath one of the seats.

  Inside the boat next to the rear seat sat a box with water, canned foods, another machete, and various other supplies. Strapped to the side with bungee-cords were two fishing rods with reels and a tackle box. Though he’d always hoped to stay, the boat and supplies were the one contingency he’d made toward leaving should the situation ever arise.

  Matthew slipped the hatchet from his belt, muddy red water swirled around the axe-head as he cleaned it in the river. He slipped the mooring rope and climbed inside the boat, all the while doing his best not think about what he was leaving behind. To him there was no other choice, staying now
was a matter of obstinate pride and nothing more.

  Seating himself near the five-horsepower outboard motor, Matthew attached the fuel line connecting the five-gallon tank to the motor. Opening the tank, he poured in a small amount of fuel treatment, resealed the tank and squeezed the primer bulb several times, filling the fuel line.

  He stood in a crouch and gave the pull-cord several hard yanks. The motor coughed to life, throwing dark blue smoke for several seconds before clearing. Once the engine was idling smoothly, Matthew sat, and with easy, practiced skill he guided the boat out into the Mississippi and pointed the bow upstream.

  Willfully, Matthew fought the urge to turn around and look back. He knew that the small dock he had fished from with his father many times was now dwindling behind him.

  Setting his resistance aside, Matthew turned and faced the dock once more. As the wooden structure faded he imagined leaving his ghosts there, waving. His dad and mom, sister Sadie, Casey, even Matt Hew the mighty barbarian, were left behind as he moved on.

  His breath caught in his chest, and he refused to let another tear fall. He looked down at the water trailing behind the boat, then turned and faced forward into the day, into whatever tomorrow might bring.

  Epilogue

  Matthew Cormier travelled for weeks upriver. Stopping when he needed to stop, searching out food and fuel in small abandoned river communities and derelict boats along the way.

  His skin darkened from the constant beat of the sun, and he smelled always of river-water and engine exhaust.

  Each evening, whether he choose to moor up at an abandoned dock or anchor in the middle of the river, he would slip the pocket calendar from its place inside his pack and cross an X through another day.

  Matthew had his calendar out, preparing to mark another day done, when over the sound of the motor he thought he heard a voice shouting. Looking up, he could see someone standing on the shore to his right, near what looked like a wall of railroad ties.