Still Alive (Book 4): Zombie Oasis

by Javan Bonds

  Bradley wheeled around the corner just as his armored friend stood. He spun the hammer in his hands and drew back, preparing to slice into pieces whichever revenant came within reach first. This would be a simple “Wham, Bam, thank you, ma’am.”

  The creature that had once been an overweight man with a receding hairline and a hooked nose ran at him, frantically screaming for blood. The insane, yellow eyes witnessed their last image as The Protector brought his hammer down onto the top of the blue head. Blood, bone, and brains rocketed to the floor as the giant mallet guided them down. The explosive decapitation happened so quickly that the body continued for two more steps before the nervous system realized the host no longer had control. Because so little food had been consumed recently, the anus only spattered a light cloud of black diarrhea as the body fell.

  At the same time that the first destroyed body fell, the second ghoul dove for Easy’s greaved lower legs. The mountain of a man toppled forward as what was formerly a prepubescent teenage girl collided with his shins. He crashed onto the body of the male, squishing through sagging skin that used to contain rolls of fat. Feeling skin tear, muscles rip apart, bones splinter, organs rupture, and blood explode under the weight of his own armored body nearly caused the youngest Collins son to lose his lunch. He realized that would be beyond horrible inside this helmet and bottled it up.

  He lifted himself from the pancake of bloodied meat he had created and threw himself onto his back. The intestines that had burst so close to his face were the worst part. He could actually hear the farting noise of gas as it was violently expelled. Black diarrhea clung to his helmet and he wished he was unable to smell. Somehow, the liquefied insides of the scourge remained on the exterior of the helmet. Though he would have to deal with the stench, he didn’t have to worry about infection.

  The animal that had caused him to fall and make some instant pudding was upright. Easy immediately had the urge to look away from what used to be a naked little girl. The animal formerly had blonde hair that was now almost unrecognizable due to dried, crusty feces. It let out a terrifying, shrill scream and stupidly charged.

  Mary realized this fight scene was drawing on too long. Gene had said she should be outfitted with some type of melee weapon, since she had no teeth and her nails were filed down. She wore a sheathed throwing knife on the collar around her waist. Mary pulled the blade from her belt and flung her arm at the peevie, driving the knife into the back of its neck. Its eyes rolled back and it collapsed. The sputtering of its rectum sang a final dirge as the small beast collapsed at the feet of The Protector, only making a few last twitches.

  The Innocent jumped from her master’s shoulder and bounced to the body. Easy watched her with amazement as she pulled her dagger out of the blue form. She wiped the bloody blade against the fallen body to clean it before returning it back to the sheath. She then ran to pounce on her master’s shoulder. Mary looked at The Protector with near disgust and incredulity. You’re welcome. Now, come the fuck on. We’ve got a wedding to get to!

  The Protector rose and slowly walked by The Old Friend. He nodded his admiration and gratitude to his Savior. She understood the thanks and swelled with pride. He had seen enough in the bathroom where the cannibals had been nesting to know his gut had been right. Out of the several bones, he could make out two distinctly human skulls. He was almost glad to see a hole in the temples of each. It was sad that they had to go, but he knew members of the greatest generation didn’t deserve to starve or freeze to death as naked, rabid, flesh-eating monsters.

  He continued down the hall to go back to the main room. He was praying to find a display case with the one ring he so yearned for. The white gold band, encrusted with white diamonds all around it, and a large, two-carat white diamond baguette on top would make the best day of his life even more perfect. He knew it had to be here. When he had originally seen it, he’d had no idea he would need it now, for the woman of his dreams. Even then, he had only whistled when he saw the price tag. It would have been far beyond his price range. He searched the lines of jewelry, glass spattered with black. His heart almost stopped. There it was. The precious piece of adornment that would make Aka smile from ear to ear.

  He slammed his metal hand down on the glass. It shattered with almost no resistance and he reached down to capture the point of this quest. He closed the ring box and secured it in his pack. “Dude, we got what we came for. Let’s go!”

  Bradley rolled into the room as his friend spoke. Really? “So it was here. Was it worth it?” He followed The Protector out the door.

  Easy looked back and pumped his fist into the air. “You know it!”

  12

  Mo Journal Entry 1

  ON THE FIRST full day that the island received power I decided to make my way down Gunter Avenue to the courthouse to see my dad. I wanted to discuss with him the “Cora” leaving the lake and traveling down the rivers to the ocean. We would search for more survivors and possibly other impenetrable sanctuaries. I’d spent my entire life trying to get away from my parents and I’m currently living in a city where my dad is the mayor. Not that he’s being The Dictator or anything. I just want the ability to fuck up and not be saved by my family. I’m sure you can see me doing something stupid, dying horribly and painfully alone.

  Would it not be great to get down to the ocean and find the Caribbean islands completely untouched by the peevies? Better yet, I eventually want to make my way down to Madagascar. Madagascar always survives the pandemic.

  I know that for this trip, I will need to beg and plead with my brother’s fiancée to travel with her sexual deviant of a brother-in-law. Easy will obviously want to go with her. Smokes will feel required to go, and he has nothing else to do. Hammer will obviously be one of our traveling companions. Her girlfriend, Crow, will tag along because I don’t believe she has spent more than a couple of hours off the boat since she joined the crew. And I actually want Sarah with me because I’ve never had sex on the open seas. I’m sure TEOTWAWKI can find another waitress for a while. Gene might take the journey with us, and Bradley could possibly stow away on the boat. Come on, he’s got a monkey and we can take it to the jungle. Well, that’s basically everyone. We just need to find a reason for The Medicine Man and The Man of God to go on this sailing adventure. Maybe it’s more than coincidence that I started writing in a new notebook, signaling the beginning of a new chapter or season or whatever the hell we are doing.

  As I neared my intended destination, I noticed a sign by the door of one of the businesses. It was on the street over one of those spinning peppermint log thingies. It read Edward’s Barbershop. I stepped through the door and was shocked by the familiarity.

  You’ve got to be shitting me. This same old guy has been cutting my hair for longer than I can remember. I assumed he was dead and not really because of the zombie virus. I always expected to walk to the door of the barbershop one day and find out the old guy had finally keeled over. He’s got to be somewhere around a hundred and twenty. I walked in and Mr. Edward was finishing up a young boy’s haircut with his customary electric razor. The barber chair was red, the other seats were red, he had the obligatory Barbicide, and he was even wearing the barber’s coat he had worn every day since the beginning of time. He had to have shipped everything from his shop in Albertville down to Gunter Avenue.

  As he finished up with the kid, I asked, “How you doing, Mr. Edward?”

  He shook my hand before returning my greeting. The old man asked, “What’ll it be?”

  Really? Does he have no idea who I am? I’ve been getting the exact same haircut for years. Maybe his memory is lapsing or for some unknown reason he thinks I will change my hair style. As I sat down in the barber’s chair, I explained for the millionth time that I wanted a skin tight flattop. He immediately began buzzing, to my delight.

  You remember how The Oracle said something about shaving being a morale boost? I admit now I do feel better not being shaggy. Maybe if I could produce a reasonab
le amount of testosterone I could get out more facial hair than my pathetic Billy goat beard.

  ☠☠☠

  I like my hair short. I’m a man, it’s okay for me to have short hair. I hate when women get dude haircuts. It doesn’t make you look “cute” or original or any of the things your fucking friends tell you. It’s unattractive as hell.

  You know what’s even worse? The way actresses in pornographic movies have been cutting their hair for the past few years. These new porn chicks with close cropped hair can’t act like it’s sexy. When I jerk off, I want to see a woman with long, blonde hair, an obvious female. I don’t get aroused by thinking about someone who looks like a dude with boobs.

  Imagine the scene with the director: “That’s not gonna work! What’s with all this feminine shit? This needs to look more like a gay porno. I want people to be confused at first and think you are sticking your dick into a prepubescent boy. Lose that beautiful mane of flowing blonde hair, sweetheart, it’s time for a crew cut!” Heterosexual males don’t get aroused thinking about Billy Ray Cyrus.

  This short hair is even worse than the occasional actress that goes completely bald-headed. It might be weird, but you are masturbating to that girl out of respect. If you are able to work one out to any of these chicks with dude haircuts, you feel like you need to call a counselor.

  ☠☠☠

  Scanning the pictures on the wall, I noticed a few depicting the Alabama Crimson Tide Football team. One was a painting of Nick Saban leading the team onto the field and a heavenly Bear Bryant smiling down from the sky. If an extraterrestrial were to come across paintings like this, it would completely ignore that whole Bible thing and believe that the savages of this planet have a god in a houndstooth cap that loves the color red. The religious leader of these primitives was obviously a guy in a crimson jacket that routinely has aneurysms. Upon finding this painting, I’m convinced that will be our history according to our alien overlords.

  The second painting was of Saban praying in the locker room over the team and a shadowy figure in a houndstooth hat leaning against the wall. I never knew that the coach was calm enough to pray. These pictures got me thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if the Alabama football team was controlling Tuscaloosa with Nick Saban in the lead? Hell, he’s probably too angry to be susceptible to the virus. He can just yell at zombies and they will run away.

  Mr. Edward finished my haircut. After our farewells, I walked out the door the way I had come. I had just gotten a haircut with an electric razor. There’s no need to be in such a hurry to leave luxury. I think I’ll wait a little while to bring this idea up with my dad. There’s got to be something to do with my free time. Oh I don’t know, I could have more Tantric sex with my gorgeous girlfriend.

  When I returned to the boat, the gang plank was already lowered, meaning that Hammer must have just arrived. I sat at the table in the middle of the deck and The Expert appeared beside me.

  I almost swallowed my tongue as the silent-moving shade began, “So, Marlon says you have something to tell me.” She ended her sentence with a tapping foot, urging me on.

  I stammered, “Why ain’t you doing whatever sheriffs do.” I paused. “‘Sheriffing?’“

  She corrected me as only a woman my mother’s age could: “‘Policing.’“ She continued after clearing her throat, “I just got back from the police department and the other guys have a handle on things.” I thought she was done, but she tacked on, “Besides, I have some R&R time to use up and I think I’ll spend it protecting you.”

  Fuck, that’s just great! My parents won’t need to save me, I’ve got my own personal middle-aged woman as a bodyguard! Wait a minute, how the hell does she know I’ll need protecting? I haven’t gone over this plan with the Oracle. Am I that transparent? I thought about asking where he was, but I didn’t want to hear some bullshit about having visions after fasting in the wilderness.

  And I have another question that I probably should have asked her at the time. How the hell does she have “R&R time?” We barely had time to throw a functioning government together before we decided to skip town. She was POLICING Guntersville for just a few days before we went to the vacation at our maximum-security destination. Now she wants to go on a cruise! I guess she’s like that woman everyone worked with that takes every single vacation day and makes it to work just a few minutes late every day. Somehow she’s never terminated and even manages to get a fucking bonus at the end of the year.

  I chose instead to get right down to it. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “He didn’t tell me that, just that you are planning on getting out of town and I knew you would need me.”

  Did anyone else just mini-throw up a little bit? That’s a nearly romantic comment coming from a fiftyish lesbian. I will admit I’m not in the top of my class on that whole physical strength thing, and I am typically somewhat of a chickenshit, but I don’t want to be told I need protecting from an old lady!

  “Well, I was planning on getting Aka and Easy to go down to the Gulf with me.”

  She started shaking her head. “Not without me.”

  “What about Crow–.”

  She cut me off. “She’s a big girl, she survived last time. We are going to the ocean on the Viva Ancora. I don’t think we could make her get off the boat if we tried. So really, nothing’s going to change for her.”

  I came back, “Yeah, but–.” Shit, I didn’t have an argument and she was going.

  I was glad I would not be leaving immediately. “It won’t be for at least another week. I’m enjoying electricity throughout the city.”

  “I hear that! The preacher can refrigerate milk!”

  That’s cool, even though I’m not one to drink milk. I don’t think it’s gross or anything and have my occasional ice cream. It’s just not natural to drink milk unless you are a baby. Of course, I’ll eat the shit out of some cheese.

  I had to ask, “Where’s Smokes anyway?”

  “Marlon is in the barracks.”

  She realized this signaled the end of our conference and nodded farewell. She walked to her girlfriend who was fishing near the bow. I simultaneously nodded and rose to go find my extremely overweight friend.

  I began below deck on the ship that had become my home as of late. I wasn’t really in a hurry because it wasn’t physically possible for Smokes to sneak by me unnoticed. The Cora was now and had always been just the Cora. It was always quiet, always had that feeling of dampness on the other side of the walls. There was that perpetual smell of oiled wood. The ship had grown on me like a barnacle.

  Okay, enough of this shit. I feel stupid when I start waxing poetic. Plus, I can’t get over the fact that I just wrote down the word “dampness.” This boat was my home and would be for the foreseeable future. She was a mobile home in the water.

  Anyway, I made my way down the empty hall to where I knew The Oracle would be doing absolutely nothing. He was lounging around in the crew quarters.

  I swung the door open and let the knob bang against the wall. The Oracle didn’t even uncover his head as he shouted, “Homey, da fuck wrong witchoo? I’s gettin’ my beauty sleep!”

  I smiled. “There is not enough time in the day for that. Get your ass up and do something.”

  He sat up and pointed at me. “Mufucka, I broke yo ass out of da pen. I flew yo white ass all the way back here. All after havin’ to stare at yo brotha’s dang-a-lang. I’s takin’ a break, foo!”

  What? He broke out of prison WITH me, I wasn’t the only one on the plane. He didn’t have to witness my brother’s nudity for near as long as I did! I guess I could lay off. Now that the entire island had full electricity, things were starting to resemble something close to normal. His skills had not really been needed.

  I sat down on the bunk opposite him. “So what did you tell Hammer?”

  “I tell Old White Lady we’s leavin’.”

  “How the fuck do you know that?”

  Dr. Smokes suddenly appeared. “Does
it matter? You just proved me right by referring to your plan to leave in the present tense.”

  I could do nothing but drop my head in my hands. What the fuck? His words were true. I hated him even more for it.

  I asked, “Do you even know why I want to leave? I actually want a better reason than the one I have.”

  The classic drug dealer returned. “Well, I gots a cousin down in T-Town. We pick his black ass up if you is game.”

  I’m not completely ignorant. Though I have no interest in football, I know “T-Town” refers to Tuscaloosa. The home of the University of Alabama.

  “Wait,” I had to ask. “Your actual cousin or just a …” I stuttered, looking for the right word. “Friend?”

  I don’t feel this is an overtly racist question. Anyone who has ever been around a single black person can attest. For some reason most consider every other black person as related to them and speak of all those as well-known family members.

  He looked at me, offended, as though he could read my mind. “White bread, he wasn’t my cuz, I wouldn’t fuckin’ say it, mufucka! ‘Sides, I ‘ccuse you of dat when you say yo brotha is yo siblin’?”

  Well damn. I could only shake my head. I now felt like a giant racist asshole. At least I could now make this journey knowing it was for more than just my self-centered selfishness. I was helping another main protagonist complete a reason.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “That’s great, man! We can pick him up when we get there.” I had to ask the inevitable. “Oh, does he have a radio or anything?”

  “Shit naw cracka, he a broke-ass nigga.”

  I was confused now. “Then how the hell does he know we are coming? And how do you even know he’s still alive or still there?”