by Javan Bonds
Dugan and Schwartz looked through the doorway to each side with their guns at the ready and called “Clear!” I hustled past them and into the den. Just past the small pantry to my left was the room I most wanted to get into. My little sister was really the only reason I came here. Sure, I planned to see if my parents were alive, but my priority was Taylor. She was fourteen but had the wit and brains of a grown woman. My parents and I had never been close and had drifted farther apart since my joining the military. I wanted to fly planes; they wanted me to go to nursing school. I’m sure you can imagine the heated arguments that came when I told them I had joined the Navy. Taylor though, she always believed in me and supported me wholeheartedly. My sister actually put up Navy posters on her wall when I told her I joined, replacing whatever popular boy band she worshiped. She held her head up and told people with pride of her big brother in the Navy, protecting America.
I wasn’t surprised that her door was shut. I turned the knob to see a pristine room. This was just as heartbreaking as finding a room full of scattered clothes and peevie pudding everywhere. The fact that her room had not been trashed gave me no closure. Though I would have been happy to find her alive, I was being a realist. Finding shit everywhere would have let me know there was no way of saving her. I wouldn’t have been able to stop searching until I found my sister or at least found out what happened to her. After a final onceover, I slowly closed the door and knocked off the knob with my rifle butt.
Roth and Salsberry came from my right. “That room is clear, sir!”
There were only two more rooms in the house where peevies could be hiding. We would definitely check the laundry room, but I had a good feeling about the location of the finale. Damned if my gut isn’t usually right.
Dugan and Roth broke through the closed laundry room door with shotguns at the ready. It goes without saying that the only thing in this room was a clothesbasket full of towels. The only other closed door was to the master bedroom. This was so stereotypical I can imagine this being a movie and a screenwriter just throwing something down for an action scene. Did this sick fuck get his jollies off on detailing this poorly thought-out shit?
Salsberry pushed the door open and Roth threw a flash bang into the small alcove which came out into the master bedroom. The doors splintered and broke off right along the floor line. I’m surprised the door was even able to open, as soaking wet, reeking shit was at least an inch thick throughout the room. Man, Mama is going to be pissed about the carpet was my first thought as I entered the steaming dungeon.
I peeked around the corner to see nothing but a coating of black filth on everything. The mirrors on the wall behind the queen bed were caked with it. That had to be intentional! The bedroom was clear, the closet door was open and obviously peevie free, so we only had to check the last room in the house, the master bathroom.
The team covered me as my feet squished past the bed and to the bathroom door. I tried to psyche myself up for what I knew was behind the door. There was undeniable evidence that the monsters had used this room as a nest. They had to be in there. I was dreading and at the same time hoping to find my sister.
I threw a glow stick around the corner and peered through the full-length mirror on the inward opening door. I took in the sight of what were once my parents, now blue, evil, naked, undead abominations. They were so transfixed with their current center of attention they did not even notice the doors swing open, or the light. My parents were both drenched in blood, standing in the sunken tub. It wasn’t shocking when I found out later the tub was nearly knee-deep in something with the consistency of motor-oil-soaked flour and smelled like three-week-old road kill that had eaten a year’s worth of boiled cabbage just before its untimely meeting with a vehicle.
What they were centered on was the one thing I didn’t want to see. Taylor lay on the side of the tub closest to me and looked up in my direction. Both her arms had been sawed off – broken off – severed at the shoulder. These wounds had obviously been inflicted at least hours ago and she was still losing blood and clearly not healing. I knew that she had either clotted or simply didn’t have any more blood in her. She cried out to me in the most breathless, horrified shriek I’ve ever heard from her. “Devin! Please!” The zombies that were our parents were chowing down on her right leg which was completely free from her body. This was a fresh amputation, as gushing blood and stringy tendons were protruding from the still steaming thigh.
“Motherfuckers!” I raised my rifle as they looked in the direction of my exclamation. I sent pain downrange and into the stupefied zombies. My former mother took a bullet through its clenched front teeth. The lead tore through the back of the mouth and finally pierced the skull. Then next round hit it an instant later, caving in its nostrils and obviously puncturing the infected brain. The third and final round entered the left eye and disappeared into the cranium before exploding out the back, sending a spray of gray matter and blood on the wall behind it. The body collapsed into a vat of shit.
The beast I used to call my father caught its three-round burst quite a bit lower. The shots were not instantly fatal, but I left it to suffer. Infection would surely be the end for this creature. The first round hit it right in its shriveled penis. The round exploded from somewhere near its asshole, causing blood and diarrhea to flow freely from the wound. The next shot impacted squarely on the bellybutton, tearing deep into the intestines, colon, liver, pancreas, kidneys, or some other vital organs. I’ve always heard a gut shot is one of the slowest and most painful ways to die. This fucking animal deserved every second of unimaginable torture that could befall any living creature. Number three sank into the right nipple of the monster’s pectoral. The muscle puckered as the bullet lodged somewhere in the body. The thing collapsed into the stinking pool of feces along with what was once its wife.
I ran over to my sister and dropped my knee to the floor so that I could look at her squarely one last time. I smiled through my tears. “Hey Tay, how’s it hay?”
This was an old joke that she knew well. She sniffled and somehow managed to smile at me. “It’s okay, Day.” I always liked the little joke because it saved time, but now I wish it was infinitely longer. I knew this was the last time I would see her smile. The last time I would see her.
Her smile turned into a grimace as she let out a weak cough. I tried not to let my voice break. “I love you, Tay.”
She began drifting off as she spoke. “I love you too …” She was gone. Even if I had a fully staffed ER team in the room the second I opened the door, nothing could have saved her. She was gone and it was their fault! I would never forgive my parents. I folded a towel from the cabinet and draped it over her still form.
I had a million questions in my mind that would never be answered. Even if the monsters that my parents became were still standing and not marinating in a bowl of bloody shit, they wouldn’t be able to understand anything from my mouth but noise. Had they been surviving for a month in the house and had only recently turned? Had they been slowly tearing Taylor apart and she just so happened to bleed out today? If they had been surviving and only recently been bitten, wouldn’t they have known what a bite meant and at least tie themselves up? With the enormous amount of fecal matter coating the bedroom floor, they had to have been turned for a week or more. Had they both been bitten simultaneously or had one turned before turning the other?
I walked out of the bathroom, waited for the rest of the team to realize what happened and follow me out the door, and then I set the fucking place on fire. My memories of Taylor would not be defiled by any random passersby or any more peevies. My sister would now live in my head and not torn asunder on the floor of that filthy bathroom. I smiled when I remembered that the creature that was Dad still lay in a bath of excrement, maybe not conscious, but alive and fully capable of feeling the unbelievable pain of being cooked while still breathing.
I had not spoken since I left the bathroom. Once the fire was going, I boarded the chopper and re
mained silent until we landed here on this helipad. Benji, I will never be able to tell another soul what happened in that damn house. Write my story down in case it ever needs to be told.
23
The First Temporary Replacement
RANDY EXITED HIS fully powered office as the sun began going down. He knew that at this time of year, daylight would remain until after eight o’clock. But he was ready to end the day of governing by trying out the functional shower on the third floor.
He had had his last shower on the Viva Ancora the night before the expeditionary crew left. They left yesterday, so that had been the night before last. Damn, he thought, time flies. Now he could enjoy a nice long shower in the privacy of his own residence. He would miss Easy, the doctor, and even Mo, but he really wasn’t going to miss time-limited showers.
His wife was not at her desk. She was probably shopping across the street or working on her garden on the roof. He turned to check that the door was locked behind him even though there was no real threat of crime on the island lately. He turned again to make his way to the elevator. The mayor noticed the silhouette of a stunted, rotund man standing in the glass pane of the front door.
He squinted. “Bob?”
Mayor Collins ran to embrace his old friend. He reached the door just as his old neighbor answered, “Si, Jefe.”
Bob told absolutely nothing of his journey back to the destroyed house. The Mexican just stood there as he usually did, silent and prepared to do some mechanic work. But then he uncharacteristically spoke of how he found the note and how he’d deduced where to find Jefe. The mechanic detailed his travels until he had witnessed the military assault on the island. Bob had spent a day squatting in an abandoned apartment complex halfway up the mountain. Once he felt they were not hostile, he took a cautious walk down to parlay with the guards at the causeway.
The mayor was confused at Bob’s miraculous and mysterious appearance. “But the guys at the causeway are supposed to radio me when someone comes onto the island and…” His sentence trailed off.
The repairman caught on to what he was saying and threw his head back with a smile. “They call Mrs. Collins and when she figure out it was me, she say for them no to tell you.” He tacked on with an excited gesture, “She wanted surprise!”
The mayor got misty-eyed as he thought back on the words of The Oracle. “You’s always at da place you is always post to be.” He understood that Bob needed to be here at this time to be a temporary replacement for The Tech. Where were the replacements for The Medicine Man, The Man of God, The Expert, and all the rest? He could see himself as The Hero and simultaneously The Expert. Debbie was his wife, so she was obviously The Love Interest. He was sure the others would show themselves before long.
Randy scratched the back of his neck. “So, you find any of your family?”
Bob being a man of few words, he should have expected his response. “No, Jefe.”
Mayor Collins tried to envision the scene that his short friend would never explain.
☠☠☠
Those federales had completely destroyed Jefe’s casa and he was going to be muy cabreado when he got back from his vacaciones. Bob’s camion had been parked in Jefe’s driveway when the pendejos had ambushed the place and leveled everything, so he was now forced to walk. The handyman decided he would travel to Albertville and see if he could find his familia.
The city of Albertville was just as still and quiet as any dusty little pueblo in old Mexico. Bob walked down the middle of the highway and met no cars, heard none of the usual distant traffic from U.S. 431, and was met with not a single sound from any animales. Though it was disturbing to not hear any pajaros tweeting, he was thankful he didn’t have to worry about any of those demonios azules. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun would protect him for quite a while.
He came to a gasolinera and decided to see if anything inside was worth grabbing. The mechanic walked alongside the gas pumps and noticed a car with the driver’s door open and keys still in the ignition. He shrugged. He might have been able to use this vehicle if the battery had not surely died weeks ago.
He walked along the front of the store, the huge window reaching from ground to ceiling and all the way across the front of the building. He walked slowly, daydreaming of his madre’s enchiladas, when a crash from the other side of the huge window jolted him to reality. A blue, naked, slobbering former human was trying to understand the invisible wall between them.
The ghoul was discomforted by the bright sunlight but continued to fight with the glass. Being so close to raw meat clearly got the Smurf excited and his thin little pene was poking against the glass each time he tried to push himself through the invisible wall. Maybe this diablo had been surviving on the ingredients in the Sneaky Pete’s inside the Shell, but Bob was sure it had run out of supplies dias ago. There was no bebe diarrea spewing out of su culo.
The monstruo started moving down the glass to the door, hoping that with each new hand press, it would be granted access to outside. Bob knew that it would eventually get to the door, and he pulled the pistol off his hip. There was no need to worry about disturbing the quiet neighborhood around him.
The diminutive mechanic simply stood in place, gun at the ready. He knew the canibal azul would eventually find the door and eventually realize it could be opened by pulling. The flesh eater was screaming for satisfaction as it inched closer and closer to the door. As soon as it stepped outside, it would be greeted by something a little more dense than meat.
Bob was thankful these were not the typical el zombi from old stories. These creatures would die just like any other living thing. They could bleed out and obviously feel pain. A headshot was not needed to put them down. A headshot would be difficult even at this range, so he would aim for its center.
The animal had its eyes clamped shut when it finally figured out the door needed to be pulled. Bob angled himself away from the propane tanks stacked by the door. He would attempt to avoid shattering the glass. There was no need to expose this treasure trove to the elements when everything inside could be used by someone at some point.
The undead husk came barreling out the door, screaming in pain and facing the ground, but so hungry that it was willing to risk anything for just a bite. Bob called for the blind animal to draw it closer. The diablo azul rushed at the sound like any starving mammal would.
The rabid ape stumbled into the open daylight. It was letting out a shrill squeal, shaking its head, trying to do anything to make the evil sun go away. Bob noticed no smoke or crackling skin. The light only bothered its eyes. He wondered if it did open them, would it be able to see at all? What was the vision of a peevie like?
The monstruo then stood naked and exposed in the sunlight. It was almost pitiful. It looked like a scared niño . Well, pitiful if it were not a bloodthirsty demonio. This thing would certainly not have sympathy for Bob if he were in its shoes. He drew a bead on the creature and prepared to send it back to the infierno azul it came from.
The starving animal looked up at Bob through the intense pain, tears streaming from its yellow eyes. It just had to get something to eat. The zombi rushed at him faster than he would have thought possible. If he didn’t have his gun raised it would have been on him and ripping him to pieces. The short mechanic fired three rounds, all three striking the demonio in the chest.
The undead scourge almost toppled back with each hollow point exploding in its chest. It knew it had been shot but was able to ignore the pain, already being in measurable torture. The animal must have known it was going to die, but just wanted to get some food before the end. It threw itself onto Bob, knocking him onto his back and sending his hat bouncing away.
The mechanic was able to hold onto his gun as he violently struck the ground. The peevie clawed at Bob’s exposed flesh and gnashed its teeth, attempting to feel its way to food. He aimed in the general direction of its constantly moving head and pulled the trigger until he could feel hot blood and pieces of gray matter
on his skin.
He closed his mouth and clenched his eyes tightly and quickly extricated himself from under the now headless body. He wiped his face as thoroughly as he could and turned to see the naked corpse lying in a pool of its own blood. This one thankfully hadn’t been eating a lot lately, so there was no explosion from the other end.
Bob dusted himself off and made his way into the basically unmolested Shell. He would make sure to fill his backpack with plenty of bottles of water and jerky. Maybe his familia would need supplies when he found them alive.
☠☠☠
After another mile of walking, he turned off the highway into what used to be a bustling neighborhood. Now, it appeared as dead as the rest of this ghost town. He was not met with the usual screaming children running through the neighborhood or friendly perro sauntering up for a belly rub. The street was silent and unmoving. He shouted a few times and received no response. He was still holding out hope for the casa on the corner.
He stepped up on the porch and almost knocked out of habit, but decided there was no need to scare his familia inside. He gently opened the screen and then pushed the cracked-open door to swing completely open, revealing absolutely nothing. It was disheartening not to see his madre or any of his hermanos, but at least he could take solace in that there was no mierda sprayed everywhere.
He walked further into the completely quiet house and passed room after empty room. It was depressing to find no one. The next room was his madre’s room, and as he got closer he caught a whiff of something awful.
He came around the door with pistol drawn, ready to defend himself from any demonios, and was greeted by something beyond horrible. The bloated body of what must’ve been a woman, if the dress was any indication, lying on its back, missing almost the entirety of its head, and a double barrel shotgun lying against its chest. Across the room lay the naked, equally bloated body of a man with a hole through his chest.
