by D. S. Black
Andrew sat down inside the cool air conditioned office and the man removed a small mirror. Andrew watched as the man brushed thin strands back into place. Papers were spread out and pens handed over. Signatures were written and Andrew drove off the lot with his new Humvee, not to mention a smile that touched ear to hear.
9
While lying there, the sun hot on his face, surrounded by the darkening world, Andrew continued to dream. He was back at Christian camp. He was only fourteen and only now realizing what breasts were and that he enjoyed watching them bounce as the young girls ran by. He watched them jumping on the large circle trampolines while the much older and muscled councilors showed them how to cut back flips.
His mouth always watered. But he didn’t dare talk. They’d never take him. Andrew had one good friend back in those days (two years before he met Randy Jackson and the doo doo weed).
Sally Fighart was his best friend back then. She was a tall brunette that ran on the junior varsity track team. But at the Christian camp, she just sat with Andrew and watched the girls that had better breasts and firmer bottoms jump up and down. The large hands of the councilors assisted their back flips by pressing softly on their firm tummies and the small of their backs. Sometimes may touching a little lower than they were supposed to; what happens in Christian Camps stays in Christian Camp, so the campers loved to say; the eighteen and nineteen-year-old councilors had no problem with this philosophy, just make sure to pray for forgiveness.
“Look at em Drew. Just look at em.” Sally said.
“I am. I sure am.”
“Jesus. It’s all boys can look at. I mean fuck. Just look at em.”
“I will keep on lookin Sally. I promise.”
Andrew looked over at Sally and for a moment he saw years of rejection on her face. She as nearly as mentally ruined as he was and that was saying something. “You’re just as pretty.” He said and blushed red.
“Don’t even try. I know the pecking order. My mom says all that will change one day. When I grow up. She says that those girls will develop into whores and that know body will respect em after that.”
The sun burned like hell’s inferno. It was over one hundred degrees. Sally's complexion suffered miserly form the sweaty oil that stagnated on her face; she had a nest of pimples growing on each cheek; none of the councilors would be fondling her barely existent breasts this year.
Andrew rose up and moved over to the shade of some tall oak trees and settled against the bark with one leg out stretched out and the other pulled into his chest. He stared out over a large green field of manicured grass. The smell of honey suckle was not far off and the girls kept doing their flips on the large trampolines.
Sally lingered over and plopped down beside him. “When I grow up, my mom says I’ll develop large breasts and a lean firm ass.”
“If you do, let me know.” Andrew said with a smirk.
“One day I’ll be a star runner. I will have Olympic gold.”
“I believe it.” And he did; and she did win.
Years later, he watched Sally walking across the Olympic stage and accepting her gold medal; he’d just got off work after a twelve-hour shift of watching machines cut metal with red fire tips. He was still in his work clothes and stank of grease and sweat. He was now a twenty-year-old welder with a large Little Caesar’s pepperoni pizza sitting in front of him. Half the slices were gone. He lit a Marlboro and drew in the cancer. Seeing Sally smile had caused a tear to dribble out of his eye. “I always believed in you Sally.” He said to himself. He took a sip out of a can of Bud Lite and swallowed his regrets down with it.
10
He woke up. He saw a light rain falling toward his face. Heaven’s tears crying for the dying world around him.
He forced himself up and started the motor. How long had he been out? Hours? He looked down and saw that his line had snapped; the rod now lay in the boat's floor. He let out a small sigh of regret. He'd meant to catch a lot of fish. He wanted to bring back a huge dinner. He just wanted to make what was left of his family smile. At least make them forget the pain for a short while. If that was even possible now. Now it might just be endless pain, endless suffering, endless regret; never-ending strife iced over with the fact that they would all probably die in just as horrible fashion as the rest had. How did it happen any damn way? What happened to Papa and the girls while they were gone? How in Christ's name did Papa die and end up eating them. Plateyes never even crossed Andrew's imagination; nor did any other supernatural possibility.
He guided the boat back to the embankment. The rain began to fall hard, much harder than before. Lightening flashed followed by earth shaking thunder. He beached the boat, grabbed the cooler, and stepped out. “Better make sure these fish are good and clea—”
A sharp sting shut him up. He stumbled. He stumbled again. His vision blurred. Another rock flew out of the dark woods like a bullet and cracked him hard in the temple. He fell hard into the mud, knocking over the cooler.
A small crooked figure emerged from the thick brush. She looked as ancient as the tree’s themselves. She walked with a slight limp and pulled a sled behind her. She grunted as she pushed Andrew onto the sled. She bound him tightly with dark, bloodstained leather bands.
She pulled his limp, thin, unconscious body around thick trees. Thick rain blew against her sunken face and a hot misty fog engulfed them. “We be there soon young man. Very soon. Just a few miles in now. Then you get to know. You get to know what real pain is.” She held the rope over her hunched, pointed shoulders and grasp the twisted nylon with both hands, and dug her black rain boots hard into the earth’s soft flesh. “You always had it all. Everybody always had more. Never me. Nothing for poor ole me. Just a beggar. That’s what I was. Nothing but a disgusting beggar. Now you gonna beg me. I ain’t beggin no more.” A harsh wind blew her mud ridden hair and her black eyes beamed through the mist, her steps pushed into the mud, and she grunted as she lurked ahead. “No sir. No way. No more. Not me. Throwing rocks at me. That’s all people like you ever did. Laughed at me. Now whos laughin?” She cackled, her black gums exposed to the damp air, only a few rotting, yellow teeth showed.
Andrew’s body breathed softly and jerked from time to time. The rain poured over his closed eye lids, down his cheeks, and trickled against the sled. As she pulled him along through the dark Palmetto wilderness; Andrew's life flashed before his mind's eye.
He was at a grocery store. It was right after he, Jack, and Candy rescued Jody and Papa from the nursing home.
He drove the Humvee carefully down highway 17. Death was everywhere; bodies of those that recently met the final death were being ripped apart by zombies. Sweat dripped down his face, and civilization slipped before his eyes. It was all happening so damn fast. He felt sick and excited; he saw a large yellow school bus. Kids screamed inside. Some of them had turned and were tearing into the others. The face of a little blonde girl stitched into his mind that day and never left. She pressed hard against the glass, and behind, two boys, no older than nine, tore out her organs with tiny hands while she stared out of the school buses escape door.
But that wasn’t what caused him to bring the Humvee to a screeching halt. As he drove past the Piggly Wiggly, he saw a tall brunette running with fast even strides into the store; he knew those legs; he may not have seen them in years, at least not in person; but he'd know them anywhere.
“What the hell!” Candy screamed as he brought the Humvee to a fast stop and jumped. He didn’t say a word or look back as he ran through the crowd. He moved fast around zombies that reached out but failed to get hold of his flesh. The store was cold. And people screamed all around. The aisle dividers lay in the floor, knocked over like dominoes. He moved his head back and forth frantically, “Sally! Sally!” He didn’t see her. He ran down the bread aisle. Nothing but a zombie eating the stomach out of a little boy. The boy was still alive and screamed for his mother to stop eating him, to please stop eating him!
�
��Sally! Sally!” He ran past the zombie mother feasting on her son, and ran the frozen foods. There she was. He'd found her. Oh god, please no... he was too late.
Sally Fighart’s body, lean and curved with muscle, pressed against a glass freezer door that once held the milk. Two dead men chewed into her. One pulled the protein from her neck in gobs of bloody muscle. The other looked as though he was humping her leg as he pulled long strands of meat from her torn skin.
In those last moments, Miss Fighart, the Olympic gold medalist, the once breast less and pimple faced little girl, looked right at Andrew; and for a moment he saw her smile as the zombies munched into her. Her head jiggled back and forth but her eyes never left his. From behind him, grabbed him.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind! You fucking shit tard!” Candy pulled him along with Jack. He let them guide him past the dying and screaming people, out the door, back to the Humvee where Jody sat waiting with his hands on the wheel. The door slammed as he was forced into the back, and as the Hummer rumbled away from the screams and mayhem; Andrew wept for his Sally.
11
Now Andrew laid on the sled, delirious. The world around him rushed by in dashes of green and brown. From somewhere in front of him, though she sounded a thousand miles away, came the voice of his captor.
“Dumb worthless hag! Tramp they calls me! I was once a good woman. They didn’t care bout my past, only bout what happened. Weren’t my fault. Weren’t my fault what those boys did to me. Those rich boys back when I was young. Used me up, turned me out. Now look at em. They all dead. I’m right here.”
Her words fell on Andrew’s ears in fuzzy wisps, the sounds barely audible, like some strange and ghoulish nightmare where he knows he is being pulled to his death but can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Her black shadow danced over his eyes as he tried to look up and get a glimpse. But his head couldn’t stay upright and fell back hard against the sled. So he just stared up at the green canopy and wept.
“Tears ain’t gonna save shit boy. I cried once to, ya know? Didn’t do me a bit of good and it aint gonna do you either. Yous just a boy. And boys hurt girls like me. They use em up and spit em out. Not now though. Oh no. Good lords done gone and turned the tide. Now I bring the tears and causin the pain.”
Andrew’s sobs continued. The jerk of the sled jostled him around. He felt a powerful dose of nausea and green bile erupt from his mouth. He couldn’t turn to spit it out and it began filling up his throat and causing a sickening garbling noise.
“Oh no you don’t boy! Not that easy!” The woman came to a stop and walked over to Andrew. His body was turned to the side and old hands slapped his back hard, causing the bile to spill out of his mouth and onto the ground.
“Thatta a boy. Can’t let ya spoil. You fine meat son. Hell, we alls just meat.”
His vision cleared and he was left on his side as she pulled him deeper and deeper into the dark and wild wilderness. As the day grew darker, his eyes closed and he kept them closed. His legs hurt under the thick straps holding him down. What was happening? He'd been doing so well for nearly a year, hardly any troubles considering the nature fo the New World. Then, just like that, the tables had turned.
No, this can't be happening. All a dream, just a bad dream that would end soon. He’d wake up and see his Sally Fighart at any moment. “Just a dream Drew! Wake up you dirty scoundrel. Didn’t you hear? I made varsity this year! Aren’t you happy for me?”
“Yes Sally, course of I'm happy for you. But… why did you have to go and start dating Barry Darkwood? You always said…”
Sally had cut him off, “I always said I’d never date a preppy.”
And Barry Darkwood wore his polo’s flipped up around the collar like some flashback to the 80s. His fancy cars, he had three of them, all paid for by his dear ole father, Judge Barry Darkwood the first, which of course made Barry Darkwood the second biggest asshole in all of Horry county.
By junior year Sally had turned into a red fire bomb of a sexy looker. Her breasts developed into full C cups and her once long, thin, bird legs radicalized into lean mean running machines and her rump as a firm piece of muscle that perked its way into every high school boy’s lingering, horny field of vision.
And she’d fallen for Barry fucking Darkwood, the single biggest prick in all the land. And Sally took it further when Andrew pointed this out, “Yeah he does have a big prick. And I tell you now… I like it.”
“Great. He is just the all in one package.”
“I call him The Total Package.”
One year later, much to Sally’s dismay and dripping tears, Barry Darkwood forget she existed after he disappeared in the California college scene, two thousand miles away. She'd held on to Andrew like a sad puppy. “You can’t trust men with big cocks. That’s what I am taking away from this. Never trust a man with a big cock.” She’d then slipped her hand into Andrew’s pants and made the confirmation that he possessed the qualities of a fine, trustworthy, and decent man. After that moment, despite his obsessing calls, Andrew never saw or heard from Sally again until that fateful day at the Piggly Wiggly.
Those days died and Andrew’s haze started to lift. The old woman rambled her autobiography, jumping from story to story without offering much consistency. She once been a real looker. A real doll. Something everyman wanted. Then she was a little girl, just a play thing for her brothers and daddy. Used her up, spit her out. We all’s just meat after all. Then them boys done found her and used her in a dark alley. Then she was in love with a real man. A real winner. Donny Jumper she called him. A real winner. Then she was back at a hospital holding Donny’s hand. Cancer they said. Couldn’t save Donny. He died for sure. We all’s just meat after all.
Then she was homeless. Not a penny to her name. People throwing rocks at her. Calling her names. She started to cry then made herself stop. “Gonna show yous some pain now!” She turned and in a revengeful fit raised her foot high a kicked Andrew hard in the temple. A shiny white shimmer glowed in his mind and he heard a high pitch ringing. Then the dragging commenced, this time in silence.
12
Wild life croaked from the dark trees. Rain was falling hard now and his head pounded with nauseating pain. His throat felt like sand paper and the green around him blurred in a haze of dizziness. He shut them tightly. He transported his mind back to a moment in time when hot sparks flew against his face mask. He was helping Tommy Tyler—who owned Tommy Tyler’s Auto Mart and Mechanics.
Tommy stood over him rubbing his double chin. He wore a white t-shirt that clung over a big fat belly that hung over a thick brown belt that overshadowed his crotch. His arms were thin rails and his head shined a dingy brown under the car garage’s florescent lights. “Looking good Drew! Just like new.”
“Always happy to help.” Andrew said as he pulled the mask up and rested against a 98 blue Dodge Ram. Andrew had on a faded gray Hanes t-shirt with a front chest pocket. He reached in his front pocket and removed a pack of Marlboros—the shorts, and grabbed a Bic lighter he’d stuffed in the plastic covering the card board box that housed the cancer. He lit it and took a long drag and blew out a hot cloud of smoke, each one a perfect ring. Above, the florescent lights flickered. He’d taken up smoking not long after Sally had left. Then not long after that, he’d found his broken heart felt better dipped in a bottle of Jim Bean; and of course he still enjoyed Randy's doo doo weed. Which he had desperately wanted to get to right away. He had hated these trips to Tommy’s garage. He knew Tommy was a crook. The worst kind of crook. The kind that sold you a shitty car, knowing full well that it would leave you high and dry the moment the one-week warranty ran out.
He’d recently lost his job at the Swamp Pipe Company and was forced to draw unemployment. A week before he’d lost his job he'd seen the head line in the Palmetto Times: HORRY COUNTY’S OWN SALLY FIGHEART HEADED TO THE OLYMPICS; by the time she'd won the gold he'd found him a new job at Iron Caster's Welding, INC. He was happy for her of course. He had to be happy
for her. But why did she have to just up and leave him like that?
Tommy the Crook was still standing over him and his cigarette had burned down to the filter. Tommy was almost shouting with his eyes focused on the ceiling. His abnormally long chin moved up and down, up and down. “The mother fucker calls me screaming. Says he wants his money back. His money back! Can you fucking believe that? I told him to go straight to fucking hell. The bastard then threatens me with a law suit. I told him to go ahead and waste his fucking money. Look at the goddamn warranty asshole! That’s what I told him. Exactly what I fucking told him.”
Andrew had sat and nodded, remembering the image of Barry Blackwood’s palm on the back of Sally’s head. He’d followed them over a mile and finally watched as they parked in front of Barry’s parent’s ten thousand square foot house. He watched in horror and a strange delight as Sally’s brunette head went up and down. He agreed with himself that is was more than just a wee bit creepy to follow them around. And, after masturbating, sitting right there watching that patch of brown go up and down; he knew he probably should seek help. The only help he ever found was in the bottle of his new best friend, Jimmy Bean and games of beer pong at Randy's home while his mom and dad were gone out of town; he developed a keen skill for a winning beer pong.
But he pushed on, day in and day out, always telling himself, “Its OK. Everything is going to be OK.” It became his slogan. His only way of holding onto his sanity. While he showered, “Its OK. Everything is going to be OK.” While he used the toilet in the morning, “Its OK. Everything is going to be OK.”
Back then, sitting on the floor of Tommy’s greasy garage, he said softly in his mind, its OK. Everything is going to be OK. Then Tommy was gone and so was the garage, the florescent lights, and the cold concrete floor. Now the cackle of lightening, mad thunder, and hard rain poured over his body. The old woman was still silent, accept for the occasional grunt as she jerked him along down what now felt like a well beaten path. Her dark shadowed crept along the trees. “Almost there boy. Oh yeah. Almost there.”
