by D. S. Black
“Its you. Its really you.” He said.
“Who else would it be?”
“But you're dead. I saw it happen.” Tears streamed down his cheeks. His voice quivered. “I-I-Sa-Saw you DIE!” He fell to his knees and held her around the waist, burying his face into her stomach.
“Stand up. We don't have much time.”
“Time? Time for what?” He stood up, his face red and teary.
“Time for you to make a mends with Tommy. There are bigger problems. Neither of you can do it alone.”
“What? I don't understand! Tommy? Tommy Morrow?”
“Yes. The Old World is gone, along with all the problems and petty disputes it held. This is too serious to hold on to those old hatreds. You must help him. You must make him see and understand. There are people that need your help.”
“Who? Why is this happening? How are you standing here? How am I standing here?”
“Shhhhhh.” She put her finger to his lips. “All in time. Your questions will have their answers. All in good time. Now go. Go and help Tommy.”
“I don't under—“
But she was gone. He stood staring at the painting. Just a painting. His wife was no longer standing on the rope bridge; he felt a firm hand take him by his arm and twist him around.
“Are you deaf! Do you fucking hear that! Its a goddamn battle zone over there!” Tasha's eyes were wide and alert.
“Tommy needs our help.”
She looked at him bewildered. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Tomm—Duras. He needs our help.”
“And I need a hot shower! Let him fry! I say we head north into the Outer Banks and hide out for a while.”
“No. I have to find him and make him see.”
She stood looking at him. Okona knew she probably though he'd lost his mind. But what he just experienced was no dream. He knew that. It was real. He had to find Duras and fast. He had to know why his wife appeared to him. Who needs help? What is the bigger issue? The words of Fox Mulder came to mind: the truth is out there.
Okona intended to find it.
7
Duras moved carefully, keeping an eye, ear, and nose out for zombies and militia men. Mary Jane continued to interrupt his thoughts. He now knew he loved her; there was no doubt left. He was scared; scared because he might lose her.
Then the screams came. The howls of dying men, women, and children. Up ahead, he saw rising flames; his city was burning.
The screams continued to scratch against the night like finger nails on a chalk board. Him, Vice, Rhino, and Ice Man crept closer to town and hunkered down and behind a few wrecked cars. Duras saw the shadows of Militia soldiers moving through the streets. He could smell the death. The blood. The pain. His people were dying. Mary Jane was dying.
“Jesus.” Vice said as he stared through a small pair of binoculars. “This is bad.”
“Don’t state the obvious. How do we fix it?” Duras said, trying his best to keep his wits.
“Don’t know if we can, Duras. We migh—”
“No!” Duras said in a forced whisper. “We take the town back!”
“How the hell are we gonna do that? We got hardly any ammo. Those guys are packing serious shit down there. And they look crazed as hell. We're out gunned and out manned.”
“Fuck!”
“We have to wait it out and hope for the best. Its all we can do!” Vice put his hand on Duras’ knee. “Its all we can do, boss.”
“Back to the woods? We can watch everyone die from safety and comfort.”
A mean glare crossed Vice’s face, “Don’t think I want to save Mary Ann? Uh? Hey! I like her just as much as you like Mary Jane. But we can’t save them!”
“You’re a fucking coward!”
“If you go out there, you’ll die. Duras, don’t…”
“What about you two? Don’t look away! You gonna let all those people die?”
“It’s better than a fucking suicide mission!” Ice Man said. His normally beautiful blonde hair was now mashed down in clumps of sweat, dirt, and blood.
Duras stared out at the city. He slumped against the car and put his face into his palms. “Just tell me one thing. How the fuck did this happen?”
Chapter Nine: Rusty Ray and the Seekers
1
One Week Earlier.
A Christian tune played on a battery operated CD player.
Don’t hide from Truth
Don’t hide from His Grace
You’re not a stranger
Your best friend was born in a manger
Guitar chords played and the head of Rusty Ray moved with rhythmic motion as he pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves from a red box. They came out like thick gummy tissues. He pulled them on with a skillful snap. He wore a blue surgical coat, one he’d taken from the Horry County Hospital, along with the rest of his equipment. He walked over to a surgical table. He smiled down at a middle aged man, who screamed and pleaded through a gag; the man's face was white as a ghost.
Rusty Ray shook his head back and forth and said with a comforting tone, “Don’t worry, Holiness is calling. His Love has chosen you for the sacrifice.”
Rusty walked over, grabbed a surgical mask and a Plexiglas eye protector from a long metal table. He stood in front of a mirror and fastened them both with pride. He smiled under the mask. He walked back to the steel table and lifted it up to an incline position.
The song continued:
Don’t let doubt cause a stumble
Don’t fall from Grace
Everyone feels up against sin’s wall
His love never changes
Show faith Holy Grace
He took a pair of scissors with long and sharp blades with large finger holes. “My daddy always said, Rusty Ray, you gotta be strong to use these. Daddy, God rest your soul. I’ve grown up and my fingers are nice and strong.”
A bright light shined down from above and the man on the gurney, tied and gagged, let out a shrill of pain as Rusty Ray slid the scissor blades into warm gut; it sliced in like it was going into butter. “Stay still now. Only take a minute.” Rusty snipped up through the bundle of nerves at the solar plexus and into the beefy weave of muscle and tendon above it.
The dying man’s blood streamed, dripped, and plopped into a collection basin at the foot of the surgical bed. The blade cut into the sternum; the man gargled blood. Rusty cut down hard with a heavy crunch, and the man’s rib cage tore open like flesh wings. Snip-CRUNCH, snip-CRUNCH, snip-CRUNCH—the bones split and the muscles sheared; the lungs freed and Rusty Ray started in on the trachea.
His love never ending
graceful Hope for all
saves the beggars and the bankers
crooks and murderers
Jesus saves em all
“Remember Rusty Ray, anybody can use the electronic machines to cut, but real blue collar autopsy doctors use shears.” Rusty imitated his father, “daddy was right. It’s all in the hands.” He slapped his latex gloved palms together, causing blood to fart in a few directions.
Rusty Ray grew up in a strict two story brick house with parents that sang on the church choir down at St. Johns Methodist in Murrells Inlet every Sunday. On Wednesday nights, he helped his mama put on her make up and go down to church bingo. Little old ladies grabbed his cheeks and patted his bottom.
But what Rusty Ray loved most were the days his daddy took him to work. Daddy broke the rules for his little Rusty, and took him into the autopsy room every Thursday afternoon, right after school. His mouth always salivated when the bones crunched and the blood squirted. His eyes never left his daddy’s skillful hands as they cut through the stomach lining, on up through the chest cavity. Daddy even let him make the marks with the blue pen. What joy that brought Rusty; like a morbid Picasso, he savored every stroke as his eyes burned with passion under the white florescent lamp.
2
Behind Rusty, a large mahogany door swung open. A shimmering of light cam
e in from the musty hallway, and in came Billy Wagner; he held a women. She was tied and gagged, dragged across the room by two Billy and another Seeker. Billy had a ridiculously large grin on his face, even as sweat beaded and dripped; he said, “Guess who we got?” Billy and the other Seeker lowered her to the floor. The room was now dark, except for the batter powered florescent bulbs glowing above the dying body.
Billy grabbed the woman’s thick Afro and pulled her head up so that her chin pointed towards the ceiling. “Rhino’s little nigger whore. Can you believe it? I’ve wanted some of this chocolate pie for soooooo long!” His mouth watered and a little drip of saliva went down his chin as he licked the right side of her face like a dog in heat.
Rusty Ray’s face turned dark. He walked over to the metal table and laid the blood dripping scissors down. He took in a deep breath. He stood for about five seconds with his back to Billy, then let out of loud and intentional sigh. “Billy” he started. “Come over here for a moment.”
Billy looked a bit worried. “You ain’t mad are Rusty? I was just havin a little fun. Nothing to be upset about.”
Rusty Ray did not turn around. The lights bulbs buzzed and glowed against his back; his back was covered in fresh blood. His face was a dark shadow. “Come over here, now.”
“Rusty? I’m—”
“I want say it again.”
Billy s walked over; his footsteps echoed in the mostly silent room. Then his knees shook as he walked over to stand beside Rusty Ray. Billy stood there with his head down, looking at the bloody scissors on the table. “Rusty..”
The body on the table jerked against its harness. Billy turned, and that’s when Rusty Ray reached down and grabbed the scissors, turned, and pulled Billy by the back of his shirt; he reached around to Billy’s front, and pressed the blades’ tips against Billy’s throat.
The body on the table now convulsed, and a growl erupted from its chest and bellowed out of the mouth. The thick leather straps held the once living breathing man down tightly. Rusty Ray ordered the other Seeker out of the room. As the man walked out, the light from the hall lit up Billy and Rusty’s faces. Billy was a few inches shorter than Rusty, so his head reached just to the bottom of Rusty’s chin. Billy’s face was distorted in horror, with lines running down that made him look twice his age. Sweat had soaked through his clothes, and his chest heaved up and down in fast and panicky gasps.
Rusty pressed his pointed chin against Billy’s skull, moving it around in cruel circular motions; Rusty flirted the blade against Billy’s throat.
On the floor, the woman's bosom heaved up and down with inclusions rhythm. A little light reached her face, but most of her was covered in shadow.
Rusty pushed Billy up against the operating table; Billy’s belt buckle clacked against the metal’s edge. The dead man jerked and moaned on the table, trying with all his might to careen its teeth to bite Billy. Its teeth clicked together, its eyes burned a white cauldron of hell fire, a blackened diseased smell came from its mouth; Billy started to cry.
The hot florescent burned down on them like a Broadway spot light. Rusty Ray spoke: “Do you see that creature there? Do you know what its purpose is?”
Billy said nothing; he only listened with fearful breathing.
Rusty continued. “Its purpose it to serve God, our Holy Father. Do you know what your purpose is Billy?”
This time Billy said, with his throat pressed against the blade tips. “To serve God.”
“That’s right Billy. We have two choices. One is to serve the City of Flesh, the other is to serve the City of God. When you seek out fleshly desire, such as licking that whore and feasting on the hope of satisfying your sinful sexual desires, you are not seeking the City of God, Billy, you are seeking the City of Flesh, the City of Sin, the City of Man. And that domain is only temporary. The City of God is eternal.”
Billy said nothing; he wept; his tears dripped and plopped onto the dead man’s jerking leg. The creature continued to howl like a demonized wolf, the woman on the floor still lied without a sound, except for soft breathing; Rusty Ray continued as he pressed the tips of his bloody scissors deeper into the soft flesh of Billy's throat. “My mother was a holy and devout woman, Billy. She served the Lord her whole life and made sure I read all the classics, everything written by the early church fathers and the saints. There is a couple of passages that I am very fond of. Its quite fitting for the evil that has befallen you and this city. It was written by St. Augustine in the year 410, in his divinely inspired City of God.”
Rusty Ray’s eyes closed and he spoke like he’d practiced this sermon countless times:
“Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, "Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head." In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength."
The hungry cries of the zombie on the metal surgery bed screamed out. Its eyes bursting with white flame and its face turning pale like a fleshly ghost with hints of decaying green. Its lips curled up above the teeth and the mouth clicked open and shut, trying like hell to break free of the leather head restraint. Rusty Ray pressed the tips harder against Billy’s throat and poor little Billy stained the front of his pants yellow; his salty, terrorized tears gushed from his eye sockets. Eyes that were filled with utter terror. Eyes that stared at the creature that so desperately wanted to eat him alive, and the cold breath that stank of rotting gut and stomach acid plumed into his face; Billy vomited the hot contents of his stomach out onto the zombie's crotch.
Rusty Ray never lost a verbal step, holding Billy in place, “And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God "glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,"--that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,--“they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, "and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever." But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, "that God may be all in all."
Rusty took in a deep breath and exhaled above Billy’s head. The dead man howled and jerked against the restraints, violently wanting to tear into Billy. Billy’s tears continued, pouring, dripping onto the dead man’s jerking body, streaming down the dead skin, onto the metal table; then streaming down and plopping into the blood filled collection trays.
Rusty Ray felt what he considered the power of God running through his veins. His adrenaline pumped strength into his lungs and vocal cords. He was alive and living for the Lord, just like his mother told him to. If she could see him now; if only she could see him now. God almighty, only if she could see him now!
Rusty Ray took in another deep breath and continued, “but the earthly city, which shall not be everlasting (for it will no longer be a city when it has been committed to the extreme penalty), has its good in this world, and rejoices in it with such joy as such things can afford. But as this is not a good which can discharge its devotees of all distresses, this city is ofte
n divided against itself by litigations, wars, quarrels, and such victories as are either life-destroying or short-lived. For each part of it that arms against another part of it seeks to triumph over the nations through itself in bondage to vice. If, when it has conquered, it is inflated with pride, its victory is life-destroying; but if it turns its thoughts upon the common casualties of our mortal condition, and is rather anxious concerning the disasters that may befall it than elated with the successes already achieved, this victory, though of a higher kind, is still only shot-lived; for it cannot abidingly rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated.”
Rusty Ray’s heart trip hammered in his chest; his mind was on fire with the image of him as the new St. Augustine. He’d made his mother proud; if she could only see him now! He was the Lord’s new and most important representative left on earth; he knew that for sure. He’d always knew that. He always knew that voice that whispered into his ear while he slept as a child, was not some crazy creation of his subconscious, but the voice of God. The Voice. The Voice that told him he’d one day stand against all the evils of this world and stand as God’s earthly judge against the wicked and the powerful; it would be him that would show them that that power was nothing more than a pathetic paper tiger when confronted with the real power that only came from Christ and the mighty Trinity of God and the Holy Ghost! His time had arrived and now he spoke so loud that it overshadowed the screeches of the zombie; Rusty's voice echoed off the walls. His eyes burned with holier than thou tenacity; he stared into the hot light of the fluorescent bulbs with eyes bulging out like he’d been shot in the heart with a dart filled with adrenaline; red veins on the white of his eyes pulsing, his pupils dilating, growing large and strange in the white light; he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt— he was staring at the eyes of God. He screamed out loudly and proclaimed the final Augustine passage with busting gust; as though Christ himself set in the corner judging, “But the things which this city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to attain to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there remains no one to resist it, it enjoys a peace which it had not while there were opposing parties who contested for the enjoyment of those things which were too small to satisfy both. This peace is purchased by toilsome wars; it is obtained by what they style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains with the party which had the juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor, and style it a desirable peace? These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of the heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace never-ending, and so inordinately covet these present good things that they believe them to be the only desirable things, or love them better than those things which are believed to be better,--if this be so, then it is necessary that misery follow and ever increase.”
