Valley of Death, Zombie Trailer Park

by William Bebb

CHAPTER 13

  Cha-ka Attack & ICE Left Cold

  Without being able to immediately remember where he was, Jeremiah opened his eyes and was shocked to realize the previous evening hadn't really just been an ultra realistic nightmare. He'd dozed off while sitting in a kitchen chair he’d placed against the trailer's door and upon waking found himself stiff and uncertain what to do. The young man spent a long time before falling asleep searching before realizing that the filthy trailer had no phone

  Breathing through his mouth to avoid as much as possible the foul plethora of stenches all around him, he rubbed his eyes and secretly hoped Charlie had died while he'd been sleeping. I know it's not right to wish that, Lord, but I can't help it. He's going to die anyway. No one can go through life in his condition. He's got to be in unimaginable pain- and all I can find to relieve it is some aspirin, Jeremiah thought miserably.

  He stood and felt like his legs had gone to sleep. They felt rubbery and tingled almost painfully at the same time. Walking unsteadily through the filthy living room, he pointedly did not look at the faceless man and instead paused to peek out through the thrift store quality curtains covering the window.

  Outside there was no sign of his friend, Issac, who had apparently become a homicidal monster several hours earlier. On the porch, the wooden recliner was splattered with drying blood and bits of skin. Dozens of rabbits were eating in the ruined garden and drinking from the stream as rays of dappled golden sunlight filtered into the small clearing. If he hadn't witnessed and been a part of the mayhem, himself, he might have looked upon the view as almost enchanting. Of course the two corpses in the stream did make it hard to see it as anything other than what is really was: A scene of bloody murderous violence and madness.

  Checking his watch, Jeremiah saw it was a little after six o'clock and was surprised to discover that he felt hungry.

  The monkey hooted inquisitively while curled up in a small furry ball in Charlie's lap. Its eyes blinked sleepily up at him as the young man turned toward the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Cheetah,” he said, walking past the blood stained recliner. Once again, Jeremiah, chose not to look at Charlie as he went into the kitchen and tried to find something to eat.

  Her name is Cha-ka, you pompous, heartless, stupid, asshole, Charlie angrily thought, as he tried to breathe under the filthy towel that had been placed over his head and face. He'd fallen asleep (or passed out) several times since the Bible thumping bastard had worked on him earlier. If I live through this, I will find some way to kill him or at least see him dead, he thought savagely. Then realizing his soul was on the line, he regretfully dismissed the idea of revenge. His face or the remnants of it felt like biting fire ants were crawling all over it. He wondered if they really were ants or if he was just imagining it.

  Housekeeping had never been a priority for Charlie Farro and he couldn't remember the last time he'd sprayed his filthy trailer for bugs. As the crawling biting sensations on his 'face' continued he couldn't help remembering the trails of ants he'd seen in the kitchen yesterday and moaned softly. He focused all his will and tried to lift his hand.

  There was no movement.

  Paralyzed by my own frigging stupidity. Fuck! With Skynyrd’s fangs still deeply embedded on the sides of his head he idly wondered if the crown of thorns felt as bad to Jesus as what he was going through. And then wondered if just thinking that thought was sacrilegious. He heard the kid whistling in the kitchen and tried to speak, but a weak hoarse gurgle was all he could manage.

  Cha-ka hooted softly again from his lap. Her small simian fingers stroked and patted Charlie’s hand, but he couldn’t feel it.

  Several hours earlier, Jeremiah had spent thirty agonizing minutes trying to find a way to remove the large python's severed head and mouth without doing even more damage to Charlie. The snake had unhinged its jaw to swallow the man's head but hadn’t managed to get past his forehead before being killed. The teeth were curved like fish hooks and dug deeper into Charlie’s head each time Jeremiah had pulled on it trying to remove it. He finally decided to let the paramedics do it if he could get help for him. It was when he finally gave up on removing the snake's head that the monkey scared him more than anything else last night.

  Cha-ka sat quietly on a shadowy bookcase holding a ragged piece of Charlie's facial skin. She watched in silent fascination as the strange man tried to remove the snake's head. Cha-ka was a monkey of very mixed emotions. She was elated and thrilled that her old nemesis, Skynyrd the python was finally dead, yet equally heartbroken as she listened to her master grunting in pain in his recliner. When the stranger picked up a knife, she feared he would hurt Charlie and flung herself from the bookcase onto his head (scratching and screeching very loudly.)

  Jeremiah had no idea what new monstrosity was attacking him. Screaming, he dropped the knife and ran toward the bathroom.

  Cha-ka had wrapped her small simian hands into his hair, pulling fiercely and screeching loudly as Jeremiah screamed in terror, stumbled across the room, slammed into one of the walls, and finally made it to the bathroom.

  Charlie did something he didn't think he'd ever be capable of doing again. He laughed and didn't even care that it sounded like a sick gurgling frog as he watched Cha-ka riding on the Bible thumping kid's head when he ran into the hall screaming like a little girl.

  In the bathroom, staring in the filthy mirror hanging behind the sink, Jeremiah saw a Capuchin monkey sitting on top of his head with two small fistfuls of his hair. He lowered his hands and stopped shouting as they stared into each other’s eyes through the mirror.

  She still clutched tightly to his hair but stopped pulling on it as they maintained eye contact.

  “Hello. My name is Jeremiah,” he said in a soft gentle voice as his hand reached slowly into his pocket. He realized it was most likely a helper monkey much like his Uncle Andrew had gotten to assist him with things around the house after his tragic accident.

  Jeremiah’s, Uncle Andrew was a great musician... once. He'd been on stage playing his harmonica as part of a band performing for a Children's Hospital fund raiser. When it was time for his solo he was doing great and the crowd loved it as he went close to the edge of the stage playing his heart out.

  Jeremiah later saw the video of the fall.

  While still playing his harmonic with his eyes closed, Andrew tripped over a microphone cord and fell head first onto a group of kids that were absolutely no help in breaking his fall. The saddest part wasn't the accident itself. It was when some of the kids tried to help him up, and in doing so jostled his already injured neck and spine in such a way that he ended up permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

  Hoping this monkey had a similar weakness for hard candy, as his uncle's monkey named Kong, he unwrapped a mint and slowly raised his hand up so it could see it.

  Cha-ka looked and sniffed at it but didn't release his hair.

  “It's okay, you can have it. Just leave me some of my hair so I can still use my comb,” he said in the same soft soothing tone of voice he'd used earlier.

  Cha-ka snatched the candy from his palm and held it with both of her small hands as she continued to sit on his head. After sniffing it, her eyes widened and she took a bite. She held the mint with one hand and patted Jeremiah's hair back down from the unruly mess it was to a slightly less messy style with the other hand.

  “Are you going to be nice now? Your friend in there sure could use your help,” he said, lowering his hands to his sides.

  Cha-ka jumped onto the sink holding the mint in one hand and patted her chest before pointing toward the living room.

  “All right, Cheetah, let’s go try to help him,” he said walking out, as the monkey climbed onto his shoulder and continued to happily munch on the mint.

  Since their initial encounter, the monkey and Jeremiah worked well together trying to help the faceless paralyzed man. He'd found some old letters while looking for medicine in the kitchen cabinets and discovered his name was C
harlie Fitzpatrick Farro. Aside from that, he also knew the man was going to die without serious medical attention and soon. His first aid experience was nowhere near as extensive as Issac’s had been, but he believed that it was a genuine miracle Charlie was still alive at all.

  Before falling asleep from exhaustion, the flies had been his biggest concern. They kept crawling on the raw meat of Charlie's face. After soaking a towel in water, Jeremiah laid it gently over the man's bloody pulpy facial area. The young man was careful not to cover where his nose and mouth holes were so Charlie wouldn't suffocate. Hoping the towel would deter the flies was only part of the reason for his doing it though. Jeremiah was ashamed to admit even to himself that the pitiful looking man had been scaring the devil out of him while he tried to think what to do next.

  In the filthy kitchen he found and opened a can of corn. Jeremiah ate it cold straight from the can feeling he and Charlie were both quickly running out of time. Staring at the small brown plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide, as he chewed and swallowed the cold corn, he felt uncertain what to do next. He picked up the bottle and read the faded label.

  Over the years he’d used hydrogen peroxide on various cuts and scrapes, but was unsure if using it on Charlie's badly torn 'face' was a good or bad idea. He was certain it would help keep the hideous wounds from being infected with germs, but feared the intense pain it would undoubtedly cause might kill Charlie.

  Opening the bottle of aspirin, he laid five white pills on the counter and used an unopened can of corn to smash them into powder. After retrieving the plastic turkey baster that he'd seen earlier inside a drawer, he scooped the powder into the empty tube and filled it with water.

  The monkey watched Jeremiah curiously from on top of the Python's severed head stuck to the top of Charlie.

  “It's okay Cheetah. This stuff should help Charlie feel better, that's all,” he said, and filled a plastic bucket with water and carried them both to the table beside the recliner.

  Taking a deep breath, he tried to remove the towel. It was difficult to do because the cloth had dried out since he placed it on Charlie's 'face' earlier. The dry blood stained towel had somehow become stuck to the drying blood on the man's 'face' and required more than a little tugging to remove.

  Charlie gurgled loudly and his head twitched spasmodically as it was pulled off.

  Cha-ka hooted and appeared confused.

  “It will be okay,” Jeremiah said softly, hoping he was telling the truth.

  The flies had found ways under the towel and were everywhere beneath it.

  Jeremiah thought of Jesus dealing with most likely equally unpleasant looking lepers and looked at the man’s remaining eye. It appeared dull and dry and he wondered how stupid he could have been. The man has no eyelid, of course it dried out. He quickly splashed some water onto it and shooed away the flies.

  He held up the turkey baster filled with water and powdered aspirin and said, “Try to swallow these aspirins. I've got to do something that will probably sting a little before I go for help.”

  The eye rolled sluggishly and looked up at him as Charlie grunted.

  “I've got to go for help or you will most certainly die. Cheetah will be here to give you water using the turkey baster until help comes. Now, try and swallow the aspirin,” he said and slipped the plastic tip into the hole where some of his teeth could still be seen as well as a twitching pink colored thing, which he thought was probably be the man's tongue. He squeezed the rubber bulb of the baster and Charlie swallowed.

  Some water leaked out through the side of his 'face' that was gone altogether, but Jeremiah was certain that most of it was swallowed.

  After getting the monkey to handle the baster, and showing her how to draw water from the bucket and squirt it into Charlie's mouth several times, Jeremiah felt it was almost time to go. He peeked through the window and saw several rabbits eating peacefully. If Issac or the other crazy people were nearby he doubted they'd be that calm and turned back to the man in the recliner.

  “Mr. Farro, if you can understand me, please listen. I really don't want to know the depth of your depravity,” he said, gesturing to the pornographic magazines scattered around the room. “I am commanded by God to hate the sin but love the sinner. You make it extremely difficult to do that, but I will pray for you. And if something should happen to me out there just remember something Brother Derek told me once at church. God writes straight with crooked lines.

  God Bless you, Charlie, and you too Cheetah. I'll be as quick as I can, but there’s one last thing I have to do. It will most likely sting a little, but it should keep the flies off of your-” he coughed before managing to say, “Face.”

  Charlie had been so happy to have something to drink that he'd tuned out most of what the kid had been saying until hearing the part about something stinging a little. His vision was horrible. It was like trying to see through an ice cube so he couldn't identify what the kid was lifting up over his 'face'.

  When the hydrogen peroxide splashed on his skinless 'face' he gurgled loudly and shook his head violently for several seconds until passing out from the intense pain.

  Unable to watch Charlie’s 'face' foaming and bubbling, Jeremiah petted the softly hooting monkey on top of her small head and whispered, “Take care of him, Cheetah. I'll be back with help.” He checked outside again and everything still appeared serene enough. Locking the door behind him, he went out on the porch picked up his oak table leg club and hurried back the way he and Issac had come last night.