SEWAGE
a short story
by
Kevin J. Fitzgerald
Copyright 2015 Kevin John Fitzgerald
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Characters and events in this story are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental unless otherwise noted. Cover design by Robert Wilson. See more of his awesome artwork at his website here: https://www.deathisgain.com
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SEWAGE
My name is Stuart Rutland. I’m a husband, accountant, and father of three. At least I used to be; until I found out about the zombies in the sewers. No one believed me when I told them what happened. Susan, the boys, and I were visiting my mother at the old house on Spartan Lane when Jamie disappeared. I sat down on the porch to sip my tall glass of iced tea and noticed Jamie sitting out front on the old cement sewer top. I passed so many summer evenings of childhood on that same top, watching the stars come out or waiting for lightning bugs. I took a sip—and heard Jamie scream. I thought she’d been bitten by an ant or something but, when I saw the two hands reach out from the sewer and start dragging her in, I knew what had happened. By the time I reached the sewer, she was almost completely inside. I could see her orange and pink sandals disappearing into the darkness; the ones she almost lost at Disney. From deep in the sewer, I heard the gurgling and growling sounds. Their cold, corpse-hands groped longingly at her vulnerable flesh. As I looked into the gap between the asphalt and cement sewer top, I saw their green, glowing eyes bobbing and dancing in the dark, like eyes peering out of a jungle in an old cartoon. For one brief second, I grasped Jamie’s hands; held her, tugging and wrestling like a dog with a homemade sock-toy. Then, she was gone; my baby-love. I heard her screaming as they took her away. I collapsed and stared, weeping. And then I remembered...
We grew up walking to Jolly Elementary, located on Othello Avenue, just at the top of Norman Road. A long hill sloped down Norman, and an even longer hill swept back up the other side before dropping us in front of the school. Spivey’s Woods stretched on for miles, bordering the edge of Norman. Local legends swirled around these woods. Kids talked about how Old Man Spivey raised twelve hound-dogs back there. My own brother claimed to have been shot in the heel with rock salt by Old Man Spivey when he and Todd Duncan ventured into those woods one day. All I knew was that Spivey’s Woods started at the crosswalk where Norman met Othello, then emerged into the dead end at the end of Spartan Lane–two doors down from my house. Over the years of walking to and from Jolly Elementary, I secretly became obsessed with cutting through those woods to make the trek shorter.
It was me or Jon Graham who finally talked the other into doing it; I can’t remember which. Jon lived two streets over on Belle Glade Avenue and was my best friend since third grade. We found the rusted canisters in the middle of Spivey’s Woods totally by accident, just sitting there in a clearing. They were stacked along the sides of an old metal shed, running the full length of a small creek that disappeared into a grated sewer opening several yards away. Being ten and bored, Jon and I decided to throw rocks at the canisters. Neither of us felt any particular hurry to get home. Like a lot of kids, we looked for any excuse out of doing homework or starting on chores. Our rocks easily punched holes through the sides of those corroded drums. Thick, green goo poured out the sides; “guts” we called it. The smell reminded us of hard-boiled eggs, or our mothers’ cooking broccoli.
The sudden braying of Spivey’s hounds sent us flying. Jon and I ran faster and harder than we thought possible. We never looked back.
We never cut through those woods again.
About a week later, I saw the first zombies.
At first, Jon didn’t believe me. He and I spent every September since knew each other turning off lights and listening to an old “Scary Tales” LP we’d found in his basement. Old, yellow sketch pads – intended for homework – got used instead to dream up all sorts of ways to transform his house or mine into the World’s Best Haunted House. Of course, we never actually did it.
I invited him to spend the night and see for himself. They only came out at night. Our house, on the corner of Spartan Lane and Viking Road, was perfectly constructed for two mischievous ten-year-olds to sneak out the window and drop off the garage without being seen. In the end, he saw them. We tried to think of something to do. But – let’s face it – what can two ten-year-olds already fighting with weight and oncoming acne really do against an army of flesh-eating zombies? In the end, we tried to get on with life as best we could.
But it wasn’t easy. That summer during a whiffle-ball game, Matt Long jumped down into the large sewage culvert on the vacant lot beside his house to retrieve a foul ball. The Long’s vacant lot ran right up to the edge of Spivey’s Woods. Matt even claimed his father knew the Old Man. We stared in at Matt, but – when the zombies emerged from the pipes and took him – Jon and I bolted. It was the last time we ever saw Matt Long.
That event kicked-off a series of mysterious child disappearances that summer known as the “Chickasaw Child Murders.” A man by the name of Damon Woods eventually got tried and convicted; but Jon and I knew what really happened to all those kids. It was the zombies.
Jon and I eventually lost touch. I’m not sure what ever happened to him; I think he moved out west.
But the zombies hung around. Ohhh yeah…
A formal investigation started after my baby love’s disappearance. Like when I was a kid, no one believed my story. Many spoke of the Child Murders starting up again. I went back to the old neighborhood every chance I had to look for her; eventually even ventured into the sewers myself. At first, there had been nothing.
Then, I began to hear them; I began to smell them.
The twisting pipes finally led me to the old, grated sewer entrance in the creek in Spivey’s Woods. I sat and stared at that old metal shed and those rusted, corroded drums a long time, nostalgia and loathing warring within me. I gained weight, lost my job. Eventually, Susan took the two boys and left. But still, I came back. I somehow convinced myself growing up that the zombies living in the sewers weren’t real.
But I can’t tell myself that any longer.
I’m going to find Jamie; even if – when I do – she’s become one of them. I have to. She’s not only my baby-love; this whole damn thing is my fault. I created those monsters in the sewers. And I’m gonna destroy them. The old neighborhood is empty now. The houses have all been boarded up and sold; the streets are all cracked; the yards overgrown. The streetlamps don’t work. All the entrances have been blocked off by those big, cement construction barriers. People moved away when the toxic waste dump was discovered in Spivey’s Woods. Can you blame them? It had gotten into the water, into everything. The zombies roam the streets freely at night now. That’s when I retreat into the old treehouse that Jon and I built. It’s still pretty sturdy. I have my binoculars and shotgun. I look for Jamie, calling her name; wondering if she would even recognize my voice if she heard it. I don’t eat much these days; I ran out of water a long time ago. The other day I ate a whole squirrel, raw.
And there is the creek if I get thirsty.
The sores on my arms have gotten worse. My skin is beginning to take on the same sickly yellow-green as the rest of them. And it smells . . . it smells like hard-boiled eggs. I suppose I’ll find Jamie soon enough, one way, or another. I have to. Yes; we’ll finally be re-united, me and my baby-love.
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