Short Fiction, Entry #13

Later that night, I dreamed.  I’d forgotten how I’d closed my eyes, or the how long the pistol had stayed glued to my hand.  The dream came and there was no violence in it.  I could see fingers driving themselves into the glassy malleability of water; a faucet was rushing all over porcelain fingers.  The tips were perfectly shaped to form a gentle tip, a woman must own them.  The fingers rubbed against each other, not in a sexual way, but confidently; as if his car had always stayed in her driveway.  The faucet stopped and those fingers hung loosely along curves.  Now those curves were bark on an oak tree, firm and distinct, better than the robes entombed in her closet.  Fingers dangling like knives, not because of fear or malice, but because they needed something…a purpose as sharp as their edges.  There was a sun in my dreams, it’s belly was full and he kept staring over the shoulder (bark?) of the woman.  He was looking with a face rounded by generations of messy bourbon caresses; this was not what it wanted.  She stood there, rooted and calm, allowing time to briefly gather its things.  Then nothing…or should I say no “concepts.”  Randomness; the gentle wafting of a child’s hair, a wrench lying still on a garage floor, a salamander peering nervously from the opening of a hubcap, yawning scissor blades.

The dream sloshed around like this for what felt like hours.  A collage of stillness; single moments separated from a progression of moments in a series, seemingly without focus.  When I woke up, my skin was damp and my mouth tasted like stale popcorn.  Yes, I still remembered such a taste.  It was dark in the house…and I was still there.  Whether or not days or minutes had passed, I was unaware.  Then I saw them; collapsed on or near the table where I’d left them.  The humans, possibly the last ones.

Their bodies stayed different then the dead, after they had finally fallen.  The angles of the arms and legs, locking with a memory of gracefulness the dead simple had forgotten…or had ignored.  I did not find this comforting, just different.  This house would be my last, I promised out loud; in the spoken tongue of my fathers.  The last time I believed in anything again.

Short Fiction, Entry #12

I looked at that house like a wolf looked at the moon.  I could see the depression and wharfing of the wood, I could see the broken pieces; assaulted by years of angry wind and water.  I could sense the house squatted on attrified legs, and if it had flesh instead of wood, that flesh would be shaking from a deep, guttural cough.  I stood upright, on a bedding of crispy leaves and I looked at the wave reflection in its glass windows.  The light that was flickering must have been based on a timer or other imperfection- the bulb wheezed and flashed bright like an open eye every few minutes.  I could not see a driveway or road; the growth of nature seemed to wipe it away.  There was no sound either.  Then a shift in the window- a shadow or dead thing?

The steps leading to the door were riddled with deep grooves; a flower pot had been kicked over, its insides traced in chaotic outlines by the wind.  My feet pulled me towards the door and my blade came to a point in front of me.  The door opened and a man stepped out.  He was a man because I could see fear in his eyes.  Fear and something else…something I’d thought was buried deep within my tangled stomach and washed away.  He smiled because he felt hope.  Lying, terrible hope.

“We thought we were the last ones left.” The man uttered.  Words, the sound terrified me.  They reminded me of a chopped up car; engine rumbling like a four hundred pound hornet.  I couldn’t think with the sound.  My hands were coated with sweat and crawled into my pockets, throbbing.  The man sat facing me, and his wife was next to him.  She had a gauze wrap twirled around her elbows; her face had no expression.  I was surrounded by dead items.  Useless items, and these people found them comfortable.  The man pushed a cup towards me with a dirt colored liquid.

“You are the last ones left,” I said- and they were; the last of the famous old world.  He looked at me, his lips parting in the shape of a knife wound.  He continued on with a story based from another time line; full of running and screaming and children grasping to hide from the truth.  As he progressed I couldn’t help but feel a mix of anger and numbness; it was luke warm and floated at the top of me like vinegar in water.  I was alone now because I realized things could never be the same.  Part of me wished it could be different…but it wasn’t.  The world was now a place devoid of hope.  This man and his wife were drunk with it- my appearance opened their hearts to a fantasy of life again.  I sat there for what felt like hours, staring at my cup and cursing my weakness in coming here.

Then I felt it.  Steel; massaging my lower back, pulsing with an energy I understood.  I thought briefly of morality, and how rules were made for moments like this.  They were made, implying that the time period which birthed such concepts had ended.  Not for these people though; it remained a beacon in the night, a line deeply cut in the sand and a belief as powerful as the ancient religious texts.  The pulsing behind me grew with intensity.  Damn it all, these were the moments where the heart and mind grappled with each other, barring teeth.  My mind could learn these new rules, but my heart was forged in a time where caring was as natural as shitting; this memory fired across my biology and I hated that.  The people sitting in front of me were already dead; they came from a time which held nothing more.  I blinked and stood up.

My hand pulled out the pistol.  The trigger felt heavy and I leveled the sights on the lady, and pulled it.  Her face never changed and there was a moment in time where it remained the same before shattering into pieces.  The man squealed and placed his hands in the air- “Don’t…” he said but the second shot stole the air from his throat.  He flailed backwards and collapsed; then there was silence.  I waited a few moments and placed the gun neatly in my belt.  This is a new time, and there were no more victims…

Short Fiction, Entry #11

I found the head of a man one day.  It was floating in the rippled concrete of the highway, resting on a dry lily pad of blood.  His eyes were moving as if he truly were floating, watching for my approaching foot prints.  My feet moved closer until I was standing over the head; his eyes peered up at me.  They were covered in a mist of rage- except there was electricity too.  The early morning heat pushed off the pavement and the two reacted together chemically in those eyes.  Gums and throat tissue contracted and his glare found my form insufferable.  After a few moments, my blade serrated the remaining synapses of his brain and those hateful eyes sat like broken quartz in the road.  I still stood in the open looking down on what I’d done and I hated this place.  I hated what the dead had become; I hated that the only form of communication left was murder and I hated that I was the only son of a bitch who felt emotion.  I could never purge the old world from me; it slimed through my heart and head like a virus and it was going to kill me one of these days.  Remorse was a voodoo curse.

The sun had traveled up and down in the sky a few times before I found walking through the woods safer.  The dead were driven to the road by the hot pavement-maybe it felt like guts to them- and I found my body’s outline to be broken up by the trees.  Later in the day, with the heat washed away in the wind I found a house poking out amongst the bars of foliage.  It was slightly dropped below the horizon, hiding it perfectly from the road.  A rusted line of barbwire was covered in sheets of dry vines adding another screen of cover.  I squatted about a hundred yards away and stared; this was the type of thing I could never believe again.  Houses held more than just food, medicine or clothing- they also kept an unrealistic dream alive.  Rebuilding.  Warmth.  A place to settle.  But I was young then; and a flickering light snapping on and off was all that was needed to draw me towards it like a hungry moth.

Short Fiction, Entry #10

The days were nothing now.  The nights I held close to my breast, my back pushed against a worn car seat or pile of blankets.  They didn’t move around at night, most just stood still and looked up at the sky.  Time was hollow here, and it didn’t matter like we made it in the past.  The only form of measurement from the past were the mile marker signs.  I had ninety miles till I reached the beach and I could count my progress this way.  Progress; a dead word.  How could I make “progress” when corpses were glued to metal tombs along the road?  And those things…they were everywhere and nowhere; all teeth and drive.  One leg disintegrating with stillness, the other spasming like an unruly toddler; it seemed like their body parts were each controlled by a separate puppeteer.  Some ran, others crawled; their organs trailing behind them, collecting blood and dirt in a glaze.  Each was in its own variation of decay or rigid freshness; I even saw young children, barefoot, twisting and writhing amongst the sea of dead.

My blade found itself in those early days.  I could easily sneak up on a group of five or six ambling around and dispatch them without using my handgun.  They would spin quickly and look upon me like a cross, and in that moment I thought I could see recognition in their eyes.  Recognition of their past lives or recognition of their present hunger was unknown, but I would end them where they stood.  It took me a few times to learn that a straight down strike on their head could get my blade stuck in their spine or mushy flesh.  I perfected a spinning side strike, using my legs to propel my upper body’s force to the serrated edge of the blade.  Skulls, pieces of eyes, ears; these tumbled to the ground.  In the end they would all fall, and I took no pleasure in re-killing them.

At times the highway was dangerous, and collected the dead walkers like the warm glow of a camp fire.  At one point there were hundreds wrapped tightly around a strange grouping of wrecked cars.  Their whisper gasps conglomerated into one panting moan; all their faces and hands stretched toward the man made outcropping.  And it was man made.  From my position in the hills a hundred yards away, I could make out a rough camp.  There was no movement but I could tell there had been.  Progress.  It was a dead word and those who tried to find it would be dead soon anyways.  We could never go back to the ways of the past.  So I walked on, taking supplies from dead machines and sipping water amongst those ruins.

Short Fiction, Entry #9

How do I describe this world anymore?  I’m forced to use terminology and vocabulary like a layer of dust; leaving a thin trail coating the surface.  This trail leads no where, or more precisely, it leads to me; a single consciousness .  My isolation was both a gift and a hindrance, and through it you found my own brand of reality.  The open road was freedom for me, and those first couple of days I would spend hours squatting in a ditch or road side depressions, smelling the plants around me.  The old me would have found this purely insane; spending energy cracking open my senses and allowing the wind and scents to filter through me.  I wanted to wrap my skin around these dirt creations; I wanted to stop and let their sappy pigments paint over my hands.  I’d spent so long rumbling through concrete dreams of paperwork and neon flashing warnings, I’d forgotten what it was like to just be.  That was impossible in the past, but now, being was the only thing one could do.

There was a story smashed around me, and I’d be lying if I wanted to piece it together.  Bringing it back alive had a price; my pockets were empty back then, and this was something I couldn’t do or comprehend.  Melted cars had their insides split open like they were yawning while twinkling shell casings were pushed around like cockroaches by the wind.  Flesh was stranded by the pound, sometimes you could see fingers and hands, other times pieces were sewn together.  There was always lurking things nearby.  Hiding in the flowing underbrush along the highways, I could finally see them for what they were.

They had no care or concern for self awareness.  Many times groups of ten or more would circle around themselves; clothes flickering with the elements, they would amble and push into each other.  There was no blinking, but their mouths worked constantly; almost like they were tasting the air.  Some were missing arms or legs, I even saw one woman carry her guts like ropes of sausages; she never looked down as her pale fingers struggled to grasp them through the bile and blood.  These were not people anymore and neither was this world a place for people.

I used those first days and weeks to purge myself from the fear of loneliness.  While I was packing my belongings back at my apartment, I’d forgotten that I had also taken my wallet.  Holed up one night in a stranded van, I say a photo of my mother and father, their smiles highlighted by the moonlight.  My finger washed over their faces once before I tore the photo in half and let it sink to the floor.  There was no such thing as family now.

Short Fiction, Entry #8

I looked into the mirror and I had no definition for what I saw.  A child stood before me, covered in bags of wadded up clothing with bags of camping material slung over his shoulder.  This child had no understanding of what he was preparing for: he had no conception that his actions, while logical and almost brave, were utterly useless in a word without order.  I must have stared in that mirror for minutes, letting my mind drink in this image, as if it would be the last time I could stare at my own eyes.

I had to get to the shed outside.  My apartment was split into a duplex type arrangement with my neighbor on the ground floor.  He loved to do yard work back when such things passed as work.  The shed touched the fence ringing in our back yard; it was a tall wooden fence, not see through and my height would be kept away from prying eyes.  The sun was slowly arching above me and there was a breeze shifting predictably between and around me.  The door was locked, but I wrapped the tin cup in one of my T-shirts and punched a hole in the glass.  As the door swung open, I immediately saw what I needed.  There used to be a name for this tool, but in my understanding back then, I saw it as a weapon.  Four feet of a wooden staff and at the end a clean, fat blade; it had a gentle serration and the tip curved casual to a hook point.  The weight was perfect.  I spent thirty minutes fastening a strap so I could sling the blade over my shoulder and walk with it hands free…that’s when I caught out of the corner of my eye my neighbor’s back door cracked open.

Crossing the yard, I kept low and quiet, expecting to see teeth and bones and thirsty hands clawing at me.  Using the tip of my new friend, I pushed wide the door and immediately stopped.  The remains of my neighbor sat heavily on the floor; his skin and clothing were glued in a pile of viscous blood.  The top part of his skull resembled a crushed cigarette butt, brains and bone fragments had been messily chewed on and sprinkled across the floor.  This was the first time I saw brains up close, and I was concentrated on breathing through my mouth.

He used to be a good man, but so did a lot of dead people.  I sat on the floor, letting the blade lay across my lap and I thought back to a time where I should have been crying at this sight.  I should have puked up my apple breakfast and whimpered for help.  I did nothing of this sort; I sat there and let me decide what I should do.

The beach.  I needed to get to the beach.  The water would give me protection, it would be the literal wall I could place my back against and hide in it’s colossal scope.  Surely these things could not conceptualize size like this, could they?  I lived less than 2 hours away by car, but distance was different now.  So I headed out, moving along bricks and wood, always finding a wall and clinging to it.  On many levels, I wanted the beach to be my home, but deep within, I knew that wasn’t true.  I knew that I needed this, I needed something to do.  It was a psychological defense mechanism, a dream catcher at the edge of the cliff face; I wanted this to mean something.  The sun was leaning against my shoulders and I kept running, and running; hoping to out pace the inevitability of that gun in my pocket kissing the back of my throat and screaming.

Short Fiction, Entry #7

I was woken by an explosion in the late morning.  The concussion must have been close, I could feel the muscles in my legs twitch, and the window panes spasmed.  There was still electricity, and I began to crunch into an apple I had left in my refrigerator- most of the morning went by without incident.  I even found thirty minutes to play my XBOX system before I realized what I was becoming.

Who was I now?  Once again, the idea of self reflection is seen by many as stupid and a waste of time.  We take a name and a face, we live in a region of the world and the customs we’re exposed to define who we are.  We may leave this region for the rest of our lives but our formative years build important mental applications of self worth.    So who was I now in this time?  A time where artificial did not exist because there was no one left to name it as such?  My hands are holding a plastic controller which does not have meaning now; they also wrapped themselves around a luxurious chilled apple.  These items each represented a sentence in the novel of who I was.  I threw the controller down and I walked back to my bed.

I need weapons, food and water.  Shelter would be ideal but since no place can offer unlimited food, I shall find a way to wander and get what I need.  Everything else is shit; a waste.  I began to dig through my closet and find shoes; I took a knife to the soles of the old ones and scavenged their plastic for something else.  I filled three pillow cases with bedding, clothing, and snacks; tied all three to my leather belt.  Hanging off my two hips and tailbone, these bags were light enough to help me travel if I had to.

I did not forget my pistol either.  It was a NATO issued Czech Republic 9mm; there was sixteen round magazine and it had extra weight to allow for easier aiming when you were firing quickly.  I was able to take two magazines, and I holstered my spine, plus I brought fifty rounds of ammunition.  I fashioned a dual shoulder crossing bandoleer out of old belts and I added some hooks made from hangers- to this I attached three nalgeen bottles of water and a duct tape reinforced zip lock bag.  Matches, a tin cup, my last cigar and some streak knives were a few of the odds and ends I brought.

This apartment was no longer my home, the idea of “home” as it pertains to comfort did not fit anymore.  Home implies familiarity and rest, neither of which were possible in this place.  I chose to wander because it kept me steps in front of a sedentary death.  If I stayed here, I knew I would die.  I would die holding onto the residual emotions of this crypt; no need to be dramatic or cute…this was a crypt.  I fastened the belts tight around my shoulders and I chambered a round in my pistol- before I left, there was one thing left I needed to do.

Short Fiction, Entry #6

When I was walking home, I made sure to follow anything with a wall.  Most people would think having your back against something was idiotic but it gave me comfort; it also helped me blend in better so I couldn’t be seen.  The sun was high in the air, stinging with heat but it was a great feeling.  It reminded me that little moments like this are what I have to look forward to.  Enjoyment was no longer the essential commodity to barter with in this place; everything had a purpose.

I live in an apartment downtown.  I lived in an apartment downtown; the concept of ownership was a hard thing to lose back then because it seemed to me to be the only thing I could place my sanity into.  After four hours of sneaking I finally had a grasp of the reality facing me;  men and women were eating the world.  Some were kneeling in piles of broken plastic and wood in the middle of the road.  Others would stand and look for days in the same direction, letting their flesh bake and strain like leather in the sun.  Time stopped and became a piece of furniture; its existence would only be defined by those who could articulate value.  The world had lost its vocabulary, and in a matter of days, became driven by the pursuit of the moment.  On my walk home, I witnessed one of these people face deep in the stomach of dog.  The animal’s coat was washed and I could see the remnants of a collar swinging with the motion of the person’s twisting neck.  Blood and bone stained this person’s face and hands; the dog’s corpse resembled nothing more than a balled up furry towel.  This was a snapshot of how the world had ended.

I turned the corner to my block and everything was still.  The breeze had stalled and I could only see one of those creatures ambling around the pavement thirty yards from my front door.  Are they “creatures”?  Can I accurately call them that?  I guess it doesn’t matter, I am the only one making records.  It turned and rattled grunts as it moved towards me.  I waited quietly as it came close, then lashed out a solid kick to its knee cap; there was a pop, it fell and I was there with my knife.  I stood up to see if any others had seen me, which there were none, and I made my way to the door.

I don’t remember how long I stayed awake in my bed that night.  I’d kept the lights and AC off so as to not attract attention, but my eyes stayed open.  Maybe I was afraid that sleep was just one step closer to being one of them.  Alone, lost in a see of uncontrollable hunger; forced to eat the things which once defined who I was.  These thoughts sat like fog around the foot of my bed and I was convinced that sleep was the first step towards this dark transformation.

Short Fiction, Entry #5

Something inside me rumbled.  My quiet sobbing stopped and I dragged my forearm across my face to wipe away the tears.  It took me a few minutes to realize the sensation rattling around my mid section; I was hungry.  How could I be hungry at a time like this, with a twice dead stinking corpse  inches from my feet?  The stillness of the stairwell pressed against me, focusing my feelings of rage and confusion.  This was the first moment of deconstruction; this was where I learned that the moral boundaries of the past needed to be shed.  My body was responding to its natural thirst for nutrients, regardless of how disgusting psychologically the timing seemed.  I stood up and over the body and stepped through the doors to reach the outside.

I was initially amazed at how beautiful a day it was becoming; the rains had ended and cooled the temperature down.  My sleeves were rolled up and I felt I could finally think without letting the moment in the stairwell consume me.  I knew I needed the obvious things; food, water, shelter…and a weapon stronger than a cake knife.  As I finalized the plan to make my way back to my apartment, I heard the gentle scattering of glass from behind.  About twenty yards to my back stood three of them.  To describe their faces would be like describing the details of ink; their arms and legs spasmed and more gasps spread like dust towards me.  The stuttering forward motion of their bodies reminded me of the coughing a jittery steam engine makes while it fires up.  They moved determined and I started to run, until I rounded the corner one block south of them.  Pressing my body close to the brick corner, as soon as I was out of site, the three of them stopped.  The one standing to the left of the group uttered a low hum and then they stood still like robot sentries, rooted in standby mode.  They don’t chase unless they see you, I thought, which means they must have a certain level of motor skills, but degraded, somehow.

In my haste to run away, I had forgotten to check my surroundings.  I was an infant back then, not used to the sharp teeth this new world could bare when threatened.  A hand lashed out and grabbed my shoulder, forcing a scream from my mouth.  The strength held within that rotting hand made me shiver, more so because I could sense the human like anger in it; I was spun around facing its owner.  He was missing an eye, and the lopped off flesh and clothes from his legs gave him the look of a child playing dress up.  His breath washed over me and I could smell the ancient rot of his gut.  Instinctively I shoved him back, watching him trip over the curb; his left leg snapped in three places as he fell.  Writhing on the ground his eyes never left my body, and they burned with sentience; an instinct concerned with satiating the moment.  There was no hesitation from me this time, no sadness; I destroyed him where he lay.

Cleaning my knife off, I leaned against the corner wall and I drank some water.  I had no clear path in front of me, other than to proceed to my apartment to gather supplies.  This logic represented the old me, the one who was afraid to take things that weren’t his from a dead place.  As I cautiously began my exit from the city, I couldn’t articulate the feelings of the new me yet.  The feelings that I had finally gained my freedom.

Short Fiction, Entry #4

I was slouched over my desk when I felt the morning sun nudge me awake.  In those spare seconds I found a connection with the past; a sunrise would always be there, even if my world wasn’t.  I ate some food and drank a little water before looking back out the window and that’s when I first saw it.  There was one; what do I call it?  A zombie, a fiend, a monster?  Did it retain any sense of who it was?  It was a he, but how could it still be a “he?”  It didn’t drive a car anymore and didn’t tell bedtime stories to its children.  The questions were overwhelming, but the answer was not.  “He” was standing in the middle of the road, silhouetted by a cape of sunlight.  His neck was bent at a terrible angle and he was gently swaying back and forth.  There was no expression on his face while his fingers opened and closed in rhythm; I kept staring at him for almost thirty or forty minutes before I turned away.

I can’t recall my thought process in deciding to leave my office; this is the first time I’ve actually conceptualized it.  There was anxiety brewing deep within my bowels, I can equate it with the feelings you get when you’re at the end of a long flight.  You’ve been confined to a rough seat and forced to watch the beauty of the clouds race by a porthole for the better part of five hours; your legs tense and spasm and you begin to taste the memory of home cooked meals.  Maybe it’s animalistic but you want to leave and bite the open air.

That’s what I decided, to leave the office; I had no plan, no sense of a place I wanted to go.  Where could I have gone?  Even in the early stages, I was pretty sure my credit card was useless.  So I grabbed the remaining food and stuffed it into my satchel bag and as I was leaving I noticed a cake knife laying quietly on the counter; it had been my boss’ birthday a few days earlier.  The knife felt strange in my hand, but it also gave me a sense of control, and I won’t apologize for that.  The stairwell was empty, at this point the lights were still working, so I proceeded down the flights quickly at first.  Then there was a sound.

Dry at first, like someone’s palm slapping hard plastic.  This continued spastic as I turned to come down the ground level stairs and I say it.  It was one of them, a she, and the stubs of her legs had been shredded to confetti.  Her hair was in a spiderweb shape of sweat and blood, plastered to her pale face.  Those eyes of hers were the first to see me, and they lit up.  The sound I heard was her hands and arms trying to pull her torso upstairs, and this same sound was now a frenzy in excitement.  Her jaw opened and closed, forcing out a panting sigh that was orgasmic in nature, and her eyes were pacing back and forth, like caged tigers.  I stood there within five feet from her and I kept looking; the smell of body odor and blood made me gag, but I soon felt my hand tighten around the knife.  I knelt, measured the distance for my strike, closed my eyes and thrust my arm downward.  I’ll never forget the sound and sensation; it was like a person had thrown a heavy rock in a pond and the warmth reminded me of the time as a child when I put my hands deep within a warm plate of mashed patatoes.  The slapping sound ceased and I pulled my knife back to see what I had done.

I sat in the stair well for a good ten minutes before I started to cry.  It was the first and last time I cried.  I began to think about who I had killed; not “what” but who.  Did she have a family who was still alive to think about her?  Was she alive when she had seen her own legs chewed off?  I’d never know, and the thought terrfied me.