Humanity's Death: A Zombie Epic (23 page)

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 came 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:

“
T
wo
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 often 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.”

Rusty stopped and took in a deep breath. The
dead man howled; Billy wept; the black woman on the floor began to
wake up.

Billy’s
pants were stained dark yellow. Rusty pressed the blade a little
deeper against Billy’s throat; the light above glowed bright in
Rusty’s dark, pulsating eyes; Rusty's voice dialed down to a low
and smooth whisper. “You see, Billy. We live in a City of Flesh
ruled by hypocrites that use the name of God to control the
inhabitants. These rulers are arrogant and put all their faith in
human reason and wisdom. Duras and Mary Jane are sinful deviants
and their time is coming; but, Billy,
you
still have a chance; if you are willing to turn
your mind towards the gates of the City of God. Duras marches to
war with the barbarians in the wilderness, and this,
this
,
my
dear
Billy boy, is the moment Duras's foolishness catches up to
him. His fleshly desire for revenge and conquest has driven him out
of the city, leaving it for us to retake in the name of the one
true God, and make it the true City of God. There is one thing that
Duras is right about. The rapture was never a real thing. There is
another six years of torture for those still living and breathing
and we must endure and follow God’s way. Duras and Mary Jane have
fallen in love with all the desires of Earth and taken many with
them, but us, the
Seekers
, we seek
out the City of God, Billy.”