Humanity's Death: A Zombie Epic (5 page)

“Death for Jack! Death for Jack! Death for
Jack!” they screamed.

“Jack! May God have mercy on your flesh!” Duras
said as he sat down on a dark shadowy throne.

A slow creak sounded behind Jack. He turned to
see the bars rising, slowly, inch by inch. Beyond the bars he saw
the glowing eyes of the dead moving towards him. Their growls
echoed against the concrete, and their wicked shadows danced on the
tunnel walls. He turned and looked at the other gate. Still closed.
But shadows moved just beyond the cold steele bars.

Above, he
saw something lowering on a cable, eventually reaching his
position. It was a short sword. Engravings on the blade
read:
For
the Faithless, May He Forgive You.

Jack suddenly became aware of dark blood stains
under his feet that covered every inch of the pit. How many other
innocents had these disgusting barbarians fed to the hungry undead?
Would he now become just a number in this sick game? Not today! Not
tomorrow! Not ever!

He removed the blade from the cable, and marched
around the pit, pointing the sword at the crowd. “I am Jack
Teach—defender of peace, justice, and humanity!” The crow bellowed
in disgust and launched small stones, and more spit and feces. One
of the stones conked Jack in the temple. He saw stars as the bars
continued to rise.

Jack collected himself and pointed the tip of
the bland up at Duras, “Today I will show you the will of man
cannot be defeated. Nothing can stop the will of mankind! Our
species will rise again! Do you hear me, Duras? Do you hear me,
Tommy! Witness for yourself, the stirrings of humanity’s
rising!”

The gate clicked at the top, and time stood
still around him. He raised the sword. The dead men wobbled out of
the tunnel, snarling and growling, their skin hanging from their
faces. Six disgusting, stench ridden pieces of flesh lurched for
him. He charged with ferocity. The heat from the trash cans dashed
across his face; and his eyes widened, exposing the white
underneath the lids. He lobbed one of their heads off, and it
tumbled to the ground, rolling away. Jagged teeth bit into his
shirt, nearly cutting the skin. He pressed the hilt of the sword
against its forehead, and used his foot to kick it away. He twisted
quickly, and swung the blade with all his might, rendering another
creature headless. He took a few steps back, and watched the other
four moving for him. He circled around the dumb beasts, giving him
an advantage by only allowing one of them close at a time. His
blade finished each one off with precise, powerful cuts. Their
blood drooled out of their decapitated heads, and their bodies lay
motionless, pooling blood all around. Jack celebrated by jumping up
and down, screaming obscenities at the crowd, and up at Duras.

He stopped in his tracks when he heard the creak
of the other gate rising. He turned and watched with horror as four
massive dead men moved out from the darkness—all of them well over
seven feet tall, and clad in armor. He swallowed deeply, and the
crowd screamed for his bloody demise. He braced myself for attack;
but the whole structure suddenly shook as though a violent quake
erupted. The jarring sounds of sirens blasted in every direction.
He heard the screams of spectators,

“The gates! The front gates are breached!”

Then from within the crowd, jumped Okona,
sliding down into the pit on his knees. He popped back onto his
feet, and drew two swords from sheaths hanging from either hip. The
fire glimmered in his face, and his eyes burned with rage. He
charged with a blood curdling scream, “Aquiel! Aquiel! For my
Aquiel!” Jack saw the white of his teeth as he charged into the
pack of seven foot hellions. He jumped high, twisted with fury,
slicing off the fore arm of one of the giants; then landed low to
the ground, and cut the leg off the beast, and planted his blade
into its skull. Another dove down for him, but he met the zombie's
momentum with the tip of his blood dripping blade, sending it
through its skull. He let it fall to the floor, and gripped his
remaining sword with both hands. He charged the third beast,
jumped, and drove his foot into its chest, cutting a back flip and
sending the zombie stumbling back. With his left hand, he removed a
small revolver from a holster, and shot a hole through the fourth’s
skull splattering brain matter against the curved walls of the pit;
then charged the final creature, and screamed as he drove his blade
through its face, “Die foul beast! Die in the name of Aquiel!” Jack
watched in both horror and pride as he struck the beast over and
over, chopping it to pieces all the while screaming his dead wife’s
name.

“Come on! We’ve got to go!” Candy stood at the
top edge of the pit. A rope was thrown down; and Okona followed
Jack to the top. A large portion of the crowd had vanished through
the exits. Jack looked up, and saw that Duras was gone.

Outside, back in the streets of the city sized
compound, Jack stared out at a horrid scene. Okona and his people
had blown the main gates; and the noise had attracted a massive
horde of zombies. Thousands of dead faces clamored over the broken
ruble like a sea of peeling, ripped flesh. People screamed from
every direction. Guts were being ripped out of hundreds of people.
The walking corpses ate through the crowds—men, women, children—all
meeting the final death via the teeth of the mangled flesh
eaters.

12

Jody ran, his
big belly swaying back and force like a fleshy pendulum. His
breathing came in rasps.
Are they OK. Are my girls OK?
Is all he could think while a crowd of
zombies marched his way. Andrew stood beside him, firing rapidly in
multiple directions. Jody’s head swam.
This ain’t right. My girls. God my
girls.

A sharp
shiver shot up his spine and tears fell from his eyes.
Can’t live in this.
No girls. Nobody can survive now. Its ove—

“WATCH OUT! FUCK!”

Andrew’s warning came milliseconds too late. The
zombie chewed into Jody’s shoulder, taking a massive chunk of flesh
with it.

“JODY!”

Jody woke
from his suicidal daze and jammed the butt of his rifle into the
dead man’s face, sending it tumbling backwards like a drunk getting
tossed by a bouncer.
Let em be alive. Please god, let em be
alive.
My
little angels
.

He fired hot shots into the air, taking down the
zombies. They came in from every direction. A sea of dead flesh.
The smell of their skin filled the air with a dank and distinctive
smell.

Like a rotting dog in a basement
.

Jody’s mind, in a blink of a second, saw it all
happening again. His dog dying in the basement. His daddy laughing
and drinking beer while Jody cried in a corner. “I find rust on my
tools again, it’ll be you crying down there. Understand me
boy?”

Jody shook with fear and missed Momma. He’d
watched her die from drinking. He watched her face go from a
healthy thirty-five-year-old woman, to a foreshadowing image of the
dead beasts that now roam planet earth.

“I ask you a question son—you best well damn
answer!” His father stood up and slapped Jody with all his might.
Jody slammed into the wall. A three-foot chain latched around
Jody’s thick neck clanked and locked Jody in place, nice and
unconsciousness. He’d been captive, forced to listen to the
begging, starving howls of his best friend. Years later, those
howls would haunt him. He’d wake in the middle of the night sweat
pouring and tears streaming. Candy would hold him and coddle him.
“Back to sleep baby. Its OK. Everything gonna be OK.” They never
left though. The howls of Henry Rosco never left.

When he came
to his father stood above him holding a shovel and a bag of lime.
“Its done. Bury him.” He threw the lime and shovel down. Jody
pulled himself up and watched his father walk down a short all way.
He watched as is father never looked back as the bedroom door
opened and then shut with a fatal
click
. It was the last time Jody saw his father
alive.

The door
leading down to the basement hung in front of him. He glowered at
it, not waiting to touch the handle. Knowing what was waiting for
him down below. His best buddy. His old pal Henry Rosko. He’d had
Henry Rosko for three years, since he was a puppy of only eight
weeks. Henry Rosko was the last gift Momma ever gave him. Jody felt
some sense that it was Daddy’s fault that momma died. Some vague
but powerful feeling deep inside him always said:
he did
something
. Daddy done it
to her. He knew it. He made her drink. He hurt her. He knows it. He
heard Momma’s howls too. He didn’t starve her of food. He stole her
humanity and decency one slap at a time. After one too many
concussions, his Momma chose the booze over leaving Daddy. May
because she knew he’d kill not only her, but Jody to. Her Little
Fat Man.

Jody stepped onto the first step leading down to
the basement. The floor board creaked under his weight. At only 10
years old, Jody already weighed a hefty one hundred eighty pounds.
His short and fat legs walked down each step with care. He heard
water dripping somewhere and saw nothing else. “Henry Rosco…” He
choked up and started to cry. He saw him.

Before Henry Rosko was starved to death he was a
mix of Rottie and Lab. He had a healthy and proud snout. His soft
coat of fur (Jody washed him in a kiddy pool in the back yard least
once a week). He had deep and shiny black fur save for Rottie
speckles of brown on his face. His eyes were happy and glowing
brown marbles.

On the basement floor, Henry Rosko’s ribs showed
through tight skin. He lay on his side, his paws laid out like he
been reaching for something. His legs shot out behind him, hard and
stiff. Foam fumed out from the mouth, the lips curled back over the
teeth. The brown eyes stared with hungry horror.

Outside he
buried Henry Rosko and swore on the grave:
Daddy dies tonight
.

How? How you gonna do it? Can’t chop him up.
They’d lock me up for good. Gotta be nice and silent. Gotta look
like an accident. A dirty mist in his lungs. Something so quite it
could kill a house of Navy Seals. Death. Death for Daddy. Justice
for Henry Rosko. That’s all I want.

He heard the
voice of his mother:
My good Little Fat Man. Kill that son of a
bitch!

Inside, Jody
walked stealthily. His eyes gleamed a moderate glare. He walked
softly to a hallway closet. The closet was blood red with a gold
handle. Jody’s thick fingers wrapped around it and turned. It
opened with a yawning creak. He paused…listening…heard…nothing. He
stared at Daddy’s door and listening to the loud snores. He
returned his eyes to the open closet, reaching in and pulled a
metal string. The small closet was bathed with bright light. A gas
hot water heater stood to his right, on a well-scrubbed wood floor.
His father may have been an evil asshole, but he kept a clean ship.
Directly in front and an arm’s length above him was a tool box. He
lowered the box to the floor, making sure not to let the tools
shuffle against each other. He set it on the floor and listened. He
heard his father snoring from all the way down the hall, behind the
bedroom’s closed door.
Good, old man. Sleep. Sleep the final
sleep.
This
is for Henry Rosko.

He opened the tool box. The metal snaps clicked.
The snoring stopped. Jody froze. Sweat beading downs his face like
a river of fear. His heart pounded against his chest. Veiny cords
stood out on his neck. His face flushed red. His teeth clenched
together, his lips rose above his teeth.

He heard
what sounded like his father turning over in bed…then the snores
returned. He let out of breath of relief, then thought:
What if he’d caught
me? Next times it’s me, boy, next time it’s you starving and
howling in the dank and dark basement. Next time it’s
YOU!—

for Henry Rosco. For Momma
. He reached inside and brought out of a small
screw driver. He looked up and saw the blinking light of a carbon
monoxide detector. He stood up and reached high above his head. He
yanked it down with a fast jerk. It wasn’t tied into the house’s
wiring. He popped open the battery slot and let the AAs fall softly
into his sweaty palm. In fact, sweat drenched through his shirt and
ran down every inch of his tubby, young body. He went down to one
knee and found the metal gas line leading to the water heater. He
used the screw driver to slowly grind a small hole.
Daddy. Its
time.
Gas is
gonna getcha Daddy
!
Gas is a comin
!

He smelled
the gas line’s deodorant leaking out, its way of telling Jody
carbon monoxide was now leaking out in a steady stream of invisible
death. Jody thought:
smells like Victory
. He stood up and stared down the hall. He
listened. Daddy’s snores came in steady, loud and flapping snorts.
Jody moved with mousy stealth. He went to the kitchen. Orange and
white stripped wall paper adorned the walls. Handmade cabinets.
Made by Daddy’s bitter and brittle hands. He took a few things
loaded them into a plastic Walmart bag and softly stepped out the
front door. He waiting outside, sitting beside Henry Rosko’s grave.
He’d taken some beef jerky, a gallon of milk, a bag of Fritos, and
a two liter Pepsi. He stared into the dark, sparkling night and
waited for the morning dew.

The night sky swiped across a vast dark
landscape. Stars winked from galaxies far far away. Jody chewed his
beef jerky and pondered the situation. He wasn’t the brightest, but
he knew there were things bigger than him in this world. He figured
all the God stuff added up to something in the end. He hoped there
was a hot burning pit waiting for his father (who at that very
moment started breathing in the carbon monoxide and burping it out
his nose in long and loud snores). The stars looked like big
diamond studs to Jody. Something he wished he could have given his
mother. A big diamond. Daddy never bought her any and he always
hoped to give her one. He never did—