Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.
By
R. Peterson
June Swafford turned
off the television as soon as the end credits for The Lawrence Welk Show rolled. The program was of course a re-run
but it brought back delightful memories. She and Elmo had often danced in the
living room along with Bobby Burgess
and Cissy King or while the Lennon Sisters sang. In the distance
dark clouds rumbled as she closed and locked the front door, probably a storm
brewing in the mountains above Motha Forest and set to fall on Comanche County
during the night. It was a good thing the cows were in the barn and the
chickens had been fed earlier. A tear stung the corner of her eyes when she
said goodnight to Elmo’s picture propped on the top shelf of the bookcase just
before she started up the stairs to her bedroom. He was too young to have died
of a heart attack at age fifty-nine.
June awakened from a
dream in which she was riding in a hay wagon with a group of other sixteen year
old girls, they were going to a Christmas party at the Comanche County school
house. Elmo was singing Somewhere My Love
before he began to pound on the door. “Let me in woman. You promised me the
next dance!” He’d of course been to Bingo
and hadn’t gotten home until after dark … must have forgotten his key. He
sounded drunk. She bet every beer in his bag was gone and hoped there would be
at least one prize.
Still half wrapped in
her dream, she slid open the bedroom window and called down. “You know where
the spare key is you noisy old fool. Are you trying to wake up the neighbors or
just Hicks?” It wasn’t until she heard him pull the lid off the milk can and then
open the front door that full consciousness kicked in: Elmo was dead. She
turned on the lamp next to the bed and stared intently at nothing.
He dropped something
heavy on the kitchen floor and it fell with a loud thump that shook the house.
Her breathing came in quick ragged gasps. She could hear him as he turned the
water on at the sink and washed his hands. Next footsteps started up the stairs
and the bed began to shake along with her arms and legs. This can’t be
happening! Her mind continued to slap her - trying to make her wake up. I was
at his funeral. I stood in Black Rose Cemetery and watched as that
six-thousand, seven-hundred and eighty-five dollar coffin … “Would you want
your loved one resting for eternity in anything less?” Egbert Callahan had
insinuated. …was lowered into the ground and covered with dirt. She could hear
Elmo’s footsteps on the landing now. There was a smell like damp ground plowed
for the first time. She thought about jumping out of bed sliding the dresser in
front of the door, anything to stop whoever or whatever was in her house. It
couldn’t be her loving husband returned to life even as much as she wished it
could be. He had been dead for over nine years. Her pulse revved like an old
tractor with a broken piston. “Did you win anything?” Her voice sounded like
gravel sliding to the bottom of a well but it was the only way she could keep
from screaming. She was shaking so bad her teeth were chattering against each
other.
“Not a damn thing!” His
voice suddenly sounded low and ugly the way it had when Fred Hicks had driven a
steel pipe into their hay field and irreparably damaged their swather (windrower) during hay season
because Elmo refused to sell him, ridiculously cheap, forty acres of rich
ground that bordered his rock and weed patch.
June watched the knob on the door turn as the light
in the room dimmed but she was gone before the door opened - off to join her
beloved Elmo in the next world.
-------2-------
The
fire was going down just outside the tent otherwise Jim Hunting would have
stayed in the sleeping bag. A light breeze had blown across Mawkat Lake just
before sunset but everything was calm now. He didn’t mind sleeping in a forest
… he just hated the dark. In the American Army compound just outside of DaNang
all the lights were run by a portable generator. It was the first thing the
Viet Cong knocked-out just before they attacked. Flames flashing from the
barrels of M16’s and the constant welding torch fire from M60’s mixed with the
screams of the dying and the shouts of those doing the killing to create the
musical score to the first act of Hell
if insanity were ever to take the stage.
Jim
had been up for three nights smoking Vietnamese
shake and loading a needle. Suddenly he was on guard duty at one of eight
towers surrounding the compound and a mountain of stacked beer cases. Endless
long hours spent staring into the darkness. The things that were hiding could
kill you … the things that weren’t there attacked your mind. He couldn’t keep
his eyes open. The first time it was less than a minute and Jim slapped his
face hard half a dozen times and swore it wouldn’t happen again. The second
time was more than ten minutes. He’d burnt his fingers with a Bic lighter until
they blistered and bled swearing he’d die before he closed his eyes again …
`He’d
woke up blind in one eye in an army hospital in Japan. One leg was mangled the
other broken. He was expected to walk again with braces but one half of his
face looked like pancake batter that had hardened during the bubble stage. He’d
never marry unless the girl happened to be blind and in love with guilt. The VC
had attacked from his corner of the outpost. Charlie Company lost thirty-five
men including his best friend from school Brad Stevens. Jim looked at the photo
taken outside a bar in Tokyo just before their arrival in Viet Nam every day.
It always put a pain in his heart like cardiac arrest but he looked anyway. It
was punishment like slapping his own face or burning himself with a lighter.
Brad was to his right along with several members of Charlie Co. They were all
smiling. Of the eight in the picture three were dead but it was Brad who seemed
to stare directly at him through the years always asking the same question …
Why?
Jim
had arrived home from Japan just in time to attend Brad’s funeral in Black Rose
Cemetery. Jim stayed back in the trees and didn’t mix with the family members.
Guilt made him a prisoner and he headed for the incarceration of Motha Forest
whenever possible.
Jim
put another log on the ire and a shower of sparks rose toward the stars. The
only sound was the chirping of crickets and the soft lapping of water on the
shoreline. He was just turning to go back in the tent when he saw a rippling of
water far across the lake reflected by the moon. He squinted his good eye to
make out what looked like a dark figure in a canoe paddling toward him.
Jim
was suddenly sleepy. All he wanted was to crawl back inside the tent, but
someone was coming … Jim was sure of it. The first time he felt his eye close
the canoe was halfway across the lake and Jim slashed three lines down his arm
with a hunting knife honed to a razor edge. Never again! The pain was
excruciating but two minutes later he opened his eye again and the boat was now
close enough for Jim to see strong arms pushing a paddle though the water. Jim
stuck his hand in the hot coals from the fire leaving it there until the smell
of burning flesh and sizzling blood made him wretch and gag. Never again!
The
canoe was closer now. Jim could almost see the face of the man paddling. He
fought to keep his eye open but it was as if a weight were attached to his
eyelid. Jim stumbled into the tent and searched through his duffle bag. The canoe
was sliding onto shore and the smiling face of Brad Stevens shown in the
moonlight as he stepped onto the bank.
Jim
felt his eyelid begin to droop again as he lifted the M1911 pistol to his head
and pulled the trigger. Never again!
-------3-------
It
was still an hour before sunrise but the employees of the White Apron Bakery
did their baking at 4AM and already a crowd of homeless people were forming in
the alley for breakfast. At any minute,
the big man with the scowling face would open the back door and toss
yesterday’s unsold baked goods into the dumpster. “Wow! Look at how much she’s
grown!” Antonio James Custler approached a ragged woman holding a bundle in her
arms. He’d spent the last two weeks in jail for vagrancy.
“She
gets a little bigger every day,” Beth gushed as she un-wrapped the blankets
showing a rag doll with blue-button eyes and a red-stitched mouth.
“She
sure does,” Tony said, taking the doll and rocking it gently in his arms. He
scanned the crowd of hungry people. “Anyone seen Clarence Brown?”
“Clarence
drowned in the Cottonmouth River while you was locked up,” Beth hung her head.
“He went looking for that ring o’ keys you told us about, and fell into the
fast current near the Townsend Bridge!”
Tony
had inherited a small house from a rich man he didn’t know. A large ring of
different keys all fit the lock on the front door but each key created a
different life for the person who used it. It had been too much for Tony to
handle and he had finally tossed the key ring in the river.
Tony shook his head. “Why the heck did that big, ugly,
black, bear go and do something stupid like that?”
“He
was looking not so much for a better life just something different,” Beth said.
“life on the streets gets too predictable after a while.”
The crowd behind White Apron Bakery suddenly grew
quiet when the back door to the business opened. “Damn mangy bunch of dogs!” a
heavyset man complained as he lugged a huge tray filled with day-old donuts,
bear-claws and cinnamon rolls to the dumpster. He scowled at those who looked
hungrily at his tray. “Why don’t you all get jobs? I work for my meals … so
should you!”
“There’s
a reason these people are on the streets and it has nothing to do with jobs!” A
huge man stepped from the shadows with a face like bloody hamburger. The crowd
gasped, it was Clarence Brown! Most of his facial features had been rotted away
by the river and there were clumps of moss where his ears should have been. His
eyes were milky white with tiny unmoving pupils in the center. He was dripping
wet like he’d just came up out of the water.
The terrified big man dropped the tray of day old
breads and turned to run back into the bakery. Clarence grabbed him by the back
of the neck. “These people are my friends, Clarence said as he slammed the man
into the concrete wall. “These donuts are bound to be a little dry … how bout
you bring out some milk to wash ‘em down with?”
The man was too terrified to talk. He nodded his
head instead.
“I’ll
be expecting you back out here in two minutes,” Clarence said. “Don’t make me
come in after you!”
When the White Apron employee went back in the
bakery Tony approached Clarence. “What are you doing here?” he gasped.
“I
went looking for that key ring you tossed in the river,” Clarence said.
“There’s a lot of mud on the bottom of the Cottonmouth where it runs through
the city… it took some time to locate them.” He tossed the keys to Tony.
“But
how?” Tony caught the keys. He was astonished to see his long dead friend
walking the streets.
Clarence smiled. “When you’re dead …you can hold
your breath for a long long time!”
-------4-------
“Get
us out of here, Jimmy!” Sheriff Walker retrieved a flashlight from under the
seat and shone it in the deputy’s face. Outside the County police car throngs
of the recently unearthed dead were trying to smash out the car windows. Jimmy
Wong was in shock staring with eyes as big as two rickshaw wheels at the horror
which was smothering them. “Let’s move now!” The sheriff reached over, jammed
the automatic shifter into reverse and pushed down on Jimmy’s leg. The car
groaned for a moment and then lurched backward. The arms, legs and other parts
of the dead that didn’t slide off the hood and roof became caught between the
tires and wheel-wells. Dried-blood, gristle and bits of rotted flesh sprayed
the windows as the car backed onto the highway. The sudden shift from total
dark to squirming nightmare brought Jimmy back to his senses. “Awwwggggaa,” he
screamed as he found drive, jammed
his foot on the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward.
Both
sides of the highway were crowded with dead people come to see an automotive
game of chicken. Enough bodies had fell away from the car for the sheriff to
see they were between two cars hurdling toward each other at ninety miles per hour.
There wasn’t time for anything else; Sheriff Walker unrolled his window and
drew his Colt 45.
-------5-------
It
was smoke burning his eyes that made Julio awaken. The tiny trailer just north
of Black Rose Cemetery was shaking and bouncing. Maria was picking herself up
from the floor. It felt like they were in the middle of a stampede but those
weren’t cows outside they were bodies , a few recently diseased but most
rotting flesh clinging to old bone. Julio could smell propane and could hear
the hiss from the tank mounted on the front of the mobile house. One of the
marching dead must have broken the line and a spark from something must have
ignited the gas. “Tenemos que salir de que la casa va a estallar!” Julio
screamed.
“It’s
my fault,” Maria said. “I should have kept you awake!”
Julio grabbed his wife and forced open the door.
Most of the risen dead from the cemetery had passed by the trailer and were heading
toward the desert in the west. He tried to pull her outside but she resisted.
“No sin la madre!” (Not without the holy mother) she insisted. She turned and
dashed back inside the trailer picking the broken-glass portrait of the Virgin
Mary from off the floor.
“This
is my fault!” Julio put his head in his hands. “No one is safe as long as I’m
alive!”
The glass frame in Maria’s hand crumpled and she
struggled to catch the paper print before it hit the ground. There was not just
one portrait under the broken glass but two. The first was a painting by Raphael
of the Madonna but hidden behind it
was another … a gruesome, fleshy rendering called the Mask by Pedronunez .
Maria was staring with such horror at the second
print she didn’t notice Julio with the gun to his head until she heard the
hammer click. “Wait,” she screamed. “We’ve been praying to the blessed mother …
and to the Devil!”
Julio stared at her and the two prints as the house
on wheels behind them exploded in flames.
-------6-------
“Are
you crazy!” Jimmy Wong screamed as the sheriff leaned out the window with the
high powered pistol. “Those people are dead!”
“Maybe
so … but that damn Ford isn’t!” The sheriff fired three times in rapid
succession before Hick’s black Falcon skidded sideways with a blown right front
tire, rolled once and then became airborne. It bounced once coming down just in
front of the bumper and a jagged fender tore out the radiator and half the engine
before it flew over the hood scratching the roof with both tail fins and exploded
into the car hurtling up behind them. Bits of torn metal and car parts blasted
outward in all directions like shrapnel.
“That
was close!” Jimmy was gasping for breath.
“Not
close enough,” the sheriff said. He gestured towards the shattered windshield.
The
walking dead began to move toward the sheriff’s demolished car as Jimmy tried
to start the engine.
-------7-------
Maria
tried to tear the awful image of the Devil but when it wouldn’t rip she walked
toward the fire. With a flash as bright as lightning a goatish face appeared in
the flames coming from the trailer. “You asked for my help many times and I
never refused … is this the way you repay me?”
“Jesus
is our only God … if we prayed to you it was by trickery,” Maria said. She
halted her steps for only a second.
“I’m
willing to make a deal,” the image said. “Place the painting back in the frame …
this time with my image out and I’ll give you what you’ve been searching for!”
“You
don’t have anything that we want!” Julio was furious as he pointed the gun at
the flames.
“Look
behind you …. I can make you a family again!”
Julio and Maria both turned. Jose was walking across
the cemetery he looked as normal as they did. “Mama! Pappa!” Jose cried “I’ve
been looking everywhere for you!”
Julio covered his eyes with one hand … as he raised
the gun with the other.
-------8-------
Bony
fingers were reaching through the broken windows on all sides when Sheriff
Walker checked the rounds in his gun. There were two bullets left. There were
more shells in a box under the seat but there wasn’t time. “I don’t feel right
about shooting you … first,” the sheriff said looking at Jimmy. “But it’s
better than being torn apart by a bunch of zombies.”
“Do
it,” Jimmy said closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. “I hate long drawn out
goodbyes.”
Sheriff Walker cocked the gun, hooked his finger
round the trigger and began to squeeze. There was a blinding flash of light along
with a strange intense cold. Everything in the world began to slow and then
turn black.
-------9-------
Maria heard the blast from Julio’s pistol and
watched him slump to the ground. There was no time for pain … only for shock. She
turned toward the flames; the demon was smiling. “Don’t forget your son,” he pointing
to the young man walking toward them. “You still have your son!”
“I
can bring father back to life,” Jose said. He was now running toward her. “We
can be a family again!”
“I
would rather spend one second with God than an eternity with sin,” Maria stared
at the image of the Devil … and then she flung the portrait into the flames.
-------10-------
Sheriff
Walker and Jimmy Wong opened their eyes at the same time. They were parked
behind the large billboard advertising Conoco gasoline near highway one and
Cass Elliott was crooning Dream a Little
Dream of Me on the radio.
“What
the Hell!” Jimmy said. “One minute we’re ready to be eaten alive by zombies and
the next thing you know we’re trying to trap speeders jumping off the
interstate!”
Sheriff Walker shrugged his shoulders and reached
for the thermos filled with coffee on the seat between them. “This is
Cloverdale,” he said. “You’d best learn to roll with the punches.”
-------11-------
“Bendecir
a nuestro Dios en el cielo!” Julio burst through the door of the little house
in Juárez Mexico. “The papers have been approved and we have the permits to
immigrate to America!”
“But
how?” Maria gasped. “I thought it would take many years and a fortune in
bribes.”
“Sometimes
miracles happen!” Julio took the portrait of the Virgin Mary off the wall and
kissed it. “We must always believe that God is on our side.”
“What
part of America will we live in?” Maria could hardly contain her excitement.
“In
the northwest … in the state of Montana …” Julio picked up his ten year old son
Jose and tossed him into the air. “We will both have jobs working on a ranch
and Jose can learn to ride a horse!”
“Will
we have to fight Indians like General Custer?” Jose’s eyes were wide.
Julio laughed. “Our troubles are no more. Cloverdale
is a sleepy little town where nothing much ever happens!”
THE END?
