“The bearer of evil tidings,

When he was halfway there,

Remembered that evil tidings

Were a dangerous thing to bear.”

Robert Frost

Derelix  Jersey

“Shoot them in the temple. Aim for the temple and they will go down.” This is what the radio said, some time ago, and all the other rubbish that spills from those speakers is worthless. Maintain faith, faith in one’s self, but this is difficult to do. I have run this gas station for fifteen years. However, this vacant stretch of highway that my station straddles is far better than any river teaming with fish, or well swelling with oil. This highway bares its own special type of fruit; its own apples, its own oranges. The pavement gives up the most beautiful peaches, yes its peaches, even in this desolate time. A U.S. highway holds for me the same beauty that the sea holds for the fisherman, or the forest for the hunter. There’s a treasure that only reveals itself for those with the intellect and the ability to harvest it. I’ve been harvesting for fifteen years.

A hopeless feeling overtakes my heart when I think about what I will have to do to stay alive, but these thoughts cannot be avoided. The basic instinct of survival has overtaken human decency. Anarchy has replaced democracy. Darwinism mistaken for religion, the opiate of the masses seems to have been destroyed with this outbreak. It’s no longer has the same tranquil effect, but this terror is greater than any other man has ever known. Nonetheless, dwelling on this is pointless, so closing my register I inventory my remaining supplies and place a can of cream corn in my jacket pocket, switch off the lights, and return down into my basement sanctuary. The lone bulb powered from the generator, kept alive by gas, swings. I use the electric light sparingly, but tonight it will be worth it.

Her eyes flicker in the dim light of the bulb, a frantic docile lamb, wounded. I say, “You are a sweet peach, yes you are. Eat please,  just eat. Just a little. Oh don’t worry you will see them shortly. I’m keeping you safe, your mom and dad too.

After a night of distracted bliss under the swinging bulb, I climb the stairs in the morning, exhausted, my eyes catching the first strong rays of dawn.

Outside a black Mustang pulls next to the pumps. Three men are inside and I don’t make my presence known immediately. A man in a deputy’s uniform gets out and surveys the area, then makes his way towards my door. I walk and greet him with a wave and cautious welcome.

ALABAMA SUMMERS

The suns dips reluctantly into the blackness and all I can see from the window is night, desolate night. My father and mother are quiet in the front seat of our van. I miss college. I miss my little brother and all the things that once made us a great family. A family one would hope to be apart of in this world, but all that seems to be slipping, slipping away into the night. The anxiety of exams, the pressures of sorority life, the ever pending future that required so much thought and preparation is now a distant memory, an afterthought, a silly joke that replays in the moments of boredom and anxiety. Last week at Texas Tech, with my books, boyfriend, it feels a thousand years past. It was a dream suddenly interrupted by dark clouds of fire burning against the city sky as we fled onto the highway and into New Mexico. Sirens echo in the distance framed by the occasional explosion. My dad is very quiet driving and my mom is rambling on about her brother in California, the coast she says, we’ll be safe. I gaze into her face as she says this and find difficulty in believing it. The way she shells out these words leaves a hollow silence that lingers in the car. My dad seems to concur when he doesn’t look back at me, nor at her. Night comes and we’re still on the road and my dad says we have to stop until morning, saving the remaining gas for the day driving. He says we’ll find a station maybe along the way. Our cans piled in the trunk are running low and we need to replenish. I look at his handsome face and see hidden panic in the eyes. His eyebrows arch as he says goodnight and we sink into our bags and dream of the past, not the future. The future gives me nightmares and anxiety making it hard to sleep. We dream of the past.

The morning rays break across the sky and everybody is awake. Neither my mom or dad I think slept well that evening, but it was difficult to tell. We drive off onto the highway and before noon we pull up to a gas station. A short pudgy man with horrible acne scars and a distorted nose waves from the door of the station. The smile on his face looks warm and inviting, the only redeeming feature on his face, everything else seems damaged. However, the smile, gives you the relaxed feeling of a man who wishes to sell you something with a high price tag. The man waves my dad into the store and he follows. Some time passes, may be ten minutes. I get out of the car and walk to the door. And cloth clasps across my face and a gas like fume permeates my brain and I

Deputy North

Never take your eyes off a prisoner. These are the first words that tunnel through my brain when I feel the steel of gas-man’s barrel against the thick of my neck. He pulls the pistol from the back of my pants and aims it at Galipas.

“ Listen here,” he says. “This is going one of two ways. Either you hand over ammo and food, or you die, here. Sound reasonable.”

“Now listen, this is not necessary.”

“What’s in the trunk?”

“A suitcase and some canned food. You can have them both.”

Galapas turns to me and says, “The hell he can!”

I look through the back windshield and see Horse who is watching the whole spectacle through the rearview mirror. What’s going through his head I can only imagine, but he seems calm and slightly amused. The gas attendant pulls me away from the car while signaling for Galapas to empty the trunk.

The case and our supply of canned beans and tuna are laid out on the dusty concrete and Galapas backs away, with his hands in the air.

The wind begins to pick up and swirls of dust are airborne. It’s Difficult to see anything, the pistol is still at my head. Horse gets out of the car and casually walks closer. Galapas is standing by the trunk, nervous and glancing at the case which he has yet to remove from the trunk.

“You better stay right were you are my friend.” He points the other pistol at Horse.

Horse looks at me, then Galapas, then at the man with the gun to my neck.

“This is tense deputy,” Horse says. “Maybe I can help here?”

Sweat is pouring into my eyes and everything is blurring. Its hard to make out what exactly Horse is doing, so I yell, “Stop Horse now, before he shoots me and you.”

“It’s okay deputy. This fellah is mistaken, greatly mistaken, on how someone can treat others in this world. We have nothing to offer you friend, so none of this is necessary. You have nothing to gain from looting us.”

The man looks at Horse and relaxes his grip on me, I can’t feel the steel against my head anymore. I think Horse has him scared, or confused. Horse keeps coming closer. The man drags me back away from Horse’s advance. “Wait!” I say. However, Horse ignores me and keeps moving up and then I feel the man’s grip disappear all together. Swirling around, wiping the immense sweat from my brow. I see Galapas standing over gas man’s body with a metal crow bar; I assume he got it from the trunk.

“You piss yourself deputy?” Horse laughs as he shoves me from the back bursting forth with a string of profanities. A red stream runs from the man’s head and mixes with dirt, small flicks of blood cling to the stream, giving it a black appearance, like a small spring of oil seeping beneath his head.

We split up and walk around the store, snooping for anything of value, or extra cans that could hold fuel. There doesn’t seem to be much to this place. The small store inside is bare. Shelves and the coolers are all bare and have been unplugged. A stash of canned food, corn, tomato soup, basic stuff, generic, some better stuff behind them, clam chowder, Bush’s beans. I shove them all into a sac I pull from behind the counter.

“Hey, oooooh, hey, deputy!” I hear Horse shout from outside. I drop the sac and exit the store following Horse’s voice along the side into the back where they’re standing. The smell overwhelms me and I gasp and throw my palm over my mouth and lurch forward grabbing Horse by the shoulder.

“Jesus fuck!” I say.

“Yeah deputy, don’t think Jesus had much to do with this here.”

All three of us stand in front of a white utility van.

“What you suppose is in there deputy? A case of bad meat? Maybe a dead dog, eh?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“I’m gonna open her up! See what’s what.”

“What’s that sound?”

A faint sound catches my ear. A tap, a ding, tap a ding.

Horse pulls the handle to the doors in the back of the van and jumps back letting the mashed rusted doors swing open with a screech.

A dim mist of murk escapes when the doors fully open and its difficult to see inside. There’s movement, a mound of mangled and fused corpses squirm about. Spouts of blood escape into the air. Bodies half alive and horribly deteriorated, let out guttural sounds.

Horse appears from behind the van with can, a gas can. He douses the atrocity and lights it. I watch, he seems to do this with satisfaction. He looks like a kid who just killed a bird with a pellet gun. It’s a strange sight. I walk inside.

HORSE

Fact of matters is, at this point, and in the light of certain recent discoveries; I trust the living less than I trust the dead. There is one thing certain about a walking dead man, you know exactly what they’re after. On the other hand, the living, it’s a crap shoot with them.

Sun rays grab the deputy through the window of the gas station and he squints. His eyes were serious and as well they should have been. A good old boy hanging on to the last thing he knows, when all else has slipped into a dark crack never to appear again. Myself, the criminal, well I still feel I was holding onto something too.

Whether he knew it or not, it was the last thing he knew too, criminality, but nothing as severe and maddening as what we discovered in that van. I hope to ease him some. I needed his confidence, more than I’ve ever needed anyone’s. Gently swinging, Saint Mary hangs over the cash register, I smile at this.

Do you catch what I’m saying? I’m no great thinker, but I do have a peculiar way of looking and situations and dealing with them. Take the night he arrested me last, and I know, in my heart, that there is some of these infected walking dead out there that when they died and came back, not much changed, not at all, not much at all.”

The deputy felt for his chest pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Winstons and produces a shaggy cigarette and I take it. He lit his and shared the light. We smoked in silence as the sun  flickers across the room.

We finished our smoke and start to the cellar.

Galias Kalapas

From out of the dark comes the light, and from the light comes a terror. A terror from this world or the next, neither would surprise. The basement is dark and moist. The air down here is colder than upstairs. Posters of naked woman and Penzoil calendars are fading along with the paint, kind of becoming one in the same. Holding my lighter up close against the sides, following along side until I come to the middle of  a room; a slim chain reaches up to ceiling were a lone bulb is fastened to a socket. I pull on the swinging chain and the bulb flickers,  lighting the entire room with a dull yellow beam and my eyes adjust.

I am alone down here so I take this opportunity to check my case and gain my coordinates. Difficult to read down here, but will have to do as privacy is the prevailing issue.

There is a small workbench in the middle of the room filled with some coiled chains and empty oil containers. Sweeping the mess onto the floor; I lay my case in the middle. The room is fairly large and my eyes roam from end to end and take note. Cinder blocks and wooden shelves, there is a turn towards the rear of the room that appears to lead into a narrow hallway. No time now, this must be quick.

The case clicks open, and from it a menagerie of silver reflects against the light. I sink my hand into the dense mass of silver balls, feeling cold of the steel.

I place a ball on the table and flies to the far side of the room, lays flush against the moldy cement. It  sounds off with a pitch. I cover  my ears and I drop on one knee. The steel then melts into a fast liquid that runs along the cracks of the floor and disappears. A silver streams glows under the swinging fluorescence, a thick scent now flows through the room, a chemical smell. The reaction is normally slow. It can take months, weeks, days, minutes, hours, the scent comes thick and I lose…

“Help please!”

The voice is weak and comes from around the corner. My strength returns and I quickly rise to my feet. Standing in front of the narrow hall, there seems to be nothing . My eyes adjust.

“Who’s there?” I say.

“Help.” Faint and low leaps from the dark, close. From the dark once again, a terror grips my spine and pushes me forward into the black stillness holding only a small light. Sticking close to the wall, it is difficult to see far. The hallway seems to go for a while, so I say again.

“Who’s there?”

“Help.” The same reply as before except this time it is stronger. I look behind me and am getting farther from the light of the main basement room. At the end of the hallway is a stack of barrels, which seems to be used to recycle and from behind them is something so disturbing that my eyes are still adjusting.

From the dark shadows the tower of barrels is the blondest angel chained by the neck to a cinder block wall. She is twenty-one at least and her blue eyes beam at me in fear, twitching and the heat of my lighter causes her to turn her head. There are empty bean cans and rotten apple cores surrounding her little area among the oil barrels. I grab the chain that is attached to her neck and she covers her eyes with both hands. It’ll need to be cut with something, may be it can be broken with a shot, but that may ricochet and hit her in the back of the head, singeing that magnificent mane of gold.

Lost my concentration for a minute. Difficult to maintain over the last week, every turn seems to hold some strange obstacle that continues to hamper me from my destination. Each stranger than the last, now from a dark hallway a new stone has presented itself in my path. My sense and resolve tell me to end it for her right there and move on. Pretending that it was never there, but her eyes are blazing with fear, and the violation that had since passed had not melted from her face.

“I’ll be back. Relax. You’re safe.” I say this and move back down the hallway, my eyes constantly shifting over my shoulder as I go back down to the light of the lone bulb.

Coming back into the main light of the basement and immediately searching the shelves and boxes that surround the walls for anything that could break the chain quickly.

“Kalapas! What the fuck are you doing?” The Deputy stands on the last step that leads up to the store. Horse is above him by a few stairs his descent being slowed by the fact that he is stopping to tear the nude centerfolds from the wall calendars as he goes along. This could be a tense situation given the mix of personalities.

“There’s a problem.”

“Among the many others that surround us, what have you to add to our pending issues?”

“Well, understand. This I need to show you alone, to be, sensitive towards the situation.”