River Zombies

0. Preface

My name is Jack Gray, and I did not expect to still be alive, fighting against this scourge with my wife and our son and in our home. I have no understanding of our endurance beyond our evolutionary programming, but we have persisted, we might yet survive, and this plague might one day vanish. Then this absurd apocalypse will be but a brief chapter in some future historical text, the narrative of which will no doubt be driven by statistics, sterile language, and clinical tones. I offer these accounts as a human supplement to such a possible record.

1. The Ungrateful Guinea Pig

“The guinea pig and I are enemies,” I told Mina, my blue pit bull, as I gathered a small carrot and some lettuce from our backyard garden. “He besieges himself, but sees me as the besieger. And when he needs food or water — fuck me — those squeals and whistles echo through the house at a volume seemingly impossible for such a runt. The little bastard is ungrateful.”

“As are all living things,” Mina replied.

“You never seem so,” I said.

“Let me revise,” Mina said. “Gratitude is fleeting. We are grateful in the moment. Then the feeling leaves because we need or want again.”

“Your platitude doesn’t differentiate,” I argued. “Regardless, the rat is never grateful.”

“Because he is entitled,” Mina said, “and you must acknowledge the difference to understand him.”

“Come with me.”

“Okay,” she wagged her tail, “just don’t accuse me of banality again. I was attempting to engage you in a meaningful way despite my boredom with the topic.”

“You want a treat?”

Mina danced around me and licked her jowls as we walked through the house. I gave her a biscuit and her indignity disappeared. We made our way to the living room and the guinea pig’s cage. I looked inside. As always, his food bowl was flipped over and he was hiding in his chewed up pine hut. I opened the cage, righted the bowl, and placed the produce.

“Hey, rat!” I called.

“Fuck you!” he growled.

“Come out. We need to talk.”

“I will end you, motherfucker!”

“This is always pointless,” Mina said. “You will curse at him and pull him from his home and try to pet him. He will gnash his teeth, spit at you, and threaten to kill you again before he succumbs to one of his agoraphobic panic attacks.”

“I know,” I sighed, “but maybe if I can understand him — as you say — I won’t hate him so much.”

“Understanding does not equal acceptance,” she said.

“I don’t want to hate him.”

“What’s the difference?” Mina asked. “He will squeal and you will feed him. He will whistle and you will water him. Your hate is irrelevant.”

I laughed, “I feed him because I hate the squealing.”

“You feed him because he needs.”

“I could kill him,” I said.

“No,” the dog said, “you are cruel in certain ways, perhaps necessary ways. But not that way.”

Before I could reply, the cat entered the room and purred, “What’s up, cunts?”

“Pardon me,” Mina smiled, “I have my own futility in which to engage.” She whined and snapped to her play-with-me position.

The cat hissed and jetted away.

The dog pursued.

The guinea pig screamed, “Get off my lawn!”

I closed the cage and turned to see that my wife had entered the living room. Her favorite grenade launcher was strapped to her back, her cargo pants bulged with explosive rounds, and her tactical vest was stuffed with magazines for the rifle she slung. Matching Bowie knives hung from her hips, and her blue curls cascaded from beneath an antique doughboy helmet. “Come on, Jack,” she said, “we have inbound.”

“Where’s our son?” I asked.

“Upstairs on the front balcony with the machine gun.”

“He’s only ten, Betty.”

“Well,” she shrugged, “he’s already prepped it. I promised he could use it the next time they show up.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “Support him and keep an eye on our right.”

Betty grunted, “I was happier when we were the middle of the block, not the right flank.”

“That was five houses ago,” I said.

“Six” she countered.

I nodded, “Yeah. That’s right. Let’s not be the seventh.”

I retrieved my lever action Winchester Model 1886 and my bandolier of .45-70 ammunition. I exited onto the front porch and looked to my right. I frowned at the heaps that had been my neighbors’ homes. “Six,” I muttered to myself and chambered a round.

“Still using that antique, huh?”

I turned to my left and waved across my driveway. Kyle was on his porch slinging two AKs over his Nickelback tank top.

“You’re still sporting that mullet,” I said.

“Want a beer?” Kyle asked.

“Is it cold?”

He laughed at me and brought me a can. I sipped my beer and surveyed the newly erected breastwork running along the opposite side of the street where the edge of the road met the killing field. It was a clear summer afternoon. I could see right across that pocked field — past the ruins of our many failed walls, past the piles of charred bones — all the way to the river about half a mile away.

“Crazy, right?” Kyle said. “Anyway, I was thinking last night. The field across the street. No houses rebuilt on that side of Valley Avenue after the ’72 flood. Now the enemy floods it. Still can’t figure that out. Zombies coming out of our very own Lackawanna River. Zombies coming out of every fucking river.” He pulled a bent cigarette and a lighter from his camouflage shorts. “So I figure we should start calling them,” he paused to light up, “we should start calling them The Flood.”

I smiled, “What? Like from Halo?”

“I miss getting new video games,” Kyle said.

I looked at the breastwork across the street, “I miss my awnings.”

“Contact!” Betty’s voice rang out. “Eleven o’clock!”

Kyle looked through his binoculars, “Yep, here they come. Right up out of that fucking river.” He ran back to his porch and released three long blasts from an air horn. The eastern sentry tower confirmed with three honks of its own.

“Hey,” I called to Kyle, “is Bob ready on the left this time? We don’t need to lose another garden.”

“What’s the matter?” Kyle laughed. “Sick of roasted river zombie?”

“Liam!” I leaned out past the eave of my porch and called up to my son on the balcony. “Don’t open up until they reach the old utility pole with the yellow stripes.”

“Five hundred yards!” Liam yelled.

“Five hundred yards,” I confirmed.

I watched the monsters approach. The bass line of their groans and snarls became audible as they marched closer. The dog joined me on the porch, wagging and panting.

“Tired of chasing the cat?” I asked.

“I’ll return to that,” Mina said. “I don’t want to miss you killing river zombies. Oh, can you get me a femur?”

Kyle interjected from across the driveway, “We’re calling them The Flood now.”

“Not very original,” Mina said. “Since they come from the river, why not call them The Crest?”

“No, no, no,” Kyle disapproved. “A river can crest below flood stage. Hell, Jack, your dog doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.”

The monsters neared the painted pole. Their groans and snarls became violent roars.

“Come at me, bruh!” Liam shouted.

The machine gun erupted.

Between the bursts, I heard the guinea pig squeal and whistle.

2. Books in the Shitter

As after each attack, the field across the street became a crematorium and we lit the stacks of zombie remains after sunset. We had concluded that burning them wasn’t necessary to keep them down, but it stopped the birds and the flies from coming. And after enough drinking, the pyre became beautiful.

On my recently repainted front porch, Kyle and I lounged in a pair of squeaky wicker rockers. We had found the matching set on our last salvage mission, along with a bottle of 30-year-old Scotch and some well-preserved cigars. Wrapped in our summer bath robes, we rocked in our rockers, complimented the whiskey, and criticized the cigars. It wasn’t long before the pyre became beautiful.

“Never thought I’d get used to that smell,” Kyle sighed. “A lot of blue in the flames tonight.”

I shrugged, “Lead burns blue.”

“Yep,” Kyle laughed, “that it does.”

I pondered that for a moment and then became concerned about our ammunition supply as one does when whiskey takes hold. When do we need to go find more? We should go soon, or we’ll be making spears and everyone will be cutting their fingers trying to whittle the tips. Will we have enough bandages? How are we on basic medical supplies? Fuel for the generators? Holy shit! Do we have enough toilet paper?

Kyle slapped my arm, “I’m talking to you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was taking inventory.”

“I said I have an idea. I think that when we sit together like this — after a long day of killing and stacking — that we should try to think of something positive about the current state of the world.”

I poured another drink. “Why do you always have to find a way to be an asshole?”

“Just for that, you get to go first.”

“Pointless.”

“Your fatalism,” Kyle groaned. “If you think it ain’t worth fighting then why do you aim so carefully when they come? Next time, just walk out into them. Let them tear you apart.”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admitted. “My son and my wife —”

“Bullshit!” Kyle puffed. “Don’t use your family as an excuse for being afraid to die. Look at me. I got nobody. No family. I’m in that house next door all by myself, but I fight because I don’t want to die. There ain’t nothing after this life. I know it. You know it. In the middle of the zombie apocalypse, life is worth living. Now we are going to sit here and think about something positive among all this suffering, and if you don’t participate, I’m going to punch you. Really hard.”

“Okay,” I relented, “if it will shut you up.”

I drank some more and stared at the fire in the killing field. I could only think about those things that I missed. During the end of the world, I counted nostalgia as a weakness. Kyle knew that, and I had this overwhelming feeling that he was trying to trap me. Then it came to me — something positive — but I was saved from voicing my thoughts.

”Did you see that?” I asked. “To the left of the fire?”

Kyle leaned forward and squinted.

“Movement!” my wife called down from our front balcony. “Four hundred yards at ten o’clock.”

“What is it?” I stood up and tried to make it out.

“Unclear,” Betty yelled. Then her voice broke over the radios, “Sentry East; Gray House.”

“East. Go ahead, Gray.”

While Betty checked with the tower, I called my dog, “Mina! Come here, girl!”

Mina lumbered through the front door onto the porch. She squealed a wide pit bull yawn, flexed the muscles beneath her blue-gray coat, and snorted her hello, “What is it?”

“There’s something out in the field, left of the fire,” I explained.

“Gray House; Sentry East,” the radio crackled. “I got nothing, Betty. It’s past me if it’s out there.”

Betty came to the porch loading a shotgun. A bandolier of 12-gauge shells was sashed over her cotton pajamas and her blue hair was set in curlers. “What do you think?” she asked. “A straggler?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “When was the last time we saw one at night?”

“And when the hell have we ever seen just one?” Kyle grunted.

“Mina,” I said to my dog, “go around the right side of the fire. Use the light to mask your approach and see if you can get behind it. Find out what it is and report back. Do not engage.”

I sat back down in my rocker and poured another whiskey.

“What are you doing?” Betty judged.

“Waiting,” I said. “I’m a bit drunk. Kyle, too. You don’t want us handling guns right now.”

Kyle leaned back in his rocker, smoothed out his blonde mullet, and finished off his drink.

Betty stood ready, scanning the field. After about three minutes of silence, she whispered, “Jack!”

“What?” I stiffened. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” she said. “What do you want for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Books in the shitter!” Kyle exclaimed. “There are books in the shitter again. We can’t stare at our phones anymore while we’re doing our business. No internet for how long now? So we have to read actual books again. Something positive.”

“We have that venison,” Betty said, “or I could kill a chicken.”

Kyle and I leapt from our rockers as two silhouettes appeared in front of the flames and approached the house. I recognized one as Mina and what looked like another dog running next to her. She guided a tall, mottled, floppy-eared mutt onto the porch.

“I thought I told you not to engage,” I chided Mina.

“Bringing this poor thing to our home was hardly engaging,” she scoffed.

“Hello,” I said to the stray, “my name is Jack. What’s yours?”

“I am a dog,” he replied.

“Yeah,” Kyle said, “we can see that. I’m Kyle. Do you have a name?”

He barked and said, “I am a dog.”

“That’s all he says,” Mina sighed.

“Are you hungry?” Betty asked.

The mutt cocked his head and smiled, “Food? I am a dog.”

“We can get you some food,” I said. “Do you have a family? Where have you come from?”

“The other place,” he panted. “I don’t like the other place now. Food?”

“Let me try again,” Mina said. She barked and squeaked and groaned at the newcomer. He answered in their natural language.

“Well,” Kyle prodded, “what did he say?”

Mina cleared her throat, “He said, ‘The other place had food but now it is bad. I don’t like the other place. I am a dog. I like meat. Carrots are good, too. Hey, you are a dog. I am a dog!’”

“So it’s not a language barrier,” Betty confirmed.

“No,” Mina agreed, “he’s just stupid.”

The radio crackled, “Gray House; Sentry East. Betty, did you find out what that was? Everything okay?”

Kyle pulled his radio from his robe pocket, “East; Kyle. It was just a dog, Billy.”

“Son of a bitch!” Billy scowled. “Why are you scaring us like that, Betty?”

“Will you fuckers shut up and go to bed already?” Susan Draper squawked from nine houses away. “And you’re supposed to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking. Over.”

Billy replied, “I’m just doing my goddamn job, Susie. Over!”

“Okay,” I rubbed my eyes. I snatched the radio from Kyle and keyed it, “Enough. It’s over. Over!”

“What about him?” Betty asked me as she petted the new dog.

“Feed him, water him, and find him a blanket,” I said. “We’ll sort this out in the morning. I’m drunk. I want to go to bed.”

Betty and Mina brought the stray into the house. I went to follow, but Kyle stopped me.

“You still owe me an affirmation of positivity,” he said as he took back his radio.

I collected my thoughts from earlier and nodded, “Right now… Right now, there are people in the world who are fucking. Some of those people will make babies, even if that isn’t their goal. They think they’re fucking because they’re bored and what else is there to do? But that’s the wrong question, isn’t it?” I paused. I was doing a poor job of making my point, so I clarified, “Now that I’ve accepted that there isn’t a future for any of us, I’m finally free. It’s total war, and I love it so.”

Kyle laughed, “Lighten up, dude.”

From within the house, I heard my son shout with glee, “Is that a new dog? Did we get a new dog? I love him! What’s his name?”

Kyle took one more shot of Scotch and pulled on his cigar. “There it is,” he chuckled. “Right there…” He stumbled off my porch. “Right there, Jack!” he repeated as he staggered across the driveway toward his house.

“What?” I called after him.

“Positivity!” Kyle yelled back without turning. “Learn from your son.”

3. Blue Betty

It was a brisk and dewy summer morning alive with birdsong, zombie snarls, and gunfire. The attack was a leisurely one. Only twenty or so of the enemy crawled out of the river and shambled into the killing field across the street. We took our time picking them off. Each household in the neighborhood called their shots over the radios.

“Mine!” my wife shouted from our balcony. “All Ears; Gray House,” she broke into the frequency, “It’s Betty. I call that straggler. Hold fire. Repeat. Hold your fire.”

“Hey, Jack!” I heard Kyle yell at my left. He crossed my driveway, chugging an energy drink, while a cigarette dangled from his lips. His mullet was wild from sleep. His bathrobe was open, exposing his Superman boxers and the eagle tattoo on his chest. “Is she sure about this one?” he asked as he stepped onto my porch. “It looks like the fucking Hulk. Just needs the purple pants.”

The straggler was indeed huge. It plodded across the killing field — growling, spitting, hurling rocks and bones. Its green skin glistened in the sunlight. It seemed to ponder its dead companions, diverting to observe their bodies and then glancing back toward the river. For a moment, I thought it was going to retreat. But had that consideration actually entered its feral brain, it was quickly abandoned. The monster thumped its chest and resumed its cumbersome charge, howling its rage as it passed the piles of charred zombie bones.

Betty strode onto the porch, “What do you think for this one, Kyle?”

“I’ll surprise you,” he smiled and darted back to his house.

Betty tucked her blue hair under a Phillies cap…

… it had gotten so wild.

“I just washed all that,” I pointed to her tank top and cargo shorts. “Try not to get too soiled now.”

Her hazel eyes betrayed her smile. “Not this morning,” Betty shook her head. She drew both .357 magnums from her shoulder holsters, checked their cylinders, and replaced them. She kissed me on the cheek and unsheathed the pair of Bowie knives hanging off her hips. “Love you,” she said and then she walked across the street to the edge of the field.

Betty thrust her knives into the air and waved her arms at her approaching prey. “Hey!” she screamed. “Hey, over here! Yeah, that’s it! Yep, right here! Come and get me, you ugly green cunt!”

Kyle’s generator came to life. He pushed the soundboard and speakers onto his porch, checked the connections, grabbed the mic, and flipped a switch. His voice — backed by some generic 1980s filler tune — echoed through the neighborhood:

“Ladies, gentlemen, and the undead! Good morning! And what a beautiful morning it is. I’m your host, Kyle Zlogowicz, but while I’m up here spinning and sinning, you can call me DJ Zlog. I’ll be taking requests in just a little while, and we may even break out the karaoke machine. First up, though, we got an oldie but a goodie to play, along with a dazzling and dangerous warrior willing to showcase her slashing, her stabbing, and her deadly dancing. Please welcome once again to the killing field, Blue Betty!”

The stock music faded, and the air filled with the hopeful piano introduction of “Don’t Stop Believing.” Betty’s booted foot tapped out the beat. The first verse and instrumental were complete by the time the giant reached her.

A singer in a smoky room
The smell of wine and cheap perfume

Betty engaged. The zombie was faster up close. She ducked its swings and dodged its grabs, removing green flesh from it with every slash, eliciting shrieks from it with every stab. Its blue blood spattered her face and arms.

My son joined me, still in his pajamas, clutching a plush Darth Vader.

“Good morning, Liam. Where are the dogs?” I asked.

“They’re sleeping,” he shrugged. “The new pup wanted to come out and see what all the noise is, but Mina told him it’s all just a — hackneyed? — ordeal and that he should continue his nap. And yes, I fed the rat.”

I thanked him and returned my attention to Betty. The dissection continued. She swung hard at the zombie’s shoulder and its left arm fell to the ground.

“Whoah, Mom!” Liam laughed. “‘Tis but a scratch!” His freckled cheeks glowed red and he wiped tears from his eyes with the Vader doll. “Oh, man,” he sighed. “Oh, man.”

The zombie was soon overwhelmed and fell to its knees. Betty danced to the anthem and made her way behind her foe. She drove one blade through the top of its skull and used it to pry back and lift its chin. She moved her other knife across its throat, slicing until its spine was severed. She pulled the monster’s head from its shoulders in a shower of blue gore.

Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feelin’

The neighbors’ cheers and air horns mixed with the music. Betty held up her trophy. She panted and screamed and sobbed and sang along with Journey.

“Why?” Liam asked.

I put my hand on my son’s shoulder, “Because she is the strongest among us.”

4. The Dragon Tree

“By the way,” Betty said to me, “you’re an asshole.”

The tallest point among our valley’s western mountains was an oddly flat-topped elevation known as Plateau Peak. It was so high and so expansive and presented so level a horizon that it was easy to forget that you were on top of a mountain. From near a certain wayward boulder you could see — about a hundred yards off — a lonely, leafless, gnarled oak tree. When silhouetted against the sunset, it looked like a dragon. But Betty and I were the only ones who had ever thought that. We had discovered it when we were teenagers and Betty had suggested one evening that I drive her someplace where we could be alone.

Twenty-five years later, we were once again sitting in my pickup truck and gazing at the Dragon Tree against the sunset. This time, however, the truck bed was filled with much more than a cooler full of beer and some blankets. This time, it was heaped with all types of goods from our salvage mission: nonperishable foods, liquor, ammunition, medical supplies, fuel, fabrics, batteries. This time, instead of being well groomed with a splash of cologne on my neck, my ever-lengthening beard was uncombed and I smelled faintly of diesel. My forearms were streaked with dirt and my lips were dry from dehydration and the summer wind. This time, instead of the delicate straps of a summer dress slipping off Betty’s shoulders, she was strapped head to toe in tactical gear, knives, and ammunition. Her wild blue hair had odd bits of debris and cobwebs in it. Indeed, it was a stark contrast to our first visit to Plateau Peak and the Dragon Tree. But we did have beer, warm as it was.

“Why am I an asshole?” I asked as I pulled the tab on another can.

“I heard what you said to Kyle the other night,” she answered.

“I say a lot of things to Kyle on a lot of nights.”

“The night the new dog showed up,” Betty continued, “Kyle asked you to think of something positive about… all this. You told him you’re happy that there’s no longer hope for any of us.”

“That’s not what I said,” I countered. “I said that there’s no longer a future for any of us.”

“Same difference.”

“No,” I insisted, “there’s a difference. Don’t ask me to explain it, but there’s a difference.”

“Jack,” her voice got low, “do you believe that? Do you believe that there’s no future?”

I laughed, “Go ahead, Betty. When we get home tonight, go ahead and ask Liam what he wants to be when he grows up. No, ask him. When was the last time we did? When he was six? What did he say? Do you remember? He said he wanted to be a soldier. He is a soldier, Betty. Our ten-year-old son is a soldier.”

“Jack… what’s that by the tree?”

I lifted my binoculars. Despite the dimming sky, I could make out a hobbled figure. It gripped a twisted staff and limped toward the Dragon Tree. Its cloak and hair flapped in the breeze like a tattered battle flag guiding a retreat. “Human,” I said. “Maybe wounded.” The figure stopped a couple of paces from the tree. It turned and faced the path it had traveled. I saw its head jerk back and its body slump before I heard the shot.

I threw down my binoculars and turned the ignition. A moment later, Betty and I were inspecting the corpse by the light of my truck’s high beams. I turned what was left of an emptied head and instantly recognized the face.

“I know her,” I said. “Her name is Emilia. She used to come to my auctions whenever we had Hummels.”

“Oh,” Betty said, “that’s nice. Now her brains are all over our tree. My tree! And look at this.” She bent down and picked up the pistol next to Emilia’s body. “Look! You see this? It’s a Hi-Point. It’s a fucking Hi-Point pistol. She splatters her brains all over my tree, and the cunt doesn’t even have the courtesy to leave behind a decent weapon?” She threw the gun off into the growing darkness and marched to the truck. “Come on. Help me find that kerosene we picked up today.”

“Why?”

“We’re torching the tree.”

“What?”

“Don’t argue with me, Jack!” Betty roared. “What the fuck are we doing up here? We’re not those kids anymore. We haven’t been for a long while, and now we’re not even the adults that those kids became. I don’t remember myself. Not as me! I remember the girl who named the Dragon Tree. She became a bank vice president and a wife and a mother. I just don’t remember her as me. I remember her like a friend from school who I’ve lost touch with or like a barista I used to make small talk with on my way to work. I remember young Elizabeth, who fell in love with silly, romantic Jack and who gave herself to him in an old Dodge Warlock not a hundred yards from here. I remember her, but I don’t know her because she’s not me. Now help me burn down this fucking tree.”

“Betty…” my pleading trailed off.

“You’ve said it, Jack!” she shook her fists at me. “You! And I quote, ‘During the end of the world, nostalgia is a liability.’ Fuck you. What’s the win here? Dying without suffering? Without prelude or premonition? Not leaving behind a mess?” She pointed to Emilia’s body, “This bitch lost. Fuck you and fuck Emilia and her choice of sidearm. And fuck this fucking tree!”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll get the kerosene.”

As I drove us away, Betty watched the Dragon Tree burn in the sideview mirror.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I get it now,” Betty smiled. “Don’t ask me to put it into words, but I understand the difference between no hope and no future. I get it now.”

“I love you,” I said.

“I know,” Betty answered and then she snickered. “Fucking Han. Couldn’t say it back. What a cunt.” She sighed and opened another warm beer.

5. A Screaming Fish Unheard

<< RWD

I was a child. I had spiked hair and a neon windbreaker and that Trapper Keeper with the red Ferrari on the front. I rode my BMX to the corner store to buy penny candy and Batman comics. I jumped and cheered and spilled my popcorn everywhere when Kirk and crew brought back the whales. I had a 4-Head VCR and a whole shelf in my bedroom that was dedicated to science fiction movies. Nothing was better than my mother’s lemon meringue pie. I hated going fishing with my father, but I went and I didn’t complain because that was the only time I could spend with him outside the family’s auction business. I was a child.

FFWD >>

I aimed my Winchester .45-70 at the head of my neighbor, Walter Flannigan. He was 73 years old and a bull of a man: a stalwart in our line, a crack shot with a rifle, a juggernaut with an axe. He was bald and grizzled and speckled from all those years working in the sun. He had lost his wife, Edith, long ago. The zombies had brought death to his children and his grandchildren. He was alone in the world and alone in the house two doors up from mine. He liked my beard and had always mourned not being able to grow one himself. I liked his homemade strawberry wine that he handed out every Thanksgiving. I aimed my rifle at his head.

We were in the street, in front of Walter’s house, just before sunset. Many others from the neighborhood were gathered behind me. Walter faced west, his back to the killing field. He stood at attention in his white service uniform.

<< RWD

Chief Petty Officer Walter H. Flannigan sat with me on my front porch early that morning. The flesh around the bite wound on his right shoulder had turned green and the open gash oozed orange-blue pus. Like many of us, Walter had been bitten or scratched multiple times without any negative effects. This time was different.

“I don’t want to wait to find out, Jack,” he told me. “I don’t want to wait and see if I’ll just die a painful death or turn into one of those things. I can’t pull the trigger myself. I need your help. I know you don’t believe, and that’s okay, but I don’t want to damn myself.”

“But it’s okay if I go to Hell,” I smirked, “being an apostate and all.”

“Mercy isn’t murder.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one with the courage and the necessary constitution,” his voice shook.

“That’s not true,” I argued. “There are plenty —“

“Don’t conflate the ability to fight for survival with courage. None of them others would do it,” Walter shook his head, “and you know it.” He took the cigarette I offered and after a long first drag he said, “Your wife has courage. Courage like I’ve never seen. All those years in the Navy. All that fighting. I never saw anything like Elizabeth.”

“You know,” I laughed, “all these years we’ve known each other — all the dinners and the cookouts — she never liked you using her full name.”

“I always felt she was too remarkable to be just a Betty,” he shrugged. “And now, since all this started, my God, man! When she chases after them, knives drawn, that blue hair of hers whipping up behind her like a gas fire. She remains remarkable, mind you, but now she’s far too terrifying to be just a Betty. I wish she had said something.”

“She didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,” I tried to dismiss his regret. I wished I hadn’t said anything. “Besides, she looks at you as a sort of father figure. She didn’t want to make it like she was telling you off. She’s too fond of you.”

“Well,” Walter frowned, “in this life, your father is the first person you should tell to fuck off and mean it. One day, Liam will tell you to fuck off. When he does, don’t retaliate. And don’t grieve. It shows great strength of character to tell your father to fuck off and genuinely mean it.”

FFWD >>

I asked Betty to stay with Liam inside our house. I don’t know what innocence my ten-year-old son had left to protect, but I didn’t want him to see his father execute a neighbor, a friend who had brought him toys and who had eaten at our table. I wished I could’ve trusted Liam to keep himself busy with something. I needed Betty at my side. I needed to have her hand on the small of my back and her lips near my ear so I could hear her say, “It’s okay, Jack. You’re doing the right thing. You’re helping.”

I stood there, pointing my rifle at Walter’s head, in the company of dozens of my neighbors. I waited for one of them — just one — to step forward and say, “What the fuck is going on?” The rifle became heavy; I lowered it. Murmurs of disappointment emanated from the crowd. They were faint, like distant thunder that might have been a far away truck, but the sentiment was there.

I shook with rage and lowered my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed. Slowly. I felt a hand on the small of my back and I opened my eyes. Betty was there with a sad smile and a head nod.

“But Liam,” I whispered.

“Kyle,” she said. “Kyle knew you would need me here. He and Liam are playing.”

I looked at Walter. The bandages no longer held back the infection, and the sickness leached through his pressed white shirt. Desperation flashed from his brave gaze. He looked at my wife and said, “Say goodbye to Liam for me. I’ve left a gift for him in my study. It’s marked with his name.”

“Okay, Walter,” Betty sobbed, “I will.”

“Farewell, Betty,” he winked.

Betty buried her face into my chest. Her tears soaked through my shirt.

I leveled my rifle.

“It’s okay,” Betty said. “It’s okay.”

Walter began to sing:

You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord
Who abide in His shadow for life
Say to the Lord, "My refuge, my rock in whom I trust!"

The neighbors joined Walter in the chorus.

And He will raise you up on eagles' wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn
Make you to shine like the sun
And hold you in the palm of His hand

I squeezed the trigger. The singing stopped. Walter’s head disintegrated beneath his Navy cap. No one screamed. No one cried out. I broke from my wife’s embrace and turned around to face my neighbors. Betty threw her arms around my waist and squeezed. She pulled at me and pleaded, “No, Jack. Don’t. Just come home. Let’s go home.”

<< RWD

I was a child who begrudgingly went fishing with my father. I wondered if the fish were screaming, but we couldn’t hear them because they had no voice when they were pulled out of the water.

PAUSE | |

I have screamed; no one has heard me.

6. War and Butter

It was late summer. Each morning, an alien-looking sun clambered into clouds that more and more resembled toothpaste smeared across a bathroom mirror. If it rained, it did so as light showers that brought a brief fog and a sickly petrichor. At sunset, the sky was a putrid purple and the world smelled of potato pancakes at a fair. It had been weeks since we had seen any zombies, but none of us dared to hope. “Yeah, just wait,” is what we told ourselves whenever we were tempted to celebrate the absence of monsters.

Things were changing.

That morning — a Thursday in August — I was in no mood to see the strange dawn. Instead of sitting on my front porch, I brought my morning coffee to the back yard where I found a mantis praying on my patio table, “Ave, María, grátia plena, Dóminus tecum. Benedicta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.”

I sat at the table and cleared my throat, “What are you praying for?”

“Mercy,” the insect answered.

“How will you know when it comes?” I asked.

He hissed and cocked his head. “Don’t you believe?” he pointed at me. “Don’t you have faith?”

I sipped my coffee and lit a cigarette. “Have you been out here long? I’ve never seen you before.”

“For some time, yes,” the mantis said. “I was praying near your tomato plants over there, but then I remembered: in the Bible, God hates tomato plants.”

My back yard had no tomato plants. Curious. But I asked, “You’ve read the Bible?”

“Deceiver! You have no tomato plants!” the mantis growled. “Your words are meaningless!” He ambled across the table a few feet and continued, “Sancta María, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

A crow dropped from the sky and crushed the mantis beneath her talons. Then she prayed, “Bless us, Oh Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.”

The crow ripped off the mantis’ head, crunched it in her beak, and swallowed. She did the same with each limb before shredding the thorax and the abdomen into manageable portions. When she finished, she cawed at me, “Good morning. How are you today? I’d wipe down your table, but I’m a bird.”

The crow flew away. I lit another cigarette.

A moment later, my wife joined me with her own coffee. She was in her pajamas and her blue hair was bound with hot pink curlers.

“Lazy morning?” I smiled.

Betty shrugged, “It’s Saturday.”

“It’s Thursday,” I said.

“Whatever,” she sighed. She placed her mug on the table and noticed the tiny puddle of insect guts. “What’s going on?”

“The insects are talking now,” I answered. “The birds, too. And they’re Catholic.”

“No shit,” Betty grumbled. “Well, I was planning on killing a chicken today. I’ll let you know if it starts begging for its life or praying in Latin.”

We sipped our coffee.

“Do you remember Sayre?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Betty nodded. “Wasn’t he the old hippie that used to attend your auctions? The one that always wore flip-flops? He’d spout off with his fortune cookie philosophy? Smelled like a litter box?”

“That was him,” I confirmed. “One time he said to me, ‘Jack, do you understand that food is better than sex? Both can be pleasurable. Both can be debilitating. Both can make you feel guilty. And both can be obtained through transaction or transgression. But only one has the prerogative to deny you. In other words, food never says no.’ It’s funny how the apocalypse has posthumously made him — and many others — wrong about almost everything.”

The radio on my hip squawked, “All Ears; Sentry North… Um… You know what? Everyone go outside and look in the street. I ain’t trying to explain this one. Fuck it. Someone come relieve me.”

Betty and I went back into the house. She grabbed her shotgun and I retrieved my rifle before we both went out onto the front porch. We looked up the street. Hobbling toward us was an emaciated old man. He was tall but hunched over. His silver hair fell in greasy clumps. It was hard to tell where his locks ended and his beard began. What remained of his clothes were tattered and blood-stained. He pulled an antique red wagon, upon which sat a cartoonishly large plush cow. And he carried a sign. Affixed to a hickory pole that rested upon his shoulder was a placard that read, “War is come; buy butter.”

When he arrived in front of my house, I yelled, “You, there in the street! Good morning! I applaud the use of the semicolon.”

He stopped and straightened up, dropped the wagon handle, and faced me. “Thank you!” he wept. “Thank you for your punctuational awareness. You are the only one. The only one!”

He walked toward my porch, gripping pole and placard as if he were relinquishing a sword. When he reached the railing, he bowed his head and said, “For you. Please take it and accept my capitulation. You are the one who has earned it.”

I took the sign. The old man backed away. When he returned to his wagon, he reached inside it — beneath the cow — and produced a hand grenade. He pulled the pin and held the device against his chest.

“Cover!” Betty yelled as she dragged me down to the decking. The blast was muffled and wet, as though it had gone off in a bucket of stew. The smoke cleared quickly. More of the old man remained than I would have anticipated.

Neighbors gathered around the mangled corpse. Betty and I answered the many inquiries into our condition, “No, we’re fine. Yes, we’re okay. Thank you, we’re unharmed.”

Betty picked up her shotgun and said, “I’m going to go crochet some hats.”

Betty went inside. I sat down in one of the wicker rockers and lit a cigarette. Kyle crossed my driveway and joined me on my porch.

“I saw the whole thing from my bathroom window,” Kyle said as he plopped into the other rocker. “You guys okay?”

I nodded.

“Shit, dude,” Kyle laughed. “I mean, what the fuck was that all about?”

7. Weird Things in the Beard

A few years before the apocalypse — after noticing how thin my hair had gotten — I made the decision to shave my head. Oh, it was thick enough on the sides and the back, but when it had become possible for my scalp to suffer a sunburn should I neglect to wear a hat? It was like trying to distinguish the difference between going mad and being mad. All my attention then turned to my beard. I kept it full and somewhat long, perhaps descending three inches or so beyond my chin. And while I was perfectly comfortable shaving my head every other day, I had no confidence in myself when it came to trimming my beard. So I still visited my barber about every two months for a pruning.

Clem, my barber, died in the first attack.

Since this madness began, I’ve been able to salvage enough razors and shaving cream to keep my dome a desert. However, I have been unsuccessful in salvaging a barber or a stylist or any professional whom I would trust to shear and shape my beard. Refusing to attempt it myself, I’ve let it go and now it cascades below my chest.

“If you’re not going to cut it,” Betty’s disgust filled our kitchen, “then at least do something with it!”

“Like what?” I grumbled. We had just eaten lunch and I was beating the crumbs from my beard as one does when beating the dust out of a rug.

“Well,” she said, “how about brushing it for a start? You know? Like you used to?”

“I do brush it.”

“When?” she snapped. “Stay there.”

I remained at the kitchen table and sipped my coffee. A few minutes later, Betty returned with a brush, a comb, and a handful of hair ties.

“Push out your chair and turn it,” she commanded.

I complied. She set her tools on the table, pushed her fingers into my forehead, and pitched my chin into the air. Slowly but forcefully, she began running the comb through my beard. There were knots — many knots — and they hurt. My eyes began to tear, so I shut them and clenched my teeth.

“Big tough Jack,” my wife snickered, “can’t take it. Cowboy up, motherfucker, and relax.”

“Yes,” I said, “this is very soothing.”

“There’s more gray than brown in this thicket,” Betty said. “I think we should dye it.”

I heard something small and plastic hit the tile floor.

“What was that?” I asked.

“A Lego brick,” my wife answered, “that fell out of your beard.”

“Oh, fuck off,” I laughed. I opened my eyes and looked down at the floor. There was a yellow Lego brick and… “Where did that feather come from? And is that a dead grasshopper?”

“From your beard, Jack,” Betty answered. “They came from your beard.”

She pushed my head back again. The comb was moving easier now. I heard something else hit the floor.

“That was a shotgun shell,” Betty said. “So, what do you think? Let’s dye it. We go out salvaging in a couple of days. We’ll go raid the beauty supply store and pick a color to compliment my hair. What’s complimentary to blue?”

“Orange,” I said, “but we’re not dying my beard.”

“Well, you suck,” Betty smirked as she traded the comb for the brush. “What about some charms? Maybe some little skulls? There, that’s better. Softer. Smoother. Okay, let’s braid.”

“Will that make you happy?” I sighed.

Betty straddled my lap and kissed me.

“Fine,” I relented.

As Betty began to divide my beard for the braiding, Mina entered the kitchen. Her tail was down and her ears lacked their normal pit bull perkiness. Even her blue-gray coat seemed less lustrous than normal. Betty lifted herself from my lap and I stood up.

“What’s wrong, girl?” I asked.

“I believe,” Mina whined, “that the guinea pig is dead.”

The new mutt, whom my son had named Marcus, came bounding into the kitchen. He tried to stop, but he slid across the tile and crashed head first into a cabinet.

“Rat is dead!” Marcus yelled. “Hi, Dad. Hello, Mom. I am a dog and the rat is dead!”

We all went to the living room. My son was staring into the guinea pig’s cage.

“Liam?” Betty said. “Honey, has the rat passed?”

He turned to face us and shrugged, “I think so. He’s not vibrating or panicking like he normally does. And his eyes are closed.”

“They’re closed?” I chuckled. “Okay, Liam, go get one of the old flour sacks. I’ll grab a shovel.”

“A flour sack?” the rat growled. He jumped up and down inside his cage and thrashed at the pine chips. “A fucking flour sack? You couldn’t find a nice shoebox that you could decoupage? Just gonna throw my ass in a bag and toss me into a hole? Bunch of cunts, the lot of you!”

Liam groaned and rolled his eyes. He and Marcus went upstairs. Mina grumbled to herself, “Insufferable rodent. A nap. Yes, I shall nap. Insufferable rodent. Should toss him in a sack anyway.”

“Bring me carrots!” the guinea pig yelled.

“Nope,” Betty shook her head, “that’s a timeout. Quiet time, one hour.”

I grabbed a blanket from the sofa and tossed it over the cage.

“Hey!” the rat growled. “Hey! I killed the cat and you’re next! That’s right.”

“I ain’t dead!” I heard the cat, but I could not see her.

“Come on,” Betty smiled and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go finish braiding your beard and then we’ll fuck.”

8. The Incorrigible Guinea Pig

A few days after Betty had braided my beard, she and I embarked down valley upon a salvage mission. After crossing the essentials off our list, we raided a well-stocked hobby shop. My wife found tiny metal charms that she felt were appropriate for trimming my whiskers: skulls and knives and retro aerial bombs and other accoutrements of war. From that same shop, we grabbed a few Lego sets and — fuck me — puzzles.

I loathe jigsaw puzzles. I’ve never believed they are worthy of anyone’s time, but one from this lot caught my eye. It was the Mona Lisa cut into hundreds of anxiety-inducing interlocking bits. Instead of the classic “mystic smile” we all know, this depicted her eating a pickle dipped in Nutella. The chocolatey spread was smeared all over her cheeks, her brow was furrowed with ecstasy, and her eyes were bursting with blood vessels.

I was amused by this image and bored with the apocalypse. So I poured myself a glass of Scotch, set up a card table in my living room, dumped the puzzle pieces onto it, and went to work. As I hunted down the corners and edges, I heard wheezing and hacking coming from the guinea pig’s cage.

“Hey, rat,” I called, “you okay in there?”

“I have a name,” he replied with a slight gurgle.

“I know,” I said.

He looked at me through the bars and giggled, “Your beard looks ridiculous and annoying. All those metal trinkets. Does your chin jingle now when you sneeze? Silly!”

The guinea pig and I are enemies.

I found three pieces that fit together. I sipped my Scotch and nodded with satisfaction. I can do this, I told myself.

“Hey, jingle chin,” the guinea pig yelled, “what are you doing?”

I tried to ignore him.

“Ah, come on,” he said, “I’m just busting balls. What are you doing?”

“I am trying my hand at a jigsaw puzzle,” I sighed, “which is something I haven’t done since —“

The guinea pig coughed. It was a deep, bowel clenching cough. I stood and went to the cage. I looked in and saw that he was shivering.

“You’re not well,” I said.

“Nah,” he answered, “I’ll be fine. Just a cold. Do you want help? With your puzzle?”

“You…” I stammered, “you want to come out of your cage?”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Looks like there’s room on the table you set up there. I can help you.”

“Sure,” I agreed, “hold on a sec.”

I went to the kitchen and retrieved a fluffy hand towel. I returned to the living room, opened the guinea pig’s cage, and picked him up. I wrapped him in the towel before placing him on the card table.

“Thank you,” he chattered. He looked over the puzzle pieces scattered on the table. “What are we assembling?”

I showed him the box.

“Who is she,” he asked, “and why is she eating a cucumber covered in shit?”

I laughed, “That is a cucumber, yes, but a pickled one. And that’s not shit. It’s Nutella… um… a spread made of chocolate and hazelnuts, I think.”

“So,” the guinea pig mused, “someone created this image and then cut it up into all these pieces. Now the job is to fit those pieces back together and reassemble this image? Why?”

“It’s fun?”

“It can’t be,” he shook his head.

“No,” I conceded, “it can’t be.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“I’m bored.”

“I get bored, too, you know,” he struggled to breathe, “but no — you’re not this bored. This can’t be worthy of anyone’s time.” He coughed again. Blood and phlegm flew from his mouth and spattered the puzzle pieces. “Sorry,” his rib cage heaved, “not sorry. This puzzle thing — is stupid — and I’m dying. Of course — of course I’m dying — you dumb son of a — motherfucker!”

The guinea pig hacked so hard that his eyes bulged from his skull. His whole being shook and crimson snot trickled from his nose. He threw the towel off his body and collapsed onto his side. His tiny jaw opened and closed as he was suffocated by his own mucus. He died giving me the rodent equivalent of the middle finger.

The little bastard is ungrateful.

I wrapped the guinea pig’s corpse back in the towel and returned him to his cage.

I boxed up the slimed and bloodied puzzle pieces and threw that waste of time in with the rat.

I picked up the cage and marched it out my front door, across the street, and into the killing field.

I informed the family of the rat’s passing. My wife shrugged her shoulders, my son nodded his head. Mina raised her snout in the air and grumbled her indifference. Marcus laughed and declared, “I am a dog.” The cat was nowhere to be found. At sunset, we all convened around the cage in the killing field. I poured a coffee mug’s worth of kerosene over it, stepped back, and lit a cigarette.

“Does anyone want to say anything?” I asked.

“I am a dog,” Marcus said. “Is the rat really dead this time? Not pretending like before?”

“He’s dead,” I answered.

“Oh,” Marcus said, “he was a rat. I am a dog… a dog that is aware that I will also die someday. The rat is dead. He used a lot of naughty words. He liked carrots. I like carrots, but I also like meat. The rat didn’t eat meat. This one time, the rat told me I could eat shit. I told him that I don’t eat shit but that I smell my shit after I shit out my shit. I am a dog. Amen.”

“Thank you, Marcus,” I said. “Anyone else? Betty?”

She shook her head.

“Liam?”

“Sorry, Dad,” he shrugged, “I got nothing.”

“Mina,” I looked at my pit bull, “anything?”

“I…” she began, “I… no. Nothing.”

I tossed my cigarette onto the cage. It burst into flames. Everyone returned to the house, but I stood staring at the miniature pyre.

“I tried,” I said aloud, “but you had to be a cunt about everything. Goodbye, Selwyn.”

9. The Bishop Arrives

Summer gave way to fall. The sky still looked weird. The air still smelled fermented and greasy. My beard remained braided and trimmed with charms. And although stragglers had been spotted and dispatched over the past weeks, the zombies had yet to resume their swarming attacks.

The neighborhood… relaxed. We harvested our gardens, canned our vegetables, and dried our meats. We stocked our firewood and fuel. We took turns going on salvage runs to make sure our cupboards and larders and guns were full for the winter. But despite all the preparation and attention to detail, I sensed a dangerous complacency in our community. Anxiety gnawed at me.

“Gray House; Sentry North,” the radio squawked. “Umm… There’s a squad of clergy heading your way. The leader says he knows you, Jack.”

Fuck!

I brought my coffee to my front porch and looked up the street. From the early morning mist emerged two mule-drawn wagons flanked by a dozen blacked-out priests on horseback. Their tactical vests were laden with magazines, blades, and grenades. Bullpups and carbines were slung over their backs and their helmets were emblazoned with a red cross inside the Greek letter Omega.

At the head of the column, on a prancing white stallion, rode a man I knew well. He wore not a helmet, but a wide brimmed black hat. Not a vest full of gear, but a dichromatic cape: red on his right side, black on his left. A red cross and Omega emblem was embroidered over his heart. Instead of a rifle, a saber was strapped to his back.

My wife and son joined me.

“Is it him?” Betty asked.

Who else would it be?

“Liam,” I said, “get Mina and Marcus —“

“Who is that?” Liam interrupted.

“Get the dogs,” I continued, “and the cat if you can find her. Keep them quiet. Bring them through the basement and out back to the bunker. Just do it. I’ll explain later.”

Liam frowned, “Yeah, but who is that?”

“You wouldn’t remember him. Just do as I ask. Now.”

“Yeah, but —“

“Now!”

Liam relented and went back inside.

“Are you getting one of your hunches?” Betty asked me.

“And I looked,” I answered, “and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Betty grumbled. “I’ll go help Liam.”

The column came to a halt and then he was there. In the middle of my street. In front of my house. In my autumn fog. My first cousin — William Alexander Gray — the bishop.

William dismounted and moved to the lead wagon. He retrieved an oak box about three feet long and maybe twelve inches wide. He carried it onto my porch and smiled, “It’s been a long time, Jack. I see your beard has crossed over into the absurd. How are you?”

“No more absurd than your hat. I’m well,” I sipped my coffee. “Who are your friends, William?”

“Ah, yes,” he beamed, “may I present to you the Knights of the Crimson Confession.”

“You may not.”

I sat down and invited William to do the same. He sank into the rocker and laid the wooden box across his lap. I offered him coffee; he declined. He offered a cigarette; I accepted.

“Hey, Jack!” Kyle yelled. He crossed my driveway in his Voltron pajamas, splashing coffee out of his mug as he hurried to my porch. “What the fuck is going on here,” he grimaced at William, “and who the fuck are you?”

William stood and faced Kyle.

“This is my first cousin, Bishop William Gray,” I said. “William, this is my friend and neighbor, Kyle Zlogowicz.”

William clumsily shifted the long box under his left arm and extended his right hand, “A pleasure.”

Kyle laughed and shook William’s hand, “Whatever you say. What you got in the box, Bill?”

William feigned a smile and sat back down. “It’s a belated birthday gift for my twin cousin here.”

“Twin cousin?” Kyle coughed as he lit a cigarette.

“An old joke,” I explained. “William and I were born on the exact same day and in the same hospital, about three minutes apart. So our fathers joked that we were twin cousins.”

“Yes,” William nodded, “very droll. Anyway, my father was a blade smith.”

“Was?” I interrupted.

“Yes,” William frowned, “I’m sorry to say. Anyway, for what would've been our fortieth birthday celebration had not the zombies come, he decided to make each of us a weapon. The saber that I carry now, and this for you.”

I accepted the box and opened it. I found a hand forged war hammer inside: polished steel from tip to pommel, wrapped in leather at its handholds. Its head was flat and concussive on one side, beaked and piercing on the other. As with all my uncle’s creations, it was simple but elegant, delicate but indestructible.

“It’s wonderful,” I said. “Thank you.”

“He so wanted to give it to you himself,” William said. “He was proud of these two pieces. His last two pieces. I promised that I would deliver it to you. I’m sorry it’s so late.”

I laughed, “Your father’s characterizations of us expressed even in his forging.”

“How’s that?” Kyle asked.

“I was always the precise one,” William said, “hence the saber. Jack here was always the blunt one, and so the hammer.”

“Yeah,” Kyle mused, “that’s one way to look at it. Maybe, though, he was trying to say that you, Billy, were the sharp one and Jack was the dull one. The fuck do I know? I’m just spit balling. But I do have to say, Bill, you are dressed rather sharp and our Jack here is known to wear some boring shit, even for the apocalypse. And don’t let his beard fool you. Those braids and charms are all his wife’s doing. Yup… Sharp versus Dull.”

“Well,” William began, “I’m not sure that —“

Kyle pointed at me and laughed, “Ha, Jack! You should see your fucking face. You never would have considered that, huh? Oh, well. Like I said, I don’t know shit. I don’t know your ‘twin cousin’ here or his father or what he thought or why the fuck there’s a squad of scary-ass priest knights in the middle of the street. I’m going to go eat breakfast, and maybe you’ll explain it to me later.”

Kyle flicked his spent cigarette and stomped back home.

“He asks a good question,” I said. “What’s up with your little army there?”

“Hardly an army,” William replied. “They are my most trusted knights. We call the monastery at Red River our home. A hundred and fifty of us live there, all warriors for Christ. Go ahead, Jack, roll your eyes, but we have slain thousands and at a great cost.”

“Red River?” I asked. “And what brings you two hundred miles east to my humble little valley? If you’re missing Scranton that much, I have The Office box set on Blu-ray. We can trade for it.”

“I’m here on a mission,” he half whispered, “about which I can tell you later. For now, my knights are tired. Would you be opposed to us setting up camp in the field across the street? We are well provisioned and would not be a drain on your resources.”

“Sure, go ahead,” I shrugged and grabbed the war hammer from its box. It was perfectly balanced… light… but it felt unstoppable. I stared at it and said, “I don’t want to have to shoot through your camp if any zombies decide to come. So be sure to set up well south of my door. This position is the right flank. Keep that in mind when you pitch your tents.”

“Very well, Jack,” he stood. “We carry an altar and tabernacle with us. I will say mass at noon. All are welcome.”

I stood and met his gaze, “Just keep your brand of crazy away from my son, Your Excellency.”

10. The Sandwich and the Bishop

When I was five years old, I believed that I had invented a sandwich: the mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, and ham on sliced Sunbeam white bread. The ingredients were non-negotiable. The mustard had to be brown. The mayo had to be mayo; Miracle Whip would invoke a stomped foot. The cheese could only be yellow American singles, and the ham could only be the processed kind that — when sliced at the deli — flopped onto the parchment in perfect rectangles. Non-negotiable… except I was more forgiving with the bread. Sunbeam was preferred, but Wonder Bread could do in a pinch. Whenever I asked my mother to assemble me a mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, and ham sandwich, I was careful to ask for it with the Oxford comma vocally obvious. She would ignore me otherwise.

For months, I bragged about creating this culinary masterpiece to my stuffed animals, to my infant brother, to William (my twin cousin), to my father’s business associates who visited our home. I told everyone I could and soaked up all the praise. That Thanksgiving, I was thankful for having invented the MMCH, as it came to be known, and I couldn’t wait to tell Papa Gray all about it when he arrived at my house for our big family dinner.

“Papa Gray, guess what?” I jumped into his lap while he was watching football in the recliner. “I invented a sandwich.”

I told him all about the MMCH. When I finished boasting, I folded my arms and waited for the accolades a five-year-old expects from his grandfather.

Papa Gray put his hand on my back. He laughed and said, “What? Are you fucking stupid? Do you really think you’re the first person in history to put those four things between two slices of bread?”

I felt my mouth fall open and my cheeks go flush. I hadn’t realized William had been watching and listening until I heard him cackling just a few feet away.

“Listen, Jack,” Papa Gray continued, “everything that could ever be done has already been done. There’s nothing new or special left to get excited about. Do the TVs keep getting better? Yeah, and now we got these VCR things on top of them. But even when it’s new, it’s not new. It’s just the same shit repackaged and resold to the same assholes over and over again. You’re going to do what every American male has done since Jesus Christ was a corporal. You’re going to grow up, go to work, get married, have some kids, and die. If you’re lucky, like I was, you’ll be able to go to war and kill some people somewhere in between all that boring shit. So, no, you didn’t invent a new sandwich. There’s no such thing as a new sandwich. The sandwich was the invention. And what is a sandwich? It’s something between two slices of bread. That’s what’s important, the two slices of bread. Put whatever the fuck you want between them. So you’re not special and you’ll never see anything new. New to you? Sure! But not new to the world.”

“Papa Gray!” William exclaimed as he wiped away tears of laughter. “I can say The Lord’s Prayer in Latin. Would you like to hear?”

My grandfather pushed me off his lap and invited my cousin to take my place.

William hopped up, cleared his throat, and began, “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum…”

“Fuck Papa Gray!”

“What’s that, Dad?” Liam asked.

My son and I were chilling on the couch, whiling away the afternoon. He was reading some old Batman comics, and I was eating a ham sandwich for lunch. It had no cheese or mustard, the bread and mayo were homemade, and the ham came from a pig that was just butchered by Jimmy Orson up the street, but I guess it had triggered my memories of the MMCH.

“Sorry, did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah…” Liam raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Papa Gray and why should he be fucked?”

“You’re ten,” I said, “so stop saying fuck.”

“I’ll be 11 in a couple months,” Liam argued, “and this is the apocalypse. I could die tomorrow. So I think I should get to say whatever I want.”

“Anarchy is not the answer to survival,” I chided my son, “but… neither is an antiquated system of pseudo-moral social constructs.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Liam frowned.

“It means say ‘fuck’ all you want.”

“Fucking right!” Liam laughed. “Now who the fuck is Papa Gray?”

I threw down my sandwich, burst out the front door, and marched into the killing field. My cousin’s gold tent towered above those of his knights.

“WILLIAM!” I bellowed. “Get your holy ass out here!”

He emerged with the flourish of a king. Several knights took defensive positions on his flanks and drew their side arms.

“Stand down, knights,” William commanded. “Holster your weapons, and no matter what happens in the next moments, do not interfere. This was inevitable.”

“Why are you here, William?” I growled. “Why?”

He unstrapped the saber from his back and gave it to the nearest knight. “I will not talk to you while you are in this state, Jack.” He removed his red and black cape and his wide brimmed hat and handed them to another knight. “Let’s have it out.”

William closed the gap between us and assumed a boxer’s stance. I charged him. I know I took a fist to my stomach and to my left cheek, but the rest is a blur. Somehow, I managed to put him on his back and wrap my hands around his neck.

“Look at all the newness!” I squeezed his white collar into his throat. “Behold the novelty! You miserable fuck. How lucky am I? War came to me. I didn’t have to go find it. How lucky am I?” I squeezed harder. The muscles in William’s neck fought my intent as he grabbed my wrists and pulled against my grip. “I’ve gotten to kill, just like Papa Gray said I would. Not people, though, only monsters — no — one person.” I started to cry. “Just one person. Just Walter, who was robbed of being a wonderful grandfather. Look at how lucky I am!” My tears and spit rained all over William’s determined face. “You are a monster,” I whispered.

“Allistair Jackson Gray!”

I froze at the sound of my full name. My hands popped off my cousin’s neck as though it had suddenly become too hot to touch. William wheezed in a sharp breath and coughed. I stood up, pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, and wiped off my face. I was dizzy. The valley began to spin. I fell to my knees and threw up.

It was Betty who had yelled my name. It was Betty who had stopped me just in time. She raced over to me as I stumbled back onto my feet. She slapped me across my already injured cheek.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed.

I looked past her. William waved away his knights after they helped him to stand. He straightened out his tunic and his Roman collar and brushed himself off. “Do you feel better?” he asked hoarsely.

“You had it coming,” I said.

“To be strangled by you in a field of zombie bones?” William scoffed. “A creative penance, I’ll hand you that.”

“You’ll hand me an explanation as to why you’re here,” I argued.

“Very well,” William nodded, “I accept your invitation to dinner. Elizabeth, at what time should I arrive? And should I bring white or red?”

Betty looked at William, then to me, and back to William. “Seven,” she said, “and red.”

“Excellent,” William smiled, “I shall arrive with a wonderful bottle of merlot I’ve been saving. Oh, and the explanation your husband has so assertively requested.”

I said nothing. All the rage had left my body. My hands were numb. My teeth were sore. I don’t remember making our way to our kitchen, where Betty began cleaning me up and dressing the cut that had opened on my left cheek.

After she had applied the butterfly and the cover, she sat next to me at the kitchen table and asked, “You were really going to kill him?”

“You let him invite himself to dinner.”

“If he wanted you or anyone else dead, that squad he has looks more than capable of wiping us out.”

“So you capitulate,” I shrugged, “out of fear.”

“Out of practicality,” Betty pounded the table. “I don’t know what this is! You nearly murdered your cousin… you won’t let the dogs or the cat out of the bunker… there’s a madness in your eyes… and I know you well enough after all these years to understand that you’re not going to tell me. And since you’re not going to tell me, shut the fuck up and behave like a human being. I’m going to fire up the generator and turn on the water heater. Have a drink, take a bath, and then get a nap. I’m going to check on our son and talk to him about what he just saw.”

“Liam was watching,” I sighed.

“The whole fucking neighborhood was watching, Jack! Your son was watching. I was watching,” she wept, “and for the first time in my life, I was afraid of you.”

I looked into her eyes.

“Because,” she wiped away her tears, “it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you lose control.”

“I’ll go get that drink now,” I stood, “and then that bath…”

Betty leapt up and threw her arms around me. “I love you, Jack,” she cried. “Please, promise me. Never again. I don’t ever want to see that again.”

“I love you, too,” I returned her embrace, but I wouldn’t promise she wanted.

11. The Bishop’s Answer

INT. THE CANDLELIT DINING ROOM OF THE GRAY HOME — EVENING

Dinner is winding down. Plates are pushed away, crystal goblets are emptied, and cigarettes are lit. In the captain’s chairs of the formally set banquet table are Jack and Betty. At Betty’s insistence, Jack dons a three-piece suit and tie. His beard is neatly braided, his head is freshly shaven, and his left cheek is bandaged. Betty, her fiery blue hair wrangled into princess braids, manages to coordinate her laden tactical vest with her evening gown. Seated on Jack’s right is his “twin cousin,” the Bishop William Gray. William wears an ornate Roman Catholic cassock. The bruise on his neck is only partially covered by the high white collar. A ruby encrusted brooch — the Omega and Cross Emblem of the Crimson Confession — is pinned over his heart. Kyle, seated on Jack’s left, flaunts a silk paisley dinner jacket over a black t-shirt and black slacks. His blonde mullet is moussed and puffed up. Young Liam, fidgeting at Betty’s right, pulls uncomfortably at his finest wool cardigan.

WILLIAM: Excellent duck, Elizabeth. Did it protest its demise? Have the fowl begun speaking here?

BETTY: Yes, but I wouldn’t know its final words. It was dead when it hit the ground.

WILLIAM: Ah, then surely it must have cried out when the pellets pierced its hide and it realized its doom.

KYLE: What difference does it make?

WILLIAM: Haven’t you noticed? The more fearful an animal before harvesting, the more delicious it is when consumed.

BETTY: Liam, why don’t you go up to your room? You can put on your pajamas and read for a while. Besides, I’m sure the dogs need some company.

LIAM: Are we having dessert?

BETTY: Later. I’ll bring it up to you.

Liam jumps from his chair and races from the dining room.

WILLIAM: (to Jack) Why do you hide your dogs from me? I know you had them in that bunker of yours all day. Now you keep them upstairs, out of sight. Surely, it can’t be because of what happened at Uncle Hank’s cabin. That was… what… over 30 years ago?

KYLE: What happened at Uncle Hank’s cabin?

WILLIAM: Elizabeth, is there coffee?

BETTY: It’s brewing now.

KYLE: Jack?

WILLIAM: You’ve never told the story, Jack? No! Not even to your wife, or so says her furrowed brow.

JACK: Let’s not.

WILLIAM: Oh, Allistair! You’re so dramatically unforgiving.

JACK: Why are you here?

WILLIAM: Yes, I did promise to tell you. Of course. (he takes a long drag from his cigarette) Some time ago, I gifted your father a bronze statue of Saint Jude. Do you still have it?

JACK: Not here. Why?

WILLIAM: Where is it?

JACK: You want it back?

WILLIAM: Do you have it?

JACK: Yes, but it’s not here.

WILLIAM: Where is it?

JACK: It’s impolite to ask for a gift to be returned.

WILLIAM: Jack, this is very important. There’s something inside the statue. Something I need to retrieve.

BETTY: Something inside the statue?

WILLIAM: Yes, a key.

KYLE: A key? Is it for your chastity belt? No, I know! It’s for your footlocker full of child porn. (to Betty) That’s got to be it: child porn.

WILLIAM: (to Kyle) Fuck you with Satan’s cock! Jack, why is this hillbilly mutant allowed at your table?

KYLE: (laughing) Hillbilly? Excuse me, but I’ve lived in the valley all my life.

JACK: So, the façade drops. I’m not used to seeing desperation — or fear — in your eyes, cousin. Allow me to revel in it.

BETTY: What the fuck is inside the statue? A key to what? And why was my father-in-law keeping it for you?

WILLIAM: Jack, your father knew of the key, but he didn’t know what it unlocks. He only knew that it was inside the statue. Had the world not ended and had your father died under normal circumstances, the statue would have been returned to me upon his death. So according to his will that he amended after receiving it.

JACK: What the fuck are you on about?

WILLIAM: He was a lay member of the Holy Order of the Crimson Confession. We had thousands across the continent. They served us clandestinely: a secret brotherhood within the Order. Your father, Brother Robert Phineas Gray, was recruited personally by me. His devotion to the Church was second to none, and so he was rewarded with membership and a sacred trust.

JACK: (visibly angry) What does the key unlock, William?

WILLIAM: I don’t know, but the Pope has asked me to retrieve it.

BETTY: The Pope? In Rome?

KYLE: (solemnly) No shit.

WILLIAM: Yes. He dispatched a messenger directly. Took him months to reach me, sailing with wind and sextant from the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic, landing once again in the New World under the banner of the cross. The messenger and his party disembarked in Philadelphia and then rode by horse and wagon all the way to my monastery in Red River. The Holy Father’s seal was on the envelope. The wording was correct. The proper password was given. I am to retrieve the key.

BETTY: But you don’t know what the key is for?

WILLIAM: The Crimson Confession answers only to the Pope, but that doesn’t mean the Pope offers answers to our queries. We do his bidding without question.

There is a protracted silence. Jack and William stare at each other, as though they are battling head-to-head in a high stakes game of poker.

JACK: (deciding to fold) The statue of Saint Jude you are looking for is on my father’s desk at the auction house.

WILLIAM: The auction house down the road in Olyphant? On the banks of the Lackawanna River?

JACK: Yep.

WILLIAM: So… it is possible that your auction house is host to monsters who have crawled from the river.

KYLE: Go at night. Less of a hassle.

WILLIAM: On the contrary, we have found that once the zombies take up residence inside a structure, they will defend it no matter the time of day.

BETTY: Yeah, that’s been our experience during salvage runs.

WILLIAM: I’m sure. And from how many buildings that are right on the rivers have you salvaged goods?

BETTY: Barely any these days. Early on, we tried, but the stuff inside is usually destroyed.

WILLIAM: Exactly my worry. However, seeing that I don’t have a choice, my knights and I will leave at dusk tomorrow. I will trust God that the statue is still within the auction house. I will recover it and be on my way. (he stands) Elizabeth, thank you for your hospitality and an excellent meal. At the risk of being rude, I will skip coffee and dessert. I must inform and ready my knights for our departure tomorrow evening. Goodnight to you. And to you, Jack. We will speak before I depart. I’m sure you’ll want to berate me one final time. And, Kyle: fuck you.

Kyle laughs. William exits the dining room. The front door squeaks with the Bishop’s departure.

KYLE: (standing) I’m going to head out, too. What do you say, Jack? Cigars and whiskey on your porch in an hour? Seems like it’s going to be a fairly pleasant evening. Not too chilly.

JACK: Sure.

Kyle leaves. The same front door announces his exit from the house.

BETTY: How fucked up is all that? I thought for sure you were going to prolong his torture over the location of that statue. What do you think —

JACK: I don’t have the energy for a post-mortem. And quite frankly, I don’t give a shit. I don’t care what the key is for. If telling him where that statue is gets him out of here, then fuck it. (he loosens his tie and unbuttons his waistcoat) We don’t need these lunatics hanging around any more than necessary.

BETTY: Jack, what happened at Uncle Hank’s?

JACK: (after a long pause) Uncle Hank had a cabin up in Susquehanna County. My dad and William’s dad used to go there as kids. So when it was deemed that we were old enough, William and I were sent there for a week during that summer. We were 12 years old. It was fun: fishing, hiking, target practice, camp fires, and funny stories about our fathers from when they were kids.

BETTY: Sounds nice.

JACK: Uncle Hank was a good man. Patient. Kind. He loved the outdoors and thought everyone should know as much about wilderness living as possible. He was an avid hunter, but he was reverent. He loved animals. He loved dogs. He always had a dog by his side. So I was thrilled when he told me that I could bring my dog… when I was 12 years old… Her name was Lucy. She was an English Mastiff. Massive dog, but a tender companion. I had her from the time she was a puppy. She was only three years old. The night before we left to go back home, that last night… we were all sitting around the fire. Suddenly, Lucy let out a squeal. We didn’t know what bit her, but she was bleeding from her left hind leg. She wouldn’t walk. Uncle Hank tried to lift her to bring her inside, but trying to heft 180 pounds of dog when she was in pain… Nah. So Uncle Hank and I ran into the cabin to get an anesthetic and some bandages. That’s when we heard the shot. We ran back outside. William was standing over Lucy. The .22 revolver was still pointed at her head. William looked at me before he squeezed the trigger again. “Needed to make sure,” he said.

BETTY: Fucking hell!

JACK: Other than a stiff slap across the face from Uncle Hank, William suffered no consequences for murdering Lucy. I was inconsolable for weeks. I told my father I was going to kill William the same way he killed her. So our family — and the priests and nuns at school — held a mediation. I was browbeaten into forgiving William, into accepting his apology, into being “like Christ.” For my wrath and for my elevation of an animal over a human, I was tasked with penance. Years later, when I deconverted, I retracted my absolution.

BETTY: I didn’t know. I’m sorry.

JACK: William is a horrible person. He hides behind his collar and his orders and his Gospel. He is a piece of shit. He is dangerous. To learn that my own father was part of his religious delusion… I knew Dad was devout, but I never thought… (he stands) It doesn’t matter. I’m going to change out of this ridiculous suit and I’m going to meet Kyle on the porch for whiskey and cigars.

The squeaking of the front door is heard again. Kyle enters the dining room, but he is not alone. With him is Oliver Hess: barely an adult, tall, gaunt, and pale. His hair is wild, his chin is dark with stubble. He wears a bathrobe and striped pajamas. Kyle directs Oliver to where the Bishop was sitting, and then reclaims his own seat from dinner. Jack sits back down with a heavy sigh.

JACK: Good evening, Olly. What brings you out of your aunt’s basement?

Oliver points to Kyle with an uneasy finger.

KYLE: Now, Jack. You know I’m not one for conspiracy theories or ancient legends or any of that bullshit. But something was familiar to me about what your cousin was saying. So, rather than letting it bother me all night, I decided to appease my curiosity and pay a visit to our resident tin-foil-hat-wearer. No offense, Oliver. Anyway, I gave him the abridged version and he insisted he come speak to you right away. When an agoraphobe insists on leaving his house —

OLIVER: I’m not agoraphobic. I just value my privacy.

KYLE: Okay, sorry, but here we are. Lay it on us.

Oliver looks down. His body language gives away his hesitation.

BETTY: It’s okay. You won’t find any ridicule in this house.

OLIVER: Okay… So, um, Jack. Your cousin is the head of the Crimson Confession, right? Yeah… So, that’s not just a typical order. They don’t have a public mission statement. They don’t answer to any cardinal or council. They only answer to the Pope. Just like the other five.

JACK: Other five what?

OLIVER: Um, yeah, so the Crimson Confession is one of six orders. There’s one for each continent, except Antarctica, of course. Ha! Though that might have been something if there was like the Priory of the Penguin or something… Okay… anyway… The Crimson Confession is here in North America. In South America, it’s the Perpetual Penance. In Europe, it’s the Legion of Longinus. In Asia —

JACK: It’s been a long evening.

OLIVER: Um… Sure… Yeah, so, together… um, the six holy orders and the Pope in Rome, they make up what’s known as the Omega Protocol.

KYLE: Sound like a good name for a punk band.

OLIVER: Ha! Yeah, well, no. The Omega Protocol has one purpose. Should the world reach a state of despair so great… Each order is tasked with keeping a key. At the Pope’s direction, the head of each order is to use that key. It’s a closed, hardwired network, Jack, independently powered at the source of each lock. It’s a computer network, connected through thousands of miles of cable that runs underground and along the bottom of the oceans. Once the Pope sees on his interface that all six keys have been turned, he uses the seventh key. The seventh key! Yeah… Um… No one is certain just how many go off, but the agreement among investigators is that it’s hundreds… all around the world.

BETTY: What goes off?

OLIVER: (with a mournful giggle) Hydrogen bombs, each the size of the Tsar Bomba that the Soviets tested in 1961.

JACK: Okay.

KYLE: What the actual fuck?

JACK: You think this is plausible?

KYLE: We live in a world where zombies come out of the rivers and your pit bull argues with you in English.

BETTY: Fair enough.

OLIVER: This may be absolute bullshit. But when Kyle told me about the conversation tonight? It’s too on the nose, Jack. It’s too much like the myth. You can’t let him! He has to be stopped!

JACK: Okay, let’s all take a deep breath. Oliver, I assume you have books or notes or videos on this Omega Protocol?

OLIVER: Yeah, sure.

JACK: Let Kyle take you home. Gather what you have. We’ll review it together and go from there. Sound good? Give me about 20 minutes and I’ll join you.

OLIVER: (he stands) Yeah, okay. I can do that. I can do that! But, uh, Betty… did you make a pie? I smell apple pie. Yeah? Jack, please bring pie.

JACK: I will. Now go.

Kyle and Oliver exit the dining room. The front door opens and closes. Jack stands up and stares at Betty.

BETTY: I mean… Come on, right?

JACK: You should have let me kill him.

FADE TO BLACK

12. The Bishop’s Departure

The Omega Protocol: a Cold War conspiracy theory; a Catholic contingency plan to push along Armageddon should it arrive too leisurely.

The data in Oliver’s archives claim 700 hydrogen bombs buried all over the world that are connected through a closed, self-sustaining network. Six devout orders (one on each of the six habitable continents) covertly keep a key to their assigned Omega Locks. Once all six are engaged, the Pope in Rome turns his own key — the seventh key — and all 700 thermonuclear devices detonate simultaneously. The blasts, the fallout, and the nuclear winter that follow sterilize the planet for Christ.

Here in North America — in my little valley in Pennsylvania — my twin cousin, Bishop William Alexander Gray, was preparing to retrieve the Crimson Confession’s key and do his part to usher in the real end to everything.

Maybe.

It was nearly sunrise when Kyle, Betty, and I emerged from Oliver’s basement. As we walked down the block to return to our homes, Betty and Kyle whisper-argued about how real the Omega Protocol might be. I stared at the camp of the Crimson Confession. A light burned inside my cousin’s golden monstrosity of a shelter.

“Alright,” Kyle yawned when we reached my driveway, “I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” Betty sighed, “I need to check on Liam. Jack? Jack?”

I hadn’t stopped staring at William’s tent. “Yeah, okay” I said.

I followed Betty into the house but stopped at the hall tree near the front door. I grabbed my weapons belt off its hook and strapped it to my hips. I pulled my 1911 from the holster, chambered a round, and then replaced it without snapping down the thumb break. After shifting the scabbard for my Ka-Bar into a confident position, I smiled at my wife and reopened the door.

“What are you doing?” Betty gawked.

“Fuck it,” I said. “I’m just going to ask him.”

“What?” Betty gasped. “Are you crazy?”

I patted the breast pocket of my jacket and smirked, “I have my radio.”

“Jack!”

I ignored her pleas and marched across the street. Two knights blocked me at the entrance to William’s tent.

“I wish to see the Bishop,” I declared loud enough that my cousin would hear me.

“Let him enter,” William said from within.

“He’s armed,” said one of the knights.

“So am I,” answered my cousin.

The guards stepped aside and I entered. William was reading on his cot. I sat on a nearby tufted chair and lit a cigarette. I held out another and invited him to join me. William sat up, took the cigarette, and placed it between his lips. He leaned into my lighter and I asked, “So where is your Omega Lock?”

William pushed the smoke out of his nose and said, “The letter from The Holy Father claimed that five keys have already been turned. So that just leaves mine. Once engaged, and once His Holiness turns his key, there will be less than an hour before detonation, before 700 holy weapons cleanse this world. A 50 megaton hydrogen bomb annihilates everything within a 25-mile radius. You are within ten miles of the local one beneath my Omega Lock. Do you want to have this last day with your family, or do you wish them to mourn you before they are vaporized?”

I rested my left hand on the pommel of my knife.

William smiled.

The sunrise crept through the flaps and vents of the tent.

“Go ahead, Jack,” William said. “Draw your blade and plunge it into my heart. Unholster your pistol and put a bullet between my eyes. My knights will strike you down and your sacrifice won’t matter. I told you when I arrived that these men are my most trusted. Each of them knows the mission. Each of them knows the location of the lock. Any and all of them will see this charge to completion. We cannot be stopped. Not by you or any man. And not by any unholy monsters. God will not allow us to fail. He has made us — as a whole — invincible.”

An air horn echoed through the neighborhood and the radio in my pocket squealed to life, “All Ears; Sentry East. We got sprinters! Six — no — seven of them. They’re fast.”

William followed me outside.

“Sprinters?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “sometime they’re… Why do you look so confused? Never mind. Drop these tents and pull back to the street, to behind the breastwork.”

“Gray House; Sentry East. Jack, I hope you’re up. I’m guessing the monsters smell those horses because they’re making a beeline for the Bishop’s camp. I estimate contact in about four minutes.”

I pulled the radio from my jacket and replied, “Roger that.”

I squinted against the rising sun and saw the zombies running toward my position. They would indeed cover the half-mile breadth of the killing field in just a few moments. Then I noticed the trees along the river bank. Their leaves were gold and orange and red, and everything in that moment felt more absurd than ever.

“Knights,” William bellowed, “to arms! To horse!”

“To horse?” I laughed. “You’re going to meet them in the field?”

William was brought his pale stallion and saber. He slung the blade over his back and mounted the horse. “We will dispatch these demons,” William declared, “so you may have your last day and I may be finished with God’s work.”

William commanded his horse into a trot. His knights formed around him, rifles at the ready. William drew his saber and ordered a cavalry charge toward the seven attacking zombies.

I walked back toward my house. Betty was on the balcony behind the machine gun. Liam was next to her, prepping ammo cans.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Betty yelled.

“Solving a problem,” I answered. “Liam, will you bring my rifle, bandolier, and binoculars to the front porch?”

“You got it, Dad,” Liam saluted.

I climbed onto my porch and sat in one of the wicker rockers. Kyle jogged across my driveway, AK-47 in hand, and sat next to me.

“Didn’t you tell him?” Kyle asked.

“I tried,” I said.

“You don’t seem too worried about it,” Kyle frowned.

“Don’t go soft on me now,” I said.

Liam opened the front door and handed me all I had requested.

“Thank you,” I said, “now go help your mother.”

I handed my rifle and bandolier to Kyle and said, “Load this, please.”

Through the binoculars, I watched William and his cavalry engage the monsters about 200 yards from the street. Perhaps three dozen shots were fired before five of the knights were tackled from their saddles. The others tried to reform the line. Knight and horse fell. Their screams and whinnies echoed through the crisp autumn air. William somehow extricated himself and hobbled toward my house. Behind him, the zombies shredded and consumed their kills. When I deemed my cousin far enough away from the carnage, I keyed my radio and said, “Light it up.”

The M2 on my balcony fired. Far up the street, its sister gun came to life. Tracers streaked through the air in bursts. Die, motherfucker, die! That’s how Walter had taught us. Push the trigger down for no longer than it takes to say, “Die, motherfucker, die!” Release. Take a breath. Do it again. The ravenous zombies, the fallen priests, the tattered horses: all were pulverized by volleys of .50 caliber rounds.

I pushed talk on my radio, “Hold fire. Hold fire. Standby.”

The guns went silent. I focused my binoculars on the pile of zombie, human, and equine remains. There was no movement.

“Targets destroyed,” I said into the walkie-talkie. “Sentry East, advise.”

“All Ears; Sentry East. We’re clear. I repeat. All clear.”

I lowered my binoculars. Maimed as he was, William had managed to crawl, limp, and stumble his way out of the killing field. He squeezed past the breastwork and collapsed onto the street in front of my house.

Kyle moved to follow me; I shook my head no. He rested my rifle and bandolier on the rocking chair and returned to his own porch. As I approached my mangled cousin, I held up my hands to the gathering neighbors. The crowd stayed back.

“Jack,” William pleaded when I knelt beside him, “Jack, you have to!”

He seemed more blood than flesh. An open chest wound gurgled as he spoke.

“Jack!” he grabbed my arm. “It’s mercy, Jack. End the suffering.”

I bent closer to William and whispered, “Where is the Omega Lock?”

He cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Blood gushed from William’s mouth. His eyes rolled back into his head. His grasp on my arm relented. His chest wound stopped gurgling.

I stood up. Betty joined me.

“Is that it?” she asked quietly. “Game over?”

“Not quite,” I said as I stared down at my cousin’s corpse. “Now we go retrieve the key and destroy it. Tonight.”

13. Everything a Travesty

“Allistair, heed these words. Encourage your father to fish more than work. Do not do so with anger or frustration. Rather, offer such reprieves with a smile. No, no. I know you. Don’t say, ‘Why the fuck don’t you just go fishing?’ Say something like, ‘Why don’t you go fishing today, Dad? I got this.’ Encourage your father to fish more than work.”

Those were my mother’s final words to me. It was six months after her death before I understood her prescience. Without her at the auction house to play referee, my father became impossible. Every conversation devolved into an argument. Every catalog meeting ended with him screaming at me or the staff. Every idea, every appraisal, every auction — everything was a travesty.

That was his favorite word: travesty.

So for two years, I did as my mother had suggested: “Why don’t you go fishing today, Dad? I got this.”

It’s funny now. During that last dinner with William, he said to me, “Had the world not ended and had your father died under normal circumstances, the statue would have been returned to me upon his death.”

Normal circumstances. Yeah, it’s funny now.

They found Dad smeared on a boulder in the Lackawanna River near his favorite trout pool. The coroner concluded he had been attacked by a bear. That same night, the news reported others — many others — mauled to death in or near rivers, not just locally, but everywhere. The world ended the next morning. My father didn’t get a memorial; his remains never left the county morgue. It pissed me off that we were about to have a funeral for William, ugly and odorous and smoky as it was going to be.

With autumn’s arrival, it was imperative not to waste any good firewood. So I asked the Crimson Confession’s mules to pull their pair of wagons out into the field where the knights had fallen. After Betty and I unhitched the mules and removed their tack, they refused our invitation to remain and the four of them galloped away braying phrases such as “Freedom, motherfuckers!” and “Up your cunts!”

The deployment of two .50 caliber machine guns had made it impossible to separate the remains of the knights from those of the zombies and the horses. Betty, Kyle, and I — with the help of about a dozen neighbors — recovered from the mess whatever weapons we could find (including my cousin’s saber), and then we raked and shoveled flesh, bowel, and bone into the wagons. Kyle fired up his ATV and hauled William out to the makeshift pyre. He was stiff and colorless, like a farcical marble sculpture. We finished the task by early afternoon and returned to our homes, sticky and starving. After a thorough wash and a big lunch, Betty joined me for a nap.

“You okay?” Betty asked as she snuggled up to me in bed.

“I don’t even know what that means anymore,” I said.

“I know that tone,” she said. “What are you feeling guilty about?”

Why don’t you go fishing today?

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I lied. “Just… realization.”

“Care to share?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Betty yawned. “I learned a long time ago to only ask once.”

I changed my mind about sharing, but Betty was already asleep. So I closed my eyes and pondered my epiphany.

Everything society had ever held aloft, everything that we had ever elevated as ecumenically unimpeachable, had been burlesque disguised as nobility. Even my vocation, auctioneering, had been an exercise in irony and folly. In the end, no matter how many majestic words I had used to describe my career, I sold dead people’s shit to people who would inevitably die. Only when everything fell apart, only when we lost everything except the will to survive and to protect those we love, did we realize that we had been adrift and without purpose. Perhaps then it wasn’t this apocalypse that was absurd, but everything that came before it. We labored and worried and paid our bills. We celebrated our victories, lamented our mistakes, and planned our futures. We dreamed. We consumed. We congratulated and judged ourselves and each other. We did all that while hundreds of hydrogen bombs were lying in wait beneath our feet, and the key to one of the detonators had been kept by my own father… inside a statue on his desk… in my own auction house… where I sold dead people’s shit to people who would inevitably die.

Maybe Dad was right. Maybe everything is a travesty.

At dusk, Kyle pushed his DJ equipment onto his porch and blared Chopin’s “Funeral March.” Betty, Liam, and I proceeded to the gore-laden wagons in the killing field. Kyle and the rest of the neighborhood soon caught up with us. When the gathering seemed like it was complete, I lit the pyre.

The music finished. I stood at Betty’s side and watched the fire. She elbowed me and whispered, “You should say something.”

I sighed, stepped forward, and faced the crowd. The flames warmed my back and illuminated the throng of somber faces before me. The familiar aroma of burning flesh filled the air.

“Friends and neighbors,” I announced, “thank you for your condolences and assistance today…” My words failed me because they were not genuine. I was consciously employing a mournful expression, which made me aware of the bandage that was on my left cheek, the bandage covering the injury that William had inflicted upon me. Faux melancholy became indifference and I continued, “So my cousin and his cohorts are dead. As far as their camp goes… I don’t know… take whatever you want for yourselves and burn whatever is useless. Amen.”

I shrugged and began walking to my house. Some of the neighbors turned toward their homes. Others lit their flashlights and moved to start salvaging the camp of the Crimson Confession. Betty, Liam, and Kyle walked with me.

“Nice eulogy, Jack,” Kyle chuckled.

“Yeah, beautiful,” Betty scoffed.

“I don’t give a fuck anymore. I offer no more quarter to travesty,” I said. “Liam, your mother and I have to go out tonight. Kyle is going to stay with you at our house. Make sure you eat, and make sure you feed the dogs. Other than that, spend your evening as you see fit. Betty, wheels up in 30 minutes.”

“What’s a eulogy, Dad?” Liam asked.

“Exaggerations and lies you tell about someone after they’re dead,” I answered.

“Oh,” Liam said. “When I die, I want people to say I could shoot laser beams out of my eyes and that my farts could kill anyone within a ten-foot radius.”

It felt good to laugh. Maybe Dad was wrong. Maybe everything is a comedy.

Betty took my hand and said, “Let’s go destroy ourselves an Omega Key.”

14. Requiem for a Farce

Situated on the eastern bank of the Lackawanna River in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, Gray Auction House and Gallery was an Art Deco relic of concrete, bronze, iron, and steel — a testimony to the former might of Scranton and its surrounding communities. Erected in the 1920s, it had been a theater of stage and screen that died with coal in the middle of the Twentieth Century. In 1984, my father bought it, gutted it, and transformed it into an auction house and art gallery. He left only vestiges of the theater’s past glory on the inside, but insisted that the exterior’s original façade be restored precisely. The only thing he added to the outside were the lights. Dad asserted that the building’s geometric brilliance should not be hidden just because the sun went down. If only he could see it now, left in the dark by the apocalypse, its creeping disrepair illuminated by my pickup truck’s headlamps and door mounted spotlights.

As expected for the evening, Betty and I saw no zombies around the building. We shone the spotlights on windows and doors to see if they had been breached, but it looked as though all the bronze portals and iron bars had done their job. Satisfied, we buckled up our tactical vests and prepped our sidearms and blades. Betty tucked her blue hair under her antique Doughboy helmet and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

We exited the truck and made our way to the auction house’s main entrance under the marquee. Green patina had overtaken the once impeccably polished bronze double doors. Rust covered the chunky chain I had wrapped around their handles. Still, the padlock opened easily and the door’s mechanism turned without hesitation.

It had been several years since we were inside. Our flashlights illuminated an auction that hadn’t happened. Fine antiques and objets d’art from the esteemed Coroniti Estate lined the sales floor. What would have been a highly anticipated event, attended by collectors and dealers from all over the region, was now a cobweb covered graveyard of impracticality and who-gives-a-fuck.

Dead people’s shit…

We made our way upstairs and crept down the hallway. We saw no evidence of zombies. We heard nothing that made us think that monsters were lurking in the shadows. We smelled only dust. But we had learned from many a salvage mission. Don’t trust your eyes. Don’t trust your ears. Don’t trust your nose. Trust your fear.

We entered my father’s office at the end of the corridor. Everything was as Dad had left it right before he went fishing that day:

• his fedora on the coat tree
• a crushed cigar in the ashtray
• crossed out catalog notes on the whiteboard
• shards of a thrown whiskey tumbler on the floor
• torn papers all over the room

Betty kept watch in the doorway as I moved to my father’s desk. There it was, lit up by my flashlight like a performer on stage, crawling with green patina just like the outer doors: the bronze statue of Saint Jude gifted to Dad by my twin cousin.

“Got it?” Betty asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I snatched it up.

I blew off as much dust as I could and inspected the statue with my flashlight. It was barely visible, but there was a seam that ran the circumference of the round base. I put my flashlight under my left arm and twisted until the halves of the statue’s base gave way like an Oreo cookie. I shook the hollow saint over my father’s desk. Nothing fell out. I flipped it upside down, pointed my flashlight inside, and saw a rolled up piece of paper. I was able to use my fingers to extract the scroll.

I unfurled it.

“Well?” Betty asked from the doorway.

“There’s no key,” I explained, “just this note.”

I cleared my throat and read it aloud.

Dear William,

After charging me with the “sacred task” of keeping safe this statue and the key within it, I’m afraid my curiosity got the best of me. As such, I used my connections and a pile of favors to gain access to just the right books in just the right libraries to come to just the right conclusion as to what the key unlocks. Shame on you, nephew. Only Our Lord the Father knows the hour of the End. Therefore, no mortal man has the prerogative to usher in Armageddon, not even Christ’s Vicar in Rome, and especially not with instruments so ghastly and unholy as thermonuclear bombs.

So, I have irrevocably disposed of the key. You will not find it because I have left nothing for anyone to find.

I pray that Our Lord will likewise dispose of your arrogance.

Your uncle and brother in Christ,

Robert Phineas Gray

“Holy shit!” Betty grumbled.

“Unexpected,” I said.

“But comforting?” she shrugged.

I crushed the note in my left hand. It was quality paper. Thick. Sharp at the edges. It cut me on that flap of skin between my thumb and forefinger.

“This building is a mortuary,” I growled. “It’s a memorial to absurdity and morbid irony where hope came to die. It is my own Dragon Tree.”

Betty left the doorway and opened my father’s liquor cabinet. She removed the bottles of whiskey and gin and vodka. She poured their contents on every curtain, every piece of upholstery. She emptied the last bottle over my father’s desk. The stench of stale spirits rode the disturbed dust particles to my nose. I held back a sneeze and my eyes watered.

“Go ahead, Jack,” Betty nodded, “kill your dragon.”

I pulled my lighter from my pocket, lit the crumpled note, and tossed it onto Dad’s desk. The office went up quickly. The flames followed us back through the hallway, down the stairs, and onto the sales floor. Twenty minutes later, Betty and I were sitting a block away in my pickup truck, watching Gray Auction House and Gallery burn to the ground. When the marquee fell from the building, I turned the truck’s ignition.

“Let’s go home,” I said.

15. Epilogue

Absent any more plots or protocols, autumn ended and winter began. Thanksgiving was observed, but mournfully without Walter and his homemade strawberry wine. Christmas happened. In the week before the New Year, my son and I both celebrated birthdays. Liam turned 11 and added to his catalog of profanities: cocksucker, motherfucker, et al. I began the latter half of my forties.

Huzzah.

In Northeastern Pennsylvania, the real cold waits until January. Before the zombies, we would curse it. But now? Well, the rivers freeze.

Kyle and I were lounging near the crackling fire pit in my back yard, sipping brandy and smoking cigars. The overcast sky dimmed with the encroaching evening. Per their own declarations, it was officially too frigid for Liam and Betty to hang outdoors. Mina also stayed inside, being a pit bull and all. But Marcus the mutt joined us. He stared at the fire and panted the word “hot” every minute or so.

“Winter during the apocalypse is like shaving your balls,” Kyle said. “It can be challenging, but it has its benefits.”

I could smell the coming snow.

“Did you know,” I asked, “that the smell of rain has a name? When rain falls on dry ground, that odor has a name. Petrichor. That’s what it’s called. But I don’t think anyone has ever named the smell of snow. That’s unfortunate.”

“So,” Kyle shrugged, “dig into your memories of Greek or Latin roots and give it a name.”

“No,” I shook my head, “that doesn’t feel right.”

Marcus barked and shouted, “Dad! Fire is hot. I am a dog.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

He scratched his ear with his hind leg and said, “Hot. Dog. Hot dog. I like hot dogs. I am a dog.”

“Or forget Greek and Latin,” Kyle raised his snifter, “just stick with English. Snow plus odor. Snodor! There, we fixed it. We can call the smell of snow snodor. S-N-O-D-O-R. Snodor! Sounds a bit trashy, but I like it.”

I deemed my cigar finished and threw the stub into the fire. That alarmed Marcus for some reason. With his tail between his legs, he slunk to the door and pawed at it. I stood and let him inside. Away from the flames, the cold wrapped itself around me. It filled my chest and my gut and it stiffened my beard. On my patio I had anchored a DIY snow stick, and to the top of that I had fastened an analog thermometer. The dial proclaimed it was three degrees. Flakes drifted in on a gentle but threatening northeast wind. I returned to the fire and sat back down.

“It’s starting,” I said.

“Yeah,” Kyle said, “I see you have the plow ready on your pickup. Did your snow blower start up okay?”

“On the first pull.”

“Yeah, man! Fucking awesome!”

I nodded.

“You know,” Kyle sighed, “the winter prep went well for the whole neighborhood. We have enough food. Thanks to some amateur engineering, the water and gas are still flowing after all these years. There’s enough fuel for everyone’s generators. For our backup heating there’s enough firewood and kerosene and propane… Fucking yeah? The solar panels we rigged for the furnace igniters are working. The rivers are frozen or freezing —“

“Son of a bitch. Get to the point.”

“What’s got you so… I don’t know? You seem off.”

“I’m just tired,” I said.

“Nah,” Kyle scoffed, “something else is going on under that bald dome of yours.”

I poured a fresh brandy, took a sip, and sat back in my chair.

“A long time ago,” I said, “this guy came into my auction house to get a book appraised. It was a collection of poems and short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and he claimed that it was autographed by the author. He was giddy with anticipation. He couldn’t wait for me to tell him that he had hit the jackpot. Inside the cover, there was a signature that sort of looked like Edgar Allan Poe. It also could’ve read Eat Apple Pie. The handwriting was awful. Anyway, when I turned to the title page, I saw a publication date of 1905. So I explained to this guy that since Poe had died in 1849, it was impossible for him to have signed a book that was published in 1905. Instead of nodding his head and acknowledging that no one can posthumously autograph something, he snatched the book out of my hands and told me that I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about.”

“So?” Kyle furrowed his brow.

“So,” I yelled, “stop being so fucking excited that my snow blower started with one pull!”

“Dude,” Kyle gasped, “how am I the guy with the Poe book?”

“Because you’re convinced of your own fairytales and delusions,” I pointed at him. “You sit here and applaud our doomsday winter prepping like everything is fine. Everything is not fine. Everything is fucked. It’s been fucked and you refuse to see it, no matter how many times I point it out to you.”

“Everything is as good as it can be right now,” Kyle argued, “and your allegory is off.”

“How?”

“How?” Kyle jumped from his chair. “How? First, a snow blower starting with only one pull is the tits, whether it’s the zombie apocalypse or not.”

“Okay,” I stood and growled. “That’s true!”

“Second,” Kyle continued, “I’m willing to recognize new facts and evidence and admit when I’m wrong. Like right now.”

“Really?” I faced off with him.

“Yeah,” Kyle grumbled. “I thought sitting out here with some brandy and my best friend was going to be a nice afternoon. But I was wrong because you’re being a cunt.”

I laughed, “How much of that brandy did we drink?”

Kyle picked up the empty bottle and threw it in the fire. “The whole thing,” he guffawed. “The whole thing. You cunt.”

We lost control and plopped back into our chairs. I couldn’t stop laughing. The winter air burned my lungs and my tears froze on my cheeks.

“Hey, assholes!”

Our mirth and merriment quieted. Betty was standing in the doorway with her arms folded.

“Yes, wife?” I giggled.

“Would you drunken morons like some turkey stew and fresh bread?” she asked.

Kyle and I helped each other out of our chairs and stumbled toward the door.

Kyle tripped into the house and fell flat on his face. “Ah, yes,” he said from the floor, “I can smell the stew now. It mixes well with the snodor.”