William Rose - The Dead & Dying

The sun is warm on my skin and glistens on the surface of the lake like glitter that’s been dumped down upon the tiny ripples of water. I smell honeysuckle and lilac in the air and I wish my grandpa was here with me so we could drop some bobbers in the water and see if anything’s biting. And Josie, too. I woulda loved for her to have met the old man.

It’s a beautiful day.

A perfect day.

And then I notice my grandpa is here. While we fish, Josie spreads out a red and white checkered blanket and starts unpacking the food from the little wicker basket she’s brought along. She’ll give us a hard time, of course, about yanking these little creatures out of their world; she’ll try to make us feel guilty, ask us if we can see the fear in their round eyes, the panic as they struggle for breath in a world they never know existed.

“How would you feel,” she says, “if some alien came along and just pulled you right off the face of the earth?”

My grandpa laughs from the bank and for a second I wonder where these two have come from. I’d simply wished they were here, hadn’t I? Or maybe not. Maybe they’ve been here all along.

My grandpa pulls a flask out from the inside pocket of his fishing vest and takes a snort.

“Damn good hooch, I tell ya.”

He passes the flask to Watchmaker who eagerly raises it to his lips as Sadie slaps him in the back of his head with her palm. We all laugh and then Jason is running along the shore, holding a rainbow trout at the end of a long strand of twenty-pound test, his smile as bright and brilliant as the rays of the sun.

“Look what I caught! Look Uncle Carl! I caught it, I really did!”

I try to tell the boy that trout live in streams, not lakes but Monica just shakes her head and tells me I’d better give up, he’ll never believe me.

“Carl,” Josie calls, “picnic’s almost ready. Will Doc be joining us?”

I don’t think he will. He was here earlier and we talked for a while but then he just up and disappeared. Said something about a storm coming, but I think he’s wrong this time. It’s such a beautiful day. That’s the thing about weathermen, I say; it’s the only job where you can be wrong ninety-five percent of the time and not get fired.

There’s a round of laughter, but something out toward the middle of the lake catches my eye. Nothing more than a few bubbles at first, rising to the surface and popping like there might be a turtle or something down below.

As I watch, though, the bubbles become more and more frequent and before long the center of the lake looks like a pot of water that’s just coming to a boil. Everyone has clustered around me and we’re all silent as we look out at the water.

“What is it, Carl? What’s going on?”

Momma always said it’s better to keep my mouth shut and have the world think I’m a fool than to open it and prove them right. So I don’t say anything and just stand and watch alongside everyone else.

The water’s roiling now and the ground has begun to tremble beneath our feet like how I’d always imagined an earthquake would feel. Josie takes my hand and squeezes it hard, her eyes wide with fear.

Something bursts through the surface of the lake, something so large that the mind balks at the sheer enormity of the thing. It continues to rise as sheets of water rain down like a mighty waterfall and waves crash against the grassy shore as if we were standing by the ocean instead of something so much smaller.

And still the thing continues to rise, its shadow spreading across the water and falling over the group of people who cluster around me. Fifty feet, sixty feet, seventy… it blocks out the sun and casts the day into darkness as lightning begins to flicker way off to the east.

I realize that what I’m looking at is a monstrous pair of jeans. They’re ripped and tattered and stained with grass but they’re jeans none-the-less and each leg is larger round than most buildings I’ve seen in my life.

My eyes follow the legs upwards until they turn into a black t-shirt the looks as though the world’s largest moths have decided to have a little snack on it. More holes than threads, I can see withered flesh below, the ivory curve of rib bones with strands of muscle hanging down like seaweed from the wreck of a ship.

Thunder rumbles and the ground shifts beneath our feet, causing us to huddle together even more closely. But still I continue looking upward, tilting my head back until I am almost looking directly up at the sky.

Lightning flashes and I saw unblinking eyes lacking even the tiniest spark of life. The flesh is pale and bloated and looks as though fish may have been tugging flakes away for quite some time. But the features are unmistakable. This giant creature, this rotter from the depths… it’s me.

It moves more quickly than I thought it would, it’s arm shooting out and snatching Jason and Monica into a fist the size of a large boulder. The others scatter like cockroaches in the light, but I realize that my feet have turned to roots and burrowed down into the ground so tightly that I can’t move at all.

I watch as this monstrous, undead me pops the boy and his mother into its mouth as if they were nothing more than sunflower seeds. And then it’s scooping Josie and Watchmaker up, raising them toward its cavernous mouth and I want to scream, to throw stones, to do something, anything . But my chest and arms have petrified now as well and my grandfather steps in front of me and shakes his head sadly.

“That ain’t you, squirt. That ain’t you at all. You don’t have a hunger like that.”

Lightning flashes again, this time so bright that all I can see is an endless expanse of white with little blue bursts popping like flashbulbs. When the intensity of the light fades, I find myself in the back in the shack.

The pain in my side feels like it’s been bitten into again, as if the injuries are fresh and new. The wind howls and I feel the breeze cooling the sweat on my body as the door bangs back and forth against the wall. At some point it must’ve blown open, but I don’t remember this happening. I can see outside, though, and it’s as black as the heart of Satan, the trees whipping back and forth as if bowing in subservience to the might of the approaching storm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see him. Jason. Standing there and looking for all the world like he wishes he could rip my head off with his bare hands. But when I turn to look, the image fades and there’s only the same dusty walls I’ve come to know so well.

“I’m sorry.” I try to say, but the words that come from my mouth are undecipherable. I may have as well been speaking in code.

But it does turn my mind back to that day again. Back to that town. Back to that little church at the edge of the woods …

I looked around me, trying to take stock of anything I could use to save that kid’s life without sacrificing my own. But the pickings were rather slim: nothing more really than piles of rubble, broken glass, an electronics store, and a little shop of knick-knacks with a wooden sign proclaiming Timeless Treasures . For a moment I felt lost, like a toddler who slipped out of his mother’s hand and found himself in a strange, nightmare land. Which must have been how Jason was feeling.

I knew if I stayed out in the open that it was only a matter of time before one of those zombies at the church saw me. And since the street held nothing useful for me, I slipped into the electronics store, taking care that the little silver bell above the door didn’t jingle as I pushed it open.

For the most part, everything inside was still in order. Computers looked down from shelves at me, reflecting the gloom of the store in their dark monitors; a few adding machines were strewn across the floor and reams of paper had burst open, spilling white, rectangular sheets like abstract throw rugs. I saw a row of televisions and wondered if anyone was still broadcasting, if there was news of exactly how far this thing had spread. But, lacking the time for idle speculation, I eased my way past them and made my way to the back office.