Gregory Norris - Down with the Fallen - A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

But I guess that was not enough action for the Gidge. Nope. A week later, she reappeared from the snowy miasma, and I saw her this time. The seductive cadaver of hair plugs, selfishly crashing a rerun of Gilligan’s Island , to announce that a yellow marking meant cheaters . Cheaters on taxes? Cheaters on spouses? Kids who cheated at Monopoly? Who knew? Like I said, she wasn’t one for details. Let’s just say there were a lot of unhappy couples the next morning, and the IRS got an increase in its budget to take on some extra staff.

The deli I’m shopping is the only one still open that I know of in the once bustling retail strip off Vernon Ave. Most of the other local food places Beth and I used to haunt in Perth Amboy have had those chainmail doors in full lockdown for a while now. We never owned a car, and in some suburbs in Jersey, you don’t need to. I make the walk to Tommy’s twice a week. Don’t know what I’ll do if he ever closes. I go once it’s dark. Less people on the street after dark. The windows of the apartments above the shops I pass are lightless, or boarded up, perhaps to strategically indicate no one’s home. But I know better. There are living souls behind some of those dark windows, marked and unmarked. I am sure at least a few of those people saw my little Doyle On Ice show back there, or heard my extra manly “Whoa!” and were currently focusing some recently purchased binocs on my naked brow. Zoom in all you want, shadow people. My head’s clean. Though you might see some pretty interesting acne patterns from my processed food diet as of late.

Tommy’s red glass vintage lightbox sign is also off. The glass pane in the deli front door and the big picture windows to either side, replaced months ago with plywood, bear the age old proverb: This side up. As much as I want to grab the door handle and launch my body into that warm buttery yellow light, I don’t. I peer through a wood slat and count first. Two customers. One of them I know from my building. Wick Carmien, seventy-eight and teetering on his cane. Harmless. Jeez. Musta taken the dude an hour to get here. I’ll try to get my goods and roll fast. No freakin’ way I am walking him home. The other customer is a woman in her early thirties. Pretty. Hatless, too. Chestnut brown hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail so her whole forehead would be clearly exposed to the world. Welcome to the club, my sista. Tommy is at the front as usual, shotgun leaning on one shoulder, writing something on cans with a black sharpie. Out of labels I suppose.

Seems okay. Seems fine. I notice the glass doorknob is gone, though. Tommy’s got some sort of mechanical keyless entry contraption with a push down lever on it. Must have been some trouble. Looting, another sport in full revival these days. That magical moment when people decide that it’s okay to throw bricks through store windows, as long as they all do it together.

There’s a Twilight Zone episode (the title eludes me), where a whole bunch of people living in some suburban neighborhood, on a street called Maple, just start attacking each other. Throwing rocks. Breaking windows. Breaking skulls. And it’s all because houselights and car engines are going on and off for no reason and some kid says there must be aliens among them. I always thought it was a good episode, mostly because it had a cast of Zone regulars, so the acting is pretty good. It also stuck in my mind, even when I first saw it at 13, because the story was so far-fetched. Yeah, I know, the show was an endless parade of far-fetchedness; robots, gremlins, and little girls who fell out of bed and slipped into another dimension. I get it. But it seemed really impossible that within 20 minutes (plus commercials) a whole neighborhood of people could go from being mildly concerned that one car doesn’t start, to murdering each other out of fear.

The tipping point came for all of us Maple Street people of the world when the Gidgidoo appeared on the tube with her fourth unsolicited declaration. The third had been red. But the fourth, the fourth was a biggee. “Blue marks mean murderers.” Fini. So here is the thing about adding murderers to the party list, with no specific categories. We all just assumed she meant that a blue meant some Jack-the Ripper type, with pure evil in his heart. It never occurred to us in the first few days of blue it could include soldiers who fought in a war (hence my buddy, Lens), staff who worked in an abortion clinic, corporate execs whose authorized unsafe working conditions were followed by an accident, kids who forgot to feed their fish/rabbit/turtle, or even acts of justifiable self-defense. Well, and then let’s not forget all those self-righteous everyone’s who had just played a part in killing a purple or two over the previous few weeks. Don’t forget about them. Over a billion people woke up the next day and either found out they now knew a killer, or were one themselves.

That’s when Biya’s mark appeared. A pretty royal blue it was, kinda shaped like a moth. Beth called it a chicken nugget to lighten the mood, and then started drawing a blue mark on her own head each morning. Beth told Biya it was a contest—whoever could keep their mark on longest would win a shopping spree at the big toy store. Totally cool idea. What a mom, huh? Honestly, we had no idea why Biya got the mark in the first place. I guess she stepped on a bug at some point, who the hell knows? But by that time, I was keeping her inside anyway, and we had moved the TV to our bedroom, and it was mostly off, except at 8pm, once a week. Gidgidoo was damn punctual. Now, looking back, I think we should have let the TV stay on all the time just to block out all the screaming and gunfire we heard over the next week down on the street and once, even in our own building.

Now, drum roll please. You ready for this? You sure? Well, I was still working days at Wheelset during the blue phase. Yah. Factory was still open, and I was still working. Even when there was talk about mass exodus from cities at my job, I was still being an asshole. Every morning my terrified wife asked me not to go, and every morning I said something inane like: “Call me on my cell if you need to talk,” or “At some point it has to stop, honey, and we need the money.” And the award for worst husband on the planet goes to… I remember the last day I worked at the machine shop. Two guys on my wheel gang were out, and at the very least, it’s a three man job to assemble the axle with wheels, bearings and box. Union won’t even let you try to duo it. Too dangerous. Not that there were any union reps around to see. I was heading up to the second floor to track down Ted, my foreman, and ask what the hell I was supposed to work on for the day. Place was quiet. Like, wrong quiet. And instead of being scared, I clearly remember being completely pissed off about it. Passing through the truck shop to the stairs, I saw Eddie Eaton setting up a crane. Well, I heard him before I saw him.

“Motherfucker!” he politely addressed the bogie he was struggling to free from the lift. Again, another two-man job for which he easily would have been written up attempting alone. But Eddie E. was a Wheelset lifer, so if anyone gave him shit about it, he’d take pleasure in lobbing out that great old shop veteran standby , So, send me the F home then . Climbing the stairs, I’m looking around. Could it really be that it’s only me and Eddie?

Upstairs, I found Ted at his bench, pouring over census maps on Google, studying what must have been population density. Years ago for his birthday, the guys had a red and white metal street sign made for over his toolbox. It said: The foreman says: Don’t stick your finger where you wouldn’t stick your dick.