If you like your political allegories heavy-handed, ripped from the headlines, brutal and filled with Easter eggs, like a mix of Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling and Lovecraft Country, then you're gonna love Smart House.
What if the only person who could stop a zombie apocalypse was that nerdy I.T. guy who watches all the horror movies?
I'm a mediocre person with aspirations towards greatness. I'm above average, but average isn't that great. I could accomplish great things, but I won't. I could do great things, but I don't. I do good enough that people always tell me I do great things. But they've always been wrong.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday is when I saved the world.
You're welcome.
I've always been a smart guy. A clever guy. The problem is that nobody likes clever guys. Most people hate us. They think we're arrogant and smarmy and other words that are less friendly. And they've got a bit of a point. I was always arrogant. Not in an aggressive way, but in the way where I always knew the answer to the question. I always took charge when someone needed to take charge. I rarely made the big mistakes and when I did, I always knew exactly what to do to fix them and make things better.
People hate you for that kind of thing.
Part of it is jealousy. Part of it is feelings of inadequacy. Part of it is fear. Whatever it is, they always seem to be rubbed the wrong way by me. I never really developed too many close friends. And I was almost always a better friend to them than they were to me. Everyone else always had this casual ease with which they made friends and had fun and interacted with each other. I never had that.
I soon figured out that people didn't like me because I was too clever. That stung. But I wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it and I wasn't going to dumb myself down. So I just didn't make too many friends.
And sooner or later, every friend I had abandoned me. It was always something that they found surprisingly easy to do. I can't say as I didn't make it easy for them, since I was never the type to try to force someone to hang out with me who didn't want to. If they wanted to go, let them go. Good riddance.
So then it becomes easier not to make new friends. If they all abandon you in the end, anyway, why try. If they all become so easily offended, why offend them.
It's easy to offend people when you are clever. You make a comment they don't understand. You make a cultural reference they don't know. You point out that they have some basic fact wrong. You remember things a little better than they do. You know things they never knew.
And dating wasn't much easier. The same problem that existed with friends existed with lovers. Finding lovers was never too hard. Keeping lovers was never too hard. When you are clever out of bed, you are clever in bed. But connecting to those same lovers on a level out of bed that keeps them around once the sex loses its newness is much harder. It's where that cleverness loses its handiness.
And to be honest, who wants a lover or a friend who isn't clever, who doesn't have a thirst for knowledge and experience, who doesn't want to actually live life and not just survive it.
Certainly not me.
But all that time alone can give you the freedom to learn about all kinds of things. Including how to save the world.
Oh yeah, I was telling you about how I saved the world yesterday.
That's a funny story. Not funny like a joke, but funny like something that isn't funny at all.
But who gets to save the world? I mean, unless you wear tights and work for Stan Lee, it's not something that comes up a whole lot. Or ever.
And I only was able to save the world because I'm clever.
But, boy do I have a story for you. It'll be something you can write home about.
And nobody ever tells you a story you can write home about.
So how does one go about saving the world? It's not something you really have much coursework in. It's not something that there's an instruction manual for. Oh, sure, you can read a lot of books, watch a lot of movies, play a bunch of video games. But despite what the average geek will tell you, saving the real world is not something you can prepare for by leveling up and finding another health pack.
No, this is something you kinda have to figure out on the fly.
But I sense that you are wondering now what exactly it was I saved the world from. Good question, astute reader.
Well, what could one save the world from? Let's take a look at the options...
Maybe there was a giant asteroid that was going to hit the earth and I was the first to spot it with my little backyard telescope. I told someone about it and they sent up Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck and they blew it up and saved the day.
Nope, that wasn't it.
More realistically, maybe it was some new virus, that if it made the leap over from the monkey world to the human world, it would become a supervirus and it would wipe out the entire human population. And I discovered it and came up with a cure.
Only problem was that I never went to med school and have no idea how to spot a virus.
Alien invasion? I've read enough "Science of Star Wars" books to know how unlikely that is.
Nuclear war? What am I, some kind of diplomat?
The machines becoming sentient and taking over? I failed auto shop.
Vampires figuring out how to somehow, all of a sudden, survive in the daylight? What is this, some kind of Twilight bullcrap?
Superhurricanes? Nope, Al Gore hasn't taken us all out yet.
No, the reality of it all is that I stopped every fanboy's dream apocalypse -- I stopped the zombies from taking over.
Now before you get into all that crap about how zombies aren't real and there's no way they scientifically could come to life and exist, I already told you, I don't know anything about medical science. Just because I'm clever doesn't mean that I know everything. I always thought what you thought. I thought zombies were sci fi. I thought they were unrealistic. I thought we had more chance of being taken out by sharks with laser beams strapped to their heads than being taken out by the walking dead.
But I was wrong.
And so were you.
I can't explain it, so don't ask. I'm sure when I go on Oprah, she'll ask. I won't know. And I doubt the government will let anybody tell me or you or Oprah. But I'm already telling you my story, so they won't be able to stop it from getting out. It's already out. It's not like they started the whole thing, you know, so I don't know why they would want to stop it from getting out, but they always try to stop it from getting out, right? I mean, I guess we could go with the whole "they don't want the public to panic nonsense," right? But are you buying that? I'm not. They thrive off the public panicking. That's how they get elected and stay in power, right?
The reality, of course, is that the "invisible hand" of the free market is what led to zombies and what led to all of us almost being taken out by them. If it weren't for me, that is.
Again, you're welcome. It was the least I could do.
I can tell you this much, the zombie "ground zero" was at a lab in rural Kansas that was testing some corn-related stuff for a certain mega-corporation whose name I can't say for "legal" reasons, but we'll just say it rhymes with "Blonsanto." I think their goal was that by 2050, everything in America would be made from genetically-modified corn. Corn-based sugar. Corn-based plastic. Corn-based gas. Corn-based alcohol. Corn-based cell phones. Corn-based wheat. You name it, they were working on a corn version. Or Corn Version 2.0.
So, I don't know how they did it, but they somehow came up with ethanol zombies. At least that's what we called them.
How do I know? Well, I worked for "Blonsanto," of course. I managed the network for their labs and plants and offices in Kansas. Good money, too. Particularly since I didn't have a degree. But it's still early enough in the game that if you can do the work, you don't need a degree. Give it ten years or so and you'll need a degree to change passwords for dorks who work in the secretarial pool.
Anyway, I work mainly out of their Lawrence office, but I have to drive around to various offices and labs and factories and such around the state when there are networking problems or the lab geeks can't figure out how to back up their data on the mainframe. Seriously, in 2011? Still?
So I was on a call to this little lab in some rural area. I'd tell you where it was, but then I'd have to kill you. And let me say, I've had a lot of practice killing people of late, so don't test me on that one.
I arrived at the place to do my service call. It's a small lab, so usually less than ten people worked there. I knew the secretary at the front desk. She's hot. Beautiful blonde hair. Way out of my league. I like to flirt with her, and, to her credit, she always flirted back. But I knew it doesn't mean anything. She's not the type that's into nerdy guys. Very glamorous type. Lots of make-up. The kind of girl you'd see in a night club and never ask to dance. Her name is Shelly.
Shelly was there when I got there. She's always there. Never misses a day. I probably didn't have to make the service call since I think I could've walked the staff through the fix over the phone, but, you know, Shelly's there, so I told my boss it's a road trip I have to make. He doesn't question it. He could care less. I.T. is not his thing.
I did the usually chit chat with Shelly. I asked her about some local bar that I once went to. She said she goes there all the time. I said I do, too. She said she never sees me there. I said I see her there all the time. Then I realized how creepy that sounded and quickly asked her about the problem with the mainframe.
If she noticed my creepiness, she didn't say anything. That was very nice of her. She could very easily have reported me for sexual harassment or something and I would have had no defense. I was relieved that she was either very, very nice or she was a complete moron and didn't understand in the first place. Either way, I was okay with it at the moment, as I envisioned trying to comply with the state's extensive unemployment compensation paperwork.
Funny thing was that she had absolutely no idea what was going on behind her in the restricted areas behind her desk. It was early enough in the day that I'm guessing she hadn't even gone back behind the protected doors at that point. Right next to her desk was one door, with a glass window in the middle, which could only be accessed if you had a key card. I didn't have one, but she did. Next to the door was the "break glass in case of emergency" box with the fire axe in it. Beyond that and her desk, there was nothing in the front room except a couple of uncomfortable chairs. The first time I flirted with Shelly was because I remembered those chairs from the previous visit and had no interest in sitting on them.
Shelly buzzed me back. I kind of wish she hadn't, but if I think about it, if she hadn't, we'd all probably be dead right now. I'm sure that Dr. Dole or Dr. Wyden would've come up to the glass window in the door at some point -- completely infected -- and she would've let them out. Then she would've gotten infected. And then they would've gone out into the cool Kansas afternoon and started an apocalypse.
Luckily for the world, Shelly buzzed me back.
Luckily for Shelly, I remembered there was an axe in the fire safety box next to the door she sat beside.
Luckily for the employees of "Blonsanto's" secret lab in "If I Tell You I Have to Kill You," Kansas, only three scientists were working that day. The aforementioned doctors Dole and Wyden were there. Also on hand was some kind of technician whose name was Woodring or something like that. In addition to Shelly, those were the only employees on hand that day at the lab.
I guess you'd probably have to count their test subjects in the count of people on hand. There were a man and a woman whose names I'll probably never know that were also in the lab that day. Sort of. It's hard to say whether or not you should count people who were dead when they came to the lab as being part of the body count or not. This was my first time staving off a zombie apocalypse, so I'm a little sketchy on the statistical analysis of such things.
Now I knew that this particular lab was designated solely as a lab for testing corn-based fuel for cars and such. Most of the labs they had in the state were single-subject. Or so I thought at that point. It turns out that this lab certainly had a bit more going on that what was revealed to the average employee, much less to the public.
Later, I looked up the doctors who worked there online and it turned out that Dr. Wyden was a medical doctor and he apparently was from some strange unaccredited school that no one I've ever met has ever heard of. He certainly wasn't qualified to work on ethanol or any kind of fuel, which makes sense considering the other project it turned out this lab was working on.
I should've known something was wrong when I walked through the doors and nobody was there to greet me. One of the doctors was always there to greet me before then. They usually quickly escorted me directly to the workstation and watched over me like a hawk. They never let me wander around or use the restroom or anything. It's get in, get the job done and get out. They were never rude, but you could tell I was an unwelcome intrusion.
But no one showed up to escort me.
That should've been enough. But it wasn't.
I'd been there enough times that I knew where the workstation was. I knew what they wanted me to do and I knew they didn't like me to wander or to stay very long. So I made my way down the hall to the only room I had been in except for the one where Shelly sits. Or sat. She doesn't work there anymore.
As I walked back, I realized that I was going to have some trouble if someone didn't show up soon. The room I worked in was always locked. All of the rooms in this place were always locked. And without a key card, I wasn't going to get in. I was just thinking about that when I saw that the door was open. Something was propping it open. As I looked, I realized it was a shoe. A black and white Chuck Taylor. And it was attached to a foot. A human foot. That was still on a body.
Times like that are when you really find out who a person is. A less clever person would've panicked and probably would've caused the destruction of the world. I didn't know I was saving the world at that moment, but that's what I was doing. Rather than running out of the place, I went to check on the Chuck Taylor. And the foot.
I worked my way around the body and through the door so I could get near the head. And it was clear that this guy was dead. Blood was everywhere. His blood. It was all coming from a wound on his neck. A fresh wound. The blood was still wet and hadn't even begun to congeal. I was able to figure out pretty quick that it was Dr. Wyden. Or it had been Dr. Wyden.
I looked around the room. I saw the workstation that I wasn't meant to get to that day. I saw a bookshelf loaded with books that only a few people on the planet have ever read. I saw a few extra chairs gathered around the workstation, as if people were gathered around to look at something on the screen. I saw coffee cups with steam still coming out of them. I saw a fire extinguisher against the back wall. I saw a poster with a "hang in there" kitten on it.
Then I heard the gurgling sound. The gurgling sound that still wakes me up in the middle of the night from time to time. At first I couldn't tell what it was. After Dr. Wyden stood up, I realized it was the sound of blood coming up through his esophagus. Blood that was dripping down his face and onto the floor. As he looked at me.
This is the part where the clever guy with lots of free time realizes that he's facing a zombie.
I had to quickly figure out what kind of zombie it was. The different kinds of zombies all have different tactics with which one has to use on them. I did a quick hop, skip and a leap to the opposite side of the room, testing his reflexes and speed. He couldn't keep up with how fast I moved. His head slowly turned as I went, arriving at my new location long after I did.
Okay, so that meant he wasn't a Danny Boyle-type zombie. That was good. I'm not that fast.
The next determination I had to make was if he was a Night of the Living Dead-style zombie or a Return of the Living Dead-style zombie. If he was a Return zombie, there was little I'd be able to do about it in such a confined space. I'd be trapped in the room with no way to get past him. And judging by the bite on his neck, he had friends. There was a good chance they'd be here soon, once the commotion began.
I had previously planned my hop, skip and jump to deposit me right next to the fire extinguisher, the only item in the room that could be wielded as a weapon. I grabbed it as Dr. Wyden began slowly coming my direction.
This was the first moment of truth. Could I kill someone? Well, not someone, but something. Could I kill a zombie?
And I don't mean that in a "do I have the guts to do it" or a "will my normal pacifism stop me from hurting someone" type of manner, I meant it in an "am I strong enough" kind of way. I raised the extinguisher over my head and brought it down with all my strength on his head. Has to be a head shot, right?
The first thing I noticed was that it hurt like hell. Not him. Me. The jarring of the extinguisher hitting his hard skull shook me all the way to the elbow. It hurt horribly and I almost dropped the extinguisher.
The second thing I noticed was his skull giving in under the blow.
The third thing I noticed was the squishy sound all his parts made after they initially crunched together.
The fourth thing I noticed was him falling to the floor, apparently dead once again.
I hit him in the head again. Double tap.
Time to go. After he stood up, the door had closed behind him and locked itself. No problem, I grabbed his key card, swiped it and pulled the door towards me.
And that's when Dr. Dole grabbed my shoulder. Well, what was left of Dr. Dole's hand grabbed my shoulder. It appeared, when I looked at the hand later that his zombification was based on a bite to the hand. A bite that took off two fingers and about half his palm.
Of course when Dr. Dole grabbed me, I dropped the fire extinguisher and it skidded down the hall past Dr. Dole and the technician, Woodring, who had also joined the festivities.
So I was unarmed and alone in the hallway with two zombies, one of whom was holding on to my shirt at the shoulder.
Don't panic. Best. Advice. Ever.
I figured pretty quickly that I was strong enough to break the grasp of old-Three Finger Brown there, so I did and ran back towards the entrance. Luckily for me, I now had a key card.
A key card I had also dropped when Dr. Dole grabbed me.
I scanned around for it and saw that it was now beyond him down the hall. No way I was getting it now. He was coming in my direction, slowly followed by Woodring.
I was starting to panic a little bit at that point, but I did the only thing I could. I ran to the end of the hall and started banging on the glass window in the door like my life depended on it. Which it did.
Unluckily, Shelly wasn't at her desk. Also unluckily, the hall was a pretty short one.
I banged harder and started yelling. I looked back and realized that if Shelly wasn't back in less than a minute, I would be engaged in fisticuffs with the undead. Great band name; horrible situation to be in.
Luckily, although barely, Shelly had been outside having a smoke and she was done. She came back through the door and saw my panicked face and heard me banging and screaming. It actually worked and she actually quickly came over and swiped her card to let me out.
It didn't work.
She looked at the card and then facepalmed herself. She had the card backwards in the excitement. I banged on the glass harder and yelled for her to hurry. She complied, but she was asking me what was happening. It was a good thing they hadn't informed her about what kinds of things that were going on in the back of the lab and an even better thing that this lab didn't have higher security measures than it did. If it did, I'd be dead. And so would you.
The door opened just in time. Dr. Dole was about to grab me as I pushed the door back hard enough that Shelly was knocked down.
I turned to shut the door behind me, but I wasn't quick enough. I slammed it hard towards the door frame, but it didn't shut the way it was supposed to. It hit Dr. Dole's head hard enough to make a loud thunk. It didn't hit him hard enough to kill him, though, and it didn't hit him hard enough to knock him back.
I tried pushing the door harder, but it was no use. There was no way I was getting that door shut with Dr. Dole still coming after me. I just wasn't strong enough. I called for Shelly to help me, but her slight frame didn't bring much to the door-pushing, Dr. Dole-crushing party.
That's when I had to make a decision. That's when I had to be really clever.
So I was.
Like I said, I'd been to this place a number of times and I remembered the one tool left in this office that would help me save the world. The fire emergency box with the axe in it. What better weapon to take out zombies than an axe? If I had let go of the door, though, then Dr. Dole would've gotten through and taken me out. And Woodring was almost to the door as well and I doubt I could've held them both off. So I needed Shelly's help.
I told her this definitely was an emergency and that I needed her to break the glass and get me the axe. Luckily for the rest of the state of Kansas, Shelly was way smarter and more together than I ever gave her credit for. She quickly and calmly went to the emergency box, busted the glass with that little metal thing on the chain and carefully took the axe out and brought it to me. I told her to get out of the building and lock the door behind her. She started to head in that direction.
I told her she needed run and get away if things didn't go well. My plan, which I hatched in mere moments, was to let go of the door and take out Dr. Dole the second I did, that way Woodring would be blocked long enough, I hoped, for me to pull the axe out of Dr. Dole and be ready to take Woodring out before he could get to me. I had to be quick or they'd take me out. I had to be strong or it wouldn't be enough. I had to be perfect.
And that's exactly how that shit went down.
I let go of the door, drew the axe above my head and split Dr. Dole's skull like a Ginsu knife cuts a soda can. The fact that I split it so wide made it easy to pull the axe back out. I hit his head hard enough that if I were at the carnival using that hammer to hit the strong man game, I would've rung the bell and won a stuffed animal. That meant that I had enough time to be ready for Woodring, who moved towards me mindlessly. I lined the axe up like Alex Rodriguez and swung for the fences. Woodring's head rolled down the hallway like a bowling ball about to pick up a 7-10 split.
I quickly pulled the bodies out of the doorway and shut the door. I took a few moments and relieved Dr. Dole of his head as well. I've always been a "better safe than sorry" kind of guy.
Next I went over to Shelly and asked her if anyone else was in the building and she said that Dr. Wyden was the only other person that came in today. I told her that was good news and that we were in the clear because Dr. Wyden was already taken care of.
Then I remembered the bite marks. Dr. Dole and his missing fingers and Dr. Wyden and his missing esophagus. Someone or something had bitten them. That's how they became zombies. They didn't bite each other and although I never saw a bite on Woodring, I guessed -- correctly it turned out -- that he wasn't patient zero, either.
I asked Shelly to unlock the door and give me her swipe card. She did. I told her to lock me in again and go call the cops. She didn't understand so I told her I thought there was at least one more zombie in the back and I was going to take care of it before it escaped and did any more damage. She looked skeptical and then walked off dialing a number on her cell phone.
I wanted to see what I was dealing with, so after I swiped the card and opened the door, I yelled out down the hallway to see if anybody was home. I yelled out three times, each time louder than the previous. After the second yell, I thought I heard something and after the third it was obvious I had. At the end of the hall, past the room where I first found Dr. Wyden, a really crusty zombie in a hospital gown slowly came out of a doorway and headed my direction. This guy was pretty intact and had no visible bite marks, so I was guessing he was patient Zero. I decided then and there this guy's name was Zed and I proceeded to use my axe to make sure that Zed was dead.
After decapitating my third zombie of the day, I called out again to make sure Zed was the last. I heard a moaning coming from the same room Zed exited. I got the axe ready and waited for the next confrontation.
And nothing happened.
I heard the moaning again, but no other sounds came from the room. At a minimum, I expected to hear a foot dragging or the sounds that zombies make when they exit lab rooms in rural corporate zombietoriums.
Nothing.
So I walked on down the hall. And I came to the door. I went inside and saw what turned out to be the last zombie. Or at least half of the last zombie.
Whatever this thing used to be, I couldn't really tell anymore, although it appeared to have once been female. It was laying on a metal table and it had no legs or lower body. What was left of its upper body was made of what appeared to be rotting meat. I don't know to this day if she was something they found in the wild -- she certainly looked like she could be -- or if Dr. Wyden and Dr. Dole had been doing some Dr. Herbert West-style experimentation on this poor sucker.
Either way I didn't want to hear any more of the moaning, so I engaged in the next-to-last decapitation I ever hope to participate in. I quickly went back and made sure that Dr. Wyden would sneak up on me in the final scene by removing his dead, crushed zombie face from his dead uncrushed zombie body.
I went around the building and checked every room I could for anything else, but there was nothing. The bastards must have kept all their ethanol zombie experiments confined to the one room. They were all gone and I was ready to get the heck out of Dodge. And that's what I did.
The police came and the media came and I asked Shelly out and we went out and got married and had three babies and lived happily ever after. Well, the police and the media came, but I haven't really seen Shelly since.
So, that's the story of how I saved the world. By being clever.
So now I'm still clever, but I'm famous as that guy who saved the world.
I guess this clever thing is working out for me after all.
Nobody should be out on a night like tonight. Nobody.
There's no moon and no stars. But it doesn't really matter. Even if there were, you couldn't see them. The fog is so thick that you'd have to have x-ray vision in order to see anything.
If I didn't know this mile-long stretch of road like the back of my hand, I wouldn't be out either. But you have to get home sometimes. Like when you have to get up at seven a.m. for work.
You can say that maybe I shouldn't have gone out tonight, what with the heavy fog. Or you could say that I shouldn't have walked. But how often foes FSU play on Thursday night? And should I really be attempting to drive a car on a foggy night after the beers I drank? I lost count around my seventh or eighth beer. I mean, when the game was that tight and we end up losing at the end, who still counts their beers?
So I'm being responsible. I didn't need to drive a mile on a night when its incredibly foggy, I've been drinking, Coach's is only a mile from my house and I know the way, even in my sleep. No, walking is the right choice. The visibility on the road is bad enough for a sober person, much less someone a little on the tipsy side.
That's why I ain't seen a single person on the road. Haven't heard a single engine or seen a single headlight. At least not since I turned off Main Street onto Route 19. But that ain't surprising a bit. There aren't any businesses on the Route between Main Street and my house and they're only a few houses. Nice respectable people who were in bed a long time ago, football game or no.
The only thing along this stretch of road of any interest -- except the dirt road to Carol Jones's old house. Well, her parents still lived there and she was named Carol Parker now and lived off in Tallahassee or something like that. Ironic, huh? Man I used to have a huge crush on her. I can't tell you how many drunken nights I walked by her house. Nothing on this stretch of road of any interest except Carol's old house and the edge of the Goethe State Forest. Man, they're ain't a place on earth I spent more time drinking than in the forest. I couldn't count the number of beer cans me and the boys lost out in them woods.
Walking on the edge of the forest thinking about having one of them beers was when I heard the engine. I turned and looked south, the only other way the road went, but I couldn't see nothing yet. It was only a few minutes before I could see the headlights -- certainly this guy had his brights on, otherwise how could I seem them in this fog.
Not surprisingly, he was swerving. He was probably drunk and he was certainly driving too fast for this road with this visibility. Hell, this was the most dangerous highway in America on regular occasions, much less nights like tonight. So I was wary.
I figured the best thing to do was to get far enough off the road to get out of his way. I figured I was safe anyway, but why mess with it? I stumbled a little bit since I could see the incline in the shoulder, but I made it pretty close to the tree line and continued looking south. I figured he'd stay on the road just fine -- drunk drivers tend to know what they're doing I always say. If you're drunk and you think you can drive on a night like this, you either can or your dead in the first few minutes. But my momma didn't raise me to be no fool, so I got out of his way and was going to watch him until he was safely past me.
Which was only about a minute later, since he was going so fast. He continued to swerve as he came at me, but, hell, whose to say he was even drunk? He could've been swerving just because of the thickness of the fog and the fact that the road was starting to turn west. Sober people have missed that turn before. More likely than not, if he didn't know where he was going, he'd miss the curve highway and veer off on my fork in the road.
But he made it. I watched him veer off to the northwest and after he was safely past me, I turned to continue northward towards my house. That's when I saw it.
About three feet away from me was the ugliest thing I had ever seen, except for maybe Carol Jones's momma -- how a girl that pretty could come from a woman that ugly was beyond me. At first I thought it might be a dog, but it was too big. It could've been a bear, but no, this wasn't a bear. Not by a long shot. This was something that came out of the forest. Something that didn't belong there or here or anywhere.
It had no eyes that I could see. It had an almost greenish skin that kinda glowed like those fish that you see that live at the bottom of the ocean on the nature channel. The kind that have never seen light until some geek in a submarine or something shines on it for the first time. This thing looked like one of them. And its skin must've kept some of the light from the car, since it was brightly lit when I first saw it, but it started to fade. Sort of like one of those glow-in-the-dark toys kids have. The kind where you bring it in a brightly-lit bathroom and then you turn off the light and it holds the light for a while before going black. That's what was happening here.
The thing that stood out about this thing, though, was the teeth. And it wasn't three feet away anymore, either. I hadn't seen it move, but it was certainly closer. Beneath where the eyes should've been and weren't was the biggest mouth area I think I've ever seen. The teeth were way too big for the mouth. They were so big that it couldn't possibly shut its mouth. The teeth were each at least a foot long -- top and bottom. The damn thing's mouth was two feet across! And the teeth were sharp, pointed and gnarled. And a ooze just kind of dripped off of them, running down it's non-chin and falling into a glowing green puddle in the dirt. And I’m certain that it was closer now. No more than two feet. And I still never saw it move.
I only saw it move once. When it leapt at me. I put up my arm to shield myself from those awful teeth, but that did nothing more than make sure that it bit my arm first. The teeth clamped into my arm right below my shoulder on both the top and bottom. I don't care what women say, some things are more painful than childbirth. Like when razor-sharp demon-teeth slice right through your skin and muscle and bone and rip your arm right off. I may have heard it growl or snarl or something like that, but I was starting to lose track of what was happening at that point.
I turned to run, but before I took two steps, I heard some kind of whistling sound and something knocked me right off my feet. I don't know if it were a tail or leg or arm or whatever, but the thing swept me off my feet -- and not in the good way -- making me crash to the ground. I'm pretty sure my nose broke when I landed, but I was kind've unsure since pain no longer had any definition at this point. That's when it ripped off my right leg below mid-calf. I'm sure I heard smacking sounds as it had a midnight snack.
I guess it had finished its appetizer at that point and was ready for the main course. There was an audible thud as it plopped down behind me. I tried to crawl away, but you'd be amazed and how tough it is to crawl with one arm and one leg missing. All of a sudden, it had grabbed ahold of my remaining leg and I jerked back.
It didn't rip this one off, though, although, it certainly began to swallow it. The teeth weren't being used anymore to tear me apart, they were being used to pull me bit by bit into the creature's mouth. I felt it on my knee, my thigh, my crotch. By then, it was using its claws to pull me into its mouth. Who knew it had claws? It certainly didn't need them, the teeth were more than enough, something I realized a bit more with they sunk into my waist and I felt the top ones touch the bottom ones somewhere in the middle of my stomach.
Needless to say, I didn't make it into work the next morning.
And then one day, everyone was gone.
I woke up and I was alone. I looked and I looked around, but I couldn't find anyone. I thought that was strange.
At first I thought it was the terrorists. I figured they finally got us. But that didn't make any sense. How could they get everyone else, but not get me?
Then I thought it was the Rapture. I knew I wasn't going to Heaven, but maybe most other people were. That didn't make any sense, either. Most of the people I knew weren't going to Heaven, either, and all of them were gone, too.
I thought it might be some kind of disease. Maybe it was that bird flu I've always heard so much about. Or maybe SARS. Or that disease that killed all those people in that Stephen King novel. But if that were the case, how come there weren't any bodies? And how come the hospitals weren't flooded?
Maybe it was one of those George Romero-kind of things. But where were the living dead? And why weren’t there a bunch of people hanging out at the mall?
Another thing that occurred to me was the idea that I was dreaming. Or in a coma. Or in some kind of government mind-control facility or something like that. I couldn't rule one of those out, except for the dream thing. I knew I wasn't dreaming, because I never woke up. If I were asleep and didn't wake up, then I would be in a coma. If I were in a coma or some kind of Matrix-style mind control thing, I never figured it out. At least not before I died.
* * *
There isn't really much to tell. I actually lasted only about four hours in the brave new world.
I woke up and tooled around the house for a few hours listening to music, eating, shitting, shaving, showering and getting ready.
I was only on the road for about two minutes before I figured out that something was going on. I noticed not one single car on the road, not one pedestrian on the sidewalk and not one animal in the sky or in the grass.
What else was I going to do? I went to work.
Nobody was there. Or so I thought.
I checked Mary's desk, but she wasn't there, obviously. I stopped by to see Steve and Jimmie. Ditto. Then I went by Wilson's office. That's saying something. I hate Wilson. I wouldn't stop by his office if it were the end of the world. Well, maybe in that situation, since that's what happened. But no other time. It really would have to be the end of the world for me to stop by Wilson's office. I did it. He wasn't there, either.
What the heck, I figured, I might as well go down and check in on the maintenance people. If they weren't there, I figured I might as well take the day off. If they weren't there, that meant that nobody was there. They never got the day off. Hell, I think they were forced to work on Christmas. So I figured I'd go see if anyone was home. That was the last bad idea I'd ever have.
* * *
The elevator worked fine. I don't know why I thought it wouldn't work. Everything else had worked that day. The elevator did, too.
I got off and walked into the subbasement. This was a place I had never ventured before. Hell, I'm a mid-level executive with a Fortune 500 company, what would I be doing hanging out with the maintenance people?
I looked around and didn't see much. I went into the break room, the supervisor's office, the bathroom. Nothing.
The last stop was the warehouse. When I opened the door, I almost immediately heard something crash to the ground. Sort of like a lead pipe falling to the concrete floor or something like that.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
The minute I said it, I felt like an idiot. It was such a cliché thing to say. The exact same thing every victim said in every horror movie.
I did what you might expect. Like all those horror movie victims, I walked cautiously toward the sound. I should've run the other way and got the heck out of there. Since I've been dead, I learned that I would've been right to run away. I'd have still been alive. At least for a little while longer.
Truthfully, I was never really someone who was good in a crisis. I might've made it out of the office building, but I'm sure one of the other things out there would've gotten me sooner or later. I usually freeze like a deer in headlights.
That's pretty much what I did when the thing came at me. I might've screamed. I don't really remember. You'd think that when you were dead, you'd get to remember everything you forgot in life, but it doesn't work that way. If you forgot it, you forgot it. Maybe if I were in Heaven. But it doesn't really seem like they were telling us the truth on that one, either.
So, I rounded the corner to the aisle where I heard the noise. The row was filled with boxes and boxes of pipes and plastic pipes and connectors and the like. I guess this is where they got stuff any time the plumbing had problems anywhere in the building.
The problem was that the thing waiting in the pipe aisle had heard me right before I had heard it. It was slow, but it had the complete drop on me. I was surprised and I froze.
Right after I turned the corner, it was standing right there. I don't know how to describe it. It looked sort of like one of those things from one of the Romero movies, but the make-up was much better. Maybe it was more like something from 28 Days Later or Resident Evil. Either way, it was ugly, bloody and it stuck to high hell.
Then it grabbed me. That's when I knew this wasn't something from a movie and I knew I wasn't asleep. The second it touched me, my skin began to burn. Not like acid, either, this burn was like I was on fire. At the same time, it was like the coldest thing I'd ever felt.
One thing that was like the movies was that the next thing it did was bite me. And it didn't just latch on, it bit me and held tight. And then it ripped the muscle in my left shoulder right off of my body.
Really, you think you know the meaning of pain. You've sprained your ankle. You've broken your arm. You've had kidney stones. You've had something you got from some girl at a Portland convention that made your piss burn. But you've never known anything like the combination of your skin burning and a muscle being ripped from your body. I don't know what you would've done, but I pissed myself. At least that didn't burn.
Everything else burned. The thing let go of my arms, where it grabbed me at first, and grabbed me by the head. Then it bit my nose off. I’m pretty sure I screamed again.
Tears rolled down my face and I shit myself. I'd feel embarrassed about it, but who really gives a fuck how you look when you are being eaten alive. The good news was that when it came back to take a bite out of the side of my head that ripped off most of my right cheek and ear, I passed out.
I never woke up after that, but I continued to feel pain for a while. Then I died.
* * *
You'd think that my story would be over at this point, since the thing won and I'm no longer part of your world. You'd be wrong.
I'm dead, but I'm not really gone.
I don’t know how to explain it, but I know why I haven't moved on. My job now is to warn others. I haven't figured it out yet, but at some point, I will. I did not die in vain, and I will do whatever I can to make sure that others don't follow in my footsteps.
Let me tell you about the time my brother died.
My name is Stephen Lucas. My parents died when I was 17. That's a story for a different day. Since then, I have been raising my younger siblings George and Carrie. This story took place about six years ago. George was 4 and Carrie was 6. I was 22.
We were living in Tallahassee, Florida, where we grew up. We don't live there anymore. We left after Carrie started seeing things.
It started that summer. I used to take George and Carrie to this public pool on John Knox road. They had a kids area and a big pool for the older kids. We used to go all the time. One time, I noticed that Carrie was sitting over by the side of the kids area. It looked like she was talking to the lifeguard, sitting up in his chair. But the lifeguard wasn't taking any notice of her. He didn't look at her. He wasn't talking to her.
So I thought maybe she was nagging him. I walked over and took her hand. We went over to the other side of the shallow pool. I asked her what she was doing.
"Talking."
Duh. I knew that. I asked her what she was talking about.
"Nothing."
Right. I asked her why she was nagging that lifeguard.
"Gross! I wasn't talkin' to him."
That one puzzled me. There wasn't anybody else over there. And she had been looking up when she was talking. I wondered if our parents' death was finally getting to her. I asked her who she was talking to.
"A boy."
After she said it, she got this scared look on her face. I looked over by the lifeguard stand and there weren't any boys anywhere near the place. I asked her what boy.
"Nobody. I'm not supposed to say."
I said that she damned sure was supposed to say when she was talking to me.
"He told me I'd get in trouble if I told anyone."
I said that she was going to get in trouble if she didn't told me. I asked her if that lifeguard had been saying things. Had he been saying things that he shouldn't be saying?
"No! I told you it wasn't him."
Then who was it, I said, there's nobody else over there.
"Yes there is, he's next to the lifeguard."
I look over at the lifeguard stand. No one was there. I looked back at Carrie. She was as scared as I'd ever seen her.
Just then, I felt a light breeze hit me in the back. That was strange, I thought, since behind me was a building. Not a place for a breeze to come from. Then there was a ripple in the water. Next thing I knew Carrie lifted up out of the water about three feet and flew halfway across the kid's area. She splashed down again in the foot deep water with a scream.
"Hey, you can't throw kids like that in this area. Someone's gonna get hurt." The lifeguards and a number of parents were staring at me. They must've thought I was Ted Bundy or something the way they looked at me.
I ran over to check on Carrie. She was okay. She said her butt hurt from where she landed. She said she wanted to leave. The way the parents and lifeguards were still looking at me, I thought she had a good idea. I grabbed George and Carrie and we got out of there.
Later that night, I gave Carrie a bath. That's when I noticed the marks. They were on both of her arms, about midway between the shoulder and the elbow. They looked like someone had grabbed ahold of her real hard. Both arms had finger marks. They were bruises. It was like someone had picked her up and thrown her. We never back to that pool.
But things didn't get better. A few weeks later, Carrie saw the boy in the bathtub. We were out of there that day. We never went back to that house. But she saw the boy at the motel room we were staying at, too. George didn't know why, but I quit my job that day and we left Tallahassee. We never went back.
Moving around didn't help a whole lot. Every time Carrie saw the boy again, we moved again. I went wherever I could find work. Perry. Twoegg. Brooksville. Yeehaw Junction.
After about a year of moving around, it happened. By this time, we had left Florida. We were living in Macon, Georgia. All this time, Carrie never said anything about the boy other than to let me know, "It's happening again." That's all she said. I think she was afraid. I sure was. If I asked any more about it, he might get mad again. She didn't say anything. I didn't ask. Nothing dangerous ever happened. We sure were scared a lot, though.
When we were in Georgia for a while, we thought everything was okay. We talked about it a little bit. The boy was always in the water. He talked a little bit. Most of the time he was quiet. He used to tell Carrie stories. They were all stories about dead children. Carrie was scared. When she started talking to me about it, I was scared.
I went to the library and tried to do some reading on ghosts. Most of the books weren't real helpful. There wasn't much about ghosts that followed people. I felt kind of stupid for reading about ghosts. I wasn't a kid. But I had seen what had happened. And I had heard what Carrie told me. It's hard to fake that kind of scared.
I also did some searching on the Internet. There wasn't a whole lot of help there, either. Best I could come up with was a demon. Ghosts weren't supposed to do the things this thing was doing. But demons sometimes did. And demons could be associated with water. So I figured it must have been a water-demon. There were all kinds of stories about water-demons. But most of them didn't follow people around. I thought maybe that meant that the thing wouldn't follow us this far. Yeah, I know all that stuff sounds crazy. I didn't really believe it, either. Not really.
When I got back from the library, I was feeding Carrie and George. Carrie told me that George had been asking why we moved so much. I told her I hope you didn't tell him.
"Why not"?
I said it was probably nothing. But George was young and didn't need to be hearing about such things.
"Sorry."
I asked her why she was sorry.
"I told him."
I was angry at her. I wished she hadn't done that. I looked at George. He was scared. He started to cry because I was yelling. He ran out of the room. I followed him. He kept running from me, though. He ran past the living room. He almost knocked over the fish tank running away from me so fast. He ran past the bathroom without out stopping. He did look in the bathroom, though. He ran into the kitchen. I had some water boiling there for macaroni and cheese. He screamed.
Carrie was already there. She was screaming. I finally got into the room. Directly across from the boiling pot, George was lying against the front of the dishwasher. A thin trickle of blood was falling from the edge of George's mouth. Carrie grabbed my hand.
"He's here!"
I asked her if she meant the boy.
"Yes! He's in the boiling water! He keeps saying the same thing!"
I asked her what the boy was saying.
"He keeps saying 'Kill the boy! Kill the boy! Kill the boy!'"
I grabbed Carrie. We got the hell out of there. We never went back. Not even to get our stuff. Or even to see George again.
I did see myself again. In the newspaper. And on TV. I was wanted for questioning. I didn't have any answers. And I had more important things to run from.
We've been on the run ever since. I'm wanted by the police. And that boy. No matter where we go, he shows up. He's always in the water. You'd be amazed how hard it is to get away from the water in this country. Oh well, best we can do is keep running. It always takes him a while to catch up. He always does, though.
Since George died, we've lived in 13 different states. None of them for very long. Every time the boy catches up, we move on. Every once in a while, I hear about some dead kid. I wonder if the boy did it. I wonder if there is anything I can do about it. I find whatever work I can. Carrie's starting to get older. Before long, she'll be working, too. Then we'll be a little better off. For a while.
Charlie Walters read the ad:
Can You Put Stuff Together?
Installers, Inc.
We Pay Hourly Rates
Our Customers Pay Us To Put Things Together For Them
Call: Phil and Jenny
555-8407
It sounded a little strange, but, hell, he needed the money. Charlie dialed the number.
“Hello, Installers, Inc. How may I help you?” A pleasant-sounding woman answered the phone.
“Uh . . . yeah. I’m calling about your ad in the paper. About putting stuff together.”
“Great. Let me put you on hold.”
Charlie heard the phone clunk down on a table. The woman yelled “Phil!!!! We got a live one!”
A few seconds later a gruff-sounding man came on the line. Charlie thought he sort of sounded like Walter Cronkite.
“Can you put stuff together?”
“I’m . . . sorry?” Charlie stammered.
“I said, can you put stuff together. That’s what we do. We put stuff together. I ran the ad so that I could get more people who put stuff together. That’s how I make money. Now, can you put stuff together?”
“Uhhhh . . . sure.”
“Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that. What you need to do is get your ass on down here and go through what you call your interview process. If you can handle that, maybe we got some work for ya.”
“Okay. Where do I go?”
“I thought you’d never ask. Get on down to 4125 Grantwood Street.”
The line went dead.
“I don’t know about this,” Charlie said to himself. “This guy sounds like a real prick. I guess it’s work, though.” He hung up the phone and walked out the door.
* * *
Thirty minutes, Charlie pulled onto Grantwood Street, driving slowly so as not to miss the street addresses.
“Let me see . . .” He looked down at a crumpled sheet of paper on the seat beside him. “I’m looking for 4125. And this is . . . 4005. Just a little further.” Charlie slowed even more. He sat with his left arm hanging out the window, fiddling with the cracked mirror. Charlie was sweating in the heat. His air conditioner didn’t work.
“Now that’s odd. It goes from 4123 to 4127. Where the hell is 4125. And who the hell has a business in the middle of a residential area. I don’t know about this.”
He circled back around. This time he noticed a narrow dirt road between 4123 and 4127.
“Now where the hell was that the first time I drove by?” He turned onto the dirt road. “I guess this must be the place.”
Driving about five miles an hour, Charlie pulled down the road, wincing as each tree limb scraped the side of his car. “I ought to make this bastard pay for a new paint job.” The road curved away from Grantwood Street and went deep into a wooded area.
“I didn’t know there was this much wooded area behind these houses. It sure looks a lot bigger back here than it does from the street.”
After driving for several minutes, Charlie entered a clearing. In front of him was a large, two-story house. It had an overall run-down look, as if it wasn’t kept up. Shutters hung from the hinges, cobwebs connected the porch swing to the splintered oaken railing, weeds grew cluttered up the yard and fell flat as he pushed the car up to the edge of the porch.
“I don’t know about this.”
Charlie looked around and didn’t see any other vehicles around, not even a beat-up old pickup truck. An old house like this just cried out for a beat-up old pickup truck. He noticed that there weren’t any lights on in the house and he couldn’t hear any sounds, either from the house or from the surrounding woods. He almost turned around and left, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sign on the front door. It read:
Installers Inc.
4125 Grantwood
Charlie turned off his car and put it in park. He walked up to the front door. Before he even had a chance to knock, the door opened. It didn't squeak like he expected it to. The door opened quietly. A woman who appeared to be in her mid- to late-fifties appeared in the doorway.
"You must be that young fella what Phil talked to on the phone?"
"That'd be me."
"Well come on in and have a lemonade!" She said with a huge grin. Charlie wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a spot of blood on one of the teeth in the left side of her mouth.
"I don't know about this," he muttered to himself.
* * *
A cloud of dust rose from the couch as he sat down. There were more cigarette burn holes on it than original buttons. Jenny sat in a brown wicker rocking chair after pouring Charlie a glassful of pulpy lemonade. Phil sat in a faded navy blue recliner staring at his house guest.
"So you say you can put stuff together?" Phil asked.
"Uhh...yeah."
"What stuff have you put together?"
"Oh, Phil, let the boy rest for a while, he just got here. So, Charlie, is it...?"
Charlie nodded.
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from here."
"Oh, really? Where did you go to school?"
"I went to Washington High. Graduated last year."
"That's great! Do you have a lot of family here?"
"Not really. My parents are both dead, and we weren't ever really close with the rest of the family."
"I'm so sorry to hear about your parents. So I guess you're an only child?"
"Yeah."
Charlie broke in. "So they taught you to put stuff together in that high school of yours?"
"Oh, Phil! Just you ignore him. He's got a one-track mind."
"Damn straight," Phil muttered.
"It's okay," Charlie answered.
"Oh, I'm sure it is, sweetheart. But I guess we better get down to business. Are you good at putting 'stuff' together, as my dear old husband has so often said?"
"I guess I am."
"Well, what have you put together in the past, boy?" Phil asked.
"I don't know. The usual. I put together an entertainment center and some bookshelves."
"That it?"
"No. I used to help my girlfriend's mom sometimes. She worked at an office supply company and had to put desks and shelves and stuff together. Sometimes I'd help her for a few bucks."
"Oh, so you've got a girlfriend?"
"Sure do, ma'am."
"That's so sweet. How long have you young lovers been together?"
"Not too long. About six months."
"Oh, that's not too long at all, is it."
"I guess not."
"Anyway, dear, let me ask the boy about his qualifications. So, you think you could work for us. You know, putting stuff together."
"I guess so...I don't see why not."
"Don't sound to confident, do you."
"No...of course I can work for you. I wouldn't have driven all the way out here if I couldn't.
"Now that's more like it. Let's see if you can back up that big talk." Phil stood up and motioned for Charlie to follow him. "Come into the workroom with me. Jenny, you get the pot boiling."
"Yes, dear."
Phil walked down a hallway that led to the back of the house and into a large workroom. Charlie followed.
"Well, let's see what you can do." Phil pointed at a opened cardboard box that sat on the floor. The side read "Computer Desk."
"You just want me to put this thing together."
"Yep."
Charlie opened up the box and pulled out a sheet of paper. Phil leaned against the wall and rested his hand on a sledgehammer. Charlie looked at the instruction sheet and reached for a Phillip's head screwdriver that sat on the workbench nearby. Phil lifted the sledgehammer and brought it crashing down on the back of Charlie's head.
"Supper's on, mama!"
* * *
Mitchell Gorman read the ad:
Can You Put Stuff Together?
Installers, Inc.
We Pay Hourly Rates
Our Customers Pay Us To Put Things Together For Them
Call: Phil and Jenny
555-8407
It sounded a little strange, but, hell, he needed the money.
Every day I die. I meant what I just said, I know you find it hard to believe, but I die every day.
I know, I know, you’re saying to yourself, “If he dies every day, how can he be telling me this story?” I don’t know, but I know it happens. It has happened 999 times and I’m quite sure, again don’t ask my how I know – I just know, that after 1000 times, I will surely be dead for good. Not that this is a bad thing. Contrary to what you might think, dying repeatedly is not only not enjoyable, it’s downright unbearable. But when you always wake up alive again the next day, what can you really do about it? You just have to live with it. And die with it. Again and again.
The worst part, of course, is that I remember every death. Well, not the first one, but all the others. And not just the moment I pass away, but every detail of the actual death itself. Like for instance, the time I got hit by a bus, I remember everything clearly. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when I saw probably the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. When she walked by, my head snapped in her direction and I stopped walking. I mean, she was hot. I started walking again and I stepped off the street corner – with my right foot first. I definitely remember that part, I stepped off with my right foot first – which, for me, is quite strange. I always lead with my left foot. But this time I led with my right foot.
At that moment I turned to get one more look at the woman who I would be dreaming about that night. This time I didn’t stop walking. I kept walking forward even though I was looking backward. What I didn’t realize, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, was that the light had changed and I was stepping into oncoming traffic. The bus had made its way up to about 40 miles per hour when it hit me. I died almost instantly. Contrary to popular belief, dying almost instantly hurt like hell. They always tell you that if someone dies instantly they don’t feel any pain. Bullshit. That was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Well up to that point it was the worst pain I’d ever felt. That was only the seventh time I died. The deaths get much worse.
Like I said, I’ve died more than 900 times now. Once a day, each day, I die. Most people go to sleep at night – they lay down and go to sleep. I wish it were that simple for me, but it’s not. And somehow I remember all of them. Hell I’ve died so many ways that it is difficult to recount them all, but I’ll try to at least give you a flavor of the many ways I’ve died.
I’ve been stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, slashed, sliced, diced, smashed, crashed, dashed, crushed, and electrocuted. I’ve been killed in a train wreck, a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood, a mudslide, a forest fire, by falling rocks, by the falling corner of a crumbling old building and chopped up in an industrial turbine. I’ve been eaten by sharks, killed by a mugger, murdered by a street gang, killed in a soccer riot and murdered by O.J. Hell I even committed suicide once, just to try and end the whole thing.
All this dying has made me do a lot of thinking about death, you know. The first thing I noticed was that everyone obsesses about death, but nobody really thinks about it in a real manner. Everybody seems to be doing what they can to stave off death. Everybody does what they can to ignore death in this world. Everybody says that they care about death, at least the deaths of people they know, but they don’t. Everybody is bullshitting when they say they care about death. Nobody even thinks about death in a realistic manner.
Anyone, you probably have a million questions at this point. So do I. The problem is, is that I don’t have too many answers. How could I? If I die, how do I come back? Why do I always come back in a different place? What happened to all my friends and family from before my first death? Do they just think I’m dead? Would they recognize me if went to see them? Would I recognize them if I saw them?
The question is on my mind at this point because I find myself in my hometown, Tallahassee. Most people only know of it because of the election last year – yeah I keep up with the news, I remember everything, so why not keep up? – but it’s also the capitol of Florida and had been long before any of the Bushes came along. After the last time I died – run over by one of those giant industrial farm tractors in Bum Fuck, Iowa – I found myself in my hometown.
Now what do I do? I have less than a day to live in this situation and in this place. What would you do if you knew you had one day left to live? What would you do if you had died and came back? What would you say to the people you loved if you knew you were going to die again? I never thought I was going to have this chance. Every other time I died, I awoke the next day in a place I had never been before. But not this time.
I’ve been waiting for a while. I woke up at around 7 a.m. on Saturday – it’s Saturday, the newspaper says – but I didn’t want to rush right over. I know everybody around the house likes to sleep in on Saturdays, at least until eleven or so. Besides, I haven’t seen my family in almost three years. I think my arrival will shock them quite a bit. I know it will shock me.
I decide to wait a while and just wait for everyone to wake up before I knock on the door. I mean, I’m kind of a chickenshit, so I’m not in a real rush to confront my relatives who have missed me for these years.
At about 8:30, I see the first light come on. It’s probably my mother, Martha. She usually gets up first to start breakfast for everyone. Not that they usually eat it, but she always cooks it. My dog, Grover, usually gets to eat most of it, which I’m sure he doesn’t mind. Mom never complains that they don’t eat it and she always cooks it. People do strange things, I guess.
I sneak over to the window to peer in at mom. It’s her alright. She’s cracking open eggs and pouring the contents into that old cast iron skillet. Every time she uses it she has to scrub off all the rust that forms because she never dries it properly. I always told her she had to put it back on the stove and heat it up to get the water off of it so it wouldn’t rust, but she never listened. She just stuck it in the strainer and let it air-dry and get all rusty. Then she would scrub the hell out of it each time she needed to use it. The eggs never tasted like rust, though, so she must have done a good job. I always ate the eggs, even if no one else did. There weren’t that good, really, always too runny for me, but I think she liked that I ate them.
Before long, I know she’d start with the toast – we had one of those four slot toasters – and would slather the slices with margarine when they were done. She’d pretty much do up a whole package of bacon each morning, putting it on this little rack that would go on a flat pan and get broiled while she finished up the eggs. She always left the bacon too chewy for me, but she’d never cook it longer. If I wanted the stuff cooked all the way, I had to go throw it back in myself.
About a half an hour after she gets up, my brother Charlie always came shuffling slowly into the room. I used to feed Grover in the mornings, but since that first time I died, I guess it got to be Charlie’s job. He pours a big 32-ounce cup of kibble into Grover’s bowl and fills up his water dish. Then he goes to the fridge and grabs the carton of milk and the box of Cinnamon Chex from the top of the fridge. He always loved that cereal. I hated it, because the individual Chex would always get so soggy it’d be like eating mush. I always like stuff that stayed crispy, like Grape Nuts. Hell, they stay so crispy they get to be like barnacles on the side of the bowl, but you gotta eat something. Maybe that’s why I died the first time. All the Grape Nuts in my stomach hardened into one big mass that took me out. I figure if I can ever remember how I died in the first place, maybe I can stop dieing.
By now, Grover’s chowing down on the kibble and Charlie’s chowing down on the Chex. Mom shoots Charlie a sad look. I guess she always hated that he would eat the cereal and not the breakfast she cooked. Charlie was always a bit of a vegetarian anyway, and I never saw him eat any pork. I liked it when it was cooked all the way, but he wouldn’t touch the stuff. He never really bitched at other people about what they ate – as a smoker, I guess he always got sick of other people bitching at him – but he wouldn’t go near the stuff even if he was dying of hunger.
Nine or so, my dad always comes into the room carrying the previous days Wall Street Journal. I never understood why he read the previous days paper each morning, but as long as I can remember that’s what he did. Nobody really talked. Mom cooks. Dad reads. Charlie eats. Grover gobbles. Vaguely I notice the sounds of sirens in the distance. I wonder if old man Wolcott down the road finally had his “I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up” moment.
Jeez, I guess I’ve been here almost two hours now, most of it spent staring in the window. Nothing really happens and I don’t want to be the one to get things to start happening. Not really my style. I leave that to the coffee achievers of the world. People like mom. Maybe I’ll just stay out here until somebody decides to go outside for some reason. I guess I could be here awhile.
I hear the muzzled ring of the phone through the glass. On the seventh ring, mom picks it up. I can’t really hear what’s being said, but mom looks even less happy than she did before. Suddenly, her head darts in my direction. I do my best to duck, but I’m pretty sure she saw something. It’s almost like whoever was on the phone told her to look out the window.
I figure I should maybe get away from the window, so I start sulking away. That’s when I notice that the sirens I had heard are closer. Hell they seem like they’re right here. And, of course, they are.
“Freeze!” And of course, I know that it’s a cop before I even turn around. I’ve seen the movies. I’ve seen the television shows. I was once killed by a stray bullet after I heard a cop yell the very same “Freeze!” at an armed robber.
I have to look this a couple of ways. If I freeze, I get arrested and then somehow have to explain what I’m doing and who I am. This will lead to me having to explain where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing for the last three years. Knowing the way the cops work and the way my family thinks, this will probably involve psychiatric counseling. I guess the fates would have to find a pretty interesting way to off me at that point. I mean I’ve gotta die somehow today. I guess maybe they’d have me overdose on some kind of medication at the hospital or something like that. Wouldn’t be the first time I OD’d.
On the other hand, since I’ve counted 999 deaths, maybe this will be the last one. I mean, really, who would have someone keep dieing after they’ve already died 1000 times? That’s kind of ridiculous from a cosmic standpoint, isn’t it? Hell, I’m going to die today no matter what, so I might as well choose the method. I can take the quick and painless route or I can draw it out and die in some hospital after causing my family more grief as they think they have some chance for me to get better – only to find out that I died in the hospital. If they find out that I died in their front yard, it’ll still suck for them, but at least it will be over quickly – before they get any false hope.
Besides, I really think this is going to be the last time. I think I’m starting to run out of ways to die, anyway. How many freakin’ different ways to die could there be anyway. Gun deaths aren’t that bad, anyway. I mean, shit, they definitely hurt quite a bit, but pretty much every way to die hurts. The good thing about getting shot is that you tend to die quickly, unless, of course, the shooter is an idiot who can’t shoot strait.
What the hell, I guess I gotta take my chances. I slowly turn toward the cops and stick my hand behind my back. The two cops are crouched behind the doors of their cruiser with their revolvers pointed at me, yelling the requisite clichés: “Freeze,” “Stop right there, motherfucker,” “Put your hands where we can see him.” One of the cool things about waking up this morning was that I had a cell phone. I think if I hold the phone just right, I can make the cops think it’s a gun or some kind of weapon. That should do the trick. That should do the trick just fine.
* * *
Jeez, where did I wake up this time. It smells like a slaughterhouse in here. Oh. I guess it is a slaughterhouse. Oh.
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