Smucker's Raspberry Preserves

I awake still lying on the rotten floor of the tree house shrouded in an early morning fog. My arm still throbbing with raccoon bite. The soft moans of the undead below did not go away while I was dreaming of soft Mexican beaches.

Here, the dead do not rest.

Today is the day I will need to get out of here, “here” being this tree house, this situation, this life perhaps? My stomach growls in anger. My thirst is almost unbearable. Void of modesty I drop trow and relieve myself through the cracks in the tree house floor. Any live person who might show up at this moment and happen to see me peeing would bless me with welcome embarrassment. The droplets of urine land on the little boy whose carcass stands swaying and clawing at the tree trunk.

I sit Indian-style on the floorboards for about an hour and near hysteria once again, I put one hand over my eyes as I audibly pray to God for help through cracked sobs. With the other hand I unwittingly grasp for the edge of the tree house floor. The gray dry rotted wood gave up almost immediately and I pulled and jerked the broken off piece and held it in front of my surprised face. A two-footer, sharp on one end and with just a bit of life left in the middle to provide strength. This was the answer. Halting my sobs and prayers, I got up and onto my knees and began madly yanking at the floorboard strips tearing up splinters and stubbing my thumb on a rusty nail. I was clawing for my own salvation. Dead wood for dead heads.

By the time the fog burned off and the morning sun was nearly blinding I had a good-sized pile of spikes for which I was sorting by size and strength. The larger men zombies would need to be taken out first. I gingerly lowered myself, hands sweating, on the shaky wooden tree house ladder with the largest of the makeshift spears. The undead farmer in his overalls moaned loudly and reached his rotting limbs up to reach me. And I’m just barely out of his reach as my hands shake with adrenalin – one clinging to the tree ladder and the other raised above my target. I bring it down with a powerful grunt and plant it through the top of the semi-soft cranium with a "flump". Farmer drops to his knees and then falls over, face down into the soft green grass. The other three are oblivious totheir comrade’s termination and stumble around his second-time corpse, tripping here and there.

With a slightly renewed confidence that this would work, I bared my teeth and hissed. "That's it. Get over here, you fuckers!"

I pull out another stake and took out Neighbor man likewise. The little boy, however, got it through the eye. It went deep enough to short circuit him and disgusting, smelly aqueous humor dripped out of his socket before he hit the ground. That’s all that mattered, his ending. And then the little girl was spiked through her blonde pony-tailed head, no problem. She didn't scream. The blood wasn’t even really blood but clotted and congealed like Smuckers Raspberry Preserves. I should have been throwing up by now. Is this what is called desensitizing? Or just pure survival?

I gratefully jumped to the ground, keeping low and hunched over where all four bodies lay scattered, keeping an eye out for any movement. In a moment of dramatic victory and going against my better instincts I felt a rage well up within me. I bent down to the ground and dipped two fingers into a pool of red ooze and then traced a cross on my forehead before breaking into a sprint toward my parents' house.

I think I left myself in that tree house. This was now Me [Version 2.0].

Spearfishing

I awake shivering. It can’t be but maybe 5:00am and the moans from below my treehouse pyre softly rumble into a background noise. There are other noises; the first twitterings of Mourning Doves and an owl hooting in a distant tree.

The throb in my punctured arm is nothing compared to the throb in my head – a dehydration headache perhaps. Or maybe from lack of daily caffeine. I carefully and slowly roll over and look through the cracks in the rotten wood at the nemeses below. The Damned. Nothing changed overnight; still two rotting children, two rotting men – circling the tree, moaning. I need to get out.

My chest tightens signaling a long overdue panic attack. I slowly sit up causing the wood underneath me to groan. My breathing gets quicker and my chest hurts. I close my eyes and try and meditate on The Five Precious Wounds. A little residual Catechesis. It takes me about twenty minutes to calm myself and breathe regularly and by that time the morning light is creeping in to brighten the sky. I put dawn at about 5:50am. I look around to see if there is anything I can use to help myself out of here. Nothing. No hidden Indiana Jones rope tucked away in the corner, no matches, no gun, no miracle, nothing.

My parents’ house is about a football field’s length away. If I start screaming when I think they’ll be awake, I might have a chance to get out my S.O.S. Maybe someone will come running in on a steed of metal to save me.

At about 7:00am when I think my family would be awake I clear my throat and start my screaming:

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPP! I’M IN THE TREEEEEE! HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPP! I’M IN THE TREEEEEE!

I space out my screams so it sounds intentional and not like I am actually being killed. I do this for about an hour and forty-five minutes straight and with every moment of silence that follows I lose more and more hope. My dry throat burns and my vocal cords, strained and abused, refuse me any further service. A raspy cigaretty sexy voice of desperation. I give in to a good five minute crying session. In my fit, my hand claws at the end of a rotten wood floor plank and unconsciously pulls… the edge tears off in a long splintered piece. I hold it up in front of my dirty tear-streaked face and touch the surprisingly dense yet splintery sharp tip. Oak was always reliable, even when dead. Maybe it would work. It could penetrate skull, maybe. I didn’t have a choice now. Do or die. Or both. I hope the internal rot of these freaks has mushened their bones.

Like a madwoman I start ripping at the edge of the rotten floorboards, yanking up yard-stick long pieces to use as weapons, embedding many nasty splinters into my own skin. When I had about six good sized pieces I took my shirt off and wrapped it around the bunch and tied it to my back like a rigged bundle. A she-MacGuyver in a white Wal-Mart bra. The hard part would be gingerly climbing down the makeshift and crumbling ladder to get just within reach to plant the spear-sticks into their rotting heads. To do this without putting myself in jeopardy would be a trick.

My hands were moist with sweat and shaking I lower myself to the first step. Moaning continues below and gradually loudens when the beasts realize I am coming down the ladder. Another step. This one feels a bit more shaky. I pray the nails don’t give up their duties. One more, honey, come on. My chest and stomach scrape desperately against the bark of the oak, sending small dead pieces of wood shrapnel and dust raining down. My hands are not doing me any favors by sweating so profusely. My fear of heights does not help. Then I get to the magic step. It seems firm enough. I trust this piece of wood and it could be my doom, but I balance both feet as I twist my body sideways. My feet are just out of clawing reach and I cling to the trunk with all my shaking might. I reach back into my makeshift shirt-bundle and – OUCH! I stick myself with an end of a spear. Stupid! Ignoring the pain, I manage to grope and grab the first oak spear, balancing and clinging to the tree with one hand like a spider monkey. A scared one. I hover and wait with my spear upraised for the best opportunity to nail the first one through the top of the skull…

Walking Beans

I was in view of my parents’ road, Gorham Road – maybe a mile and a half away when I noticed that the Cat’s fuel gauge was smugly pointing past the letter E. A minute or two later, the machine lurched and sputtered jerking me forward in it and I downshifted the gears with one tired arm, but the machine let out a death rattle (….so much death…) before stalling on the right side of the road between two soybean fields. Exhausted, I undid my seatbelt and assessed the landscape in all direction. Nothing. No movement. Just a few buzzards swarmed in the sky up ahead. I was so close…dammit. And now I had to go the rest of the way on foot. Ugh.

I peeled my sweating back from the black leather cab seat. I turned around in the small space and pulled a lever to move the seat forward; searching for anything I might want to take. I had my crowbar, but if I could double up on weaponry, all the better. A glass jar, nearly full of water was tucked miraculously behind the seat. My mom and dad were notorious for re-filling large glass organic juice jars with the reverse osmosis water from their house and taking a couple jars with them in their vehicles wherever they went. They didn’t trust drinking the water anywhere. And in that moment I thanked God for their alarmist precautions that I had so often made light fun of. I took the jar and guzzled down half the warm water, the combination of water-force and gravity nearly choked me. The sun was high and hot. I grabbed the water jar, grabbed my crowbar, for some reason I also took the keys…and so gingerly I opened the cab door. I leave it open.

I clearly see now that the once yellow body of the Cat is patterned with the blood of my neighbors. It had already started to stink. I knew the safest way to do this was to walk on the side of the road in the field. The brown soybeans were knee high and sparse. It felt good to stretch my legs and as I walk I start to feel a little more awake and alive.

As farmers rotate crops, last year these fields were hay. I recall running into the fields in the cool of summer evenings as a kid at the end of the season. I remember taking a running leap, trying to jump up on the huge bales that were so fragrant and earthsweet. I miss that smell as I miss the woods. The sun mercilessly beat down and I could hear the calls of the buzzards ahead getting louder during their circling ritual.

Keeping vigil in each direction, I continue straight ahead, soybeans slowly smacking at my legs as I crunch them under foot. I am getting close to the Burns’ farm and their Polled Herefords sign in the shape of a brown Hereford cow. This farm meets the end of Gorham Road. Several red pole buildings and sheds dot the farm lot around a white-sided house and initially I detect no movement. Only about a half mile to go now as I prepare to cross over to Gorham Road.

I must have been overly focused on reaching the road because I look up one last time to see that the buzzards were swarming directly over Burns’ farm. My eyes meet with a figure beyond the half acre cow pasture. It is Mr. Burns. He is standing in his bluejean bib overalls and John Deere cap. He is missing an arm tore off at the shoulder and his red plaid shirt hangs shredded where the joint once was. He is holding a pitchfork in his remaining rotting hand and stands with his head oddly tilted. He sees me and begins to moan and move slowly forward in my direction. I don’t get panicky because a good 75 yards separates us as does an electric wire fence. What I failed to hear soon enough, though, was the “clunk, clunk” of the farmhouse’s wooden screen door as it swung open in the midday sun. Farmer Burns’ three young children -- two girls and a boy between the ages of 8 and 11 – undead, foaming at the mouth, irate, growling and hungry emerge from the white farmhouse.... just a few yards away from me.

I Think of the Woods

I shift the Cat and head through my front yard to Route 47. Out of habit I look both ways down the vacant road. I can see the horses in the neighbors’ corral across the field standing dejected, ribs visible and looking at me with pitiable eyes as I turn south.

After a couple of miles, my numb mind shifts. Maybe it is a defense mechanism triggered by my state of emergency only read about in books.

I timetravel.

When I was a kid, my brothers John and Aaron and I, along with most of the Kelly kids next door – Brian, Mike, Jack, Bonnie, Erin and Kevin – ruled the expanse of woods behind our houses. We were Marine snipers, Robin Hoods, ghost-hunters, archaeologists, builders, motocross racers, and land governors in those hilly woods. A group of 8 to 14-year-olds with more imagination, resourcefulness and drive than most adults.

I am almost to DuPont, ready to make the right turn I have made a thousand times before.

One of the many innovative projects we put together like a junior A-Team was an underground dwelling that seated about 5. There was an old tin hunting shanty in the woods, which was about the size of 3 outhouses. Its floor was two large plywood panels. About fifteen yards away was a large hollow stump. It held an opening wide enough for all of us to slip through. As a team that worked more diligently than most modern-day contractors, we all took shovels and dug a deep square pit into the earth, roughly 7 feet wide, by 7 feet long and about 5 feet deep. This pit was positioned between the hunting shanty and the old tree stump. Once the main portion was carved out, the guys began to dig trenches just as deep and about 2 feet wide; one leading under the stump and one leading under the shanty, where one of the guys cut a square out of the plywood in the floor, making a trapdoor. Us girls took buckets to the creek and dug up gray clay with our hands which we used to form around rocks in the main portion of the underground fort, forming and sculpting a working fireplace with a chimney. Once the groundwork was complete, pieces of plywood were put over everything and dirt covered them, then brush.

I turn onto DuPont. Another vacant road. An overturned grain truck lies on its side in the ditch up ahead. A streak of blood paints the road beside it, but no zombies in sight.

It was an amazing thing to run through the woods that winter like Lost Boys, being chased by friends unfamiliar with our project and we’d laugh and then jump up onto the stump and slip down through the corridor trenches as our friends stopped mouths gaping in amazement before following. Glow roots dotted the earth as greenish white against the pitch black as one army-crawled through the trenched tunnel. Anyone with claustrophobia would have died. In reaching the main pit, you could see the orange glow of the fire and several of our gang sitting in this Hobbit’s room with their winter jackets off. Because one could not back up while crawling to the main area, they would simply go through the main room and continue through the corridor that led to the trapdoor in the hunting shanty. It was perfect.

I realize I am crying at this point. I want to be that kid again hiding out in an underground fort from nothing dangerous, but just for the sake of being able to hide out. I want to be in an ingenious underground fort fashioned by babes again, warming myself against a makeshift fireplace, roasting marshmallows.

I am apexing the dip in DuPont road. Woods flank each side of me, but not My Woods. I am heading towards My Woods.

It was a few years later that the plywood used as the fort’s roof eventually rotted and caved in. In hindsight, admittedly, the whole idea of kids constructing this type of fort would be seen as insanely dangerous today. It was a different time then. The shanty was eventually dismantled and the ground cleared. But I think if this catastrophe of humanity had happened when we were kids, we would have been ok. Like the survivalist boy in My Side of the Mountain or the kids in Lord of the Flies, but with democracy. We watched out for each other. We were a well oiled machine. And now the only machine I can rely on was made on an assembly line.

Only about 5 more miles until I reach Gorham Road. I’m only going 18 miles per hour. God, let there be no problems. Let my family be ok. Let this big machine not draw attention to its loud self. I’m so tired…

I hope I can muster up the ingenuity that I partook in as a 9-year-old to build a defense against these undead enemies. It might not be underground and made of dirt. It might not even be made of tangible materials and moved with hands. But maybe simply a psychological defense. A mind fort. An underground mind fort. I plead to my 9-year-old self. I plead back to my brothers and friends and I plead to the woods to provide me with safety and resourceful once again…

Yes, I think of the woods.

Skiddy

Thank God! Thank God! Thank God! I made it to the Cat without problems. I am confident in my ability to outrun a zombie, but I have even more confidence in my new BFF killing machine I lovingly call “Skiddy”.

[And for a moment, I chuckle at a revised commercial starring me in jean bib overalls with a bowl haircut, on my tiptoes hugging a clean and smiling Thomas-The-Train-Like Caterpillar Skid Steer on a perfectly manicured lawn while a new song plays: “My Skiddy…my Skiddy…wherever I go, she goes…My Skiddy, my Skiddy….my Skiddy and me!”]

I’ve got to get to DuPont Road and I’m going to head straight to my parents’ house about 6 miles away. I haven’t even left my yard yet, but I am taking a moment to get the Cat’s controls down. It has been awhile since I drove it and, figuring it was a one-time deal, had put that knowledge in my mind's Recycle Bin. I test the lift and tilt of the bucket and the rotation of the tread. The tank-like movements are kind of startling and scary, but a cold comfort, nonetheless. It’s like a black toggle-stick and switch video game, but one that I somewhat take to. Funny that I loved Resident Evil...in reality this truly sucks.

The neighbors in the house to the south (the ones with the stockpile of non-working cars) are zombies, too; a middle aged man and his daughter who I peg to be about 16. They are drawn to the start-up of the diesel engine and slowly lurch from behind their garage while I practice the hydraulic controls in place. Then, when I have the maneuverability down, I move the Cat forward with an awkward jerking motion, tearing deep tracks into the yard-earth. I cautiously move in a slow direct line toward the zombie dad. His dead waggling fingers can’t reach through the cage. His body doesn’t stand a chance under the immense weight of the angry machine and he is pulled under.

[For a moment, I am a red-haired Ripley fighting the Alien Queen...]

I see the bursting of his large overfed stomach and the spewing forth of rotting entrail ribbons pop into the air like a party favor. Then I hear his dead skull crunch into the ground under the metal tracks. This makes me nauseous. The daughter is next. Living Dead Girl. I lift the bucket and the teeth fortuitously grab the length of her once elegant ballerina neck as her body is pulled under. Her head detaches like a dandelion top, as I don’t see it fall to the ground. It is probably grotesquely rolling around in my heroine-bucket. A few more decrepit middle aged zombies suddenly punctuate the yard. They don’t last. Skiddy needs a washing by this point. “It must be Skiddy's time of the month”, I madly muse to no one. Her pretty yellow coat is tarnished with brownish red filth.

And I think she loves it.

[I wish I had remembered to grab my cell phone – how stupid of me!]

My sister and Toby will no doubt be at Mom and Dad’s. I really feel drawn to protect that baby, as well as help out the rest of my family. Hopefully there is enough fuel in this thing, God please! I don’t know how much punch I can pack with a tire iron clutched by a body weakened with dehydration and hunger. I’m dying for a plate of dill pickles! When I get hungry, I get bitchy. I guess though, that there’s no better time to be bitchy. Bitchy, Skiddy and the Lord might keep me alive today – or a lovely combination of all three.

Sarah's Escape

The Spin Cycle

Days ago, I heard moaning and quietly crept to the living room window, scaling the wall and gingerly peaking outside from behind the curtain. Then did the same in the kitchen. Swarms of black flies buzzed about in clouds. Dead walkers were slowly hunchbacking around the yard, plodding closer to my house with their outstretched limbs, stinking, rotting flesh. I counted a baker’s dozen.

[I would kill for a dozen Krispy Kremes right now. And I don’t even like them that much.]

I am sitting on a ragged plaid blanket under the basement stairs with my back against the cold cement wall, few provisions litter the floor around me. Tybs is curled up in my lap asleep. Peaches is purring and rubbing his head against my bare foot. As to not encourage them to meow, I don’t speak to them. All I can do is sit there in silence, listening for the moment when I hear Cecil’s keys jingling in the locked door above me. If that will ever happen. I think about where he might be. I wait hours in silence, hearing a distant moan every now and then. It begins to rain and the thunder softly booms. I am scared and vigilant, tired. But at the same time, bored as hell. I swish about in a maddening spin cycle of thoughts:

[“…and its hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain…”]
[“…blame it on the rain… rain that’s fallin, fallin…”]
[“…rainy days and Mondays always get meee dowwwwn…”]
[“…ohhhh, how I wish it would rain now… down on me…”]

[So sick of stale chips. So sick of stale chips. Stupid crinkly bag – makes such a loud noise when I want to eat. Announces my hunger like a crackling fire announcing heat.]

[Have to pee soon. Will go in the sump hole again. Sound of rain should drown it out. Must creep past basement windows without being seen. I did it before, I can do it again.]

[Pee. I want to be peeing out things that I have enjoyed: Lipton ice tea or good hot coffee…not room-temp bottled water. Which is almost gone. I might have to hit the wine soon...nah, can’t.]

[These human functions. Necessary. Designed for daily living, not under-the-basement-stairs living…I wonder if, after we die, if we ever feel the urge to pee or if we always feel empty like that as spirits? Do we just feel comfortably numb all the time?]

[Dear Lord, please keep Cecil and my family safe. I can handle me dying, I don’t think I could handle any of them dying. Watch over Abby and Toby, too. Sweet baby. I think you would understand if I had to kill myself rather than let myself turn into An Untruth. No greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend. Does this include taking one’s own life to...to possibly save another from a horrible death I might impart on them? Give us all strength, I humbly pray, God. Help me be strong. I need that. Amen]

[“…knock, knock, knockin on Heaven’s door….”]
[“To die, to sleep, perchance to dream…”]

[Should’ve brought my good pillow or two down here. This one’s too small and annoying. Red bouncy chenille throw pillow with a hole in it. Stupid thing to grab, but I couldn’t get too close to the window where the good pillows were or they’d see me…]

[“…rainy days and zombies always get meee dowwwwn…”]

Sarah's Will

For a larger view of this Will, click here.

This is not a test.

The Panic Sets In

Doc of the Bay

I could only pick out certain words from the hushed, baffled tones of the two male doctors in the next surgery prep and recovery bay at St. Joe’s; gangrenous…necrotic…cannon ball eyes? What? I furrowed my brow. Weird. Just then, Candi, my assigned prep nurse pulled back the blue and pink bay curtain on its bar, producing the metallic “shiiiing” often heard in hospitals, “Doctor drew some marks on you for surgery already, right? Ok, hon, you’ll start to feel the anesthesia in a minute or two, ‘kay?. Do you have any questions?” I smiled and shook my head. From my bed on rollers, my body was warm and my head started to swim slightly with the solution coursing through the tube in my wrist. Candi looked like a truckstop waitress, 80’s poofy blonde hair, almost wiglike, chunky dangling earrings, orangish-pink lipstick on a somewhat wrinkled smoker’s pucker. She patted my leg, “I’ll be right out here at the nurse’s station if you need me, hon. I’ll leave the curtain open for you –it’s not exciting, but it might as well be included in the price of admission.” We both chuckled.” I thanked her with a smile. My vision was slowly experiencing patches of blurriness because of the IV, but I managed to crane my neck and focus past the ugly curtain, seeing two abrupt red socked feet -- the topic of the hushed doctors’ conversation -- jutting beyond the wall of the next bay. They twitched. Man-feet. They were large – a size 12 at least. The two male doctors were still in his bay, speaking softly, then suddenly the volume rose like a crescendo from one of the men “Donald, look at me…. Donald, can you see my flashlight?” The red feet twitched again. A slight moan and a scuffling sound. “We’re gonna need Jansen down here. Martha, please call Jansen.” I could see straight out from my bay and watched as a mousy lady with glasses and a brown bob at the station picked up the phone. Another sound like scuffling. “Donald, look at me…Donald, do you know where you are?” The next sound, a low moan, lasted several seconds. The tone in the doc’s voice sounded increasingly frustrated. I felt a sincere gratitude come over me that I wasn’t here out of necessity. My boob job was out of choice and I wasn’t the least bit in doubt about it. I was ready. More euphoric feelings like tingling fingers brushing up my back. One of frustrated doctors walked out of the bay past me, glanced at me for a moment and kept walking with a look of business-like concern. A minute or two of quiet passed and the clock on the wall showed 2:34pm. The only sounds were the low whispers of the nurses and a ringing phone. Suddenly, an agonizing scream that seemed to stop and start: “Ahhh – get him off me! ….Fuck! Get…. off of meeeee…ahhhh!” I saw an OceanSpray like red cranberry juice fly through the air past man-feet’s red socks and an IV tube and rack smashed to the ground, shattering in a thousand pieces. Remnants scattered and clear liquid rushed on the ground all the way to the nurse’s station as a flurry of bodies and an emergence of activity uprose amongst the nurses. One screamed. Lots of blue suits began moving around – those who were hanging around the nurse’s station. I didn’t even react. Things were slow and getting slower for me. Blurry…floating….the anesthesia was working its magic amid the chaos. How sickly ironic for me. I could barely keep my eyes open. But what timing! Candi appeared into my bay like an apparition out of nowhere, quickly moving her fingers to unhook my plastic tubes. I felt her foot strike the steel roller brake on the caster and the wheels of my bed were put in motion as she began to get me the hell out of there. I was oddly at ease…things were cloudy, dreamlike. My perspective moved deeper into distortion; looking through a giant, clear marble. I turned my head sideways. The last thing I saw as she wheeled me out of that bay was man-feet, still twitching, sitting up in his bed with a brown rotten face buried in the squirming and screaming doctor’s neck, air bubbles gurgled from either the doctor’s neck or Donald’s gnawing mouth. Blood cascaded down onto the cold tile of the hospital floor. I helplessly hovered with the drugs and couldn’t grasp the fullness of the situation. Looking back, everything seemed so nondescript after the drugs. I think I felt a little disappointed in my daze while rolling away that I wasn’t headed to the O.R. for my coveted size Ds, but rather to the nearest exit. Then a random epiphany struck me as Candi, my Angel of Duty, swept me away and out the door: No…not cannon ball eyes… he said cannibalize.

Sarah