Monday, January 5, 2015

The Other Side of the Coin

“Lucy get the door! I’ll board up the windows!” I shout as I toss a pile of boards down to the ground beneath the stairs, a bag of nails already present from the work we’ve been doing on the house. I can hear the kids crying upstairs and pray that the sound won’t attract them. Slamming a board across the back door I begin hammering it into the framework, taking nails and hammering them into the crack between the door and the door frame. By my third board I hear the moans coming from our back fence, signaling that the dead have heard us.

By the time I get to the back windows the first fist beats on the back door, causing it to rock against the last minute defenses I’ve hammered into it. I hammer three boards across all three windows, with six smaller boards nailed in the middle connecting the three for support. Lucy appears behind me, her skirt flaring wildly as she stares at me in concern.
“Did you hear that?” She asked, looking at me as if pleading that I hadn’t.
“I only hear them moaning Lucy, the news said that’s all they do,” I try and assure her but then I hear it. A low and grumbling roar, as if someone is revving an engine for a moment. It’s coming from the backyard. The gathering of fists on the back door lessens as something else catches their attention. I thank whatever God is listening for the reprieve. I slide down the wall and hold and arm over my eyes, trying to fight away the nightmare that’s engulfed Orlando. The dead walking the streets, rising from the bayou… and these weren’t your typical zombie movie slow motion creatures, no. During the day they were pretty stiff, but come nightfall… they moved like great apes, loping and climbing whatever they could find to get to fresh meat.
Something heavy slams into the back door, causing several nails to begin sliding free from the woodwork. Before I can even get up the door and the wooden planks holding it back shatter, the weight of a two-thousand pound Alligator pushing into it enough to make the backdoor explode inward in a shower of wooden shards. Several gnawed upon zombies make their way into the room, their bodies covered in mud, emaciated and grey. I look at Lucy and wave her away before scooping up a fireplace poker that I’d been carrying with me.
The Gator ignores it, great jaws snapping shut over my whole forearm, tearing it free from my body with a twist and a snap. Blood gushes forth, but I can’t find the energy to scream; I just hear Lucy screaming as I stare at the stump. The Alligator closes its jaws over my head and upper body, crushing my ribs and flattening my skull within its gullet. The last sounds I hear are of Lucy swearing and fighting off the other dead, the last things I feel are a general numbness and shock.

Is this really how the world is going to end?

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