Sixteen Small Deaths (12 page)

Vision lightens and I can see the automatic doors of the hospital. It’s when a third face enters the scene that a stinging shock jerks in my spine and I’m left with the sweet euphoria of complete darkness.

#

“Bennie? Can you hear me?”

Salt-and-pepper hair and a voice that’s cut with steel. He’s my father’s age and I half expect him to yell at me.

“Bennie, open your eyes, my friend.”

He pushes a straw to my mouth and I suck instinctively until my throat is coated with stale tap water.

“How are you feeling?”

A noise escapes my lungs that’s part human and mostly demon. It takes a few seconds before I can elicit real words. “Fine. How are you?”

The man chuckles and scribbles something on a pad of paper. “I’m doing well, thanks. Bennie, I’m Doctor Harrison, and I’m not sure if you realize it yet, but you overdosed on a mixture of high-grade
heroin and nearly twenty milliliters of fentanyl. You were lucky enough to pass out and smash the top half of your body on the glass coffee table in your living room.” He clears his throat, takes a breath. “The noise itself was enough for a concerned neighbor in your apartment building to call the police.”

Heart beats slowly, waits for my words to speed its cycle. “Great.”

“Yeah, you were lucky,” he says as bright tip of his tiny flashlight invades my eyes. “We need to keep you overnight, run some tests to make sure your system will be okay.”

System,
like my body is composed of mechanical parts.
System,
pieces of flesh and blood and bone without emotion. “Great.”

Dr. Harrison taps the monitor above the bed. “You should be able to go home in just a few days. I’ll be by check on you later in the day.” And with that, he leaves the room, leaving me alone with a mess of tubes, blankets and my own jagged thoughts. I try to sit up but a filament of red-hot pain stings my back and chest. I imagine I almost died and for what it’s worth I held Evie in my arms for just a few seconds.

I’d relive the nightmare in a heartbeat just to see her again.

#

The clock in the corner of the room died at midnight. I find the source of the wires and tubes connected to my body and shake them to see if I’m dreaming. My heart trips a painful beat and I’m shoved into full awareness. A quick tug on the clear tube and it pops from my wrist. The ones on my chest force me to grind my teeth until they’re off and on the tiled floor below. I find my clothes in the hospital room closet. Jeans, black t-shirt, and a leather jacket that’s almost as old as I am. I find my boots in the corner, tie them up and fish my wallet from my inside jacket pocket. Enough cash for a cab and maybe a pack of smokes.

I peek around the corner, wait for two nurses to skitter into another unit before walking to the ninth-floor lobby. No one sees me before I press the ‘down’ button, and it’s only when I catch my reflection in the steel elevator doors do I see a ruffled set of black angel wings and quick halo glittering and disappearing before the elevator rings with delight.

#

I follow the moonlight from the taxi to the apartment complex’s lobby. An elderly woman walks out as I head in and in my mind she says good morning. Quick jog up the stairs, feel the pinch of whatever chaos has rained havoc within my chest with every single step. I fumble for my keys, find them buried amongst some hard candy and some loose change.

My apartment seems foreign, as if someone’s replaced all the furniture with that of another residence. I drop the keys somewhere on the carpet, hope that I’ll never have to leave these walls ever again without the soft embrace of her hands, the voice that could send a slight shiver throughout every drop of spinal fluid. I toss my jacket next to the mess of broken glass and stale drugs in the center of the living room, forget for a second that I shot up enough juice to topple a demon just earlier today.

The kitchen is damp and inviting. A quick flash of my past, Evie and I sitting and laughing and drinking wine, comes and goes without sound and in black-and-white. It could be a fictional memory that’s been implanted in my skull. Close and open my eyes, then silence and the same dark kitchen as before. The freezer holds a square container of ice cubes, a bottle of vodka that could be a couple of years old, and something else wrapped in a brown paper lunchbag.

I snatch the package from the freezer and my muscle fibers are already shaking with anticipation. Cool gel between my fingertips, a divine lollipop that contains more fentanyl than I
injected during the event in the living room. It tastes like rust and regret, the subtle hints of a life gone awry. I slide against the fridge until the kitchen walls begin to melt and the foundation of the house begins to collapse to make room for a hundred falling comets.

#

The shadows hold secrets and when I open my arms she feels real. She scoops my hands in hers and looks at me with eyes that dissolve the frosty layer of rock covering my heart. My head is locked into place and when I try to look down Evie tilts my head towards hers, forcing her lips to unite with mine until the sweet taste of amber and hope drips from the corners of my mouth. The black surface is now replaced by an endless blanket of gray grass, high stalks sway ever-so-gently in a calm winter breeze. Flakes of snow as violet as dying orchids drop from above.

“Here,” I say, place my hand onto her chest. A soft return of tranquil beats soothingly twitches against what’s left of the skin on my hands, the pink of our flesh beginning to fritter away, replaced by a translucent covering that barely hides the glowing bone structure beneath.

“Yes, and now, and forever.” Evie smiles and in just a few seconds the grass is gone, the sky now a hearty gold. I let go of her hands and close my eyes, picture the previous vessel slumped against a plaster wall, his eyes open even now. Evie holds my hand as I take one last look the world below us. The face of my body is smiling, even in death.

We walk together past the flurries of winter, past the rolling hills and into the golden sky.

I stare at the infinite gray cement and pretend I’m an angel. Sixteen hours in the basement of a man that’s been dead longer than I care to remember, the echoes of every ghost floating above me like a symphony in this mad new world. My spit tastes as stale as rust and soon enough my mouth will fill with the smoky taste of a fresh hot bullet. Cold metal in my fist like it’s a part of my flesh, I take a few deep breaths and remember what she smelled like, the salty wisps of lavender and a smile that could knock out a cowboy.

Her name was Mandy and she was my wife. We were sleeping when it all first happened and now I imagine her soul is trapped in whichever dream was dancing in her mind at the time, the lush purple sky of an imaginary autumn afternoon. I sigh, bits of dust and blood spinning from my lungs like wet strands of red tissue paper. At any moment the moon will rise, a new day dawning over a dying world.

I stand up, feel the tired muscles in my legs twist and whine. We fled from them as fast as we could, the hordes of the dead pacing just us as we left what was our home for the last ten years. The depths of my nightmares came to life last night and I’m afraid if I look into a mirror the whites of my eyes will be a mix of red and black.

I silently count to fifty and close my eyes, hope that when I open them I’ll wake up next to Mandy. Maybe wake up with the bright sun shining, pale October clouds floating through a helpless sky. I open my eyes and the stench is the first thing to wake my mind from a momentary trance. They’re getting closer to me. I pick up the gun, hold it to the side of my head. Yesterday morning I couldn’t have dreamt of something like this happening, couldn’t dream of a day where everyone I knew would be ripped to shreds. I can still hear the screaming, the
bloodletting of a million souls trapped in Hell.

Yesterday was my last day on earth. Yesterday was the last time I’d see Mandy’s gunmetal-blue eyes twinkle with hope. Yesterday was the day God had an aneurysm. Yesterday God had a fucking heart attack.

Yesterday seems like a thousand years ago.

#

It started with a flash in the sky, like a comet exploding into a million pieces of fiery silver glitter. The clock in our bedroom stopped at 4:14am. The crunching of metal filled the new morning air like a soundtrack from the apocalypse. It was only when I looked out the bedroom window that I saw the first plane fall from the sky like a bird hunted on a crisp fall day. It slammed into a house just around the block from ours, giant metal tube flattening the foundation like it was made of styrofoam. I gasped, felt the air draw from my lungs with one quick swoop. Blood rushed to my brain at the speed of a thousand blind horses. I stumbled backward until I could feel the soft linens of our bed, Mandy’s toes curled underneath.

“Honey? What is it?” Mandy’s voice hinted at the lingering depths of slumber still hidden in her eyes.

I couldn’t say a word, could only point out the bedroom window. Mandy slipped out of bed, oversized black t-shirt ending in the middle of her milky pale thighs. I could see it in her face, the dozens of explosions reflecting in the endless blue of her eyes. She drew a hand to her mouth, and then looked at me with the look of desperation. I grabbed her hand and mouthed the word “basement,” each of us running down both sets of stairs and slamming the door behind us. Deep breaths forced from our lungs, I shook my head and stared at the basement floor, hoping to find some sort of answer in the dank and dusty concrete just below our feet.

Mandy behind me, I peered out the tiny basement window. Carnage filled the streets and it took me a full minute to realize that the haggard figures in the road were attacking my frightened neighbors. I watched as Doris, the kind elderly woman who often invited us over for coffee, pleaded with a rotting creature as it planted its hands on her shoulders. What happened next pulled tears from both Mandy’s and my eyes: the figure dug its hands into Doris’ face with absolute eyes, fingers hidden deep within her cheekbones as our neighbor shrieked with her final breaths of life. I had to look away as it brought the dripping flesh to its mouth and clamped its teeth together. Just as it leaned down to feed more, I could see another plane land from the sky and strike the ground with a cosmic burst of fire.

“Kal, Jesus, Kal…” Mandy couldn’t form a single full sentence and at this point I didn’t expect her to.

“Calm down for a second, baby, please.” I needed a few seconds to think. Just a few seconds to process the sights we both had just experienced. “Let’s just calm down…”

Part of me believed we were both dreaming. Part of me thought that we both died in our sleep and this was our purgatory. But a part of me knew we were doomed. I held Mandy in my arms for what felt like hours, maybe days. Before long I forced us from the ground and urged her to find warmer clothes in the dryer. What scared me the most was the way she was quiet, the way she would look away me from me as if I were already dead.

I sifted through the laundry basket and found a pair of jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. Mandy dressed herself in jeans and a bright red thermal shirt. I let the arms of the sweatshirt slide to my palms. Bringing them to my face, the smell of cheap detergent and flowers almost drew me away from the scene. It was only a matter of seconds before I could smell
them.

The first of the horde banged on the basement door repeatedly, each sullen knock causing Mandy to twitch with fear.
“Kal, what the hell is that?!”

“Stay there,” I said, brain ringing with lost memories and thoughts of any basement items that could be used as weapons. The next loud noise nearly tripped me, untied sneaker laces caught beneath my struggling feet. I grabbed a heavy shovel from the corner of the basement only a few seconds before the first one forced down the basement door, its scraggly legs falling down the stairs in rapid fashion.

“KAL!” Mandy’s eager shouts sent shivers between my lips. The first of the figures nearly grabbed hold of her before I let the shovel loose in a quick swing, its metal tip catching its decaying face. The only thing I noticed was that it didn’t bleed; the only liquid to fall from its new wound was black and oily. Mandy slid herself away from the corpse and grabbed hold of my sweatshirt, white-painted fingernails digging deep into the soft confines of my sides. More of them had fallen into the basement, each tumble strong enough to disable any normal human but not these rotting figures.

The odor of the undead was overpowering, each new body in the room forcing the bile from my insides to slither into my throat. I swallowed hard, stale taste of fear and defeat beginning to drip from the back of my tongue.

I counted four moving bodies in the room. The fifth one stood at the top of the basement staircase, as if in a departed trance. I expected the next explosion to be another plane fallen from the sky, but the spraying of bits of skull and gray matter told me that a bullet had found the head of the nearest figure to us.

“Move!” The voice boomed in the dead basement air. The next gunshots shattered the tension in only a few seconds, two of the three remaining figures falling to the ground in one undying lump. Mandy and I looked to the top of the staircase to see a man with short gray hair and the eyes of a hunter. He trotted down the stairs with reckless abandon, and before he reached the bottom of the staircase the stench closest to us turned to him. I
buried the end of the shovel into the back of its skull, felt the hardened and rusted edges squishing into a heap of wormy brains. The corpse moaned an unearthly groan, whatever dying soul inhabiting its putrid form escaping with one final gasp. The body fell to the ground amidst its silent brethren, the foggy waves of gunpowder and rage sifting through the now quiet basement.

The man extended a meaty paw and smiled, two rows of perfect white teeth gleaming back at us. “Name’s Jimmy,” he said as I took his hand. “What do you think of all this?” He pointed in a circular motion and I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the corpses that just attacked us or the fact that the world seemed to be falling apart.