------------------------------------------
(picture credit "Exit Humanity")
For Naught
by Andrew
Saxsma
“Beware, thy brother, for when the world
divides North and South, torn by color and creed, the devil shall choose a
side. May heaven have mercy on those
poor souls, the ones who fall, and the ones who shall face him.”
Willy dropped his cloth knapsack from
his shoulder, flopping it down beside his bloodstained boots in a puff of dry,
arid sand. He huffed and puffed, chest
hitching as he stared into the canyon ahead, lined by steep, golden cliffs
towering, shadowing the small outpost just within the canyon’s mouth. A hot breeze washed through Willy’s matted,
greasy hair, kicking up a tuft of swirling desert sand. He wiped his sweat-soaked face with the back
of his hand, sliding the sleeve of his union uniform across his forehead. He tried swallowing but without spit, his
tongue could only click against the roof of his crusted mouth and chapped,
sun-scorched lips.
He stared at
the shoddy collection of wooden-paneled homes and shops, shielding his eyes
from the flaming sun in the sky, burning the ground around him, streaking waves
of heat as far as the eye could manage.
“The devil
chose…” his cracked, waterless voice gasped, whispering to himself. “He chose…he chose…”
Willy’s head
sunk to the side, mouth hanging like a deerskin in the sun, eyes still staring
at the tiny outpost. His eyes followed
the split-post fence, funneling the dirt road into the center of town, to a
sign with white painted lettering, ‘Diablo Canyon’.
He sneered,
bearing his yellowing teeth and festering gums.
He slumped, scooping his knapsack by the strap, flung it over his
shoulder, and balanced himself down a steep outcrop of sandy rocks, nearly
face-planting into a tall, broad cactus.
He made his way
to the dirt road, cutting down the center of town, passing a rattlesnake that
hissed then slithered away faster than you could shove gunpowder down the
barrel of a musket.
Willy eyeballed
the hanging ‘Diablo Canyon’ sign as he walked underneath it, watched it creak
back and forth in the hot breeze, knapsack bouncing against his back, clinking
pots and cookware together.
He scanned the
empty windows of the buildings and homes, walking to the wooden porch of what
looked like a general store. He pressed
his face against the front glass window, cupping his hands around his eyes to
see inside. A till sat on a counter,
barring a shelf full of bags of grains and rice and horse feed, and bottles of
whiskey.
“Imma’ have me
some ‘a that!” he said.
He smiled then spotted a hand hanging out
beyond the counter, on the floor, its owner hidden, soaking in a puddle of
fresh blood.
Behind him, on
the dirt road, he heard rustling. In a
blink, he pulled a Colt from a hidden holster and clicked back the hammer,
spinning around on a dime. He loosened
his posture and eased the hammer back into place, staring at a tumbleweed
bouncing further into town, flipping end over end. He smirked, watching it roll along, and he
spotted another body, feet poking out of an alley between a saloon and a stable;
boots covered by the bottom of a bloodied dress.
The more he
looked around, the more he noticed the bodies, not quite hidden here and there,
out just enough for someone to notice.
Limbs and faces around corners, puddles of blood flowing from underneath
doors, and toward the town’s center, a pile of dead men, women, and children,
stacked a foot or two off the sand and blood mixed ground. The breeze licked up a cloud of sand, spewing
it over the pile and Willy had to look away.
“Oh, sweet,
sweet, Willy,” a rather pleasant voice called from across the road.
Willy looked,
and there, in front of a tiny, one room church, stood a woman. A bonnet hung over her the brow of her
forehead, shadowing her face in darkness.
Dried blood stained the white cotton top of her gown. Bloody handprints had traced lines around and
over her chest. The skirt of her dress
swayed in the breeze, giving glimpses of her boots and bloody footprints they
had left as she exited the church.
“Look what you
did,” she said, and Willy could almost hear her smiling.
Willy, gun
hanging at his side, quietly clicked back the hammer of the Colt.
“Oh,” the woman
said then giggled. “Come on, Willy. You should’ve learned by now, those don’t scare
us.”
Willy shifted
his eyes, looking up and down the street without moving his head.
“Think you’re
gonna’ skedaddle again? There’s nowhere
to go this time, Willy,” she said. She
stepped off the church’s porch, boots crunching into the sand and stood, hands
at her side, head hanging low, facing the ground.
A cloud passed
in front the blazing sun, blanketing the town in a brief, cool dimness,
revealing dozens of reaching, dead, greedy hands, grabbing out from behind the
woman, clawing at the humid air. The sun
edged out from behind the cloud, shaving away the hands, hiding them behind the
light once again.
Willy gritted
his teeth, fighting back a tear and a shiver.
He gulped, hard, and tightened his hand around the colt. Beads of sweat trickled down the back of his
neck, fumbling down from his hair, gliding down his back and soaking into his
undershirt and britches.
“Your brothers
in arms are waiting for you, Willy,” she said, and he could hear her smiling
again. “They missed ya’ back at Bull
Run. Word is, and I hate to believe
rumors but, they’re saying you’re a deserter, that you’re yella’.” She took a step forward, dress flowing. “Ya’ know, before they died, your company,
they all thought you were tougher than a sheet of iron crackers. Oh yes, indeedy. It’s true, Willy. Now, though, I’m afraid you’d be hard pressed
to get so much as a bluff your way. Why,
most of them, they want you to choke on an Arkansas toothpick, which I’m quite
inclined to deliver.”
She raised her
head, catching a glint of sunlight across her face. Her eyes bled, spilling rivers of blood down
her cheeks, pupils cloudy, empty. Her
mouth stretched back, tearing the corners of her lips like rain-soaked
parchment, ripping into a horrific, grisly smile. Blood dribbled down her chin, dripping to the
front of her gown like a leaky well spout.
“Beware, thy brother, for when the world
divides North and South, torn by color and creed…the devil shall choose a side,”
she whispered aloud. “I’m thinkin’ pappy
made the right choice, don’t ya’?”
Willy’s free hand
trembled as he reached slowly into his knapsack, sifting through papers and
jerky, feeling blindly for them. He licked his lips, nervous, and blinked
again and again, scared shitless as she took another step forward, smile
ripping up into her cheeks now. She
gurgled laughter, the tear spreading clear to her ears, and Willy could see
something wriggling inside her skull, something black, something laughing at
him.
Willy sighed,
pulling out a pair of heel cast three ringers, made especially for his colt,
dipped in iron and quick-cooled in holy water.
The thing
inside the woman shut up real quick and the torn skin-smile fused together in a
flashing singe, leaving a lumpy, bloody scar from ear to ear as her lidless,
empty eyes stared upon the bullets Willy rolled around in his hand, his other
hand still clutching his colt like the reigns of a wild mare.
“Ah,” Willy
said, “you recognize ‘em, huh? I dug
these out of one of your buddies’ skulls.”
The woman’s
lips peeled back, sliding over her rotten, moldy teeth, a look of disgust on
her evil face. Her right hand rose from
her side, wind whipping her dress, fingers dangling like freshly woven yarn
except for her pointer finger, aimed right at Willy. Her lips moved, making no sound, and this
made Willy’s eyes water with fright.
Willy flipped
open the chamber of his colt, popped in two bullets, hands shaking, dropping one round in between a pair of floorboards beneath his boots, then
whipped it closed again and aimed right between her eyes, tongue sticking out
the corner of his mouth.
She laughed and
brushed her hand through the air, swatting at nothing, and Willy felt a wall of
air slam into his chest, launching him off his feet, punching him through the
window of the general store behind him.
He fired a shot on accident as he covered his face, flying in a cloud of
broken glass and splintered wood, right into the till counter. His head slammed into it, cracking the counter's broadside, and he was sure he was blind for a minute, seeing only hot-white
sparkles with a droning high-pitched hum in his ears.
He rolled over
onto his stomach, gun still in hand, glass falling from his greasy, bloody
hair. He groaned, grabbing his tight,
throbbing rib as he sat up onto his knees, head pounding. He screamed out as he stood and turned,
looking through the broken window, glass shards dangling from the sill. A sliver of blood trickled down his forehead,
around the grooves his nose, following the curve of his lip to his bruised
chin. He slouched, holding his side.
The woman took
another step forward, laughing like a donkey, amused.
“Join your
brothers, Willy,” she laughed. “You
weren’t supposed to survive.”
Willy reached
into his satchel, pulling out a bottle wrapped in a dirty-stained cloth. He ran to the window, unwrapping it, and held
a bottle of clear liquid out, popping off the cork. He used his thumb to cover the lip of the
bottle and turned it over, sprinkling the water over the edges of the window as
the woman began running across the street with a sickening speed.
He leapt to the
door, sliding across on his knees and poured the rest of the bottle over the
edges of the door in a straight, complete line.
The woman slammed her hands into the sides of the door frame, catching
herself before she could enter, stopping her momentum all at once. Her dress swooshed between and around her
legs, flowing through the doorway and a bright white flame bit at its tips,
singeing the fabric.
She leaned in
as close as she could, kneeling in front of Willy who simply looked up into her
empty eyes, and she hissed, flinging her tongue around her scarred lips like a
dagger.
“We will get you, Willy, and when we do, oh, how you'll cry,” she whispered,
grinning and tilting her head to the side.
Her grin faded when she felt the cold barrel of the colt press against
the underside of her chin.
Willy smiled.
“We’ll see the
devil at Appomattox,” he whispered, pulling the trigger. The bullet went clean, up through her skull,
ripping the bonnet off her head with a pop!
The woman sniffed the air, smelling the coppery, hot smell of gunpowder,
shocked. A black, liquid-like mist
slithered through the bullet hole in her throat and bubbled out the top of her
blood-splattered crown, dissipating into the air like a fine fog. Her surprised corpse tipped forward, through
the doorway, igniting into a fierce, white flame as it passed the threshold,
until only a cloud of ash and a pair of scorched, burn-severed legs were left, bobbing back and forth to a slow stop.
A gust of wind
washed across the dirt road, whipping sand into the air in fierce slashes. It flowed, snake-like, splitting and spreading
over the corpses of the townsfolk like tentacles, wrapping around their arms
and necks, flowing underneath their dead, bloated bodies. They stretched, contorted, screaming to life,
some rising to their feet, others crawling through the sand toward the general
store, toward Willy.
Willy watched,
chewing on his lip, knowing he was out of bullets, as the dead folk closed in
on the store, surrounding it, clawing out for him, wanting him. He sighed, set the empty bottle of holy water
on the till counter, reached underneath, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and an
empty glass. He popped open the bottle,
poured himself a shot and tossed it back with a biting hiss. He hopped up, sitting on the bar, and topped
off the shot glass again. He raised his
glass to the zombies, held at bay by the line of holy water in the doorway and
window. He held the glass raised, worried, for the first time in a long time, watching the water slowly drying up.
“We’ll see you
at Appomattox,” he said, again, knocking back the whiskey.
THE END
Peace!
Andrew S.
No comments:
Post a Comment