Part One
It all started here....here...here...
When The United States borrowed 5 trillion dollars from China they had at some point offer up hard collateral. These guarantees started as mortgage backed securities and commercial property equities. It evolved into majority shareholder stake in most U.S. companies. Finally there was the vast coal fields of Utah and Colorado. It was eventually Anwar and all the Alaskan oil.
This is a special report. I am Yerded, it is March 20th 2012. I am over looking the wastelands, reporting live to you.
The dollar had long since been dumped as the worlds currency. There is no Amero, no Euro. The dollar is used to light funeral pyres now in Arkansas as the survivors flee and fight off the cannibal hordes in the big cities. At first the governments pretended to work against each other, but like businesses and monopolies they consolidated.
cough cough
How did it happen?
Well, it's like this folks. The bankers convinced the elected officials that they could stop the flow of funds that built the tractors to harvest the food that rode on the rails and trucks that fed the little boys and girls, if they didn't get some tax payer support. The bankers eventually began to take too much, and the politicians were too convinced that only money made the world go around so just gave them more because the bankers said it had to happen now or else. The government tried to become the banker, and become the biggest Captain of Industry and you know wut ?
The people running the show were more interested in what they could get out of the crop they had on the first harvest, than how to propagate the crop for later use, and the crop died.
Out-sourcing.
As one example; they thought it was such a good idea to see prosperity in Mexico that they gave tax breaks for the companies that closed Chevy plants in Michigan and opened them in Mexico. The politicians talked of the jobs of the future, high tech fap-fap-fap, and infra-structure blah-blah-blah but what the result was was aunts competing with nieces for waitress and walmart jobs and five hundred men lined up for one janitors job at a school.
Eventually riots and crime gripped our nation. An in-effectual martial law was declared; impudent because the first two amendments were held true by the good soul, son and daughters of the U.S. military. These brave souls would not fight for the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Senator John Travolta or president Arnold Schwarzenegger.
What the patriots never imagined, ladies and gentlemen was private security contractors from Blackwater, Haliburton and Exxon Mobil/Walmart Security Contractors whisking away to undisclosed locations members of congress, senate, and the president of the formerly united states and under the joint authority of the IPF (International Police Force ).
Be advised, the following is an official proclomation;
These were Chinese troops. I have first hand knowledge of U.S. troops being sent into Germany and Mexico; disarming the people and taking over businesses. The same here, after the Chinese troops disarm us they offer tracts of land to work, I.D. and ration cards.
President Arnold Schwarzenegger in his weekly address echoed his sentiments that compliance combined with hard verk was they best way forward in working with the new leadership and currency.
I hear boot heals kicking at my door. I will broadcast again if I am able...
PART TWO
December 4th 2010, short wave radio broadcast transcript...
Again folks, food distribution trucks have suspended deliveries for a third straight day.
Nobody has seen a police officer for weeks, but we are getting reports from all over about black helicopters flying at night and truckloads of soldiers unloading from cargo ships at the port of Los Angeles. The nuclear blast last week in Iowa has displaced 37 million people. The bridges into New Jersey are blocked by tanks and miles of empty cars fill the roads into and out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
We know Hoover Dam was blown up a month ago, and now we hear Lake Mathews and Prado Dam in Southern California are destroyed as well. The wild fires burn unfought. I spoke to a man yesterday who was locked in a catholic church. He said that his family sat at the pews, dead. The priest had offered himself as a sacrifice and slashed his throat on the alter, but no one came, and there were tanks coming down the street.
I don't know what happened friends, but this is a sad day in America, god help us all.
The president has not addressed the country in months. When he last spoke, our crack staff of l33t hackers taped into the governments wireless interwebs network. He gave one address for the South West, a different address for the Mid West and on the East Coast said something completely different. On one feed from the webcam, it was a wide angle shot and Asian looking armed men flanked his desk.
London burns for a tenth straight day. Green Peace commandos sank another tanker off the coast of France and their president signed concession papers with the group at the Eiffel Tower, their new head quarters.
Now we have the farmers being told to not harvest or grow food. The water mains work for two hours a day. Television and power for the interwebs is spotty at best.
Wait...we are able to switch from generator power back to our podcast.
Lets join George at his location, in Pasadena California. He has more about The Blood Cults.
George? Can you hear me?
PART THREE
Journal Entry, Sep. 22nd 2010
I have been alone now for four days. My current tactic is to travel only during the day. I carry a large plastic sheet, semi rigid, and it curves down to a water bucket connected to my travios and acts as a solar still; as I run, it collects my sweat and drains it into my bucket, from which I drink. I have this hooked to a headband and shoulder strap, and I remind myself of a small car towing a large boat, when I look at my shadow reflected in the hard, compacted sand next to me as I run. It is a problem in the brush, but I use my sword to hack my way through.
I think I got through the last of the roadblocks, but I am out of ammunition. My Garand is abandoned, some miles back. The party I was traveling with through Baker on my way to Las Vegas got stopped by soldiers. They made us all lay down with our hands behind our backs. They made us name the leader of the party, but since we were all just walking together, we were quiet, not knowing what to say. They took this as some sort of defiance and started stabbing Stan, the older guy with the kind face in the back of the neck with their bayonets. This older soldier, a corporal I think, started yelling for them to stop and then just pulled out a grenade and blew himself up, killing most of the other troops.
We fell on them then, and killed them all.
When we came to the next blockade, the soldiers were sitting by a fire. They had some young girls tied to a Humvee, and they were eating some meat, it looked like ribs.. It was dark and they didn't hear us. We wanted to eat, we were so hungry, but we knew from the last roadblocks that the soldiers were at least half mad, so we just snuck up close, and opened fire with the weapons we had stolen from the other soldiers bodies.
I'm still sad, because in the confusion of the gunfire we killed the girls too. I feel worse because we just left them there, tied to the angular, hard body of the olive drab machine of death, made by the defunct GM motors. God, why didn't I insist we bury them!
When we got to the fire we all started eating. We were all so hungry. It was then I saw the bloody jeans and shin bone sticking out of a sneaker next to the cook pot. We all looked at each other. I spat out the meat I was chewing on, but I knew; we had eaten human flesh.
That was enough to drive my companions insane. The girl, she ran screaming and laid down on the fire. The two black men I had hooked up with in Barstow began fighting, one biting the others ears and eyebrows off. Clawing and writhing. I knew that these people had to be put out of their misery; there was also the possibility that I too might become a victim; in my minds eye I saw them snapping my finger bones and sucking the marrow out and I shuddered.
The army truck was nearby. I climbed to the gun turret and put my hand on the business end and pointed it at the two...men now rolling on the ground, tearing at each others eyes and skin. I pulled the trigger.
A stream of clear fluid shot out and covered the two men.
The Humvee had a non lethal slime cannon that dispersed a thick goo that made it impossible to run or drive; an anti riot device.
I ran, carrying only my rifle. I turned once and saw that they too had stumbled into the fire. The anti riot goo trailed off their skin, no longer clear but the color of catsup, or cocktail sauce for fish sticks as their skin began to dissolve.
They howled my name, fingers outstretched, reaching for me.
* * *
That's all I remember now. I have reached my destination; a remote abandoned ranch in the Mojave desert that my uncle used to own. The bank foreclosed on him but it's still here. The generator still works and cool spring water flows from a nook in the canyon, planted with fruit trees behind my tunnel system. The only thing that could tip people off to my presence here is the tall Ham radio antenna on top of the rocks over there.
I will begin attempting radio communications soon; there must be other survivors and the Chinese army will not bother me here, I don't think.
I want to know; where is our president?
PART FOUR
There was light.
It reminded him of the fire, and he cringed. He backed further underneath the rock as the machine in the sky smacked down the air with its spinning blades. It moved through the night sky like some sort of spot light equipt insect with a probe of white fire, its beam casting shadows off the bodies and parts thereof scattered about the Humvee. Finally, it flew away.
With the light gone it was safe to come outside again.
The light hurt.
He wanted to hurt the light back.
He knew he was badly injured. But it was not a coherent thought, it was a feeling. He sensed now like an amoeba , a protists that moves by crawling, and crawl he did. He saw, but it was easier to see the bushes moving in the hot wind than it was to see his companion, who was lying underneath the humvee. He smelled, but the smell was fire and blood, it smelled good.
Over the three weeks of sitting at this checkpoint the liquid inside the canisters marked DVICE had baked at a average daylight temp well over the century mark. Things in the water compartment began to grow. The free-living amoeba Naegleria fowleri found in diverse freshwater environments, produces a rapidly fatal primary amoebic meningoencephalitis after exposure to contaminated water. It had never been mixed with a prototypical military grade exteriorized substance, which was what the slime cannon on the hummers ammo was made of.
Weeks of cell division, a commercial anti-riot product, near madness and being nearly burned alive made a strange soupy elixir.
But he could almost remember his name. Almost...
The moon now was the only light. He felt like he looked around him with a new vision. The plants stood out sharply against the soil and rocks. Bats flitted by and he deeply remembers shooting stars as a boy, because the animals all now glowed with a infrared illumination, from his point of view, and the movement of them as they chased insects was like that; of shooting stars. He smiled, and the seared skin around his face seaped fluid which dripped in long ropey streamers from his open mouth and jaw. Something that may have been a laugh but sounded more like the snot gagged cough of a lung cancer victim came out from his mouth and the other one underneath the vehicle came out.
Dimly, from some part of his mind that was still human he thought, You can't raise hell if you can't stand up.
They looked at each other.
It wasn't so much that they could read each others thoughts, it was more like they both felt the same thing.
It wasn't a horror at their burned and naked bodies, it was a wonder.
There was no memory of the fight they had been in shortly before. No concern over the food that had filled their bellies before the first light had came and they had slept in what shadows they could find. They gazed at each other. Stripped of skin, the bodies were lean and muscular. Their eyeballs, as big ass golf balls with the flesh burned away locked onto each other. With no thought, their hands touched, and they lingered that way.
A voice whimpered from by the truck. One of the girls was still alive.
She was shot badly, but moving.
They looked to her, and then back to each other. If they had had lips they would have curled in a smile, but all that was was a bloody gleam in the eyes and they stood there for four minutes before they turned to her.
With sounds like tearing bedsheets and wet mud splattering against a plywood wall they shambled to her She screamed as they fell upon her.
The ghost of a memory introduced itself to his mind as he ate her brains, freshly cracked and pulled from the skull.
He remembered the mass of people grouped by miles of wrecked cars on the freeway between Barstow and his location in Southern California.
He wanted to spray the slime cannon on them, and burn them too.
The humvee still ran. He remembered how to start it and as the engine started over he yelled iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggggggggggaaaaaa.
And they drove away into the remains of the darkness.
PART FIVE
A small crowd had gathered around him. They greedily ate the bread he had laid down on the ground in front of his wood box perch. He held a book above his head. He didn't read from the book. He couldn't; he had no eyes. His clothes were tattered but he had a leather jacket that hung below the knees. He had a walking staff with crystals hanging from string from the end. A large purse was slung over one shoulder. This work camp was like the others with high chainlink fence and manned towers. It was no longer to keep the workers from escaping, the walls were to protect the soldiers and the workers from the Others.
" And the Lord sayeth unto them, go to the Land of Shadows, and cast your burden into the fire. Do not fear those that live under the ground, or those that fly in the air on their evil steeds of death and iron. The two servants of God left their home and families and ventured forth. There were others that left with them, but they were led astray, or cast aside. They did meet up with one, a guide that led them into The Dark Lords lair. Like Cain and Abel, the two servants of God fought. But they carried on and eventually cast their burden and their sins into a lake of fire.
The fields outside the gates were now mostly barren, and a shanty town of plywood shacks had sprung up. A polluted stream ran by behind the rows. The workers were now free to go, but the soldiers knew they wouldn't go far. Without the soldiers guns, the workers would become food, and without the workers the soldiers would have no one to work the land to get what withered vegetables to grow they could. Dogs lounged in shadows in the alleys, and there was a plague of stray cats. That would be fixed soon, if the next shipment of food got cancelled again. There was even a set of batwing doors that led to a larger building were people gathered to gamble, smoke their pipe and huff paint. If it wasn't for the tanks parked next to the buildings ( long ago out of gas ) it almost looked like a old west town.
" The Apostles fought with Our Lord in The Battle of Five Armies, and the enemy was defeated. The two servants had gained valuable time in which to finish their quest, which they did. The Angel Elrond led his armies into battle on the side of Men, and many died therein. "
The Holy man didn't see the soldiers that pulled up next to his group, even as they unloaded from the truck but he heard them. He knew his time was short. Maybe this time, he figured, they would do more than put his eyes out. He was not afraid. He knew god waited for him in The Grey Havens. He had faith.
" Let us pray. "
Some among the crowd walked away when the soldiers pulled up. The others were regulars, and stayed to listen, not just for the food. He felt the sin of pride; he had disciples.
" Our Lord Gandolf, who sent us his two servants Frodo and Sam to carry our burdens, please forgive us for our sins. We bear the Spiritual Ring, oh Lord, as your servants did, so long ago. Protect us from the Orcs and giant spiders, oh Lord. Send our King Aragorn to protect us in our hour of need."
A soldier marched up and stopped before the Holy man. The others now had their rifles raised and pointed at the group of listeners. The soldier drew a sword and yelled, " 停止現在，您沒有被批准講話! 投下那本書，否则我將切掉您的手! "
The Holy man paused, unsure of what the soldier was saying. He shrugged.
" Send us the Ents, oh Lord, to smash the enemies castles. Give us..."
The sword flashed in the sun and the hand holding the book fell to the ground, still clutching it. The soldier pointed his sword at the man and shouted, " 下次它將是子彈到頭。 沒有警告! " They paused to beat some of the onlookers with their rifle butts before getting back into their truck. The Holy man clutched his bleeding wrist. A follower wrapped twine about it and tightened it up to stop the bleeding. What was left of the bread was now a deep, dark red because of all the blood.
" I am not afraid! They can take my eyes, but Lord Gandolf helps me see. They can take my hands, but he will help me! Who shall be my eyes? "
He paused and his head moved, as if he was looking around the crowd. Their faces turned away. The scarred red holes where his eyes used to be were unnerving.
" Who shall be my hands? "
For a long moment there was silence. Then a boy pushed his way through the crowd, or what was left of it. He was young, but no child. Maybe nine years old. He was skinny and had sores on his flesh and greasy matted hair, like everybody else. He pried the book out of the severed hands fingers and held it up to the old man.
" I'll be your eyes. "
The old man smiled. He couldn't see the book being offered, but he sensed it, and grabbed it from the boy. " Good, " he said. " I need you. "
" Where shall we go? " the boy asked.
A dog howled in the distance. Night was coming soon. They had to move fast. Those not inside after dark became food for the Fowleri. The Others.
The Holy man gestured for them to rise. Most did. Some wept and held their hands out to him. A few walked away.
" Come with me, " he said. " I have a special place. "
* * *
China, Nov 17th 2011
President Arnold Schwarzenegger stood in line.
He could not believe it had come to this. All the promises of partnership. All lies. All day long this had been going on. His aides, his staff, Michelle and Joe Biden, now all dead.
He looked down at the sign hanging from his neck. There was only a number. The bindings on his wrist were tight.
Finally, it was his turn.
Hands grabbed his arms and he was forced to walk. He didn't talk; he knew there was no point. All the others before had tried.
He was forced to his knees.
The sun splayed down through the trees and birds sang. It seemed the sky had never been so blue. He couldn't afford regret and had no time for anything else either. He tried to imagine his kids faces, laughing during a happier time.
Then the sound stopped for him as a rifle bullet blew out the back of his skull. Another shattered his spine. He slumped over and was kicked into the pit, with the rest of his staff and family.
To be continued...
PART SIX
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KheDjhFck94]Dogs, part one[/ame]
The dogs lay about the A-1 K9 training facility. Their bellies were full and they had three children of men in the pack now. They slept in the house. She had finally agreed to let the pack remove the body of the kind man who had fed and trained them for so long. They had buried him in his garden, like the man had done his wife, The Alpha had grunted and whined words from the mans black Book, and they had all said amen at the end. She had used her back legs to kick dirt onto his grave, even though her belly was full of pups again and she felt great discomfort.
Ever since they had started eating the others, the ones who ate children and destroyed all that was good if they had the chance, all the male dogs wanted to do was eat, fuck and hunt. Last week they had started to drive the mans truck, and could walk upright. She herself refused to.
That was a trick the man had never tried to teach them. It didn't feel right to her and she didn't want to learn how to drive; she was a good dog.
She went off behind the shed and squatted to give birth. The litter was the forth in the nine months since the man Who fed Them had died and they started eating The others, the ones the man had called Zombies. The babies walked away on two legs after they chewed their way out of the sac and joined the pack.
The moon was full, and she tipped her head back to howl at it.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haECDBqM_J4]Dogs, part two[/ame]
THE FOWLERI moved in as pack. Their gray bodies cast fleeting shadows as they bore down on the house.
They ran on all fours, spit dripping from their bloody mouths and eyes blazing.
In the early days they had carried the DVICE because they wanted to add more to their numbers, but as time went on they had forgotten how to load the cannisters of goo into the guns. They had forgotten how to walk upright. All they answered was the eternal emptiness of their bellies.
The children inside the house were terrified. They clutched the corpse of the mother, who lay dead in the bed.
The door cracked on its hinge as the Fawleri cast themselves upon it. This was the last row of houses beyond the chain link fence of the work compound. It wasn't that her neighbors didn't hear; they were afraid to come out.
It burst open.
There were three children. The oldest, a girl, stood defiantly between their gray bodies and her siblings, a shovel in her hands.
Then there was a flurry of snarls and gurgling sounds. A shadow crashed through the wood covering the window and latched its self onto the neck of the Other closest to the children. The two younger boys buried their heads in the dead mothers blanket.
Gunfire flashed in the room. All the gray bodies of the others now laid dead on the ground.
The girl, her mind now half gone, could have sworn that a German shepherd stepped up to her and offered its paw and told her to step outside. It was holding a rifle. It had a jacket and walked upright.
She fainted.
Centcom, Chicom High Command, Nov 28th 2011
They sat around a long oval table. Glasses of water sat near each arm, but nobody drank. They all wore the uniform of military, except for the CEO, a colonel named Hing. He wore nothing but stained white underwear. He clutched a Budweiser tallboy in one hand. He wore thick black glasses taped together with black electrical tape.
" What is the situation in the East? " he asked, oblivious to the fact apparently that he was the only one not dressed.
The subordinates looked around nervously at each other. Nobody liked speaking. Speaking was dangerous.
Finally a thin man spoke. The following is translated from intercepted corporate minutes, I have taped into the milnet that they use to communicate.
PART SEVEN
The Colonel ordered the driver to stop at the gate. Hooded figures stood sentry, but they only held staffs, not guns.
He exited the vehicle. The General had told him to come here in answer to the summons by The Preacher. The blind old man had gone from a dirty beggar/preacher to a full blown problem; a cult leader with thousands of followers who were fanatical and would kill themselves or any non-believers without hesitation. Now he had the power to summon an officer of the Red Army, or what was left of it.
" Well. Here I am. "
The hooded figures only stared at him silently. Then, dozens began to file out of the barracks behind the gates. They quietly surrounded the jeep. Hundreds of them. They carried a stench of unwashed bodies and something else, a sour smell like cancer. He began to tremble. Their silence was unnerving. Then two stepped towards the jeep. A tall one and a short one. The short one guided the tall one by the hand. The crowd parted without any sound but their feet moving on the cement and the shuffling of their robes. When the pair passed through, the crowd closed in behind them so the circle was complete. The Colonel felt his tongue dry out in his mouth and it felt like a dead fish.
The short one pulled back his hood and The Colonel gasped.
He was a boy, but his head was balding and covered with scabs. Running sores oozed fluid that ran in yellow rivulets. His eyes were large and piercing.
" The Preacher thanks you for coming. He says ' Lord Gandolfs blessing be upon you '. "
The boy looked up to the taller figure, and nodded his head as if in confirmation. The smell of rotting flesh boiled off the boy and The Colonel stepped backwards until his legs were up against the jeep.
" The Preacher says you have to pull your troops out of the city. He says you have to swear an oath to God and pledge to do his bidding. "
The colonel looked around the crowd. Many held staffs and scythes. Some clutched small leather bags. Beyond the crowd in the watch towers, other hooded figures manned large machine guns. A hot wind blew, temporarily removing the stench from his nostrils, but then it came back, stronger. He felt weak in the knees and wanted to leave. But orders were orders.
" My General instructed me to inform you that we have no quarrel with the people of your...city. We propose to ignore each other, and live in peace. "
The tall figure held out his arm and the sleeve of his robes fell back. He clutched a skeleton hand that grasped a blood stained book. The Colonel could just make out the words on the binding. It said " The Silmarillion ". The boy looked at the hooded figure again.
" The Preacher says that unbelievers have no place in Middle Earth. All the world will be cast into the fire and made pure again. The orcs that inhabit the cities will be dealt with, those who travel by night shall be granted no safe passage. Will you put your hand on the Bible and swear and oath to Lord Gandolf? "
He felt his hand begin to rise. There was a temptation to just do it so they could get out of there. This whole war had become a farce. How could he call himself a soldier when most of his enemies had been women and children and frightened fathers? Now the supply chain had broken down and they were reduced to consuming the workers flesh just to survive. No crops would grow, it was as if the ground had been poisoned. He just wanted to go home, but intelligence reports suggested that The Fawleri had taken over most of the world. Humanity had been confined to small pockets of resistance and survival. There was no home to return to.
" Wh...why should I swear an oath to a comic book character? "
The crowed seemed to recoil at that. Some forked the sign of the evil eye and shook the amulets at him. The boy looked at The Preacher again. They seemed to be using some sort of telepathy as he was close enough to hear them whisper but heard nothing.
" The Preacher says it doesn't matter if you believe in God because He believes in you.
He says you have two choices. Join us and be reborn in fire, or die with The Fawleri zombies. "
The Colonel managed a nervous laugh. " How will you kill the zombies? They are concentrated in the slums of the last few standing cities. Detroit is crawling with them. You think you can do what our armies could not? "
There was a few seconds of silence and then The Preacher spoke.
" Come, Colonel. We will show you. "
They gathered around him and hands gently pushed him through the gates and into the complex. They passed many rooms stacked with missiles and warheads. The Colonel understood the oozing sores on the cult members now; they were disassembling the missiles and had stacked the warheads in a giant pile in a hanger. He was led back outside and up a hill, the Preacher and the boy leading him with a beckoning hand. They stopped at a hole in the ground. It was one of several that the cult was working in. The boy said, " Colonel, in two weeks the righteous and the unrighteous shall be consumed in a Holy Fire. You have to make a decision. What side will you choose? "
The Colonel looked around with wild eyes as the crowd began to chant. Softly it started but then began to build until they were beating their staffs in timing and screaming. " Gandolf. Gandolf. Gandolf. " This was too much and he felt his mind begin to crack. He tried to run but hands grasped him and moved him closer to the pit.
" Decide! " the boy screamed.
" Nooooooooooo! I will not! I will no---"
They pushed him into the hole. His body bounced off the top of what was inside and fell limply to the bottom to rest with the other bodies there, the ones who had already died of radiation sickness.
Some distance away, just out of ear shot a helicopter hovered. The gunner watched the Colonel being cast into the silo. He saw the cult return to the jeep and talk to the soldier who had driven the Colonel to the facility. The soldier then drove away in the jeep.
The gunner whined and growled. If he had not been seated he surely would have tucked his tail between his legs. The cult made him nervous. He had told command that they were more dangerous than the zombies, and that was why they sent him here, to scout and recon. The helicopter banked away into the East and the darkening sky.
PART EIGHT
October 23, 2012
I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Or that Japanese soldier who came out of the jungle in Burma in 1965 not aware that WW2 had ended.
Last winter was hell. A century rain comes and I get snowed in. This is a desert; how the hell can I get snowed in?
So I set out across the desert, and shadows followed me.
Soundtrack; please c/p and open in another window; [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvNAHByKPM"]YouTube- Drums of Thunder (Native American Music) Mountain Spirits[/ame]
The shadows were dreams of what life used to be. Life, when getting hit by a semi or dying of cancer or being over drawn on my bank account was my biggest fear. Now I am reduced to using yucca leaves for shoes and hoarding my last three bullets. I have dreams sometimes where I am laying down in my Mojave desert camp, and I see a shadow on the rock wall; a out-stretched hand holding a giant butchers blade, but then I wake up and there is no one there. The owls hoot and the winds moan and I try to sleep again. It is no use. When I do fall asleep the shadowed hand becomes a man and I see his face clearly; it is krazyKarl and his beard is flecked with bits of flesh and blood runs down his chin and he isn't holding a knife, he is plunging it again and again into my stomach, my liver. My bowels spill out and then I wake up.
I seriously can't take it anymore and I am getting the fuck out of here.
When I first came to this canyon the Chinese troops were prowling everywhere. They may have picked up on my radio broadcasts or the sounds of my generator as I surfed the interwebs. Now the gas is gone and the airwaves are silent. There is no more transcripts from the military bases. All is quiet.
I was afraid to leave the compound for a long time. I eventually left it and ventured further into the canyon. There I found a cave and the ruins of an old anasazi fort. I stayed there for a long time, as there was a nearby stream that attracted many deer and big horn sheep. For many months I could see the distant lights of the Chinese humvees fourteen miles away on the highway. One night there was a large flash of light to the East, and after that, no more troops.
At night the shadows of my fire painted dark faces on the wall and figures of smoke that danced seemed to crowd closer and closer to my fire the more I ate the peyote. I was one with the cherokee indians who used to live here; weaving nets and spearing fish from the stream and killing deer and rabbits with atal darts I made from chert. I brewed a strong alcohol from the mescal that grew in the flat lands. It was a good life until the squirrel started talking to me.
I was sleeping like a corpse. My hands were interlocked on my chest. My serape was off and spread over my body like a blanket, or burial shroud. My flat rimmed cowboy hat was pulled over my eyes. The Moon was a lazy crescent tilting to spill its shadow out and the sky was ablaze with stars; amazing how beautiful the night was when there was no city lights anymore. And the air, quiet. Back in the days before the fowelri zombies you couldn't go far enough into the wilderness to escape the sound of passing jetliners. Now there was the sound of insects and wind and me, nothing more.
" Yerded. "
I groaned and farted but did not yet wake up.
" Yerded! "
My eyes opened, but I thought it was going to be just like the bad dream with KrazyKarl the knife wielding lunatic. I would roll over and go back to sleep. But not tonight. I saw him outlined in the fireglow.
" Wake up, you dummy, " the squirrel said.
I rolled over and rubbed my eyes. I knew I was still drunk, and the peyote had a funny way of double dipping but I woke right the hell up when the little son of a bitch bit my thigh.
" Wake up ! "
The squirrel had a drill sargents voice, not some Calvin and the Chipmunks pussy brigade. I sat up.
" Look, " the squirrel said. " you are not much of a warrior, but all the old ones we used are ghosts and we feel a need to intervene. "
The animal had coal black eyes but they shown with a keen intelligence. I was no longer sure that I was awake.
The squirrel continued; " you need to get the fuck out of this canyon. Take the tarps that are by the old military outpost and make a balloon. You need to get to a place in Colorado. Peoples and things are gathering. My confederate Ehecatl, will see you to the location you need to be. We have a special task for you. "
Beings as my nature is cantankerous his attitude was seriously beginning to get on my nerves. Then, he gave me some mushrooms...
I ate them all, a large handful.
Soon the world squared off into a snapshot; a framed picture that tilted five degrees to the right, then more and more until it was ready to fall. It tilted down, and down, and cascaded into a maze of mirrors that led off into infinity. I saw a volcano and a boy trying to carry a ring up the slope, but the view was far up and away, as if I was a hawk. It flashed to a battlefield filled with men carrying guns and shovels, and dogs riding atop tanks carrying machine guns plunging forward through a haze of smoke. The haze cleared and there was a single rose growing in a field of fallen bricks and steel cable. I saw a child, a girl, and she scooped up a handful of dust and saw that as the grains fell from her hand that it was not sand, but tiny universes and worlds tumbling down. It seemed like figures were dancing around my fire. The furry little anthropomorph was still yelling at me, but now he appeared to float above the rock he had been sitting on. Then the squirrel seemed to grow. Now it was seven feet tall. I only remember him giving me instructions, but I couldn't tell you what he said; it was more of a chant. He was as real as you or me.
Then, I blacked out.
When I woke up my fire was cold, but next to it there was a leather cord with carved beads and small feathers next to it. I tied this around my neck. I began following the stream down canyon. It wasn't long before I came across an outpost. There was a jeep with no gas, but plenty of guns and ammo and I found a nice pair of boots on one of the skeletons. Inside the cinder block guard tower there was a room with food and heavy plastic sheeting. This I used to make the balloon. It took me several days to construct it. I worked mostly at night. The Squirrel was there, and kept me well supplied with mushrooms and instructed me. His trick of using a propane cylinder from the forklift to fire the balloon was brilliant. As the balloon rose I looked back into the canyon that had been my home for the last two and a half years. I didn't know where I was heading, but the winds speed me straight East.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Late that night, far away...
Detroit
He was out of food. All of his friends were dead. It was time.
This running and hiding and scavenging food like an animal was lame. He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. The Fowleri were all gathered in a row house. There was grotesque sounds coming from the other side of the door. He didn't want to think about it. Soon, it would be dark and they would come out. Burn it down? Drive a truck through the building? He saw a storage shed next to the building and opened it up. The answer was clear and it was time to fight back.
He didn't know it, but similar scenes were being played out all across the remains of America. Some had happened last week, some were happening right now, and some had yet to play out. That last remnants of fighting spirit had waken up, and the survivors were beginning to live again by fighting back, by hunting these bastard zombies down and chopping them to pieces.
He stood in front of the door with it ready, and said a silent prayer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIYreBOh1g#t=2m10s
PART NINE
North
Many things had happened since The Others had come.
Their bodies had changed. The tissues in their skulls had been in a state of semi constant flux. They could walk upright, and talk with men. The fur had become thin and now it felt good to wear clothes like the former masters. The shapes and lines that made the language of men on paper now came together and said something. The bitches gave birth every nine weeks. They had a natural proclivity for tools and computers and in the space of a year, had become mechanical geniuses. Their minds absorbed knowledge with the same sort of zeal as the old ones among them that still lived and looked like regular dogs had once chased frisbees. Each new litter was a closer cross breeding of man and dog.
And they knew why.
There was something about The Others meat. It tasted sweet and when they chewed it it caused rapid changes in their minds and bodies that they recognized. They hunted the zombies as food exclusively, and they were getting harder to find and catch. Most of the zombies had fled the cities and were moving together in small packs West. When one was caught it was divided up equally. The youngest of the pack were made sure to get a share, but the best was saved for special dogs. The ones that showed the best grasp of technology or healing.
They got to eat the brains.
Tonight they had one, and it was dragged in chains from the holding cell into a large room. The highest ranking members of the pack lined the walls and watched as it was tied to a table, arms outstretched to the four corners. It had the shape of a man, but the skin was the color of snot and traced with blue/red veins. It was hairless and the mouth opened in a silent scream and it trailed a vile looking green frothy spittle from its teeth and nose.
Earlier, The Others fought and resisted feverishly and most of the time they would have had to smash its skull with a hammer in the hallway before they brought it into the chamber for feeding. But now the ones they caught just lay limply in their chains, head loose on it's neck and the eyes scanning slowly around the room.
The Dogs tied him to the table. A clamp snapped round its jaws and chin and the head was immobilized. A small saw was used and the top of its living skull was sawed open. The brains were scooped out and diced. A litter of new borns were brought forward and they were given small bits. Almost instantly they began to groan and contort as the changes to the bodies began. If you were standing there, looking over the dogs shoulders you would have heard the puppies skulls creak as their brains grew measurably by the minute.
The captured Fawelri died without glory or awareness, its already half dead eyes simply loosing their glassiness.
Then the other adult dogs of the Higher Pack surrounded the table and began to feed.
West...
Meanwhile, high in a balloon...
Ehecatl would not shut up. Either the mushrooms were wearing off or my legs were getting cramped after twelve hours in this balloon that was now obviously losing air and sinking.
" Since the wind blows in all directions, I was associated with all the Cardinal directions. My temple was built as a cylinder in order to reduce the air resistance, and was sometimes portrayed with two protruding masks through which the wind blew. As the fourth sun was destroyed in the Aztec creation myth (due to the gods not being satisfied with the men they had created) the gods gathered in Teotihuacan. There Nanahuatzin and Tecciztecatl jumped into a sacrificial fire and became the sun and the moon, pity, they were good friends of mine. They remained immobile until I blew hard on them. At first only the sun moved, but once the sun started moving the moon moved also... "
I looked over at him, or it. He wasn't a solid figure, like the squirrel, more like an animated graffiti tagged onto the interior compartment of my balloon. He had not stopped talking for ten hours. I didn't know if you could kill a God, but I was seriously considering trying.
" Look, " I said, " will you shut the fuck up, you are driving me batshit. "
He stopped alright. After a minute I began to feel bad. Like I had hurt his feelings. For a moment I contemplated my situation: here I was, having floated for miles and miles, inside a balloon I made guided by a talking squirrel. I had not eaten much besides the mushrooms in four days, and although I expected to build up a tolerance I was talking to some ancient god like he was really there with me.
" Okay. I am crazy and you are not real. "
The wind spiked and buffeted the compartment around. I felt weightless for a second as the balloon hit a down draft and free fell before settling again on a breeze.
" Don't start that shit again ese. " He said.
" Look, " I said, " two years ago I was a privateer broadcaster documenting the Chinese invasion over the internet. Now I live like a scavenger and have actually killed people. Nine of them! I'm cracking up, losing my marbles, one can short of a six pack...
" You are not real!, " I screamed.
" Okay, " he said. " Whatever homes. Just remember this; we want you to kill The Preacher.
" Nagaicho, The Creator has chosen you. And he has sent you his Dog. "
I didn't have time to answer, the wind was slammed out of me as the balloon crashed through trees and onto the ground. I was knocked out.
* * *
South...
Cross Plains, Texas October 25, 2012
" I am the gawd damned president of The United States may she rest in everlasting peace , and I want that sum bitch shot. "
The issue was a farmer near Plano that was caught hording crop food and diesel. Jed Halbaster, former all pro wrestler, aka White Fury, aka Potus was flanked by two men with M249 Squad Automatic Weapons. President Jed, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs , number 17 in the order of succession, had never been in on the international corporations plot to create a one world government. Like most Americans, he had lived in hiding since the Chinese/Walmart coalition had invaded. Nobody knew how the zombie thing started, but they knew it started in California and spread like a case of jock itch in a high school gym class throughout the world. The last seven hundred Marines were going house to house in a radius now extending eight hundred miles, kicking in doors and decapitating any Fawleri they found. The Zombies had all been moving West in groups of five and twenty. Texas was clear.
" But Sir, " his assistant said. " He was married to your second cousin on your mothers side. "
The president lit a cigar and wiped the sweat from his jowls with a stained handkerchief.
" Son, I am the pee oh tee ewe ess. I cannot show favors. But okay, just bust his teeth in. Get er done, now! "
" Sir, yes sir! "
The two soldiers ran out of the room.
He turned to his assistant, a pimply faced skinny teenager with a metal clipboard; " Bring me another whore and get me a pigeon to send a message to General Bush in Florida. "
Such was the remains of the united States government.
* * *
East...
Mount Fire Missile Base, Colorado. October 25, 2012 Outside the wire, 1.7 miles
The balloon sat down and dragged through the brush for a quarter mile before coming to a stop. Just as it did, a creature approached on all fours and helped me out. I was sort of immune to animals talking, so I took it as no big deal that there was a dog with a knapsack full of C4 explosives waiting to greet me. He didn't have a snout, more of a nose. Wire rimmed john Lennon glasses framed kind brown eyes. He wore bandoleers with ammunition and carried a sawed off shotgun. But still, he was obviously mostly dog.
The mushrooms were completely worn off now and I was sober. I had been instructed by the talkative Indian god in the balloon and I knew that farther on through the brush, where the lights were, there was a fence, and somehow we were going to get inside it. Once inside I had a job to do, and so did my new companion.
" Hello, " he said.
" My name is Wolf. " He gestured towards the lights. " Let's go. "
Part 10
It was a New Moon and in the small valley they were camped in it was so dark the forms of the Joshua Trees barely traced an inky outline on the desert pavement they were camped on. Wolf sat away from me, on guard perhaps, in the direction of the base.
As the sky began to pierce the night with hints of blue we walked the mile or so to the fence without talking. I hadn't eaten anything but I was full of energy and we quickly climbed the wall of a wash at the edge of the fenced perimeter. Our plan was simple, no thanks to the Squirrel who had offered no insight on how to get inside the compound. We would approach the gate at sunrise, and ask to see The Preacher. If they were dumb enough to let me near him, I intended to split his face open with my hatchet. Other than that, planning seemed moot. Wolf would run interference and try to keep them off me, if it came to a fight.
Dawn came.
The entrance to the former military base was littered with burned out and destroyed vehicles. Formerly domesticated cats milled about the empty guard house. The fence was closed and ragged figures in tattered gray clothes and robes shuffled to the gate to meet us. Their eyes were cloudy with cataracts and most had skin turned yellow from what may have been kidney disease. Wolf covered his nose/snout because the stench of the rotting flesh was so strong. I looked up at the towers with the machine guns and it looked like the men manning them had been dead a few days. The one on the left was half draped out the window with dried gore coming from his ears and stringy gray matter trailing from his nose. The other one on the right was still and a kitten appeared to be eating the flesh of his hand, still on the gun.
I opened the gate and they shuffled back.
" These guys smell like they are all ready dead . " Wolf said.
I walked through the crowd that parted in a tense silence. Wolf placed his hand on my shoulder as if guiding me and we headed towards the tunnel entrance.
" They are. " I said.
They looked as much zombie as The Others. They were starved, and it was radiation sickness that made the skin hang in ribbons from their gaunt forms. Yet they were docile. I gentle shoved my way through them. One grasped my arm and tried to whisper something in a breath that smelled like rotten meat and musty cardboard. I pushed his arm away and my hand felt like I had rubbed it in warm butter. I wiped the rotten flesh on the the robes of the one in front of me as I pushed through the crowd. Pages of a book littered the ground. The Two Towers, by Tolkien.
Finally, Wolf and I stood before a door marked 8675309.
He unslung his shotgun and I pulled out my hatchet.
The crowd of the undead watched us without expression as we went inside.
* * *
Chicom Head Quarters
They were gathered around an oval table, twelve of them. Magistrate of Argricullture, Minister of Dissent, Quarter Master, etc.
They had stick bodies now. Malnutrition had given them scurvy. The Master at Arms and Colonel Ho both were picking at lice in their scalp.
Hing was positioned under the Commanders seat, stroking his cock. The trouble was the Commander was dead. He had passed exactly twelve minutes ago and they had all sat there looking at each other, wondering what to do. Hing, obviously The Commanders lover was now hopelessly insane. The civies had long ignored the guns with the empty magazines and the tanks sat empty with dead batteries and dry gas tanks. The generators no longer illuminated the wire and there was no need to patrol anymore.
They were starving.
Two months ago the Commander had ordered another cull with the excuse being one guards dozing at the gate watch. The remaining men had lined up and Hing had walked behind them. Hing clubbed one to death and the men dragged him away. All was well until a bit of flesh in the pot that night revealed the skull and cross the guard had as a tattoo on his calf. Then the troops realized the real reason for the culls, wherein one in ten was selected for clubbing; the were for food.
The Chinese soldiers then more or less disbanded, heading into the wastelands as the people of the shanty town had been hanging those they caught.
The people of the shanty town now approached the gate of the Chinese military camp with torches and pitch forks. Some carried ropes fashioned into nooses.
The twelve men eyed each other nervously, knowing their time was at an end. Three of them pulled grenades from their vests, they all nodded to each other, and they pulled the pins as one and placed them on the desk.
INTERLUDE
The night is black
Without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.
Features distorted in the flickering light,
The faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possessed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.
PART 11
I remember now what it was like to walk back through the tunnel and into the bunker. Wolf was an amazing friend. The last thing he said to me before he died was, " sometimes the friends that are the best, are the ones we've known the least. " It was funny, but he felt like his life was worth less because he lived in dog years. His life was a flash in the pan compared to a normal humans life, and the Dogs know that. I think that is why they are such noble and honest leaders now, all these years later.
Now, where was I? Oh yes..I forget these things sometimes now.
So anyway, I don't remember talking to that Indian god etchy or Ehecatl, or whatever it was, ever again after I entered the cave at Mount Fire.
Cave, bunker, whatever.
There were dead bodies piled two or three deep in some of the storage rooms. Whatever it was they had been doing, it had cost them dearly. Wolf went first. His shotgun wasn't some sissy pump thing, it was a drum fed 12 gauge that fired automatically. I had never seen anything like it. I remember feeling like I was starting to get tired. My arms were heavy. I only carried my long knife.
His flashlight [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf2qUty9zmc]bobbed and weaved in the tunnel which had been carved through solid rock.[/ame] Eventually the tunnel gave way to a steel door and a control room. Then the storage rooms. Strewn among the dead bodies were piles of wires and sheet metal ripped from, what I know now were casings of rockets and nuclear bombs. These crazy cult people had ripped the warheads out of about fifty nuclear missiles and artillery shells, depleted uranium thingies, poison gases whatsamahoozits and strapped them all on a giant fucking Minute Man missile headed for the Chicom base! They weren't smart enough to realize all the radiation would kill them but they were smart enough to launch that rocket.
But I get a head of myself...
I didn't know it, but the last few thousand Chinese soldiers were all massed together and running for their lives. They were being pursued by about five thousand rag tag American survivors, and they wielded anything from guns and axes, to clubs, lawn mowers and flaming cannons. The last few hundred zombies were just being swept along in front of them two....armies, meanings the Chinks and the Rednecks. So you had three bands of conflict who just happened to be heading towards Mount Fire, where me and Wolf were trying to find and kill The Preacher, 'cept we didn't know about any of that, beings as we was inside the tunnels. That spooked the Tolkien cultist who manned the machine guns and started firing when the Fawleri started to cross the gates leading to the missile base. Some of the cross fire hit the Chinese troops, who turned and started running into the blades and guns of the Americans. Then there were four groups fighting, not counting me and Wolf.
Wolf kicked open the door and there was The Preacher and the boy.
His skin was peeling away from his one arm and the book he held was sort of fused into his hand. The holes where his eyes had been half glowed with the radioactive puss that filled them. He shrieked,
Thou Shalt Not Pass!!!"
But we passed into the room alright. Wolf lowered his shotgun. He whined and damned if his tail didn't wag.
" The Preacher said you cannot pass! " the diseased boy shouted.
He didn't look as bad as those outside by the gate, but the sickness boiled off him in waves of hot musk. His breath smelled like copper and vitamins because blood was running down his mouth. I actually managed a laugh; at once it all seemed so silly. Here was a so called holy man, a preacher in what had become a post apocalypse madhouse, using the fucking Lord Of The Rings as A Bible, making a doomsday machine. A large number of people appeared from behind the missile. They carried amulets and clubs. They shuffled and their teeth fell out as they walked because the radiation sickness was so strong. The Preacher shook his book and the rocket began to hiss behind him. " You're too late! Too Late! Frodo doesn't come to mountain of fire in this story! I bring to fire to you! Hahahahaha! "
I remember Wolf began to fire his shotgun, and bodies slammed back as the heavy slugs tore through them. Then they began to stack around us, oozing gore and brains and shit so thick my shoes splooched as I stepped towards The Preacher and the boy.
" The story is over. " I said.
I went to them, with the knife. I never saw that damned Squirrel God, but I'm sure he was there. I didn't see Wolf get burned, but the missile launched as I slashed them. The fire knocked me over and I hit my head...
Cross Planes, Texas. December 22, 2012
The President of The United States was sweating.
The microphone thrummed in his hands as the feedback tore through the speakers. He had a sweaty uncomfortable erection. The public executions did that to him. Away from the small crowd of skinny farmers a generator belched black smoke and sputtered to a halt. The fuel was gone and the air filter was clogged, both at the same moment.
" I don't fucking need that..." he threw the microphone at his pimple faced assistant and it hit him in the nose. When it did a large zit popped in a bloody spurt and he trembled in disbelief at the abuse.
" Citizens. These...people stand before us, accused of hoarding. " He scanned the small crowd, this was a pause he enjoyed, as usually there was a defiant one that he would order up against the wall with the rest. The crowd didn't meet his eye; they slouched tiredly against their rakes and canes looking tired and bored. Behind him in the flat bed truck which he rode on, behind his desk and flag, was stacked the last of the canned food. He walked over, sweating, and grabbed a few cans of tuna, which seemed to liven the crowd. It was a well worn ploy and he tossed out four cans to different edges of the crowd, drawing them closer. Their sweat smell rolled up against him and the crowd made him feel more horny. This was what he lived for.
Power.
Overhead, a faint glint of light flashed, unseen by the people but noticed by the black and diseased crows lined up on the dead power lines. They took wing and began to fly, in vain, feeling some sense of impending doom in their bird brains. The missile had broken through the atmosphere and bore down.
A small boy, accused of stealing rotten fruit looked up to the sky from the cinder block wall, his hands bound tight and bleeding, and saw the fire. The clouds seemed to hold the shape of a squirrel that the missile punched through. The president cupped his hands around his face and bellowed:
" Ready..."
Those in the crowd may have sensed something, for many began to turn away, tired of it all. Perhaps they realized that they would someday have their turn against the wall. Perhaps they were just bored. The fire came down.
" Aim..."
The boy against the wall didn't feel afraid anymore. It as if he could feel the soft fur. There was no fear, because he was too hungry and tired, but there was a tear. For the first time he could remember, a tear of joy. He thought: Dear God, save these poor asses, for they know naught of what they do. "
And then, the righteous and the unrighteous were consumed in the holy fire, launched from Mount Doom, where the Shadow had lain, and the world moved on.
Afterword:
I am old now, and no longer can talk to the Gods. I know I played my part in this story. There must be a teller of the tale.
" All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over and the lamps expire.. "
Now at last, my work here is done.
Code:
U.S. Government Under Chinese Protection
When The United States borrowed 5 trillion dollars from China they had at some point offer up hard collateral. These guarantees started as mortgage backed securities and commercial property equities. It evolved into majority shareholder stake in most U.S. companies. Finally there was the vast coal fields of Utah and Colorado. It was eventually Anwar and all the Alaskan oil.
This is a special report. I am Yerded, it is March 20th 2012. I am over looking the wastelands, reporting live to you.
The dollar had long since been dumped as the worlds currency. There is no Amero, no Euro. The dollar is used to light funeral pyres now in Arkansas as the survivors flee and fight off the cannibal hordes in the big cities. At first the governments pretended to work against each other, but like businesses and monopolies they consolidated.
cough cough
How did it happen?
Well, it's like this folks. The bankers convinced the elected officials that they could stop the flow of funds that built the tractors to harvest the food that rode on the rails and trucks that fed the little boys and girls, if they didn't get some tax payer support. The bankers eventually began to take too much, and the politicians were too convinced that only money made the world go around so just gave them more because the bankers said it had to happen now or else. The government tried to become the banker, and become the biggest Captain of Industry and you know wut ?
The people running the show were more interested in what they could get out of the crop they had on the first harvest, than how to propagate the crop for later use, and the crop died.
Out-sourcing.
As one example; they thought it was such a good idea to see prosperity in Mexico that they gave tax breaks for the companies that closed Chevy plants in Michigan and opened them in Mexico. The politicians talked of the jobs of the future, high tech fap-fap-fap, and infra-structure blah-blah-blah but what the result was was aunts competing with nieces for waitress and walmart jobs and five hundred men lined up for one janitors job at a school.
Eventually riots and crime gripped our nation. An in-effectual martial law was declared; impudent because the first two amendments were held true by the good soul, son and daughters of the U.S. military. These brave souls would not fight for the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Senator John Travolta or president Arnold Schwarzenegger.
What the patriots never imagined, ladies and gentlemen was private security contractors from Blackwater, Haliburton and Exxon Mobil/Walmart Security Contractors whisking away to undisclosed locations members of congress, senate, and the president of the formerly united states and under the joint authority of the IPF (International Police Force ).
Be advised, the following is an official proclomation;
Now folks, what they did is come into neighborhoods with freeking tanks. They would knock on doors and demand that they present all fire arms for confiscation. If the homeowner was caught hiding anything they dragged him to the street and shot him in the back of the head in front of his family, and then shot them too. If somebody fired a weapon they blew up the whole fucking house.I am Chen zu Lin commander of Earthcom, North American division, LLC all rights reserved, copyright chicom network 2012 and use of images or re-education material subject to administrative indocturination and review.
Marshal Law is hereby proclaimed.
All fire arms in any working, prototype, historical, collectible or display purposes must be surrendered as well as all reloading supplied and books on the instructions thereof.
Failure to comply may result in household capital punishment.
please email concerns and comments to www.usabankandgovernment.chicom.com
These were Chinese troops. I have first hand knowledge of U.S. troops being sent into Germany and Mexico; disarming the people and taking over businesses. The same here, after the Chinese troops disarm us they offer tracts of land to work, I.D. and ration cards.
President Arnold Schwarzenegger in his weekly address echoed his sentiments that compliance combined with hard verk was they best way forward in working with the new leadership and currency.
I hear boot heals kicking at my door. I will broadcast again if I am able...
PART TWO
Code:
BREAKDOWN
Again folks, food distribution trucks have suspended deliveries for a third straight day.
Nobody has seen a police officer for weeks, but we are getting reports from all over about black helicopters flying at night and truckloads of soldiers unloading from cargo ships at the port of Los Angeles. The nuclear blast last week in Iowa has displaced 37 million people. The bridges into New Jersey are blocked by tanks and miles of empty cars fill the roads into and out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
We know Hoover Dam was blown up a month ago, and now we hear Lake Mathews and Prado Dam in Southern California are destroyed as well. The wild fires burn unfought. I spoke to a man yesterday who was locked in a catholic church. He said that his family sat at the pews, dead. The priest had offered himself as a sacrifice and slashed his throat on the alter, but no one came, and there were tanks coming down the street.
I don't know what happened friends, but this is a sad day in America, god help us all.
The president has not addressed the country in months. When he last spoke, our crack staff of l33t hackers taped into the governments wireless interwebs network. He gave one address for the South West, a different address for the Mid West and on the East Coast said something completely different. On one feed from the webcam, it was a wide angle shot and Asian looking armed men flanked his desk.
London burns for a tenth straight day. Green Peace commandos sank another tanker off the coast of France and their president signed concession papers with the group at the Eiffel Tower, their new head quarters.
Now we have the farmers being told to not harvest or grow food. The water mains work for two hours a day. Television and power for the interwebs is spotty at best.
Wait...we are able to switch from generator power back to our podcast.
Lets join George at his location, in Pasadena California. He has more about The Blood Cults.
George? Can you hear me?
PART THREE
Code:
ROADBLOCKS
I have been alone now for four days. My current tactic is to travel only during the day. I carry a large plastic sheet, semi rigid, and it curves down to a water bucket connected to my travios and acts as a solar still; as I run, it collects my sweat and drains it into my bucket, from which I drink. I have this hooked to a headband and shoulder strap, and I remind myself of a small car towing a large boat, when I look at my shadow reflected in the hard, compacted sand next to me as I run. It is a problem in the brush, but I use my sword to hack my way through.
I think I got through the last of the roadblocks, but I am out of ammunition. My Garand is abandoned, some miles back. The party I was traveling with through Baker on my way to Las Vegas got stopped by soldiers. They made us all lay down with our hands behind our backs. They made us name the leader of the party, but since we were all just walking together, we were quiet, not knowing what to say. They took this as some sort of defiance and started stabbing Stan, the older guy with the kind face in the back of the neck with their bayonets. This older soldier, a corporal I think, started yelling for them to stop and then just pulled out a grenade and blew himself up, killing most of the other troops.
We fell on them then, and killed them all.
When we came to the next blockade, the soldiers were sitting by a fire. They had some young girls tied to a Humvee, and they were eating some meat, it looked like ribs.. It was dark and they didn't hear us. We wanted to eat, we were so hungry, but we knew from the last roadblocks that the soldiers were at least half mad, so we just snuck up close, and opened fire with the weapons we had stolen from the other soldiers bodies.
I'm still sad, because in the confusion of the gunfire we killed the girls too. I feel worse because we just left them there, tied to the angular, hard body of the olive drab machine of death, made by the defunct GM motors. God, why didn't I insist we bury them!
When we got to the fire we all started eating. We were all so hungry. It was then I saw the bloody jeans and shin bone sticking out of a sneaker next to the cook pot. We all looked at each other. I spat out the meat I was chewing on, but I knew; we had eaten human flesh.
That was enough to drive my companions insane. The girl, she ran screaming and laid down on the fire. The two black men I had hooked up with in Barstow began fighting, one biting the others ears and eyebrows off. Clawing and writhing. I knew that these people had to be put out of their misery; there was also the possibility that I too might become a victim; in my minds eye I saw them snapping my finger bones and sucking the marrow out and I shuddered.
The army truck was nearby. I climbed to the gun turret and put my hand on the business end and pointed it at the two...men now rolling on the ground, tearing at each others eyes and skin. I pulled the trigger.
A stream of clear fluid shot out and covered the two men.
The Humvee had a non lethal slime cannon that dispersed a thick goo that made it impossible to run or drive; an anti riot device.
I ran, carrying only my rifle. I turned once and saw that they too had stumbled into the fire. The anti riot goo trailed off their skin, no longer clear but the color of catsup, or cocktail sauce for fish sticks as their skin began to dissolve.
They howled my name, fingers outstretched, reaching for me.
* * *
That's all I remember now. I have reached my destination; a remote abandoned ranch in the Mojave desert that my uncle used to own. The bank foreclosed on him but it's still here. The generator still works and cool spring water flows from a nook in the canyon, planted with fruit trees behind my tunnel system. The only thing that could tip people off to my presence here is the tall Ham radio antenna on top of the rocks over there.
I will begin attempting radio communications soon; there must be other survivors and the Chinese army will not bother me here, I don't think.
I want to know; where is our president?
PART FOUR
Code:
THE FOWLERI
There was light.
It reminded him of the fire, and he cringed. He backed further underneath the rock as the machine in the sky smacked down the air with its spinning blades. It moved through the night sky like some sort of spot light equipt insect with a probe of white fire, its beam casting shadows off the bodies and parts thereof scattered about the Humvee. Finally, it flew away.
With the light gone it was safe to come outside again.
The light hurt.
He wanted to hurt the light back.
He knew he was badly injured. But it was not a coherent thought, it was a feeling. He sensed now like an amoeba , a protists that moves by crawling, and crawl he did. He saw, but it was easier to see the bushes moving in the hot wind than it was to see his companion, who was lying underneath the humvee. He smelled, but the smell was fire and blood, it smelled good.
Over the three weeks of sitting at this checkpoint the liquid inside the canisters marked DVICE had baked at a average daylight temp well over the century mark. Things in the water compartment began to grow. The free-living amoeba Naegleria fowleri found in diverse freshwater environments, produces a rapidly fatal primary amoebic meningoencephalitis after exposure to contaminated water. It had never been mixed with a prototypical military grade exteriorized substance, which was what the slime cannon on the hummers ammo was made of.
Weeks of cell division, a commercial anti-riot product, near madness and being nearly burned alive made a strange soupy elixir.
But he could almost remember his name. Almost...
The moon now was the only light. He felt like he looked around him with a new vision. The plants stood out sharply against the soil and rocks. Bats flitted by and he deeply remembers shooting stars as a boy, because the animals all now glowed with a infrared illumination, from his point of view, and the movement of them as they chased insects was like that; of shooting stars. He smiled, and the seared skin around his face seaped fluid which dripped in long ropey streamers from his open mouth and jaw. Something that may have been a laugh but sounded more like the snot gagged cough of a lung cancer victim came out from his mouth and the other one underneath the vehicle came out.
Dimly, from some part of his mind that was still human he thought, You can't raise hell if you can't stand up.
They looked at each other.
It wasn't so much that they could read each others thoughts, it was more like they both felt the same thing.
It wasn't a horror at their burned and naked bodies, it was a wonder.
There was no memory of the fight they had been in shortly before. No concern over the food that had filled their bellies before the first light had came and they had slept in what shadows they could find. They gazed at each other. Stripped of skin, the bodies were lean and muscular. Their eyeballs, as big ass golf balls with the flesh burned away locked onto each other. With no thought, their hands touched, and they lingered that way.
A voice whimpered from by the truck. One of the girls was still alive.
She was shot badly, but moving.
They looked to her, and then back to each other. If they had had lips they would have curled in a smile, but all that was was a bloody gleam in the eyes and they stood there for four minutes before they turned to her.
With sounds like tearing bedsheets and wet mud splattering against a plywood wall they shambled to her She screamed as they fell upon her.
The ghost of a memory introduced itself to his mind as he ate her brains, freshly cracked and pulled from the skull.
He remembered the mass of people grouped by miles of wrecked cars on the freeway between Barstow and his location in Southern California.
He wanted to spray the slime cannon on them, and burn them too.
The humvee still ran. He remembered how to start it and as the engine started over he yelled iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggggggggggaaaaaa.
And they drove away into the remains of the darkness.
PART FIVE
Code:
THE PREACHER
" And the Lord sayeth unto them, go to the Land of Shadows, and cast your burden into the fire. Do not fear those that live under the ground, or those that fly in the air on their evil steeds of death and iron. The two servants of God left their home and families and ventured forth. There were others that left with them, but they were led astray, or cast aside. They did meet up with one, a guide that led them into The Dark Lords lair. Like Cain and Abel, the two servants of God fought. But they carried on and eventually cast their burden and their sins into a lake of fire.
The fields outside the gates were now mostly barren, and a shanty town of plywood shacks had sprung up. A polluted stream ran by behind the rows. The workers were now free to go, but the soldiers knew they wouldn't go far. Without the soldiers guns, the workers would become food, and without the workers the soldiers would have no one to work the land to get what withered vegetables to grow they could. Dogs lounged in shadows in the alleys, and there was a plague of stray cats. That would be fixed soon, if the next shipment of food got cancelled again. There was even a set of batwing doors that led to a larger building were people gathered to gamble, smoke their pipe and huff paint. If it wasn't for the tanks parked next to the buildings ( long ago out of gas ) it almost looked like a old west town.
" The Apostles fought with Our Lord in The Battle of Five Armies, and the enemy was defeated. The two servants had gained valuable time in which to finish their quest, which they did. The Angel Elrond led his armies into battle on the side of Men, and many died therein. "
The Holy man didn't see the soldiers that pulled up next to his group, even as they unloaded from the truck but he heard them. He knew his time was short. Maybe this time, he figured, they would do more than put his eyes out. He was not afraid. He knew god waited for him in The Grey Havens. He had faith.
" Let us pray. "
Some among the crowd walked away when the soldiers pulled up. The others were regulars, and stayed to listen, not just for the food. He felt the sin of pride; he had disciples.
" Our Lord Gandolf, who sent us his two servants Frodo and Sam to carry our burdens, please forgive us for our sins. We bear the Spiritual Ring, oh Lord, as your servants did, so long ago. Protect us from the Orcs and giant spiders, oh Lord. Send our King Aragorn to protect us in our hour of need."
A soldier marched up and stopped before the Holy man. The others now had their rifles raised and pointed at the group of listeners. The soldier drew a sword and yelled, " 停止現在，您沒有被批准講話! 投下那本書，否则我將切掉您的手! "
The Holy man paused, unsure of what the soldier was saying. He shrugged.
" Send us the Ents, oh Lord, to smash the enemies castles. Give us..."
The sword flashed in the sun and the hand holding the book fell to the ground, still clutching it. The soldier pointed his sword at the man and shouted, " 下次它將是子彈到頭。 沒有警告! " They paused to beat some of the onlookers with their rifle butts before getting back into their truck. The Holy man clutched his bleeding wrist. A follower wrapped twine about it and tightened it up to stop the bleeding. What was left of the bread was now a deep, dark red because of all the blood.
" I am not afraid! They can take my eyes, but Lord Gandolf helps me see. They can take my hands, but he will help me! Who shall be my eyes? "
He paused and his head moved, as if he was looking around the crowd. Their faces turned away. The scarred red holes where his eyes used to be were unnerving.
" Who shall be my hands? "
For a long moment there was silence. Then a boy pushed his way through the crowd, or what was left of it. He was young, but no child. Maybe nine years old. He was skinny and had sores on his flesh and greasy matted hair, like everybody else. He pried the book out of the severed hands fingers and held it up to the old man.
" I'll be your eyes. "
The old man smiled. He couldn't see the book being offered, but he sensed it, and grabbed it from the boy. " Good, " he said. " I need you. "
" Where shall we go? " the boy asked.
A dog howled in the distance. Night was coming soon. They had to move fast. Those not inside after dark became food for the Fowleri. The Others.
The Holy man gestured for them to rise. Most did. Some wept and held their hands out to him. A few walked away.
" Come with me, " he said. " I have a special place. "
* * *
China, Nov 17th 2011
President Arnold Schwarzenegger stood in line.
He could not believe it had come to this. All the promises of partnership. All lies. All day long this had been going on. His aides, his staff, Michelle and Joe Biden, now all dead.
He looked down at the sign hanging from his neck. There was only a number. The bindings on his wrist were tight.
Finally, it was his turn.
Hands grabbed his arms and he was forced to walk. He didn't talk; he knew there was no point. All the others before had tried.
He was forced to his knees.
The sun splayed down through the trees and birds sang. It seemed the sky had never been so blue. He couldn't afford regret and had no time for anything else either. He tried to imagine his kids faces, laughing during a happier time.
Then the sound stopped for him as a rifle bullet blew out the back of his skull. Another shattered his spine. He slumped over and was kicked into the pit, with the rest of his staff and family.
To be continued...
PART SIX
Code:
Dogs
The dogs lay about the A-1 K9 training facility. Their bellies were full and they had three children of men in the pack now. They slept in the house. She had finally agreed to let the pack remove the body of the kind man who had fed and trained them for so long. They had buried him in his garden, like the man had done his wife, The Alpha had grunted and whined words from the mans black Book, and they had all said amen at the end. She had used her back legs to kick dirt onto his grave, even though her belly was full of pups again and she felt great discomfort.
Ever since they had started eating the others, the ones who ate children and destroyed all that was good if they had the chance, all the male dogs wanted to do was eat, fuck and hunt. Last week they had started to drive the mans truck, and could walk upright. She herself refused to.
That was a trick the man had never tried to teach them. It didn't feel right to her and she didn't want to learn how to drive; she was a good dog.
She went off behind the shed and squatted to give birth. The litter was the forth in the nine months since the man Who fed Them had died and they started eating The others, the ones the man had called Zombies. The babies walked away on two legs after they chewed their way out of the sac and joined the pack.
The moon was full, and she tipped her head back to howl at it.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haECDBqM_J4]Dogs, part two[/ame]
THE FOWLERI moved in as pack. Their gray bodies cast fleeting shadows as they bore down on the house.
They ran on all fours, spit dripping from their bloody mouths and eyes blazing.
In the early days they had carried the DVICE because they wanted to add more to their numbers, but as time went on they had forgotten how to load the cannisters of goo into the guns. They had forgotten how to walk upright. All they answered was the eternal emptiness of their bellies.
The children inside the house were terrified. They clutched the corpse of the mother, who lay dead in the bed.
The door cracked on its hinge as the Fawleri cast themselves upon it. This was the last row of houses beyond the chain link fence of the work compound. It wasn't that her neighbors didn't hear; they were afraid to come out.
It burst open.
There were three children. The oldest, a girl, stood defiantly between their gray bodies and her siblings, a shovel in her hands.
Then there was a flurry of snarls and gurgling sounds. A shadow crashed through the wood covering the window and latched its self onto the neck of the Other closest to the children. The two younger boys buried their heads in the dead mothers blanket.
Gunfire flashed in the room. All the gray bodies of the others now laid dead on the ground.
The girl, her mind now half gone, could have sworn that a German shepherd stepped up to her and offered its paw and told her to step outside. It was holding a rifle. It had a jacket and walked upright.
She fainted.
Centcom, Chicom High Command, Nov 28th 2011
They sat around a long oval table. Glasses of water sat near each arm, but nobody drank. They all wore the uniform of military, except for the CEO, a colonel named Hing. He wore nothing but stained white underwear. He clutched a Budweiser tallboy in one hand. He wore thick black glasses taped together with black electrical tape.
" What is the situation in the East? " he asked, oblivious to the fact apparently that he was the only one not dressed.
The subordinates looked around nervously at each other. Nobody liked speaking. Speaking was dangerous.
Finally a thin man spoke. The following is translated from intercepted corporate minutes, I have taped into the milnet that they use to communicate.
End transcripttranscript wrote:
Hing: We have not heard from any of the camps East of the Iowa nuclear blast zone in two weeks.
Commander: ' Have you sent an envoy?
Hing:Sir, yes sir. We sent three men and the radiosat communications stopped after the third day.
Commander: Send more men.
Hing: Yes sir.
Commander: What of the food situation?
Hing: Well sir, the transport crashed on landing last week. The wreckage was caused by the presence of The Others on board. It looked like they had tried to land but the creature killed and ate the crew. There are signs of struggle in the cockpit.
Commander: That very bad.
Hing: Yes sir, we now have to worry about spread of the disease in High Command areas and should expect no more food transports.
Commander: What about the Workers?
Hing: They are mostly docile. There was a rabble rousing Preacher, but he and his followers left the area. The workers say he has great powers. They say he can produce food. He can make trucks and computers work.
Commander: Order him killed, I don't want any trouble.
Hing: Sir, by your command.
Commander: So what suggestions about food rations?
Hing: Sir, we do not have enough, even though the crop yield is increasing there remains the fact that we have no meat and then men are getting scurvy from having no fruits and vegetables.
Commander: And the workers?
Hing:Sir?
Commander: What do they eat?
Hing: Their rations are canned sir. We are mixing their dead with the harvest. The Soylent green program is keeping them nourished.
Commander: Do they know this?
Hing: Of course not.
Commander: hmmm....
Hing: We have to feed our own men.
Commander: Give them Soylent rations.
Hing: The workers will miss the people required to feed us. They will know.
[pause]
Commander: Order another purge. this time, bring the bodies here. Every tenth man. See to it. And soldiers...we are all cannibals now. Deal with it.
Hing: Motion to close meeting.
Commander: The chair recognises Hing and the board meeting is now closed. These actions are the best thing to ensure the survival of of corporation. Make it so.
PART SEVEN
Code:
Mount Fire
He exited the vehicle. The General had told him to come here in answer to the summons by The Preacher. The blind old man had gone from a dirty beggar/preacher to a full blown problem; a cult leader with thousands of followers who were fanatical and would kill themselves or any non-believers without hesitation. Now he had the power to summon an officer of the Red Army, or what was left of it.
" Well. Here I am. "
The hooded figures only stared at him silently. Then, dozens began to file out of the barracks behind the gates. They quietly surrounded the jeep. Hundreds of them. They carried a stench of unwashed bodies and something else, a sour smell like cancer. He began to tremble. Their silence was unnerving. Then two stepped towards the jeep. A tall one and a short one. The short one guided the tall one by the hand. The crowd parted without any sound but their feet moving on the cement and the shuffling of their robes. When the pair passed through, the crowd closed in behind them so the circle was complete. The Colonel felt his tongue dry out in his mouth and it felt like a dead fish.
The short one pulled back his hood and The Colonel gasped.
He was a boy, but his head was balding and covered with scabs. Running sores oozed fluid that ran in yellow rivulets. His eyes were large and piercing.
" The Preacher thanks you for coming. He says ' Lord Gandolfs blessing be upon you '. "
The boy looked up to the taller figure, and nodded his head as if in confirmation. The smell of rotting flesh boiled off the boy and The Colonel stepped backwards until his legs were up against the jeep.
" The Preacher says you have to pull your troops out of the city. He says you have to swear an oath to God and pledge to do his bidding. "
The colonel looked around the crowd. Many held staffs and scythes. Some clutched small leather bags. Beyond the crowd in the watch towers, other hooded figures manned large machine guns. A hot wind blew, temporarily removing the stench from his nostrils, but then it came back, stronger. He felt weak in the knees and wanted to leave. But orders were orders.
" My General instructed me to inform you that we have no quarrel with the people of your...city. We propose to ignore each other, and live in peace. "
The tall figure held out his arm and the sleeve of his robes fell back. He clutched a skeleton hand that grasped a blood stained book. The Colonel could just make out the words on the binding. It said " The Silmarillion ". The boy looked at the hooded figure again.
" The Preacher says that unbelievers have no place in Middle Earth. All the world will be cast into the fire and made pure again. The orcs that inhabit the cities will be dealt with, those who travel by night shall be granted no safe passage. Will you put your hand on the Bible and swear and oath to Lord Gandolf? "
He felt his hand begin to rise. There was a temptation to just do it so they could get out of there. This whole war had become a farce. How could he call himself a soldier when most of his enemies had been women and children and frightened fathers? Now the supply chain had broken down and they were reduced to consuming the workers flesh just to survive. No crops would grow, it was as if the ground had been poisoned. He just wanted to go home, but intelligence reports suggested that The Fawleri had taken over most of the world. Humanity had been confined to small pockets of resistance and survival. There was no home to return to.
" Wh...why should I swear an oath to a comic book character? "
The crowed seemed to recoil at that. Some forked the sign of the evil eye and shook the amulets at him. The boy looked at The Preacher again. They seemed to be using some sort of telepathy as he was close enough to hear them whisper but heard nothing.
" The Preacher says it doesn't matter if you believe in God because He believes in you.
He says you have two choices. Join us and be reborn in fire, or die with The Fawleri zombies. "
The Colonel managed a nervous laugh. " How will you kill the zombies? They are concentrated in the slums of the last few standing cities. Detroit is crawling with them. You think you can do what our armies could not? "
There was a few seconds of silence and then The Preacher spoke.
" Come, Colonel. We will show you. "
They gathered around him and hands gently pushed him through the gates and into the complex. They passed many rooms stacked with missiles and warheads. The Colonel understood the oozing sores on the cult members now; they were disassembling the missiles and had stacked the warheads in a giant pile in a hanger. He was led back outside and up a hill, the Preacher and the boy leading him with a beckoning hand. They stopped at a hole in the ground. It was one of several that the cult was working in. The boy said, " Colonel, in two weeks the righteous and the unrighteous shall be consumed in a Holy Fire. You have to make a decision. What side will you choose? "
The Colonel looked around with wild eyes as the crowd began to chant. Softly it started but then began to build until they were beating their staffs in timing and screaming. " Gandolf. Gandolf. Gandolf. " This was too much and he felt his mind begin to crack. He tried to run but hands grasped him and moved him closer to the pit.
" Decide! " the boy screamed.
" Nooooooooooo! I will not! I will no---"
They pushed him into the hole. His body bounced off the top of what was inside and fell limply to the bottom to rest with the other bodies there, the ones who had already died of radiation sickness.
Some distance away, just out of ear shot a helicopter hovered. The gunner watched the Colonel being cast into the silo. He saw the cult return to the jeep and talk to the soldier who had driven the Colonel to the facility. The soldier then drove away in the jeep.
The gunner whined and growled. If he had not been seated he surely would have tucked his tail between his legs. The cult made him nervous. He had told command that they were more dangerous than the zombies, and that was why they sent him here, to scout and recon. The helicopter banked away into the East and the darkening sky.
PART EIGHT
Code:
War Shaman
I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Or that Japanese soldier who came out of the jungle in Burma in 1965 not aware that WW2 had ended.
Last winter was hell. A century rain comes and I get snowed in. This is a desert; how the hell can I get snowed in?
So I set out across the desert, and shadows followed me.
Soundtrack; please c/p and open in another window; [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvNAHByKPM"]YouTube- Drums of Thunder (Native American Music) Mountain Spirits[/ame]
The shadows were dreams of what life used to be. Life, when getting hit by a semi or dying of cancer or being over drawn on my bank account was my biggest fear. Now I am reduced to using yucca leaves for shoes and hoarding my last three bullets. I have dreams sometimes where I am laying down in my Mojave desert camp, and I see a shadow on the rock wall; a out-stretched hand holding a giant butchers blade, but then I wake up and there is no one there. The owls hoot and the winds moan and I try to sleep again. It is no use. When I do fall asleep the shadowed hand becomes a man and I see his face clearly; it is krazyKarl and his beard is flecked with bits of flesh and blood runs down his chin and he isn't holding a knife, he is plunging it again and again into my stomach, my liver. My bowels spill out and then I wake up.
I seriously can't take it anymore and I am getting the fuck out of here.
When I first came to this canyon the Chinese troops were prowling everywhere. They may have picked up on my radio broadcasts or the sounds of my generator as I surfed the interwebs. Now the gas is gone and the airwaves are silent. There is no more transcripts from the military bases. All is quiet.
I was afraid to leave the compound for a long time. I eventually left it and ventured further into the canyon. There I found a cave and the ruins of an old anasazi fort. I stayed there for a long time, as there was a nearby stream that attracted many deer and big horn sheep. For many months I could see the distant lights of the Chinese humvees fourteen miles away on the highway. One night there was a large flash of light to the East, and after that, no more troops.
At night the shadows of my fire painted dark faces on the wall and figures of smoke that danced seemed to crowd closer and closer to my fire the more I ate the peyote. I was one with the cherokee indians who used to live here; weaving nets and spearing fish from the stream and killing deer and rabbits with atal darts I made from chert. I brewed a strong alcohol from the mescal that grew in the flat lands. It was a good life until the squirrel started talking to me.
I was sleeping like a corpse. My hands were interlocked on my chest. My serape was off and spread over my body like a blanket, or burial shroud. My flat rimmed cowboy hat was pulled over my eyes. The Moon was a lazy crescent tilting to spill its shadow out and the sky was ablaze with stars; amazing how beautiful the night was when there was no city lights anymore. And the air, quiet. Back in the days before the fowelri zombies you couldn't go far enough into the wilderness to escape the sound of passing jetliners. Now there was the sound of insects and wind and me, nothing more.
" Yerded. "
I groaned and farted but did not yet wake up.
" Yerded! "
My eyes opened, but I thought it was going to be just like the bad dream with KrazyKarl the knife wielding lunatic. I would roll over and go back to sleep. But not tonight. I saw him outlined in the fireglow.
" Wake up, you dummy, " the squirrel said.
I rolled over and rubbed my eyes. I knew I was still drunk, and the peyote had a funny way of double dipping but I woke right the hell up when the little son of a bitch bit my thigh.
" Wake up ! "
The squirrel had a drill sargents voice, not some Calvin and the Chipmunks pussy brigade. I sat up.
" Look, " the squirrel said. " you are not much of a warrior, but all the old ones we used are ghosts and we feel a need to intervene. "
The animal had coal black eyes but they shown with a keen intelligence. I was no longer sure that I was awake.
The squirrel continued; " you need to get the fuck out of this canyon. Take the tarps that are by the old military outpost and make a balloon. You need to get to a place in Colorado. Peoples and things are gathering. My confederate Ehecatl, will see you to the location you need to be. We have a special task for you. "
Beings as my nature is cantankerous his attitude was seriously beginning to get on my nerves. Then, he gave me some mushrooms...
I ate them all, a large handful.
Soon the world squared off into a snapshot; a framed picture that tilted five degrees to the right, then more and more until it was ready to fall. It tilted down, and down, and cascaded into a maze of mirrors that led off into infinity. I saw a volcano and a boy trying to carry a ring up the slope, but the view was far up and away, as if I was a hawk. It flashed to a battlefield filled with men carrying guns and shovels, and dogs riding atop tanks carrying machine guns plunging forward through a haze of smoke. The haze cleared and there was a single rose growing in a field of fallen bricks and steel cable. I saw a child, a girl, and she scooped up a handful of dust and saw that as the grains fell from her hand that it was not sand, but tiny universes and worlds tumbling down. It seemed like figures were dancing around my fire. The furry little anthropomorph was still yelling at me, but now he appeared to float above the rock he had been sitting on. Then the squirrel seemed to grow. Now it was seven feet tall. I only remember him giving me instructions, but I couldn't tell you what he said; it was more of a chant. He was as real as you or me.
Then, I blacked out.
When I woke up my fire was cold, but next to it there was a leather cord with carved beads and small feathers next to it. I tied this around my neck. I began following the stream down canyon. It wasn't long before I came across an outpost. There was a jeep with no gas, but plenty of guns and ammo and I found a nice pair of boots on one of the skeletons. Inside the cinder block guard tower there was a room with food and heavy plastic sheeting. This I used to make the balloon. It took me several days to construct it. I worked mostly at night. The Squirrel was there, and kept me well supplied with mushrooms and instructed me. His trick of using a propane cylinder from the forklift to fire the balloon was brilliant. As the balloon rose I looked back into the canyon that had been my home for the last two and a half years. I didn't know where I was heading, but the winds speed me straight East.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Late that night, far away...
Detroit
He was out of food. All of his friends were dead. It was time.
This running and hiding and scavenging food like an animal was lame. He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. The Fowleri were all gathered in a row house. There was grotesque sounds coming from the other side of the door. He didn't want to think about it. Soon, it would be dark and they would come out. Burn it down? Drive a truck through the building? He saw a storage shed next to the building and opened it up. The answer was clear and it was time to fight back.
He didn't know it, but similar scenes were being played out all across the remains of America. Some had happened last week, some were happening right now, and some had yet to play out. That last remnants of fighting spirit had waken up, and the survivors were beginning to live again by fighting back, by hunting these bastard zombies down and chopping them to pieces.
He stood in front of the door with it ready, and said a silent prayer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIYreBOh1g#t=2m10s
PART NINE
Code:
The Four Winds
Many things had happened since The Others had come.
Their bodies had changed. The tissues in their skulls had been in a state of semi constant flux. They could walk upright, and talk with men. The fur had become thin and now it felt good to wear clothes like the former masters. The shapes and lines that made the language of men on paper now came together and said something. The bitches gave birth every nine weeks. They had a natural proclivity for tools and computers and in the space of a year, had become mechanical geniuses. Their minds absorbed knowledge with the same sort of zeal as the old ones among them that still lived and looked like regular dogs had once chased frisbees. Each new litter was a closer cross breeding of man and dog.
And they knew why.
There was something about The Others meat. It tasted sweet and when they chewed it it caused rapid changes in their minds and bodies that they recognized. They hunted the zombies as food exclusively, and they were getting harder to find and catch. Most of the zombies had fled the cities and were moving together in small packs West. When one was caught it was divided up equally. The youngest of the pack were made sure to get a share, but the best was saved for special dogs. The ones that showed the best grasp of technology or healing.
They got to eat the brains.
Tonight they had one, and it was dragged in chains from the holding cell into a large room. The highest ranking members of the pack lined the walls and watched as it was tied to a table, arms outstretched to the four corners. It had the shape of a man, but the skin was the color of snot and traced with blue/red veins. It was hairless and the mouth opened in a silent scream and it trailed a vile looking green frothy spittle from its teeth and nose.
Earlier, The Others fought and resisted feverishly and most of the time they would have had to smash its skull with a hammer in the hallway before they brought it into the chamber for feeding. But now the ones they caught just lay limply in their chains, head loose on it's neck and the eyes scanning slowly around the room.
The Dogs tied him to the table. A clamp snapped round its jaws and chin and the head was immobilized. A small saw was used and the top of its living skull was sawed open. The brains were scooped out and diced. A litter of new borns were brought forward and they were given small bits. Almost instantly they began to groan and contort as the changes to the bodies began. If you were standing there, looking over the dogs shoulders you would have heard the puppies skulls creak as their brains grew measurably by the minute.
The captured Fawelri died without glory or awareness, its already half dead eyes simply loosing their glassiness.
Then the other adult dogs of the Higher Pack surrounded the table and began to feed.
West...
Meanwhile, high in a balloon...
Ehecatl would not shut up. Either the mushrooms were wearing off or my legs were getting cramped after twelve hours in this balloon that was now obviously losing air and sinking.
" Since the wind blows in all directions, I was associated with all the Cardinal directions. My temple was built as a cylinder in order to reduce the air resistance, and was sometimes portrayed with two protruding masks through which the wind blew. As the fourth sun was destroyed in the Aztec creation myth (due to the gods not being satisfied with the men they had created) the gods gathered in Teotihuacan. There Nanahuatzin and Tecciztecatl jumped into a sacrificial fire and became the sun and the moon, pity, they were good friends of mine. They remained immobile until I blew hard on them. At first only the sun moved, but once the sun started moving the moon moved also... "
I looked over at him, or it. He wasn't a solid figure, like the squirrel, more like an animated graffiti tagged onto the interior compartment of my balloon. He had not stopped talking for ten hours. I didn't know if you could kill a God, but I was seriously considering trying.
" Look, " I said, " will you shut the fuck up, you are driving me batshit. "
He stopped alright. After a minute I began to feel bad. Like I had hurt his feelings. For a moment I contemplated my situation: here I was, having floated for miles and miles, inside a balloon I made guided by a talking squirrel. I had not eaten much besides the mushrooms in four days, and although I expected to build up a tolerance I was talking to some ancient god like he was really there with me.
" Okay. I am crazy and you are not real. "
The wind spiked and buffeted the compartment around. I felt weightless for a second as the balloon hit a down draft and free fell before settling again on a breeze.
" Don't start that shit again ese. " He said.
" Look, " I said, " two years ago I was a privateer broadcaster documenting the Chinese invasion over the internet. Now I live like a scavenger and have actually killed people. Nine of them! I'm cracking up, losing my marbles, one can short of a six pack...
" You are not real!, " I screamed.
" Okay, " he said. " Whatever homes. Just remember this; we want you to kill The Preacher.
" Nagaicho, The Creator has chosen you. And he has sent you his Dog. "
I didn't have time to answer, the wind was slammed out of me as the balloon crashed through trees and onto the ground. I was knocked out.
* * *
South...
Cross Plains, Texas October 25, 2012
" I am the gawd damned president of The United States may she rest in everlasting peace , and I want that sum bitch shot. "
The issue was a farmer near Plano that was caught hording crop food and diesel. Jed Halbaster, former all pro wrestler, aka White Fury, aka Potus was flanked by two men with M249 Squad Automatic Weapons. President Jed, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs , number 17 in the order of succession, had never been in on the international corporations plot to create a one world government. Like most Americans, he had lived in hiding since the Chinese/Walmart coalition had invaded. Nobody knew how the zombie thing started, but they knew it started in California and spread like a case of jock itch in a high school gym class throughout the world. The last seven hundred Marines were going house to house in a radius now extending eight hundred miles, kicking in doors and decapitating any Fawleri they found. The Zombies had all been moving West in groups of five and twenty. Texas was clear.
" But Sir, " his assistant said. " He was married to your second cousin on your mothers side. "
The president lit a cigar and wiped the sweat from his jowls with a stained handkerchief.
" Son, I am the pee oh tee ewe ess. I cannot show favors. But okay, just bust his teeth in. Get er done, now! "
" Sir, yes sir! "
The two soldiers ran out of the room.
He turned to his assistant, a pimply faced skinny teenager with a metal clipboard; " Bring me another whore and get me a pigeon to send a message to General Bush in Florida. "
Such was the remains of the united States government.
* * *
East...
Mount Fire Missile Base, Colorado. October 25, 2012 Outside the wire, 1.7 miles
The balloon sat down and dragged through the brush for a quarter mile before coming to a stop. Just as it did, a creature approached on all fours and helped me out. I was sort of immune to animals talking, so I took it as no big deal that there was a dog with a knapsack full of C4 explosives waiting to greet me. He didn't have a snout, more of a nose. Wire rimmed john Lennon glasses framed kind brown eyes. He wore bandoleers with ammunition and carried a sawed off shotgun. But still, he was obviously mostly dog.
The mushrooms were completely worn off now and I was sober. I had been instructed by the talkative Indian god in the balloon and I knew that farther on through the brush, where the lights were, there was a fence, and somehow we were going to get inside it. Once inside I had a job to do, and so did my new companion.
" Hello, " he said.
" My name is Wolf. " He gestured towards the lights. " Let's go. "
Code:
The Gathering
It was a New Moon and in the small valley they were camped in it was so dark the forms of the Joshua Trees barely traced an inky outline on the desert pavement they were camped on. Wolf sat away from me, on guard perhaps, in the direction of the base.
As the sky began to pierce the night with hints of blue we walked the mile or so to the fence without talking. I hadn't eaten anything but I was full of energy and we quickly climbed the wall of a wash at the edge of the fenced perimeter. Our plan was simple, no thanks to the Squirrel who had offered no insight on how to get inside the compound. We would approach the gate at sunrise, and ask to see The Preacher. If they were dumb enough to let me near him, I intended to split his face open with my hatchet. Other than that, planning seemed moot. Wolf would run interference and try to keep them off me, if it came to a fight.
Dawn came.
The entrance to the former military base was littered with burned out and destroyed vehicles. Formerly domesticated cats milled about the empty guard house. The fence was closed and ragged figures in tattered gray clothes and robes shuffled to the gate to meet us. Their eyes were cloudy with cataracts and most had skin turned yellow from what may have been kidney disease. Wolf covered his nose/snout because the stench of the rotting flesh was so strong. I looked up at the towers with the machine guns and it looked like the men manning them had been dead a few days. The one on the left was half draped out the window with dried gore coming from his ears and stringy gray matter trailing from his nose. The other one on the right was still and a kitten appeared to be eating the flesh of his hand, still on the gun.
I opened the gate and they shuffled back.
" These guys smell like they are all ready dead . " Wolf said.
I walked through the crowd that parted in a tense silence. Wolf placed his hand on my shoulder as if guiding me and we headed towards the tunnel entrance.
" They are. " I said.
They looked as much zombie as The Others. They were starved, and it was radiation sickness that made the skin hang in ribbons from their gaunt forms. Yet they were docile. I gentle shoved my way through them. One grasped my arm and tried to whisper something in a breath that smelled like rotten meat and musty cardboard. I pushed his arm away and my hand felt like I had rubbed it in warm butter. I wiped the rotten flesh on the the robes of the one in front of me as I pushed through the crowd. Pages of a book littered the ground. The Two Towers, by Tolkien.
Finally, Wolf and I stood before a door marked 8675309.
He unslung his shotgun and I pulled out my hatchet.
The crowd of the undead watched us without expression as we went inside.
* * *
Chicom Head Quarters
They were gathered around an oval table, twelve of them. Magistrate of Argricullture, Minister of Dissent, Quarter Master, etc.
They had stick bodies now. Malnutrition had given them scurvy. The Master at Arms and Colonel Ho both were picking at lice in their scalp.
Hing was positioned under the Commanders seat, stroking his cock. The trouble was the Commander was dead. He had passed exactly twelve minutes ago and they had all sat there looking at each other, wondering what to do. Hing, obviously The Commanders lover was now hopelessly insane. The civies had long ignored the guns with the empty magazines and the tanks sat empty with dead batteries and dry gas tanks. The generators no longer illuminated the wire and there was no need to patrol anymore.
They were starving.
Two months ago the Commander had ordered another cull with the excuse being one guards dozing at the gate watch. The remaining men had lined up and Hing had walked behind them. Hing clubbed one to death and the men dragged him away. All was well until a bit of flesh in the pot that night revealed the skull and cross the guard had as a tattoo on his calf. Then the troops realized the real reason for the culls, wherein one in ten was selected for clubbing; the were for food.
The Chinese soldiers then more or less disbanded, heading into the wastelands as the people of the shanty town had been hanging those they caught.
The people of the shanty town now approached the gate of the Chinese military camp with torches and pitch forks. Some carried ropes fashioned into nooses.
The twelve men eyed each other nervously, knowing their time was at an end. Three of them pulled grenades from their vests, they all nodded to each other, and they pulled the pins as one and placed them on the desk.
INTERLUDE
The night is black
Without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.
Features distorted in the flickering light,
The faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possessed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.
PART 11
Code:
The Battle of Five Armies Part 1
Now, where was I? Oh yes..I forget these things sometimes now.
So anyway, I don't remember talking to that Indian god etchy or Ehecatl, or whatever it was, ever again after I entered the cave at Mount Fire.
Cave, bunker, whatever.
There were dead bodies piled two or three deep in some of the storage rooms. Whatever it was they had been doing, it had cost them dearly. Wolf went first. His shotgun wasn't some sissy pump thing, it was a drum fed 12 gauge that fired automatically. I had never seen anything like it. I remember feeling like I was starting to get tired. My arms were heavy. I only carried my long knife.
His flashlight [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf2qUty9zmc]bobbed and weaved in the tunnel which had been carved through solid rock.[/ame] Eventually the tunnel gave way to a steel door and a control room. Then the storage rooms. Strewn among the dead bodies were piles of wires and sheet metal ripped from, what I know now were casings of rockets and nuclear bombs. These crazy cult people had ripped the warheads out of about fifty nuclear missiles and artillery shells, depleted uranium thingies, poison gases whatsamahoozits and strapped them all on a giant fucking Minute Man missile headed for the Chicom base! They weren't smart enough to realize all the radiation would kill them but they were smart enough to launch that rocket.
But I get a head of myself...
I didn't know it, but the last few thousand Chinese soldiers were all massed together and running for their lives. They were being pursued by about five thousand rag tag American survivors, and they wielded anything from guns and axes, to clubs, lawn mowers and flaming cannons. The last few hundred zombies were just being swept along in front of them two....armies, meanings the Chinks and the Rednecks. So you had three bands of conflict who just happened to be heading towards Mount Fire, where me and Wolf were trying to find and kill The Preacher, 'cept we didn't know about any of that, beings as we was inside the tunnels. That spooked the Tolkien cultist who manned the machine guns and started firing when the Fawleri started to cross the gates leading to the missile base. Some of the cross fire hit the Chinese troops, who turned and started running into the blades and guns of the Americans. Then there were four groups fighting, not counting me and Wolf.
Wolf kicked open the door and there was The Preacher and the boy.
His skin was peeling away from his one arm and the book he held was sort of fused into his hand. The holes where his eyes had been half glowed with the radioactive puss that filled them. He shrieked,
Thou Shalt Not Pass!!!"
But we passed into the room alright. Wolf lowered his shotgun. He whined and damned if his tail didn't wag.
" The Preacher said you cannot pass! " the diseased boy shouted.
He didn't look as bad as those outside by the gate, but the sickness boiled off him in waves of hot musk. His breath smelled like copper and vitamins because blood was running down his mouth. I actually managed a laugh; at once it all seemed so silly. Here was a so called holy man, a preacher in what had become a post apocalypse madhouse, using the fucking Lord Of The Rings as A Bible, making a doomsday machine. A large number of people appeared from behind the missile. They carried amulets and clubs. They shuffled and their teeth fell out as they walked because the radiation sickness was so strong. The Preacher shook his book and the rocket began to hiss behind him. " You're too late! Too Late! Frodo doesn't come to mountain of fire in this story! I bring to fire to you! Hahahahaha! "
I remember Wolf began to fire his shotgun, and bodies slammed back as the heavy slugs tore through them. Then they began to stack around us, oozing gore and brains and shit so thick my shoes splooched as I stepped towards The Preacher and the boy.
" The story is over. " I said.
I went to them, with the knife. I never saw that damned Squirrel God, but I'm sure he was there. I didn't see Wolf get burned, but the missile launched as I slashed them. The fire knocked me over and I hit my head...
Cross Planes, Texas. December 22, 2012
The President of The United States was sweating.
The microphone thrummed in his hands as the feedback tore through the speakers. He had a sweaty uncomfortable erection. The public executions did that to him. Away from the small crowd of skinny farmers a generator belched black smoke and sputtered to a halt. The fuel was gone and the air filter was clogged, both at the same moment.
" I don't fucking need that..." he threw the microphone at his pimple faced assistant and it hit him in the nose. When it did a large zit popped in a bloody spurt and he trembled in disbelief at the abuse.
" Citizens. These...people stand before us, accused of hoarding. " He scanned the small crowd, this was a pause he enjoyed, as usually there was a defiant one that he would order up against the wall with the rest. The crowd didn't meet his eye; they slouched tiredly against their rakes and canes looking tired and bored. Behind him in the flat bed truck which he rode on, behind his desk and flag, was stacked the last of the canned food. He walked over, sweating, and grabbed a few cans of tuna, which seemed to liven the crowd. It was a well worn ploy and he tossed out four cans to different edges of the crowd, drawing them closer. Their sweat smell rolled up against him and the crowd made him feel more horny. This was what he lived for.
Power.
Overhead, a faint glint of light flashed, unseen by the people but noticed by the black and diseased crows lined up on the dead power lines. They took wing and began to fly, in vain, feeling some sense of impending doom in their bird brains. The missile had broken through the atmosphere and bore down.
A small boy, accused of stealing rotten fruit looked up to the sky from the cinder block wall, his hands bound tight and bleeding, and saw the fire. The clouds seemed to hold the shape of a squirrel that the missile punched through. The president cupped his hands around his face and bellowed:
" Ready..."
Those in the crowd may have sensed something, for many began to turn away, tired of it all. Perhaps they realized that they would someday have their turn against the wall. Perhaps they were just bored. The fire came down.
" Aim..."
The boy against the wall didn't feel afraid anymore. It as if he could feel the soft fur. There was no fear, because he was too hungry and tired, but there was a tear. For the first time he could remember, a tear of joy. He thought: Dear God, save these poor asses, for they know naught of what they do. "
And then, the righteous and the unrighteous were consumed in the holy fire, launched from Mount Doom, where the Shadow had lain, and the world moved on.
Afterword:
I am old now, and no longer can talk to the Gods. I know I played my part in this story. There must be a teller of the tale.
" All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over and the lamps expire.. "
Now at last, my work here is done.
Last edited by A2TG2 (2012-03-29 22:38:00)
