Classmates would snicker. Steve would blush and scan the quiz paper for the humiliating red letter scratched across the top.

“Why are you so dumb, Hawking? Hey Hawking, you’re no Einstein!” echoed the schoolyards and yellow buses.

His mother was certain her boy spent too much time in cyberspace. The daytime Oprahs and View-ladies warned her about this. Her son most certainly was learning how to make bombs from lawn fertilizer or was being stalked by middle-aged pedophiles.

“Have you ever noticed,” Steve asked Dr. Jones one day, “that the word ‘therapist’ is made up of ‘the’ and ‘rapist’?”

“Indeed, I have,” she replied. “Why? Do you feel like our sessions are a kind of rape?”

“Oh never mind.”

Though he felt he could do without the therapy sessions, he grudgingly admitted to himself that, since starting the Prozac, he had become happier in a nebulous, inexplicable way.

He even began to make friends. He could finally act as though he liked what others liked, disliked what others disliked, spoke like others spoke, and valued what others valued.

“Are you a ham?” John asked him.

“A what?”

“A ham. Do you like ham radio?”

“I sure do,” Steve said, smiling and nodding. “I just can never get the hang of it.”

“No worries. I’ll show you. Why don’t you come over after school?”

“Sounds fun!” Steve said, smiling and nodding.

Later that day, as John taught his cheerful new friend the finer points of ham radio, Steve struggled to follow. He wanted to go home, but couldn’t pull his smile and legs away from John. Instead, he just grinned and nodded politely, all the while dreaming of a world in which he was smarter than everyone else, in which people looked up to him and followed his suggestions.

He didn’t realize then just how soon these dreams would be fulfilled.

*

One May morning, he awoke to the screams of his mother. She stood staring out the picture window in the living room. Steve looked past her to see what had caught her attention.

In the middle of the usually quiet street, two walking corpses were working their jaws on the skull of Jean-Anne Hebert, the ten-year-old girl from next door.

“C-c-call the police,” his mother said.

Steve jabbed 9-1-1 into the phone, but it just screamed the busy signal in reply. “I can’t get through to them,” he said.

His mother and father didn’t hear his words. They sat on the sofa, eyes glued to CNN. A montage of scenes like the one Steve had just witnessed flashed across the screen. Scientists, religious figures, and politicians lobbed explanation and blame from the TV’s speaker.

His parents seemed suddenly mollified.

“Lucky you, Stevie,” his father spoke. “School’s out for a few days until they get this cleaned up. No rest for the wicked, though—I’ve still got to go in to the office. I’ll try to get home a bit early tonight, hon. Take care!”

“Okay, Lenny,” Mrs. Hawking said. “How does spaghetti carbonara sound for dinner?”

“Sounds delightful, my love. See you then.”

“Drive safe!”

Leonard Hawking was caught downtown in front of his office building. Jinny Hawking, coupons clutched tightly in hands, was converted later that morning at the supermarket.

Steve was busy with his other life as an elfin king wandering in cyberspace when his mother arrived home. He hadn’t noticed that her trip to the supermarket had taken several hours. Her movements barely registered as she slowly clunked up the stairs and shuffled towards his room. He scowled and pretended not to hear when she pulled open the door and entered his room. When she grabbed him from behind, he was shocked and annoyed by the uncharacteristic show of affection. Then, he noted the coolness of her hands. When he felt her mouth opened wide and her cool slick tongue race across the top of his head, his stomach flipped and he turned to face his mother.

“Mom!” he yelled, “what the hell are you doing?” But he noticed the large red crater in her skull, her graying skin, and the dullness in her eyes. “Oh,” he said.

Fear raced through his body for a few moments. Then, he realized his mother wasn’t attacking him. She just watched his face, slack-jawed but intent. As he passed her on his way to the hall, she embraced him again. She mouthed and licked his head, but did not bite. Again, he forced himself from her embrace and jogged out of his room.

He went downstairs to check on the TV and have a look outside. He tried to get CNN, but found only snow. Outside, the streets were quiet. Jean-Anne Hebert’s corpse was gone, though a wine-colored stain remained on the street. His mother embraced him again, nuzzling against his skull.

He pulled free from her arms and scrambled down to the basement. She followed. When she finally made her way down the stairs, he sped past her and up the stairs. He locked the door behind him and returned to the computer in his bedroom.

Steve was in the kitchen taking his Prozac when his father arrived home. Like his wife, Leonard Hawking shuffled toward his son, clutching him in a powerful hug and gently mouthing his skull. Steve led his father into the main floor bathroom, then slid by him and locked the door.

The next day, Don Struthers, fullback for the Lord Beaverbrook High Lords football team, came over to hang out with Steve. Steve wasn’t comfortable with the hugging and kissing, so he led Don out to the garage.

Later, Carol Walters and Suzy Lanois, two of the Lords’ cheerleaders, came over for a visit. This time, Steve didn’t mind the hugging and kissing, despite the cold flesh and incomplete brains. He let them linger in his room as he marched through other realms on his computer.

In the days that followed, more people came to visit: neighbors, teachers, family friends, and classmates. Through it all, Carol and Suzy remained close to Steve. He used his mother’s cosmetics to warm up their faces and cover any scars. Eventually, he released his parents to join this group, but rigged a chain across the steps leading upstairs to keep his private pursuits private.

Each day, his friends had to leave for a time, reappearing later with fresh red stains on their faces and clothing. At first, this disgusted Steve, but after washing Carol and Suzy the first few times, he came to accept it as a necessary part of life after the change.

*

As the weeks passed, more and more people thronged to him. One day, the power went out. He could no longer use his computer. The fridge no longer kept food cool and the cupboards had become barren. In search of more food, he led his throng on a march to Safeway.

Inside, it stank to high heaven. Squadrons of flies buzzed by their heads. The deli section was almost unbearable with rotting meat. Steve remembered a mortician’s trick he’d read about online, and found some Vick’s Vapo-Rub in the pharmacy section. Smearing a dollop beneath each nostril helped mask the stench. He returned to the deli section and loaded up on jerky and pepperoni sticks. He continued leading his followers through the store, piling the cart full of canned stews, pastas, puddings, cans of beans and corn, boxes of Kraft Dinner, and bags of chips and marshmallows. Finally, he hopped over the pharmacy counter and, after searching for ten minutes or so, found the bottles of Prozac he needed to keep going.

As he reached the top of the hill on his way home, Steve looked back down upon the valley. The air was fresher than he could ever remember. Birdsong washed down on the streets from above. He gazed upon his followers, suddenly overwhelmed by their devotion. They are the sheep, he thought, and I am their shepherd, their chosen one.

*

More weeks passed and Steve had taken to wearing nothing but sandals and his mother’s white silk nightgown—clothing more befitting a shepherd than his usual Nikes and Levis. He led his flock on nature walks through Fish Creek Park. The wildlife had reemerged since the change. Birds constantly serenaded them with their songs. Deer and rabbits stared at them from Cottonwood thickets. Packs of wild dogs roamed the woods and fields, but kept their distance from Steve and his meek followers.

On one such walk, Steve noted with sadness that his flock was thinning out. Each day, his members had to leave him briefly for nourishment, but as the days passed, more and more returned clean-faced. Others didn’t return at all. Those that did stay didn’t crowd around to caress his head with the same enthusiasm as before.

“Stephen Hawking! Is that you?” Steve was startled to hear as he was about to lead his flock on another foray into Safeway. He turned to see his tenth-grade Art teacher, Mr. Hayes, walking down the street towards him. Behind him followed another flock of the walking dead.

“H-hello, Mr. Hayes,” croaked Steve, his throat dry and raspy.

“There’s no need for those formalities now, Steve,” spoke the thin, balding man. “You can just call me Roger.”

“Hi, Roger.”

“I was wondering if any of my students survived like I did. There are a few of us med-heads around.”

“Med-heads?” Steve asked.

“I guess you’re too young to remember dead heads—groupies of the Grateful Dead—it’s a take-off of that. You know, the dead follow us around, attracted to our heads, but our meds keep us safe.”

“Our meds?”

“Yeah, our meds. Anti-depressants mostly, it seems. What are you taking: Zoloft? Prozac?”

“Uhh . . . yeah, Prozac.”

“Same here. On your way for a refill?” Steve asked, lifting his chin in the direction of the supermarket.

“Yeah . . .” Steve said. “You mean the Prozac is . . . is . . . ?”

“Is keeping the zombies away? Yes. It seems that ‘healthy’ brains,” Steve began, clenching his fingers up by his ears as he spoke the word healthy, “are what these guys feed on. But they can’t seem to eat ‘unhealthy’ brains medicated with anti-depressants. They are sure attracted to those brains, though, aren’t they?”

“You mean it’s just the medicine that’s keeping us . . . safe?”

“I’m afraid so, kiddo. Speaking of which, let’s go stock up, shall we?”

“Yeah, all right,” Steve said softly.

After they entered the store, Steve said, “I’ll meet you at the pharmacy, I just got to get something over here.”

“OK, Steve. Woo, the stench from the deli section is nasty!”

Steve made his way to the kitchenware aisle, scanning the shelves of Tupperware containers, baking sheets, and silicon spatulas until he found the butcher’s knives. There can only be a chosen one, he thought to himself, running his left thumb along the edge of the blade.

When he returned home from the supermarket, his flock had nearly doubled in size.

*

As June gave way to July, Steve continued to find more and more of his followers straying off. Their movements grew lethargic and they paid less and less attention to him. To remedy this, he tried lowering his Prozac dosage, which did bring the flock closer.

When Suzy failed to return home one day, he decided it was time to be more proactive. After searching his mind for solutions, he remembered his recent lessons on ham radio. John had shown him how to use it to communicate with people.

The next morning, he led his followers on a pilgrimage to the RadioShack in SouthCentre mall. Along the way, his flock collected a few stray stumbling members.

That evening, he discovered that the airwaves were filled with survivors. Little pockets of rebel holdouts dotted the city and countryside. He was even able to make contact with his old friend, John. He and his family were holed up in a makeshift basement shelter. They were more than happy to let Steve wait out the scourge in safety with them. John’s father said the zombies were already starting to die off, and he thought the coming winter would kill off the rest of them.

At first, the powder-faced figure startled them. Then they realized it was Steve and welcomed him in. What they saw behind Steve scared them, but it was too late to close the door.

*

The summer months passed, and Steve was able to sustain his followers on the various pockets of holdouts in the city. It worried him, though, that there was less and less traffic on the airwaves, and his flock had grown larger but more listless than ever. The nearest large city was hundreds of kilometers to the north. How could they make it that far?

Eventually, a license plate number came to him: VE6DC. He’d seen it on Uncle Don’s F-100. He knew now that also meant that his uncle was a “ham.” Uncle Don’s ranch was also only about 40 kilometers from the city.

Steve figured it was worth a shot, and it didn’t take him long to make contact with the ranch. His uncle, aunt, and cousins were safe and couldn’t wait to see him. Though saddened by the loss of his parents, they were relieved that he had survived. Steve was equally relieved to learn that his grandparents had survived and were at the ranch along with many of Aunt Eileen’s relatives. “Be careful,” Don told him, “and Godspeed.”

Steve realized this trip would be much longer than all previous ones and would require careful preparation. His flock had become large in number, but each member had grown weak, able to carry only a fraction of the necessary supplies. A few more feedings on the way out of the city would help, but once on the highway, pickings would be slim. To provide extra incentive, he again lowered the dosage of his medication.

On the day of departure, he packed away his robe and sandals, choosing a more conservative ensemble of Levis, a T-shirt, and Timberland hiking shoes. It was going to be a long walk.

Keeping his remaining queen, Carol, by his side, Stephen Hawking led his stumbling band of devotees beyond the city limits.

The first day went well. The sun was out but not too hot, and they met up with the odd lone zombie, who promptly huddled up to Steve, joining the flock.

The next two days were less fortunate. Rain and hail storms slowed their pace. Weakened followers slipped and fell on the slick pavement, never to rise again. Steve kept hold of Carol’s elbow as she wheeled and lurched along the highway. Occasionally, they encountered abandoned cars, crows gathered on their roofs to watch the flock pass by.

The following day was disastrous as his followers—his friends, his family—began dropping like flies. Pared down to a weak and lolling dirty dozen, the flock was less than a day away from the ranch. Steve stopped for a rest, surveying the remaining members. If only I had taken a bus. If only I had chosen twenty or thirty followers and loaded them on a bus, we could have made the trip in a day. But how could I choose? I’m not a god, am I? Maybe I did make the right decision. Those that kept with me, liked me best. They stood by me, and I’ll stand by them.

The next afternoon, he stood at the bottom of a hill a mile from his uncle’s ranch, thinking about his next move. Morose and listless, his flock lulled around him, unperturbed by the biting dust blown in the strong prairie winds. Steve wiped grit from the corners of his eyes as Carol leaned on the back of his neck.

Earlier than day, he’d stopped his march beside an abandoned minivan. Ignoring the blood splattered on the driver’s seat and window, he climbed in and tried the keys left in the ignition. It started. He opened the sliding side door and coaxed his followers in. Once everyone was in, he jumped out, locked the door behind him, and began walking towards his uncle’s ranch.

“There he is!” yelled Sara, Steve’s six-year-old cousin. “He’s coming up the road.” She ran out to meet him as the rest of the family furtively poked heads from behind curtains. Rifle slung over his shoulder, Uncle Don emerged from the house and walked down the gravel road to meet Steve.

“Hi Stevie! Hi Stevie!” Sara beamed, hugging Steve’s leg as he slowly petted the wispy blond hair flowing from her small head.

“Hi Sara! Boy, am I glad to see you.”

She took him by the hand and led him up the dusty road to the veranda, where they were joined by Uncle Don and the rest of the family. A quick headcount showed eleven in all, not including Steve.

“Boy, you look like you walked all the way here,” Uncle Don said, “couldn’t you find a car? You know, it’s not really stealing anymore. There’s plenty for everyone now.”

“Oh, actually I picked up a van, but blew a tire just over the hill couple miles back. I was wondering—see, I left my stuff in the van—if we could go get it in your truck. I didn’t feel like carrying it all the way here.”

“Sure, Steve. No problem. How about a drink first? We got some ice-cold lemonade if you’re interested.”

“That sounds perfect, thanks. But I’d rather not leave it too too long.”

“Suit yourself,” his uncle said, moving towards a dusty and dented old pick-up. “Mind carrying this while I’m driving? Can’t be too safe these days.”

“Sure,” Steve answered, taking the rifle in both hands.

*

Once stopped at the van, Don saw the passengers.

“What the—” he glanced over at Steve and into the barrel of the rifle. “Oh, Steve. What in the name of God have you done this time?”

“Get out of the truck. Slowly.”

“The hell I will!”

Steve poked the rifle forward into his uncle’s nose, producing a crunch and a bloody gash. “Get out,” he repeated.

Holding his hands up beside his ears, Uncle Don slowly slid out the door. Keeping the barrel trained on his mother’s brother, Steve slid across the truck’s seat and out the driver’s door.

“Down on your knees.”

“What the devil are you gonna do? Please, boy, don’t,” said Don, still standing. “What have we ever done to you? Please don’t, please don’t.”

“Never mind then,” Steve said flatly, lowering the barrel and blowing off his uncle’s left knee.

From behind the minivan’s windows, the congregation watched with hollow, hungry eyes. Steve raced around to the passenger’s door of the minivan and helped Carol towards his injured, bleeding uncle.

“That’s much better, isn’t it?” Steve asked, wiping off Carol’s face with his sleeve. “I can see that you’re feeling more energetic.”

He removed his jeans, T-shirt, and shoes and put on his robe and sandals. Then he slashed the tires on the truck with his uncle’s buck knife. He helped Carol back into the van and drove up the road to the ranch.

*

The assault on the house went nearly without incident. What his followers weren’t fast enough to get for themselves, Steve was able to take down with the rifle. The only troubling matter was no sign of little Sara. No worry, he thought, they’ll find her tomorrow when they’re hungry again.

In the master bedroom that night, his sleep was troubled despite Carol’s cool comforting body at his side. He dreamt of endless mice scurrying along the rafters above his bed. He dreamt of his uncle, leglessly shuffling and juking in dusty circles.

When the sun rose to cheerful sparrow song, Steve awoke to an increased congregation. They were relatively full of vigor, but no sustenance was at hand. He must find Sara. First things first though: grabbing the rifle, he hiked to the converted Uncle Don who was slowly spinning among the sage and dust. He put the rifle to what remained of Don’s skull and pulled the trigger.

Back at the ranch, he noticed the flock did not want to follow him out of the house. Were they losing faith? Would he have to lower his medication again?

For the next few days, Steve roamed the surrounding hills, searched the barn, and looked everywhere for Sara. Several of his old congregation had become catatonic, and Carol was beginning to slow down, too.

He hadn’t spent this much time alone since the change, and it was upsetting him. He needed to understand his followers. He needed them to stay close. He needed to find Sara.

He didn’t sleep well again that night. Despite the fatigue from roving the countryside, the mice and his thoughts of desperation kept him tossing and turning. He didn’t know how to get rid of the thoughts, but he had an idea about the mice.

*

After a breakfast of dry granola and lemonade, he found the portal to the attic in the front closet. Armed with a shoebox full of mousetraps, he climbed up and found his cousin Sara huddled in a corner. He crawled over to her. When she flinched and began sobbing, he hugged her, petting the soft blond hair covering her scalp. What to do? There are twelve followers now but just one small brain.

Steve brought some food, drink, and a big pot up to the attic for Sara. Too frightened to actually speak, she just ate the food and stared at Steve. He spent the rest of the day wandering the fields and hills around the ranch, thinking about the future. He spent several hours just watching a family of ground squirrels poke their heads up from their tunnels, scurry through the dry grass, and rush back down to the safety of their homes every time he moved.

*

The next morning, Carol couldn’t rise from bed. Steve returned to the attic. Sara put up no resistance as he led her to the ladder. His aunt and a few other family members began mauling him, clutching and grabbing at Sara as he kicked them off. “No!” he yelled. “She’s for Carol.” But they did not stop their attacks. Quickly, he climbed back up the ladder. “Stay here.”

He stomped back down the ladder and they calmly gathered around him. “Who do you think you are?” he said, filled with rage and disgust. “I’m in charge. I’m the chosen one, and you are the followers. You must obey!”

They stared blankly back, shuffling their feet and lurching around the house. You can’t choose your family, he told himself, you just inherit them and make do.

“Like hell,” he muttered. “I’m the leader here. I can do whatever I damn well please. Who the hell are they?”

Using his uncle’s rifle, he disowned his dead family members. Then, he climbed back up to the attic.

When Carol saw Sara, she began convulsing in hunger, but was too weak to rise from the bed. Steve watched his queen in fascination. Reaching over Carol’s supine figure, he scooped up a tiny piece of brain tissue that had splattered onto the bedside table. There’s only one way to find out, he thought, staring at the morsel in his fingers. He popped it into his mouth and slurped down the warm glutinous flesh. Not bad, he thought, but nothing special.

*

The next few days were a pleasant idyll. He and Carol strolled the golden hillsides, watched the sun set, and sat beside the warm fire at night. However, the idyll did not last as Carol soon became ill again and was house-bound. Steve was at a loss. He’d done all he could with the medication, and there was nowhere to get food nearby. He spent another day walking the hillsides, watching the sun set, and sitting by the fire. Without Carol, though, he felt no joy in these activities.

He could think of only one way to be with her forever, so he gathered up all the white plastic bottles of Prozac and unceremoniously flushed the pills down the toilet. In any other year, he noted to himself, tomorrow would be the first day of school.

Carol’s condition continued to deteriorate, and Steve’s unmedicated mind didn’t seem to be helping. Then, one morning he awoke to see her up and out of bed. Instead of the expected rush of joy he thought he’d feel at such a sight, he felt nothing. He simply pulled himself up out of bed on stiff legs, moved past her, and shuffled out the front the door to greet the new day.

I’m looking up, miles and miles away from anything.  Miles from the asphalt beneath me, miles from her teeth.  I’m looking down an extremely long soundproof tunnel.  The only thing I can hear is a heartbeat, some muffled noises…the sounds brain cells make when they die screaming.

I can see her, but damn she is far way.  Her teeth, broken and dripping.  Her eyes… nothing…more nothing than a shark’s.  I know she’s dripping other people’s blood on me.  I know what she is about to do, but I’m not going to do anything about it.  I could,  believe me, I could tear the walls of this tunnel down and eat this bitch alive if I was so inclined…but I’m done.  This is it; I’ll stay here until I come back with a reason to rip out every throat I see.  Finally.  I can kill at will.

Yes, her mouth moves toward my throat, yes.  Do it.  Bite, tear and end this forever.  I’m looking up through my K Hole watching her teeth get closer.  It’s beautiful…

I used to sleepwalk, I used to have a family…I used to think the sun was a good idea.  I’d wake up in my garage, digging through an old box of letters, notebooks.  Letters from before my love turned sour.  Notebooks from when I still cared.

I would wake up with my hand in the knife drawer, blood pooling around the handles of the blades.

I would wake up to find my child without a mother.  Rooting for a breast, a nipple that wasn’t there.  To feed.  Starving to death in a dry world.  I would wake up feeding myself…I gorged on every drug I could find and burned up alone in my bed for two.

The person who came out of that bed was different.  I had blood on my hands, literally.  I had screaming in my head that I could only beat down with vicodin, Percocet, PCP, Ketamine, coke, ether, ups, downs, expired anticonvulsants, mutant pills.  My wings had been clipped and I was stranded, yet somehow this felt right, that my newfound recklessness and utter lack of control was priming me for something…

I was being built for this fight.

When the shit hit the fan I opened my mouth to catch it.  I looked out my window to see the dead rise, walk around.  I saw my neighbors running, guns blazing, blood screaming down every surface.  The camera shook and the reels came off.  The lights came up and nothing got brighter.  The sky was black, and we were devouring each other alive, dead.  This is what I saw when I looked out my window.  Now it was real, no longer just a vision.

I fit into this world like a key does a lock.  Bullets into a gun.

Pain had left me.  It was the one thing I could not overdose on, pain.  Psychic, mental torture was my real drug of choice.  No worldly chemical could knock me down.  Only I could do that.

I dragged blades deep into my skin and felt nothing, saw the blood.  The red blood, the black blood.  Not the brown, dead oil of these who suddenly had it so easy.  I would exact my pain on them.  This was my fight.

I clutched my piece as I walked outside for the first time in weeks.  I was out of food and I wasn’t going to try and get more.  I was going to walk out into my street and become a part of this world, inserting myself into this stream of violence was the only option.

That’s when I met the drivers…before Prick…

…what a beautiful watch.

Watch?  What the fuck?  Wait a second, no…a huge black hand covered in rings, gold, light, hope.  I should have seen salvation, all I saw was an invasion of unnecessary optimism.  This can’t be happening.  Everything beyond a tailored cuff goes right underneath her neck, lifts her chin up.  The barrel of a gun now…pearl handle…is pressed against the right sight of my savior goddess’ mouth.

The slam of the hammer and the wreck it makes out of her mouth yanks me up and out of the darkness.  Everything in her ragged mouth gets blasted into oblivion by a fashionable, party-spoiling pair of black hands.  Now she is just gumming, moving her jaw up and down uselessly like a drowning fish.

He wraps a modified chain around her neck and yanks it tight, like a choke collar.  I see her fragile flesh tear through the knots in the chain, right before he drags her, kicking and thrashing and gumming away from me.

I look up to get a glimpse and I see a man, a huge, black man in a purple suit that shines like chrome.  He looks too perfect for this blasted world.  His shoes, perfectly shined and made of some kind of odd skin, accented with gold.

As the G bitch thrashes and spits, he stays clean and immaculate.  Nothing touches him.  He throws the bitch into the back of an unmarked van, closes the door and lights a massive cigar, inhaling slowly with a look of success and satisfaction so pure it freaks me out.  This man clearly loves his job.

I make some kind of noise and he looks over at me, stares for a second as if debating whether or not to address me.  He walks over to me slowly and his shoes echo in the blank street.  He kneels down over me and says, “Look here pimpin’… if you’re one of them, say so now.  I don’t want to get blood on my damn shoes.”

I tell him to fuck off, give me my shit.  Just then the pain rockets up through my every molecule like a freshly cracked oil mane and I black out.  Fuck.

To Be Continued.

I heard a rib crack and decided I needed to get back on the job, the ether left me in a drunken useless state so I dug for my cocktail of uppers and blow. I dipped into my bag and stuck a lump into my face, inhaling deeply as I grabbed for my gun. More would be coming, and I need to be on my shit if I was going to make it.

As my hood slammed and my windshield went red I realized something was wrong. The shit that went into my nose hurt waaaaay too much. I knew this burn, this was not any kind of upper, it was K, Ketamine, horse traquilizer, and I was fucked.

My senses ran screaming from me and I clenched my gun, falling over into my front seat, I heard Prick scream his last scream, and the sound of dead fists tearing a wet rib cage in two. Surprisingly, a sound like that is nowhere near enough to rocket someone out of a K-hole.

I laid there, with the back of my head against the passenger door grinning at my drivers side window that I had punched out hours ago, drooling, anxiously awaiting the moment when that fucker tore me apart, so the disassembly of my body that I was feeling would be both literal and metaphysical. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t move. Then again, I thought, as the tiniest mutation of survival instinct swam through the blackness and tapped me on the shoulder. My subconscious being way smarter than I ever could be. I decided I was going to try and kill this thing from a coma tunnel 4 thousand miles away from Now.

I propped my gun up as well as I could and waited for the bitch to come to the window. I would do my best to blast her, or I would do my best to die, either way. I kept my mind almost awake by thinking of the huge nut I was going to blow all over the dead G bitch if I made it out of this. Any second now, as the time dragged elastic across my eyes, nothing happened. I heard her coming, drooling, making all kinds of dumbfuck retard noises.

It happened, but not like I had planned. She came to the door, but not the side I had my gun pointed at, the door I had my head leaning on. She ripped the fucker straight off the hinges, and still ready to react, my trigger finger coiled despite my attempts to stop it and I went right ahead and put three in my kneecap without breaking a sweat.

Then she had me, by the collarbones, that fucking grip. I was fucking useless. I was fucked, so fucked. My knee was obliterated, three slugs from my desert eagle from no more than 9 inches away, and I couldn’t even feel it…

To be continued.

See, for us it was so dark on the floor that no one ever really noticed the 8 year old with the glass of brown liquor, the trail of dark blood leading from the booth, to the bar, to the pinball machine, to the change machine, back to the pinball machine. There were other more malicious things to worry about, like the fucking black handprints all over the highball glasses. Black and murky like asphalt, smell like a science classroom on dissection day.

In fact, blood was normal, fists shredded to the bone and beyond were not. Manual tooth extractions were not. Instrument free dentistry was not. Not for me at least. Our policy was usually, “just let them scrap it out and pick up the loose change once they’re done”. But these weren’t typical brawls, blacks would lose an arm and keep fighting, reds would rip off someone’s lower jaw, throw up thick syrupy shit and get right back to their shitty rail and water.

Like I never said, apathy and routine took hold.

We never changed many lightbulbs, and it always smelled like that. Like so many old ladies, we had gotten used to our musk. We didn’t give a fuck and the regulars didn’t either.

The first inclination I had that anything was off the tracks was under the bar, changing a half expired keg for another less expired one. We never could sell much beer, real alcoholics didn’t have time for it, they only bought it when they were too broke to afford anything else. Herpes, a “busboy” was down there. I hadn’t seen Herpes in about 3 months. That was typical too, they would get their money for the night and run off to blow it all on bad junk, buying it with a needle in their arm in some other shitty bar’s bathroom. Saved me the clean up. I figured the same happened to Herpes, apparently it didn’t. When he stood up, groaning, I thought it was the junk and told him to fuck off, find a hotel room and never come back.

He was pissed, and I was armed. It didn’t take much time or thinking or bullets. His blood didn’t look right though. It was too brown, too thick, and his eyes, they weren’t the watery desperate eyes of a smackhead. That’s probably why i wasted him, that look in his eyes suggested that nothing good was going to come from my little intervention. The back of his head ended up all over a bunch of spare tin, and I went back up and closed the door.

When I came back, I was asked repeatedly about “that shot”, but no one gave an inch of piss about the other one, the one for Herpes.
–”This place is completely fucked”, he told me over the phone. Fucking Prick. Big fucking surprise I thought, the only reason I ever speak to this guy is when something, someplace or someone is completely fucked. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.

I got there and did a line off the dashboard, and then put my fist through the driver’s side window. I opened the door from the outside and wandered over to what was left of what had to be the shittiest bar in the shittiest town in the world. He stood there all dramatic lighting a cigarette, inhaling slowly and exhaling as he turned to look at me. All I wanted to do was break his fucking neck, but instead i just focused on the blood that was running off of my hand, I felt it cling to my knuckles until the last second when it dropped and patted the asphalt. It was bliss.

He gestured with his faggoty American Spirit and said, “some of them are still moving”. I looked. They were. Some of them looked like the falling action in a shitty horror movie about construction site disasters. All twisted limbs with steel and glass stuck through them. Some of them just looked sad, crying. “WHO FUCKING CARES!” I screamed at him, feeling the blood vessels pop in my eyes. He just shrugged.

I went to the car, grabbed my gun, a mutant Pakistani Desert Eagle, drilled, rebuilt and fucked with by God-knows-who-for-crack. I’ve shot planes out the sky. I cocked it and walked up to the different faces, ignored the watery ones who asked me to “please stop” and put one in each. I heard Prick say something similar, but he knew why I was there and he knew he wasn’t going to stop me. Only I can do that.

I came back, wiped off their “blood”, licked some of it off my hands and ran the rest through my hair to keep it back. Their blood isn’t contagious, the shit is motor oil, brown, useless, stagnant, delicious. Its their saliva that gets you. Of course there could be traces of it in their oil, I could have swallowed some of it, I could have been turning right then and there, but I didn’t quite give a fuck.

“Nice job”, he said, flicking his cigarette. Fucking Prick.

I huffed ether in my car and waited for the next shit storm to come.