To Lead

by Brent Danley Jones

       One clean shot sent spiraling through the right eye dropped another of the shambling terrors we once called human. Hear the rattling wheeze, on instinct turn right, a swing successfully severs the spinal column between the sixth and seventh vertebrae just at the base of the neck, producing a ring and chuck sound felt down the sharpened steel, snapping the imitated life out of another abomination. A quick glance to the left revealed Ray, a baker by trade, experiencing difficulty disposing of his dreadful foe as a state of panic crept into his addled mind.

        Poor guy. And it’s only one.

        Accuracy decreased as the rate went up, with death dripping nearer. The ghoulish figure advanced, outlined in the dim glow of a distant fire, pressing forward unfazed by the shots passing through its body, as shrapnel of bone and flesh ricocheted away. To fear is to be human, and Ray found himself being bared down upon by something without fear.

        Not wanting more precious ammo to be cast without reason backing the bullet, the sights on my old hunting rifle even themselves with the ear and loose one shot through the left and out the right. A low, bellowing moan let out by the falling foe brings a queer relief as another beast slips back into death. All grew still now, silence falling like the comfort of a familiar quilt around us. Ray’s eyes were still as wide as exhaustion would let them go.

        They always think they’re ready.

        A quick kick gets us through the door of a neighboring building as the smell of mildew on linen floods to greet us. A clothing store, ‘Trinities’. Gathering inside, we throw on the gas lamp, reload and recoup.

        A number of frumpy sweaters and skimpy dresses still cling to hangars, some barely holding on, each with a pricetag. Assumed value. Thirty-five dollars for the loose fitting blue one with the big red pockets. It kind of takes you back. A time when paper could be traded for goods, and metal discs could buy food. I rip the jumper from the hooks and stuff it in my tuckerbag over a few remaining biscuits, maybe to use later. Funny. This used to be called “stealing” and now it’s just “living”.

        I hated resorting to guns, ammo’s not easy to make. Machetes don’t run out of bullets, but putting a rifle on rock ‘n’ roll beats dying. Shoulda took the semi-auto instead of Ray, but he’s lacking in cool hands, my two to his zero. Also shoulda known we’d hit a swarm, the place looks untouched for a reason: it’s crawling with death. Running some quick mental math says we got about seven or eight minutes until anything in earshot drags itself to our position. Shame. Would like to have reset my sight.

        Ray’s still out of breath and we don’t bother with words. He knows the scolding that’s waiting there for him. Slumped down beneath an old world calendar, with some picture of a baby goat on a stump, he lets his head hang, not wanting to make eye contact—or any kind of contact. That’s good. Part of you needs to die for the rest to live sometimes.

        A strange thing that at a time like this previous memories would work their way back in, sending a dull spark to the part of nostalgia we just don’t talk about no more. Calendar on the wall says April 10^th. It’s my birthday. As I shove unfired shells into the chamber of my mechanical best friend, my pace with the shells slows.

        The emotion numbing armor lifts for but a moment in thought—living life like this is just like waiting to die, right? What will happen if we manage to fend off the oncoming onslaught and get back to Base? We will enjoy another week, maybe two, of paranoid fear from this ghastly oppression. Slowly we steep into insanity, behind our little walls within the confines of Base until the order trickles down the chain for me to take to the streets again, hoping a sharp blade and hot lead is enough to drown out the sound of my own delusions and follow the mission. Repeat the same cycle. Again. Vicious in its repetition. Salvation seems steeped in death.

          Scattered notions buzz like corpse flies, a sickly contamination spreads through my mind. It’s not the first time—but reality jerks me back, out of the soul, stained salvation, and death, back into 'Trinities' clothing boutique, where a familiar sound grows louder than the offensively colored clothing. I hear tears. I hear the human heart beating, and scared. I spin my head around fast and see a baker named Ray, his kicked-dog face buried in a fuzzy magenta frock grabbed off the counter. I stare at this blatant example of emotion and see a fear so different from mine. Ray's little mishap may be the closest in life he’s ever felt to death, something with no greater thought than fear needed to justify terror. Ray is human. Have I lost my fear? Death of dying in living life, all is in the mind, but the breathing and sputtering mass of man in front of me now is real, present, and washing the blue from his eyes. His senses are still acute, like all survivors, and note he’s being watched. Ray lifts his sunken face from its rosy resting place with the look of a lost child. I realize what I am meant to do. I stare back into frightened Ray's blue eyes.

          “Shut the hell up, stand up, move out. Shoot like that again and I’ll shoot you, you’re not worth the ammo you’re wasting. Want to live? Shoot straight, once, and in the head. Got it?”

And he nods.

Weapons in hand, we leave out the back door.