The 2019 RasMuse

          As he sits and waits for her, he notices what once was a beautiful amber sky starts to turn gray as darkness reaps upon the earth. There was an eerie calmness, not even a breeze to whisk the droplets of sweat away that trickle down the point of his nose. “The sound, where is the sound?” What once was the orchestra of crickets pulling on the strings of a violin had vanished. Nothing but dead silence lingers among them. 

          He starts to clench his teeth as his chiseled jawline tightens.

“I’m a marine,” he whispers under his breath, “I’m Matt Strong.” Matt Strong is known as one of the strongest and rugged men on earth. He stands at six foot four and weighs two hundred twenty-five pounds of solid muscle. People would say his muscular build is similar to that of a military tank. 

           As he sat outside on the rickety old rocking chair, it made a sound like an old man's arthritic bones cracking. As Strong nervously watched Private Snow pick apples in the orchard, (the only food source they had left) the last bit of sunlight shined off his crystal blue eyes like sunrays shimmering over the bluest of oceans. 

           In the distance he saw movement; it was those things, those wretched smelling hunched over dead menaces (known as Creepers or Zombies) that swayed side to side as they moved toward her.

          “Private, they’re coming, run!” Sargent Strong grabbed his gun and started to shoot at the heads of those creepers.

          Private Snow dropped the basket of apples, and they flew in the air as she ran towards the bunker looking behind her at every step, hoping those menaces would trip and fall.

          “C’mon, hurry up; close the door!”

          Sergeant Strong looked at Private Snow as if he was going to slap his child for misbehaving, “What’s wrong with you? You know we never go anywhere alone.”

          “You left your gun, Private!” Those rotting flesh- eating dead things are out there, waiting, waiting to feed on us! What! What were you thinking, Private Snow?”

            The nightmare started two years ago on a rainy fall day in October. The leaves began to change color, but it still did not feel like fall in Ocala, Florida. A pretty girl of twenty-four by the name of Candy Snow wanted more in her life than just bartending and gymnastics. She was alone in this world, no family to call her own, nothing to stop her, and no one to crush her dreams but the one thing she wanted most in this world was to become a doctor. 

            One morning as she cooked breakfast, the smell of crispy bacon circulated in the air. The pungent aroma swirled through the house as if a fan was pushing the odor through each room. Candy poured herself a cup of that black velvety liquid she called coffee.

          “Ah, now this is perfect,” as she placed her cup down on the table; she heard, “Be Proud, Be Strong, Join the Marines” coming from the television in the other room.

          Click, click, bang! Her brain hit the jackpot! Her eyes glimmered like a burning candle, and her heart beat as fast as a tornado twisting through a home, “I can do this! The chance I’ve been waiting for has arrived. I’m going to be the best military doctor in the world.” Candy packed her bags and headed for the Marine base in Jacksonville, Florida to meet the Marines recruiter.

             Months have passed, and boot camp has ended; now it was time for her next journey. It was the journey of a lifetime for Candy. “I made it, Boot Camp I booted you!” she giggled quietly to herself.

             There she proudly stood in line waiting for her orders. She was but five feet four inches tall with an athletic build most women would envy. Her golden blonde hair flows past her shoulders, and she has the greenest of green eyes you’ve ever seen. As she waited for her orders she started to doubt herself, “Can I do this? Did I make the right decision?” Suddenly this handsome giant came toward her. He had muscles on top of muscles like a seven-tier layered chocolate cake. His beard melted to his face like wax melted on a candle. Her knees trembled not from fear but excitement.

          “Snow, are you ready for your assignment?”

          “Yes Sir, Sergeant Sir!” 

          “Good we leave tonight at twenty-three hundred hours, get some rest.” The newly Private Snow smiled as Sergeant “Matt Strong” turned and walked away. 

          The year is 2017; this was the beginning of the end. Private Snow was on her way to becoming a doctor, and Sergeant Strong just received his ninth gold medal, life was good. Then at 3:45 on November 25th, Thanksgiving Eve hell opened up and unleashed its demons upon the earth. The news on television was warning people to lock their doors, stay inside and don’t go near anyone that was sick. The government was closing down the cities, no one in or out. 

          Sergeant Strong and Private Snow along with fourteen other military men and women received their orders and were sent on a highly classified mission to California to find out who is responsible for this chaos and to stop this deadly virus that is spreading worldwide.

          “Sarg, the only thing we know about this disease is it’s fatal, contagious and turns people into ravenous monsters. If attacked and bitten you have 20 minutes before the transformation begins. Twenty minutes! Twenty minutes! That’s about the same time it takes for ice cream to melt and run down the side of your cone. How could this be happening? I, we have to stop this but how?”

          Private Snow turned to Sargent Strong, “It’s up to us now.” 

          The pungent odor of raw meat filled the air as the bodies of the fourteen military men and women lay scattered in a river of red. The dead sits gnawing on their bones as their flesh is flung into the air like two dogs ripping apart a steak. Sargent Strong and Private Snow barricaded themselves in the cement bunker which sits on top of a hill overlooking the apple orchard. When the wind blew, and that was rarely, the aroma of freshly cut apples filled the air. This smell was the only thing that reminded them of home.

          The bunker had no modern conveniences as back home, but it was home for them now. The cement bunker made you feel as if you were buried alive in a tomb, but it had its purpose, and that was to keep them alive. There were two beds with the thinnest mattresses you ever saw, thin like two slices of cheese and probably smelled just as bad. The kitchen is small, perhaps four feet by four feet. The bathroom was like a toilet in a box, and there was a table with three chairs. “Why three chairs? Do they think we have guests?” The bunker had no electricity and no running water which meant they walked downhill to the lake every day to collect water which they boiled first before drinking or washing because it could be tainted.  A single candle is used at night. Only one candle, it has to stay dim, so those things didn’t see the light and come running for them.

          “Sarg, thanks for saving me. Why were you watching me anyway?” said Private Snow as she looked at him with a half-smile.

          “First, call me Matt, since it looks like it’s just the two of us. I was watching you because if you get attacked and turn into one of those things, who is going to do the laundry around here!”

          Matt looked at Candy, smiled, winked and sat at the table. “Yeah right, Sarg oh I mean Matt, wishful thinking.” They both started to laugh uncontrollably.

          The months have passed and the seasons have come and gone. They must have killed thousands of those rotting zombies. They have not had any contact with another human for a long time. Sarg sat with the radio by his side day and night, and his rifle loaded and ready to blow up some zombie heads like an exploding piñata full of candy. He sat hoping, hoping to make contact with anyone, just one person, one single person.

          “We can’t be the only ones left. Why doesn’t someone answer? There has to be someone out there; someone has to be hiding and fighting to survive like us. Don’t you think so Candy? Or is this just wishful thinking?”

          Sarg continues to talk into the radio, changing stations every second as the unsettling sound of popcorn crackling static manifests into the air.

          “It’s hard to say. Those decaying things seem to be multiplying like rabbits and not the fuzzy bunny slipper kind, but we can’t give up Matt, we just can’t! It’s getting late, and we need to get some rest, we have a long day tomorrow.”

          As the sun climbed over the green apple trees in the field below, the warmth of its rays shined in through the slits of the boarded-up windows.

“Oh how I can go for a cup of coffee, what about you Matt? Do you think we can go into the city and look for some coffee and food?”

          Matt sat at the end of his bed; his back hunched over while he rubbed the Sandman out of his eyes. He was tired, and he looked aged, at least twenty years older. Matt’s close-shaven beard that once hugged his chiseled jawline now looked like gray straw you find hanging out of a birds nest. The sparkle that had shimmered in Matt’s big blue eyes has now faded.

          “Sure, we can look for coffee and bacon and eggs and hell why don’t we look for a sirloin steak too! Be real Candy, the only thing we will find is meat in a can. It’s all gone; it’s all freaking gone! Why do we keep trying to go on? It’s near the end. I’m getting tired; I’m getting too old for this crap. Be ready in five, Private.” Matt walked into the toilet box.

          “Private? Matt hasn’t called me that in well years?”  As Candy sat looking perplexed, she was thinking of a game plan to get into the city and out as quickly as they can. They didn’t want to be out at night with those creatures. Then in a split second, the static that was coming from the radio turned into something that sounds like a faint cry for help.

          “Matt! Matt! Someone’s out there!” Matt pushed open the door from the toilet box, tripping over his torn pant leg while trying to pull them up.

          “Hello, hello can you hear me? Sargent Matt Strong here, ten-four, over.”

          Then a voice escaped from the radio and said: “Hello, are you real?”

          Tears streamed from Candy’s face as Matt’s voice trembled, “Yes, we are real and alive!”

          “Hey buddy, it’s nice to hear a voice. How many are with you? We have more than a dozen people here in our little compound just five miles past Juniper City. You can join us if you want. Most of the city is gone and is overrun by the dead.” 

          Matt anxiously grabbed the radio. “Yes, we would love to join you, hello you there?” Silence, the pure silence that was so intense you felt the shaking in your heart like an earthquake.

          “Hello, hello, I think we lost them, Candy.”

          Matt and Candy sat and waited nervously for a response. Then in a split second, the horror of high pitched shrieking screams exploded from the radio, and the horrific sound of bones snapping as if someone was making a wish on wishbone filled their ears. Sargent Strong and Private Snow glared at each as their eyes were filled up with water.

“What has happened? Our only chance for survival is over.”

          Candy fell to the floor weeping as Matt sat with his hands over his face. Outside on the porch, they could hear zombies dragging their feet as their crumbling bodies banged against the doors and windows trying to find a way inside. Matt grabbed his gun and started to count how many bullets he had left as Candy did the same.

          “I have five rounds left Candy, what about you?” Candy looked up at Matt, her mouth quivered “Three, only three rounds and there are hundreds of them out there. What are we going to do?” 

          The pounding on the door started to become louder and louder almost as if a thunderbolt has struck the bunker and realization crept in, they might not make it out alive or even worse, turn into one of the dead.

          “Snap” was heard coming from the boards covering the windows as those decomposing monsters started to break in. Matt and Candy grabbed everything they could find in the bunker to fight those creatures.

          Matt turned to Candy, kissed her on her forehead, and said “Till we meet again”  and in a split second he picked Candy up and tossed her like a little rag doll into the toilet box and slammed the door shut.

          “Matt! What are you doing? Don’t; I can’t make it alone!” 

          Candy heard a massive pop. It was the first shot from Matt’s gun. Bang! Pop, Pop, Bang Bang! The sound of gunshots and the smell of gunpowder made its way under the door. Candy fell to her knees and put her gun to her head as if to end it all.

          “Matt, what have you done? You left me. I’m all alone. You were right; it’s the end.”

          The thumping and thrashing outside the door started to intensify, those things trying to get in, and there was no escape for her. Candy imagined Matt as one of those flesh-eating zombies as she wept. Her salty tears rolled down her face hitting the cold hard ground. She was too weak to fight anymore; she was giving up. But, then she heard bang, bang, bang, and bang!

          “Gunshots, from where are they coming? Matt only had five bullets.”

          A voice screamed out, “Hey you in there?”

          “Yes, I’m here.”

          “C’mon out we cleared the place.” Candy opened the door, and to her amazement there stood the men she and Matt were talking to on the radio as she looked around nervously hoping Matt had not become one of the dead.  She carefully stepped over the zombies; the smell was of rotting garbage swirled up her nose like a spinning tornado. The room looked like garbage piled high at a dump site.

          “How did you know we were here?”

          “I installed a tracking device on our radio and when those things started to attack us, we, what’s left of us high-tailed over here to get you guys. There’s safety in numbers. Oh, by the way, I’m Tom.”

          Candy made her way to Matt’s bed, as she bent over to touch his pillow where Sarg once laid his head, “Sarg, where ever you are, we were going to make it.”

          “Ma’am, I hate to be the one to rush you, but we have to get out of here, more of those things are headed this way.”

          Candy grabbed some of her belongings and a t-shirt of Matts. She placed her gun over her shoulder and exited the bunker.  As she made her way to one of the trucks waiting outside, she heard “Ma’am we have room in the jeep for you two.”

          Candy stopped in her tracks, “You two? I’m the only one left.”

          “No ma’am, I don’t believe so.”  Candy looked around as the sun reflected off the mirror on the truck, causing her to squint, “What is he talking about? Matt is gone.” 

          Candy began to load her stuff into the jeep as an eerie feeling raced through her body, chills ran up and down her backbone as ice cubes dropped down the back of her shirt. The bright sunlight that shined over her immediately ran away as she felt the presence of a large shadow standing behind her and the warm breath of something or someone on her head hoping it wasn’t a zombie. She was too scared to turn around figuring this was the last line for her; she would be dead soon, it has to be one of those things. 

          “I can’t go out like this!” Candy grabbed her gun and spun around, but to her amazement it was Matt.

          “What, you going to kill me now?”

          Candy leapt into Matt’s arms as if she was jumping off a cliff, “Matt you’re alive, how? I heard your gun, I heard the shots, and I counted them.” 

          Matt smiled at Candy, “I told you, I have to watch out for you. Remember, I need someone to do my laundry.”

          Candy smiled as Matt held her in his arms. “Now let’s go find a new place to live, this one’s trashed. You’re not a very good housekeeper.” Candy smiled, and the two kissed.

          As they jumped into the jeep, Candy looked at Matt just as if it was the first time she saw him. She saw that glimmer of hope in his blue eyes as she seen before.

          “See, I told you it wasn’t the end. It’s the start of a new beginning” as she laid head on Matt’s shoulder. Tom jumped into the driver's seat as he looked in the rearview mirror and nodded at Matt.

          “Thank you” Matt whispered to him as the caravan of trucks drove off.