“Oopsies,” she went.
Jackson seized the moment and bit into her ear. She dropped him.
“Baby,” she said, “why did you do that?”
Another car drove up and hit her and sent her flying UP into a tree. I ran to Jackson and we embraced. The driver of the car got out.
It was Clair.
Her faced was covered in stitches. She ran to the tree and looked up.
Pepper was gone.
The man on the ground with missing fingers and a destroyed brain was dead, although his eyes fluttered nonstop. We heard sirens. The police were coming.
How was I going to explain this?
CLAIR
Red and blue police lights filled the home. It felt like I was in a dance club. As the ambulances were filled with complaining nurses, Lt. Humuhumunukunukuapua'a asked us questions and wrote in his little, pink notebook. Embarrassed by his name, he wanted us to call him Lt. Humu, so we did. His radio went off, and he answered it. The woman on the other end was hysterical.
Lt. Humu told her to calm down, then said, “Did you say a 100-year-old man just robbed a convenient store...with his bare hands?”
“Yes!” said the woman on the other end. “Many of them are shouting “God” over and over again!”
Many cops were around us – interrogating bleeding nurses and the few remaining old people. The cops looked very serious. All at once their radios came alive. Hell was going down. Total panic set in. The island of Oahu was getting screwed. The voices came yelling out from their radios. From what I could gather, the old people were going ape shit – breaking into stores, stealing buses and taking them on joy rides, destroying zoos and letting the animals run free, attacking surfers, basically just doing whatever they wanted. So that was enough for me. I got Janice and Jackson out of the home.
I stuffed them into my car and zoomed off. I could've done without that Jackson fellow, though. I didn't trust him. How did I know he didn't take the Kilt pill? Driving through downtown Honolulu – where many tall, business buildings stood – was a confusing sight. The police were all over the place, tasering and throwing nets over all these quick, senior citizens. An old woman with a walker passed in front of our car. I hit the brakes. She growled like a crazed dog and attacked our car, hitting it with her walker. I stepped on the gas and HIT her, and she went tumbling over the car. Looking into the rear-view mirror, I saw her get right back up and throw her walker at us. The thing broke our rear window.
My house was on a mountain, on Tantalus, overlooking the city. As we drove up, I clicked through the radio stations. No music played. Only talks on how the elderly were going crazy and trashing every-THING in sight, killing any-ONE that stood in their way. The radio DJ spoke in a serious tone.
“Healthy people are taking the pills out of curiosity...” she said, “...and are spontaneously combusting.” She paused. “This just in. Oh, my Jesus, God, no. Children are simply exploding. A woman, who shall go unidentified, just witnessed an 8-year-old boy eat the pill, and he BLEW up.”
I changed the station. I didn't want to hear any of it. There HAD to be a station playing music – even rap music would've been fine. I caught a conversation with the creator of the Kilt pill, a man named Dr. Kilt Ann. I listened.
Dr. Kilt said that it clearly says on the bottle “Keep away from children ages 79 and below”. He would not be held responsible for shoddy parenting. He sounded like he was begging.
As we were about to pull into the driveway, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw, running out from the dust, that woman that tried to run off with Jackson. She was snarling and dressed in a gorgeous white dress and had a purse swinging from her shoulder. She jumped onto the top of the car and punched down and tried to grab at them. Mom screamed out, “It's Pepper!”
Jackson ducked down in his seat.
“She's a witch! Don't let her touch me!”
Pepper jumped on the hood of the car, called my mom a “whore!” and punched through the already-damaged windshield and grabbed my face, blinding me. I distinctly remember her hand smelling like vomit. Her fingers were in my mouth. The car crashed into my mailbox. Pepper ripped out the back door and pulled Jackson out and kissed him, molesting him, her hands sliding up his shirt and down his pants. She slapped him and begged him to love her again like he did before. Jackson summoned all the energy he had left and scissor-kicked her in the face. She fell to the ground with her purse flying through the air, the crap inside spraying out. I ran out and stomped on her head multiple times, screaming, “DIE, DIE!” Pepper grabbed my foot and bit into it, tearing away so many strings of meat. We wrestled on the ground. Mom yelled for me to get off her. Mom had a crowbar (must've got it from the trunk). Pepper saw the weapon. “No, not the face!” she cried, and tried to crawl away. Mom hit her on the back of her head, and it sounded like someone thumping on a watermelon. I jumped into the car, drove toward them, and screamed for my mom to, “Move the hell outta the way!” Mom couldn't hear me – she was too lost in her rage. She kept pounding on the back of Pepper's head, begging her to, “DIE, DIE!” I honked, and my mom jumped away at the last minute. Pepper leaped up, looked over her shoulder, and I sent her ass flying – right off the mountain. She tumbled, tumbled down, and I could hear her bones snapping.
Mom and I hugged. We dragged Jackson into the house. Mom said, “One minute,” and ran back out. She picked something from off the ground and ran back in the house.
“Dropped my glasses.”
Before closing the door, I looked outside and scanned the scene.
Deep down in me, I was fighting a nervous image of Pepper on the side of the mountain, above all those city lights, holding on to a loose root, grinning, happy to still be alive...and climbing her way back up.
JACKSON
A bright light blinded me. It was Heaven! This was it. I was finally dying. That soccer move I put on Pepper's face took everything I had left in my brittle body. But no, I was still alive. The morning sun was just in my eyes. I was in Clair's room. Pictures of her and Janice were all over the walls. She worshiped her mother. The girls were in the living room, watching TV, and I could hear the nervous news anchor.
“Kilt has been pulled,” she said. “Anyone with the pill must deliver the drug to the authorities for proper disposal. Anyone who has taken the pill must stay indoors and call the police to be dealt with in a lighthearted manner. Extremists have burnt the factory that manufactured Kilt to the ground. The creator of the pill, Dr. Kilt, is missing and hoped dead. Many elderly people have runaway from their “homes” and are committing crimes to, as one captured old man said, “live life to the fullest.” Prisons are filling up fast with these so-called supelders beating up prisoners. Governor Ria Mahony held a contest this morning for someone to come up with a solution on how to contain the crazy old people. The winner was Tasha Illupa, a 6th grade girl. Contractors began work on her plan immediately, creating a giant balloon castle complete with a slippery floor to contain the supelderly. Tasha's prize is a free bus pass for life.”
Someone changed the channel. More nervous talk. A psychologist specializing in the inner workings of the elderly mind theorizes that the super elderly have no option but to “get crazy on life” due to Kilt's potent energy. “The pill has, in a sense, released years – decades – of bottled up yearnings,” the psychologist said. “They believe that Kilt is giving them the energy to live life to the fullest, and they have to keep pushing themselves, pushing their life-experience. It's like people who have gone bored with sex. They have to always make it weirder. If they do not, then boredom quickly sets in. This is exactly like that. There is no turning back.”
I had to see what was going on. I rolled out of bed. My body sizzled with pain. I stood in the doorway and looked into the living room. The girls were sitting on the floor, holding each other.
A scientist was on TV, holding a chart and drawing diagrams on a chalkboard. The scene changed to a padded cell. Ten military police officers h
eld a supelder, trying to get him – an old Chinese man – to stand still. It was impossible. The supelder was tough and busy. Scientists watched from behind a thick wall of glass. The old man demanded to be let go, because he had many projects to attend to. The MPs sat the man down on a school desk. A scientist in a white lab coat, wearing black gloves, hooked an electrocardiograph to the man. His heart beat was off the charts! The scientists oooh'ed and ahhh'ed. The graph paper coming out of the ECG was a solid, black block. The supelder yelled, “I must attend to my various projects!” and turned into a furious brute and threw the MPs against the walls and onto the ceiling. He attacked the scientist and tried to run through a padded wall, running headfirst into it, trying over and over again.
The MPs laughed at his useless efforts, but then the wall gave out a large, cracking sound, and the military police stopped laughing and began shooting at this Chinese man. The bullets only made him angry. The supelder brought his hands up in front of his face and made claws and snarled and gave a big leap toward the MPs. He yanked off ALL their limbs and tore off ALL their clothes for some special reason, and then he struck the sad soldiers with their own shoulders and thighs. The mad zombie ripped open its shirt like Superman, gave out a manly shriek, and its chest exploded. The heart flew out and went SPLAT! against the glass wall, beating like crazy. And then it blew up, punching a hole in the glass. The scientists gasped and held each other. A lady scientist pulled out a machete and screamed and ran into the room, ready to kill. She held the rusty machete out in front of her and charged toward the monster and cut his head off. The creature ran around here and there, bumping into furniture, knocking over desks, picking them up and throwing the desks against the glass wall. The supelder wouldn't die.
The television screen went back to the scientist at the blackboard.
“The supelder's head died of blood loss the next day,” he said. “The female scientist, now in a mental institution, says that the only way to kill these things is to destroy the head. The body continues to twitch, and it is unknown when, if ever, it will be at rest. Scientists can't figure out what the pill, Kilt, is made of. We have done a variety of tests on Kilt, and the results were always the same. Kilt seems to just be cane sugar, Hawaii's finest,” he said. “The elderly are walking – but are dead. They are the walking dead. Zombies. Their hearts have exploded long ago. Pure, hyperactive energy keeps their bodies alive.”
Janice changed the channel. Every news station showed video of these old, excitable zombies wrecking havoc all over Oahu. Many of them drank energy drinks. The camera was very shaky at times. The police and military had their hands full, running around with machetes and trying to chop off zombie heads. Many of them fail and are eaten. That footage was censored due to graphic content, a yellow happy face covering the gore.
The scene cut to a reporter behind a desk.
“Headline!” she said. “Balloon castle an epic fail. Little girl's bus pass revoked.”
Janice saw me standing there in the doorway and tried to walk me back to bed.
“You have to rest, dear.”
“I'm all right,” I said. I tried to smile, but even that hurt.
Janice turned to Clair.
“Make some tea?”
Clair nodded and walked into the kitchen.
There was a crash outside.
We all froze.
Clair put on her jacket.
“I'm gonna go check it out,” she said.
Janice begged her not to go. Clair picked up a machete from somewhere in the kitchen. She told us to lock the door and stay inside no matter what happened.
The anchorwoman sat behind her desk...looking into the camera...shaking her head.
Hard times.
Hard times.
CLAIR
The sun was so bright, I couldn't see for a second. That scared me, and I wanted to run back inside. The place where Pepper bit me burned like a bitch. Much limping then. A van was in the middle of the dirt road, its whole front part smoking. My ESP yelled, “Danger! Turn around and go home, stupid!” The side of the van read Aloha Elderly Homes #1. I walked with my machete held out. A strange sight: It looked like the van rammed straight into a tree, and there were hand prints pressed into the front of the van, like someone tried to stop it from running them over. I walked 'round to the back and, after taking a deep breath, swung the door open.
A nurse cowered in a corner with an old woman in a wheelchair, both weeping, begging me not to hurt them. “Please, please, please, please,” they went. The nurse was named Beth, and the old woman was Hershey Lilo, who had a bloody wound on her neck. I saw teethmarks.
“My sister bit me!” Hershey said. “In all the years I've known her, she's never bit me like that. She visits and takes a bite out of me! She never liked me. I had no problem cutting her head off with that electric knife.”
Beth held the old woman, covering Hershey's neck-wound to keep the blood inside.
“It is a sad state of affairs,” Beth said. “What's happening to all the old people?”
“It's that new pill. Kilt. It's turning them into lunatic-beasts. Zombies.”
Beth frowned.
“Stop it. You're scaring the old lady.”
The “old lady” appeared to be sleeping...snoring. I pointed my machete at her.
“Did she take Kilt?”
Beth shrugged.
“I...I don't remember.”
I heard a tree branch crack, and I spun around. It was just a stray cat.
“I guess she's alright. If she did take Kilt, she'd be running around trying to goose us. No? Goddamn. I don't really know. Whatever.”
Beth leaned forward.
“Why are the elderly attacking all the young people?”
“They're not angry,” I said. “They're happy.”
Beth said the old folk's home they came from was a total mess: The old people attacked and ate all the nurses. She saw four of the crazy old people playing hacky sack with a bloody head. “I'll never forget the look on that head's face,” Beth said. “She looked so surprised, what with her eyes and mouth open like that – long, red hair flying through the air. Farra was such a fine nurse.” Beth went on, saying how the whole island had gone crazy, how it was all the “Devil's” work, how it was the end of days, and how people were leaving their homes and heading for the hills, up where it was supposed to be safe. The old folk's home – all of them – were being attacked...and not just by zombies. People were pissed off and were taking action – capturing as many old people as possible and rounding them up, tying ropes around their necks and hanging them and burning them and throwing rocks at their smoking bodies. It made me sick to hear it all. Were people this insane when pushed too hard? Beth said everyone laughed as they threw their stones at the hanging bodies. “Laughed,” she said. “But it was fake-laughing. Like they were forcing themselves to believe everything was okay.”
Beth and Hershey were heading up to a friend's place (a little ways up the mountain from my house), when they struck...something...or someONE. Their driver yelled out, “I hit him! I didn't mean to!” then ran out. Last they heard, he was screaming, then nothing. Gone. They were left all alone.
“Better you guys stay with us,” I said, and helped Beth roll Hershey into the house.
That turned out to be a big MISTAKE.
Hershey started complaining how messy the place was, how she felt like vomiting from all the stink in the house. I assumed she meant the incense I was burning.
“It's just incense,” I said.
“Incest!” she yelled. “Criminal congress! I'm in the Devil's house! Beth, release me from this witch's hold! Take me to Angelo's home. I miss his touch, his caress, his phantom odors, his buttery whispers.”
Beth looked at us.
“Don't mind her. She gets nervous in odd houses. Angelo's her husband. We were heading up to his place before our van was destroyed.”
I turned to my mom and Jackson.
“Maybe we should
go up there and get this Angelo guy. He might need help.”
“That won't be necessary,” Beth said. “Angelo is dead. Has been for 50 years.” She whispered it so Hershey didn't hear. The old woman was scratching her neck, and more blood jumped out like bugs. My first thought was My carpet! Mom went to the old woman and told her to stop scratching, because it would only make the wound worse. Jackson pulled me to the side. “We have to get rid of her,” he said. “She's doing the same thing that Chinese man did on the TV, remember?”
Hershey was bleeping like a goat. So strange. Like a damn goat! She kept scratching her neck-wound. Worms wiggled out of it and thumped to the floor. Hershey's eyes turned yellow, then black, then white, then magenta, then yellow again. I looked around. I lost my machete! Hershey jumped out of her wheelchair – right onto Beth and tore off her clothes and ripped away her nonexistent breasts and commenced eating and chomping away, taking Beth right to the floor. We were in shock. No one moved. My heart stopped. And speaking of hearts, Hershey stood up from her meal and looked at us like a deer in headlights. Her heart was beating all crazy-like under her blouse: Big THUMP-THUMPS pushing out like fists. My eyes were so locked on them. Beth made a run for me. Jackson punched the zombie's face and sent it crashing into the TV, head first. Hershey stood up – TV set on her head – and stumbled around. A cartoon show played: A rabbit was hitting another rabbit over the head with a frying pan. The zombie threw the TV set away, hitting Jackson on the head. He went down screaming and wiggling on the floor. Convulsions! Mom ran to him and cradled him.