He ignored the weapons and hopped up the narrow staircase, favoring his broken toe.
The forty foot sailboat was not fully paid for but as he sat down in one of the lounge chairs, Lazarde seriously doubted the bank would be coming to repossess it anytime soon. The anchor remained secure on the sea floor where he'd dropped it months earlier off the eastern shore of Rummy Cat Island.
It had seemed the perfect place to call home when he and his family arrived. It was little more than two and a half miles long and half a mile wide and best of all it was unpopulated. With no electricity, buildings, cars, or inhabitants it was the perfect place.
Or so he thought, and apparently others had too.
Lazarde hadn't wanted to scare his wife or children with talk of the undead. He'd heard horror stories over the boat's radio as they sailed to the islands. Major cities were burning all over the world. Governments were playing the blame game and very real threats of war breaking out made even the undead threat seem marginal.
They arrived off the tiny island a week after setting sail and he dropped anchor just before sunset.
In retrospect, Lazarde realized he should have told his family what was going on in the world. It would have scared them, yes, but they'd still be alive.
Apparently his wife and children swam to the nearby beach while he was still asleep the next morning.
His nine year old son and twelve year old daughter could still be easily picked out among the groups of wandering undead on the beach. The bright neon purple and orange life preservers were still strapped to their decaying bodies.
Several times he'd aimed the rifle at them and wanted to pull the trigger. But each time it had seemed much easier to have another drink. With no more alcohol on board, Lazarde could only stare across the gentle waves at the hundreds of undead wandering across the beach.
There were other boats around the island. But anytime they came near his, Lazarde would fire a few warning shots and continue to drink.
From his lounge chair he stared at the undead and then glanced back at his arsenal of weapons. This went on until the sun began to set and he'd started to sober up once more. Lazarde saw his children near the water's edge and got up from the chair.
He sighed and realized life without his family wasn't worth living. After taking off his filthy shirt, he dived into the water and started swimming toward the beach.
###
Waking at 2:47 AM
Dreams are funny things.
Sometimes they can seem as real and vivid as anything ever experienced while awake. Others are just plain goofy, scary, or so bizarre the meaning (if there really is one) is never understood.
For the thirty-six year old very recently divorced full time father of two that had been tossing and turning for the previous few hours, his dreams were a patchwork of extremely disturbing nightmares. The visions were tormenting not just to the man. They were also annoying Peanut.
The small brown Chihuahua named Peanut, curled up near the foot of the bed, was having a difficult time sleeping too. The dog couldn't begin to understand why the woman who used to sleep with the man hadn't been around for the last few weeks but did know something was definitely wrong.
Back when the woman was here, the man used to sleep soundly; although he usually snored like a badly tuned chainsaw throughout the night. The woman would wake several times, sometimes punching or shaking the man awake to interrupt his snoring.
The dog used to find this pattern of human behavior fairly amusing, but since her absence the man's sleep pattern had become a very irritating thing to Peanut. The seemingly constant tossing and turning were bad enough without his recent habit of drinking himself into unconsciousness.
The man wasn't a mean or violent drunk, if anything he was a morose sad thing, in the dog's opinion. Peanut had tried to show how much she still loved him by snuggling close and licking him. The man's tear stained face tasted good, but despite her best efforts he seemed hopelessly trapped or lost in his problems.
Peanut yawned and looked over in irritation as the man rolled onto his side muttering, “No,” repeatedly in his sleep.
They had his wife stripped naked and laid out atop the enormous dark oak conference room table at the office. In addition to her, there were the usual items on the long highly polished table: a stapler, multiple colored ink pens, coffee cups, paperclips, some doughnuts with multicolored sprinkles on top, and several manila folders stuffed with stacks of paper.
She was smiling, laughing, and in general having a great time as his coworkers filed in and used her body in a wide variety of creatively disturbing ways. (Many of which he'd never thought of doing over their seven years of marriage)
Usually it was just one man at a time ravaging her. Other times there would be a gang of them that all simultaneously taking part in using his more than willing and accommodating wife. And all of them, every single one of them, appeared much larger below the waist than he was.
He was securely duct taped into one of the high backed leather office chairs and had a red rubber stress ball which was slightly larger than an egg firmly shoved into his mouth. It did nothing to relieve his stress, however, but it did work well as a gag to keep him silent.
For some reason, he couldn't look away from the men using his wife. He desperately wanted to but seemed incapable of turning his head or closing his eyes. The parade of well endowed horny men appeared endless, as was her obvious delight in their enthusiastic myriad of erotic ministrations.
Sometimes, she'd glance over at him tied up in the chair and laugh. It was a horribly wicked mocking cackling sound that sent stabbing pains deep into his chest. His heart felt like a pincushion being repeatedly and sadistically pierced. And the worst part was that it never seemed to end.
After a trio of young, deeply tanned, very muscular, lawn crew men that had all been laughing and speaking in Spanish throughout their activities with his wife finally finished and left, his boss sauntered into the conference room. Mr. Dennis Dumonte was wearing one of his expensive suit jackets, shirt, and silk tie but nothing else from the waist down.
His wife made hungry appreciative lip smacking noises and giggled as Dumonte walked past her, and only stopped when he stood beside the chair. His boss was holding a sheet of yellow paper in one hand and staring at it as if he hadn't even noticed the naked woman on the table.
Dumonte patted him on the shoulder, asking, “How you holding up, tiger?”
He mumbled through the stress ball gag incomprehensibly.
“Silly me,” his boss said then removed the ball.
“I don't want to be here anymore. I can't stand it. Let me go. For God's sake, please just let me go.”
Dumonte leaned back on the edge of the table and looked back at the piece of paper in his hand before saying, “It's funny you should say that; well not exactly funny. I guess perhaps ironic would be more accurate word.
First of all, I want you to know we all understand it's been a somewhat unpleasant time for you, recently. We kept you around mostly because your work performance over the last few years has usually been slightly above adequate, and personally I'd hoped you would have somehow found a way out of your recent productivity slump. I really did. But sadly, just like your wife we just don't think you're worth and pardon the expression... a fuck any longer.”
His wife cackled uproariously, somewhere out of view, behind Mr. Dumonte's body.
He stuttered several seconds before finally managing to say, “No, wait. I can change. I'm sorry I've been screwing up at the office. Just give me another chance. I swear I'll do better. Please, don't do this. My children... they're counting on me since she ran off. I'm all they have left. Don't do this.”
“Sorry tiger. I really am, but at least you don't have to worry about your kids anymore,” Dumonte said, standing up and walking around behind the chair. “We, your wife and I that is, have talked it over. We've decided they'd be better off without you. And we've come up with a great fun-filled ad
venturous future for them, so you don't need to worry about a thing.”
His boss grunted and started pushing the wheeled chair toward one of the floor to ceiling windows.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about? I'm all they have left. I'm a good dad, or at least I try to be,” he whined trying to look up and behind him at his boss's face.
“You're almost as good a father, as you were a husband. And that's a shame, tiger. It really is,” Dumonte said as he steadily rolled the chair across the carpeting toward the window.
“Wait! What are you going to do with my children? What? Tell me that much, at least,” he begged as his reflection in the window glass grew larger.
“The Chinese are taking them. We made very good deal with one of our subsidiaries working out of Hong Kong. Don't worry about a thing,” his boss said, and rolled the chair around a large briefcase someone had carelessly left on the floor, before steering him back toward the window again.
“I don't understand. What do you mean?”
“I told you he was dense,” his wife said with a wicked laugh.
“Now, now, there's no need for that,” Dumonte chastised her with a hint of laughter in his voice. “It comes down to simple economics, tiger; supply and demand and all that jazz. Your wife mentioned you had two little girls and suggested selling them on the black market in Mexico. You wouldn't imagine how much young blonde girls are going for nowadays. But don't you worry. I talked her out of it.
I knew she'd get a much better return by selling to them to the Chinese. You know how they have that one child per family law there and most families, almost darn near all of them in fact, choose to have boys. Anyhoo, let me cut to the chase. Your wife's gonna get almost two million bucks and she won't have to ever see them again.”
“And be reminded of YOU!” She yelled venomously from across the conference room.
“You can't marry them off! For God's sake, they're only three and five years old. You can't do this! Please, don't,” he begged as his knees bumped against the window glass.
“Marriage is for idiots! I'd never let them make the same mistake I made with you. They'll be hookers. Mr. Dumonte found a brothel that's absolutely perfect for them. It even has a playroom,” his wife explained then cackled like a witch from a very dark disturbing fairytale.
He sputtered and struggled fiercely against the duct tape securing him to the chair and actually felt it starting to give way, at least a little bit.
Mr. Dumonte grunted and shoved against the chair harder and the glass window began to crack outward like a spiraling spider web. “Relax, tiger, it's all for the best. You'd probably just continue getting drunk and ignore them. They'd likely end up as hookers someday anyway.
Besides, you must remember what your priest said, when you asked him for advice last week.”
“Push harder! Get rid of it!” His wife screamed.
“He said they needed a family! They need a mom and a dad! He never said anything about a brothel!” He screamed as the glass began tumbling away.
“The Good Father Murphy said, 'a single father raising two girls all by himself was likely to lead to only one thing,'” Dumonte said, then whispered in his ear “'...incest.'”
The chair lurched forward and smashed through the remaining jagged sharp shards of glass.
His eyes opened impossibly wide as he stared down at the street, eighty stories below and screamed, “Never!” There was a soft ripping sound as he felt the duct tape holding him in the chair finally began ripping loose.
“Sorry tiger, but you made a lousy husband and will only end up hurting those girls worse than all the horny guys in China combined,” Dumonte said, pushing harder. “Even if you try your very best, you'll only fuck them up. Oh, and by the way, you're fired.”
His right arm tore loose of the duct tape at the same moment the chair finally fell through the broken window.
He heard “Bye loser!” and “Good luck, tiger,” from his wife and boss just before plummeting toward the pavement.
Wind whipped through his hair as he tumbled toward earth and saw the pavement rushing to embrace him. A flock of birds seemed to come from nowhere and began cawing at him as he screamed. But the scream was a feeble thing compared to the screeching bird’s voices. They all cawed the word “loser” at him as he whirled through their feathery midst.
Beaks and claws pecked and scratched at him and all he could think was, None of this can be real. It must be a dream, just a horrible dream! I'll wake up and be in my bed any second!
Despite his mind's reasonable and quite valid assessment of the unprecedented situation, the pavement looked very real and solid as he continued tumbling and plummeting toward it.
Some tourists were standing around on the sidewalk. They were laughing, pointing, and several of them had cameras in their hands. Even over the sound of rushing wind he could somehow hear the clicking sounds as they took photographs. A short fat kid wearing big black mouse ears from a famous Florida amusement park was eating an ice cream cone and grinning as he watched the man tumbling to earth.
It has to be a dream! Dumonte would never kill me, at least not at work. The insurance company would cancel the corporate policies! WAKE UP!
Having been pushed out of the penthouse window gave inertia working closely with gravity all the momentum needed to make a very nasty agonizing mess when he finally hit the pavement.
His legs hit first. Shards of fractured bones shot up into his body and he felt every individual piercing stabbing sensation.
Everything seemed to slip into incredibly slow motion, ultra realistic mode, and as the pain grew he could only think, WAKE UP!
His midsection exploded like a water balloon filled with intestines, a slightly abused liver, lungs, bones, plenty of blood, and a still beating heart. He saw the last item bounce across the sidewalk before coming to a stop by the opening doors of the office building.
In accordance with the sometimes bewildering 'rules' of time and space involving dreams, his wife had somehow found time to get dressed in her wedding gown and make it to the ground floor at the same moment the beating heart rolled to a stop in front of her.
She smiled over at him and stomped her stiletto clad high heel shoe down on it. It made a faint unimpressive deflating balloon sound as she continued on her way.
The tourists applauded and cheered loudly. More photographs were taken and the fat kid asked a woman standing nearby if he could take the deflated heart home as a souvenir. She said, “No, we already got you the mouse ear hat.”
He saw the rest of his body splatter messily from slightly above, as if his spirit or ghost had taken over the reins of his soul. His wife climbed into the back of a long sleek black limo and the ghost wanted to follow her; wanted to, but couldn't. It seemed rooted to his unsightly untidy earthly remains.
His messy corpse began quickly attracting flies and a few minutes later two janitors came out holding long fire hoses. They squirted what was left of him down into a sewer and his ghost faintly heard them debating where to go after work for beers.
The group of tourists applauded their work as the last of the bloody mess was sprayed from the sidewalk.
Peanut had put up with enough of the man's groaning and gyrations for one night. The Chihuahua barked into his face while standing on the man's chest.
Just as the rats and roaches in the sewer began feasting on his bloody corpse, he awoke to barking and felt his body covered in sweat as his heart (still securely lodged inside his chest) was pounding as if he'd been running a marathon. He heard the dog panting and looked at it standing on his chest.
Peanut gave the man an irritated look before going over to the other side of the bed, where it walked in a tiny circle three times before lying down atop his wife's pillow.
The man read the glowing green numbers on the bedside digital alarm clock; 2:47.
As his pulse slowed to a less strenuous rate, he managed to sit up on the edge of the bed and could still feel
trembles running through many of his body's major muscle groups. His skin was covered in goose bumps as well as sweat. He took several deep breaths before feeling capable of standing up.
Peanut watched the man distrustfully as he shakily crossed the bedroom to the bathroom. When he flipped on the light the little dog shut its eyes.
Staring in the mirror over the sink he saw a strange looking man staring back. Part of the strangeness was the stupid compact florescent bulbs his wife had insisted on using 'to save the planet'. He hated the way they made him look in the best of times, especially when they were first turned on and hadn't warmed up, but at 2:47 in the morning after the most horrific nightmare of his life, the man in the mirror looked like a monster. He had gray and ash colored skin with deep dark bags under the eyes from too much drinking and too little sleeping that only magnified the reflection's disturbing appearance.
He flipped off the light and trudged back into the bedroom. Part of him knew it was just a nightmare and that he needed to go back to sleep, but a more persuasive inner voice warned against it. “She's waiting in there. Don't go back to sleep.”
Shuffling into the hallway dressed only in his semi clean jockey shorts he yawned and heard a sound. Or to be more precise, he thought he heard a sound. While yawning, his ears always felt briefly like they were stuffed with cotton. He looked back in the bedroom and by the light coming from his glowing alarm clocks numbers saw Peanut curled up on his wife's pillow.
The dog didn't hear it. If it had heard something it would be yapping nonstop, as usual. You're just freaked out by the dream. God, I need a beer, he thought, while continuing down the gloomy hallway filled with shadows.
When passing by his daughters room he wasn't yawning and yet again clearly heard something downstairs. He stopped walking and tried to categorize the sound. It wasn't loud. If anything it had a sly feel to it. It was as if whatever made the noise had been trying not to.