Going Green

  “Police are cautioning all residents to stay in their homes.” The golden-haired newscaster on the small television tells his viewing audience. “If you must evacuate your home please head to one the designated military safe zones.” News anchor continues shuffling papers in his hands. The thin man in the room slowly moves away from the TV. He tiptoes on the balls of his feets to the window of his darkened home. Drawing back the curtain with two very shaky fingers. He scans the street out front of his single level ranch home. The man is treated to an up close and personal view of the mayhem on the street. From next door screams of agony erupt like an exploding geyser. He sees his neighbor Al clinging desperately to a small silver chain link fence. On his back, a man rides him to the ground. The bloodied figure bites down on Al’s exposed neck. Even as Al’s wails reach their crescendo. The man greedily tears away chunks of flesh from his helpless victim. The man in the house watches “the infected people” as the newscaster had called them. They converge on Al; his shrieks only seem to draw more of them out of the shadows. A bloody hand slaps the window before him. Its followed by a bloodcurdling moan. The man falls backwards cartwheeling over his tattered green couch. “Come on Brody gets together.” The man prods himself up as the window crashes inward. Brody as a self-professed pacifist. Did not have anything that, he could remotely use as a weapon. He moved through the tiny house past the kitchen counter. The sound of glass shattering comes from all around him. Brody snags his cars keys not looking back. Cautiously he opens his back door. “All clear” he sighs opening the door wider. 

  He sees his sleek black electric car sitting in its charging port. Brody unhooks his automobile from its charging station. He’s diligently attempting to be quiet. Well as quiet as his jittery nerves will allow. He smiles to himself as he gets in tiny car. With an experienced twist of his wrist, the car hums to life. The dashboard readout shows “full charge” in green. A mangled hand slaps the car’s trunk. To his horror it was his zombie friend from earlier. Except now the zombie was an even more ghastly sight. Jagged shards of glass jut out the ambling zombie at odd angles. Now the undead walking corpse has brought company. Zombies pour from his house like angry bees leaving a hive. Brody throws the car in reverse. He mows the undead under as he goes. Bodies pelt the car from every direction. He does not look up until he finds himself in the street. Driving away in a panic without looking back. He turns a corner to see an overrun gas station. The slaughter laid out before him is horrific. As the dead feast on the living. Yet amid all this carnage more cars continue to pull into the chaos of the gas station. The zombies beset anything living tearing warm human bodies apart with teeth and hands. Most of these vehicle’s occupants don’t last more than a few fleeting seconds. Before they are drug screaming from their cars and devoured. “Go green” Brody finds himself chuckling as he negotiates around the horror. “Where was that safe zone again?” He asks himself. Gleefully tapping the directions in on the car’s glowing GPS display. “Two hundred two miles to safety,” he says joyfully. He finds the open road. Taking time to breathe Brody slides a CD of classical music into the dash. Then he kicks the a/c up to drive some of the humidity from the sticky hot night. Driving through the night, he passes truck stops and gas stations along the way. Hours pass by Brody’s tired dry eyes. He ignores the slaughter all around him from the safety of his car. Finally, Brody sees a road sign up ahead as the Sun began to rise in the East. In the distance, he sees big floodlights beating back the darkness. The military had drawn a line in the sand. They held the undead at bay as sure as the light held back the darkness. “Made it” Brody whispered to himself with a satisfied grin. In darkness up ahead, shadows begin to emerge. Not by ones and twos but by the dozen. 

    A double chime dings out in the car’s comfortable interior. The once green battery display light was now a faint sliver of red. It now blinked an ominous “Low Battery.” Like dramatic music playing in a horror movie. As the killer closes in on his victim. “Please no,” Brody whined. His shiny black car loses power. It begins to coast to a stop. Coming to rest at the rear phalanx of a massive throng of walking corpses. The zombies take notice of the car that has come to rest in their midst. Slowly they press in from all sides. A final fluttering of the headlights like delicate moth wings tearing. Suddenly he’s plunged into absolute darkness. The weight of hundreds of decayed bodies buffet the car as if it were a tiny boat. Caught in the merciless savage winds of a typhoon. Brody slinks down to the floor curling up with tears in his eyes. The zombies are not fooled by his vanishing act. The onslaught continues until the windows of the car shatter. The dead slither into the car. The way maggots do on an animals mangled carcass left on the side of the road. Their moaning rising like the morning sun. Brody’s first howl of pain comes as a zombie bites down on his exposed arm. “No, get away.” He pleads to the moaning undead slithering over him. Brody’s wails of agony go unheard. The undead have their fill of his flesh. As they wash over the car in one final diseased surge of hunger.