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DAMOCLES Chapter 3
Dawns early light washed over Chris as he pulled hard right on the ships wheel. The first rays of the sun caressed the freckles and fine lines on his face, softer than any mothers touch. His smile; still fixed upon his face, was a masque, reflecting both his turmoil and fear at the future, a future, both unfixed; uncertain.
Through grim determination though; Chris had succeeded in allying a growing darkness within his mind to a steely determination not shown since Chris had been a small boy, struggling to learn the oft’ useful art of putting one foot in front of the other. These factors alone had enabled him to pilot the ship thus far, not prettily maybe but she wasn’t sinking and he hadn’t lost his breakfast yet either, if you count saltines as breakfast.
The coastline loomed in front of Chris; and while the ocean was daunting with its vast expanse and overwhelming harshness, the thought of approaching a land riddled with walking, honest to flesh eating corpses left a taste in the writer’s mouth not too dissimilar to sawdust and ashes....
One hour later……
“Shit, Columbus never had to deal with zombies”, Chris thought to himself as he watched the dozen or so corpses meander through packing crates and the flotsam and jetsam of humanity’s demise. Even though the Damocles was anchored barely twenty feet from the Rhode Island shore the dumb-ass fleshfuckers hadn’t spotted him. He listened to the gentle venting of the skippers anger against the galley door and thought about letting him out. He decided against that option when he heard the rusty warble of the skipper, threatening yet again to “gut him with a fish hook”.
Chris looked upwards and watched the cumulonimbus swirls of a promising cloudy morning, he’d always had his head in the clouds, maybe afraid of what was below, yes but in the clouds were the thoughts, ideals and the dreams of a million starry eyed children. He’d always been fascinated with the human minds capability to make a viable image out of anything stared at long enough and today was no exception.
As he watched the clouds coagulate, form and reform Chris saw a tapestry evolve. Within the sky’s canvas flames licked against a building beset upon by a horde of nimbus clouds. The image though was sundered by a phosphorescent light trailing across the sky. Chris watched the flare move across the clouds with a sense of wonder only a child on the fourth of July could imitate. His pleasure was only dampened by the splintering of the galley door and the threats continuing to issue from within.
Ignoring the curses of the skipper; Chris cupped his blistered hands and shouted “Is there anyone there?”….His voice carried across the short distance to the shore and instantly, as if someone had pulled a cord on the corpse’s backs, they turned in unison towards the Damocles and switched from semi-lifeless marionettes to blood hungry monsters.
Chris stood shocked at the image being indelibly burned onto his retinas. He.....; he’d never expected this, shit watching a Romero movie did not qualify anyone to view objectively a scene straight out of Dante’s inferno. The corpses even at the distance they were reached out for him with a desire born of frustration and psychosis. No celluloid monstrosities these, the ghouls in front of him were mothers, brothers, sons, spouses, infants and aged. Their unified cause one of homicide and vengeance. The dead in front of him weren’t mindless; they were jealous, envious of the living and breathing. His eyes making mental note of the pleading; the wailing, the woman who’s underwear didn’t match?....whatever.
Never would he forget the sight in front of him; nor would he ever take for granted what he’d had the temerity to call a life, not as long as the unloved, loved ones walked and lusted for what he still had…….
Then the first of the corpses stumbled off the docks as they urged their stiffening bones towards the Damocles......
With a simple splash the creature who had once held his wife close while watching scary movies on the couch and who’d kissed his daughters knee when she’d fell off her cycle, sank into the cold embrace of mankind’s progenitor. The same corpse who’d run the local kid’s baseball team; a nice guy, a normal guy, now a dead guy.
As it thrashed about in the freezing waters off providence; it failed to remember how it had cried at Forrest Gump, or how it had once stole a dollar out it's dad’s wallet. As it sank down to the bottom of the bay it never realised that once it had been able to swim, nor that it had never even looked at another woman in twenty years of marriage, and as it performed a water ballet of the undead it never once realised just how much it had meant to those around it. And as the creature landed on the sea floor it never even realised that its head had become impaled on an abandoned, rusty outboard motor.
As the curse left it’s ravaged body and the sea reclaimed her own, the greatest light it'd ever seen appeared and he remembered………………
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