George Washington Zombie Slayer (14 page)

“We have received word by courier that Mister Washington is due home
from his travels this afternoon,” said Martha Washington. “Please make sure that dinner will be ready upon his return.”

“Yessum,” replied
Mrs. Washington’s slave, Oprah. “Lordy, me, Missus Wash’ton, it sho will be good to have Colonel Wash’ton back home safe un sound.”

“Yes it will,” Martha Washington replied
. “Beyonce, please make sure the children are washed and nicely dressed as well.”

“I’ll
get down an scrubs dem chilluns myself if dey don’t wash deyselves right,” Beyonce replied. “I’ll make sure dey’s nice an clean fer dinner.”

Beyonce and Oprah proceeded down into the basement of Mount Vernon to begin preparations for dinner, and found De
nzel and LL Cool J there working on adjustments to the cooking stove and oven. Once safely in the privacy of the basement, the slaves were free to converse naturally, abandoning the façade of conversational ignorance to which white folks were accustomed.

“Did you two finally correct uneven heat distribution on that oven?” Oprah asked the two male slaves. “It’s nearly impossible to bake any fine cakes or
pastries in an oven with variable and uneven temperature fluctuations.”

“I think we found the problem,” Denzel replied.  “The heat distribution regulator we installed last year malfunctioned and wa
s stuck in the open position. So we replaced the faulty part.”

“It looks like it’s functioning
properly now,” LL Cool J added.

“
And the left- front burner on the stove?” Beyonce asked? “Is that fixed?”

“We fixed that as well,” LL Cool J r
eplied. “The heating induction chamber was blocked up and there was insufficient air flow for the burner to activate. We just cleaned out the induction chamber, and that seems to be functioning properly, too.”

“Well, thank you,” Beyonce
replied. “We just received word that Colonel Washington is due to arrive home here late this afternoon, and we have a labor intensive meal to prepare, in celebration of his return.”  

“
Yes thank you both so much,” Oprah agreed. “If I’m going to spend hours rolling layered, water-based dough, détrempe, to make fine, french puff pastries, I will certainly need an oven that heats evenly.”  

“You know
she’s
going to take credit for making the pastries, anyhow,” Beyonce said jokingly, referring to Mrs. Washington, and prompting laughter from all four assembled slaves.

“I know, I know,” Oprah said, still laughing. “But she’s a good lady and she watches out for us all.” Oprah paused for a moment and smiled. “Plus, we all know who REALLY made the pastries, don’t we?” And Oprah smiled again in the pride of her baking skills.
   

Several hours later, amid the aromatic scent of
vegetable stew and freshly baked pastries, a bell began to ring from the courtyard of Mount Vernon after Washington’s horse was sighted in the distance. George’s wife Martha and Washington’s step children Patsy and Poopy Washington joined the slaves out in the courtyard, assembled for the senior Washington’s return.

Unknown to them all, however, the ringing of the bell would become a funeral knell for one of those here assembled. For
many months ago, when the zombies had previously attacked Mount Vernon, one of the attacking creatures became separated from the main body and was soon lost in the woods. Here in the forest, the zombie wandered aimlessly, caught in the briars and thickets, sinking in the bog, and meandering without purpose.

For all these passing seasons
the creature wandered, often tangled and trapped in the deep overgrowth, flailing helplessly with its dead limbs, until at last it had extricated itself and would begin its aimless wandering anew.  This afternoon, the creature was in the woods very near the main residence at Mount Vernon, perhaps fifty yards from where the family stood to welcome George Washington home.

As the bell rang to welcome George Washington home, the zombie turned from the thicket where it was trapped and began to follow the chiming of the bell. The zombie
knew, as all zombies instinctively did, that noises often indicated the presence of human flesh, waiting to be devoured. So the zombie followed the sound of the bell towards the main house at Mount Vernon.

From atop their horses, Washington and Reebo
ck could see the assembled slaves and family members waiting in the courtyard in the distance, in the front of the house. The two riders waved from afar, and the crowd waved back in delight.

Young Patsy was bursting with energy and enthusiasm upon her father’s return, and could hardly c
ontain herself.

“Poppa!” cried Patsy, as she began to run
gleefully up the reddish dirt road towards her father.  “Poppa has come home!” she shouted as she began running forward.

Patsy was midway down the road
and all alone when the single wayward zombie stumbled from the woods, emerging from the thick growth just a few feet away from her.  She screamed as she saw the horrible creature approaching, and she turned to run away. But as she spun about make her escape, she stumbled and fell before the approaching creature.

George Washington’s ninja reflexes were as sharp as ever, and Washington spurred his horse forward in an instant, soon tra
velling at a full gallop towards his fallen daughter, drawing his sword in one swift motion as he rode. But he was simply too far away.

The zombie fell upon Patsy Washington in a second and began to bite and devour her, heedless of her screams and cries for mercy. Washington arrived to his daughter’s side in
under five seconds, sword out, leveling it at the zombie’s head, decapitating the creature, even as it was feeding upon his daughter. The zombie’s head and body went in two opposite directions from the great force of Washington’s blow upon it.

George jumped quickly from his horse, but everything seemed to move in slow motion. He was vaguely conscious of the screams of his slaves and his wife as they ran towards him.
He could hear the hoofbeats of Reebock’s approaching horse, and the smell of his son, who had crapped himself in fear at the sight of the zombie attack. Washington could hear his own heart beating loudly as he knelt beside his dying daughter.

“Father,
I’m bleeding” Patsy said in a whisper. “And my fingers are cold.”

Washington was ove
rcome with emotion and stammered to make reply to the dying child. He looked down at her bloodied hands and saw her fingers were bitten off and missing.

“Oh look here,” Washington whispere
d back, brushing her hair sweetly and holding her wrist up so she could see her own hand. “Your fingers shouldn’t be cold, you see? The zombie has chewed them all off.” Washington gave her the sweet smile of a caring but not particularly competent parent.

And then she closed her eyes
. Patsy fell unconscious and went into a seizure of the type she often had.  The seizure continued for nearly a minute and showed no signs of stopping.

George Washington picked up his daughter
as she convulsed weakly, still alive, and carried her to the main house alongside Martha. They placed her on a small sofa in the parlor. 

“She has been bitten and h
er injuries are too severe,” George said quietly to Martha after examining the child’s wounds, even as one of the slaves laid a blanket across Patsy’s legs. “She cannot survive,” Washington added, as tears ran down his cheeks.

Martha gasped and began to weep as George put a consoling a
rm around her. Soon, George Washington saw that his daughter was no longer breathing, but she continued to twitch and convulse. He knew that his daughter was dead, and that her transformation to a zombie had begun.

Washington asked Beyonce and Oprah to take Martha to her bedroom, and to clear the room. Soon only Reebo
ck and George Washington stood in the parlor before the convulsing body of Patsy Washington. Patsy was now certain to become a zombie.

George Washington reached down to his waist and drew the seven inch knife on his belt from its leather sheath. He knew the
re was only one way to prevent his daughter from being fully transformed into a zombie, by inflicting damage to her brain.  Stepping forward with knife in hand, Washington reached out, but he felt his arm suddenly grabbed by his slave, Reebock.

“No,
mon,” Reebok said. “Let ME do that. No father should have to do that to his own daughter.”  Reebok took the knife from George’s hand, grasped him by the shoulders and turned him around, and George walked out of the parlor, tears still streaming down his face.

Washington went to his study
and dried the last of the tears from his face, and composed himself.  Washington was not an overly emotional man, and would shed no more tears for his daughter’s passing, even during her funeral and burial.  Washington tended to internalize most emotions, rather than express them openly.

George
Washington reached into his desk and opened his daily journal.  He made a notation of the date, June 19, 1773 and then made a journal entry of a sad, single sentence:

“At home today, daughter Patsy died suddenly.”
                     

Chapter 34

Rise of the American Militia

“
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Those words are
not just text from the later United States Bill of Rights.  Long before the Bill of Rights was written, in the American Colonies of the 1770’s, those words reflected both public sentiment and actual behavior. Americans felt they had a RIGHT to form local militias to protect their freedom. And they did so.

One must remember that 1700’s America was a far different place from the America that we ourselves know. In Washington’s da
y, the vast majority of people grew their own food. While there were some craftsmen, such as masons, carpenters and artists, America was primarily an agrarian economy.  Most Americans were simple farmers.

The average American in Washington’s time was also very likely to own a rifle.  Hunting was a part of survival in the early days of America, and Americans would often
obtain meat from hunting deer, elk, squirrel, rat, boar, turkey, hedgehog, guinea pig, elk, antelope, and assorted indigenous varmints.

The chief recreational activity of the American Colonies was drinking, with sexual intercourse placing a close second.  Then as now, Americans loved to get drunk and screw.

Colonial Americans tended to be somewhat undisciplined regarding time, and most didn’t own a clock or even a watch. Tasks were performed when called for, with no fixed timetable or expectation of deadlines for completion.

A surprising number of Colonial Americans were literate, perhaps upwards of 75%, but they were also uneducated, with most having little more than
a grammar school education.  So while most Americans could read a newspaper, their comprehension and analytical skills regarding complex political issues were lacking. Most Colonists knew they hated the British, and that was enough. 

These were the
greatest percentage of men taking up arms and forming into local militia, these simple, undereducated, undisciplined, untimely, gun-happy, horny, drunken farmers. And these were the men that came to George Washington for military training. They knew Washington was a skilled military man, and militiamen needed his help in training and in learning military tactics.

George Washington would be afforded no time to grieve for his
daughter. As he did so often throughout his entire life, Washington put the needs of his countrymen before his own.  These militiamen needed training, and few were better suited to train them than this experienced, gentleman warrior. Militiamen asked for his help, and he would provide it.

There would be no ninja skills imparted, no advanced techniques,
no complexity of tactics or training. Washington’s plan was to teach them the basics of military drill and combat.

To his credit, Washington tried his best to train these simple farmers to become
simple soldiers. But they were generally uncooperative, unruly and quarrelsome. It’s not all too surprising that men who take up arms in the defense of personal freedom might be unwilling to forfeit that freedom and happily submit to the rigors of military training and discipline.

Washington
wrote to Benjamin Franklin that:

Compatriots of the local Virginia militias have banded together and imposed upon me to train them, but, oh, fuck me!, they seem entirely unsuited to the task. They brawl and quarrel and drink ale, and seem either unwilling or unable to learn military drill. They seem more like god-damn retards, but later I learned that this is their natural state. I am often frustrated to the point that I feel like sticking a fork up my own ass! God help America in her hour of need.  

Col. Geo W.

Washington
would appear at local churches and village squares, teaching and instructing the townsmen in the ways of modern military science. He taught them line of battle and the order of march. But for the most part, the “cadets” were not very interested in Washington’s military training classes, usually being more concerned with “when do we open the keg?” (Most military training sessions ended with the opening of an ale-keg).

And so it was that George Washington learned to hold members of the local militia in low regard. Washington would always voice re
spect and appreciation towards regular Continental Army soldiers, but he would forever suffer the presence of local militia unwillingly.

It was at the conclusion of one of
these militia training sessions on the grounds of Mount Vernon that Reebock approached bearing a sealed envelope, which was handed to Washington.  He opened the envelope as the class was dissolving into its ale drinking formation, and turned the paper to the right to catch the last rays of the setting sun, by which to read.

The message contained in the letter was both short and direct:

You are herewithin notified that Col Geo. Washington has been named a delegate of Virginia to attend the First Continental Congress on 5
th
September, 1774, in Philadelphia, PA.