I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 (18 page)

It doesn’t take much to make me happy. I’m a simple man who doesn’t ask for much and can get by with little. I can tell you I like my beer cold, I like having a cigarette after sex or a steak dinner, I love baseball, my truck, and my family.

Then there are the things I don’t like. I especially don’t like bullies and predators. I don’t like people who think they can get over and prey on the weak.

I once told you I saw a couple of young men having their way with a young woman, who I believed to be a C2, behind a convenience store.

I didn’t understand why it was happening but above all, I didn’t care.

At 1:45 p.m., I was standing at the corner of Main street and Cherry Avenue when Tom, Dick, and Harry came meandering around the corner with another young girl. I remembered them. There were three, one hooligan down from the last time I saw them, and the girl wasn’t any older than seventeen.

All three punks looked emaciated and ragged as if they hadn’t showered or eaten in weeks. Maybe they caught a disease. That’s what you get for sticking your dicks in zombies, assholes.

There was one kid with a cleft palate. I believed he was the ringleader by the way his two little lackeys followed and excitedly listened to him. He had a frenetic and shifty energy to him—the kid you just wanted to punch in the face because his face asked for it.

I overheard them talking, dangerously plotting away, as they walked by me with the young girl in their arms. They lowered their voices and shot me a dirty look when they noticed me standing there on the corner. I knew that they were up to something.

They knew I knew they were up to something.

They continued walking down the street and turned into the alley, dragging the girl behind
Golden Fish Super Market
. One kid stayed behind and kept watch outside the alley, lighting a cigarette.

“Just keep walking Charlie,” I told myself. “Just go home and be cool, don’t get into any shit, man,” the voice told me. The voice in my head kept talking, but my feet weren’t listening as I made my way toward the alley.

The kid keeping watch outside the fish market was trying his best to look cool, but I could tell he was nervous. He blew streams of smoke from his face and nodded his head at me as I walked past him,
wussup?
His cool act wasn’t working.

I knew he was hoping I’d keep moving and mind my business, but that wasn’t going to happen either. I wasn’t going to let another person get hurt if I could help it. Not like this.

The other two young men, behind the dumpster at the end of the alleyway, forced the young girl’s face up against a steel fence while stripping her of her clothes and pulling her skirt above her waist. One boy firmly held the helpless young girl against the cage, anticipating penetrating her from behind, as the kid with the cleft palate coached him, calling out horrible obscenities to their victim and caressing her buttocks.

The voice in my head was gone.

Before the young man keeping watch could even utter a word, I charged and drove his head into the jagged edge of the brick wall with the palm of my hand, cracking it in two, like an eggshell.

His body crumpled and convulsed on the ground as I watched the blood pump out of the back of his skull, forming a crimson halo around his head. The other two assholes were too busy playing with their dicks to realize their friend was dying. His eyes, distorted, bulged out of his head as he gasped for air, reaching, begging me for help.

“Shhh, No, no help, you deserve to die, you piece of shit,” I said pushing my boot down on his throat, crushing his windpipe until he faded away. I didn’t know him, but I hated him.

I will set you free.

My heart slammed like a drum against my chest as the nauseating sensations I felt when I killed Peter came over me again—swirly peripheral vision, shortness of breath and spaghetti legs.

I made my way to the other two in the alley, but by the time they saw me, it was too late. I drew my pistol and pushed it into the back of the palate boy’s neck as I shoved the girl aside—another C2, just as I thought. I made them stand against the wall to face me so I can see the fear fill their eyes.

It didn’t take long for the tears and pleads of cowards to begin. “Oh, yeah? It doesn’t feel so good now does it, assholes?” I sneered.

I loved watching them squirm. This would have made Clint Eastwood’s dick hard. I should have killed them, but they deserved much worse. They deserved a punishment suitable for their crimes. They needed to know what it was like to feel what they did.

It’s funny when assholes don’t get the irony.

I should have castrated them with my knife and made them eat each other’s dicks–No. Maybe I should have made them sit on the barrel of my gun and blown it out their assholes–No. I pointed my gun at the kid with the cleft lip–yes, I knew then what to do. “You—yes, you. You are going to fuck him in his ass!” I demanded, pointing to his friend whose face immediately turned white.

“Yes, you will fuck him in the ass, or I will shoot the both of you in the face. Do you understand me?”

The more I thought about it, I would have preferred just shooting them. At about the same time, I realized that they were warming up to the idea and were willing to do it.

“Are you really going to do it?” I asked, trying to hold back my disgust. My plan was quickly beginning to backfire on me.

“You told us to!” the kid with the cleft palate cried.

“Shut up, I know I did, but—no, no, no, stop touching him!” I said, trying desperately to back pedal on my terms.

The other kid looked at me and begged, bones rattling in his skin. “Look, please, I will do it, man. I’ll do whatever you want! I just don’t want to die, okay?” he stammered while holding up his pants by the belt.

Ah, shit, what did I get myself into now? I couldn’t believe I was mediating anal sex between these two idiots. “No, shut up! I am NOT going to watch you assholes fuck each other! Forget I even mentioned it. Look, just tie yourselves to the fence, and I promise not to kill you,” I said, keeping the gun directed at their faces.

Where is this going, Charlie?

I didn’t hesitate to shoot each of their knee caps once they finished tying each other to the fence with the coil of rope left behind the dumpsters.

Shrapnel deflected off my cheekbone after the second gun shot rang out, maybe bone, leaving a nice little nick across my face. They screamed and cried for my help, but I felt
nothing
. I felt NOTHING. I just know this will be the last time they hurt anyone. I took their young prey away from the alley as their cries faded in the distance.

“Hey, man, you’re going to leave us here? You fucking pussy! Help us!”

“No.”

I walked the young girl to the nearest bus stop two blocks over on Main Street and sat with her on the bench holding her hand.

“What am I going to do with you? Are you okay? Do you have a name?” I asked. She stared blankly, like that dead fish my dad would bring home wrapped in soggy newspaper, her long black hair knotted, her cheeks sunken in from starvation.

“Hey, do you have a name? Do you live nearby? Do you want something? You want me to take you home? I shouldn’t leave you here, you know? What’s wrong? Hello, can you hear me?”

It was clear
no one was home
as I waved my hands and snapped my fingers in front of her face
.
She
was just another walking vacancy until the next predator got a hold of her.

I had no other choice but to leave her there, at the Q17, stranded, to die.

Tonight, if it hasn’t happened already, the boys will bleed out, and the Deviants will have their way with what’s left of them.

How do you feel, Charlie? Do you think you’re some kind of Hero?

No.

I did not tell Jane about what happened today. When I came home, she was still sitting on the couch where I left her, staring at the ceiling.

DUMPSTER

Saturday, February 1
^st
, 2014

I heard metal twisting and the sound of tires screaming uncontrollably. There were flashing lights and sirens cutting in and out through the roaring chaos all around me. Why was I in so much pain? Why were they calling me? Why did they want me to come back? It was so dark and cold where I was. People were screaming.

I saw the leering faces of the dead looking back at me: Jerry, Joe, Peter, Ted Wibert, and even those kids in the alley. When is it going to stop?

The sensation of falling fast and the sound of a clock ticking ended with me waking up in bed next to Jane clenching her hand to the point of almost hurting her. There aren’t any more lines left here for me to cross. I’m way on the other side from where I was two months ago.

 I’ve seen and tasted more death than I ever hoped for in my lifetime. There is no going back now. War changes everything, doesn’t it?

The C2’s who have not adapted are dropping like flies from starvation if the Deviants and hoarders haven’t killed them. The Deviants are settling in just fine in their newfound surroundings and are getting fat.

One of the most frightening things you can see on the street is a well-fed Deviant.

Queens is beginning to look like a giant Hong Kong slaughterhouse, and I can’t wait for the summer heat to kick up the second wave of the Black Plague. We are officially America’s asshole with a surplus of shit stains and death.

The Crusaders have been using dumpsters to transport the dead to a mass communal crematorium at the golf course a quarter of a mile from the Bay Cemetery. They incinerate the dead bodies where they now call
The Bog
, releasing stacks of smoke that smell of burnt hair and meat into the air.

Cheff with a Chay will tell you.

When they’re not fending off the hoarders and the pirates on the highways, the Crusaders, who are civilians, gather to restore civility where there is high Deviant activity and public disorder. Unfortunately, sometimes help isn’t wanted, and sometimes they don’t make it back.

I heard there was a formation of a death squads or guerillas, who drive around with heavy artillery killing Deviants in huge quantities, but I have yet to see this.

Maybe it is just my imagination, but business seems to have picked up in the sky lately. I’ve spotted more of those drones circling parameters over Queens.

I guess they may be taking inventory of the dead, and then taking a nosedive to the street as if someone had suddenly pulled the plug on them in mid-flight—hmm, that’s strange. I would wave, but I wouldn’t want them to shoot me for being cordial.

God forbid they should ever stop to see if we needed anything, but I could use some clean linen and underwear.

PUTTING YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD

Monday, February 3
^rd
, 2014

A ghastly and foreboding feeling came over me as we entered the park grounds at Kissena. The air was dense with an earthy, foul smell, and the mist left a prickly and chilling sensation on my face.

We cut through the meadow, where the branches of the trees hung low like wide extending claws, grabbing at us. Yellow and orange foliage whooshed off the ground on the flowing back of the breeze, spiraling in the air and gently back to the wet ground again. Then a mighty gust pushed, as if the wind was intently shoving us into an unsafe direction.

Devoured by the fog, we followed the winding trail to the lake where Kate and I used to feed the ducks and geese, except there weren’t any more ducks or geese. There was nothing but a murky body of black slime in the receding swamp with some unidentifiable objects afloat in a soup of disease.

The luscious green park, once occupied and visited by joggers, cyclers, dog walkers, and sightseers was now a deep, dark jungle devoured by overgrown weeds, sickly fallen trees, and littered with splintered bones and petrified shit.

You can see the gruesome display of mutilated limbs tethered by organs and entrails swaying in the row of trees in the Park. They hang like rumps in the window at a butcher shop as the birds and scavengers pick and pull away at them.

There were giant hoof prints along the marsh that trailed off into the woodsy area into the tall grass and beyond.

Jane tugged at me and said, “We shouldn’t be here, let’s go back, Charlie.” She was right; we shouldn’t have been there. The obvious spray painted signs chained outside the park fence that read “DO NOT ENTER/STAY OUT,” said we shouldn’t have been there, but what if Dusty was? We were not going back yet.

Jane and I marched a little further down the trail and reached a tall stairway behind the grove that would take us to the top of the hill, where we would be able to look over the whole park.

I’ve been through there several times before with Kate.

We halted in astonishment at the foot of the iron handrail as the tall stairway loomed before us like the eroded steps of an ancient city. Covered and coiled in dead leaves and branches, the crooked stairs going to the top looked impossible to climb.

Jane took a step behind me suggesting I go first with a playful pat on the back—that’s nice.

There was strange clicking and chattering coming from the wilderness as raindrops plopped down between the trees like coins falling from the sky.

Things quickly moved amongst the trees as began our climb up the stairs.

“Hold onto me. When we reach the top we should be able to see over the entire park from the ridge,” I told Jane.

“Charlie, the trees.”

“Yes, we’ll be able to see
all
the trees you want.”

Jane’s voice began quivering as we reached the halfway point.

“No, Ch-Ch-Charlie, the tr-tr-trees, the trees!” she cried, tugging on my backpack.

When I looked up ahead, the trees were slowly moving, stretching and bending forward forming a tunnel or what looked like the inside of a giant mouth, closing around us from both ends of the stairway.

We picked up the pace to get to the top, but the steps were so decrepit, they were falling away from the bottom of my feet.