The Dead And The Damned

War is Hell but ask any soldier and they will gladly come back and suckle at her teat like a drug war is addicting and humans were war junkies.

Bodies rotted on the ground and the blood soaked into the earth tainting it red as Georgia clay. The nauseating scent of blood was in the air and trees and every bush or blade of grass knew its own.

An eerie whistle arose on the wind that and the pounding of the surf were the only sounds that were left. The wind whistled as it blew through the empty shells of buildings and the waves spoke for themselves.

The Insects were the ones and I'd like to say they came from outer space, but they came from right here mutations of our own abuse. You see they had always outnumbered us. The only thing that was needed was a united front and Mother Nature provided that as she had in the past when things had gotten overcrowded.

The war had been going on for years, but their timing was perfect, and humanity was losing. The Insect's physicality and reasoning was far different than ours. They were decisive and brutal, extremely brutal, no mercy was ever shown. Battle scenes were harsh and bloody, and no captives were ever taken.

There was one place where we could go and that was into the bright sunlight with our ozone severely depleted. Very few things were able to survive in the direct sunlight without protective suits.

I went every night to watch the sunset over the ocean. There was this one burnt out building right on the beach that still had its balcony intact. With the depletion of the ozone plus the disruption of the earth's magnetic fields due to the slowing down of the rotation of the earth's core, the sunsets were spectacular, as well as the display of northern lights which could be viewed all over the northern hemisphere. Add them together and it was quite the show, the best ticket in town.

While the folly of words fell hard as whips on open sores, and we were struck dumb by the exact precision of it all, our blood ran red, and our skin was white from days in the tunnels, but it was a good distraction from all our misery.

If nothing else war peels back the skin and you live with your most sensitive nerves exposed. Perhaps somewhere in my words you will find the reason for the darkness that has overcome us. I have lost my way alone in oblivion.

As I rounded the corner by the beach where the tilt-a-whirl used to be, and the crowds used to gather laughing I remembered with a shudder. First came the tiny bugs, the viruses and together with the spores they killed off about a quarter of the world's population. Horrible viruses that just kept mutating and getting worse until death was assured. If you got sick, you died. The first wave took the hospitals and their machines, and the second one took out the doctors and nurses. They weren't prepared for a united front. One well planned and executed perfectly as only an insect's mind could. There were no distractions.

Yet I survived. Every day and every night I rescued little bits of humanity and tucked them away. A book here, a painting there and even an old Duncan yo-yo which I promised myself I would master someday. I was the Ragman left to pick up the mess and wait for the new tenants. The last of humanity.

My nights were spent fighting off the ghost of the dead and my days walking these streets of stone. Their attacks had been like hungry wolves into flocks of dull minded sheep. They came in like never-ending waves and like the leaves in the forest they appeared innocent and green, but they ate everything and when they were done there was nothing.

When I overheard people talking, they didn't seem concerned or even surprised by the devastation of the farmland. An android that I ran into one day before they just disappeared said it best. “They are vain and stupid humans deserve to die.”

“There are no more humans,” I said out loud. “There is only me to represent the whole of the race. God's ultimate joke on mankind. We the homeless and dim witted will not only rule but will drool too.

Death had spread its wings, and the eyes of the sleepers were slain in their beds. Stung to death or eaten alive as they wallowed in self-pity.

In the past I had been homeless and had to collect garbage to survive. My friends had called me Rags but now they were gone. Being insane, my words don't get in my way. The last droid I ran into had long blonde hair and I told her. “Pull down your pants and let me see.” Droids were made cheaply they had no sexual organs.

“Fuck you!” She had said just before she ran away. She may have been human.

“Impossible!” I told her. “The Insects had hunted down all the humans there were none left no exceptions,” but she had gone before I could tell her so. There was nothing left but me and the cold spray of the surf as the tide rolled in.

It was strange because I hadn't seen any swarms today. No locust, bees, wasp or even Ants. It had been a strange day indeed.

As I passed their fields of stone, I thought all those people had lost the right to grow old. A simple basic right that their well minded politicians had taken from them like thieves in the night. In the beginning they had buried them by the thousands. By the hundreds of thousands and then by the millions until there was no one left to care for the dead.

“Welcome to the border of insanity,” I said as I climbed the crumbling staircase. I had to hurry because the greatest show on earth was about to begin. I stood there holding the railing as tightly as I could, almost as if, if it all crumbled to dust, I could ride it down to the ground like Pegasus the winged horse.

The earth being a living breathing creature was the reason that we had lost. We had sided with doomsday machines and left the earth to recycle itself. The cottages were all asleep and robins in the bush watched and waited. I remembered a poem my mother once told me and as the sky grew dark and the oh so violent sun set in the west I whispered. “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girls, and four for boys,” and then I wept at the beauty of it all.

THE END

Bio: Timothy Wilkie is a local hero in the Hudson Valley. From his music to his art and storytelling. He's an old hippy and a storyteller in the truest sense of the word. He has two grown sons and loves to spend time with them. His writing credits include Aphelion, Horror-zine, Dark Dossier and many more.

E-mail: Timothy Wilkie

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