defiance in her. She was going to need that kind of fire to get through what was coming. They all would.
“Uh, no ma’am,” said Shorty, casting an uneasy glance up at the mystic eye in the sky.
“There ya go,” Jake said, saluting them with the Magnum’s muzzle. Then he holstered it and offered Amanda his arm.
“Miss Amanda,” he said.
She locked her arm in his and they walked with as much dignity as they could muster to the waiting Mustang.
“Godspeed,” somebody said.
Jake opened the passenger door for her and said, “Whatever the world’s got waiting for us, we’ll greet it with a grin and a big god-damn gun. And if that ain’t good enough, then fuck it. We’ll go out in a blaze.”
Amanda said, “Amen, Jake Moon Snake.”
Jake said, “Amen.”
“My God, look at that!”
Jake turned to see the three churchmen looking up, the tall one pointing to the sky.
Jake looked up in time to see the great eye blink again.
Then it winked out, leaving only the big empty sky.
ZEE BEE & BEE
(a.k.a. Propeller Hats For The Dead)
By David James Keaton
----
David James Keaton’s short fiction has recently appeared in the Comet Press dark crime anthology
The Death Panel
, as well as
Plots With Guns, Thuglit, Espresso Stories, Big Pulp, Six Sentences, Pulp Pusher
, and
Crooked
. He is a contributor to
The College Rag
and the University of Pittsburgh’s online journal
Hot Metal Bridge
. A graduate student in the MFA program at Pitt, he is also a full-time closed captioner and the ill-fated founder of a Bed & Breakfast where staff would be encouraged to attack the guests. Investors balked. He considers apocalyptic survival scenarios more than most, hopefully.
----
“Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”
—Matt 8:22
We aren’t supposed to start moaning and pounding on the house until the sun goes down, but we’re taking our jobs real serious these days. Over by the fake gas pump, I can see a shadow crouching down, and know he’s finally going to shit in the football helmet. I can just make out the Steelers logo as I watch him fill it up to the ear holes. There is no chance of it being worn this time, even if it’s hosed out again.
Another shadow takes a swat at the one squatting, but the first shadow just hunches over and keeps concentrating, kind of like a cat still trying to get the ham off someone’s sandwich after it’s been busted. He just gets lower and lower and lower with each blow, but never moves to pull up his pants. I hear the second shadow demanding an explanation, and I sigh. I don’t have to see their faces to know who they are. We’ve played this game too many times already.
“It’s my love letter to the city that gave birth to us,” the first shadow explains, now deciding it’s a good time to run.
Our instructions were to display precisely one character trait. This, we were told, was because it is both the most efficient way to make a memory in the allotted time, and because it was so hysterical in
Dawn of the Dead
when they wandered over the hill inexplicably wearing baseball uniforms and ballerina outfits. Most of the boys just want to wear their favorite jersey though, and that means there’s almost always too many sports fans to be bumping shoulders among our small band of the undead.
“I’m just saying,” the first shadow laughs as it backpedals and falls down under a rain of backhands and elbows, “If we already have a Baseball Zombie, we probably don’t need a Football Zombie. But we definitely don’t need
two
Football Zombies.”
“Said the Football Zombie.”
The fight escalates and someone hustles them behind the shed and out of sight. Tonight, everyone’s tired of them already, but I have to admit one thing. The first shadow was right. Pittsburgh was the city that started it all, and it was the reason we were here, if you got right down to it. But it was also hard to see any love in that gesture, and it wasn’t even my helmet. As handy as one of
“Uh, no ma’am,” said Shorty, casting an uneasy glance up at the mystic eye in the sky.
“There ya go,” Jake said, saluting them with the Magnum’s muzzle. Then he holstered it and offered Amanda his arm.
“Miss Amanda,” he said.
She locked her arm in his and they walked with as much dignity as they could muster to the waiting Mustang.
“Godspeed,” somebody said.
Jake opened the passenger door for her and said, “Whatever the world’s got waiting for us, we’ll greet it with a grin and a big god-damn gun. And if that ain’t good enough, then fuck it. We’ll go out in a blaze.”
Amanda said, “Amen, Jake Moon Snake.”
Jake said, “Amen.”
“My God, look at that!”
Jake turned to see the three churchmen looking up, the tall one pointing to the sky.
Jake looked up in time to see the great eye blink again.
Then it winked out, leaving only the big empty sky.
ZEE BEE & BEE
(a.k.a. Propeller Hats For The Dead)
By David James Keaton
----
David James Keaton’s short fiction has recently appeared in the Comet Press dark crime anthology
The Death Panel
, as well as
Plots With Guns, Thuglit, Espresso Stories, Big Pulp, Six Sentences, Pulp Pusher
, and
Crooked
. He is a contributor to
The College Rag
and the University of Pittsburgh’s online journal
Hot Metal Bridge
. A graduate student in the MFA program at Pitt, he is also a full-time closed captioner and the ill-fated founder of a Bed & Breakfast where staff would be encouraged to attack the guests. Investors balked. He considers apocalyptic survival scenarios more than most, hopefully.
----
“Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”
—Matt 8:22
We aren’t supposed to start moaning and pounding on the house until the sun goes down, but we’re taking our jobs real serious these days. Over by the fake gas pump, I can see a shadow crouching down, and know he’s finally going to shit in the football helmet. I can just make out the Steelers logo as I watch him fill it up to the ear holes. There is no chance of it being worn this time, even if it’s hosed out again.
Another shadow takes a swat at the one squatting, but the first shadow just hunches over and keeps concentrating, kind of like a cat still trying to get the ham off someone’s sandwich after it’s been busted. He just gets lower and lower and lower with each blow, but never moves to pull up his pants. I hear the second shadow demanding an explanation, and I sigh. I don’t have to see their faces to know who they are. We’ve played this game too many times already.
“It’s my love letter to the city that gave birth to us,” the first shadow explains, now deciding it’s a good time to run.
Our instructions were to display precisely one character trait. This, we were told, was because it is both the most efficient way to make a memory in the allotted time, and because it was so hysterical in
Dawn of the Dead
when they wandered over the hill inexplicably wearing baseball uniforms and ballerina outfits. Most of the boys just want to wear their favorite jersey though, and that means there’s almost always too many sports fans to be bumping shoulders among our small band of the undead.
“I’m just saying,” the first shadow laughs as it backpedals and falls down under a rain of backhands and elbows, “If we already have a Baseball Zombie, we probably don’t need a Football Zombie. But we definitely don’t need
two
Football Zombies.”
“Said the Football Zombie.”
The fight escalates and someone hustles them behind the shed and out of sight. Tonight, everyone’s tired of them already, but I have to admit one thing. The first shadow was right. Pittsburgh was the city that started it all, and it was the reason we were here, if you got right down to it. But it was also hard to see any love in that gesture, and it wasn’t even my helmet. As handy as one of
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