Hidden Rhythm by Nemo Arator

Hidden Rhythm by Nemo Arator

It is indeed true that when the apocalypse happened, I was glad to be living on the farm, safely far away from the city when things went to shit – safe enough to begin with, at any rate. But once the power went out everything stopped; in one fell swoop we had all been returned to the stone ages. Rural people like me were generally better prepared, but not much, and one can imagine in the cities it was a frenzy. Anyone able to escape did, and in a matter of weeks those people started turning up in my region a hundred miles to the north, like flotsam from an explosion at sea, radiating in all directions from the urban core.

I first heard about it on the nine o’clock news, listening to the radio while drinking my morning coffee. Sitting at the kitchen table like I used to with Gramma, when she was still alive. But she was gone and so were my parents; there was nobody left but me and now these voices were saying the world was actually ending. I quickly sent a message to all my friends saying they were welcome to seek refuge with me. I had solar panels, a wood stove, a huge garden, and clean water. After my whole life happened I finally had my shit together and just in time to be ready for the collapse of civilization. (Truly I always feared it would happen, only an idiot couldn’t see it coming, as if I’m one to talk, but a mismanagement of circumstances always prevented me from ever being ready for it.)

By noon the black-out struck and there was nothing further. I was already living off-grid so that didn’t affect me, but from then on there was only static on the airwaves. However, besides that there was not much other initial indication anything was wrong with the world. Occasionally vehicles drove past but nobody stopped in and bothered me. I kept the gate to my yard closed and what traffic on the road there was, it carried on past without bothering to stop in for any reason. If not for the sudden death of radio, television and internet, it would seem that nothing changed. But something in the air had changed, I could feel it.

When the first zombies arrived at my yard, I tried to ignore them. Stay indoors long enough and they would surely just wander away. But they didn’t. And when they tried getting into the house, tried breaking the windows and bust down the door, I had no choice but to go out there and shoot them with my trusty boom-stick. One shot each: kill the head and the body must die. Like a heavy-duty magic wand that can perform only one trick, the gun was intended as much for my eventual suicide as it was for protection during my remaining life-time.

The notion my friends might someday find their way here was what kept me going; in the meantime, the undead would be mercifully returned to their slumber. The nearest cemetery was only five miles away, so it was almost inevitable they would find their way here. The road’s been flooded in spots, but that didn’t stop them. I dragged the remains to a nearby grove of trees and buried them there to sleep in peaceful calm-like splendour.

One day a dog wandered into the yard, looking starved and frightened, as if it had escaped from somewhere dangerous. It didn’t appear to have the zombie sickness. It was wary at first but over time we built the old relationship of a dog and monkey – she took over the yard as her guarded territory and me as her guardian ape. During the day she kept watch while I performed the daily chores. The most important of which was tending to the garden. It was entirely fenced off and partially covered overtop. Most of the day was spent weeding and checking the plants, walk around and commune with them and smell the fragrance of so many herbs and spices together. It was the smell of this that lured the animals, though thwarted by the fence, it brought to my gun many rabbits and deer and various birds.

And so the days passed in like fashion. I lived as I did before the collapse, alone on this island of solitude, apart from whatever events transpired in the world at large. Just a lonely survivor listening to the radio. I had it playing constantly in the shop during the day while I worked because sometimes the odd signals did come through. Sometimes a voice would surface from the static to utter part of a phrase, or even a few whole remarks, warning such&such place is over-run, poison dangerous, and they’re heading for a rumoured safe zone, a whole community founded, etc. Anyone who can hear this should make their way there.

Sometimes it was incomprehensible and I couldn’t tell if it was my own mind fucking with me or some delirious idiot spewing off into the void uncaring if it was heard or not, cursing and shouting vulgar incoherencies, expressing a vile and overpowering hatred of the abominable situations inflicted upon us, killing our own fellow humans who have risen from their graves and seek us out, as might one still living; and then we are faced with this and have to commit the most grisly obscenities upon them to ensure proper rest – it was just too much. I always remembered that voice though I only heard it once, and I always wondered what happened to that person. I never offered any reply to these messages, it never even occurred to me; I just listened and absorbed internally, a memory made.

And then one late autumn evening I was standing in the freshly harrowed garden, enjoying the autumn dusk, how the fading light filtered through the trees. At the sound of a cracking branch and footsteps crunching through the leaves, I turned and saw two human shapes approaching from the road. It took a moment to recognize them as my old friends Dustin and Jared from the queen city and long ago, but it was them, and with joy and relief I went to greet them.

Immediately, however, I could see something was wrong: they looked like zombies. Exhausted and soul-deadened by whatever hells and sorrows they endured along the way. The years showed on their faces, as did the recent times. Nevertheless, after surviving all that and finally arriving here, and at the end of it they find me, their old buddy, standing in his garden stoned and drunk out of his mind, staring at the sky. Even if the world ended, some things never change. But it was more than that – they were zombies. Maybe they didn’t even realize it yet, or the condition hadn’t fully taken hold, but I could see the dead in their eyes.

Dustin said they were here to collect a quantity of weed that has been owed since a certain Monday in 2003. There was something menacing in his tone and a flicker of memory, something long ago and delirious. It happened to be that I had that exact amount in my car and I said I would go get it for them. Instead I went into the house and locked the door, then quickly went and locked all the other doors and windows. I didn’t have my gun with me and anyway they were my friends, I didn’t want to kill them. But I didn’t know what else to do; I was hoping they would eventually just forget about me and wander away.

As I was closing the last window I saw through it that they were still standing in the garden where I left them, watching me with blank faces; but when our eyes met they realized what I was doing and then they started coming toward the house. I thought fuck and then they were pounding on the doors. I ran upstairs into the bedroom and lifted open the window which gave easiest access to the roof. Downstairs I simultaneously heard a window smash and the door cracking and give way and then they were inside the house. I could hear their clumsy boot steps shuffle and shamble around as they looked for and then found and then started climbing the stairs. I climbed out onto the roof.

I quickly ran to the antennae tower on the south side of the house. Although broadcasters cancelled analog transmissions decades ago, I left the primitive antennae up there chiefly due to inertia, but also as an artefact of old technology. However, the antennae tower’s shaft was also a triangular ladder that was bolted securely to the side of the house and granted swift and safe access to the ground. Which is a good thing: otherwise I would have had to jump, as I did as a child; or climb down the drainpipe that collected rainwater into the basement cistern.

I didn’t wait to see if they found the open window, I turned and ran into the field and across the open countryside. I had no other plan than to get away fast; my mind blanked with terror. I knew the land like the back of my hand; nonetheless I ended up wading through a slough in the fear-crazed delirium of my flight. It was over a mile to the nearest intersection, but somehow I ran the whole distance in one mostly continuous dash.

When I arrived I saw that someone had erected a scarecrow across from the stop sign. It made a rather gloomy scene with the dusky orange autumn light shining through the stark leafless trees full of shadow. The stop sign was shot full of bullet holes and welded to a sturdy metal post to prevent its theft. And at some point after society collapsed someone had taken the time to install this crucified effigy of a straw-dust puppet to guard the crossroads.

Dizzy from the run, I leaned against the pole, gasping for breath; I could barely stand, my legs were trembling from the exertion. Then I collapsed to a crouch, and then I noticed something on my leg, on the upper thigh near my groin. At first I thought it was just a pinched nerve, muscle spasm, or clotted artery, but no, there was something wrong –

I touched my pants overtop that spot and felt a lump of something through the fabric. Just the feel of it made me want to throw up, and queasily I got back to my feet so I could drop my pants, whereupon I then saw inexplicably a giant leech embedded there, a big greasy sickening thing with two prongs dug in deep – probably drinking right off the femoral – from where it was it had perfect access to that juicy pair. Gagging revulsion at the sight of it, but after the initial disgust and astonishment I quickly grabbed hold of the hideous slimy thing and yanked, ripping it right out and hurled it away as far as I could throw –

And egad there was pain: the world flickered with it. I cried out and clamped both hands onto the wound to staunch the blood-flow and leaned against the pole to steady myself. Eventually the pain faded enough that I could look up and around at the shadowy trees and the hazy orange autumn twilight sky slowly fading into night, and inexplicably it came into my mind that old junkie mantra: You gotta be a bum, you gotta have nothing, you gotta live it up.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Nemo Arator 2024