The Long Nights of Autumn

The sapphire summer overstayed its welcome as it slowly withdrew from the valley, in its place the towns received the long nights of Autumn. Those little white spores that popped up up and down the south-99 state highway. The crops and cattle were met with righteous fire. It wasn’t long until people were placed in the pyres. At first it was migrant workers and poor black farmers that escaped Jim Crow south. Those didn't make headlines, once the thirst came to Large tracts on land, that's when the governor stepped in. All the kings horses and all the Kings men, couldn't put everything together again.

Mr. Fisher believed it came from the dust clouds during the famine across the bible belt. I regret all those times I snuck candy from his counters when I was a kid. He never told my father who was the town drunk, he got real mean after a few bottles in him. I was spared the rod one too many times from his discretion. 

We found him with buckshot scars across his face and mid-section. But that didn’t keep him from lunging at us when we did patrol. Thank god it wasn’t cloudy that day, the sunlight saved our asses. Now, Reverend Goodman had another theory. The last book of the new testament announces that in the last days, death would be sought after as an escape and it would elude them.

“The book of Revelations states, Their stings will bring agony.” I didn’t attend church as much as I should have during the infection, hell I ditched too many sermons as a teen. But the preacher never lost faith in me.

 but I took no pleasure in slamming the stake through his heart. I still wake up screaming at night in the tents.

We buried him out in the garden by the chapel. I visit his grave after sun-up to pay my respects and make sure he says down. The blood thirst is a curse, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies. 

Fear spread as fast as the plague it followed. Snake oil salesmen claimed to have the remedy for a small price. People still didn’t trust science as the townspeople. It wasn’t long after they stopped trusting in the good book as well.

 Whispers among whispers were infectious as well. Maybe you heard about the farmers that began to burn their livestock as penance. Other communities placed their own bodies under duress as a form of collective bargaining with the almighty. I mean people claim to have heard the cries from the blood-lettin but no one has brought back any proof.

You’d be amazed what counts as entertainment once the movie reels stopped coming in. I mean we still use the old theatre and we exchange reels with other outposts. Fire bombs were dropped in regions that were hesitant to receive preemptive treatment. But they had to stop because of what a lack of produce would do to the economy.

Certain pastors and shopkeepers who will remain nameless were concerned more about commerce than their congregation. Those men weren’t like Reverend Goodman at all.

The Central Valley was a desert by all means, but the people of the valley ripped open the veins of water into the ground and created a new eden. It wasn’t too different from how the victims of the scourge. The veins in our necks were like nectar for the hummingbird. The truck passed by a few totems where the locals placed stag and skulls on full display. Every area had different responses to when the thirst crept into their towns. 

 Our commander woke up with bloodshot eyes and demanded we meet with local medical professionals to hand out fresh syringes for inoculations. Medical departments around the county raced against time to ease the spread of the plague to endure all those stone fruits and greens that made it to markets.

We took the same routes everyday on patrol in the sticks. The California State Guard wasn’t known for it’s creative thinking. That’s how they knew where to find us. Revenants, those that came back from the pitch. Misformation fed their insurrection. Their leaders used Uncle Sam's combat training and turned it against all of us. They chipped away at the unstable infrastructure. They believed the red night spread because we turned away from the ten commandments and brought decadent ideas to the county.

Sam was a good kid from the bible belt, he should have been throwing heaters for the majors instead of hand grenades. He made us stop to take a piss before we took the vials to the next outpost. My eyes locked on the ghouls sticking out of the ground. The spectre loomed over the dying grass. Checkered shirts and ripped denims covered the limbs. Scarecrows, what do ya know? The arid wind snapped across the torn strands on their clothing. But the wind shouldn’t make the head move. 

Purple sores encased themselves in tape and a rag. The ghoul wanted to scream but had no mouth. The daylight would have cooked him if they were a victim of the blight, they congregate at night. No, this stubborn son of bitch was still a part of the land of the living.

We cut him loose and ran a quick once over his body. I looked for the signature puncture marks on his veins. Maybe he hadn’t succumbed to it yet. I found one red dot

They worked him over good. I popped my canteen into his mouth. Who knew how long this man had been exposed to the elements. He used the grip of God himself and pulled me close.

“They are coming.” My friends picked up their rifles at the ready. It was obvious the man was bait, maybe we knew that. But we couldn’t sleep at night knowing he was out there.

“I was the livestock vet. I was one of the few qualified to safely administer vaccines.” Treatment was a threat to the new order, if you can call scared people dying in the name of grifters in an orderly fashion. I’ve read their leaflets. The air-drops were seen as government dependency and the outposts were barriers to commerce. People demanded to go where they pleased at night.

 We put the man on the truck and made our way on the hazel road. The Doctor stressed in great detail, the warm hints of nickel that creeped into the air vents of this. Those that believed in the scarlet blight reverted to old customs. A few farms brought cattle out for the carriers to engorge themselves on blood. 

Others made pacts with God as they burnt their cattle to make the plague stop. Those stories didn’t keep me up at night like the towns where all transmission for aid stopped completely. The unease in my body grew as The sun's tips started to sink behind the hills of the I-5. That's when the first shot cracked in the truck. The hot copper pierced the soft airbags beneath the rib-cage. The lungs filled up with blood. My friend drowned on arid land during the driest season. 

The scarlet mist stained on my olive drabs. I couldn’t process the horror as the howling echoed through the long grass.

They approached the truck in unison. Their stained gas-masks and long blades were stuff of nightmares. I found it ironic their leaders believed the blight was a hoax but still wore their masks. Gallows humor and all. The first son of a bitch ran with a stick of explosives towards the hood of the truck. The buckshot caught him in the abdomen before he could ignite the dynamite. His friend got smart and faded back into the fields.

Everyone of us encountered a sense of blood-drunkenness on the field. How were any of us different from the monsters that came for the living in witching hour. The off-color spirals made from scar tissue made my body turn cold.

The stories about self-mutilation were true. Each militant pierced and flogged their own bodies for atonement. 

 The open sores weren’t helping curb the spread, but I think logic left these nice faith-mongers folk a long time ago.

The shakes echoed through my body as I placed another red shell against the loading flap. My olive sleeves were stained with ash and what certainly looked like raspberry jam but was anything but. Gunfire ceased and The tall grass was the only noise that my damaged ears could muster. My legs trudged to the back of the truck. The blood and powder-burns adorned the still-born poses of my friends.

The vials, they were after the vials. If they wanted to destroy them the cabin would have been up in smoke. I didn’t attend Westpoint. I barely made it out of senior year, but this simple shooter had the notion they wanted to pocket. 

 I wouldn’t be surprised if it was for the top brass. It was a smart play. The trembles had subsided, I no longer shook like the town drunk sweating off a bender in county lock-up. I placed vials in my satchel, they were placed alongside my friends dog tags. 

Revenge was the furthest idea from my mind. I couldn’t even muster enough hate to curse the names of the yokels that ambushed us. Both sides were placed in this hell-scape by forces beyond our control, beyond our imagination. 

The revenants faded back into the fields. Those sons of bitches, the blood would attract every victim with a new-found allergy to silver and the sun.

I took up a post in the state guard to avoid the actions overseas until I knew what I wanted to do in life, now my life was about to be cut-short.

The gnashing returned to the valley and created a field of dreams. The silence was cut short by the howls of the living dead. They feasted on the thin blue rivers inside the necks of the militia-men. They fashioned themselves of modern knights, but the monsters they slew had no fear of their weapons. Their machetes and axes collapsed against dense bones. The edges of the blades split the marrow of the farmers and their families that fell victim to the plague.

Their charms and deals with devils were null and void as the dead claimed their prize.

I placed the tip of my bayonet in the sternum of a young woman in a sundress. She was no older than my sister after she attended her first sock-hop. Silver wasn’t the toughest metal but it got the job done as small flakes mixed with buckshot poured in her cold flesh. She had the same scars of the marauders, poor women caught up in the psychosis. The people who were supposed to have all the answers made her another statist. The infantry field manual states we were supposed to hammer pikes through the heart and burn the bodies. The ravenous howls from the vacant barns were not going to let me finish the job. A streak of terror crossed my mind, were these people trapped inside their bodies or had the fevers from the blights cooked in their brains until there was nothing left but a vacuum.

I didn’t get paid enough to answer those questions. 

I lost track of time and breathe as I dragged myself to the safe-zone. I prepared to take my last few paces when I felt a hot pain in my lower leg. The red lines from the talons of the victims grip. I didn’t feel it then but I did now. I looked at the small service station, we had long ripped the black gold that fueled our machines from the ground. Mr. Fisher's service station had seen better days. Some of my best memories were here in the summer. He always got those orange drinks on a stick early, he wouldn’t share the recipe. What could I say, he was always a captain of industry.

The sun hadn’t risen over the hills yet but a bright beam covered my face. Two squads placed their rifles in the direction of the siren lights. The lights cooked the red cracks in my pupils. I slowly placed the satchel and the shogun on the ground. I let the dog tags drop on the poorly maintained road. That would be a real kicker, to survive an onslaught only to be killed by friendly fire. 

The dawn appeared in the form of a tangerine, and it never looked sweeter. I took off my mask and waited to see if the medicine was worth all those needles up my ass. If this was my last sunrise. I wanted to feel it wholly. The cool breeze whispered as it brushed against the trees. The blood-orange pads inside the branches as the last traces of summer finally said goodbye. The cool air kissed the beads of sweat stuck to my body. I collapsed on the ground as the trucks rushed to the service station. I prayed God wouldn’t count all those times I ditched Sunday school to play in the creek. I asked that he looked the other way to those impure thoughts from those pin-up calendars in the barracks.

Damn there really is a bright light at the end of the tunnel, I’ll see you on the other side.