The bitter taste of wheat beer slid down Heath Danielson’s
throat like a flash flood of numbness. It was like drinking horse piss, but it
was effective at making him forget how badly his father was screwed over when
he lost his bakery to the bank. Heath also forgot that he was supposed to
behave in a gentlemanly manner when drinking at this particular bar.
When he fell asleep, his face landed right into a
neighboring woman’s chest. All of her screams and slaps across the head were
like flies buzzing: a mere annoyance. It was the beefy bouncer who grabbed
Heath by his scraggly brown hair and floppy arm that finally made him realize
how fucked up he had become. Being tossed out on the streets and landing firmly
on the unforgiving concrete was not a mere annoyance. The scrapes and bruises
were proof of that.
In his brain-dead ecstasy, Heath managed to pull himself up
off the ground using a parked car as leverage. Staying up would prove to be
harder as he stumbled and crawled his way down the sidewalk. He occasionally
let out an obnoxious burp and everybody in his vicinity scurried away from him.
Cars began honking at him as if their horns were enough to awaken him from his
drunken nightmare.
All Heath really wanted to do was find a nice place to empty
his bladder, which was the size of a snow tire. He couldn’t go back to the bar
or any other place of business since he was too drunk to read their signs. He
did however find a nice shade of darkness where he was convinced he was the
only one there. Perfect!
Heath waddled and stumbled into the darkness until his
forehead hit a brick wall and temporarily woke him up. He had a lump where he
smacked his head, but it was as good a place as any to drain the lizard. He
struggled to find his jeans zipper, but eventually unzipped it and let the
urine pour from his system like the floodgates of bliss. This simple bodily
function put a stupid grin on Heath’s face, as if it was the only form of
happiness he could experience since his father had to close his bakery.
Once his bladder was drained, Heath tucked his thingamabob
back in his pants and unwittingly gave himself a zipper injury. The spark of
pain got a yelp out of him as well as the temporary ability to read what was in
front of him. The drunkard’s eyes grew wide and his body was shaking violently
at what he saw. He just pissed on the memorial of Zell “The Undertaker”
Jardine.
“Oh, shit!” Heath said to himself. Before he could turn
around and run away, a trench-coat wearing arm rose up from the grave and
grabbed him around his throat, squeezing with the strength a silverback
gorilla. Even without significant oxygen and a brain full of booze, Heath could
easily make out this zombie’s features: an old man with white horseshoe hair,
muscles upon muscles, and a trench coat that carried god knows what. Zell
tossed Heath on the ground and allowed him to hack and wheeze what little
oxygen he could back into his body.
As soon as the lush was breathing normally (albeit with
raspy overtones), he had the urge to relieve himself once again when he saw
Zell pull a long, bloody, and jagged machete out of his trench coat. “I’m going
to enjoy every minute of this,” said the former war hero. “Which one of your
limbs should I cut off first? Your arms? Your legs? Or maybe I should make that
zipper injury feel like a paper cut and hack off your tiny dick!”
Heath crawled backwards and waved his hand defensively as he
tried to plead his case to someone nicknamed “The Undertaker”. “I’m sorry! I
didn’t know that was your grave!” The lush let out another sickening burp. “I’m
just really pissed off tonight. You see, my dad just had to close his…”
“Silence!” shouted Zell. Heath’s breaths were getting faster
and deeper with every step The Undertaker took towards him. The sounds of
militia boots hitting the pavement were loud and clear to even someone with
drunken vision. “I didn’t spend ten years in a government prison getting
tortured half to death just so I could have disrespectful faggots like you
pissing on my grave! All I want is a little peace and quite and you can’t even
give that to me! You and your disgusting burping; it’s damn insulting!”
Heath’s eyes were cascading with tears when he said, “I’m
sorry, Mr. Jardine. I’m really sorry. Please don’t kill me. I’m fucking drunk
as a skunk right now. I don’t even know where the hell I am right now. I’ll
give you your peace and quiet if you’d just let me go.”
Zell’s demonic eyes rolled backwards when he reached down
and grabbed Heath by his shirt collar to hoist him up, holding the jagged machete
to his throat in the process. “If you have any brain cells left in that thick
skull of yours, then you’d better start begging for your life a lot better than
that. I’ve cut up many demons and undead warriors with this machete and it
would be an honor to take your head off as well. Go ahead, you little bitch!
Scream for your life!”
“I’m sorry! I’ll never do it again! Please let me go! My
father needs me!” shouted Heath in a pathetic voice, prompting Zell to release
his shirt collar and allow him to drop to the ground. The demonic zombie still
had the machete pointed at his would-be victim. Heath waved his hands
defensively and said, “Look, man. I’m just the son of a baker. I used to be
before the goddamn bank took everything away. You just said you were in a
government prison for ten years. Didn’t you feel like doing…you know…something
drastic?” That last sentence was punctuated by another burp.
“Every damn day I felt like doing something drastic!”
shouted Zell. He allowed that comment to hang in the air for a few long seconds
before putting his instrument of destruction back in his trench coat. “Every
damn day,” he said with more compassion. “Even when I got out of that prison
and we eventually won the war, things were never the same. The story doesn’t end
just because the author puts his pen down. I had nightmares when the war was
over. Sometimes I’d wake up and wouldn’t know where I was. And yes, I did a lot
of drinking during that time, even more so than you.”
Heath looked up at his now calmed down assailant with
compassion of his own. And then he turned his head to the side and puked his
guts out. Some of the flowing stomach acid managed to dirty up Zell’s boots,
which once again put a sadistic frown on the war hero’s face. After wiping the
bile from his mouth with his jacket sleeve, Heath realized what he just did and
said in that same pathetic voice, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! Please, don’t
kill me!”
Zell’s eyes rolled back and he this time picked Heath up by
his unwashed hair before pulling the machete back out to hold it to the
drunkard’s throat. Mr. Danielson cried like a little baby with his tears coming
as quickly as his puke. The zombie warrior shouted, “Shut up! Stop your
blubbering, little boy!” The tears had dried up. “So that’s how your story’s
going to end, huh? You’re just going to let these corrupt banks do whatever
they want with your father’s business? One that he worked so hard to obtain?”
“What am I supposed to do about it?” said a whiny-voiced
Heath.
The Undertaker pressed the blade against Heath’s throat even
harder, drawing a little speck of blood and causing the raspy breaths to come
more rapidly. And then Zell turned the blade over and put the handle of the
weapon in Heath’s shaking hands. “I have no more use for this now that I’m dead
and gone. But for you, my friend, it’s not too late. Take this blade and show
those asshole bankers that you’re not one to be fucked with!”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t just attack them like that!”
said Heath.
“You’re right,” said Zell sarcastically. “They’re just going
to give your father’s bakery back to you like civilized gentlemen. Because
that’s how the real world works: everything is handed to you and nothing has to
be fought for. That’s why I have my own tombstone where I’m resting more comfortably
than I would in a Hilton Hotel.”
Heath could feel the cold steel in his hand. It was such a
simple weapon of war with jagged edges and many lives claimed. A prolific war
hero was passing down his instrument of death to a mere drunkard who never
thought he could change the world with a bloody slash. This blade made Heath
Danielson feel powerful. It made him feel revolutionary. Those suit-wearing
jackasses at Babylon Bank didn’t stand a chance against him. They could have
all the beefy security and all the brutal cops they wanted and they would all
fall down one by one. A sea of blood would overtake the streets as the souls of
those claimed by this machete would be burning in hellfire for all eternity.
“You can count on me, Mr. Jardine. Nobody steals from the
Danielson family! Nobody!” shouted Heath…right before he puked up another meal
on Zell’s legs.
“For God’s sake, man, don’t ever drink that much alcohol
again!” shouted the zombie before shoving the drunkard down on the ground.
