Desert Angels

Desert Angels by George P. Saunders Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Desert Angels by George P. Saunders Read Free Book Online
Authors: George P. Saunders
Jack predictably began to lumber his way, which Jack had anticipated.
    He took aim at five of the Stiffers and dispatched those in rapid succession, rendering them more dead than they already were, he noted with some wry amusement.
    The final Stiffer, the furthest from him, he shot with the tranquilizer rifle. It failed to slow the Stiffer down (which really did not surprise Jack either, given that these things continued to defy all laws of nature by even being ambulatory) and thus he was forced to fire to maim.
    He took out the Stiffer’s two legs, which caused the Stiffer to howl in pain and rage. It began to crawl ineffectually toward Jack, as he returned to the van and removed some chained netting. He threw it over the afflicted Stiffer, which eyed him with supernaturally red eyes of hate and agony.
    “Go fuck yourself,” Jack snipped at it, as he dragged the thing back to his Humvee and utilized the on-board crane to load the monster in the rear. Once shackled to the mainframe of the rear compartment, Jack re-entered the driver’s cabin, and began a slow semi-circle back toward his sanctuary.
    The Light Storm, as he now referred to the bizarre light phenomena of earlier, reappeared, as he approached closer proximity to the Dome. He now noticed another bizarre phenomena appearing on the passenger side of the Humvee. Walter rested on the passenger seat, but flapped up to the dashboard, to also view the strange new chicanery of this ever-changing radioactive landscape.
    A dark shadow began to parallel the Humvee, keeping a respectable distance of fifty feet. Jack at first thought it was the result of a cloud above, but the sky was completely cloud-covered so that explanation was immediately ruled out.
    Like the little Light Storm that also paralleled the Humvee’s trajectory to Jack’s left, the black shadow moved on its own preternatural volition alongside it.
    The Stiffer in the rear began to growl and grow restless, but Jack ignored it, more interested in the strange phenomena outside his vehicle.
    He activated the gate to the Dome, and entered Eden proper. When he exited the Humvee, he noticed that both the Light Storm and the odd shadow had disappeared.
    “That is the god damned weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jack said, glancing at Walter, who was perched on the open door of the Humvee.
    Lights that moved on their own volition. Shadows that existed where shadows should not. The carnivorous dead walked freely about. The world had turned upside down, in Jack’s mind.
    He wondered if his sanity would remain intact for longer than the next few days.
     
    * * *
     
    His second foray into Stiffer dissection and forensic examination revealed, or rather, confirmed his findings with regard to the first zombie he’d analyzed. The Stiffers had no heart beat, nor brain function … yet they moved, consumed, and were filled with rage.
    That the Stiffers were once human, there was no doubt. All internal organs were in the right place, albeit hopelessly contaminated by concentrated gamma radiation, well off the charts. Jack was reminded of a book by Richard Matheson, called I Am Legend , where the hero of that story, a scientist like himself, was faced with a similar situation as his own – trying to rationalize the existence of creatures who lived, but should not be living at all, according to all –
    – all the rules of nature…
    Jack chided himself and arrested this thought, as he chopped the Stiffer’s head off and threw it along with the corpse into an incinerator. There were no more rules of nature, Jack mused to himself. Nature was being confounded and confused in this strange new world. Guardian Angels existed, zombies were alive and well (no pun intended) and that was that.
    Jack realized that the only way he would make it, or continue living, without madness encroaching on his mind, would be to accept what his scientific knowledge already intuited for him: That nothing would ever be the same again in this

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