Night of the Living Dead Chola
My tears drip from my mouth and they taste like blood. For years, mud and garbage have weighed down my body to keep me trapped in this wet, dark grave. The tips of my fingers and toes have been nibbled away by fish swimming past my body. They all steal a little morsel of me before scurrying away. I’m surprised there is anything left. As the current fades away, I find myself awake. I am angry. My head throbs from the sound of wailing children above me and the whisper of a goddess below me. I will rise from the depths of the Rio Grande to claim the flesh of those inflicting this pain. I was a ghost in life and still in death, but who knew I would have so much power without a heartbeat or breath?
The Rio Grande is drying up and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Time has increased the temperature in this part of the world, making the border more dangerous from the heat, yet more porous. I’ve heard all those stories of woe. I hear it in the minds of those who have passed away in these waters. Their memories and dreams float like river grass. Their souls are trapped here with me. Not for long. The Rio Grande is drying up and a solar eclipse is on the horizon.
As the waters become increasingly shallow, the dead have been pushing along the feet of those who wade into our grave. Children and babies are priorities. When they are chased, we claw at the ankles of their pursuers, or hold back the dangers that threaten to pull them below the water. Of course, this has been met with resistance from those above. There is talk of refilling the river, mechanically controlling its currents to be more lethal than ever before. There would be zero survivors. A wall and a river. A modern-day fortress with its moat. The solar eclipse happens tomorrow and tomorrow nothing will ever be the same.
The dark is covering the sky. Two rings appear to become one. They are a vortex of energy that is opening a way for us.
My army of the living dead and I are ready. We rise from the mud, looking like monuments to decay. What is left of our bodies are mere shadows in the darkness. The moon and the sun and the goddess of the dead have gifted life into our flesh. Gifts should not go to waste.
The others are gathering to pound their fists against concrete and canvas walls and rip fences. Their hunger for flesh will be satiated by the ones who try to stop them. Bites will feel like bullets and death that overtakes their bodies will invade like ice. For now, I break from the crowd to find the man who did this to me. My murderer.
He told me I was beautiful, like a dark beauty queen. Just a few beers and a movie was all he wanted. After, when I felt unsteady on my feet even though I wore sneakers and my vision doubled, he wanted to know if he could take a few photos.
I am angry at myself for needing to hear those words from someone other than myself. I am angry that I remain nameless and unsolved, just like those females across the border in Juárez. I’m American. We care about people in America, don’t we? After he broke me, used me, made my mascara and eyeliner bleed all over my face, he discarded me like I was nothing. I can still feel part of him inside of me and that is what lets me know where I can find him.
As I follow the trail that leads to my killer, people scream when they see me. Some run, remembering all those films they have watched over the years. A few bullets have pierced my body, but it is not enough to stop me. Before I can get close enough to the shooters, they turn and run the other way. Cowards, too scared of a rotting woman with nothing to lose and a hunger that hurts. They know I will come for them next if someone else hasn’t gotten to them first. I ignore the chaos of overturned cars and feasting on flesh that surrounds me to continue on my way.
My memory reminds me his apartment is on the top floor. He is so close now. I can smell his sweat; a stench I will never forget. My belly is hungry for his insides. It stokes my appetite for a bloody stew of caldo. I will devour him the way he devoured me.
With little resistance I push the locked door open. He can hear me. Good. I want him to see me. The sun is back to where it should be high in the sky and there are no remaining shadows to hide any of us.
He stands before me in his underpants. His screams are like a Banda song that tells you the party is about to start. Get to your feet, grab another drink. There is nowhere for him to run as I block the only exit. A puddle of mud and water gathers at my feet as my waterlogged body expunges itself. I’m feeling lighter already. He is stumbling backwards, praying to God for help, but it is a goddess that has brought me here: Mictecacíhuatl, the flayed woman of the underworld and keeper of bones.
His throat is in my hands and I can almost feel myself salivating even though my body is a torn rag of sinew, algae and bone. My teeth are still intact. His blood fills my mouth after his flesh gives in to me so easily. I waste nothing. I sit on the floor to suck every ribbon of muscle from his frame like I would a plate of baby back ribs at a BBQ. I pick little pieces of him from my teeth, like corn on the cob. His skull makes the sound of a coconut falling to the ground as I open it to slurp my dessert.
The bones are left for the queen to collect and use as bricks for her underworld kingdom. I hope she uses them to cobble a road. My meal has left me sluggish. I lie down to sleep, just for a moment, and maybe dream of all the things I didn’t get to do in life.
It is night again. The moonlight is the only source of light. As I move to raise myself from the floor, I look at my hands, my body. My flesh has been made whole again. My stomach churns with excitement and meat. I jump to my feet and run to the bathroom. I touch my skin, which looks as if I have just stepped out of the shower. Beneath the mirror, there is makeup. The asshole has a lady. I find this disturbing. He didn’t seem like one for a relationship. The red Maybelline pencil feels good in my hands. I hope I haven’t forgotten how to use it. My eyebrows need filling, eyes need lining. Like two friends that have been apart but come back together as if no time has passed, I create a perfect stroke at the corner of my eyes. The dark shade of red, bordering on brown, lipstick with matching lip liner suits my skin color. A quick brush through my hair leaves it long and smooth as it falls over
my shoulders. I part it right in the middle to accentuate my high cheek bones and round face. This ritual reminds me how I would sneak clothes and lipstick in my backpack before school to change into later because my mom didn’t want me looking like trouble. I wonder where she is now. Speaking of clothes, I am nude.
If there is makeup there has to be clothing. I go through the chest of drawers and find panties and a tank top. In the closet there are jeans that are too long and slightly baggy. No problem. I take a belt and cinch them in at the waist. There is a pile of women’s shoes in different sizes. This is odd. Beneath this tower of leather, I find a box of phones, jewelry, driver’s licenses, including mine. Suddenly I feel sick. I want to vomit, and I do. The thought of this beast inside of me fills me with anger and hate. I vomit more, until every scrap of him is out of me. I throw open the closet to pull everything out. My old Nike Cortezes are in the corner. I know they are mine because there is blue ink with my initials on the back. I did that. There is also my mini backpack, inside of which is a beat-up copy of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
I wipe the remnants of vomit from my mouth and return to the bathroom to reapply my lipstick. I wonder who wore these clothes and makeup before me. Perhaps they will have a second chance as I did. A rumble inside of me alerts me that I am hungry again. Tonight, I will go out and find another meal to satisfy my appetite. I take everything I can find of value, including car keys.
A TV in the next apartment is on loudly. I hear a news alert. The Rio Grande has dried up and there is nothing the army or police or politicians can do about it. The bodies of the dead and ghosts have returned as well. People are also claiming their dead relatives are returning as if they had never died at all, except for a new appetite. “God help us all,” the newsreader concludes, “because it looks like they might just take over.”
The Demon in My Eye
I woke up this morning wanting to die. I told myself it’s just the demon in my eye, a little bug stuck inside my pupil. It often tells me to surrender to its call. Hell is so much easier to endure than here. I imagine there is a sense of peace in oblivion. No noise, no doubt, no heartache. Part of me believes the voice. All I would have to do is fly straight into a brick wall and allow my eyes to close after I hear the sound of my skull cracking open. Brain huevos rancheros for the flesh-eating pigeons as large as vultures. Haven’t made a single level-headed decision in my life. It’s a life I’m destined to endure until the end of days, I’m afraid.
The demon in my eye is a little bug I can’t remove to relieve myself of this craven thirst that devours everything and instructs me to kill anyone who does me wrong, sometimes right, and corrupts anything that is good that might come my way. But it has kept me alive in a time when survival is the only thing that matters. Well, that and who you roll with.
A cold body bumps next to me, a soft moan. Christ, he’s barely alive. I roll out of bed, smelling of my own pussy and dried cum, knowing there is only one way to salvage this situation. I have ten missed calls on my watch blinking red on the bedside table next to an empty bottle of rum. I grab my companion’s white-collared shirt crumpled on the floor and step into the motel hallway. I need to find the kitchen and housekeeping storage room fast, both typically in the basement these days. Everyone is still asleep as I quickly rush past the quiet rooms to the stairwell down four levels. Bingo. In the basement I find housekeeping. I grab four plastic laundry bags with drawstrings. Next, time to hit up the kitchen. I hear voices, but one look at me and they will do exactly as they are told.
“Bro, she still won’t let me hit it. Says she scared of catching something. I told her I’d wrap it up with a body bag if it’ll—” The squat muscly guy stops his story and looks at me with wide eyes trembling with fear. A silver ladle quakes in his hand.
“I want all these bags filled with ice. Now.”
The two kitchen staff approach me with caution before they snatch the bags from my outstretched hand and fumble awkwardly to do as ordered. I spot an insulated box used for cold storage. Perfect.
“Put the bags in that box.” They both nod and move faster while keeping an eye on me in their peripheral vision.
“Thanks. And tell your chick she has nothing to worry about. She won’t catch nothing out there. Maybe a case of crabs from you. The vaccine is legit. We made sure of that.”
They remain silent and nod with their jaws hanging open as I dash out and back to the room as fast as I got down. My plaything’s pulse is about to give out. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t save him. We sucked and fucked so hard, but that’s what you get when you fuck with a woman like me. He took so much milk last night he won’t feel this. I told him to slow down. They never listen. Nobody listens to women.
I take out my compact surgical kit. I’ve got minutes to do this, but I’ve become so good I should be rolling with the Doctors. One last breath leaves his mouth. With gloved hands I spray the inside of the ice bags and his entire body with antiseptic mist. I stick his belly with a cauterizing scalpel, careful not to damage anything below his layer of fat. A shame, because he was a great fuck, eager to please me. He slurped all the milk secreted from between my legs and tits until my thighs shook.
* * *
I toss my bloody gloves on the sheet when I’m finished. The Doctors will be happy to get these scraps for the weird but important work they do. Time to get dressed. I pull on my denim jacket with large slits beneath the sleeves to accommodate my anatomy. Everything I own must be custom made. Then it’s time to head to the Pawn N Thrift, owned by my old friend Larv. He is the absolute best in the black market of organ dealing.
From the glass front door of the shop I can see Larv in the back inspecting something. A little bell jingles as I walk in. Square plastic bags filled with blood, plasma, eyeballs and milk hang with their tails trailing like freakish jellyfish within the temperature-controlled cases. The bags glow like jewels and the eyes look like Fabergé eggs with the soft lighting behind them. Larv puts an antique drone down.
“Hey, Valencia. You got something good for me?”
I place the box on the counter and open it. “Yeah, liver, lungs, kidneys and a heart that’ll only be good for the arteries.”
“A heart? I thought you Mexicans just love the heart?” I can smell his eggy breath as he chuckles.
“Now you tell me something good. What can you give me?”
“How ’bout you come back here and suck me off. Always wanted to get off with a woman like—”
“You really want me to do that? I’ll chomp that shit off like a handful of potato chips. Might sound the same too.” I show him my stained teeth with a wide grin to reinforce the message. I can still taste the residual copper of blood in my mouth. My face must look extra menacing.
“All right, no need to be vulgar.” He smiles and shows me the slimy gold grill in his mouth. His muscled chest quakes beneath a tight black t-shirt. His pecs are almost as big as my tits.
“You want trade or coin?”
“I need coin. Same account.”
He slides a chart in front of me and points out a number. It’s the new price list. The Bankers raised their cut for using coin and the Doctors obviously agreed. Damn. I guess lasting peace has a price too.
“Good for me.”
“All right. Don’t go breaking any necks or hearts today. And bring that wicked ass around here more often. I keep getting requests for your milk.”
I turn on my heels and give him the middle finger before flipping my hair. “Adios, Larvae baby.”
The dawn is just breaking as I walk out. I pull up my mask to filter out the pollutants in the air. For a while it was better, but now we’ve returned to the old ways; the city buildings are blackened with soot and garbage goes uncollected for weeks at a time. I crouch before leaping into the air in flight.
The brown downy hairs on my neck and spine catch the breeze as I fly above the city lights, above the sorrow we have all become. I’m heading back to our camp south of the river now named the River Styx for the makeshift morgues that floated when there was no longer any room for all the dead in the cities. No room to bury them and not even time to burn them in mass graves. Those bodies eventually floated into the ocean never to be seen again. None of the other gangs dares cross the river unless invited. We made sure of that after the last turf war.
It’s a short flight to the landing path just outside the barricaded warehouse that used to house helicopters for rich folks. Fuck. Tony is outside, probably waiting for me. I land softly, my thin bat wings folding like an accordion back into the soft openings from under my armpits to my wrists via the slits in my jacket.
“You didn’t come back last night.” He steps close and sniffs my skin. “And you weren’t alone.”
“None of your business, Tony. I told you I’m not a one-man kind of woman. Plus, I got this.” I pull out the eye from the light bag around my waist to show him. “My ticket into Johnson Labs.”
“There really isn’t anything you won’t do to get what you want.”
“Nope. Including fucking someone. He was good too.”
There is enough morning light for me to see the red in his cheeks and the scowl on his face, the billows of black smoke from the morning fires rising in the air as toxic as this man’s kiss. His eyes just as black as the grime we sneeze from our noses.
“You’re a fucking slut tease. You know that?”
“Go back to the dog pound. Just because there’s a truce doesn’t mean there isn’t bad blood between us. And that kind of talk is why I don’t fuck with you.”
“You’ll be back when you figure out you can’t get better,” I hear him shout as I walk away.
I turn around because I can’t resist putting a final nail in this love-gone-wrong coffin. “You’re right, I will be back. I’ll be back when I come to drain you of your blood and sell your organs to Larv.”
I leave him, feeling flush. It took a long time for me to tell him that, considering I’m the most hardheaded and desperate to be loved individual I know. But as soon as I get it, I don’t want it anymore.
I walk through the main door of the warehouse to see Peggy standing there wringing her pink-and-brown-spotted hands, absently watching a group of teens sorting through clothing.
“Hey, Peggy. Your snout’s a little wet. You been snorting that slop again?”
She huffs from her large nostrils and touches her round cheeks. “Huh? No. You need to hurry. Tina got news the Evangelicals are gonna make another move, possibly try to start another war between the gangs so they can push us out. You know what they would do to us?”
Fucking Evangelicals. I rush past her to the office in the back. The rest of the warehouse is used for sorting goods either stolen, found outside of the cities, or in abandoned gated communities stockpiled with shit the dead left behind. ...
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