Blood

He paused, expecting yet another thunderous reaction from his rapt audience, but all he heard now was a sprinkling of polite applause.

"Ahem," he coughed, "well, yes, I'd like to introduce you to some fine Americans tonight...fine Americans. Of course, you all know John Dalton, Ole Miss's star quarterback and the hero who almost saved Officer Mathias Polk. The miraculous recovery of his right arm is now the stuff of legend, but the real story here tonight is his love. His towering, pure love of Mindy Mendenhall, now blind, now totally disfigured --" and he turned to John and Mindy as spotlights shone on them, and the crowd did react now. There were more pockets of applause, some cheering, but nothing like he'd expected.

+++++

"There's something amiss here," Carol Templeton said to Lady MacBeth, er, Imogen.

"I see it too. Something deep in the land stirs... "

"We must take great care if we are to survive this night..."

+++++

"And I'd like to introduce GiddyMay Polk to you tonight, who's become like a mother to me over the past few weeks..."

And there fell a deafening silence over the crowd in the coliseum, and even the gladiators assembled on the sidelines turned and looked at the stoney reaction, for just then the zombies stood -- in unison -- and there arose a deep rumble from deep within their bowels as tens of thousands of zombies farted in unison.

+++++

"Uh, yes Jenna, can you make out what those zombies down there, the ones near the 50 yard line, are saying?"

"Yes, Joe, let me get c-c-closer...I c-c-can't quite make it out from where I'm s-s-standing."

The cameraman followed Jameson towards the sidelines, and she held her mic up to the crowd while the cameraman filmed their faces. He saw that one by one, people were turning into zombies, standing as they mutated and joined their fellow zombie mutants, their skin turning blazing white, their eyes vengeful red, and he looked on with a growing sense of alarm as fangs sprouted from their mouths. Huge, venomous fangs, dripping with fury -- red, white and blue fury -- then the cameraman focused on the thousands of zombies on the top deck, hundreds of feet above the coliseum floor. They were pushing forward, pushing towards the edge of the stands, and he gasped as zombies piled into each other, then started falling, tumbling onto the zombies standing below. There was a growing mood that things were changing, changing for the worse, but then the fallen zombies stood and straightened out their crushed and broken bones, and started shuffling towards the sidelines again...

"Yes, Jenna, any word on what's going on down there? Can you make out what they're saying yet?"

"Yes, J-J-Joe, it s-s-sounds like 'A-A-America, l-l-love it or l-l-leave i-i-it...!"

And the cameraman turned his camera on Jenna Jameson as she stuttered to a halt, and he zoomed in on her face as her skin turned blazing white, as her eyes turned vengeful red, and as dripping fangs sprouted from her foaming mouth. Huge gray circles formed under her eyes, and her lips turned gray as well, then blood started running from her ears as she turned and started shuffling towards the voice coming from the middle of the field...

+++++

And Carpenter stood before the shuffling hordes, talking about the need for inclusiveness, telling the stumbling zombies that what the world needs now is love, sweet love, it's the only thing that there's just too little of...

"Tell them, Dennis! Tell them while you still can!" Lady Imogen cried.

"Tell them what?" Carpenter said, clearly confused.

"No Dennis, you can't! Don't do it!" Carol Templeton said.

"What! It was you! You set this up, didn't you? You fucking liberal whore! Dennis! Tell them now, before it's too late!"

"So, well y'all," Carpenter said, turning away from the voices in his head, "the purpose of my little speech tonight is to tell you that I've appointed myself King. King of America. Congress is gone now, the courts, too. Because, here's the thing...democracy is a load of horse-shit, and you all know it. You know it, because you take it for granted. You take it for granted because you're two young to remember a time when democracy was a fragile thing, considered weak by totalitarian regimes around the world, and too weak to stand up to...

And the first human wave hit the stage, causing it to shake, then buckle under the onrushing load.

+++++

"Yes, Jenna? Jenna, can you hear me?"

-- * --

"Yes...Jenna?"

-- * --

"Yes, Bob, Joe here, down in the stands, and it sounds like Carpenter is starting to sing."

"Yes, Joe, I think you're correct. He's singing...whoops...looks like he's dancing now, too!"

"Yes, Bob, I think he's dancing! Wasn't that a Stevie Wonder song? The one he's singing?"

"Yes, Joe, in case you haven't noticed, I'm white, so how the hell would I know?"

+++++

He's a man

With a plan

Got a counterfeit dollar in his hand

He's Misstra Know-It-All

"Yes, Bob, I noticed that, but look, I think there's some kind of disturbance down there...the stage seems to have, well, disappeared."

"Yes, Joe, and m-m-my, but that c-c-crowd really s-s-seems to be getting into the f-f-festivities!"

+++++

Carpenter looked into the heart of this surging tide of zombies, but all he saw now were snapping teeth and foaming mouths...

"I think we'd better get out of here," Lady Imogen said, her voice coming now like the moaning of a winter's wind.

"I think it's too late for that now," Carol Templeton said, laughing.

"Oh, ouch, ooh, ahh, no -- right there, a little bit to the left," President Carpenter said as a zombie began gnawing on his right leg, "but still, that kind of hurts." Zombies were piling into him now, snapping away, devouring their creation, pulling him limb from limb, ripping him to shreds as chants of 'love it or leave it...' washed over the coliseum.

And GiddyMay Polk shook her head and walked over to Carpenter when it was all over, and she picked up her boy's heart and cradled it to her breast once again. "I told you love was comin', Mattie, didn't I? You got to have faith, that's all, 'cause sometimes love is the most powerful thing in the world, even if most people forget that."

*

Coda

Elizabeth Templeton sat behind the desk in the Oval Office, looking at the paintings arrayed around the walls in the room, then she walked out into the main part of the building and looked at the portrait of John Kennedy for a long time, then she walked down and looked at another portrait, this one of Franklin Roosevelt, and she wondered what those men would think of what had happened in this building over the past few years...

The dispossessed had finally given up on the whole "hope" thing, hadn't they? So they decided to burn the whole thing to the ground. Then she noticed a soldier behind her, following her, watching her.

"It's funny what people will do when they lose hope, lose their faith in things," the soldier said.

"Did you know this man?"

"Roosevelt? No, I'm old, but not quite that old."

"He has kind eyes. I wonder if he was...kind?"

"I don't know, but from all I've read about him over the years, he was at the very least a wise man, wise enough to surround himself with people who always had the best interests of the working man in mind. So, yes, I'd say he was a kind man, at heart."

"What about him?" she said, pointing at Kennedy.

"He wasn't so lucky," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, smirking.

"Why?"

"He surrounded himself with smart people, but in the end many of them betrayed him. There are some that say the United States of America died the day he was killed, but America is an idea, and it's very hard to kill an idea."

"President Carpenter? Do you think he killed the idea?"

"Him? No way. He was a circus clown, someone the owners of the circus sent in to distract the crowds while costumes were being changed."

"Huh?"

"Oh, never you mind -- it's not important. But you know what is important?"

"What?"

"Well, President Carpenter declared himself King, and he's gone now, so guess what?"

"What?"

"You're the Queen now."

"The Queen? What's that?"

"Well, it means you're in charge now."

"In charge of what?"

"Everything."

"Oh. It's past my bedtime now, but if I'm in charge, does that mean me and you could go to the kitchen and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?"

"Grape or strawberry?"

"Huh?"

"What kind of jelly? Grape or strawberry?"

"Grape is yucky."

"Good," The General said as he nodded his head, then he held out his hand. "You know what? I think you and I are going to get along just fine. Real good, as a matter of fact."

And when she took his hand he swung her up and carried her against his chest, and they walked off together, towards the kitchen -- while he whistled the last refrains of a song he used to love when he was younger, and perhaps more impressionable: Singin' in the Rain.

She put her arms around the general's neck -- and smiled.

*

(C) 2014-16 | adrianleverkühn | I wrote this a few years ago, but somehow it seems more appropriate now than then. Of course, you hate it. No need to call me out or shout me down, because I know, and I understand. This is, of course, fiction, and nothing but. Several pieces of music are referenced, used under 'fair use' doctrine; they are, in order of appearance, attributed here:

1) "Baba O'Riley" (1971) P Townsend;

2) "Communication Breakdown" (1969) Bonham, Plant, Jones, Page;

3) "Purple Haze" (1967) J Hendrix;

4) "Singin' In the Rain" (1929) Freed, Brown;

5) "In a gadda da vida" (1968) D Ingle;

6) "Skeleton Boy" (2008) MacFarlane, Gibson;

7) "He's Misstra Know It All" (1973) S Wonder.