Dirt Nap #1
By Kevin Anthony
Copyright 2014
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Word Count – 18, 000
Table of Contents
Stem (noun) – deceased persons who sprouts from the ground post the DP chemical contamination; once their corpse begins to expire, they have the ability to take a dirt nap beneath soil , regenerating their corpse to a nearly living condition; can consume living persons to avoid quickened corpse expiration thus avoiding a lengthy dirt nap
Roam's demise had all started with a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. He figured chewing and swallowing was something he had perfected, especially after eating solids for nearly all the twenty-two years of his life. He crawled across his condo floor towards the kitchen area, his lungs desperate for air. Roam made it to the refrigerator and opened the door to learn the only thing close to a beverage in stock was a bottle of creamy ranch dressing.
Roam’s vision blurred and it was becoming tough for him to maintain his balance. He knew when it came to his life there was only a few seconds left on the clock. His eyes met with the kitchen sink. As he envisioned water coming from the faucet, he could only recall the warning that flashed across the bottom of every broadcast channel for the last two days around the world: don’t drink the water. He weighed dying soon from a lack of air or eventually from the poisonous chemicals from the massive DP chemical spill. The chemical manufacturing company was solely responsible for contaminating various water supplies worldwide, miles of land bordering the company’s plants, and the air that was now declared breathable by medical officials. One choice offered him the chance to say some goodbyes and maybe the time to start and then complete a bucket list.
Roam willed himself over to the kitchen sink, rested against it and turned on the faucet. He angled himself well enough to put his mouth beneath the pouring water that smelled like gasoline and drank. It tasted like tin foil and burnt like fire as it went down his throat. The burning sensation spread from his torso throughout his entire body. Roam was too weak to react to the pain, not even the strength to let out a single moan. The burning sensation faded, along with each of his five senses and everything went dark.
A constant ticking was all that could be heard and darkness was all that could be seen. Roam wondered if this was eternity, laying in a dark room listening to a ticking sound. He was a bit let down, expecting the afterlife to deliver a bit more if he was indeed in a better place or offer a bit less if he was in a worst place. A thumping sound joined the clicking. Each thump was accompanied by a sharp pain in his chest. Roam recognized the thumping sound; it was a heart, his heart, only a bit stalled. It was as if the organ was being poked with a needle for simply doing its job.
Roam opened his eyes and placed his palm in the center of his chest. “Ouch.” Roam cleared his dry throat. “Shit.”
His body ached as he sat up to find himself nude on a metal table. He continued rubbing his hand against his aching chest, his stalled heart still feeling as if it was being pricked with a needle. Around the room surgical equipment was placed on metal counters, cabinets with glass doors contained medicine, a poster promoting sanitation and another of the diagram of the human body was hung against the wall.
Roam narrowed his eyes as he put the puzzle together. “A morgue?” He said, his voice raspy.
His calves quivered as he slid from the table and stood. He walked as a toddler learning to take his first steps over to an area that contained personal items and a mint green colored telephone with the numbers faded on the dial pad. A framed news article that hung above the phone was of a man holding a large sweet potato and smiling proudly. Roam remembered the day the picture was taken, the Sweet Potato Fest two years ago, and recognized the man in the photo, Fred Ochers the coroner.
“I’m still in Moone Crest?” Roam wondered as he skimmed the article to make sure the details matched his memory.
If this was a hospital room, Roam would be more content with the situation, him nearly dying and being in a hospital to recover made sense. Instead, this was a morgue not a place for recovery, just a pit stop on the deceased trip to their final resting place. Still, this morgue, the items the room could all be a mirage.
The pain in his chest stopped, but his heart still stalled on each beat. It was as if the organ refused to go into overdrive no matter how panicked Roam actually felt. He needed some confirmation. Roam needed to know if this was reality and there was one way to be sure that he was still alive in Moone Crest.
He picked up the phone and listened to the dial tone as he tried to remember his best friend’s phone number. It took two attempts for Roam to get the last digit correct, accustomed to just clicking Slade’s name in the contact section on his cellphone. The call went to voicemail during the first attempt. Roam hung up the phone and tried again.
After three rings Slade answered and yawned out, “It’s three PM, who in the hell calls people this early?”
Roam smirked at the sound of Slade’s voice. “Slade you bum, wake up, it’s me.”
Slade groaned. “Me, who?”
“It’s me, Roam.”
Slade paused. “I don’t know who this is but how about you fuck off. I guess the, Slade got tasered on TV, gag has run its course after all these years and now for some psychotic reason it’s time to make fun of me because my best friend died. I will find out who this is and then I’m going to stomp your head in. I don’t-“
“-Slade,” Roam cut in, “It’s really me. Don’t you recognize my voice? This is not a joke.”
“I recognize the voice, but it’s only a cheap impersonation of a dead man.”
“In sixth grade you, Maven and I made a fake InstaFace account to cyberbully Dustin and then deleted it after he tried to kill himself. He was a dick, but we all felt like borderline killers anyways. Afterwards we promised to never speak of it again, especially because the idea of a summer in juvi didn’t sound all that amazing.”
“What the fuck,” Slade said.
“And the account password was ‘dustindadick’.”
“R-R-R-Roam,” Slade uttered. “You’re one of them?”
“Them, who?”
“The Stems? Dead.”
Roam placed his hand against his chest and felt his heart beat once. “My heart beats kinda slow, but I’m alive I think.”
“But it can’t be true. It doesn’t make sense. This is such a messed up phone call.”
“Listen, I’ll be waiting outside of the morgue. I need you to come pick me up and bring clothes.”
“I’m putting on my pants right now, don’t you fucking move. Don’t die again either, I’m on my way.”
“I won’t,” Roam said and softly chuckled.
He hung up the phone and grabbed a white lab jacket that hung near the door of the room and slipped it on. Roam opened the door and peeked out into a short and narrow hallway with flickering fluorescent lights. He entered the grim hallway where a brown couch and a coffee table with tattered magazines piled atop were placed. More framed news articles were hung on the walls that were covered with brown, peeling wallpaper.
Roam started from the room he awoke. It was located furthest from the front door. He passed the locked emergency exit on his right and a door labeled storage on his left. The only doors left for him to pass were an opened office door that was across from the restroom. Roam peeked into the office to find Fred the coroner lounging on the couch napping with a half-eaten sandwich on his belly. On the television aired a football game on mute. Roam snuck pass the office door and left the morgue.
The outside sun left him blind and made his brown skin tingle. As his vision cleared, the more he realized that he was still in Moone Crest. The morgue was located on one of the many side dirt paths in town across from an abandoned cable provider office and a convenience store covered with a colorful graffiti mural and party lights. Roam spotted a tree near the store where photos of the deceased were attached to strings that were tied around branches. The small mountain town obsessed with tree art, decorated trees could be spotted all over Moone Crest and was another confirmation for Roam that he was home. Roam started to walk across the street to see if somebody hung his photo until Slade pulled up in his hooptie SUV.
Slade, his blonde hair messed and face puffy from his night’s sleep, rushed from the car. “I cannot believe it.”
“Slade, you have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
Slade grabbed Roam and hugged him tight. “I thought you died, everyone thought you died. Man, if Fred wasn't so lazy your organs would've been yanked out yesterday and your body reduced to ashes. It's a damn miracle.”
“Wait, turned into ashes?"
Slade released him from the hug. “With no family at all to cover your funeral expenses, they were going to cremate you. I was going to throw one amazing ass funeral party once I got paid to send your ashes off in style, tossing them off a mountainside. But fuck that, I get to save my paycheck and my best friend is back. What happened? How was dying? I mean…what did you see, feel?”
“I was choking, drank some water, blacked out and woke up here.”
“You’re talking as if you just woke up from a nap, Roam. It’s been four days since your condo maintenance guy found you lying on your kitchen floor without a pulse.”
To Roam, his time of darkness only felt like a few minutes. “I’ve been out for four days?”
“They just put an article in the newspaper yesterday. Roam, you standing before me is just...unbelievable.”
Roam grabbed Slade’s hand and placed it against his own chest. “My heart still beats.”
Slade shrugged. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Give it a second; you have to wait for it.”
Roam’s heart thumped.
“I feel it,” Slade said. “It’s a bit fucking slow, but it’s there.”
“It’s better than nothing.”
Slade removed his hand from Roam’s chest. “When I realized you weren’t joking I figured you were one of the Stems, but then I remembered on the news that they reported the Stems have no memories of their previous life so that just made shit so confusing. Roam, somehow you drank the contaminated water, died and came back but not as a Stem, but just Roam. You know who you are, unlike all the others.”
Roam waved his hands before Slade’s face. “Wait, what do you mean by a Stem? You said that word earlier.”
“The DP chemical spill has really messed stuff up. The chemicals contaminated the water, ground, and air and caused those who’ve been dead for years to rise and some of the newly deceased who’ve died post the contamination to also come back aka like you minus the memory loss and heartbeat. We call them Stems; there's some scientific mumbo-jumbo explanation for the name, something about them being plantlike in a way."
“Wait, as in the, I want to eat your brains type of dead?”
“It’s a bit more complex than that, but yeah.” Slade stepped back. “You aren’t craving brains, right?”
Roam placed his hand against his stomach. “No, not at all. I can’t even imagine that.”
“Well you might not want to eat somebody, but some of the Stems out there do. I’ll catch you up on the ride to work, because if we don’t leave now Tasha will be blowing up my phone any minute threatening to fire me.” He thumbed over his shoulder to the car. “The spare clothes are in the backseat.”
"Good looking out Slade."
Slade started over to the driver’s side. “We also need to come up with a good explanation for your resurrection.”
Roam climbed into the passenger’s seat. “Wait, I forgot about Fred. He’ll wake up and my body will be gone.”
Slade got in the car and started the vehicle. “Don’t worry about Fred; he’s already been raided once by some Stems for all the bodies he was responsible for. A lot of people had warned him and still are pushing for him to add some sort of security system to the place, but you know Fred. He only cares about two things, growing the biggest sweet potato and a six-pack of beer. Once he wakes up and sees you’re gone, he won’t make a fuss about it. I think the last thing he wants is an article in the paper about his irresponsibility. He prides himself on good press.”
“Hopefully, because I don’t want him running around telling people I’m a Stem. I don’t want to be feared.”
“I’ll be the first one to shut him up with my fist. Because it’s what a real friend does.”
Roam smirked at his best friend’s words. He was glad to still be in Moone Crest, alive or close to being so.
Almost every eatery was advertising their variation of a dish that included the town’s vegetable, the sweet potato. And Slade couldn’t drive a block without passing a decorated tree or some type of street art. Roam was definitely in Moone Crest. It didn’t take him long to realize things had changed. Several businesses displayed signs that read, ‘No Stems Allowed’. And he spotted more deputies than he could remember patrolling the streets. Not only were the deputies armed with their issued firearm, but also with a machete.
Roam spotted a heavily tatted Patrick patrolling in a deputies uniform. “They let Patrick be a deputy? Patrick?” He repeated in disbelief.
Slade nodded as he kept his eyes on the road. “Yup.”
“But he’s been on probation since forever. Do you remember when he robbed us after school for our wrestling action figures?”
“It’s called desperation, man. It’s the living versus the dead. If you can wield a machete, you can be a deputy.”
“Are Stems really out there eating people? How long has this been happening?”
“The first Stem to make himself known appeared in Louisiana four days ago. Ever since then they have been popping up everywhere and the world is scrambling to get everything under control. They’re not like the dead you see in the movies, they’re intelligent. There was one on the news requesting private lands for them to take dirt naps in peace.”
Roam narrowed his eyes. “They want to take naps?”
Slade chuckled. “Not, exactly. They reported that somehow the chemical spill blended plant life with the corpse of the deceased who were buried under contaminated grounds. After a couple of hours Stems start falling apart, dropping eyes, limbs and other shit. So, they dig a hole, bury themselves under the dirt and after a couple of hours dig themselves out with all the pieces of their rotting bodies back in place. They call it dirt napping.”
“And why do they need private land to go and put themselves back together again?”
“Because some of us living are digging them up mid-nap and burning them. A blow to the head takes them down, but complete destruction is the only way to make sure they don’t ever come back. A portion of both sides are calling for peace, but life isn’t that easy. We kill them and they kill us. Apparently consuming a human keeps them in good condition longer than taking a dirt nap. Nerds on the internet and shit have been providing better info than our government who’s too busy deciding which parts of the country deserve military protection.”
Roam had not seen one military vehicle or personnel the entire drive. “I guess Moone Crest isn’t on their list.”
“Not at all, but we’ve been holding our own here. Nobody fucks with Moone Crest.”
Roam looked down at his hands. “I wonder what my situation is. I drank the contaminated water.”
Slade stopped at a red-light. “I’m just glad you’re back. The last four days have been brutal without you.”
“Hey boys, got any change,” A female voice begged.
Roam glanced out the passenger window to where a woman approached with her hand held out for change. Her fair complexion was dull and certain areas of her skin had dark spots. She was barefoot, her dark hair dry and hanging loosely down her back. The red dress she wore with the tag still attached looked brand new. The closer she got the more Roam realized what she was. Her irises were the color of the sky on a rainy day and face was covered with patches of dry skin.
She smiled revealing her teeth that were stained grey. “I said, got any change? Help a dead girl out.”
Roam looked over to Slade who was scowling at the woman. “Slade, I don’t know what to do?”
“We work at Mal Mart lady, of course we don’t have any change,” Slade said.
She looked inside the car. “It has to be something in here, check the floors. Don’t be lazy.”
She reached her arm in the car, before Roam’s face, and held her hand open. One of her finger nails dropped in the cup holder.
Roam sat back as far as he could from her arm that smelled like a damp, dirty, mop. “Just give her something.”
“I’m legit broke,” Slade said as he patted his pockets.
The dead woman scoffed. “Fuck this.”
She grabbed Roam by the neck and started to choke him and used her free hand to attempt to dig through his pockets. Slade floored the accelerator petal and sped off, yanking off the woman’s arms along with them. Her arms landed in Roam’s lap, he spread his legs opened and screamed. Slade look in his rearview mirror to see the woman doing her best to chase after the SUV. He grabbed the arms from the lap of a heavily breathing Roam and tossed them out the car window.
Roam dusted bits of her dead skin from his clothes as fast as he could. “Holy shit, what the hell?” He shouted.
“She’ll be fine. All she has to do is take a dirt nap and they’ll grow right back.”
“That would’ve been a lot less disgusting if you just gave her some change.”
Slade shrugged. “Money is tight. That’s why I can’t afford to be late for work like this.”
“Four days and the world has completely transformed. It’s a mess.”
“She was one of the nicer ones; at least she didn’t want to eat us.”
Roam placed his hand against his chest. “If my heart could race it would be right now.”
They pulled into the crowded Mal Mart parking lot. A line extended out the door and two deputy cruisers were on guard. The Mal Mart superstore was the biggest building in all of Moone Crest and the only corporate owned company that managed to maintain a presence in town. Their low-low prices were truly too low to deny. Slade parked in the employee area and grabbed his black uniform vest from the backseat.
He slipped on his vest and adjusted his nametag below the yellow Mal Mart logo in bold letters. “I’m so late.”
“What’s with the crowd? Are we having a BOGO sale or something?”
“It’s been like this ever since Stems popped up. Everybody is buying in bulk and shit in case the world ends.”
Roam got out of the car. “Then corporate must be in profit heaven.”
“Their morning emails are so happy it’s almost sickening,” Slade said as he got out of the car. “I’ll lead you in. My vest is like a VIP pass.”
As they made their way towards the entry of Mal Mart, Roam spotted many familiar faces from around town waiting in line. Judging by the looks of shock and whispers they recognized Roam, the face of a supposed dead man. He was so caught up in witnessing changes around town and surviving a confrontation with one of the Stems, he forgot to put together a believable explanation for his resurrection.
“A Stem,” A woman shrieked out.
Roam tensed up and stopped in his tracks, “I’m not one of -“
He stopped his words mid-sentence as he realized she was referring to an elderly man in line. As the crowd scattered away from the man who held his ear in his hand, some shoppers pointed the two deputies on guard in the Stem’s direction. Roam sped walk to catch up with Slade while trying to watch the scene unfold. A woman threw a plastic bottle toward the elderly dead man and missed. The Stem lunged towards his agitator and a deputy stopped the man in his tracks and shot him in the head. His limp body dropped to the ground and the crowd went silent.
Roam could only imagine that happening to him. He needed to come up with a good explanation for his return and fast.
A towering man with a bushy white beard and armed with a machete in each hand, stood as still as a statue at the entry automatic doors of Mal Mart. He wore a dark polo shirt with the Mal Mart logo stitched on the right breast area and a baseball cap with the word security on it in bold white lettering. Slade grabbed Roam by the arm and pulled him along with him as they passed the man and entered the store.
Roam looked back at the man as he kept forward. “Who is that?”
Slade let loose of Roam’s arm. “That’s Santa, get it? Because of the beard. He’s with Mal Mart security.”
Slade and Roam continued down the main aisle that was located between the grocery and women’s apparel section.
“Mal Mart is the cheapest billion dollar company ever, so security can’t be on their payroll, who do they work for?”
Slade laughed. “It’s shocking, but Mal Mart took out a contract with that scary private security company Shadow Forces. They sent out agents to all the store locations to protect the products…I mean employees”
“I guess Santa is a master at wielding those machetes if he’s guarding this store all alone from Stems.”
“Nope, there’s more of them,” Slade said as he pushed through the employee lounge area.
Roam followed him inside into the room that contained their lockers, a lunch area, bathroom and the store manager’s office. In the lunch area four men wearing security baseball caps were hanging out near the lunch area vending machines. Three of them sat at the lunch table laughing and eating while listening to the man who stood talking. None of them seemed to have any concept of what an inside voice was.
Slade took a seat on the bench by their lockers. “And that’s the rest of Mal Mart security. The oily looking guy with the long dark hair and piercings is Rock. He used to be in a band. I searched them online, they were decent. The ginger one is Cannon. He was raised as a circus kid and used to get shot out of the cannon. The tall, dark and bald dude is Pretti. Apparently a smile and a flex of his pecs make panties drop.”
“And who’s the tatted dude who they’re listening to as if he’s the most interesting man in the world?”
“That’s Hunter Diaz, their leader, comic book extraordinaire and a complete badass. I heard he killed fifty men.”