George Washington Zombie Slayer

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This is a work of fiction. Any and all names, persons, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents contained herein are the products of the author’s imagination and used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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right © 2014 by David M. Wiles

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to

MY PARENTS

Anthony and Patricia Wiles

and

Zan Robinson

MY BEST TEACHERS

Chapter 1

     
1743- A Father and Son in Peril

             
The cold, midnight forests of Stafford County, Virginia wrapped the eight worried travelers in a shroud of darkness and isolation. The two white males riding horses noted that the only sounds this night were the raspy breaths of their own nervous horses, and the continual jangling of chains being dragged slowly across the road. The six black males walking afoot behind the riders were all chained together, slaves, shackled in both wrist and leg irons.

             
Augustine Washington cursed his own foolishness for being out in these woods so late into the night. He and his young son, George, were riding home from the annual Buy-One Get-One Free Slave Super Sale in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The sale had gone well and Augustine acquired six buck slaves for his plantation. But the sale had also stretched on almost until dusk. Gus decided on heading back home to the Ferry Farm, rather than spending the night in Fredericksburg. It was a decision he now regretted.

             
There were ancient Indian legends of Bigfoot and werewolves and evil spirits that roamed these woods, but Augustine Washington had never given these legends any thought. As a boy, he once even thought he saw a lone, shaggy bigfoot hiding deep in the Virginia woods. But as an adult, he had dismissed such notions. Yet now, for some reason, he was ill at ease.

             
The necessarily small steps of his six shackled slaves had slowed the progress of their trip home. It was now just past midnight, but they were still well over two miles from the safety of the farm. The senior Washington had an ever-growing sense of unease, a feeling that something terrible and strange awaited them in these dark woods.

             
Augustine grabbed the length of chain secured to the rear of his saddle and gave it a sharp tug. “Come along now,” Gus implored his new slave property. “Come along.”

             
Suddenly from the darkness ahead, they heard a noise which caused them all, riders and horses and slaves, to stop dead in their tracks. It was a noise none of them had ever heard before, a guttural cry somewhere between a human moan, and a growl.

Young George, a naturally fearless
eleven year old lad, remained uneasy in his saddle, reacting to his father’s nervousness and that of the horses and slaves, more than his own. He reached down into his saddle bag and grabbed a long stick, the end wrapped in knotted linen strips soaked in whale oil. Striking a small flint-stone against the pointed, metal tip of the stick, the linen strips burst into a sizable flame, creating a torch which illuminated the group in a dull, orange glow.

“Good lad,” said Augustine to his son
.

“I’ve only
this one torch, Father,” George stated as he turned to his left in his saddle.

“I know,” Augustine replied. “But now is the time we’ll
be needing it.”

They all waited like that for a moment, standing still
and silent, ears alert and eyes straining to see into the darkness. Then, in the road ahead, they saw a sight which would forever haunt the dreams of those who survived this night.

Quickly, for perhaps only a second or two, they saw several sets of reflective eyes coming forward from the forest, eyes lit an unholy red by the flames of their torch. Then they saw the three creatures to which these glowing eyes belonged, human-like creatures that walked like men, indeed dressed as men, but with faces horribly pale and deformed, faces of men become monsters.

Augustine drew his sword and cocked his arm back as if to strike. “
Come thee no further!” he shouted, a hint of nervousness in his exhortation. But the three creatures continued forward and began an immediate attack. The first creature, closest to Augustine, came at him with a murderous growl, and was met fiercely with a slash of sword across its neck. Amazingly, it did not stop! The creature made that growling noise again and seized Augustine by the leg and pulled him from his saddle where he landed hard upon the ground.

Young George took in the scene in an instant and fearlessly leapt from
his horse to help his father. Another of the approaching creatures reached out to grab the young boy, but the athletic and fearless lad ducked under the grasp of the creature and, using his torch like a spear, thrust it deeply into the creature’s neck as it passed him.

The creature stood stunned for a moment, the pointed tip of the blazing torch
still buried deep within its neck. Then suddenly, ignited by the proximity of fiery torch, the creature’s entire head burst into flame!  The flaming monster staggered for a moment, mainly from a loss of balance, and fell backward into a low ditch along the roadside.

The boy
quickly turned to see his father pinned to the road, grappling beneath the creature that had pulled him to the ground. As George approached to assist, he looked on in disbelief and saw his father run his sword right through the very heart of the creature. But the monster did not stop, and kept clawing and grappling with Augustine, trying to bite and devour him!

“George, stay back!” Augustine implored his son, but the directive was entirely ignored. Quickly drawing his own sword from the scabbard
slung along his saddle, George ran towards the creature atop his father and brought his blade down hard, burying it deep between the neck and shoulder of the horrific monster. Amazingly, this normally mortal wound had no effect at all!

“George, run!” Augustine implored his son, looking up at him from beneath the grasp of the deadly creature. But young George, still holding the grip of his sword, gave the creature atop his father a might
y and powerful kick to the head, which sent it sprawling a few feet away.  George reached down and gripped his father by the hand, pulling him to his feet.

“My son, I am… injured,” Augustine whispered to George.
“I am bitten in my nutsack!”  It was only now that George could see severe bite wounds upon his father’s neck, chest, and testicles, bleeding profusely. His father’s knees gave way but before he could fall, George grabbed him around the waist and laid him across the back of Gus’s own horse.

George was only now conscious of the horrific screams behind him as the third monster, and the
other one he kicked off his father, set themselves upon the helpless slaves that lay chained in line behind Augustine’s horse. Within only a few seconds, the slaves were nearly all dead, being devoured by these two unholy creatures.

Looking more closely, young Washington
could see only the last slave chained there was still alive, a young lad about his own age, stricken with absolute terror. Saying nothing, George reached into his pocket, pulled out a small brass key, and skillfully unlocked the saddle chain as well as the wrist and leg irons, freeing the slave boy from his shackles. George jumped back into the saddle of his own horse, and grabbed the reins of his father’s horse with his free hand. His father Gus now lay motionless, slung across his saddle.

Young Washington
and the slave boy could hear the ghastly noises of the two cannibals devouring the remaining, helpless slaves. Just then, from behind the two young men, an unholy sight appeared which filled even the fearless heart of young George with disbelief. From the ditch along the road, aglow and demon-like, rose the creature George had first struck, its entire head still aflame! It stood and walked towards them, making that guttural, inhuman growl, approaching them like an unholy beacon of death.

George looked
down from his horse at the now-unshackled slave boy. “Are you able to run?” George asked the terror-stricken young slave.

“Oh,
mon! You-god-damn-mother-fuckin’-right I can run, mother-fucker!” the slave quickly responded.

With that, George spurred his own horse forward, guiding his father’s horse beside him,
galloping quickly away from this evil encounter. At a terror-induced run, the slave boy kept good pace with George, even on foot, and they all quickly left their flaming nemesis and the other evil cannibals far, far in the distance and the darkness.

Chapter
2

S
elf-Sacrifice

             
The first rays of sunrise were just breaking over the horizon as Mary Ball Washington cast another worried gaze down the long dirt road that led to the main gate of the Ferry Farm.  She had expected her husband Augustine and son George to arrive late yesterday, but they had never returned. After a few troubled hours of restless sleep, she now cast regular, anxious glances out her kitchen window every few minutes.

             
Mary screamed as she saw her son approach on horseback, guiding her husband’s horse beside him.  Augustine lay slung across his saddle, motionless, perhaps dead. Running to the door, Mary quickly called to her young house slaves.

             
“Oprah! Beyonce! Come quickly!”  Mary cried.

             
“I’m here, Miss Mary,” Beyonce said. “What’s wrong, Missus?” she asked.

             
“Colonel Gus has been hurt,” Mary said excitedly. “Go to the stables and fetch Denzel and LL Cool J!” Beyonce ran out the rear door of the kitchen.

             
Teen slaves Denzel and LL Cool J arrived quickly, nervous at being summoned to the main house with such urgency. Beyonce trailed right behind them. Mary was on the front porch when they arrived, just as George rode up, guiding the horse carrying his unconscious father.  Mary stared silently at her son while clenching a closed fist in front of her mouth, uncertain if her husband was alive or dead.

             
“Father is alive, but badly hurt,” George said to his mother.  “Carry the Colonel into his room and lay him on the bed,” George directed the two male slaves. LL Cool J and Denzel gently, carefully lifted Augustine Washington from across his saddle and carried him to his bedroom in the east corner of the house. Mary gasped as she saw the torn sleeve of George’s pale blue riding jacket, tied around her husband’s neck as a makeshift bandage.  It was soaked with blood.

             
“I stopped several times to bandage him,” George told his mother, “but he’s lost much blood.”

             
Oprah came running and stopped beside Mary on the porch. “Oprah, take the carriage and go fetch Doctor Pepper,” Mary directed.  Oprah immediately set off to the carriage house.

             
“Are you all right, my son?” Mary asked, noting the blood on George’s shirt.

             
“I was not injured,” George replied, as Mary now noticed the young slave boy standing beside George’s horse.  “Take the horses to the stable,” George ordered the young slave, pointing to the stable across the yard.  “Beyonce,” George said to the house slave, “go prepare some hot water.” She returned immediately into the kitchen to boil some water in the open hearth.

             
“What happened?”  Mary asked her son as they made their way to Augustine Washington’s bedroom.  “Was it Indians?”

             
“No,” George replied curtly. “Not Indians.”

             
“Bandits, then?” Mary questioned further. “Or an animal?”

             
“No,“ George replied.  “We shall discuss the attack later,” George added, “once we have seen to father.”

             
Hours passed as wife and son sat at the bedside of Augustine Washington, waiting for Doctor Pepper to arrive from his nearby plantation. Beyonce returned and cleaned the Colonel’s neck, chest and testicle wounds with warm water, and changed his bandages every 30 minutes or so. George and Mary took turns holding fresh bandages tight against the left side of his neck, covering the largest bite wound that bled so profusely.

             
When Doctor Pepper arrived by carriage to the Ferry Farm with Oprah, he was taken immediately by George to his father’s room.

“This is very bad,” Doctor Pepper stated solemnly after removing the bandage
s and inspecting the wounds closely. “Got him right in the nuts, too. What happened to him?”

“He wa
s…bitten.” George replied. “I’m not sure by what,” he added truthfully.

Doctor Pepper was one of the foremost physicians of his day, skilled
in the most modern and effective techniques known to medical science. “I shall apply leeches to bleed the patient, and prepare a mustard plaster for treatment of the bite wounds,” he solemnly pronounced.

Doctor Pepper bared the chest of his patient and reached into his black leather medical bag, removing a capped glass jar of leeches in pond water. He applied the leeches liberally to the patient’s chest, and prepared a large bowl of mustard plaster, whic
h was then applied over the bite wounds. He gingerly removed the leeches after they had their fill of blood, and placed them back into the jar. He then applied fresh bandages to his patient’s neck, chest and balls.

“Apply the mustard plaster twice a day, and keep changing his bandages,” prescribed the Doctor. “There’s no more I can do. It’s all in God’s hands now,” he added.

Doctor Pepper took his customary fee for medical practice:  One gold piece, a bushel basket of vegetables, and what he referred to as “a quick poke” with one of the female plantation slaves of his choosing. In this instance, a slave named Layla became the kind recipient of the doctor’s ‘southern hospitality.’

Several days passed with Augustine Washington
remaining unconscious, his condition worsening. His skin became deathly pale with eyes sunken deep, and dark black rings forming around the eye sockets. His body temperature dropped, and he seemed cold to the touch.

George tended to the management and affairs of the farm, stopping in to
see his father regularly, with Mary remaining ever-present by her husband’s bedside. Always pragmatic, George was not hopeful that his father would recover but he tried to remain optimistic in sight of his mother.

George saw to the
registration of slaves who resided at Ferry Farm, and the newly purchased slave boy who had survived the trip with him was placed in the capable hands of Mr. Kindly, the youthful farm manager and slave overseer.  The new slave boy was scrubbed fresh and clean in the pond with lye soap and a wire brush, and had his head shaved bald to remove any lice or parasites.  To keep him healthy, he was force fed a tonic of turpentine and rye whiskey to purge his bodily humours of any imbalance. He was given the required buttock-branding, with the word W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N branded upon his ass. Not surprisingly, as a ten letter brand, it required both cheeks and a considerable amount of howling. Lastly, Mr. Kindly gave each newly arrived slave a good whipping, “for their own good,” Kindly stated, “so they know their place and learn who’s in charge.”

The last step of the Ferry Farm new slave orientation process was the assignment of a name. Here the slave boy objected, saying that he was already properly named in his homeland of Jamaica. But both George and Overseer Kindly agreed that
the birth name of Ganja Reefer-King Mutumbo would not do at all. Thus, George assigned to the young slave the name of Reebock, a type of African gazelle, as the boy’s new American name, in reference to the lad’s speed and African heritage.

Two weeks had now
passed since Augustine Washington had been attacked and he clung stubbornly to life.  George worked until dusk in his father’s study, and now entered the Ferry Farm stables just after sunset to find Reebock there sitting alone smoking a small, hand rolled cigarette.  George spoke candidly to this slave, as he was perhaps the only person who would be able to discuss this specific topic with him.

“Have
you given any thought to the…creatures… that attacked us?” George asked directly.

“I have tried for deez last two weeks to avoid tinkin about dem,” Reebo
ck replied. “But in my country, dey have legends of such men. Legends of the undead. Voodoo magic. Dey call them…Zombies!”

“Zombies,” George repeated, contemplating the attack upon his father. “They are formidable,” he stated.

“Dey are evil,” Reebock said as he sat smoking a small, rolled cigarette, pinched gently between his thumb and forefinger. George had smelled this strange herb several times before. The smell was markedly different from that of tobacco, one of the main crops of the Ferry Farm.

“What is that strange herb you smoke, Reebo
ck,” George asked with genuine curiosity.

“Weed,
” Reebock replied, taking a slow, deep inhalation. “Dis’ here from my personal stash.”

“It’s a weed?” George
inquired.

“Not
a
weed, it
is
weed,” Reebock clarified, getting only a strange, quizzical look from his master. “You know man, black seed, astro turf, mary jane?”  George still looked puzzled. “Black gungi, bobo bush, Reefer rope, skunkweed, puffinstuff, you know…marijuana?”

“I know this not,” Washington replied truthfully.

              “Well then,” Reebock said, handing George the un-lit end of the rolled cigarette. “Have a hit of this my man.  Breathe in the sweet aroma of my homeland and de-stressify yourself.”

             
George took a long, deep puff and coughed a few times.

             
“That there’s pure Jamaican,” Reebock stated.

             
“It’s a bit harsh,” George noted, still coughing.

             
“Aww, that’s just the first hit,” Reebock explained. “You getting’ acclimated.”

             
“Mmmmmm, “George said as inhaled again. In a few moments, he could indeed feel a relaxing sense of serenity wash over his troubled mind, a sense of both pleasure and relaxation.

             
“Dat’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Reebock said. “What you feelin’ now is the love of the Jamaican Gunji Queen.”

             
“Her love is indeed potent,” Washington concluded, inhaling the last of the herb. “Perhaps we shall consider planting it during the next crop rotation.”

             
Just then Oprah burst into the stable, rushing up to the startled young men.

             
“Massah George, yer Mama is a-callin for you! Yer Father Colonel Gus has done woken up!” Oprah exclaimed.  George rushed from the stables and back to his father’s room in the main house. But whatever blossoming hope George felt at his Father’s newfound consciousness was quickly extinguished as he entered the room.

             
Augustine Washington was now nearly unrecognizable as he sat up in bed, his eyes straining to stay open. His pale flesh and sunken eyes gave his face a skeletal look that George felt was a certain portent of death.

             
“You father wishes to speak with you,” Mary Washington said simply, and walked from the room.

             
“I have spoken with your mother regarding our family affairs, and all is in order,” Gus said to his son. Then, to George’s shock and amazement, his father swung his pale legs over the side of the bed and made a wobbly effort to stand. “Here, boy, help me up,” Gus ordered.

             
Gus placed his arm across his son’s strong back, while George gripped him gently around the waist. Gus put on his long overcoat, which was now many sizes too large for his emaciated frame and began walking towards the bedroom door.

             
“Help me to the work shed,” Gus said resolutely. George grabbed the small lit candle and holder from the bedside table and walked with his father out of the bedroom. Augustine Washington spoke carefully and thoughtfully as they made the slow walk to the work shed out behind the stables.

             
“I fear I have been…infected with whatever malady afflicted those poor souls that tried to devour us,” Gus stated plainly. “I have heard tales of such creatures, of dead walking, feeding off the living, but always thought such tales were told only to frighten children. I now know otherwise. I just wish it wouldn’t have bitten me on my fucking balls.”

             
“I was frightened, father,” George admitted. “Both then and now.”

             
“Aye you may be frightened, George,” Gus explained. “And such fear is a wise thing, a good thing. But you are no child. You have seen nearly eleven summers, but you are more of a man now than most men shall ever be. You shall bear our family honor and our legacy unto greatness,” Gus stated as they unlocked and then entered the work shed. “Of this I am sure.”

             
George set the candle down to illuminate a shed that was an overflowing storehouse packed with lumber and nails, panes of glass, iron tools, saws, ropes, shackles and chains, casks of gunpowder, knives, muskets and the various valuable odds and ends needed for the operation of a large southern plantation. Gus sat upon a wooden stool and drew his son in close.

             
“I have been having dreams, son,” Augustine said ominously. “Dark, frightful dreams of being dead and yet walking among men. Dreams with evil thoughts in which I am craving the taste of human flesh!” he whispered energetically, almost frantically.  “I would not have that happen. I
will not
have that happen. I will not become one of those poor, soul-less creatures that tried to feed upon us. And yet, how do you kill that which is already dead?”