For Children of Sands

With a southern smile he don't seem cold
Drive right through to a Midwest storm
There's a broken heart across the field
Where the sun don't shine and the wounds won't heal
With a sober smile I can't sit still
Gonna leave this life and you know I will
With all I've lost and all I hold
There's a need in me to lose control

4 years previously…

The rapid beat of drums still bounded through the confined dark underground club. Coloured lights irregularly illuminated the moving masses of tightly pressed bodies, they had all forced their way towards the stage on which a group of amateur high school rockers bled out their hearts to their audience using their smoke scratched voices and poorly tuned instruments.

Through the haze of alcohol CC couldn’t remember the bands name, he couldn’t even tell what they were wailing about either. With a pounding headache, sore ankles and a dry throat he draped himself across the the bar counter top and clung onto the time polished wood. The bartender didn’t waste a glance on CC. He muttered along with the songs that he didn’t even recognise and stamped his feet along with the bass drum beats that didn’t make his heart bound in sync. In the most honest sense, CC simply wanted to strangle the drummer and throw him off the stage. It was only wishful thinking.

Eventually, CC forced himself to face the crowds of mindlessly bored 80’s rockers and senselessly screaming teenage girls who scrambled towards the stage, towards the pretty boy with a fucked up microphone. Through the veils of cigarette smoke with a sobering glare CC glanced across to the far corner of the hall and most accidentally spotted a girl being pressed against the wall by who must’ve been her boyfriend who was showering her in lustful kisses. It wasn’t the girl that caught CC’s eyes - she wasn’t up to his taste - it was most unfortunately her ‘boyfriend’. He was covered in black denim and leather which was laden with studs and stained in pen, his hair was a black mused disaster onto which the girl desperately clung.

Once the girl had escaped the strangers embrace and merged with the shouting crowds, the stranger turned around and rested against the cracked badly painted wall. With heavy lidded eyes and heaving breaths the man wiped away the traces of the girl’s crimson lipstick from his lips with his middle finger. The stranger must’ve caught CC staring as he began provocatively biting down onto the red stained finger and a devious smile spread across his lips. Eventually they caught each others eyes through the crowd. CC’s breath caught in his throat. He wished he was drunk beyond the reach of memory as he pressed his flushed, make-up and sweat streaked face against the cool wooden surface of the bar.

During the night, CC had lost track of the stranger in the crowd. Out of pure modesty or maybe just sympathy for his dignity CC refused to drink anymore and decided to sing along with the next band which had made and appearance and brought the crowd back from their dazed zombie state. From time to time, CC would catch a glimpse of familiar knotted black hair and the studded leather jacket, but it could’ve been anyone.

2 months later…

Life seemed to have become routine of work, music, drinking and four hour sleep. It was the same mundane grey cycle that CC never seemed to break. Work. Music. Drink. Sleep. Repeat. Work. Music. Drink. Mental break down. Repeat. Maybe he should’ve been more thankful for the years in high school, for the kingdoms of never done homework, for the detentions and being slammed against lockers until he heard his ribs and spine crack.

As CC stumbled out of the backdoor of the suffocating alcohol drenched tiny venue he pondered on the number forty-two and why the fuck he couldn’t walk in a straight line. He could still feel the bass drum sending the S.O.S. messages pounding through metal and concrete. Poor thing, kids don’t know how to treat such a beauty, CC thought in a drunk haze.

If it had not been for the dogs and the sharp cries of pain CC could have just stumbled past the unfolding scene. A group of darkly clothed, heavily cursing men with dogs on thick chains seemed to have been crowding around a slumped figure which they had cornered against the tall red brick wall. The men which had no leashes in their hands held bats and brought on heavy hits onto the curled figure which continuously wailed in pain. The dogs seemed to have been participating too. CC could hear the tearing of cloth and the sound cracking bones.

In that moment it was either heroic bravery that took over CC’s mind or pure stupidity. He could never recall what he called out to the attacking gang, he could only remember the red veil of rage that took over him and then their sneers followed by insults and clamping jaws on his calfs, then on his wrists and solid blows to his remaining intact bones.

Yeah, bravery tended to get him into many stupid situations.

After an unknown period of time CC was awoken by the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor. An old unwelcome friend. Another pounding song joined in sync. Gradually, one heart beat began to rise while the other remained slow and calm. A green tinted sharp light scraped against CC’s eyelids which slowly, with a great amount of will, he opened and stared up at the plain white hospital sealing.

Along with a thunderous headache beating through his skull, an itch began to spread through CC’s body. For a moment, he became confused but soon enough remembered teeth burrowing deep into his flesh and took the notorious itch as a sign that his fucked up body was healing. Considering that he was separated by green paper curtains away from the other patient occupying this room - and that there was another occupant - CC could assume that he wasn’t in ICU.

CC surged up from the hospital bed and felt his skin strain, stretching too thin over his bones and needles pressing deeper into the flesh while pulling on thin tubes with channels of pale, milky drug laced streams within. He winced and bit into his bottom lip to refrain from crying out. With more care, CC pushed himself from the bed and swung his legs to press them firmly against the cold floor. With shacking hands CC pushed aside the green curtains and observed the hospital ward which was lit with pale evening light.

The ward was mostly empty except for another bed, it was across the room, up closer towards the window. It seemed to have been isolated from the outside world too by a veil of green, but who ever had visited the patient last had taken less care with closing the curtain and left a gap just large enough for CC to peer through without leaving his bed. The patient was wrapped in bandages and tubes, gashes ran up the exposed tanned skin and bruises marred the flesh, without exceptions for the strangers face. Once CC looked past the injuries and the fatigue written over the strangers features he recognise the man and CC’s breath caught in his chest, just as it had that night. He remembered the flash of a smile in the dark of the club, what a contrast it is to the battered soul who was resting on the hospital bed.

Three days had passed. Doctors and nurses came and went, they all sent smiles to CC and congratulated him on being a decent human being and saving the man from being torn apart by dogs. The police carried on searching for the culprits, they had the tapes from the surveillance cameras from the club but the difficulty was actually finding the scum. “We are getting closer”, they said every time.

On a peculiar morning CC woke up with no IVs burrowing into his flesh and a strange sense of serenity washing through his mind. The green barrier had been removed on the second day of being in the hospital, each morning since then CC was blinded by the godless morning light which aimed to ruin every day that he spent in this damned hospital. But this day, the light seemed pleasant. CC pushed himself up from the cocoon of rustling covers and lazily peered across the room. Instantly, his eyes locked on the figure in the other occupied bed. Today the stranger wasn’t in the same lifeless position but glancing across the room back at CC with a crooked weak smile.

The stranger had introduced himself as Jake. He told him that he heard the heroic story, CC refrained from mentioning that he was drunk beyond belief during that moment and that he would’ve even considered saving a plane from crash landing despite the fact that he couldn’t even drive a car without stalling at some point. They fell into a comfortable conversation and during their drug induced words - as much as he hated to even think it - he seemed to have fallen in love with every detail that he knew about Jake.

Through the days that the two men had become stuck in the hospital ward it hadn’t become a typical friendship but all shy smiles and lingering glances, if one fell asleep first the other would listen to their breathing. In the most sickening way, it sounded like a teen romance novel.

If only it continued in such a way.

Approximately a week after Jake had first awoken the hospital something peculiar had taken place which neither CC or Jake could wrap their minds around until a year later.

It was just another morning, CC was only dozing when he heard the familiar clicking of a doctors overpriced leather shoes. There was something strange to the steps, one foot seemed to drag and too much time had been left between each foot step. At first, CC decided to ignore it until he heard a growl, something between animalistic and human. It finally pulled him from the daze of sleep to come face to face with the strangest scene. A doctor was leaning over Jake - who was still asleep - the doctor’s face seemed to have been pulled into a hungered scowl but his skin seemed to be slipping from his skull and the eyes bulging unnaturally from behind the eyelids.

The creatures ripped lips pulled back to reveal green gums and yellow rotten teeth, it’s misshapen fingers dug into Jake’s soft flesh. In that moment, knowing what would come next CC grabbed the pole to which his IV had been attached to, surged towards the creature and collided the metal pole with the creatures face sending it crumbling to the floor. CC didn’t stop there, he instantly landed another blow after another onto the thing until it became a crumbled mess of blood and flesh.

With caution, CC turned to face Jake. The other man was wide awake and staring in horror, not at CC but at the thing which had been left lying on the floor.

If only the police could have shared the same opinion of heroism, if only CC had simply strangled the monster with a tube instead of smashing it beyond recognition and painting himself into a living horror movie action figure. Maybe he wouldn’t have been dragged away into a mental asylum despite his protests and pleas to give him a moment to explain what he had done. That he isn’t a monster. That he isn’t a murderer.

But who would listen?

They isolated him in a room of pure white with nothing but the cushioned walls and the same jolly little tune on replay. At first, he would rage and throw tantrums by ripping at the walls until blood would seep from under his nails. He would kick at the door and smash his sides against it, over and over. He knew that it was no use, but it was better than crashing a doctors skull against the nearest wall. It wouldn’t have improved his reputation as a sane man.

After he first three injections for the tantrums that he threw and spilling the contents of his stomach onto the floor as a paralysed mess, he learned to simply pace in circles around the room until he would collapse.

After two months without incidents they let him move to a different room which had less of a resemblance of a cage for a wild animal with rabies. But it didn’t make him feel anymore human, even as they let him wear his own clothes. They would still pull the plastic smiles and hand him the paper cups containing his medication. They promised that they would help and make everything better. As he would hide the bitter pills against his teeth a thought would arise, “slit your throats and maybe then you will help me.”

On occasion, he would see other patients. They had merged between something that once could have been called a human and something miserable, lifeless and rather pathetic. They would glare at him with their wide glassy eyes and pull toothless smiles as their withering fingers would cling onto the sterile walls.

He didn’t belong here. No. But that’s what they all said.

On the third month, he was allowed visitors. He was greeted with a crooked smile and a apologetic shy glance. Jake still had purple scars marring his skin, streaking across the tanned expanses of flesh. Jake reminded him how to be human again, he still called him that nickname; ‘CC’. With the greatest joy he noticed that there was no fear in Jake’s eyes neither did he see him as a man with an illness. They drag out the conversation for as long as they could and at the end of the visiting hours Jake leaned over and whispered in CC’s ear, “Thank you, for saving me again.” It was the flaring beacon of hope for CC.

The visits continued. Twice every week, without missing a beat. Jake said he would’ve come every day if not for work and other complications that he wouldn’t mention. He was secretive that way, but it all was for a good measure.

Weeks turned into months, months turned into a year.

Approximately a year and a half after CC and Jake had caught sight of each other in the dark club through the veils of smoke, CC awoke not to screams or the sickly sweet voices of doctors but to silence. He found that the door of his assigned room was opened, he stumble through it to find the corridors empty except for the occasional patient rocking against a wall unattended. There was no security, no nurses, no doctors. Most of the patients had vanished. In a wave of panic CC began to search for an exit out of the asylum.

After several stumbling detours through the wrong corridors CC escaped into the fresh cool morning air to find a world of chaos. There were wailing police sirens, screeches of car tires and panicked screams. A chaotic turmoil of madness.

Through the blurs of colour CC caught the sight of a familiar face; with the same expression of panic Jake pushed through the terrified crowds. They forced their way through the waves of hysteria towards each other and entwined their hands refusing to let go even just for a moment. The next thing that either of them knew was that an evacuation began. Clutches of people were registered and pulled apart into army trucks then they were gone with horror and desperation written on their expressions.

The unaware and the immature had thought that a new war had broke out, maybe a nuclear bomb had been dropped, it was the closest plausible explanation, but of course there would’ve been no running from such a disaster. The army officers had declared an epidemic of what they called C.P.V. (Cannibalistic Parasitic Virus), or in short: the spread of the undead. It had began only as an isolated case, but with a rapid pace it spread through out the country without a reason or a source. It sent the government into madness.

Before CC could declare triumph at his sanity he and Jake were pulled away in a flurry of the panicked to one of the evacuation vehicles. They were registered like animals for slaughter and sent away into some distant foreign lands where they had been promised safety. For them this promised safety had become Texas Eureka, a land of self proclaimed saints and a glimmer of hope.

This is had been one of the many ways in which the epidemic of the undead had began. For some it began with their beloved falling to the disease and them being the executioner, their hearts hardened in an instant; others became heroes in the moment, ignoring the danger, they sought who they held close to their heart; most were clutched from the routine of their daily life without warning, without a final goodbye to all that they knew and loved.

Till I see you, but you don't see me
I bleed you, but you won't heal me
I scream you, but you don't hear me
I dreamed you, but you don't see me
Gonna cross that line, I won't look back
Gonna save myself from the things I lack
With all I've lost and all I'm told
There's a need in me to lose control

Notes