THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
by Noah Cicero

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nineteen

Tony is hiding behind a house.

He sees one of the undead things walking down the street.

He knows he must kill it.

He stares and sweats.

His balls sweat, it is summer, it is like 90 degrees, the humidity is killing him.

Tony wants to take a bath.

He wants to go home.

Turn on the water.

Sit on the toilet shitting reading a Norman Mailer novel while the water runs.

After the tub is filled.

He wipes his ass, puts the book down and gets in.

He sits down in the tub.

Feels the cool water flow over him.

He smiles.

He washes his ass.

But Tony can’t take a bath.

He must kill the undead humans.

He aims the gun at the dead person’s neck.

He fires.

The head is blown off.

There are brains all over the street.

The body is still walking though.

But it has no direction.

The hands keep touching where the head was.

Tony walks up the headless body still walking and searching for its head.

He shoots the knees of the thing.

It falls.

Tony walks away.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He is confused.

How did this happen?

He thinks.

But it doesn’t matter now.

The dead are walking the earth.

The dead cannot be allowed to walk the earth.

They must be eradicated.

But they are thinking the same thing about him.

Both sides are trying to eradicate the other.

He thinks for a second, “Maybe we could live peacefully.”

But he realizes soon after that, “No, they are dead. Allowing dead people to walk around would be harmful to Our Way of Life.”

He reloads his shotgun and continues blowing the knees and heads off of the undead.

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