Chapter 41

It was a long sleepless night for Al. He was up and moving down to the street long before the sun broke the eastern horizon.

Throughout the city homes were opened to the starving people. On Broadway Avenue Al came to a house. Its doors were thrown wide open and the sweet aroma of breakfast filled the street. A long line of people had already formed when Al arrived. He took his place in the line and waited quietly for the food to be served.

When Al finished eating and left the house he walked slowly toward the docks, where he would help pay for the meal.

The sun was up; skies clear, another hot day. The stench at the docks was nearly unbearable. With the added heat of the coming day it would become intolerable.

A block and a half from the morgue he had seen the day before, Al began gagging. The odors, the putrid produce on the docks and the corrupted flesh doubled him over pulling at the food in his stomach. Two mouth-filling gags were forced back down before Al was able to right himself and continue on. His stomach threatened to rebel again at any moment.

At the morgue only a few live men were visible, they were the doctors and two town leaders. They talked.

“We have got to do something with these bodies before we have an epidemic and kill what's left of the city,” one of the doctors stated.

In response another said, “They're burying them as fast as they can. They just keep finding them faster.”

“Something else must be done. We can't continue on this way,” from a third.

One of the two representatives from the city now spoke up, “Last night it was agreed that, with your acquiescence, we would begin to load the bodies on board barges, so they can be buried at sea. We must dispense with these time consuming processes of identification and notification and dispose of the bodies as quickly as possible. Do you agree with that?”

Everyone felt it was a good plan.

“Who are we going to get to load the bodies?” one doctor asked.

The second city man answered, “Major Fayling is rounding up volunteers right now.”

A group of men came into view. They were being headed toward the morgue, driven there like a herd of cattle by mounted troops.

As they approached Al, one of the outriders called over to him, “You there, get over here. They need you at the morgue.” Al did as ordered.

The impressed gang of men stood about the morgue under close scrutiny by the troopers as they waited for a barge to be towed in.

The barge, well over a hundred feet long, was tied up within fifteen feet of the morgue. The tug that brought it quickly left the area. A wide, wooden plank was laid as the gangplank between the dock and the barge. The plank was still wobbling from being dropped into place when the waiting men were ordered, “Start loading those bodies!”

No one moved to comply. First one, then another trooper pulled out his pistol until they were all soon armed. The guns were pointed at the crowd of men.

Al was the first to move toward the bodies. He stopped at the first corpse, a man near fifty years of age. The body was bloated with gases, the face a discolored mass of hideous flesh. The eyelids were closed put the pressures on the eyeballs, forcing them out of their sockets, had begun to spread the lids back open. He had died fully dressed, coat, tie, vest, etc. At the knotted tie the neck flesh had begun to overflow the collar, attempting to bypass its restraints. The suit was tightly stretched out by the swelling flesh. The enlarged chest tugged grotesquely at the vest buttons.

Al took hold of the shoulders of the coat and began to pull the body down to the barge. The smell was horrible. The men, those on foot and those on horseback, all silently watched in fascination as Al drug the body slowly seaward. A thin, young black man stepped out of the crowd and walked over to where Al struggle with the body. Al looked up into the man's face. He nodded curtly to Al then stooped and grasped the pant cuffs of the dead man. Together the two lifted the body and carried it onto the barge.

The barge was of wood construction. There was a low wall surrounding the outer edge of the deck surface. The two carried the body up to the front of the barge opposite the dock and carefully set it down. Others were now beginning to help.

Al and his partner had to wait at the gangway for a body to be brought down before they could pass. Once back on the dock Al called out to no one in particular, “We need another plank to leave the barge.” One of the troopers found another plank and laid it down for their use.

The day began to warm up. Bodies continued to be brought into the morgue. The reeking gases were such that no one could become accustomed to them. Armed troopers continued to oversee the loading.

Early mid-morning a wagon pulled up to the barge. It was the first wagon anyone had seen in the last two days that was not carrying any dead. A barrel of whiskey was its fare.

The workers all stood in awe of the barrel, relishing thoughts of its contents. The wagon's driver tied off the reins and hopped to the ground on the side nearest the barge.

“One of you men,” he called out to the loaders, “come over here and help me unload this barrel.”

There was a mad dash over to the wagon by nine of the men. They shouted and squealed in delight, easily unloading the whiskey.

“I was told to set it up over there by the leaving plank,” the driver said. The barrel was rapidly rolled over to the barge's second plank and righted.

“This here is a 'thank you' from the city,” he said and he broke open the barrel's top, sloshing whiskey out over the ground. The men, troopers included, rushed for a drink. Fighting broke out at the barrel.

Blam! Blam! Two shots from a pistol were fired up into the air. The men about the whiskey stopped and looked around them. Off to the right of the morgue, astride a tall horse, sat a dapper, older man in military dress. The pistol in his right hand still smoked.

“You troopers, back to your positions!” he ordered. The guards scurried back to their former places. “You men loading bodies,” he addressed the group. “That drink is for those who exit the barge after bringing on one of the dead. Anyone who takes a drink without having done his job will be shot on sight. That's an order.” The man holstered his pistol, spun his horse about and was gone. That had been Major Fayling.

The troopers were sullen at their loss of a drink but they were fixed to their purpose, to see that the bodies were disposed of. The workers at the barrel readily saw this and without a murmur went back to work. Some of them ran to the morgue to hasten their first drink.

The day turned into an endless cycle, pickup a body, carry it down to the barge, cross the springy gangplank, place the body on the barge, cross the second swaying plank, stop at the barrel, using the tin cup placed there, take a drink, then move back up to the morgue and begin again.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

At first the drink had lightened the process but resolutely, it lapsed into a silent, shuffling procession with the whiskey acting as both the anesthetic and the stimulant to the proceedings.

At noon there was no thought given to eating. Nothing could have been retained in the strongest of stomachs. The alcohol stupor allowed the relentless march to continue.

Stepping off of the barge, reaching the barrel Al found boxes of great, fat cigars and matches. The man before him lit up and began puffing away. Al followed suit. He hoped the smoke would lessen the smell. Al found nothing overpowered the smell of death in Galveston.

Again, the day was hot. The tin roof of the morgue baked the air under it. Still more bodies arrived.

Their strength sapped by the heat and the drink, the men became less concerned about the feelings of the dead. They dropped bodies, tossed them, prodded them onto the barge. The dead made wet sounding thuds as they fell into place.

The facts of the job were brought into bright relief when one man, young, apparently educated, bolted from the barge.

“I won't do it any more! I won't, I won't!” he screamed.

One of the troopers, an older mustached man, came up to him and ordered, “Get back to work or the whole city could die.”

“I won't, I won't,” the young man screamed.

The trooper pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the man's head. The man still screamed his refusal. The trooper fired, blowing a huge hole in the man's head. No one said anything. The cycle, never pausing, continued. The young man's body was added to the barge.

Near night fall the barge was filled with over seven hundred dead. A tug came in to tow it out to sea for the burials.

“Some of you there stay on board,” someone order. “They need you to help out at sea.” Al complied. He had lost all volition.

The tug pulled them out to sea. The sun in the west was sinking in a cloudless blaze.

From the tug someone called out, “You can start pitching them out now. Be sure you tie some weights to them.”

This was worse than the loading. Al picked up a piece of scrap metal that was to serve as a weight and looped a length of the supplied rope around it. Then he tried to tie the other end of the rope to one of the bodies. The rope was wrapped about the ankle of a small man. When Al pulled the rope tight it burst through the putrescent flesh, severing the foot from the leg. Al was overcome by the sight and smell. He began retching violently. The others on the barge, seeing the result of trying to weigh the bodies, began dumping them over board as rapidly as possible. No one on the barge or the tug commented on the sea of bodies that floated around them.

Chapter 42

It was the third sleepless night in a row for Al. He lay down in his place of the previous night after leaving the emptied barge at the dock. The bodies of the three looters were gone.

Exhausted, Al lay on the hard rubble and stared into space. The images from the day filled his mind. Grotesquely bloated bodies, reeking, nauseating odors, putrid flesh sheering off at his touch; the day raved at his senses. Intermittent gunfire sounded throughout the night as the militia troopers fought to keep looting in check. The night was long.

Before first light the aroma of cooking food brought Al to his feet. He returned to the kitchen of yesterday. Filled with the warmth of bacon, grits, eggs, and coffee Al once more headed to the docks. There was much still to be done.

Before he could reach the dock Al was intercepted by a young trooper pushing a volunteer before him.

“You there, mister,” the youngster called to Al. “Come along with me. They need your help at the beach.”

“The beach?” Al repeated puzzled. “I was going to the morgue to help.”

“They don't need the help at the morgue,” the lad, who looked all of seventeen, said. The three of them were now moving along together. The other man sullenly quiet. “The beach is the problem.”

Al shortly saw it for himself. The beach, as far as he could see in either direction, was littered with bodies. The dead tossed into the sea last night had come home.

Hundreds of men were working on the beach, burying the bodies where they lay. Al lost sight of the lad and his volunteer when he began to work.

Many bodies were washed up high on the beach. Here the men were able to dig shallow graves and cover the bodies quickly. The dead near the water line were a different matter.

Digging a grave was impossible, within inches of the surface the grave would begin to fill with water.

Orders were given to burn the bodies. Crews were organized to bring in wood for a pyre; others began to gather the bodies into great piles.

The flesh that yesterday had been bloated was now of a jello like consistency. Whenever Al touched flesh it would burst open, putrescence flowing out. The dead that were clothed were pulled along the sand, the clothing the only handhold. The nude bodies were impossible to manage.

Grasping an arm, the corruption flowed over Al's hands. Pulling on it, the arm popped off from the body. Al dropped the limb to the sand and ran down to the ocean to wash. Detached limbs, hands, and feet floated in the surf. Other men tried using the hair on the bodies as a handhold. The hair came out in handfuls, the heads pulled off.

A pyre was started on the beach; the smell of burning flesh filled the air. The men were forced into carrying the bodies, part by part, to the fire. The fire leaped and roared. The heat was awesome. Those troops that had bayonets used them like pitchforks to move the rotted flesh.

From the dock area and other parts of the city great billows of smoke began to rise skyward as Galveston began to burn its dead.

In the afternoon, with the beach cleared of the dead, Al began working in the city. At first trenches were dug, then they were filled with alternating layers of bodies and wooden debris. When filled, oil was poured into the trenches and then set on fire. This progressed too slowly for the safety of the city. A new approach was adopted.

The cleanup crews worked two square blocks at a time. As they sifted through the rubble they moved any bodies they found to the center of the area and piled them there with lumber gathered for fueling the cleansing fire. And they were set aflame. As many as a dozen pyres burned at a time throughout the day and on into the night.

On his way to rest in the rubble pile that he felt of as home, Al stumbled, from fatigue, along the partially cleared street. The light from the blazing, crackling pyres lit the night. The dense smoke from the fires blighted the night air. The smell from the pyres was a relief from the odors of the dead.

The pyre nearest Al's home was several blocks to the west. It was dark about the base of the mound; only things very close at hand were discernible. Al sat down for a moment's rest before starting upstairs.

“You,” someone called out slyly from the darkness.

Al was startled. Looking in the direction the voice came from he stood up slowly. “Who is it?” There was no fear in Al's voice, only fatigue.

“It's me, bubba,” the voice coyly replied.

Al remembered the voice. He tried to place it but could not in his exhausted state. He stared out into the darkness, smoke drifted over his head as the wind shifted.

There was a movement off further to his right. Al shifted in that direction. A black shadow leaped into his view. Al saw filthy fingers clutching at the brick they held. They were coarse fingers, ruff with labor. The nails were torn short to the quick, but not short enough to keep dirt from piling blackly under them.

The brick grew in size as Al watched its approach. Every line, every crumb of mortar on it was emblazoned into Al's mind. The brick bashed into Al's left temple, sinking deeply into his brain. He collapsed in one heap, dead.

There was an obscene laugh, followed by, “I told you nobody got away with hitting me you son-of-a bitch! Who's on top now, huh?”

At the base of the rubble that had been home, Al lay dead, Jimmy Stubber glowering above him.

Chapter 43

Mary sat in the doctor's office waiting to be told what she had known for two weeks. She had to have it vocalized though. It had to come from someone else.

Doctor Peters spoke, “Mrs. Martin, I'm sorry. Your husband has been here for four weeks now with no change. Everyone I have consulted is in agreement, physically he is fine. His brain is active. His vital signs are excellent, but it still remains he is in some form of a coma. We feel that a private home could better serve your husband’s needs. It would also be less costly for you.”

Mary heard nothing further of the conversation. She was not angered, or hurt. She knew it was the truth, had known it for weeks. Al would have to be placed in a nursing home.

It was a new year, a new life. Mary went back to work as soon as she could, hoping to put the agony of the ordeal behind her. Al was one of those people you read about, one of the living dead. Soon only the doctors, with her permission, would be keeping him alive. It was a responsibility she would handle.

The phone on her desk rang. Mary answered it, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Martin, this is Robin. I hope I'm not bothering you?”

“No Robin, of course not. What can I do for you?” Mary asked.

“Really, nothing,” Robin said. “I just wanted you to know that Al will be alright. He is someone special. Someone I believe in. I know he'll be okay.” There was a catch in Robin's voice and she stopped.

“Thank you, Robin,” Mary said. “I think you're right. He will be all right soon.”

There was silence on both ends of the phone before Mary spoke again, “Well, Robin, I'm glad you called but I need to get back to work. There's so much to do here.”

“Sure, Mrs. Martin. It was good talking to you. Take care of yourself.”

“Thank you, Robin. You take care also. Good-bye.”

“Bye.”

Mary hung up her phone quickly. The tears began to flow down her cheeks. Her head lowered to the desk and rested on her clasped hands for a few moments. Then she raised her tear-streaked face from the desk and cried out into space, “Al, I love you. Please come home!”

The End