Setting Sun

Setting Sun

    I grasped the nozzle in my hand, flipped the cold brass switch and unleashed a gale torrent of super cooled propane.  The final moment: In that endlessly divisible split second that separates warmth and light from cold afterlife I cracked the steel zippo, thrust my Prometheus spark, and cowered behind the spout.  Licking yellow firelight revealed pallid flesh; bubbling lips, cataract eyes.  Their undead silhouettes tumbled from my circle of hellish sight, leaving tortured groans and smoke trails.  I receded into the shadows and fumbled my six shot with sweaty hands.

    I scanned the line of dark and night.  The chain link of the fence behind me cackled a scraping, metal laugh and startled the now silent moonscape.  Every shadow quivered; every dark spot purred.  The world was scrabbling to regain some shred of lost sanctity; a lost planet-pendulum teetering on an awful brink. And I was a holy ghost in a valley of despair.  I kissed the cross around my neck and forced a step forward.

    Bang!  An empty soul cast a jagged finger and I released.  That moment was forged by gun barrel sunlight, illuminating blood soaked jowls and hideous crackling teeth.  A gnashing canine death rattle.  A human cry broke my nerves wide open.

    "Jayce!" the voice cried, soft but like gravel.

    My mind echoed.  She should have been away, far away, by now.  Instinct told me to flee.  Love told

me to run; run through the dark mob, kicking and screaming a Moorish battle cry, as if rending my way from a forsaken womb.  I was in an astral state as I charged full throttle through the dead ones.

    A light from just beyond the divide.  Shawna.