He sits up, gaining focus while viewing the TV screen. The volume is forever mute. The color is faded like the bleached terrain outside, basking in hues of gray and rust. The radio is a whisper screeching in the far corner, settled into a nook next to a pile of filthy clothes. It emits an array of clicks, blips and static, epitomizing the final wheezing breath of this dying planet.

Razor, stricken with pangs of compassion (more likely, flushed with guilt), unsteadily props himself up on his hands and knees. He belches and bile fills his mouth. He coughs, spitting the putrid yellow and red fluid on the hardwood floor; it splats, quickly assuming a Rorschach quality. Mesmerized, he searches for faces, secrets, unlocked doors...

Suddenly Razor peripherally glimpses the hypodermic syringe. The needle----

( Something sharp.)

He reaches out and his balance sways, stumbling into the warm fluid, soaking his shirt. But he doesn't realize this. Everything is sucked into oblivion, the comforting vacuum of nothingness...

~

"...why do I persist to report the carnage? Perhaps it is journalistic instinct. Perhaps it abates some of the internal suffering, hoping that I've made a connection with somebody out there, my friends. At least one of you who understands, who is not already grist for the bone mill. [cynical snicker] Perhaps... perhaps it is the knowledge that if I sign-off, well..."

~

There are no dreams, only memories:

Razor bends the spoon, slightly, setting it on the table. It does not wobble. He then rips the end off of a Q-tip, setting the tiny cotton ball next to the spoon. He nervously twists the remains into a question mark. His hands are moist, his heart beginning to race. Anticipation is such a sweet addition to the rush. He taps the dope from its plastic baggy onto the spoon, the specifics of said dope unnecessary, the gist here deals as much with the process as it does with the high; nonetheless, the dope is crank, cocaine's dirty white trash cousin. His anxious fingers are now concrete in precision. He squeezes water from the syringe onto the dope. Flipping it over, Razor uses the plunger end to stir the mixture; it dissolves almost instantly, leaving an oily film over the top. Good. He closes his eyes, his nostrils flare; a hint of ether. Definitely some good shit. Blood sings in his ears. His brain is a beehive----oh, yes, very good shit. His thoughts are focused, streamlined; he is the conductor. He drops the cotton ball into the mixture. It soaks up the liquid like the sponge it is meant to emulate, like the putty of a child's mind. Always wanting more, whether it is knowledge, attention, or satisfaction.

For Razor, it has always been satisfaction. Circumstances have only magnified this desire, altered the means by which his satisfaction is achieved. Now, satisfaction means escape, running away, hopping on the metaphysically mutated freight train raging through his body. He vaguely remembers some ancient classic rock performer's nasal bleat and cackle: All Aboard !

Razor uses the needle end to roll the cotton ball around, making sure to get everything. He puts the flat end of the needle on the cotton ball, drawing the plunger back. He raises the syringe to eye level, admiring the yellowish color. He pulls down on the plunger again, taps the syringe with his forefinger, and watches the bubbles rise. Sweat trickles down the sides of his face. Razor firmly presses the plunger back up. He clenches and unclenches his fist, tightens the belt around his upper arm. The veins protrude like mountains on a relief map. The needle pierces flesh. Razor gets the register; he is perfect as always: blood flows into the syringe. He inhales and exhales, emitting an audible sigh of pleasure.

Now: Razor presses the plunger, slowly ( teetering[patient])---Hold it ( this is better than ),hold it ( any heaven they ... who are they ?),hold it ( could promise ),pulling back on the plunger ( in the afterlife: 1. death 2. hunger ...),jacking off (that's what Metal Fred called it, milking the high, lingering before surrender: teetering...), so good, so good... pressing in again, fully, the freight train in overdrive ( All Aboard! Hahahahaha ...)----Pounding on the door---- shit, the cops----yanking the needle from his arm----

SHITSHITSHIT! (pounding----no, wait---- scratching... )

derailed by paranoia, by...

( scratching ?)

cops?

~

eyelids

quiver in defense

light streaming in like sandpaper ( abrasive----WAKE UP!)

SOUND: scratching at the door, muffled pounding---- the cops? Confusion. Why don't they say something? Why don't they ---( WAKE UP !)

There are no dreams, only memories... and Reality !

The door splints from the pressure. They--- the dead----slowly shamble through the opening; a throng of arms and legs and gaping maws converge to fill the allotted space. Like excrement forcing its way through an ever-widening sphincter, the bodies fill the doorway with disregard toward everything but the purpose at hand: the acquisition of food. They are scavengers driven by the hunger. That is all that they are.

Rubbing his eyes, Razor back-peddles on his rump to as neutral a corner as possible, gagging on their abhorrent stench. His eyes are watery but clear, lucidly soaking in the true Reality manifesting before him. A Reality he had so tried to avoid... to escape from...

The dead, in all their revivifying glory, tear the baby---- what was her name ?----to pieces, clutching and yanking with selfish fingers more akin to vulture's talons. Eyes glazed like slivers of shattered stained-glass hope, patches of skin gray with putrefaction... if there is any skin at all; they are nothing more than the urge: to feed. This point is made abundantly clear by the constantly flexing jaws, chewing air, in desperate search of meat. And when meat is procured, momentarily sated by a fistful of flesh, stringy entrails, or once vital organs: grist for the bone mill.

Sara's scream cuts through the monotony, a jagged, agonizing wail, much like the rotting teeth that penetrates her flesh and unconsciousness. Razor cringes, impotent to react, eyelids slamming shut, fingers plugging ears, trembling. It is not as if he cares; his body coils inward----closing himself off out of a learned, well-oiled reflex of denial. She squirms, but already too many bony fingers dig into the freshly excavated cavity in her abdomen. They scoop her intestines into their dust dry mouths, sucking as a child would on a plate of spaghetti. Her farewell refrain is a gurgling confirmation of participation in the ultimate physical travesty: to be eaten alive, a violation beyond reciprocation. The gurgling coda is eclipsed by one of the androgynous dead----gender and genitals having been withered by the passage of time----as it chews her tongue right out of her mouth.

When Razor harnesses the courage to open his eyes again, it is to the same bleak scenario that closing his lids had blotted out. With dull, machine-like precision, the dead continues to strip the last of Sara's meat from her bones, slurping the final droplets of blood from the hardwood floor. Some even suckle on her clothing----much as a baby would its mother's bosom----drawing blood from fabric, or possibly even sustenance from the very scents that lingered within.

Razor whimpers. It's all his body can muster as a response to the cruel play before him: an improvisation of insanity. All he wants is to be away from this ramshackle theater of the macabre. It, too, is a violation beyond reciprocation, a reiteration of the reality in which he is trapped. Scrunched into the corner, he wishes he were wood, wishes he were able to blend into the wall. His eyes flicker to and fro, still looking for a means of escape... when he spots one.