Saving the Dead by Christopher Chancy Page A

straightened. “I’m Willie P. Jackson IV.  I was named after my Daddy, his Daddy, and Daddy’s Daddy.”
    “Well, I’m Leo.  My partner over there is Sam, and the young man is Justin, my paramedic student.”
    Willie latched onto the word. “Partner!  What kind of partner?  Two men should not fornicate!  Lord Jesus says no!”
    “No.  We’re not fornicating,” Ramirez said dead pan.  He pointed a thumb at the flashing ambulance behind them. “We work on the ambulance together?”
    “Oh.”
    “Mr. Jackson, were you bitten tonight?”
    Willie shook his head. “No bites!  The darkness tried to consume me, but it didn’t get me! No!  No!  No!  But it did try to suck away my soul!”
    “So you weren’t bitten by the dead?”
    Willie’s eyes became fierce. “No dead have ever laid their rotten mouths on me!  No!  No!  No!  All that have tried I have sent them down the pit of despair with Satan and his unholy minions.”
    Ramirez nodded. “What division were you in during the outbreak?”
    Willie’s expression changed.  He looked at Ramirez as if he had seen him for the first time. “You served during the outbreak?”
    Ramirez rolled up his sleeve to reveal a crude tattoo of a shield with an interconnected C and Y. “I was in the Thirty-Eighth.”
    Willie nodded. “I was in the Thirty-Fifth.”
    Ramirez gave a low whistle, “The Thirty-Fifth was in the thick of some of the worst fighting during the outbreak.”
    Willie’s eyes looked somewhere off in the distance. “The dark days.  I committed many sins in the shadows that I still beg for forgiveness for.  I killed the living and the dead alike.  I can still hear cries out there!”  He pointed out into the darkness.  His pleading eyes found Ramirez. “You know what it was like.  I can see it in your eyes.  That time has left its mark on you, hasn’t it?” 
    Ramirez unconsciously touched his arm as he answered. “Yes.”
    Willie tapped his head. “Those things that we had to do when our dead began to rise and our living became animals.  Our friends, our families, none of them were immune to Satan’s influence.  Fathers turned against sons, wives against husbands, daughters against mothers, and oh, how the children suffered.  So many of them died in their broken innocence, only to rise again hungry for the light in us all.”
    He wrung his hands like Ophelia, trying to rid himself of blood only he could see. “I remember when the little ones from a collapsed daycare stumbled towards me.  They were so pale.  They should have been beautiful but they were robbed of that!  I didn’t have a choice I had to . . .”
    He stopped abruptly as Ramirez laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”
    Willie nodded, grateful the spell was broken and he did not have to relive those hellishly familiar moments.
    “I prayed to Jesus almighty for his merciful forgiveness.  I promised our Lord that I would never let Satan’s shadows touch me again. I have failed!” he cried. “I was too weak to keep that promise!”
    “Mr. Jackson, Willie, what happened tonight?”
    Willie pointed at the dead streetlamp where Drifts and Justin rummaged around the overturned cart. “I took refuge under that light when Satan used his vile influence on the hearts of these men came wandering up the street.  They were wild with the devil’s drink and they attacked me under my refuge!  They called me hateful names!  They tempted me to leave my light to join them in their wrath!  But I remained strong.  Then they foolishly ventured into the realm of light that Jesus had provided.” He smiled in dark satisfaction. “I quickly showed them the folly of their ways.”
    He grimaced. “When they retreated back into the stronghold of their darkness, they started throwing rocks at me and my light!  The devil used his minions to destroy my light!  They broke the streetlamp and the darkness invaded my soul!”
    “What happened next?” Ramirez asked