Manchurian Vaccinate

By Devin Bailey

Part 1: The End Begins

“It’s been a long week dude,” said Mike greeting Wayne at the door.

Since the pandemic began, visits between good time buddies are few and far between. An endless stream of misinformation, political unrest, and general melancholy rolls over the American public and the new normal is just a blurred image on the horizon.

The guys have been friends since high school when Mike gave Wayne his first bump of cocaine, mud digging at the abandoned vermiculite mine during Spirit Week. Years of hard living later, Mike asks,

“Did you bring your guitar?”

“Goddamnit,” Wayne exclaims and hurriedly produces a hooter of a joint to calm Mike’s agitation.

“Here mother fucker,” Wayne lights it and pass it over.

“I guess I can restring the Gibson,” Mike responds, referring to the 1958 Gibson L-5 Wes Montgomery Edition sitting in the guitar stand in the corner. A gift from Mike’s grandfather, Bob, with threat of death if anything were to happen to it. Bob meant every word.

“We’ve gotta run out to grab some beer and a shit ton of meat,” Mike mentions.

“The fuck you need a “shit ton” of meat for?” Wayne asks.

“Allie’s dog is still missing and I figure if the scent trail home has gone cold, she’s damn sure hungry by now” Mike replies.

“Well shit, let’s burn this and ride. I need to tie one on. This is my last Friday before starting K9 training on Monday” Wayne explains.

Wayne is not a cop, far from it actually. He’s just a guy with a love for German Shepherds. He is studying for his certification to train dogs for work.

The guys get into Allie’s FourRunner and head out for the super market on the east side of town. When all the others in its chain were updated it remained dated, as its patrons care nothing for change.

“I got my second shot earlier today, and I ain’t gonna lie, I felt like shit. Like it hurt my bones” says Wayne as he adjusts the radio.

“Fuck that shit dude, they ain’t putting a microchip in me like a fucking dog,” Mike exclaims, “I’ll just get the shit, all they did was rename the flu anyway!”

“Whatever,” Wayne replies as he turns up Hot Legs, a Rod Stewart gems rarely heard on the radio.

Only a short drive later, upon parking ,Mike leaves the SUV running and asks Wayne,

“You sitting here?”

“Yeah man, grab some Heineken.” Wayne replies.

“You know, full disclosure, there’s a .38 in the console. I dunno, thought I’d say something.”

“Thanks man, good knowing I’m covered if shit pops off at Ingles” Wayne quips back.

“Fuck you!” says Mike, flipping Wayne the finger.

He slams the door and realizes he may be too high for this side of town. He exhales slowly and approaches the entrance.

Part 2: When It Hits The Fan

Mike strolls casually, hands in his pockets with a fresh cigarette hanging from his lips. He reaches the entrance with more than half a smoke left.

“Damn these Spirits last so fucking long,” he says as he intently takes a long drag.

Suddenly, like the sounding of the seventh trumpet, every cell phone within ear shot alarms as if there were an Amber Alert. A quiet bewilderment sets over the small town scene.

Just then the automatic doors open and a woman of middle age, wearing the most beautiful heart shaped locket Mike has every seen, crosses the threshold of establishment checking her screaming iPhone.

Everyone’s has received only a single phrase along with the alert:

“Trigger Phase Activate: Kali Yuga Sets”

Mike’s eyes are still on the woman as her eyes turn red as the devils’s dick. The woman charges Mike in a fervent madness he only ever witnessed from a wild animal.

As she reaches him full speed, arms outstretched, he grabs her forearms and rolls to his back. Using the leverage of his pressing his feet against her thighs, he uses her momentum to sending her face first to the pavement behind him.

The injured woman only pauses as if she were recharging the redness of her eyes seemingly weakened by the blow.

Mike turns to see the FourRunner speed off to the other side of the parking lot. He hears chaos in other areas of the store and decides to leave the she-bitch out front take his chances inside.

He runs to the automatic door and scopes the interior of the establishment as he waits for it to close.

Panic and terror grip those not transformed. Mike can only assume the alert had activated these Manchurian candidates. Those sent into a rage are chase those who remained with whatever weapons they can manage in their immediate vicinity.

The automatic doors close and Mike slaps the emergency shut off located immediately around the corner from the entrance. Looking to his right, he cannot believe his eyes.

A boy of maybe 16, wearing an employee uniform and smock attempts to suffocate an elderly man clinging to a walker with a plastic bag in the produce section.

Mike runs over to the boy and golly whomps him with an overhand right Tyson would’ve been proud to have thrown. The boy falls to the ground, out old cold, but oddly enough sits up, bending at the waist, and pauses to recharge the demonic glow that seems to indicate whatever life force has overtaken him.

“Go! Fast as you can old man! Fuckin git!” Mike shouts as he rips the bag away from the man’s face.

The elderly gentleman unfortunately has had all of this life he could bear. He falls dead at Mike’s feet as the clanging of metal to concrete erupts from the back of the store.

Mike crouches and moves slowly through bakery section, bouncing his way from display to display.

A mother and her two young boys are huddled together underneath a table filled with baguettes, brioche, and apple pies. Their view of the meat section just around the corner is much better than Mike’s. He catches the mother’s eye and signals in the direction of the meat display cases with his index finger and then with his index and middle finger points to his own eyes. The woman acknowledges and responds by raising three fingers and imitating a stabbing motion.

Even in the heat of the moment a quick smile flashes over Mike’s face. He’s reminded of the big boss at the end of every level of every video game he’s ever played. He’s amused at how even in such a dire situation, you can’t outrun irony.

He returns to the moment and opens the Smith & Weston pocket knife he purchased to match his M&P Shield He head toward a the butcher’s station, preparing to face armed combatants.

Peering around the corner Mike sees the butcher in a long white coat, carrying a large blade with a red plastic handle. He is accompanied by a young girl, with blonde curly hair, wearing a watermelon dress, and that old bitch from the entrance wearing the locket. Their eyes glow bright red signaling that any decency they had is gone.

Mike ducks back into the cookie aisle and takes a deep breath. He knows he has to kill them. Instead of focusing on the morally difficult kills, he turns his mind to elephant in the room. The butcher, a man of above average stature, is muscular yet carries a gut over his waistband with long arms holding dinner plates for hands on either end.

“Goddamn lummox! You’ve got this dude. You’ve been here before. Just break it down,” Mike whispers under his breathe.

He wasn’t lying to himself . He just couldn’t help but remember that the last time he were in a similar situation, he’d taken an ass whooping and shit his pants in front of all his friends.

When the little girl and woman stray from the butcher, Mike gathers all his courage and charges. He closes the 40 feet between quickly and bounces off a reach in cooler in order to reach the head and upper torso of his adversary. He’s catches the butcher off guard and plunges the small blade downward into the area just above the collarbone.

The glow of the butcher’s eyes didn’t dim as when Mike injured the others. They burned brighter as the butcher grew in size and strength.

Although Mike had relieved the gargantuan of his blade, the butcher’s fist were like cinder blocks and still very dangerous.

The first caught Mike in the upper back, a left, with the power of heavy machinery. Seeing a white flash, Mike braced himself for the right as he took notice of the red handle of the butcher’s blade peeking from below BOGO chip display.

Mike instinctively ducks the blow, and as luck would have it, Thor’s hammer misses by only millimeters. He darted for the knife, his assailant on top of him like a winter coat. Turning his body, he thrusts the blade upward with great forc. He watches as the blade pierces the bottom palette, slides behind the teeth, and finds a home in the butcher’s frontal lobe. He stares into the glowing eyes of the butcher as they fade to black.

A sigh of relief catches him slacking as the little curly haired blonde attacks over the top of the butchers lifeless heap. Her nails as sharp as razors, she tears at the flesh of Mike’s forearms.

With her small stature and young mind clouded with programmed rage, Mike is a able to hold her at bay while he retrieves the knife from ole boy’s chin. To appease his morals he imagines her as a giant melon, one ripe and ready for cutting. He jams the large butcher knife straight down into the girl’s skull and with a downward motion splits it as if it were mid July back in Enoree. The glow falls with her eyes to either side.

Exhausted but not without fight, Mike musters the gumption to look for the lady with the locket. He spots her making a turn down the next aisle as if on a mission and completely oblivious to the violence directly behind her.

Mike quickly sneaks up behind her and grabs the chain of the locket, twisting as hard as he can. His choke is successful and he pulls the woman close as she struggles. As he watches the glow fade from her eyes, a shot rings out. An overwhelming warmth washes over Mike’s body. Releasing his grip upon the woman with the heart shaped locket, he turns to face Wayne with the .38 leveled at him carrying the Gibson L5 on his back.

As he embraces the darkness overtaking him, he feels an ever increasing pain between his right index and middle finger. He knows this is where he’s been hit.

“How could a shot to the hand be his downfall? How could this bizarre scene really be it?” he asks himself.

“Wayne would shoot me in my picking hand,” Mike thinks as he fades to black.

Part 3: Coming To

Mike butts out the cigarette burning his hand. He laughs and shakes his head as he enters the store.

Once he’s filled his list he returns to the FourRunner and Wayne, opens the door, and climbs into the drivers seat. Closing the door he turns to Wayne,

“You know if they were to have activated you vaxxers when I got outta the car, I would have just given you my key advantage,” Mike says with a smirk.

Wayne replies, “Oh so I can’t be trust now?”

The SUV erupts with laughter as guys exit the parking lot and head back to Mike’s place.