“Just when I think about jumping, Bern whips his arm up, and there goes a zombie head.”
A collective “Oooooooh” goes through the crowd.
“Then his other arm whips up, and there goes another head.”
A collective “Woooooow” goes through the crowd.
“The rest of the zombies were goin’ straight for him, and he didn’t flinch. I’ve never seen anything like it before, it was like watching light dancing, or like a butterfly changing colors with every arm swing. Bern swung those blades like they were fire, like this. “He tried to mimic Captain Bern’s arm swinging, but gave up after realizing how silly he looked. “Arms, hands, heads were flying everywhere. And he made it look easy, like magic. Those zombies just seemed to fall to pieces the moment they got close enough.
There were a lot of them so they forced him back slowly, one step at a time. But I think he planned it this way, with them in front of him and not behind, leaving just one way for them to come, and he had a plan for their numbers too. He started cutting off their legs at the knee, making them fall over. And when they did he chopped off there heads before they could get up, leaving more bodies for them to trip over. That slowed them down but they kept coming. One had actually made it through without tripping. Captain Bern sliced him right down the middle and then smacked it’s face with the flat of his blade, making it turn around. He then kicked it right in the middle of it’s back making it’s guts fly out of the slice.
A collective “Eeeewwwwwww” went through the crowd. It made Mitch wonder if he went too far with the descriptions. Too late now, he thought. Gotta press on.
“Eeew is right. But when he did that he made the dock slippery with the zombie’s guts, so now they’re slipping and sliding around. Like this!” He started slipping and sliding, trying to make it look like he was drunk, which made the kids laugh.
“So this goes on for a while, and Captain Bern doesn’t even look like he’s breaking a sweat. The whole time he’s still taking a step back, getting closer and closer to me. I forgot to be scared, he was putting on such a show. Then I remembered to be scared when his back was right in front of me. That didn’t matter, cuz he had just killed the last zombie.
“Then he stood there, looking at the mess, acting like it was just another day. He started walking back down the dock, off handedly kicking body parts over the side, checking the heads to see if they were still active. Those he drove his machetes into, and then kicked over the side. The crew who had locked themselves in that bar, they were standing outside of it with their mouths open. They started making their way to the pier, and it isn’t until I hear the boat pull up behind me that I realized my mouth was wide open too. So was everyone’s on the boat. Meanwhile Bern looked like he was strolling through the daisies, casually kicking zombie parts off the pier.”
“He’s so cool” said Lacy. A lot of nods and yeahs followed after.
“Yes he is. So I close my mouth and catch the rope someone tossed to me. The captain actually came out of the wheelhouse just to look at Bern. The scavenger crew made it to the pier and were walking around him, giving him plenty of distance. Some of them even told him nice job. Bern told them to watch their step, all friendly and casual. Then, once the crew was past, he looked back at the boat, right at the captain. He had on this blank face, couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Then he came walking up the dock, right to the boat. The captain started smiling, talking about how he would make a fine crew member, about how living on land is dangerous and that he should join us, you know, really talkin’ it up. I hadn’t seen the captain smile for a long time, even before the apocalypse, so it was kinda’ weird seeing that. So Bern came back up the pier, followed everyone back on the boat, ignored the captain at first, walked right past him, turned, and with a flick of his wrist lopped his head off.”
“What?” “No way!” “Really?” “Wow!”
“Yep, just like that. You had to see it. His head didn’t go flyin’, It just stayed where it was while the captain tried to figure out what just happened. Then a thin red line formed under the captain’s chin, all around his neck. Then his head rolled off, fell on the deck. His body fell after it. It happened so fast neither the captain nor anyone on the crew fully understood what had just happened. When his head hit the deck the women shrieked and the guys jumped back. Then Bern turned to the rest of us and said “I’m the captain of this boat now. Anyone gotta problem with that?” No one said a word. “Then let’s get moving! Now!” Started barking orders to everyone. Then he looked at me, said ‘You the first mate?’ All I could do was nod my head. Then he says ‘You know how to drive this thing?’ Now I’m no captain, and I never drove this boat, but that’s not what I’m thinkin’. I’m thinking, this guy is dangerous, best to do what he says. So I nod my head again, real frantic like. And he says ‘Well get on the boat and take us out.’ What could I do, I yell ‘Aye captain’, jump on the boat, give him back his sheaths, and head for the wheel room. Behind me I hear Captain Bern shouting orders. He tells one guy to go through the captain’s pockets before we dump him overboard. Tells another guy to give him that gun.
The rest was lost cuz I had fired up the engine and pulled away from the pier, thinkin’ what’s gonna happen now?”
Arid Testimony 