Disclaimer

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Saxophone Blues is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, are coincidental. References to characters, places, products, or brand names are for entertainment purposes only and no identification with such incidents are intended or should be inferred.

 

Saxophone Blues contains mature subject matter. Recommended for adult readers aged 18 years or over. Reader discretion is advised as the content may include explicit language, sexuality, violence, and other themes that may not be suitable for all audiences. The views, opinions, and activities depicted in this work are not necessarily endorsed by the author.

 

Episode 10

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Jimothy Dyck lived to survive another day at the office. It was late by the time he finally got home.

 

The only working streetlight on Harmony Lane flickered sadly at Jimothy as he pulled up in front of his house. He parked his 1997 faded brown Ford Taurus in the driveway and let out a sigh. When he got to the front door, Jimothy stopped to loosen his tie and take a deep breath.

 

“Honey, I’m home!” Jimothy opened the door and called to his wife, Maria.

 

The house was completely dark and silent.

 

“Mmm. Smells good, Maria! What’s for dinner?” Jimothy plopped his briefcase down and went to the kitchen.

 

“Lasagna – my favourite!” Jimothy grinned into the darkness as he poured himself a glass of red wine.

 

“Oh, Maria,” Jimothy gushed, “You’ve outdone yourself again, my love!”

 

Jimothy raised his glass to take a big glug. That’s when he noticed the faint glowing light in front of him. As he watched his shadow drink from the cup, he realized the light wasn’t coming from the kitchen. It was behind him. The light was coming from the basement.

 

“Fuck!” Jimothy gulped, dropping the glass, which shattered into a million little shards.

 

Jennica!

 

The zombified corpse of Jimothy’s daughter, Jennica, had once again escaped from the basement.

 

A shivery terror ran up and down Jimothy’s spine. It  tingled all over, like prickly pins poking his skin. The hairs on the back his neck stood on end as he turned around…

 

“Jennica, sweetie,” Jimothy coaxed into the black. “Where are you?”

 

“This is the worst game of hide-and-seek ever!” Jimothy thought. “When your zombified daughter wants to eat your face off.”

 

Little Jennica, six years old, was not only faster and stronger than normal zombies, she was smarter than most of them, too. Jimothy was especially wary of Jennica since the first time she escaped.

 

Jimothy was dead asleep in his bed the night Jennica learned how to open doors all by herself. Jimothy had never felt prouder – or more terrified – than when he woke up face-to-face with his zombie child, hungry for a midnight snack. The very next day, Jimothy changed his door knobs to the childproof kind.

 

“How did she even get away?” Jimothy wondered as he bent down to pick up a razor-sharp piece of glass.

 

“It’s like she’s… learning.” Jimothy shuddered, threatened by Jennica’s intelligence.

 

Jimothy stretched out his arm, reaching for the long, narrow glass blade lying next to him. As Jimothy fingered its jagged edge, the glass knife sliced his skin.

 

“Gah!” Jimothy gasped at the sight of blood dripping down his finger.

 

Jennica, hiding behind the kitchen island, took one whiff and caught the scent of blood diffusing from Jimothy’s open wound.

 

The reanimated remains of his deceased daughter came raging over the counter in rigor mortis, gnashing her teeth at Jimothy. She lunged onto Jimothy’s back, using her special move, the cross-face chicken wing, to strangle him from behind, cutting off his air supply.

 

Jimothy panicked and ran around in circles trying to shake the undead monkey off his back, but Jennica was too strong. Her grip tightened around his neck. It felt like his eyeballs were going to pop right out of their sockets. Jimothy, gasping for breath, struggled against the unholy creature until his vision blurred into memories.

 

“I should’ve been there for her.” Jimothy regretted all the times he was too busy for Jennica’s jiu-jitsu lessons. He regretted everything. But most of all, Jimothy regretted that day – the day the zombies came.

 

Jimothy fell asleep on the couch that day because he was too tired. He woke up three hours later when his phone rang. It was Maria.

 

“Where are you, Jimothy?” Maria asked.

 

“Hello – Maria – umm – I’m at home…” Jimothy mumbled, his brain still in a fog. “Is everything okay?”

 

“Are you drunk, again!?!”

 

“What!?! No!”

 

“Don’t lie to me. I can hear it in your voice.”

 

“I fell asleep on the couch. I just woke up.”

 

“Jimothy Dyck – you fucking asshole!”

 

“What!?!”

 

“You were supposed to pick Jennica up from school!”

 

“Oh, shit - I’m coming! Don’t worry, Maria, I’m on the way!”

 

“Don’t bother. I’m staying at mother’s. The kids are with me.”

 

“C’mon, baby. Not again… It was just one drink.”

 

Maria sighed and hung up the phone. That was the last time they ever spoke. By the time Jimothy sobered up, it was too late. The neighbourhood was overrun.

 

The sun set on Jimothy that day – and it never came back up again.

 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Jimothy sobbed, tears streaming down his face. “I’m so sorry I let you down!”

 

Jennica growled into Jimothy’s ear. Her milky eyes, neither dead nor alive, screamed in torment as she choked him out.

 

Jimothy could feel her cold dead hands ripping his face off. The stench of her decay took his breath away, suffocating him unto death.

 

“So this is how it ends.” Jimothy thought, accepting his fate. “Maybe we can be a family again.”

 

With Jimothy’s dying breath, he uttered his last words…

 

“I just have one last thing to say…” Jimothy counter-attacked Jennica’s cross-face chicken wing with a dad joke. “I invented the cross-face chicken wing, bitch!”

 

Jennica cringed and fell to the floor, knocking over a standing floor lamp.

 

“Who’s your sensei now!?! Who’s your sensei now!?!” Jimothy taunted.

 

Jennica, enraged, hissed at Jimothy, who picked up the lamp and used the electrical cord to restrain her. She kicked and screamed all the way back to Jimothy’s basement dungeon.

 

Jimothy’s spacious three-bedroom, one-bath finished creepy basement dungeon was recently renovated for the zombified family in his life.

 

“Don’t worry, sweetie!” Jimothy assured Jennica as he secured her shackles. “The doctors are working on a cure. You’ll feel better soon, I promise.”

 

Jimothy felt uneasy about not knowing how Jennica got away this time. After inspecting her neatly preserved bedroom, he went to check on Maria.

 

Maria snarled at Jimothy as soon as he opened the master bedroom door. Her chain went taut. She was so ready to eat him alive.

 

Jimothy sat at the edge of Maria’s bed, just out of her reach and said, “Oh, Maria – what a day! You’ll never guess what happened.”

 

Maria moaned, foaming at the mouth.

 

“You remember Suzi from the office? She got bit by a zombie today!” Jimothy said in disbelief. “She was first place in our fantasy hockey league. I wonder who’ll get her roster? She had Hellebuyck in net.”

 

Jimothy fixed up Maria’s lipstick and said, “Good night, my love.”

 

After saying good night to Maria, Jimothy went to spend some quality time with his son, Jimothy Jr.

 

Not much had changed with Junior. He was still playing video games in his bedroom. Junior had been stuck on the same level for the past three years. He just couldn’t get past the main menu.

 

Jimothy picked up controller one and pressed, “start.” He finished Junior off with a “fatality” in round two.

 

“Flawless victory!” Jimothy boasted. “Keep practicing, dumbass!”

 

Jimothy gave Junior a friendly nudge and rubbed his head. A clump of Junior’s hair came off and got stuck in Jimothy’s fingers, giving him the ick. “Eww!”

 

Once he made sure his family was safe, Jimothy went back upstairs and nailed the basement door shut.

 

“They’re getting hungry again,” Jimothy worried. “How am I supposed to be a good husband and father if I can’t even put food on the table for my family?

 

Jimothy warmed up his can of beans with a heavy heart. “What am I supposed to even do?” he cried out to God.

 

Every day was a living death for Jimothy Dyck, who pushed up his dark rimmed glasses held together with a strip of white tape and took out the trash. Jimothy then poured himself four shots of vodka, watched the hockey game on TV, and fell asleep on the couch - having lived to die another day.

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The End.