Winter Will Fall:
Charlie McMasters’ Story
And on the Sun’s Setting
The Skies were the Color of Fire
And the Night rushed upon the Day.
As vivid Persons look onto the Clouds,
Those twilights of past fallen Glories,
Eyes see the Fires of Man’s Decay.
On December 18, Charlie McMasters walked through the foot high snow, lifting his work boots and overalls like an old women wading water. Last night’s snow, the most in his recollection, marked his sixty-ninth winter. It figured that, with just a week to close up the market, the most snow would fall the night before he started. Even with the earlier midday heat, only the snow on the roof and road had melted. The grass and hill still had almost a foot or more. A farmer’s work did not finish in the winter. Instead, it turned into cleaning and prepping for the spring months. For sixty-eight years he lived on his farm, bleeding in the summer sun to grow his winter meals. Work piled up through the months until there was nothing but work. Today’s work (mainly collecting odds and ends) grew even more difficult with last night’s unforeseen snow fall. He would have done the majority of it yesterday, but the highlift needed pressure washed, and the bearings regreased before winter, both very difficult in the snow. Then there were the generators and heaters, the oil tanks needed stacked, etc. Six days before winter started, Charlie needed three more months of late fall just to catch up.
Tree sales had been down this year. Those people that did come out the farm, he thought to himself, just bitched about the selection. There wasn’t time to plant trees, not for 15 years at least. Not with the boys out on there own and all. Though, for Charlie it was a touchy subject.
Charlie waded up the hill from the house towards old Percil’s barn, turned into a machine shop some 25 years ago. Back before the highway was built, this time of year welcomed political arguments and gun magazines in the artificial heaters’ glow. He opened the side door, and threw in a few old antifreeze containers. Zeff, Charlie’s mechanic, had left for his mother’s earlier in the week. No one else came around these days, except occasionally to look through the storage above the Barn. One of the boys would come by for skis, one of their kids for a motor or lines, maybe one of the hunters popped in for some rope to drag a deer. Charlie spent the better part of his winter days in the shop trying to keep what he could going. Zeff was always behind, one thing after another stacking up on his bench. Charlie did what he could to keep it manageable.
He drug the rest of containers out of his red Ford pickup. If there was one thing still in abundance it was machinery. Charlie hadn’t the heart to sell off the small fleet when ever the business started to sufferer. The bank piecemealed his land, but they hadn’t got very many of the machines. Then again, Charlie thought, they weren’t worth much to newer business in the long run. They always bought new anyway. Dropping the ‘good’ chainsaw on the work bench, he put the gas cans back in their spot outside the barn. His least favorite winter job was separating the rest of the stuff shoved aside during the summer months.
Further up the shop, Zeff’s radio blared some talk radio show. Charlie paid it no heed as he hung up the various chains and ropes he had brought in from the truck bed. Within a few moments, he had successfully cleaned out the wooden bed. Stepping outside into the snow, he took a long deep breath of cold air. The moon sat lazily in the sky, and by the time Charlie slowly made his way to the truck, it was around 7:00.
He thought of going ‘spotting’, perhaps picking off some of the bucks which escaped deer season before they got to his apple trees, but his old bones felt the cold more these days. Sliding along the vinyl seat, he fired the truck up. It was too cold to stay out late these nights, he thought. Better to get up in the morning and shoot a couple. He always hit them in the orchards and hoped they would learn to fear the place. The deer enjoyed eating at the buds and leaves (not that there were either at this time of year). Given the night, he shivered at the thought of going back out, even with his overalls on. It was about a quarter mile down to the house. He lived in a brick building built by Percil before McMaster’s bought his land. The old man had died somewhere south of here before Ellie had even had her first born.
Lacy L. McMaster’s (Ellie to her friends) died eight years ago from a stroke during Strawberry season (end of May/early June). Everyone said Charlie suffered the most from it all, having never expected to outlive his wife. If they asked him, he would have said that “It was a time for farmers, and I am a farmer.” No one was quite sure what he meant, but it seemed divine enough to settle most half-hearted inquires. Charlie worked the farm with the boys until they married and moved away, all within those eight years. Angry In-laws swore it was Charlie that drove them away. “The bitter ole’ bastard hated all things that weren’t McMaster’s, and even then he hated just to hate!” Being outside the scope of Charlie’s own knowledge, it did not really affect his relationship with his farm. No, the ‘old bastard’ plug along working the fields with the Mexicans that came in during three-forth of the year, and running the machine shop with Zeff during the winter months; however, Charlie himself never felt the same about farming after his wife died.
Everyone thought the old man was incapable of love, that he was some great misanthropic “old bastard” that worked night and day just to spite the rule of Time. This of course was not true. Charlie loved his farm like he loved his wife, and he would hold onto both until the day he died. They say that people are not their jobs. If there are two professions this is not true of, it is farming and writing, both demanded every second of your time, even when you’re not physically acting within either. Charlie would have agreed with the former, but he hadn’t opened a book since the university stopped mailing him the pesticide’s manuals or vegetable rot guides. He was never much for ‘hot air’, and he considered “long winded” people unnecessarily rude. If that wasn’t enough, “dreamers” were people that didn’t have “enough work” to do.
Turning the truck off (just as the heat started building up), Charlie pulled out the small bag of vegetable he had salvaged form the market. Other than the potatoes (for seeding in the fall), he’d only be able to use the jonagolds and onions. He wasn’t much of a cooker, at least not anymore, but he enjoyed an apple as much as the next man. He’d find something to do with the dozen Spanish Sweet he’d brought home. Maybe Ellie’s cooking books would have something or other to work with. Stooping by the wood furnace, Charlie threw two logs into the fire. It seemed a waste to burn wood while he was at work, but he was afraid the pipes would freeze if he didn’t heat the house all day. He wouldn’t wish winter plumbing work on anyone.
After eating a slight dinner of tomatoes and left over sliced, chipped ham, Charlie showered off the farm dirt from his ankles and the grease from his hair. He watched the end of a Star Trek episode (the one with the space harem) and went to sleep.
Charlie heard the first distant explosion around midnight. When he finally opened his eyes, he heard that the explosion became explosions. A rhythmic series of explosions followed there after. Human curiosity got the better of Charlie, who immediately put his dirty overalls on over his boxers. Charlie did not take the time to tie his black work boots as he stepped out into the cold.
The skies were orange, grey silhouetted clouds the only reminder that it was nighttime. Every few seconds the skyline would flash and the sound of explosion would occur. Though the explosions were coming from the North, Charlie watched the endless skyline flicker the oddest orange he had ever seen. It was as if the sky itself burned the stars from the Heavens. Even when he thought the explosions would stop, another set or volley sounded more flashing brilliance to the sky.
“Aliens?”
He said allowed. “After all these years, Aliens?”
Immediately, Charlie went back inside to call his friend Joe, but then he
thought better of his rashness. There were no such things as aliens, he
thought. Yet, the city lied to the north. Who else attacked the city but
aliens? It was impossible for an army to get this far off the coast! It was at
least 300 miles away! After all, The news would have
told him during Star Trek. No,
something odd was going on. Charlie never went to war, but he had completed
boot camp for
He determined it was shelling after about ten minutes of listening to the rhythmic explosions. The Chinese had finally invaded, he thought. He followed the thought up with, “the sons of bitches had finally let them invade.” This started him on a rather profane mental rant against Clinton and the Chinese (neither topic should be reproduced by any liberal minded narrator) and forced him to pound his fist twice. There was only one option: Get his gun, fuel his truck, and make it for Jimmy’s. His son Jimmy, the youngest of the three boys, lived only about 50 miles south, just north of the Mason-Dickson line, up in the mountains. There were some good boys left there that new a thing or two about repelling armies.
Charlie immediately went inside and packed some undergarments and blue jeans. Stopping by the ‘mudroom’ he picked up a box of 12 gauge shells and winter work suit (an off brand of overalls he used for work). Closing the door behind him, he pulled a set of keys out of his overalls and, for the first time he could remember, he locked his house. There was no telling how long it would take the Chinese to get to his front door, but, if they wanted in, they’d get in. Charlie thought to himself that, at least, he’d have the satisfaction of knowing the door would be locked when they got there. It was a minor point, but symbolically he felt vindicated via resistance. After all, Papi’s dad had died during WWI fighting for this Nation, he wouldn’t be an ally to anyone invading it!
Charlie climbed into the ’79 red Ford. Zeff had long ago removed the key start and installed a push button glowplug/ignition rig: hold the black button 1 minute, release, and fire the red button. Within a few frigid moment, Charlie started his father’s old truck.
Back to the Percil’s barn. Charlie picked up a few yellow cans laying just outside the barn. The old off-road diesel tank sat along the hillside overlooking his house. It had sat there for nigh a decade now. Charlie never thought of the legality of his fueling the cans. If someone had reminded him it was illegal to put the untaxed fuel in his truck, he would have probably called them a “jackape” and did it anyway. As it was, the pump he’d replaced two years ago (a relatively short time, things considered) groaned in its stress to pump the fuel. Charlie knew, from the generic pump’s complaints, that it was below freezing. The damn thing, no matter how many times he smacked it, ran slow in freezing temperatures. He slapped it nevertheless.
It was while filling the second can that he saw his first Zombie. Coincidentally enough, it brought the first flake of an overwhelming snowfall. Charlie pressed the pump handle into the can, placing a small rock under the handle to keep it moving. Something distant moaned. Wind, he thought. Any zombie narrator would tell you that the wind echoing on an already eerie night sounds far too much like mobile, impending death. Charlie, unfamiliarly with the fantasias that are zombies, could only stare squint-eyed into the darkness. He saw nothing; yet, the gray skies pushed dark clouds on an unseen wind current. He heard nothing; yet, those forgotten echoes of shelling masked the sound of scraping feet. He went back to pumping fuel.
If someone had to sum Charlie up in one moment, he is best illuminated in the next few moments. Where a normal man, when confronted by the grotesque, quivers catatonic, Charlie simply looked up into the dead eyes of a gazing horror stoically. Their eyes met. Some academics would argue that there is consciousness within the dead’s mind. Perhaps maybe it is only the potential energy storied from a past life. When Charlie looked into the lifeless silhouette and its simple eyes looked into his, there was no exchange or thought process. Charlie hung up the pump; the thing stood there. He calmly placed both cans in the back of the truck bed. Still, the zombie stood there. He subtly pulled the long pumpgun from his father’s truck and, aiming with all the grace of a surgeon, he took the head off the dead shadow. It toppled backwards apathetically.
The true epiphany came when he ejected the plastic shell to the snowy, dust covered ground. The Chinese were not invading, he thought. The military was shelling the city to kill as many Dead as they could. Charlie was too simple of a man to think of the paradoxes of killing the dead, and he was too apathetic to be concerned for those living creatures supposedly biologically connected to himself. A thought urged him to wander towards the barn.
He drug a long apple ladder from inside the barn and threw it, with some difficulty, against the roof. Slinging his pumpgun, he climbed the ladder rung by rung until he reached the slippery rooftop. An inch or so had accumulated on the wet surface between the first fall and his final step onto the rooftop. Then, rotating as to not loose his footing, he saw what had engulfed the skyline. Everywhere around his farm, great fires rose and touched those gray clouds. The city itself was a shamble of brick and flame. Only the punctuating of explosions altered the skyline, each marking a new column of clouds rushing to meet their older brothers. Charlie saw with dry eyes the fires of his fellow man’s demise.
Looking down from the rooftop, he saw two men watching him intently. Even in the darkness, he knew they were dead. They had to be, for behind them idly marched three more shuffling monsters. Then, up the hillside, two children drug a third by the arm. They dropped her when they saw the others. Off to the east, a tall man that had to be Joe Kaiser (no man he knew stood so tall) walking briskly. If not for the hole in his torso, Charlie might of waved ‘hello’.
Ten zombies in total (some he recognized, some he didn’t) waited for him at the bottom. The number gradually grew. Like the ravenous creatures below him, he accumulated snow in a starring contest worthy of epic poetry. Both parties waited to see which would fail first.
Time for Charlie McMasters stopped. It was replaced with detached self-actualization. His knees felt old. The old forklift wound on his naked left hand ached and the long, crescent shape scar on his left foot throbbed (Papi told him never to wear steel toe, steel shank in the winter). Beneath his boots, the roof groaned in a cold shiver. He’d put the roof on three summers ago when Robby came home for a visit. It had taken two months to put on; Robby was there for a week. He hadn’t seen him since. Zeff and his boy Thomas help him replace the trellises over the months using the skid loader. Tarps were used to cover the holes during the rainy months. His son Scotty’s nephew, a fat, lazy boy with more energy in his mouth than his entire body, helped with the rivets on the weekends. That was the year that Ellie’s sister died from a stroke. A band played one of those funeral songs he’d heard a few times since. Charlie began to think of funerals, flowers, flower sales, and so on and so forth. His thoughts became that of a tumble weed
His digital watch beeped. Charlie returned to the rooftop. He saw the number of snowcapped zombies had grown a few, probably around a score now. It was 5:00. The sun would be rising in not too much longer, a few hours or so. They had not moved and time had stopped, even if his watch moved along in course. Though the sun rose and fell, theoretical time did not matter in his mind. Charlie stood on the threshold of nihilism: what good was existence if natural life denied you? Civilization had long ago abandoned him. Financial success had long ago ruined him. Even military honor had forsaken him. Time alone had pushed him along, each day another reason to live and grow. Ever sunrise and rainfall brought more work to be done. The farm itself, not the business or the money, was his life. The plants gave him his spirit, the labor his motivation, the sweat his consolation. Those people which fell through his work were like the broken, colored rays of a white light. Alone, they meant nothing but arbitrary pleasures and responsibilities, but together they wove a glorious purpose for him. He, like the plants and the dirt, was domesticated nature and domesticated nature was his very existence. Every cycle of every day, all that great rotations of the celestial and its menial manifestation as time, turned him into a great cog turning the gears of harbored energy. The separation of the farm from the farmer was the separation of Charlie McMasters from himself. So when the dead rose and ‘life’ ended, some men saw the horrors of rotting flesh that day as symbols of their own existential angst; Charlie saw personified time finally coming to greet him, with a long scythe in its malleable hand.
“Death,” Charlie said aloud. The wind grabbed his word, hastily ushering it off to some awaiting contract. He had not shed a tear at Ellie’s death, or at her funeral. The act of crying had never crossed his mind. This is not to say he did not grieve, for he did; however, mid-July meant corn picking. Besides, when the sweat of the cornfield and the musk of corn pollen blended in with the salt of what might have been tears, no one was the wiser (not even Charlie).
No seed was purchased this year, the market had closed, and only the rye seed was to be planted. Eventually the farm would be completely peppered by townhouses and cul-de-sacs. Ordinances would be passed that each house was to be 70% brick. Hollows would be paved and trees burnt. They even started flattening out those difficult hills, even the steep one where Joseph Boutfield had the heart attack and rolled the International 656. Pity, the Zombie outbreak and all. The suburbs would have to wait until after the epidemic was quashed. Then life could resume. Unfortunately, Charlie’s life had been over long before the shelling had begun. He had become a living anachronism long before the first fire had even started.
The sun eventually did rise. The shelling eventually stopped. Charlie simply watched from his rooftop prison as the columns of smoke rose black, violently tearing at the whitening clouds. The fires which had originally marked the skies also lightened until they were eventually hidden from his eyesight. Only those black monoliths marked the other farms. His audience had frozen in place in the night. Like great tombstones to their own immobility, the zombies were crystallized in a fine layer of ice and snow. As to Charlie himself, he was last seen still staring off into the horizon, another fading silhouette on a horizon of abyssal, azure blue.