Three Word Wednesday- Zombie Apocalypse

Prompts:

Feral, adjective: (especially of an animal) in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication; resembling a wild animal.

Insatiable, adjective: (of an appetite or desire) impossible to satisfy; (of a person) having an insatiable appetite or desire for something, especially sex.

Shred, noun: tatter, scrap, strip, ribbon, rag, fragment, sliver, (tiny) bit/piece; scrap, bit, speck, iota, particle, ounce, whit, jot, crumb, morsel, fragment, grain, drop, trace, scintilla, spot; informal smidgen; verb: chop finely, cut up, tear up, grate, mince, macerate, grind.

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      I placed the salt in my dead boyfriend’s mouth and carefully sewed stitches. Peter would not be one of those awaken by the bokor spreading her potions around for the Kurama no Hi-Matsuri / the Kurama Fire Festival. Nor would any of the other fifty people I had dug up. The back loader I had borrowed had come in handy for digging up all the coffins. The bokor, KiIkongo, thought she could defeat me by offering her elixir at 25 percent off to those foolish enough to try the zombie max, but I would stop her.

     I thought I had known things that would stop her; for I had known that her real name wasn’t even KiIkongo. But the council wouldn’t listen to me or any of my ideas. They trusted someone who hid behind an alias; they heard her out. The bokor had claimed I was delusional and had turned feral and insatiable in my quest  to punish her for Peter’s death. Did I blame her for Peter’s death? Of course I did. She had moved against Peter to stop me, but I wouldn’t let her take him in death. His body would not be one of her army. He was safe now I had seen to that she couldn;t make him one of her army and have him shred his skin like the rest.

      I had begged city council to forbid the festival, but all they cared about was tourism. They wouldn’t or couldn’t believe me that the KiIkongo’s plan was not only reviving the dead, but poisoning and enslaving the living too. She wanted a willing army to help her take over the city, then the state, then the countries, one by one. They insisted I take some time off and step down from being mayor. That grief had overtaken my senses, but I knew the truth and she couldn’t silence me. I had time to stop her. The festival began at six pm and continued past midnight. Tall fires would be lit in front of homes to open the ceremony; then children would carry torches to the shrine where that too would be carried through the night. I would torch homes and those who would join the parade they would be so busy putting out those fires they wouldn’t join the bokor. She wouldn’t have access to them only those she animated in the cemetery and I had dug enough of them up to prevent her from animate most of them. I had studied the ancient rituals of my grandmother who was a sangoma. I too could be a healer and restore our people, burning the sacred plants like the silver bush everlasting flower to save them. The smoke from these would counteract her medicines. I would defeat the hold she had over the zombies and save my town. I would win and she would lose her hold over my people.

    I felt the hands that overtook me and knew Kilkongo had won.

     I heard “She’s extremely delusional. She believes she’s becoming a flesh eating zombie. That she is under the control of the bokor. Keep her room locked and guarded  at all times.”

     The zombies sought to fool me by speaking instead of grunting . I knew this was it; we would all be zombies soon. I surrendered and became what I feared the most. These fools would all join me soon.

©Sheilagh Lee February 19, 2014