04 Oct The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth
“The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth”
Written by Joleen Phillips Edited by Craig Groshek Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek Narrated by N/ACopyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on CreepypastaStories.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed, adapted to film, television or audio mediums, republished in a print or electronic book, reposted on any other website, blog, or online platform, or otherwise monetized without the express written consent of its author(s).
🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available
⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 10 minutes
< We should stand together in solidarity, in this brave, new world. >
The small cassette player cracked, but the voice speaking sounded polished and highly educated. It was a stark contrast to the surroundings where it momentarily resided.
Winds swirled through a landscape of dust and debris. Water was such a rare occurrence now. It had once been a lush and green area, but now boughs and leaves were replaced with spindly, crooked sticks that stabbed at a sickly green sky.
< Times they are a-changing. Ye-es changing. It’s a brave, brave new world >
A chorus rang out from the cassette player as its owner, a man that was swathed in several layers of clothing, including a face covering, chopped away at a carcass in front of him, desperately trying to cleave meat from bone and store it in a discarded Door Dash bag before too much dust contaminated it. The last time he returned to camp with dirt on the meat, Frank, their leader, made him eat dirt for dinner.
He moved as quickly as he could, in spite of his limitations. His momma had always told him, “Davey, you’re very special. Why, the angels above knowd it, so they took away your voice. Otherwise, you’d be too special!”
Davey gave a small smile at the memory of his momma from behind his coverings. Without the extra layers, the grit blown by the wind would get in his eyes, rip at any exposed skin. It wouldn’t be pretty. There were no doctors anymore. No hospitals.
< Let us all turn in our Bibles to Matthew 5 verses 3 through 12. Amen!>
Davey grabbed the cassette player and his now full Door Dash bag as he got to his feet, listening as the preacher went through each of the Beatitudes. It drew a memory that surfaced a lot these days. His momma was sitting with him in the back row of the church. He was in his Sunday best clothes, admiring how sunlight beamed through the stained glass window and painted patterns of color on his white shirt. Dust motes floated through the beams of colored light. To Davey, it seemed like sparkles of glitter, maybe from God.
He beamed at his momma, giving her his best smile, as the preacher loudly proclaimed, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth!”
She ran a hand through his mop of brown hair as she whispered, “Yes, Davey, you are meek. You will inherit the earth.”
Not being able to speak, he simply gave out a groan that ended in a sort of sigh. A few people in the congregation turned to look back at them, some with disgust but most of them just shrugged it off. Everyone in town knew Davey was not like the other kids. Sadly there were those that said hateful things.
Davey trudged back to the shelter. It was once a restroom for the park, but now was the shelter for this group of survivors. Davey dropped the bag in front of Ann. She was like Davey, they all were. Their facial features were similar, only their hair and skin color made them different from each other. Davey’s doctor had once explained what it was- down syndrome. It meant he had an extra… something. It made him look and act different from other people. But here in this shelter they were mostly the same. They were meeks- like him.
No, not all were like him, not in < improve our lives with chemistry in this brave, new world.> The cassette player cut through the thought.
*Idiot!” a black haired man shouted from a group that was busily sorting some clothing, tools, knives, and batteries that had been taken from another group in the last raid. “Turn that off. No one wants to listen to your stupid tape.”
Some around him snickered, but most just went back to work. He reached down to click the stop button as Ann said quietly, “I don’t like when Frank says we need to raid anyone. He only does it to be mean.” Davey nodded as he removed the cloth over his face, a face so similar to those around him, to those they raided, to all that was left.
Ann was a kind young lady, likely the same age as him. She took whatever foods the hunters found and had a few others help her make meals on an old barbecue grill they’d found. There was plenty of dried out wood to be found, so cooking it was never an issue. Finding water, however, was.
With an audible click, the cassette stopped. Frank didn’t like it when Davey’s cassettes talked of the promises of a leader that, as Frank put it, “let down the entire world.”
Davey didn’t understand much, but he remembered the ads and the dark haired man with perfect teeth, all white and lined up in a neat row. He promised the people a brave, new world. He promised that science had progressed and created cures for everything. All they had to do was trust and believe him.
He remembered when his mother took him to his doctor and demanded that they try “the shot” on him. They claimed that the extra… whatever the word was… is what caused all of his problems. The shot could alter his dee-em-yay to enhance it so that his entire body would repair itself.
The same had happened to all of them. Frank had said that he only looked like them, but his brain worked better. He said he looked like the r word outside, but wasn’t on the inside. He asked for the shot himself, hoping it would change his appearance.
Davey’s momma’s voice rang in his head, “Don’t ever even think of that word!” She had said when one of those mean people from the town called him that awful word. She had said it in such a hateful way, that Davey was sure he had done something wrong. Since then, he couldn’t even allow the word to be said in his mind, even if someone like Frank said it out loud.
Davey shook out his clothing at the entry way, to keep as much dust and grit away from the inside. He looked over the group that he lived with. Inside, his heart ached as he thought of his momma. He missed her. She had wanted the best for him.
Turning away from the group, he darted into the bathroom and a toilet stall so he could let tears fall without being seen. Momma had such high hopes, but the shot changed nothing. He still couldn’t talk, he still couldn’t understand this world, and he still looked like a down syndrome- a r word.
He thought of how his momma looked when he last saw her, stumbling through the park with gray, sagging skin and milky eyes. Then he met Frank when he was yanked into this same bathroom. Then there were loud explosions and everything shook. The world felt as if it were on fire. By the time Frank said it was safe to go out, the green, lush park was a wasteland. Everything was a wasteland and the ground was littered with the dead, but this time they were really dead.
He clicked play on his cassette player < Clamaditine will fix all your problems. It repairs your DNA> The cassette boasted.
His momma had given him this cassette player when he was very young. He loved the thought that he could record the world around him and listen to it when he wanted to. He had many cassettes and could change them out, but he kept returning to this one. Something about it just called to him. A grim reminder of what happened to him- to everyone.
Weeks after the man with the white teeth had claimed that all those with mental and physical disabilities were given the shot, it was noted that not much had changed for those with down syndrome. The man said it might take some time.
Panic began when people began to get sick. Fevers of 105° that lasted two weeks. The man on the news claimed that it cooked your brain like an egg. Since no one that had taken the shot got sick, it was assumed the shot made them immune to the illness.
< Clamaditine has not been approved by the FDA to cure any viral or bacterial infection. Call 999 or 911 if you experience long-lasting fevers or coughing >
“Davey?” a young man’s voice called out into the bathroom, “you coming to dinner?”
Davey wiped his face and opened the stall door. He didn’t bother flushing the toilet or washing his hands. There hadn’t been water since the explosions. He followed the young man to the group where plates of meat were handed out. Ann had cooked it as best she could, but it was still tough and had a weird flavor. Thankfully there was no grit on the meat, so he wouldn’t have to eat dirt again. He didn’t think where he and the other hunters had gotten the meat as he chewed and swallowed. He couldn’t think of it or he would not be able to eat it.
Bottles of water that Frank carefully rationed were handed out. Davey guarded his and made sure to take measured sips. Oh he was thirsty, they all were, but water sources were hard to find now, in this brave, new world.
After dinner, people talked and some played games that had been salvaged from bombed out shells that were left of houses or stores. He was not as averse to looting as he was to raids. No one was left to care about looters, but raids… those were people like him. They were meeks. They didn’t deserve to be killed the way Frank had killed them. They didn’t deserve to die after all they had been through.
When they looted what was left of stores or houses, canned goods would bring them something different from their usual food, but the explosions destroyed most of it. Bottled water was a very rare find. The soft plastic would have melted and the water evaporated.
As Davey settled for the night, his eyelids grew heavy quickly. He always had to be up with the sunrise to go find meat, he and a few others. His eyes drifted shut and he dreamed as a few others began to prepare for sleep. Sam rose to go take the night watch.
His momma was wearing a light yellow sundress, golden waves of hair flowing in a light breeze. “Davey,” she says, “after you have your shot, you won’t have to worry about not being able to talk. You can go to school and learn just like the other kids.”
Davey gave her a bright smile and a soft coo. Then, that dark shadow appeared. A giant that reached through the trees that surrounded their home. His momma screamed as it grabbed her and lifted it toward the sky.
“But that’s not what happened,” Davey thought. His momma had become sick and he did what he could to care for her. His papa was rarely around, but came that day. He ignored Davey as he picked up Momma and carried her to the car.
They were gone a long time, but when they returned, his papa carried his momma to the bed. Papa said, “People are crazy!” as he slumped onto the couch. With heavy bags under his tired eyes, his papa said nothing more.
Momma said that they tried to get to the hospital and demanded the shot for Momma because she was so sick, but people swarmed the doors and demanded it for themselves. People were throwing rocks through windows and forcing their way in, many complaining that the wealthy were hoarding the shots for themselves. “Is this that brave, new world you promised?” they cried as they broke through windows, doors, barriers, and people.
Word had spread, false rumors that uninformed people were sharing as “a friend of a friend said their doctor said the shot will make you immune to all sickness! Even death!” Clinics were raided, pharmacies were overrun globally.
Then, the warning was sent by the man with the white teeth’s staff: Clamaditine has not been tested on those with normal chromosomes. It is not recommended for use!
But the rumors ruled the panicked people’s thoughts. Only weeks after the riots, the first of the stumbling, staggering dead began to show up in the streets. They attacked and bit people. It was quickly found that Clamaditine was the reason for the “zombie outbreak”.
It felt like such a short slumber, but Davey was shaken awake by Sam. The black skies were gradually brightening in the east, looking like a fading bruise at the horizon. He missed the pretty pinks and oranges of dawn and sunset. The olive and grayish greens looked more like sickness and decaying death.
Wiping sleep from his eyes, he stumbled over to his stained Door Dash bag sat, now emptied and waiting to be filled. The other hunters gathered their bags and set off.
Davey pushed play on his cassette player and looked at the wasteland from the entryway. Pulling his face cover over his mouth and nose and tightening his hood, he set off while the preacher’s passionate sermon droned through the wind.
He recalled the time after the explosions, Frank had explained to a few of the others, “They had put out an announcement on TV and radio that everyone who was still healthy, and had not taken the shot or been bitten, should lock themselves in their basements. Hopefully they would survive after the zombies were blown up. I don’t know how all of us survived when the others died.”
They couldn’t have known. The leaders who started this realized their mistake too late. They thought that they could change the world with chemistry, but they had doomed it. They never tried to take shelter as the nukes fell. Instead, they watched it happen- their last act of courage. They thought that a basement might protect people, but the nuclear fallout killed those that didn’t die in the initial blast.
The only ones to survive were those with down syndrome that had been given the drug that so many believed would save their own lives. Sadly, only those with down syndrome were made immune to diseases and, apparently, to radiation.
< In light of the fast-spreading zombie illness that is ravaging our planet, we are planning to use nuclear weapons to cleanse our planet of this disease. We urge those who are healthy to lock yourselves in your basements with enough food and water to survive 2 to 3 months. May God have mercy on us all. >
Davey only half listened to the words of the man with perfect white teeth. He was stripping the meat from a relatively intact corpse from the raid they had done a few days ago. Frank called it survival of the fittest.
He felt angry. Angry at the world, angry at himself, but mostly angry at the lies of the man who made promises and destroyed everything. His momma and papa were dead, turned into those zombies before being blown up. Momma just wanted one last walk in the park with her son. But that ended in her being bitten and the transformation was agonizingly slow.
< Promise me, Davey. Promise me that you will be strong and you will find me in heaven. Promise me! >
His momma’s voice begged through the speaker on the cassette player. He remembered her tear-streaked face as her blue-green, watery eyes begged him and then her skin turned gray and sunken and she tried to attack him, to bite him. Frank pulled him away.
But Frank was not like him. Frank was not a meek. His circle of friends were not a meek. Davey was. He thought Ann was, too. Sam the night guard was. So was the person who lay dead in front of him, their corpse missing its left leg. The bones were left to the wind and dust of the earth, the meat stuffed in stripes in his Door Dash bag.
As Davey made his way back to the entryway of their shelter, he decided he didn’t like this brave, new world.
🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available
Written by Joleen Phillips Edited by Craig Groshek Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek Narrated by N/A🔔 More stories from author: Joleen Phillips
Publisher's Notes: N/A Author's Notes: N/AMore Stories from Author Joleen Phillips:
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Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on CreepypastaStories.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed, adapted to film, television or audio mediums, republished in a print or electronic book, reposted on any other website, blog, or online platform, or otherwise monetized without the express written consent of its author(s).