Volume 1: A Prelude of Ed's

This story is not in the least bit true…

I always wanted to be a minstrel, like a bard in the classical sense. I couldn’t sing for shit, not that it stopped me after a few drinks, if you know what I mean, but I could tell stories with the best of them. Telling tales? Fucking oral tradition? Who the hell has time for that besides me? So I became the next best thing, a drunk. I was damn good at that….still am…still am.

The Drunk

A Prelude of Ed’s

Anywho, I know what you’re all asking. Who the fuck is this Ed character and why the fuck am I in his bar? You are in his bar because it is the only place left to get a god damn drink. You, and especially you and that ugly mug of yours, should be very appreciative of this fact and in this reflective state of yours, you must be at least a little curious on the namesake of the propriety, property. And in such thought, if I were you, I would assume that this Ed that is enshrined in light above us was none other than old Ed Blackhouse. Too bad we would all be wrong.

Now, most people in this little slice of Americana won’t speak of Old Ed any more, can’t blame them, but it’s a damn shame. We focus on what he did as opposed to who he is and that is all kinds of wrong, because we lose perspective. He becomes a characterture, a cartoon that no longer resembles the man that we all knew and loved and grew to hate, just a man we hate, well you hate, I still love the old bastard, but regardless… I’ve lost my train of thought.

Right! Is it for us to judge a man’s character on his actions or should we judge it on his character? Perhaps with knowledge we can redeem this man or maybe further condemn him, but probably redeem him. Only time will tell. Here’s a little history, the tale of Ed Blackhouse.

In yesteryears, when the world was far more complicated than today, a man named Ed Blackhouse walked these very streets. And walk he did, he was one of the local mail persons around town. When he wasn’t walking his route, he was hiking, biking… lets just say that he was a tiger of a man, but not obnoxiously so like some in-shape people. He had a sort of hidden quality to his strength, the kind that’s useful in winning bar fights.

Now, you might think that Ed was a brute of some sort, the all brawn and no brains type. Well, that’s just plain nonsense. I’m going to drop another unpopular name now, the Old Man. Now, I know you all think that the Old Man is a monster, and that’s a fair description. But, you must admit that he was the smartest man in the room as they say. Ed and him, in our more innocent days, used to play all sorts of games together. The Old Man never loses at his games, and that was true then too, but Ed would put up one hell of a fight. He was the closest anyone ever came to beating the Old Man.

Alright, alright. Enough with the Old Man. Here’s a story for you. We were out fighting one day and we realized that we had plenty of smokes, but no light. We debated back and forth on whether to stay or go or whatever and Ed, God bless his soul, walked right into a pack of these motherfuckers and started plowing away. Now Ed, he was old school like me, none of these fancy fucking guns, I had Lucy here, he had his machete. And so there we were, Ed painting the town fucking bloody, chopping left and chopping right. Chopping left and chopping right. And all the while, checking every body for a light. And lo and behold, he found a pack of matches, the good kind too, and strikes up a match on a fucking zombie’s head while holding it back with his other. He lights his smoke and then fucking rips its heart out with his bare hand and takes a bite. True story.

You see, you all got it pretty good these days. Food’s plentiful, booze is flowing, and we are pretty safe within these rickety walls. Not like the old days, no sir, not like the old days at all. You see, it was the week after the whole fucking world had gone to hell, you know about half a year ago, when we decided enough was enough. There were ten of us then: me, Ed, Johnny boy, Kate, Bobby, their little boy (God rest his soul). The rest are dead, so they don’t matter now. I’ll tell you about them another day. Anyway, it was a fight and a fucking half those days. Hell, it was war, not that I know what any true war is, but it damn well was and no one’s around to tell me different. Every day we would march out there and kill a bunch of those motherfuckers and by nightfall they would be back clawing, crying, and trying to eat us. We lived on cigarettes and alcohol. But we saw through and you all better be grateful.

And there we were one day, the dust settled, a block taken, and everyone content with just that. I was sitting back that day, sipping on some rum, when Old Ed runs up to me with a mischievous grin on his face. He’s babbling on and for the life of me could not make out a word. He drags me to his garage and there was his old mail truck, outfitted like only he could. He hugged me goodbye and I asked where he was going. He was in a fit of ecstasy, screaming at the top of his lungs that he couldn’t hack it anymore, they had beaten him here and he was damn well not going to sit around and let that happen. He saddled up in his truck and with a flurry and a whoop and a whole hullabaloo, he plowed right through the fence. It was quite the sight, and one hell of an exit. And then he was gone...

What happened to him? Well, no one really knows, never heard from him again. I don’t think most care, I mean, he did crash through the wall. Zombies swarmed in, people panicked, three got dragged out before we could force ‘em out. Fuck them, though. No one cares. No one talks about them and their shitty luck. Ed Blackhouse, now that’s the story... Hell, I need a drink.

Now that I told you the history of the Ed you could care less about, let me tell you of the Ed you did ask about.

Now, when you ask about Ed, you ask about the town and myself. We’re all tied together like a nice birthday package. And in asking about the truth, the truth about our histories, I am honestly hesitant to tell you. For what its worth, you deserve better than the truth. When we look back and say: hey, its all going to hell right now, when we ask the difficult questions, when you ask if it was all worth fighting, if it’s still? I want people to hear my stories and look back on the good old days, whether they were or not, and say yes it was and yes it still is. Even if only for a moment.

Well then, lets roll it back. There we were, eyes focused on the horizon, and waiting. We all knew it would be any day now and we all knew what we were going to face, but we didn’t too. I mean, we heard stories, over in Europe and the rest of the world, IT was happening, but it wasn’t here. And when IT was here, it was out west and down south, not here. The news told us a lot, but they really didn’t know either. One person said this and the other that. Who was right? The guys who died? Probably not. It was all a lot of he said, she said, my brother’s friend’s uncle’s cousin survived this way. I guess you could say there was an air of uncertainty permeating the… air.

Then, someone dropped the Z-bomb. Someone said zombie on TV and everyone was an expert. I was in high school when Dawn of the Dead came out. If we ever get this shit straightened out, I recommend you watch it. The original, not the remake, by the way. The remake was good too, so watch both. On second thought, I’m sure that if we do recover, nobody’s going to want to watch zombie flicks ever again, so forget it.

But back to my point, and those movies prove my point. Everyone knew about zombies, but they all disagreed to what we were fighting. While everyone was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, Ed here, the Ed who’s bar you’re in, had the answer. Fuck it. This was his bar and no two-bit monster movie thing was going to take it from him. If he was going to die, he was going to die on his terms.

Ed kept his bar open until the last. Friends old and new sat around drinking, cheering what used to be and heralding in what was to come with devil be damned bravado. And then it all changed. The news had stopped broadcasting and the radios were static. I went outside and I remember it was a beautiful day, I had never seen it so still. That’s the wrong description, sorry, humanity was still. No cars drove, no planes flew in the sky, no one walked the streets, most had fled, the few that had stayed were either in the bar or at home waiting. But, the birds! The birds chirped melodically, completely oblivious and uncaring. Slowly the crowd from inside went on their way, I was left alone in the bar with Ed. I had asked him earlier if I could stay and he laughed the way he did and said that it would be his pleasure. See, Ed never had any kids, never even got married, no family that I knew of. I never asked if he did, but I didn’t have any family either, so we both wanted the company. He was kind of the closest thing I ever had to a father.

And so there we were, sitting, drinking his finest brews, and laughing and reminiscing. Ed, he was a smart cookie and pretty handy. He boarded up the bar quite well and they couldn’t get in. All we could do was drink. Drink and wait and watch as our neighbors fell one after another. Drink to forget the sights, sounds and smell of death everywhere. One day I woke up and it didn’t bother me anymore. But, Ed, it always bothered him. But we kept on keeping on.

You know, its terrible, the problem with zombies, you know. Doesn’t matter how good you are or how heartless you are or how much of a survivor you are or how well defended, they find a way in. And its that one mistake, that one board not nailed in enough, that one crack you forgot to seal, that friend you thought you could save, that will be your death. I don’t even know what happened, but one day they came in and Ed, he took me and put me in the basement and sealed me in. He saved my life. I pounded on the door and yelled and screamed, but he, he wouldn’t do it. Didn’t even say a thing. All I could hear was the gunfire, one bullet after another until there were no more bullets and then the screams, but that didn’t bother me too much then. I drank in his memory, in the dark basement, until one day a new sound, people. They asked me the bar’s name and I told them Ed’s in memory of my family and my savior. And that’s Ed’s for you, so respect it when you come here.

The truth? You don’t want the truth, trust me. Fine… How do I start this, so the opening is pretty much the way it was. The difference being, Ed was very good with a hammer. They never got in. We had been drinking one night and Ed was happier than I had seen him in long time while I… I was a miserable wreck. Turns out Ed was having second thoughts on staying, he… I guess he decided it all wasn’t worth fighting for. So he did it. Bang. Found him in the morning dead from his own gun. Ah fuck it, I like to remember my story, it’s a different kind of tragedy, the kind we should hear. All around bett…

“Hey, you out here?” It was JR, he took over Ed’s.

“JR! You scoundrel! Come over here and bring these good folks something to drink.”

“Oh, Mike. Jesus Christ.”

“No need to blaspheme. Just some good old-fashioned storytelling going on here. Now bring a damn bottle for them!”

“I’m not bringing out a bottle.”

“But, JR, they have been a very attentive audience.”

“I’m sure. They seem very attentive. They also seem very dead. Come inside, buddy, a fight broke out, we need your muscle.”

“Hogwash! Can’t be a real fight, I’m not there.”

All apologies, my dear gents and ladies, and thank you, friendly ears are few and far these days.