Drunk Tank

Foreword: The Messiah Modification: Modified Klebsiella Planticola
It was lauded as an agricultural revolution. Scientists had managed to modify bacteria that were present in the root system of every plant called Klebsiella planticola. Typically when a plant breaks down, it produces a sludge that is potentially detrimental to other surrounding plants that needs to be removed/neutralized. These modified bacteria would instead turn that decomposition into ethanol, otherwise known as alcohol.

Years of research and study failed to see the obvious flaw in the design, which was plants’ inability to survive in soil with a high concentration of alcohol. This little oversight was overlooked until it was too late. Once the modified bacterium was released it proliferated and quickly rendered the once thriving farmland of the Mideast infertile. Agriculturalists tried to contain the damage, but Pandora’s box had already been opened.

The trade winds were what damned the world. What was once one nation’s tragedy quickly spread and infected other countries through wind currents, which carried the modified bacterium to new continents. Within three months, half of the world’s land had been infected. Half a year later, roughly seventy-five percent of cultivatable land was rendered useless for planting. Nine months after the ‘agricultural revolution’ was unleashed on the world. Every single root system had been infected by Klebsiella planticola.

On the anniversary of the cataclysm, scientists ‘saved’ the world with another modified bacterium. This one also targeted the root system and allowed it to absorb the alcohol that lied in the soil without killing the plant. Of course the damage had already been done. A byproduct of absorbing the alcohol in the soil was that the seeds, plants, and fruits/vegetables were tainted and contained high levels of alcohol. Eating one fruit was now the rough equivalent of taking one shot. It would have seemed like an alcoholic’s wet dream had it not decimated the world and resulted in the deaths of millions.

Once a majority of the untainted crops and preservatives were consumed, humanity had no choice but to use and eat the crops that had been tainted with the bacterium. The first few weeks were lost in a drunken haze of chaos and alcoholic inhibition. Those that managed to find a medium and not be consumed by the chaos eventually built up a bit of tolerance to an alcohol-laden diet and despite this cruel new world, they managed to continue living.

This will focus on a few people in their attempts to survive in this place as they, and the world itself continue to shamble on to their drunken end.

Harriet Portier
I felt the room begin to spin and I tried my best to distract myself. I didn’t want to throw up and lose all my hard work spent trying to fill my stomach. The best way I found to prevent this was to focus on the irony of my situation. A few years ago, I would have welcomed the idea of being perpetually drunk, but that was while I was still viewing the world from the bottom of a bottle. Now I didn’t have much choice in the matter.

I thought back on what they had told me back at my intervention. They told me that I would consume myself and become a hollow shell. I might have listened to them if my family or friends had attended, but instead the ‘circle of friends’ that had convened was work friends. They hadn’t really cared about me. They were worried about the hospital’s reputation. They wouldn’t have minded if I drowned in my own sick in my off-time, but the fact that I had come in to work once hung-over was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

They had spouted pointless platitudes at me. They said they cared, but in actuality, the only thing they cared about was the hospital’s status as the top care provider in the Lower Michigan area. I nodded, wept a few crocodile tears, and promised I would quit drinking. I had no plans to stop. I had built up the perfect system for getting by. A couple of shots after work and over the weekend was enough to keep the memories of my childhood bedroom door creaking open, feeling my foster father’s fetid breath on my face, and his rough hand sliding up my leg as I desperately pretended to be asleep.

I only slipped a few times and those were never my fault. A persistent prick at the hospital or bar who didn’t know when to take no for an answer or a message from my foster mother set me off and made me want to drown the feeling. The day I had come into work hung-over was a result of a Facebook message reminding me that it was the anniversary of that bastard’s death. He had had a heart attack in my bed. He had overexerted himself and was clasping at his chest and gasping as the last little bit of air in his lungs was wrenched away from him. I watched for a few minutes to make sure before I put his pants back on and called for help once I was sure it was too late to save him.

My tolerance was what saved me in the first few weeks of the alcoholic apocalypse. I was already used to a liquid diet and the prospect of ingesting four or five shots alongside my food was not a daunting prospect. The trick, as is the case with being a high-functioning alcoholic, is moderation. Eat a little bit at a time and space your meals out. Most tried to eat everything all at once to save themselves from the taste (akin to a bitter liquor), but that only led to them getting sick. Slow and steady was the key.

My distraction worked and the room evened itself out. I focused on an object sitting on a shelf. I was clear-headed enough to tell what it was (a dented and puffy can of split peas), which meant that I was sober enough to continue scavenging. I would be able to treat any cuts and would be straight enough to know whether or not I was making a stupid decision. In a world where a majority of people’s inhibition is lowered, that the prospect of mugging someone seems to have little drawback, being restrained is the difference between life and death.

Clank!

I turned to the source of the noise and scurried behind a counter. Hiding was a much better option than trying to talk to an unknown person and determine if they were dangerous or not. I could always observe them and make a judgment call. I crouched down and peered over the edge at the source of the noise. I waited for them to come into view.

He stumbled into view, his clothes were loose and looked like they hadn’t belonged to him until only a couple of hours ago. He was humming the tune of a limerick to himself. If I had to guess, I would assume it was about a man from Nantucket and his disproportionate genitalia. He moved sluggishly and sloppily. He was likely drunk, which wouldn’t have been a big problem were it not for the other symptoms.

His nose was a bright red that only came from a lifetime of drinking and burst capillaries. His movements were choppy as if he had to think through every action before he took it. His head lolled about like there was no musculature in his neck. His eyes were glossed over and he mumbled to himself. His skin looked like it was covered in a sheen of sweat and sticky beer froth. I could smell the booze wafting off of him. This wasn’t a normal person struggling to adjust to life after the cataclysm; this wasn’t a man at all.

This was a wet-brainer.

Back when I worked in the hospital, every now and then we would deal with late stage alcoholics who were literally drinking themselves to death. Some suffered from an affliction called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. It was commonly found in people who drank excessive amounts of alcohol over a prolonged period of years. Common symptoms were: sluggish/uncoordinated motor skills (even when sober), minor auditory and visual hallucinations, erratic behavior, quickness to ire and irrational behavior, and fluctuating emotions.

In the drunk tank our world had become, these were the wildcards. At times they were lethargic and at others they were downright psychotic. I remembered one victim at the hospital forcing his way through three burly security guards, breaking one’s nose and another’s ribs, to get to a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which didn't even have the right type of alcohol for getting inebriated. These people were dangerous and I was trapped in a supermarket with one.

My safest option was to keep quiet and hope that he was just passing through. He could be completely robotic and just running through motions of days long-past, or he could be suffering a psychotic break from reality. It was a flip of the coin and I didn’t like those odds. It was best to avoid them completely. I was hunched behind the counter when my stomach betrayed me and growled.

It was a long, deep, hollow sound and I could practically hear his entire body whip in my direction. There was a brief pause while I fabricated hopes that he hadn’t heard it. Of course those dreams were shattered when he howled, “I know you’re in here! I can smell you. Oh, your aroma!”

I scrunched myself into my hiding spot. If he was bluffing, I would rather not give him a cause to search me out if he was unsure. He continued with his over-pantomimed sniffing and catcalls. He drunkenly crooned, “Oh, I can tell, you’re wet… Are you excited for me? Come out and I’ll treat you to the glory I’m packing. I’m using it as a belt right now.”

This was clearly someone who had completely broken from reality. I had no intentions of indulging in his depravities. I heard him stumbling about the room, kicking discarded cans and trash as he moved. The constant influx of alcohol had rendered him insensate. The thought of sleeping with him, despite the fact that his sperm count was likely abysmal roiled my stomach. I still didn’t want to suffer the experience of being with him.

I vowed to keep quiet until he passed.

My stomach had other things in mind. It growled once again and I could hear the man change direction towards the counter I was crouched behind. My position had been given away. I took a moment to steel myself. I would need to put on a strong front if I was going to confront this wet-brainer. Once I was sufficiently fortified, I rose up from behind the counter just in time to see him jump up on it.

In the time it had taken me to build up my resolve, he had somehow managed to strip down to nothing. He hopped up on the checkout counter with surprising litheness. At the sudden movement, his now-exposed testicles were sent flip-flopping around between his legs. It looked like a sad little worm tucked between two shriveled grapes. It would have been comical if not for the gun in his hands.

He gestured toward me with the handgun and spoke with drunken bravado, “Found you.” I winced. He had his finger on the trigger and all that lied between a bullet perforating my chest was an intoxicated twitch of the hand.

I spoke cautiously; trying to reason with him, “Let’s talk this through for a second.”

“The time for talking is over. I must plant my seed. I am the only one left capable of fathering children.” He noticed my incredulous look and demanded lewdly, “I don’t have whiskey dick, I... uh, just need a bit to get the juices flowing. Strip for me.” He raised his gun to show that he was through with talking and wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

My skin crawled as I slowly gyrated and danced a bit. He sat down on the counter as he watched me humiliate myself. I slowly began unbuttoning my shirt as I desperately tried to think of a way out of this. At this range, he could spray the area with semi-automatic fire if I tried to run. The gun was still in his hand so I couldn’t overpower him either. He began to stroke his flaccid length at the prospect of seeing more of my skin. I almost dry-heaved at the prospect.

I was sliding off my button-up shirt when the answer came to me. He was now frantically tugging at his shame with both hands in an attempt to disprove his previous whiskey dick statement and his gun was within hand’s reach at his side. I began to helicopter my shirt above my head.

He snapped, tired of waiting, “Quit stalling and take off your bra-” His words were cut short when I threw my shirt at him and covered his face with it. He immediately swore and pawed at the gun he had next to him, limiting my options. I sprinted for the aisles as he pulled my shirt off his face and grabbed the gun. I had hoped that he was too drunk for gunplay and the prospect of chasing me down would dissuade him.

He thought otherwise.

As I rounded the corner to duck into an aisle, I heard the crack of a gun and a jar of pickles that had fermented with time exploded, dousing me in its boozy-brine. I kept running as the smell soaked into my hair and made me want to vomit. I heard his feet slapping the ground behind me. He fired again as soon as he rounded the corner of the aisle. I felt the bullet whiz by me. I skidded to a stop at a frozen food section and went to duck into another aisle. I hazarded a look at him to see if he was catching up and that was my biggest mistake.

He charged through the aisle like a bull with his handgun raised. He squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. The glass behind me exploded inward and another bullet pinged off a metal girder nearby. I started to run when the third round caught me in the shoulder and sent me sprawling into the garbage and glass that littered the supermarket floor.

The bullet had torn through the flesh of my left shoulder and shattered my scapula on its way out. I would likely have limited range of motion after this, but it wasn’t fatal. The alcohol thinned my blood and made my wound weep. The glass and trash dug into my back and cut at my skin. The pain made me want to pass out, but I knew that that wouldn’t stop him from having his way with me. I began to crawl through the debris in an attempt to get further away from him.

He dragged himself into view, wheezing and panting at his exertions. Sweat trickled off of his beer-belly and got trapped in his matted pubic hair. He walked towards me slowly as a grin spread across his face. His bare-feet crunched glass with each step, but he was likely too drunk to even feel it. He sank to his knees when he caught up to me and pressed himself against my body.

I screamed as he began to grope me, but I knew that no one would be responding to my cry. He tore my bra and I winced as the clasp dug into my back as it was striped away. He pawed at my breast while slurring, “Shhh, it’ll be over soon. Once you’re pregnant, I’ll take care of you. We’ll repopulate the world and survive. With my genes, our kids will be able to tolerate the environment. I can take care of them.” I started to cry.

He tried to kiss me; his breath was rancid and stank of stale beer. One hand trailed to his semi-hard length while another slid into my panties. I couldn’t move, my body locked up and my mind crashed into catatonia. I wasn’t lubricated and he was rough. He dug into me as if searching for some hidden place that his delving could uncover. It hurt. I cringed my eyes shut and tried to kill the memories bubbling up at the surface.

I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere else, somewhere far away. I wanted to pretend I was asleep until he was done. I heard a small girl crying and I recognized the voice. “If I don’t do something, this won’t end; it would never end.” I opened my eyes and stared down as he attempted to line himself up. My hand shot out and pawed desperately amongst the trash. I wrapped my hand around a shard of glass and knew what was coming.

He was too focused lining up his own thrust to see mine coming. I stabbed into the soft of his stomach and pierced the diaphragm. He gasped in shock as I shoved him away from me. He flopped onto his back as I straddled him and pinned him down. I raised the shard of glass and stabbed into the exposed fat. I knew it was cutting into my palm, but I didn’t care. I knew it would leave a scar. I knew there was no way I was leaving this place without scars.

I kept stabbing until he stopped struggling. I stood up as he writhed on the ground with eight stab wounds in his torso. I tried to let go of the glass, but it was fixed in my hand with our blood intermingling. I looked over his form. Blood dribbled out of the seven-inch punctures I left in him. He squirmed as if the motion would help him stem the bleeding. It wouldn’t.

In that moment, he wasn’t a stranger. I watched my stepfather squirming on the ground, trying to press his blood back into his body. I remembered the night he died. His breath was coming out in ragged gasps. My eyes were tightly shut, fearful of the night he would ask me if I was awake; afraid of the time when he would demand that I participate. I only opened my eyes when I heard him roll of the bed and hit the ground with a heavy thud. I got out of bed and watched him feebly gasp for help. His eyes met mine and recognition filled them. He knew why I was doing this. He knew what was happening and that prospect terrified him. I watched as his breathing stilled. I thanked God for heart attacks. I stayed by his cold form for an hour until I was certain that he was dead.

The man in the supermarket was not my father. His fate had been more brutal, more painful. I had punctured his diaphragm, even if I had decided to try and treat him, he likely would still die. I had no desire to save him. He didn’t deserve to be saved. He realized what was happening and what was coming. He howled and for a brief second, it came off as a low, mournful sound like some sort of supermarket ghost damned to wander the aisles trying to figure out what had gone wrong in its life.

I took his handgun, there were a few bullets left. It likely wouldn’t deter any wet-brainers, but it gave me the sense of security I felt like I needed in that moment. My bra was ruined, but I was able to salvage my button-up shirt. I put it on and walked over to his bunched-up clothes he had hastily discarded in his rush to rape me. I was tempted to leave them, but I wanted to check to see if he had anything valuable.

One pocket seemed to be completely filled with beer tabs. The other had some loose change and two spare bullets. I loaded it and was about to walk away, but something stopped me. I turned the pocket filled with beer tabs inside-out and let them all spill out onto the linoleum. Dozens upon dozens of tabs fell out and jingled pointlessly onto the ground, building a small monument in celebration of his sickness. Within the cascade of junk was two items. I knelt down and picked them up.

The first was an old Polaroid photo that had been balled up and worn with time. He looked younger by a couple of decades, but it definitely was the wet-brainer. The man was in a hospital room. He was sitting in a chair and clutching a newborn baby to his chest. The look he had on his face was that of adulation and exaltation. It was apparent that he truly loved this baby. The crumpled Polaroid slid out of my hand and came to a rest on the mountain of tabs. The other item looked like a poker chip. It was plainly colored and worn around the edges, as if someone had spent a lot of time rubbing the plastic disk in their hand while debating whether or not they were going to continue. On the chip was inscribed the following words: “XXV: ‘To thine own self be true.’” I looked over the photo, did the math, and added up the years. Once I was certain, I returned to the naked man to dress him.

Just like before; I decided that I would re-dress him. And just like the first time with my stepfather, I wept while I did it. Unlike that night those three decades ago, where I wept for myself, this time I wailed for someone else.This time it was for the man. I didn’t cry over what he was, I wept for what he once was. I dressed him and left the family photo and the sobriety chip clasped in his sticky, cold hands. I couldn’t stop. Tears continued pouring out of me like blood from a stab wound. I wept for myself now, I wept for the world as well. Not for what we had become, but for what we once were and what we could never return to.