Who Will Survive

By Chris Vuoncino

Inspired by the music of Murder By Death, Who Will Survive tells the story of Jack who's decision to shoot the Devil in the back has long reaching repercussions for a small town. While the Devil plot's his revenge on anyone and everyone, Jack and the townsfolk must prepare for action while fighting off their own demons. It's a tale of sinners and saints, good and evil and a lot of whiskey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543972467

Book preview

Them

Prologue: Jack’s Journal

My name, shit, that don’t matter these days. If it makes you feel better, you can call me Jack but can’t promise I’ll respond neither. It ain’t that I ignore people, well not everyone, but I’m just trying to get down as much whiskey as I can these days, just kind of makes this shit that much easier, ya know? Well, I’m sure you don’t know, hopefully no one ever has to know again.

Loud screams can be heard all around the small shack with which Jack has taken up as his latest residence. An ashen sunlight filters past the dirty sheets serving as drapes in the tiny windows, the beams of sunlight permeated by particles of dust, which drift warily around the tiny living space. Strewn all around are bottles with various levels of liquid left, stops and starts to the erratic drinking that has defined Jack’s time here. The room consists only of a small cot, a tiny dry sink and a few piles of clothes left carelessly about the apartment. Besides the noises outside, the shack is relatively peaceful; Jack will occasionally speak aloud to himself, only to follow it up with laughter knowing that there is no one else to hear his speech.

Meanwhile, the whole town is in a frenzy and has been for the past nine days. Huddled masses finding religion after years of sin, religious leaders renouncing God after years of servitude, pure panic. The skies are a dark gray and there is soot and debris over nearly everything in sight. On occasion, Jack will peer out past the makeshift curtains, trying to ascertain some semblance of understanding of the destruction occurring all around, but also thankful to get away from it for the time being.

Fuckin’ eh, I’m the only man on this here Earth that is more scared of his fellow man than the Devil himself. That fucker is going to find me, and I will be thankful when he does. That rat bastard is going to tear me limb from limb, but I deserve that, it’s these fuckers trapped around me that scare the piss out of me. They are without reason, they don’t understand my plight and forgiveness isn’t an option for either of us. In fairness, I would not forgive the lot of them either; they lived well enough for years, free from the horror of original thought and ignorant of what it truly meant to fight for a decent living in this world.

Some dust falls over the open notebook and Jack looks up at the rickety excuse for a shack. He knows no one is going to find him here, they got their own worries, so long as he don’t show his face, none of these people are going to waste precious seconds on him. And as for those few who know him and what he did; well they certainly believe his fate is far worse than anything they could do to him anyway.

Not sure anyone is gonna find nothing here when this is over, but just in case, you should all hear my side of this. Well…a side of this whole damnation. Sure as shit there will be questions for any survivors, if there’s anything left of us that is.

Fuck, ran out of whiskey again. Shit, may as well piss in a bottle at this point and drink it, don’t matter…never mind…knew I had another, Jack muttered to himself. Between the alcohol and the chaos outside, he isn’t too worried about talking to himself now and again. He pushes some empty bottles and other clutter away from his feet to make room for the newest bottle of whiskey. It’s only 3/4 full, he must have started it another night and passed out, forgetting about it until now. That hasn’t been uncommon as of late either. Time and worries are different when you’re hiding out from the Devil, and Jack has only kept a loose relationship with either one of them while he has been in the shack.

The crumpled pages of paper, which constitute the journal he is now keeping, are strewn across the mattress, half the words illegible from both laziness and drink, but these words were not necessarily meant to be read by others anyway. If these pages were ever discovered, in some far off future, they would be hieroglyphics for a new society, one hopefully far removed from the horrors that plague this modern one.

Maybe this journal is a bad idea, everything else I done while on the bottle didn’t turn out none too good. Hell, if someone else is stupid enough to make my mistakes, they deserve this burden. Goodnight.

The moon slowly rises as families hold close in the corners of homes, surrounded only by fear and prayer. What’s scarier? The object one fears or the anticipation of it? That is the question that plagues everyone. A small fire can be seen in the distance; moving closer at an incredible rate. Some of the brave, or stupid, stand with pitchforks and guns and any other weapon they deem capable. Much like Jack’s shack, there is a stench of whiskey permeating throughout the town as a final shot of courage is shared…and this used to be such a nice place to live.

Chapter 1: The Devil In Mexico

Bart’s Saloon. Most nights here are exactly the same. It’s that bar on the outskirts of town, the one that you only went to if you knew everyone there or had some bad ideas in mind. The folks of the town dealt with the little bar because of an unspoken deal to leave each other alone. The community within Bart’s could have their card games, drugs and drunks just so long as it didn’t linger into the town, corrupting their youth or spoiling their prayer groups. Most of the guy’s that went to Bart’s wanted nothing to do with the PTO meetings and Sunday brunches anyway and were happy to be free of the local law enforcement knocking on the doors at random hours.

Of course, every once in a while, someone would stumble into the bar not aware of the scene and just looking for a drink. Most of them