Johnny Cash Rose from the Dead to Make America Normal Again 

Because of his burning desire to sing at Folsom Prison again, Johnny Cash came back a zombie.  A vampire’s too risky in the Pen and a ghost can’t hold a guitar. Now, he’s walking the line of evil afterlife creatures. Something deep in his zombie-addled brain called to him, told him he needed to stop the prison riots, do an encore of Folsom Prison Blues.    

Prison fashion in 2017: solitary confinement for juveniles, waterboarding for anyone arrested, thanks to the current president. Still-alive Johnny had heard of some New Yorker with gold-plated hotels and hair that Johnny wouldn’t get caught in. Dead or alive.

His family buried him in his black leathers to keep up his outlaw reputation from here to the afterlife. But Zombie Johnny looked less hip and more goth, a dirty dusty goth with wrinkled leather from all that time — fourteen years to be exact — underground. Because he couldn’t speak, except a few melodic moans and grunts, the fact that Johnny Cash rose from the dead looking the frightful way he did only added to his predicament.

He didn’t know which way to go nor did he know what to do with the burning appetite of his, so Johnny sat on a bench and couldn’t help but wonder where he’s bound. Johnny knew if ate then he could make his way to Folsom Prison. Putting one black cowboy boot in front of the other, Johnny sauntered toward the lights, feeling hurt, that old familiar sting.

Walking on the sidewalk with his arms outstretched and stiff, Johnny got some stares from passengers in cars — emo kids honked and waved — he wanted to wave back and give them a nod, but could only do a slight flick of the wrist and a groan.

How un-Johnny Cash, he thought.

He suddenly had the burning desire to eat brains. He knew desire all too well. He should have eaten that steak before he died but was too depressed after June’s death.

 The lights of downtown Hendersonville, Tennessee, called him like a beacon. Johnny kept trying to pull off a zombie saunter. When a chow-chow and a fat guy with a Hillary for Prison T-shirt walked behind him, Johnny smelled how good these two would taste. Nobly, he tried to fight off his hunger and stay focused on Hendersonville, but couldn’t. 

He needed to eat them one delicious piece at a time.

 Johnny galumphed around and his outstretched arms knocked the guy in the chest. That, combined with the groaning and his pale, pale face, caused this unlucky guy and his unlucky dog to leap back.

 “Hey, do I know you?”

  Johnny stepped closer.

“You’re Johnny Cash, aren’t you?”

Johnny took another step closer. If only they had buried me with my sunglasses and a map, Johnny lamented.    

 In his hungry zombie state, Johnny’s outstretched arms hit the stranger again. Guy and dog fell back into a heap, just like country trash.

Well, that wasn’t too difficult, Johnny thought. Then, he wondered who the hell Hillary is and why she needs to go to prison. Pills, probably. Just like him.

Johnny kicked them a bit (he had to rough them up somehow), and then he reached down with his guitar-playing-nimble fingers (even being a zombie couldn’t stop that) and yanked out each eyeball. Johnny started with the human first because he was so famished.

Of course, man and dog passed out long ago — the minute they realized Johnny Cash the zombie was kicking them. 

With the eyeball sockets picked clean, Johnny reached his fingers into the skull and searched around to pull out bits of brain. Not much. His arms had loosened up with more movement and food, and before he knew it, the entire innards of man and dog had been eaten.

 Somewhat satiated, Johnny continued to amble toward Hendersonville city center. Or what looked like the center. Streetlights broken and shattered. Cars lay abandoned in the street, some upside down. Plywood covered windows. The graffiti read Hail Trump or Trump 2024.

He told himself to focus on Folsom. Focus on stopping the riots. Focus on giving voice to the voiceless.

But he couldn’t focus. He found another snack by taking a quick turn down an alley. He backed this one up against a dumpster. The man yelled at Johnny, calling him a monster, and Johnny, offended, considered stopping but didn’t. Johnny had never been this hungry when alive.

The Man in Black didn’t mean to cause a stir. Maybe it was the innards splattered on his black outfit. Maybe it was the white white face of a legend.  Maybe it was his mumbled words that scared the city folk.

Whatever it was, a police cruiser followed him down Walton Ferry Road, calling over the loudspeaker, “We know that’s you. Stop.”

Hell, he thought. Another misdemeanor, now I’m up to eight. I’ll be put in solitary.

Johnny obeyed. In his older years, he had grown more mellow toward authority.

 Because of his run-ins with the law, Johnny knew his words better form into a sentence. “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he said with his hands up, his head down.

“You made it further than expected,” said the female officer.

“Ma’am?”

“We thought we’d be picking you up closer to the cemetery,” added her partner.

“I need to get to Folsom. I need to stop the riots.”

The officers looked at each other and nodded. “You’re on the riots? Prince is working on LBGTQ rights as a vampire. John Lennon’s a ghost for immigrant rights. Celebrities, dead or alive, all politics now.”

“Righteous!”

“It would be an honor to give you a ride.”

Johnny Cash sat in the black and white’s backseat — with the partition up, of course — because he must get to Folsom without eating his escorts’ brains. Throughout the drive, the officers provided food by shooting anyone wearing a red baseball cap.

Melinda J. Combs’ writing has appeared in Silk Road, Credo: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing, Proximity Magazine, Gargoyle, and other journals. She lives, writes, and tries to surf in Southern California.