by Mark Tufo
“All you can eat, motherfucker!” I had said as I tapped him on the side of his head, like maybe some wiring was loose and he needed some adjusting. Punjab – or whatever the fuck his name was – had some balls, I’ll give him that. He was shouting back that ‘Slovenly Americans needed to pay more!’ I had clipped him on the side of the ear, sending him sprawling. I had been on a decent drinking binge when I’d stumbled upon the restaurant’s dinner deal. I didn’t make much at my accounting job, and when I had an opportunity to eat cheaply I took it.
To be fair I did probably eat the equivalent of a family of five worth of food. I’d even taken two shits while I’d been there. And then, just for the fun of it, one of the times I’d gone into the bathroom and pulled a Roman purging, making sure to spray all over the floor so that I could shove more in. The owner had started pulling my plate out of my hand when I went up for the umpteenth time.
“You’ve eaten enough!” he said in that ‘You want a Slurpee with that’ voice, or any customer service representative you’ve talked to recently. After I sent him to the floor with a bleeding head, his wife came out brandishing a rolling pin. I pushed her hard on that little fucking dot she had in the middle of her forehead. I thanked her profusely for the target it made. Aiming was so much easier.
“Man, get out of here, I’m calling the cops,” one of the cooks shouted from out the kitchen doors.
I looked over at him debating if I should mess him up. He shrunk back through the door, letting it swing closed.
“Fine I’ll leave,” I told him.
The restaurant was packed full of patrons, and all eyes were plastered on me. They wanted a show; great, I’d give them one. I stuck my finger down my throat. The owner’s eyes got huge, he knew what was coming. I vomited thick ribbons of half-digested yellow and red-sauced chicken and lamb all over the buffet. The smell of bile-covered spicy curry dominated the room. More than a few patrons followed suit, much like when one watches a yawn and is powerless to stop their own. I made sure that no dish on the large table was free from my offering. The ones that suffered the least amount of damage I made sure to close off a nostril and let loose some thick mucus strings. Any eaters who had not yet turned over their meal quickly fell in line.
“This place sucks anyway,” I told him as I wiped my mouth and headed out. The place was closed for a week after that incident. Stupid shithead should have just let me eat. It would have been far cheaper. He never did have another all-you-can-eat special.
I had just finished reveling in my memory when I noticed we were in the midst of passing a strip mall. “Hey, Clarabelle, what size shoe do you take?”
Clarence was still in his imaginary corner rubbing his imaginary fingers over his imaginary lips really quick, making not so imaginary really weird noises in our shared space.
I left my zombie walking buddy and headed in. The store looked like a tornado had hit, or at least like a woman with a foot fetish had been there. The world was falling to shit and some titted idiot thought stocking up on footwear was a good idea. I hoped I got the chance to eat her with her new pumps on. The men’s section looked relatively unscathed, after a few minutes of trial and error I determined Clarence to be an eleven-and-a-half.
“I guess what they say about big feet and big penises doesn’t really apply in your case,” I said to Clarence as I tied the laces on my new boots.
I decided to go with steel toe. Who knew when those bad boys would be handy. I walked up and down the aisle a couple of times, making sure I liked the fit and then headed out and directly into the store next to it. The sports store had been ransacked, mostly for the energy bars, it wasn’t the kind that carried firearms. Just tennis rackets, cleats, and baseball gloves. True sports, not like hunting. In sports there is always a chance one team or player is going to lose, in hunting I don’t know that I’d ever heard of a deer turning the tables on a hunter and taking him out. Talk about a one-sided venture. It equates to a peewee football team taking on a pro NFL team. Any guesses on who’s going to win?
I’m not an animal activist, it’s their fault for being so stupid, I just hate the fucking hunters that are all high-fiving themselves after they killed something with a high caliber rifle from three hundred yards away. Do the same thing with a knife to a tiger, I’d be much more impressed. Killing Bambi with a .30-30 is not a sport, stupid shits.
Damn, where did that come from? I thought as I grabbed a thirty-five-inch aluminum Louisville Slugger. I swung it around a few times accidently (on purpose) taking out a display or two.
“This’ll work,” I said aloud.
I walked out of the store and scanned around. It didn’t take too long to find who – or specifically what – I was looking for: the zombie I’d punched wasn’t that far away. I ran over to him, happy that my new boots felt pretty comfortable. I got to within striking distance and brought the barrel of the bat down on its head. I drove the thing damn near halfway into its skull. The bat pulled out with a wet sucking sound as the zombie fell to the ground. I was happy its blood was semi-congealed; the jelly-like substance didn’t splatter as much. I wiped the brain that was stuck to my new killing device on his tattered chinos. I was going to smack him a few more times just for the fun of it, but I was afraid of getting my clothes dirty.
“That’s one less mouth to feed,” I said with satisfaction.
I stepped over its body. The hunger to eat was growing by the second. And as if by divine intervention, the dinner bell rang – well, more like a car horn, but same difference. I strode with purpose to where the sound was emanating from. It wasn’t far, a block at the most from my present location. A blue SUV full of sustenance was moving about with panic in their actions. I stood there and stared trying to figure out what they were doing. There were at least four that I could see, and not a gun among them, although it was difficult to tell from the growing number of zombies that had encircled them.
Even if they had a gun it wouldn’t be the wisest move to stick it out a window and shoot, or worse, shoot through the glass leaving an ingress for the zombies. But that didn’t explain why they were just sitting there, unless they’d either broken down or run out of gas. Either way, it sucked for them. The dipshit in the driver’s seat kept laying on the horn. I walked over quickly before he alerted the whole West Coast chapter of Zombies Unlimited about their whereabouts.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled to him. His eyes nearly fell out of his face when he took a look at me. He became as still as a mannequin…and about as white.
“Charlie, Charlie! What’s wrong?” This from a woman who most likely had the unfortunate lot in life to have ended up as his significant other. She started screaming when she followed his line of sight to me. I was eating this up! I was a star! There were two older men in the back seat, one was holding a paint stir stick as if that were going to get him out of this present predicament, and the fourth was still searching for something.
About a dozen zombies were clawing desperately at their food tin, trying to get in and grab a late night snack. I rocked the first one on the side of the head. Clotted brain matter sprayed on the windshield and Charlie’s wailing wife finally shut up.
“FOOOOOOOD!!!!” Hugh cried.
“You just now noticing? Nice of you to awake.” I said to him as I turned and swung the bat, catching the next one flush in the face. I was glad I wasn’t squeamish as the zombies face collapsed in on itself. Her eyes, nose, and mouth now all vying for the same spot as she fell to the ground.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Hugh shrieked, nearly sending me to my knees. “Other Hughs!!”
“Other Hughs want our food,” I told him. “And what’s the matter pal you haven’t cared all that much before are you going all soft on me?” Or more self aware, I thought disturbingly.
I kept swinging the bat, waiting for more protestations. I don’t know if I was getting Hugh’s blessing as I destroyed the other zombies, but he wasn’t stopping me either. I had definitely hit him in a fragile spot
. Hugh’s stomach ruled and someday a little she-zombie was going to realize this and capture his heart with a nice ketchup bathed brain-loaf.
I was sweating from my heavy exertion in dispatching the undead; who knew bashing brains in was such hard work? I stood up and four pairs of eyes watched my every move.
“What? No thank you? Fucking ingrates.”
“Th-thank you.” Charlie’s wife mustered. “Y-you saved us.” She said the words loud enough for me to hear them but I could tell she didn’t feel them.
“Oh I saved you all right. I saved you for myself,” I said as I brought the bat down on the windshield. The glass began to fragment as spider lines radiated out from the impact point. Charlie was first to react as he laid into the horn again. It took two more whacks before I was able to smash his hand into bone dust. He wouldn’t be honking anything any time soon…or ever really.
The older crone in the back finally found what he was looking for; it was a gun that looked even older than him somehow. But the size of that barrel, well that gave me some pause to reconsider. It looked like I could shove Clarence’s dick down the damn thing and have some room left over. Then, if he hadn’t been threatening me just a moment ago, I would have laughed as I watched him fumble with a powder horn. It was a black powder revolver. I’d be able to eat his fellow passengers and start on him before he had a chance to take a shot.
Well not really, but I had time enough. I walked over to that side of the car. The horn was shaking violently in his grip as he tried to get some down the barrel. One hit on the glass and I smashed through. He tried desperately to keep me from popping the lock, but a quick thrust of the bat into his teeth and he quit. Blood and bone bits leaked through his split lips, he was sobbing as I opened the door and pulled him to the pavement. The gun, if that’s what you want to call it, went clattering away.
“That’s really the best you could do?” I shouted at him.
I put my bat down and grabbed the old man, one hand deeply into his crotch the other at the nape of his neck. I strained to lift him over my head. He was hitching as I crushed his balls.
“What are you crying about? You probably haven’t busted a nut since Reagan was in office,” I told him right before I threw him to the ground.
I’m not sure what broke on him, anything short of an MRI and it would be difficult to tell. He had stopped moving and that was all that mattered for the moment. Charlie’s wife was in full on alarm mode.
“I’ve always hated eating at loud establishments,” I told her as I yanked her into the back of the SUV by her hair. As soon as she was in range I ripped through her windpipe with my teeth. “Oh…delicious,” I said, gulping down a wet portion of her neck, my eyelids half closed as I savored the moment.
Charlie was rooted to his seat as he watched me pick his wife clean. At some point the other man had decided he didn’t like this particular eatery and had departed to areas unknown.
“Agnes, are you alright?” Charlie was finally able to ask.
“Agnes is fantastic,” I told him. “She must be a bacon and butter eater, her clotted arteries add so much flavor and tenderness to the meat.”
Charlie merely turned back around, he had his broken and useless hand cupped in his lap; he was sobbing quietly. I left him to his mourning as I moved on to passenger number one. The old bird wasn’t nearly as tasty as Agnes. I was definitely going to take a star off my review unless Charlie could save the day. I was in such bliss I didn’t even care how dirty my shirt got. I had decided in my many human dining experiences that the liver was something to be cherished and generally I made sure to eat that last.
Charlie had enough manners to wait patiently as I finished up with passenger number one. I was pretty full, but Hugh was like a tapeworm with a tapeworm, he’d eat until the cows came home even if there weren’t cows.
My bowels started to seize up. “No, Hugh! I’ve got this, we’re civilized now!”
I was in front of the car dropping my trousers when I looked up. Charlie’s face was aghast. Of all the things he’d witnessed me doing tonight, this apparently was the worst.
“Do you mind?” I asked him.
I didn’t need anyone watching as I sought sweet release. It wasn’t quite as tidy of a colon clean out as I’d hoped, but my pants weren’t too bad. When you lose fifty pounds in a sitting there’s bound to be blow back.
“You ready?” I asked Charlie, as I stood back up and fastened my pants in place.
He actually nodded. I thought that was downright decent of him. Charlie was going to be the icing on a great cake.
“Why didn’t the zombies attack you?” Charlie asked, his eyes never leaving mine.
“That’s a great question, do you have any theories on that?” I asked him back.
“You can’t be a zombie…you think…you talk.”
“Listen I’d love to stay and chat all night, but I’m figuring on a little pâté before I call it an evening.”
I smacked him gently on top of the head with the bat until I cracked his skull. (Well I guess that’s not really gentle, let’s just say I wasn’t trying to end his life just yet.) I bit through the top layers of his skin and peeled back the large fragments of skull so I could get to his pink and delectable brain. Charlie was still moaning as I took my first bite. He even comically raised his right hand as I must have bit down on the appropriate nerve center.
I scooped out every last morsel. I was too full to even think about the rest of him. I got into the back seat and laid down, taking a much needed respite after expending so much energy. I hoped Clarence would keep Hugh company so that neither one would bother me.
CHAPTER FOUR
Birds were chirping and the sun was shining when I stirred. It was like a Disney movie as I sat up. Right up until I saw the giant crow picking at some meat pieces I had left scattered around the car. It left with a disparaging squawk as I stretched and got out.
“Clarence, you still there, buddy?” I asked. He didn’t stir. “Today’s reunion day, you excited?” I goaded.
“You leave her alone,” he said weakly.
“Do you really think that’s going to happen?”
“I care for her, just let her live. There’s a billion people you can have, just let her be.”
“What fun would that be? I’m going to get her because you care. Well…that, and her shit of a brother shot me.”
“Please,” he sniveled.
I pretended to think about it for a moment. “Ummmm...nope. Let’s go, big guy,” I told him as I started walking back towards where my favorite body lay.
I was whistling, the bat on my shoulder, not a care in the world. I was really getting to like this new world. What more could I ask for? Plus I got to share it with my two closest friends.
***
The sun was close to directly overhead when I saw them approaching. I made sure it was only the two of them as I went back to lay my trap.
“You see him?” Anne asked her brother.
“We should have killed him yesterday. A fat-ass zombie like that roaming around, he’ll eat dozens.”
“Tyler! Don’t say such a thing.”
“Whaddaya know, I think she had something for you,” I murmured to Clarence. He was shaking in impotent rage, I mean figuratively, not literally. I was in complete control of his vast exterior.
They were turning to leave, presumably to scavenge for more supplies.
“Hugh? Gonna need the old voice back,” I told him. I would swear he was cussing at me.
It took a few moments, but after some whispering, I was convinced we had a high-pitched squeakiness that matched Clarence’s old voice.
“Help, I broke my arm!” I called out from between two houses.
“Clarence?” Anne questioned back. She was headed towards us.
“Hold on for a second, sis,” Tyler said, obviously the smarter of the two.
“It’s Clarence,” she said, trying to pull away from his grip.
“That yo
u, Clarence? You sound a little funny,” Tyler asked.
“In a lot of pain, I was running to get away from a pack of zombies and I fell.”
“Well that sounds like Clarence,” Tyler said.
“We need to help him.” Anne pulled free.
“You just hold on a sec, sis. Clarence why don’t you come out into the light?” he shouted.
“Hurt my ankle, too, Tyler. Please help me. I think there are zombies around here,” I told him.
“You’re an idiot,” Anne told her brother as she went. “He needs our help.” Tyler reluctantly followed.
I turned away as she got closer.
“Clarence?” Anne asked apprehensively as she stared at my back. I think she could feel something different radiating off me. Probably because I didn’t have my shoulders hunched in his defeatist way.
“What’s with the clothes, freak?” Tyler asked as he caught up to his sister.
“I’m in so much pain,” I said as I rocked back and forth.
Anne got closer but was not yet within striking distance.
“Get out of here!” Spewed forth from my mouth. Clarence had somehow momentarily wrested control and gave his warning. I slammed him up against the walls of my mind, shattering him into unconsciousness.
You screw this up for me and I will make your life a living hell.
Already is, he told me as he cascaded into oblivion.
“Clarence…what?” Anne asked, now clearly on edge.
“Get me out of here!” I pleaded.
“You still haven’t answered me about the clothes, Clarence. You’re dressed a lot like that giant freak clown out there,” Tyler said.
“I tore my sweat pants, please help me,” I begged.
I heard Anne’s feet shuffle a step closer and then no more.
“It fucking stinks here, Clarence. Did you shit yourself?” Tyler asked callously.
“Tyler, stop it, he needs our help.”
“What he needs is a shower and a wardrobe change.”
From the sound of her voice, I could tell Anne was turned towards her brother as she talked. Now or never, I told myself as I leapt to my feet. Anne had turned at the sound of my rustling. While Anne was surprised, Tyler was far from caught unawares. He was already raising his weapon to this new threat. He was a survivor, he had adapted well to the change in the world.