Zombie Grind

by C.G. Banks

plan. It didn’t look like I’d be jumping outta any windows any time soon and since I’d gotten used to the feel of that bone digging in my throat, it didn’t appear I’d be starving to death, hah hah, any time soon either. I figured it was high-time to get something going here.

  Then I got to thinking again in my own slow way. What the hell was I doing out here in the woods anyway? I wasn’t a hunter or any other sorta outdoorsman. Hell, in the old days I was just a worthless fuck whiling away time on my Momma’s dime. What had made me think this was where I needed to be?

  I was a suburbanite. TV dinners and reruns, that’s what I knew. Sleeping late, playing with my dingus. These were the things I knew. I suddenly had the awe-inspiring idea that the last thing I needed right now was to be alone in the woods. I needed some kinda normality.

  I’d tried something new and found there wasn’t a damn thing to it.

  That’s when I stood up and made the decision. Fuck the woods, I was hell-bent on getting back to the city, any city. Anything to take my mind off the shit I’d seen in the last little while. And the only thing I could see keeping me from this notion was the fact that at any minute I could run up on a redneck hell-bent on killing some zombie ass. With that the decision was made.

  I pulled my ragged ass up off the ground and tested the wind. Looking for that certain stink. Like a bloodhound to a trail. And then, there, I had it. I hadn’t been thinking about it for so long that I couldn’t feel it sitting right there kicking me in the ass. Wood flesh was different than city. Out here in the woods a little hint would drift past and you’d scarcely notice it. But when I really honed in I could see that city meat hanging there in the air like a signpost pointing north.

  Because the cities had been where most of the people were. Heaped up all over each other in great swarms. And if the living weren’t quite so plentiful as they’d used to be, the smell of the dead was enough to get a simpleton-fuck like me moving. I lolled out my tongue and fairly tasted the rot.

  That way.

  And I was gone.

  The whole time I was walking, though, I was doing a lot of figuring too. I already knew I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but it still didn’t make sense. Just like that, I’m suddenly full vapor attack. Like those signs I mentioned were laid out in front a me. It just didn’t make sense!

  I’d been walking around out here for days, hell, weeks. And never for the first time had either the thought of going back to the city or even where the hell the city was even crossed my mind. And now here it was like a freight train running downhill. Hell I knew I was lonely but this kinda shit really didn’t shake.

  Then I thought about my eyes. Thought about what I’d done to that poor zombie motherfucker earlier. Thought about what I’d seen other Red Eyes do.

  That stopped me dead in my tracks.

  It seemed like the simpleton had been right. The first Change had been only that, the first. Since then, since the girl, I’d become something altogether different still. Like it or not I was one a Them. The kind that knew enough about shotguns to raise red-neck hell on their own. The kinda ghoul that could either trap or trick living humans into crafty little caves and devices. The kinda thing that would dig other zombies out of graves to raise its own little army.

  At that point I didn’t know what to do. Murderous thoughts started rolling through what passed for my mind. And then, of course, the other niggling thing about jumping out of high places aiming for my head.

  Maybe I was too chicken-shit or foolhardy but I knew what was gonna happen. I was going to the city. And once I got there I’d figure out the rest.

  Now, this part, I’m just goan kinda hurry through. If you read the other bit then you know about the woods anyway and really it was just more of the same. A few weird mudhead animals, a bird or two, fucking zombies lurching around in the woods and that was about it. And I gotta tell ya, I wasn’t bitching. The thought of them babies and the Red Eye fuckers was always topmost in my mind.

  I slunk around mostly at night, blending in. It just felt better. Wandering around with the sun high overhead gave me the creeps, like I used to feel about walking past the old Walker place back home. Supposedly some old fucker had offed himself years back with none other than a straight-razor and I never passed that place without feeling a cold hand on my shoulder. Well, daylight was the same, just a hot hand so to speak. So I laid up in the day and moved by night. It was never hard to find a place to crawl up in. Any little burrow a snake left behind would do me just fine. And hell, I could always climb trees even and drape myself over a limb or two. I’m much less particular than I used to be.

  But there is this one thing...

  It was a mid-afternoon wake-up in one of those earth holes. Suddenly, out of whatever fog I go into when I’m “taking a rest,” I was wide-ass alert. Ears ringing like a crowd of locusts in my head. Where I was had this big bush sitting right over the top of me and I hurriedly poked my head out to see what the fuck. Again, not scared. I was ready to rip some ass.

  And I saw em. Two fucking mudheads, a dude and some chick. Stark naked. Rotten motherfuckers to the core, the dude only had one arm and the chick had not finger one on one hand. Because that’s the funny part. Here they were strolling through the woods like Adam and Eve, buck-naked to the world, holding hands. Sort of.

  You see, they musta been lovers here in this Shit World. Another first.

  Because what convinced me was the little trinket they’d made for themselves. At first I thought one of em’s arm musta been mucking out like loose tallow but then I looked a little closer. And I almost shit my dead self.

  They had broken off two arms from somewhere and one or both of em had twisted some kinda leather strap or vine around em. Hell it coulda been a piece of intestine for all I know. Strapped forearm to forearm with those hands on the end. And each zombie had a hold of one.

  Sentimentalists, I thought.

  I watched em meander along like they were admiring the scenery. Hell ole One Arm even kicked at pine cones in an “aw shucks” kinda way a coupla times and the chick didn’t seem to mind one bit. Right down from me they stopped and the stink got a little bigger. And then she turned to face him and they started kissing, big open-mouth gobbers that made my bile rise. I could just imagine what the insides of their mouths smelled like. Then they were down on the ground and the dude’s crank was sticking out like a grass snake peeking outta a hedge. All swollen-nutted and purple shafted. He jammed it between her legs and she started making the most godawful noises you ever didn’t want to hear. He grabbed out at those smashed-flat titties while he went at it and started pulling on em like he was gonna make a clay vase. Then he really got going good and when he was about to pop he threw his head back and one of those titties pulled free like cheese drippin outta a hamburger. And with that I’d just about had enough.

  I was out from underneath that bush like Jack Sprat and he never even saw me before I steam-rolled his ass. He spun off away from her and I stopped just for a second, turned around and drove my foot as hard as I could down on her neck. Heard something pop like a spring gone wrong and those black eyes of hers went funny. Then I jumped away from her and started grinding down on her boyfriend like a chainsaw. He didn’t turn out to be much of a match because I was blood and gore within seconds. Pieces of him were lying here and there. I’d pulled out most of his rotten intestines and threw em back in his face and then I gave him the same thing I gave her except his to the face. My heel blew right through it like paper mache and he stopped doing anything else.

  Then I turned around and looked at her.

  She was twitching around like a big bug somebody stepped on and I walked over. Her fingerless hand was rubbing at the ground and one leg kept kicking out and dragging the heel around like some gear in a busted motor. I straddled her and looked down. At that tittie that was mostly pulled off. At those black little eyes staring off into nothing. Didn’t take two seconds that I lowered another boom on that thing. I just couldn�
�t take no more.

  When I left her she was as still as the grave. The old graves at least, the ones before the Change.

  After that I just kept on tracking. This went on for the better part of forever and then I kinda started drifting into the suburbs. I don’t know if it was just me or what, but I didn’t recognize a damn thing. At first I thought since my brain’s gone all funny that that’s the reason I didn’t know nothing, but as time went on this idea changed. The neighborhoods were different. And it was a lot quieter than I remembered it being at Momma’s. But when I looked back I hadn’t the faintest idea when I’d left or how long I’d been gone. I figured it coulda been long enough to clear damn near all the Live-ers out but what the hell did I know?

  I just satisfied all the curiosity by saying I’d never been here before.

  At daybreak I holed up in some house where all hell had broke loose. There were plenty of others that were nowhere near as bad, but like I’ve said a hundred times, there ain’t nothing like a little stink to drag my ass over. The place had been completely trashed, like a week-long party had gone on ten days. And on top of this there was blood everywhere. Like somebody had splashed it on the walls with a fucking garden hose. And did it stink? Shit I almost couldn’t