by Dick Gear
“Someone’s been assaulted up here!” Ted shouts. “Gang violence! Gang fucking violence!” Then he hangs up. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place,” he whispers.
I try the walkie-talkie once more. “Bud. Bud, you there?”
“Fuck Bud! He’s an asshole. I’m not dying for that dickweed!” Ted runs to my car and gets inside. I look around. No movement or sound from the upper levels.
Outside of the entrance, a few cars race by at high speed.
Ted’s got a point, I decide. We called the cops, they can figure out what happened to Bud. But if there’s been some kind of terrorist attack, then this job isn’t worth it. Trying to be a hero isn’t worth it either. I just want to get the hell out of Dodge.
I run to the car and hop in. Teddy Foreskin is waiting for me, his face sweaty and trembling. “Jesus, I feel like I’m going to shit my pants, Danny.”
“Calm down,” I tell him. I start the car and roll down the windows. For a moment, I don’t hear any noise at all. And even the noise from the street doesn’t sound different than normal. “Maybe we’re freaking out over nothing,” I say. “Maybe this is just one big misunderstanding—“
And then a bizarre sound comes from one of the upper levels. I don’t know what it is. A big animal vomiting. Or growling. Something vile and bodily and disgusting. It makes my own insides weak and shivery.
“What the shit is that?” Teddy shrieks. “Did you hear that Danny? Did you?”
“Of course I heard it.” I pull the car out of the garage with the smell of burning rubber in my nostrils.
The street is temporarily empty. I look around because I heard so much noise out here just a few minutes ago and now—nothing. All I see is two turned over trashcans on the corner and what looks like a pair of jeans in the middle of the street. And a sneaker.
I take a left, planning to hit the turnpike.
“Did you see that?” Teddy shouts.
“See what? See what?”
“The foot in the road! The fucking foot!”
“It wasn’t a foot, man. It was a sneaker.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It wasn’t just a sneaker. There was a foot in the sneaker, and it was cut off just above the ankle. With tendons and shit sprouting out of it.” He leans out the window and pukes everywhere.
“Oh, man. You better not have just puked down the side of my car.”
He heaves again. This time I’m pretty sure I hear splatter against the door.
There’re a few cop cars up ahead. Their lights suddenly come on and both of them pull a U-turn and fly by us.
I keep going, my heart pounding now. I’m certain that Teddy hallucinated that foot situation. All I saw was a sneaker lying in the street.
Teddy lies back in his seat, mouth hanging open, a smear of brown vomit down his chin. He wipes it off with the back of his hand and looks at me with glazed eyes.
“That was sick. So fucking sick.”
“We’re going to be on the turnpike in a minute.”
“Taking it to my place?” he asks.
I glance at him. “I’ve got to check on Nana first.”
“Nana? I think Nana is going to be just fine. Let’s go to my apartment. It’s closer.”
“She wasn’t doing so well earlier, I need to check on her.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “Fine.”
I reach out and turn on the car radio, scanning through the stations. Music, sports, talk radio. No breaking news. “Hey, Teddy, search on your phone for any news. See if anyone knows what the fuck’s going on.”
He pulls out his cell and starts tapping away at it.
We get on The Pike and pretty soon I’m doing well over eighty. “Anything in the news?”
Teddy shakes his head. Then his mouth makes a little round O. “Actually—
here’s something. Boston.com has an article that says there were a series of robberies and assaults tonight outside of the bars on Lansdowne Street.”
“That’s not close enough to our garage.”
“Yeah, but it’s something. Maybe the robbers headed up our way after they left Lansdowne Street.”
“Maybe so.” I think about my Nana getting mugged earlier at the store. Pretty bizarre coincidence that she was assaulted today. I’m sweaty and my rash is itching again at full power. I stuff my hand down my pants and start scratching.
Teddy makes a face. “Gross, dude.”
“Keep your opinions to yourself.”
When we get to my house a few minutes later, the neighborhood is quiet. It feels nice to be back, but I’m still jumpy and nervous. I want to make sure Nana is okay. As I hop out of the car, Teddy just sits in the passenger seat.
“I’ll wait here,” he says. He turns up the radio and pumps the new Kanye West song.
“Have it your way.” I get out and head inside. The house is dark, which is how I left it. Somehow it feels a little creepy after everything that’s gone on tonight.
But what’s actually gone on? I ask myself. Nothing. We heard some noises.
Maybe there was a robbery on Lansdowne Street, some sirens and stuff. Nothing more.
And the severed foot?
There was no severed foot. That was Teddy having a hallucination. Teddy once tried to convince me that he met Matt Damon and beat him in a one-on-one basketball game.
What about how Bud just disappeared, and the screams from the upper level?
It was either a joke or a misunderstanding, I tell myself. Pretty soon my cell will be ringing and Bud will be on the line chewing my ass out.
You don’t really believe that.
I shake off the competing voices in my head and come back to the present.
“Nana?” I call out.
She’s asleep of course. I turn on the lights as I make my way through the living room and hallway and then knock on her bedroom door. “Nana?”
Again no answer. She needs the rest, I tell myself. But my hands are shaking.
I knock again. I slowly open the door and turn the light on. Nana’s bed is empty, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
For a second I actually thought she was going to be dead. I had an image of her lying with her eyes wide open and mouth gaping like that dead fish she seemed to resemble a few hours ago.
She must be in the bathroom.
Only, as I’m turning to go knock on the bathroom door, there’s movement from the closet, rustling. And then she’s coming towards me with her arms out and a crazy look in her eyes.
“Nana, what the fuck are you doing?” I call out as she comes at me.
She doesn’t answer. Her old hands grip my shirt and pull me towards her.
Nana’s mouth opens wide and then clamps down on my shoulder with brutal force. I shout in pain and fear and surprise and try to shove her off me, but she’s much stronger than I gave her credit for.
Her mouth presses harder against me. “Nana, for Christ sake! Get a hold of yourself!”
She makes a sound from deep in her throat. She sounds like a dog trying to eat a thick piece of steak. And she’s so damn strong that I’m getting afraid of what she might do to me if I can’t get away soon.
But I don’t want to hurt her.
I remove one of her claw like hands from my shirt and she forces it back against me. We wrestle around until both of us fall and smash into her armoire. A few porcelain dolls fall to the floor.
I’m breathing heavily now and my shoulder’s in agony. Her head comes up and her lips pull back from her…gums. I realize she doesn’t have her false teeth in, so she hasn’t been able to break through my clothing. Her tongue sticks out and wiggles at me.
I mush her face with my hand.
She makes another gurgling noise and I throw all of my weight into it, pushing her until she falls to the ground in a heap. “What the hell is wrong with you, Nana? If you want me out, just say so!”
She starts slowly climbing to her feet, her yellow eyes glaring at me. Spit hangs between her lips and
her tongue lolls. More strange sounds utter from her throat.
“You’re sick, Nana. Really. Get the fuck back in bed.”
She lunges at me as I try to evade her. I’m forced to kick her in the gut, and it has almost no effect. She lunges again. This time my foot connects with her crotch. Still nothing.
A small part of me wishes Teddy Foreskin were here so he could see it—and maybe even make a YouTube video of it.
I back out of the room and into the hallway but she’s at me again. Her fingernails scrape down my cheek and arm. Reflexively I punch her in the side of the head. This doesn’t deter her at all. Not in the slightest.
She’s still barreling down on me and I’m frightened of her now. I’m getting tired and she’s not.
It must be all those years of cooking and cleaning she was always bragging about.
As it turns out, bench pressing and abdominal workouts and treadmill running is worth nothing. I should have been scrubbing toilets, mopping floors, scouring pots and pans every day. Nana is a damn beast and I’m losing the fight.
I start firing shots at her face. Left, left, right. My jab seems to be stunning her a little. Every time I snap her head back with my jab, she sort of freezes momentarily. I dance backwards. Another quick one two, and I even shuffle my feet like Muhammad Ali.
“What the hell is going on?” someone shouts from behind me.
I turn and see Teddy standing by the front door. “Help me!” I shout.
Nana looks at him and then me, confused momentarily. Her eyes narrow and her lips pull back.
“Why are you beating the holy fuck out of your Nana?”
“She’s trying to kill me.”
As if to prove it, Nana moves toward me again, arms outstretched. I dance out of the way, faking her out with a stutter step. But she pivots quicker than I expect and her right hand is able to snag my wrist. She locks on so tightly that I feel my tendons grind into the bone and I scream like a little bitch.
I let loose on her with my right hand. Three huge punches to her face.
“Danny, you’re going to kill your Nana!” Teddy yells. “Stop it, man!”
“She’s breaking my motherfucking wrist! Help me, Ted! Get her off me, man!”
“Hell no, I’m not getting involved in a domestic dispute!”
I pull her toward me using my left arm, bringing my knee up into her gut twice.
She tries to bite my chest and snaps at my face.
“Help me!” I scream again.
“Get her in a Thai clinch, Danny!” Teddy shouts. “Work her midsection!”
We’ve both trained a little mixed martial arts, that’s just the kind of dumb stuff guys our age do these days. I figured it might come in useful if someone tried to fight me in a bar one night. I didn’t expect to use it on elderly widows that I’d been nursing back to health.
I get my one free hand across the back of Nana’s head and grip her greasy gray hair. She tries to turn her head and bite my wrist. But before she can, I bring my knee up yet again, directly into her face.
Nothing. It should have practically taken her head off. She just snaps at me and her other hand grabs at my face. I feel a stinging burning sensation and then blood pouring from my cheek. As the blood splatters down my face she starts doing the crazy tongue thing.
Her mouth is wide open and she tries desperately to get closer to my face. Her nostrils are flared wide and it seems to me that she’s actually smelling my blood. And then it hits me. “She’s a fucking zombie!” I scream.
Teddy starts running around the room screaming. Then he runs out the front door.
With a burst of strength from the panic that’s coursing through me, I toss Nana across the room and she smashes into the wall. Her body hits so hard that it leaves a giant crack and pieces of plaster fall to the ground.
I use the space I’ve created to bolt for the front door. I can see Teddy’s in the driver’s seat of my car, waiting.
And then I get outside and my car is pulling away from the curb, gaining speed at it goes.
“Teddy! Teddy! What the fuck!” I shout running as fast as I possibly can. He’s still going. I can’t believe that traitorous fuck is going to leave me out here with my zombified Nana chasing after me.
I keep running. Just as I’m about to give up, I see the break lights go on and the car stops. Then it begins backing up at high speed. Before long, the car reaches me and stops.
Ted rolls down the window. “Hop in.”
“Get in the passenger seat, Teddy.”
“I’m driving.” He stares at me, suddenly asserting his alpha male status.
“That’s my car. You can’t steal my goddamn car.”
“You’re in no condition to drive right now.”
“You’re just using this as a fucking excuse, Teddy. You always were jealous of my car, you always wanted it and now you think this is your big chance to drive it. Well, it’s not happening. Now get out.”
For a second I think he’s going to try and drive off again. But he relents, sliding over into the passenger seat. I hop behind the wheel. That’s when I see Nana in the street. Coming after us.
“She’s still trying to kill me,” I say.
“Run that bitch over, Teddy gasps.
“I can’t run my Nana over.” I drive as fast as I can away from her. In the rearview mirror she gets smaller and smaller as we gain distance.
I’m not sure where I’m going, just as far away from that scene as possible. Tears are streaming down my face.
Teddy looks at me, concerned. “You okay?”
“You were going to leave me back there. You took off on me, you were halfway to China by the time I got out of the house.”
“I freaked out. I come in and you’re teeing off on your grandmother’s face like you’re Roy Jones Junior. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“She was trying to eat me, though. You saw it. Right?”
“Oh, definitely. I mean—I can’t be sure—“
“What do you mean you can’t be sure?”
“I didn’t see how the whole thing started. Maybe it was an argument…”
“There was no argument, Teddy. She came at me out of nowhere, and tried to eat my shoulder!”
“How come you didn’t get bitten? There’s no bites on you, just the bad scratch on your cheek from her nails.”
I touch my cheek and my fingers come away bloody. “She didn’t have her false teeth in. She was gumming me the whole time.”
“Oh.” He smiles. “So you weren’t really in any trouble. She’s an old lady with no teeth.”
“Just because she was gumming me doesn’t mean it was a big joke. She was obviously trying to kill me.”
“Sure. Definitely.” Teddy nods but I’m no longer sure he fully supports my actions.
“Point is, I think I know what’s going on around here. I know what happened to Bud at the garage tonight.”
Teddy looks at me expectantly. “What happened?”
“People are turning into zombies, man.” I lick my lips. “My Nana got bit by some guy earlier today. The wound on her finger was all weird looking. Greenish, pus was oozing out of it. That’s why I was worried about her, I knew something fucked up was going on.”
Teddy shakes his head. “Your Nana was flipping out. She wasn’t a zombie.”
“She’s almost eighty years old and you think she could fight a young man like that?”
“Crazy people have retard strength,” Teddy says.
“Crazy people have retard strength,” I repeat in disbelief. “Now that’s some intelligent analysis right there.”
He laughs. “You never heard the term retard strength before?”
I grit my teeth. I’ve never wanted to punch someone so badly before in my life.
Besides my Nana a few minutes ago, that is. “Look, she wasn’t crazy. My Nana has never done anything like that in her life. She’s old. But I threw her into a wall and she got up and came after me like Fr
eddy Krueger.”
“She can’t be a zombie, though. Zombies don’t exist, Danny. So who’s stupid now?”
He has a point. Zombies don’t really exist. Which means that I just beat the crap out of an old lady. I could definitely end up in jail for it, and I’ll surely be kicked out of the house now.
We drive in silence for a while. “I don’t even know where I’m going.”
Teddy Foreskin grins. “Shep’s having a party. We should hit up that spot, take your mind off everything.”
“Maybe we should call the police. Tell them what happened with my Nana.”
Teddy runs a hand through his dirty blond hair. “I don’t think so. You’ll get in big trouble if we do. Beating up an eighty-year-old lady? You’ll go to jail for sure.”
“Maybe she’s hurt, though.”
“She was running after us in the street. She looked like Ben Johnson running the fifty-yard dash. I don’t think she was hurt at all, Danny.”
I take a deep breath and exhale. This is so fucking wrong. But I can’t go back to Nana’s and I can’t bring myself to call the cops. Instead I take my cell and call mom and dad. My stomach feels sick and my forehead’s sweaty.
Dad answers in his typical gruff, impatient voice. “What?”
“Dad, it’s Dan.”
He grunts. I haven’t spoken to him in almost six months. “I don’t have any money to give you,” he says.
“I’m not calling to ask for money, dad.”
“Okay. So what then?”
“It’s Nana. I think she’s…” I struggle to think of the right words.
I think Nana is trying to eat people and she hits like a Notre Dame linebacker.
“Spit it out.”
“She’s sick or something. Like maybe she’s got early dementia.”
“Danny, just what the hell are you talking about?”
“She chased me out of the house tonight, dad. You should go check on her.
Make sure she’s okay.”
Dad sighs. “I don’t know what kind of shit you’re trying to stir up—“
“Just check on her, okay? I’m worried is all.”
“You’ve never been worried about anybody but yourself a day in your life.”
He has a point there. “Forget about me. Just go see she’s all right, dad.”
“Fine. I’ll drive over now. Nella!” Dad shouts for mom. I hear her shouting back at him and then the phone drops. More shouting. And then a click. My cell goes dead.