Her mother, Polly, handed her a knife. “You’ve got nine more,” she said as she twisted a piece of wire tight enough to cut off the circulation. Passing out twice from the pain, Eve finally managed while her mother kept Mitch and his men occupied.
Doing her best not to vomit, Eve shoved her foot in the shoe and made her way down the stairs to the livingroom. Mitch was confused by the auburn hair, but the girl was still smoking hot so he shrugged and bid everybody at the Rallie estate farewell.
They hadn’t gotten a dozen yards away from the gate when the first zombies showed up. Slowed by the pain, Eve couldn’t run. In fact, she could barely walk. Mitch went to scoop her into his arms, and that is when he noticed the blood dripping from her foot.
“What the hell!” he exclaimed, dropping Eve uncermoniously to the ground. He peeled the shoe off and saw the mutilated foot. “You’re not the right girl.”
As they fought their way back to the Rallie estate, one of the rotters pulled down the hobbled girl. Before anybody could react, three zombies had her and were biting into her tender, white flesh. The screams were dying down as they closed the main gates behind them.
“A couple of problems,” Mitch said when the door opened and Robert ushered them back inside. “That wasn’t the girl. For one, she cut off her toe to fit into the shoe. Who does that? Oh…and a few roamers were outside the gate. We tried to save her, but…” his voice trailed off.
Rhea snatched up the shoe and headed upstairs with Polly on her heels. It just so happened that, this time, it was the girl’s heel that would not fit in the shoe. Polly grabbed a box-cutter.
“Whoa!” Rhea backed away.
“Listen,” Polly advanced on her daughter. “It’s just the callous build up. When’s the last time you had a pedicure? I’m just gonna shave off some of the rough stuff.”
Rhea gritted her teeth as her mother sliced away a few layers. Finally, her foot slipped into the elegant and tiny black slip-on.
“Ta-da,” Polly said with a flourish as her other daughter made her way down the stairs.
Something didn’t sit right with Mitch, but he had to admit that this girl as even more bangin’ than her sister. They left the house, but they hadn’t even reached the gate when he glanced down and saw blood welling up from the heel of Rhea’s shoe.
“What the hell is wrong with you people?” Mitch gasped. “I mean, what kind of person mutilates themselves for…what?”
He stomped back to the door and pounded on it. By the time it opened, he’d peeled the blood soaked shoe from the girl’s foot. Planting a hand between her shoulders, he shoved her into the house.
“Lady, you have problems,” he spat at Polly. “If these are the only women in the right age group here…we’ll be going.” Mitch turned, but paused at the door, “Oh…and you can forget doing any business with us again. You folks are twisted.”
“Umm…” Robert stepped forward. “There’s Ashpu—er, Cindy.”
“Cindy Rallie?” Mitch raised an eyebrow. “Does nobody else hear that?” He looked around at everybody that had gathered and only got blank stares. “Nobody watched the old Disney classics but me?” he mumbled. “Anyways, go get her.”
“That filthy wretch?” Polly exploded.
“Hmm…evil stepmopther. Go figure,” Mitch said with a shrug.
As soon as Robert returned, leading his daughter by the hand, Mitch knew. He certainly didn’t need her to slide her foot into a blood-soaked shoe to prove it. He pulled off the baseball cap that she had her strawberry-blonde hair tucked into. Then, he picked up a towel and dabbed the grime from her face.
“It’s you,” Mitch breathed.
Rhea had already passed out from the pain, but Polly was livid. There was no way that little skank was going to live up at the university where they had gardens, farm animals, and a fully functional power plant run from solar and wind.
“Be glad we don’t waste all of you,” Mitch growled. “Cindy is coming with us.”
On the day of the wedding, a special security detatchment escorted Robert up for the ceremony. Curiously, that same day, a zombie mob managed to breach the main gate of the Rallie estate. Robert was allowed to stay at the university for the rest of his days.
Cindy slipped out the night after her honeymoon. When she came home, Mitch didn’t say a word as he watched his beautiful new wife clean a pair of gore- crusted machetes. He was fairly certain he saw a clump of auburn hair on one of them.
22
Erzats Ladies’ Man
Based on:
Das Rätsel
Clint had always dreamed of travel. So, when the zombies rose and wiped out almost all of humanity, he actually saw it as an opportunity. After putting down his mom and little sister, he loaded up a backpack and set out with his Great Dane, Shakespeare.
The first night was actually a little bit scary. Only fifteen years old, and having never left his hometown of Salem—with the exception of a fifth-grade field trip to Seattle—sleeping that first night in an abandoned and rundown barn was creepy…and much colder than he ever imagined.
The second day, he did his best to avoid the slow moving figures that wandered the roads and open fields. Late in the afternoon, he was wandering through what, at least if he was following his map correctly, was Mount Hood National Forest. He’d grown up his whole life seeing that state icon from his window and never even been close. One of his favorite movies was The Shining, and he longed to see Timberline Lodge where it was filmed. Since it was late spring, he figured that the weather couldn’t be too awful.
As he and Shakespeare wove through the pine forest, Clint tried to make sense of all the horror from the past three weeks. It seemed to have started in New Orleans. There were reports of Cajuns emerging from the bayou in droves. From there it gets a bit sketchy. Nobody can say for certain how it was that the first cases showed up as far away as Bejing and Rome a mere four days later. And he had no idea if there was any truth to the rumor that England had secured itself in time to be the only clean zone on the planet.
Of course, none of that mattered to Clint. The televisions had gone off first, and the radio stations were only a couple of days behind. He hadn’t seen a living person in over a week. And that one had been pulled down by a dozen of those things in the yard across the street.
So now, Clint walked along with his dog. Once he checked Mount Hood and Timberline off his list, he was gonna head for Yellowstone Park. Clint was a bit of a geology nerd besides being a movie buff. He really wanted to see Old Faithful.
As the day wound down, he began looking for someplace to camp for the night. He hadn’t seen any zombies wandering the forest, so he wasn’t too worried. Plus, Shakespeare growled something fierce whenever one of those things was close. It was late in the afternoon when he came to a stream. Only a stone’s throw away, a girl was busy filling a huge plastic container.
Clint felt the same old awkwardness flood him that he normally experienced any time he was in the vicinity of a pretty girl. Still, she was the first living soul he’d seen in a while. Clipping the leash onto his dog’s collar so the giant canine wouldn’t bound ahead and frighten her, Clint stepped out of the brush and to the bank of the stream.
“Hey there,” he called, startling the girl enough to make her drop the plastic jug.
Wading out, Clint grabbed the container as it bobbed past. He held it up and waved at the girl who was still staring with a look that was part surprise and part fear. As he waded out of the stream and started walking up the bank, the girl remained stock still.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Clint said. “It’s just that Shakespeare and I haven’t seen anybody in a while and I got excited.”
The girl glanced at the dog as the two approached her. For a moment, Clint was worried that the black and white pony-sized beast might frighten her. That is until she reached over and scratched him behind his pointy ears.
“Nice doggy,” she smiled.
“So,” Clint did his best
not to stammer, “do you know of any place that my dog and I can stop for the night?”
“Well, my aunt’s cabin is just through the trees,” the girl offered.
“That would be so great.”
“Only…” the girl paused.
“Yes?”
“Look,” the girl took a deep breath, “there’s no easy way to put this so I’m just gonna say it. She’s a meth freak. Half the time, she doesn’t even seem to know I’m there.”
“So, do you think we should keep looking for a place?” Clint asked.
“No.” The girl glanced at the sky which was turning the deep blue of dusk. “Just be careful, and I wouldn’t go in the back where the kitchen is.”
“We appreciate it. My name is Clint, by the way,” he set down the water jug and extended his hand, “and this is Shakespeare.”
“I’m Chelsea, pleased to meet you.”
They walked back to a clearing where a dingy double-wide sat on cinder blocks. Clint didn’t say a word as Chelsea led them to a door towards the rear of the trailer. As they got closer, Shakespeare began to lag, and eventually, the Great Dane sat down and refused to go a step closer.
“What’s that smell?” Clint asked.
“That,” Chelsea sighed, “is my aunt’s meth lab.”
“It smells like cat pee.”
“Yeah, that’s as good a description as any I guess.”
“How can you stay here?” Clint asked.
“I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention,” Chelsea replied, “but it’s not safe in the city.”
“I get that.” Clint scratched his dog behind the ears. “But surely there must be someplace—”
“My mom tried to eat me!” Chelsea cut him off. “I only remember seeing my aunt a few times, but it was the only address of a family member who lived in the state. So…I managed to get the car most of the way, until it got wrecked. The last ten or so miles I did on foot. I never ran so much in my life. When I got here…I basically collapsed. When I woke up, I wanted to leave, but I’ve got no place else to go.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Finally, Clint unhooked Shakespeare’s leash and nodded. He followed Chelsea to the trailer. It was one night, surely he could spend one night here.
When he walked inside the door, he was immediately struck with doubt. If the smell was bad outside, it was ten times worse inside. The girl grabbed a rubber mask and handed it to Clint. She pulled one on, showing him how to pull the straps tight, then led him to the very rear of the trailer, to a tiny bedroom.
“You can sleep here.” She pointed to a spot on the floor.
“Chelsea?” a raspy voice called. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Aunt Gerry.”
“Is that a horse laying out in our yard?” A haggard looking woman with sores on her face and arms stopped in the door. “And who do we have here?”
“It’s a dog, Aunt Gerry,” Chelsea replied. “And this is Clint. He’s passing through and just needed a place to crash.”
“Good evening,” the stringy-haired woman cackled, trying to sound friendly. Clint couldn’t look away from her red, rheumy eyes. There was something very unsettling about them. “Well, Clint, make yourself at home. I’m a little busy…cooking something…” she giggled at her own joke.
“Thanks for the hospitality,” Clint said, not quite knowing what else to say.
Aunt Gerry gave Clint one more look up and down, then turned and left. Chelsea pulled the door shut and climbed into her bed. It was getting dark, the only light coming in a soft glow from the other end of the trailer.
“Whatever you do,” Chelsea yawned, “don’t accept anything from her. Besides most likely being contaminated with who-knows-what, it always has a price.”
Clint settled in. He felt bad for the girl, but had no idea how he could help. He wanted to ask her to join him and Shakespeare, but his shyness kept the offer locked away. Almost surprisingly, he drifted away and slept peacefully until morning.
When he was getting ready to leave, Aunt Gerry came outside and approached the boy and his dog. “You stick it in her last night, boy?” she cackled.
“No!” Clint said mortified.
“You shoulda,” Aunt Gerry leered. “She’s a sweet piece, that one.”
Clint was shocked and unable to respond. He clipped the leash to Shakespeare’s collar and mumbled a thanks as he shouldered his pack.
“Brought ya a little something.” The woman held out a strange glass tube and a piece of foil with a few chunks of something that looked to Clint like rock salt. “Take a hit on this and you’d be sure to come back and see your Aunt Gerry.”
At that moment, Shakespeare jumped up on the wasted away figure of a woman and knocked everything to the ground. The glass pipe shattered and the rock-like stuff scattered in the tall weeds. Aunt Gerry howled in anger and Clint took off at a run into the woods. He didn’t stop for quite a while. When he did, he sat down. He noticed a pouch had been stuffed in his pockets. It was more of those dirty looking opaque rocks. He tossed them away and settled under the tree to take a nap, trusting Shakespeare to stand watch.
As he slept, a raven landed, drawn by the glint of the rocks. The bird swallowed one, flapped wildly for a moment, and died. Shakespeare scooped it up in his mouth and returned just as his master awoke.
“Good boy.” Clint patted the dog’s giant head. “Maybe we can find someplace to cook this up.”
He took the bird from the dog and dropped it in a pouch. All day they journeyed through the forest and couldn’t seem to find their way out of it. At nightfall, they finally came to a narrow road and followed it until it passed an inn with a dull glow coming from within. Clint stepped inside, Shakespeare coming in on his heels.
After handing the raven over to the man behind the counter in exchange for a discount on the stew that would be made with it, he took a seat in the corner and read an old newspaper from the last days before the world fell into chaos.
Little did Clint know that he had stumbled into a den of cannibalistic murderers who were nearly mad from such overuse of meth. His good fortune was that they were in between tweeks. That, and the rocks Aunt Gerry had stuffed in his pocket were from a lethally bad batch. They used the raven in the stew and ate it all before Clint was able to even get a bowl.
Out on the back porch, the barkeep, Aunt Gerry, and the murdering meth-heads stood around the pot, shoveling spoonfuls of the raven-laced stew in their mouths. No sooner had they taken a few bites than they all fell dead, for the poison of the bad batch of meth had spoiled the meat of the raven.
Clint heard sobs from behind a closed door and was surprised to discover a young girl bound to the bed in the room. He freed her and then went searching for the bartender to give him what for. In no time, he discovered the congregation of corpses on the back porch. Now there would be no one left in the inn except the bartender’s former hostage. The girl was so grateful that she showed him the basement where the belongings of all who had come before had been amassed. There were piles of treasure that held no value in a post-apocalyptic world like wallets and purses full of cash, ipods, and suitcases full of hastily gathered trinkets. Clint said he had no need for any of it and that the girl could keep it, then continued on his journey with Shakespeare.
After wandering for a long time, he finally came to the parking lot of Timberline Lodge. A band of survivors had claimed it and even elected a leader; a voluptuous woman named Bonnie who now went by the name Jasmina. She had a contingent of four female cage fighters who had been staying at the lodge when the apocalypse began. (They had been largely responsible for ensuring that Jasmina won the election.)
For fun, they let it be known that Jasmina would give it up for any man who gave her a riddle that she couldn’t answer, but that if she did solve the riddle, that man would be tossed in the octagon erected out back containing five zombies. She would be allowed three days thinking time, but Jasmina was so amazingly clever that she always guessed it soon
er. Nine men had already met their horrid death in that cage, torn limb from limb by a pack of eager zombies.
Clint got one look at Jasmina and signed up, besides, his lifelong love of The Hobbit inspired him to believe he had a sure-fire riddle that would perplex the peroxide-blonde beauty.
“Here is my riddle,” he said once he was escorted into her room. “One killed not, yet killed twelve. What is it?”
She didn’t have a clue. She thought and thought but she couldn’t even hazard a guess. She and her cage fighting coterie poured through every book of riddles she possessed, but it wasn’t there. When she could think of nothing else to do, she slipped downstairs and told her friend Heather to cozy up to the young man and see if she could get him to talk.
Being a bit of a nerd, Clint was tongue-tied by the beautiful brunette named Heather. She had to basically invite herself up to the room he’d been allotted. When she walked in, the first thing she saw was the Great Dane, Shakespeare. When the dog bounded up to greet the stranger brought in by its master, Heather turned and tried to run. She tripped and fell part of the way down the stairs almost breaking her neck.
The second night, Jasmina convinced one of her former stripper coworkers, Mercedes, to see if she could cozy up to the young man. Once again the new woman was scared witless by the pony-sized canine, even though all he wanted was a good scratch behind his pointy ears.
The third day, Clint overheard Heather and Mercedes gossiping over their sangria about how Jasmina was steamed that they hadn’t cracked Clint’s riddle. He congratulated himself for a job almost-well-done and returned to his room. He was more than a little surprised to discover Jasmina, wearing a ruby-red wig and jade-green contacts in a failed attempt at a disguise, waiting in his room.
Now he saw this as a personal challenge beyond just the obvious danger of being tossed into a caged oct-agon with a bunch of zombies. Obviously he was close to winning. So this is how Bilbo felt, Clint thought.
Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tale Page 16