Eat'em

by Chase Webster

The door gave in to his last kick. Wood particles and bits of metal flew across the room.

  Val didn’t hesitate. He screamed, “Get off my nephew, bitch!” and tackled the freak from the side. The two of them rolled into the antique dining set, smearing blood, syrup, and who knows what throughout the carpet as they did. Val threw a couple solid punches and the thing snapped aimlessly at the air.

  I stood, planted a foot on Trevor’s abdomen and ripped the knife from his chest. A spout of blood shot from the open wound, and I paused long enough to make sure he wasn’t going to magically revive and even the playing field.

  Val sat on Monster Ray Charles, pinning his arms beneath each knee. Every time the beast clicked its teeth together, Val answered it with a vicious right hook to the side of its skull; yet, surprisingly, it kept biting and hissing.

  “Move, V.” I said, nudging Val to the side.

  He punched the freak one last time and when he moved to the side I plunged the knife into its neck and ripped it free. I stabbed it again and again, not caring where the knife struck, over and over, without remorse, without feeling, without consideration… another stab and another. Until it no longer moved and until I no longer could lift my arm.

  Val grabbed my hand on my last downswing. There was no longer a blade connected to the handle.

  Crimson covered everything. My hands. My clothes. My uncle. Everything was red with blood. Streaks of gore so vivid I could count the cells swarming with in it.

  I collapsed into Val’s arms and began to sob.

  His narrow fingers ran through my hair as he stroked my head. “Orphan,” he said, “It’s going to be alright.”

  Chapter 29

  “So it’s the apocalypse?” Val said. “Gee, and all this time I just thought maybe you had a drug habit. This is much better.”

  We finished loading the second corpse into the hollowed out dumpster couch and shoved the cushions on top of them to conceal their presence. It was my idea to get the foldout bed from outside and use it to conceal the two bodies, but that was the last good idea I had. Just getting it up there, detaching the frame, and getting Trevor and his roommate inside was exhausting enough to take the wind out of us.

  We plopped down on either side of the sofa and soaked in the view of our macabre crime scene. Blood and pancake syrup soaked every nook and cranny of the small apartment.

  Even the bathroom looked pulled from Hitchcock’s Psycho, as we took advantage of our hosts’ hospitality, cleaning ourselves up, and borrowing some of their clothes. Our new outfits hung a bit loose, but came emblazoned with a couple nifty sayings. Mine read “Honey Badger don’t care!” His: “I stole this shirt from a dead man (Why he had this shirt, I have no idea).”

  We spent a good deal of time looking over our wardrobe options, and figured these were the most suitable of the bunch. Appropriate for the occasion.

  “I think I’m sitting on someone’s face,” Val said.

  “Most likely.”

  “Now what?” He asked.

  I shook my head. “No idea.”

  “Well you better come up with an idea, Killer-Jake. You got us into this mess, you damned well better start thinking about how to get us out.”

  After a minute of silence, I finally let out a long exasperated breath and hopelessly said, “I don’t know.”

  “Great,” Val said. “I find out my little nephew is a murderer and he doesn’t know squat about getting away with it.”

  “I’m not a murderer,” I said.

  “This is what,” he said, “three, right? That’s what you told me? Three? Maybe you’re right… you’re not a murderer. That’s enough to make you a serial killer, ain’t it?”

  “I’m not a serial killer.”

  “What then? An assassin?”

  “No!” I said, “I’m not an assassin either. I’m none of those things.”

  “That’s right,” he nodded and leaned back, staring past the ceiling. “Because they’re infected, right? I gotcha. Like zombies. End of the world. Zombies are fair game.”

  “They’re not…” I glanced over at Eat’em. He’d plucked a couple dandelions while we were retrieving the couch. He now placed them by the half empty bottle of syrup. He sniffled as he watched me from the corner of his eye. He’d undoubtedly try to get something out of this. “…I don’t know what they are,” I continued. “But you saw him. He wasn’t right.”

  “Well, you did gouge his eyeballs,” Val said. “He was probably pretty upset.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m not serious,” Val turned to me. “He was a flippin’ zombie. I’m just trying to add levity to the situation is all. Shit. Jake-Nasty, we got to get moving if we’re going to have this mess of yours cleaned up by sunrise.”

  “He wasn’t a zombie,” I said. “He talked, Val. Him and the other two. They knew my name.”

  “Fine, then they’re psychic zombies,” Val stood up and readjusted the cushion before turning his back to me. “Do I got blood on me? Am I still good?”

  “You’re fine,” I said, “and they weren’t psychic zombies either. They’re fast, man. Can jump at least twenty feet and run on fences. Definitely not zombies.”

  “That thing definitely,” he paused. “You going to get off your ass and help me?”

  “Yeah,” I got up, “Where we going?”

  “Out,” he said. He grabbed one end of the couch and gestured for me to grab the other. It weighed more than it did coming in. Val went on, “That thing that I saw definitely wasn’t running on fences or jumping any twenty feet. That. Jacob. Was a zombie.”

  “Like I told you,” I said. “He wasn’t like that before. I mean, he was on the floor, like he was dead, but he woke up and he talked. Then after the other went down, Trevor…”

  “Because you killed him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, pulling my end higher to grab underneath. “After that. That’s when the other started seizing and that happened to him, you know?”

  “Typical zombie behavior,” Val said. “They die. Come back. Start trying to bite your face. He didn’t bite you, did he?”

  “No,” I hefted my end around so Val could go through the door first.

  “Oh, I gotta walk backward, huh?” he said.

  “I will if you want.”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t care. You’re just an asshole.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Eat’em yelled, “What about Mrs. B?”

  “Hold on,” I said, dropping my end.

  “Dick!” Val dropped his side and shook his hand. “A little warning next time would be nice, Jaker.”

  I grabbed the bottle of syrup, holding my arm down just long enough for Eat’em to climb up. “Sorry,” I said to Val. “Can’t have a funeral without all three bodies accounted for.”

  I grabbed her cap and resealed her as best I could before joining her with the two bodies and lifting my side.

  Val grunted as we backed the sofa through the open door. “Next time you drop a futon while I’m helping you carry it – for a freaking bottle of syrup – I’m going to lose my mind.”

  “Note noted,” I pulled the door shut behind us and followed Val toward the stairwell. “Where we taking this thing? Just back to the dumpster?”

  “Great idea, Einstein,” Val said. “Let’s leave a couch with two rotting corpses for the garbage men to pick up tomorrow.”

  “Like they’ll notice,” Eat’em said, “it already smells like rotting corpses, yes. Blech!”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because,” Val said, “what if they fall out when they’re throwing that shit in the truck, huh? Or, what if someone comes by before that and goes, Hey, free couch!? Could you lower your end? I’ve got the lower ground here.”

  I obliged, bending more at my knee than was comfortable, regripping as best I could. “Who’s going to take a nasty, stained, reeking couch from beside a dumpster?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “
Why do people take pee-stained mattresses from dumpsters? It doesn’t make sense. But they do. People do it all the time. Lower your end.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “What then? Strap it to the Mustang?”

  “You touch my Mustang,” he said, “I swear to God… Lower your damned end, Jake. Christ! If I fall down these stairs and land under a pile of zombies, I’m not kidding, I’m going to kill you and find someone else to help me lose three bodies.”

  “Dude, I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s kind of hard to keep it that low, V. My back…”

  “Your back?” he said, “I don’t give a hot damn about your back. You’re the idiot that made the idiot decisions and now you have to live with your idiot consequences and lower your end. I’m not kidding.”

  “Well, I was.”

  “About what?”

  “Strapping the couch to your car.”

  “No shit,” he said. “We’re not leaving it by the dumpster and we’re not strapping it to my car. You’re a regular Columbo. Maybe you’ll devise a plan through process of elimination.”

  “Well, what are we doing?”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped for another rest. Slices of purple and orange began to paint the horizon.

  “We,” Val said as he once again took a seat on the cushioned skulls of the two dead men, “are going to the park. I almost fell asleep in the damned car while you were sitting out there earlier and I thought it would be the perfect place to hide your body when I was done with you.”

  “Seriously?” he’d been on my case as soon as I finished my emotional breakdown. Sure, I was glad he saved the day, but I wasn’t particularly happy about his new attitude toward me.

  “Seriously,” he said. “It’s big, quiet, and empty. If we’re lucky, the government shutdown will last a while. And if not, we take it to the woods, and we flip it over. We let nature run its course and pray nobody happens by and if they do maybe they’ll think it’s an abandoned couch and leave it alone.”

  “We just leave it there?”

  “Yes!” Eat’em said, “But we light it on fire!”

  “Yeah,” Val said, “we leave it there.”

  We grabbed the couch again and headed toward the park, my back to the rising sun. A single early commuter drove by before we crossed the street, but they paid us no mind. I began to relax, even as my arms strained to keep the couch at Val’s preferred height, my stress melted away and I felt lighter. Val was more than an uncle now. He was a friend. An ally. He was someone I could actually trust. Someone I could vent to that wasn’t a foot-tall invisible imp. A burden lifted and I felt a smile pinch at the edge of my lip.

  “What are we going to do about the apartment?” I asked.

  We lifted the couch over the small gate into Arlington Memorial Park, climbing over one at a time.

  “You’re not going to worry about it,” Val said.

  “Well, I am,” I said. “Fingerprints, DNA, hairs, whatever they find in there. It’ll lead them to me. They’ll eventually find this too. Maybe not tomorrow or even soon, but they’ll find it. I’ll be all over the place.”

  “Crime scenes don’t happen in a vacuum, Jacob,” Val reassured as we rounded the pond, dragging our feet as we heaved the couch inch by inch. “I’m sure there’s enough hair and DNA and fingerprints in there to make the APD suspect half the city. You don’t need to worry about it.”

  “No,” I said. “Remember, I told you, the place was spotless.”

  “Right,” Val said. “Neat-freak zombies. I hate those.”

  Eat’em said, “Me too.”

  “Look,” Val stretched and let out a yawn, found a better grip and kept tugging me along, “we’re going to dump the couch. I’ll take you home. I parked around the corner and followed you most of the way on foot. Sleep in. Tomorrow you’ll go to school and I’ll figure something out.”

  “You’re not going to school?” I said. “I’m not going.”

  “Yes,” Val said, “you are. I’m not going because I have a disastrous nephew to clean after. You’re going, and that’s it.”

  I nodded a quiet agreement.

  “I’d appreciate if you stop fighting psychic zombies for a few days…” he said. “Or you know, forever, would be nice. Get your grades up. Be a normal human being. We can go to a concert or something… a movie. Something not so violent.”

  “Boring!” Eat’em burped.

  “Whatever,” Val continued as we climbed into the woods, searching for a clearing to dump the couch. “I don’t care what you do so long as you’re going to school.” He was silent for a moment but finished by saying, “I’m keeping this shirt, by the way. I plan on wearing it to your trial someday.”

  Chapter 30

  Big Mike brushes by a group of prison guards prepared to escort me from the small lockup to the trial. He straightens each piece of his suit they touch as he squeezes through without so much as an excuse me. His chubby face lights up when he sees me, as it always does, his red cheeks burning brighter.

  This is the most embarrassing part of each day. I’m in a small enclosure unfit for a rabid beast. My bunk has a small plastic coated mattress; my bookshelf has novels by Dean Koontz, Steven King, Christopher Moore, James Dashner, and several others; as well as books on the philosophies of Plato, Leibniz, and Thoreau; dangling from the ceiling are a multitude of sticky flytraps and car fresheners intended to conceal the unpleasant aroma from the squat stainless steel commode in the corner of the cell. The scent ranges from slightly tolerable to absolutely humiliating. Today it’s tolerable.

  “Jacob, baby,” Mike says with a toothy grin, “how are they treating you, pal? Good? Good! I’ve got good news.”

  “Good news is good,” I say. “And I’m fine. The hospitality is more than gracious.”

  “Yeah right,” he peeks into my cell. “There anything you need? More books? Smelly stuff?”

  “Movies!” Eat’em says. The little demon ascends the cage in a mock cirque du soleil routine, his tail whips from one bar to the next, pulling him from a lower platform to a slit in which food used to be delivered before the new expansion was complete.

  Outside my micro-domicile lies a cafeteria style dining facility with proper cooks and a fully staffed kitchen, there’s a gym with fitness coaches and a theater that plays films only a few months out of regular circulation. These amenities are the result of men like Mike who have a certain political power, which forces the state to throw tax payers’ money at facility improvements as opposed to fattening the pockets of those who’d mistreat all the poor murderers and rapists keeping me company.

  “And…” Eat’em continues, “a vending machine, yes! With rip its and RockStars!”

  “The only thing this place is missing,” I say, “is a sauna and an Olympic size pool.”

  “Can’t do anything about the sauna,” Mike says, “but word I hear, there’s a big push for a swimming pool, so that one ain’t so much a stretch. Tell you the truth, you hang out here long enough, I’m sure I can get you that sauna too. Which brings me to why I’m in such a good mood. Did you notice?”

  “Sure didn’t,” I say, “You’re always a bundle of joy.”

  “Shut up,” Mike says. “I got wind that this here is going to be a while. You got the media attention on you now, boy, and that’s going to make ol’ Gomey want to take his sweet ass time on this one. With the world watching, he’s going to want to impress. He’ll be coming swinging now.”

  “This is a good thing?”

  “Hell yeah it is!” Mike snaps at the cluster of guards. “You going to let my client out or just sit there like a damned fool? Andale amigo. Jake,” he turns back to me, “I told you, all we got to do is outlast this guy. Patience. The longer this takes the better for us. The district attorney will be grasping straws now to keep this thing going. And the more details he can convolute this thing with the more these guys are going to forget what matters.”

  “What matters?”

  “The facts
,” Mike smiles. He wraps his big arm around my shoulders as I’m let out and handcuffed by a burly looking guard with eyes a colorless grey; silver under the flickering fluorescents. Mike says, “The law don’t care if you’re motivated by this or that, heroism or psychopathic episodes. Don’t care. But they don’t know that. The longer we keep this ball rolling the more time we have to convince them we need you.”

  Eat’em rides behind my head, a foot on each shoulder. He grabs my hair and leans back, singing as we walk the row of cells filled with higher morale than any prison in the country.

  “We’re going to take every tragedy from now until that final verdict and we’re going to tie them into this infection of yours,” Mike says.

  “I wish we wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, but we will, Jacob. From now until ‘not guilty.’”

  The courtroom is my red carpet. Outside this place I’m plain as any person could be. I never wore a suit or a tie or attended a poetry reading in a cardigan with a scarf or ascot, nor have I ever been the life of the party, the center of attention, the guy that everyone wants to be around. Valentine carries that role among the Brook boys, and I take my place in the corner of the room, where nobody pays any mind. Here, I’m a vaudeville act. I’m Velma Kelly of the musical Chicago. I’m a sensationalized killer on display for gawkers and admirers.

  Nobody cared about this case months ago, but something changed. Perhaps the killer of the year already faced their sentence. Maybe whatever high profile trial that normally draws the public eye is in the wings or the verdict hit and the people are now bored, need something new and exciting, and somehow I’m it. I am the corrupt ball of light the world cheers and jeers. The newest flavor for the ravenous palate of public scorn.

  Mike guides me through an entourage of flashing cameras and steely reporters hidden beneath a smorgasbord of cosmetics to make them standout on a camera. They scream questions at me and accusations. Anything to get my attention. Mike warned me it would be chaos. Chaos is organized compared to this.

  Eat’em poses and waves as we press through the crowd. One statement halts my step: They say you’re the devil!