Blood Soaked and Contagious

by James Crawford

  “One of these days, I will kick you in the teeth when you can’t heal it right away.” It was a snarl, not satisfaction this time. “There’s a laser satellite that could be diverted. Not as much damage potential for structures, but high damage to soft tissue. It also allows for a bit more finesse in choosing targets.”

  “What sort of damage to soft tissue?”

  Omura decided to answer this one, “Think about making popcorn.”

  “All right. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but I’ll bite.”

  “All the water in the tissue explodes into steam at the same time as all the fatty tissues flash fry. You go from human being to an exploding batch of moist pork rinds in about two-tenths of a second.” He made a popping gesture with his hands.

  There is an upside and a downside to having a very visual imagination. It was quite a mental image to process.

  “How large is the target area?” I had to ask, because one body at a time didn’t seem very efficient.

  “Ah! Buttons? The last time I saw the specs, they said ‘10 meters.’ Is that still the blast area?”

  “No. The newer versions have a tighter area of effect. Closer to six meters at full capacity,” Buttons coldly replied, “with a wide range of depth of penetration.”

  Eighteen feet of steaming human fat chips. The mind boggled, but not for long, because we heard the tell-tale sound of one of Gina’s IEDs exploding down the street. No one bothered to look at anyone else because they were patting themselves down to make sure their firearms were in place.

  “Flower! Gun! Now!” I hollered, as if they hadn’t heard it too.

  With the calm of too much experience, he ran into the house and returned only a few seconds later. He handed me a gun that looked like an H&K P90 and a knife in a sheath. It never hurts to have an extra blade. By that time, Omura had already hauled ass out the door and down the street.

  “Go! We’ll hold things down here, in case that was a distraction. Send Omura back if you need us.”

  I didn’t need to hear it twice. I just got out the door and ran like Hell.

  Down past the intersection, about a block from Shawn’s garage, there was an overturned Humvee on fire. That was not as bothersome as the school bus that was parked on Glebe Road behind the flaming Humvee. I heard several gunshots, but did not see anything of Omura.

  It was hard to see much of anything over the knot of zombies that were trying to invade Shawn’s place. None of them were wearing fatigues or BDUs. Only civilian clothing, matched with sticks and makeshift weapons. They had either sent cannon fodder or were creating a distraction for something else.

  “Behind you!” I heard Charlie yell from the roof of the garage and assumed she was talking to me. I went to the ground, rolled, and came up facing the other way with the gun pointed. Sure enough, there were four of them behind me.

  I didn’t ask questions; I just started things by shooting one of them in the face. The other ones did something totally unexpected; they closed the distance. They were armed with military M4 rifles, and they proceeded to open fire on me from close range. I couldn’t dodge, but I could move forward into their weapons.

  Three bullets went directly through me. Shoulder. Stomach. Upper left thigh. It was the gut shot that sent me to the ground, but it was suddenly finding a net over the top of me that kept me there. It looked like some of the group from the garage assault had turned around during my fun and thrown a weighted net on top of me when I hit the ground.

  One of my armed opponents had his knee down on my weapon, while another one had the barrel of his rifle resting on the center of my forehead. The third little devil was the one who shot me with a Taser. The electric shock hurt worse than the bullets did and I flailed underneath the net.

  Then the bastard did it again.

  I am unclear what happened in the few minutes after that because my vision went to Hell while I was twitching on the ground. I heard a horrible bellow and a huge amount of rapid machine gun fire. Lots of feet were pounding on the pavement, away from where I was being held. There were screams, yells, and all kinds of din.

  The weight on my arm shifted and the gun barrel that was on my forehead moved. I was still pinned down and not really capable of any coordinated movement. There were a few yells, some bullets, and my world was suddenly covered in a lot of hot, copper-smelling wetness.

  My gun arm was free, but it wasn’t responding when I tried to move it. Nothing really was.

  The rest of the world was still full of gunfire and screaming. My little chunk of it was filled with a lot of pain.

  It was just loud. That was the only thing I was able to process, but I did hear something that made me smile inside. Charlie yelled, “Get the fuck away from my man, you undead dickless wonder!” I was her man! That just rocked!

  The temperature was dropping somewhere, and I started shaking. I think my brain was moving slowly as well, or time was playing funny tricks on me because I wasn’t able to see much more than blurs.

  Something.

  Just something.

  Not quite right.

  Then there was nothing at all.

  No dreams about ravens and Hell. In fact, it was incredibly quiet and dark wherever my brain was, for however long it was there. Really, it was lovely and peaceful. I had no desire to be afraid and I wasn’t. There wasn’t even any physical pain to latch onto, just a sense of floating peacefully in a big sea of nothing.

  It cracked open as if I had been inside a black egg. I fell out, wet and sticky, into a mixing bowl of gunfire and pandemonium. I didn’t feel as though I was in my body, because I could see the back of my head, but I felt some vague attachment to what my body was doing. It was pretty horrible, but I couldn’t seem to stir up the energy to care.

  My mouth let out a bloodcurdling howl, and I thought I’d certainly pay for that with a week of sore vocal cords. I watched my shoulders hunch as my head swung from side to side, surveying the fleeing attackers. There was a feeling of a decision being made, and I took off after one runner in particular. A young, slightly chubby, zombie girl.

  With a heave, the body I usually occupy launched itself onto the running woman and rode her to the ground. It seemed like an awfully sexual thing to do with someone I’d never even spoken to before, but it did seem as though it wasn’t me making the decisions. For example, if I had been running the show, I wouldn’t have bitten into the back of her neck like that. Really, going all the way through her vertebrae to suck out her cerebro-spinal fluid was a bit much. I am a tool-using mammal, and I could have done it much more neatly with a drill.

  I wasn’t really surprised when my body started smashing her head onto the pavement, or when it dug out her brain and ate it. Again, the whole thing could have been done with so much less mess if I’d been given a little say in this activity. Nope. I got tossed out of my own head and had to sit through the insanity from the penalty box.

  There were four other undead, former attackers, who were paralyzed in fear, watching my body eat their companion’s brains. I almost felt a little sad for them, because if they’d been running away, my body might not have caught them so quickly. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Next time, you have to run away!

  Wow. No one has a lick of self-preservation anymore. Really! If someone has just pounced on your companion and you’re not going try and save her, then run away. Honest! It is a much more sensible choice than standing there until the monster is done with her, because you might be next.

  What is this world coming to?

  My body froze in the middle of consuming the fifth brain, and I felt a darkness encroaching on me from all sides. In moments, as before, there was nothing more than the empty darkness where I was alone, quiet, and feeling peaceful.

  I came back to consciousness slowly, almost as if my brain was running through all my body’s systems one at a time to ensure optimum functionality for becoming a walking, talking human being once again. It wasn’t clear where I was, but then again, my eyes weren’t open.
Damned slow start-up sequence, I tell you.

  “ ... He fucking ATE their BRAINS! Did you not see that shit? You tellin’ me that I’m gonna eat brains if I get gut shot? What the fuck happens if someone shoots my balls off? Does that mean I’m gonna run out and eat two babies with ketchup and mustard?!”

  “Shawn, calm down. We don’t know anything about why Frank attacked the stragglers. He may have simply gone mad.” Jayashri’s voice, always a nice thing to wake up to, if you ask me. Hearing Shawn get uptight over things is not a super-duper way to return to consciousness.

  However, from listening to that snippet of their discussion, it appeared that what I’d experienced was not some kind of dream. Five brains. Well, that’s unprecedented!

  Somewhere in the back of my head, something was telling me I ought to feel really upset about losing my shit and putting the chomp on a bunch of zombies. I didn’t really agree I should be upset about it; after all, they’d attacked us and tried to capture me, and God only knows what else they were up to. All is fair in love, war, and survival.

  My moral compass wanted to put up a huge argument about the issue, but I told it to have a coffee break and talk to me later.

  “When we get Baj back, I want him to get these little devils out of me.” Shawn was up in arms again. Take a chill pill, Mister Tighty Nads! “I don’t want to run around killing things like that.”

  “Look, Jaya said this nanotechnology is designed to optimize people for combat. I already saw it scavenge brains earlier today when he got shot in the gut twice. It took him a while to heal up from that, too.” Charlie was taking the more rational course in the discussion.

  Ping! I could feel my little critters come back online the rest of the way. Six people, living humans, armed, ranging from three to 25 feet away from me. External temperature, 52 degrees. Internal temperature, 98.9 degrees.

  Clearly, we were still outside. Jaya, Shawn, and Charlie were closest to me, and I found that comforting with a certain quiet wish they’d take the argument a little further away until I could finish returning to consciousness. I decided to ask them to do that, since you will never get what you never ask for.

  “Nimitz! Annie Sprinkle in the oven with a crosscut saw. Preacher hang up monkey another time?”

  “Frank! What did you say?” Charlie sounded really excited, but she really should have been able to hear me from only three feet or so away.

  “Creamed corn! Johnny Depp ankle brace, skinny Buddha refried beans. Masculine lactation?”

  “Baby, you’re not making any sense.” She put her hand on my forehead and asked me if I could open my eyes and look at her.

  I don’t know why she thought I wasn’t making any sense, but I figured attempting to open my peepers wouldn’t hurt anyone. They felt as though they ought to be working.

  Open.

  Dude!

  Closed.

  Apparently, there was still a little work going on in the system check and they hadn’t quite reached the optic nerve. They all wanted to know why I closed my eyes so fast, and I truly had no idea if I could explain it in a way that would make sense to anyone who didn’t have strobe lights, plasticine clay, and a letter-size sheet of blotter acid.

  “Annie Sprinkle’s numb tongue whole lot of massive cheese. I never want to see anything like that again, as long as I live!”

  Shawn reached down and snagged me by the remains of my shirt. “Why the Hell did you eat their brains, man?! They were running away! You didn’t have to chase them down one by one like that!”

  I swatted uselessly at his arms, hoping he’d put me back down on the nice, cool ground so I could finish pulling myself back together without all the excess drama.

  “Just put me back down. Okay?”

  “No! Tell me why! Why aren’t you even a little bit upset?” He was getting substantially shriller as he wound himself up. Charlie moved in from the side and forcibly turned his head to face her.

  “Shawn, put Frank down. Put him down. Freaking out is not going to help anyone or get anything done.” Her voice must have had redneck soothing properties, because he lowered me back down to the nice cold pavement and let my shirt go. “That’s it, bro. Now, what are you so upset about?”

  “He ate their brains!”

  “Right. I got that part. I was watching it, just like you were.”

  My lumbering friend was pacing in such short lengths that he was almost walking in circles. I had seen my share of people coming unglued before, and it had begun to appear that a certain mini-giant of a Country Boy would be joining that category of my life experiences. The symptoms were classic, including the obsessive wringing of his hair.

  Strange thoughts of aprons and chocolate chip cookies danced at the corners of my consciousness, but did not stick around for me to ask what they were doing there. About that time, it occurred to me I was also not thinking very clearly and I probably should investigate that issue before too terribly long.

  The soon-to-flip out friend had a significant point about one thing, and I wasn’t loathe to admit it as much as I was numb. I had attacked and killed (and consumed the brains of) five members of the crew sent to harass us. That was an incredibly wild and uncivilized thing to do, and I strongly doubted anyone would debate that issue with me. Sparing the issue of living person versus zombie, I had committed a number of acts of cannibalism.

  The idea of eating human flesh is repugnant to me, and I would rationally believe there would be significant emotional backlash after an incident like this. Yet, there I was, flat on the asphalt, not really giving two squirrel shits about anything in particular. Indeed, I was quite relaxed.

  “Jayashri?”

  “Yes, Frank,” she said and knelt down by my side. “How are you?”

  “Shawn has a point and I want to run it by you before I get twisted up into knots about it.” She nodded at me, so I continued. “After losing my mind and going cannibal, I feel as though I should be morally outraged and disgusted at my own behavior. I’m concerned because I feel too calm about all of this, when I really should be pinching loaves like Shawn is right now.”

  A thoughtful look crossed her face, and she asked me, “Did you experience any moral issues when your nanotech went scavenging earlier today?”

  “No, come to think of it. I didn’t even bat an eye.”

  She looked up at Shawn and Charlie, who were still doing the Dance of Sibling Pacification, and she said, “I think you both should listen to what I am about to say.” They went to their neutral corners and paid attention. “We know that the machines are designed to optimize human beings for survival and combat situations. That much is certainly clear, even if we were making assumptions from our observations. It would make sense, then, if they also had some control of, or effect on, our neurochemistry.”

  We nodded. What else could we do?

  “Frank is not experiencing a moral crisis,” Jaya continued, “because having a moral crisis in the middle of a combat situation is fatal. His package of nanotechnology set out to rebuild him as quickly as possible and to make the psychological impact of what was necessary as gentle as possible. In short, Frank is high.”

  It made plenty of sense to me and made me feel much better about the hallucinations of a few moments before. Shawn seemed calmer, and Charlie never looked ruffled to begin with. All seemed to be right in my world, except for a single niggling issue in the back of my head.

  My brother had made an appearance. Less than 30 minutes later, we were attacked, and I was singled out to be subdued. Had I not been full of the Milk of Modern Technology I would have either been captured alive, albeit wounded, or killed outright. It looked very much like my dear Stewart had a plan to make things much more personal for me and was not at all bluffing about turning me into his fuck cow.

  I pushed Jaya out of the way, rolled over, and threw up onto the pavement.

  “Now! See that? That’s what you’re supposed to do when you find out you’ve turned into a fucking cannibal!” I d
idn’t need to see Shawn’s finger pointing at me or the air of righteous triumph surrounding him like a laurel wreath on any given Caesar; I knew, even if I didn’t see.

  Chapter 29

  When I finished heaving my guts out, I rolled back over, and made a good effort at standing up. I walked right up to Shawn, brains and bile dripping down my chin, and explained matters to him.

  “My brother is one of Hightower’s ninja. He popped by for a visit as I was walking over to Flower’s place.” I got as close to Shawn as I could, so he could see and smell my disgust. “He had heard I was here and wanted to come tell me that he would be sure to capture me so I could be his personal cow and glory hole.”

  I knew he’d broken out into a cold sweat. My little critters made sure I knew his body temperature, pulse rate, pupil contraction and expansion, and that he smelled afraid.

  “I understand my turn toward Long Pig is disturbing to you. At some point,” I was trying to explain, but I think it was coming across more as verbal intimidation, “I may be very upset I attacked those poor zombies who were attacking us. Or, maybe I will never be bothered by it. What I can tell you is I would rather eat you,” I told him, as I emphasized by poking him in the chest, “than be a snack cake and hole for my younger brother to amuse himself with.”

  Shawn looked away. I think I managed to make the point.

  “Dude,” he whispered, “that’s harsh.”

  “What? Eating you or being dinner and a show for my brother?”

  “C’mon, he’s family. You’ve heard of kissing cousins, right?”

  I was agog. Aghast. Abhorred. Absolutely stunned. I just stood there and stammered at him until I looked into his eyes and noticed that they had smile crinkles around them while the rest of his face was utterly blank. Omura had joined us during my soliloquy on cannibalism, and he joined Charlie, Jayashri, and Shawn in snickering at me.

  “Shawn?”

  “Yes, Frank?”

  “That was a horrible way to break the tension. Really disgusting.” I meant every word.