by Mark Tufo
“That fucking hurt!” I spat as I twisted Andy and started shooting. Four shots later, I’d hit nothing but air and stupid Dietrich’s forehead. His eyes crossed, and he fell back on the bed. I wasn’t happy about eating a cold meal, but that wasn’t my biggest problem at the moment. Kindzi and her ninja skills had taken my shooting spree as an opportunity to get Heimlich and little Gentry out through the only escape avenue available to them, up onto the roof.
We’d been shot twice, and Manny diverted some of his resources to getting us patched up. I went over and locked the access door and even threw a bureau in front of it. Manny was going to need to eat, and eat a lot, to fix the wounds. Andy’s whimpering lasted almost the whole time we chewed through his calves and halfway up his thigh. There were some violent kicks thrust out by dying electrical impulses, then he was still. Got to admit, with just a little seasoning, he would have been perfect. What I wouldn’t have done for some garlic salt.
When we finished with Andy, we still hadn’t heard anything from those above us. Like anything else, that could be good or bad. Manny seemed kind of disgusted with himself as he tore into the already dead Dietrich. Sort of like he was a heavy set girl who had just pushed away from the table after eating an extraordinarily large meal and then diving into half of a pecan pie. That kind of disgusted. Or maybe it was more like she was an upper-cruster who had just eaten a large bowl of caviar and then had slummed it down with a fast food burger. Yeah, that was it, like he was too good to eat cold meat but just couldn’t help himself.
We were about halfway through Dietrich when I felt the severe clutches in my stomach, like someone had tied up my fucking intestines. Seen and done a lot of disgusting things, this rapidly was heading to the top. I ripped those pants off like they were on fire. Manny never stopped eating as he began the bowel evacuation process. Thick, wet, gloppy chunks of half-digested meat slopped onto the floor in bulky blocks of stink infused stool. And yet he kept eating. You know, I’ve heard of those sick fucks that take a sandwich into the bathroom while they’re taking a shit. How fucking hungry do you have to be, that eating while taking a dump seems like a good idea? The stench of zombies is one thing, the stench of dead bodies is another. Whatever an eaten human smells like I don’t believe can be classified with something so mundane as “stink.” The idea of shattering my nose against a brick wall holds infinite more appeal than having to soak up that essence into my olfactory senses.
I retreated, I thought pretty far in, but I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of Scarlett. I was absently picking through her memories, some as deep as her feelings about her first love, others as basic as what type of toothpaste to buy at the grocery store. Everything was housed here like a giant warehouse of thoughts. Some of it made sense, but most of it looked like blurry imagery through a rain soaked windshield without the use of wipers.
I wanted to sleep, but I was afraid Kindzi might be of some sort of relation to Yorley and would find a way down the roof and double back on us, so I needed to stay somewhat alert. My name drifted in lazily at first and then got more forceful when I didn’t respond.
“SLAVE!” It was Manny. I snapped to. We’d not yet moved from our own private cesspool. Seemed Manny was still reveling a little bit in his last meal. He’d once again relinquished controls. I wish he’d give me a heads up; I didn’t catch us until our knees plunged down into the foul, goopy mixture of Andy and Greg.
“It is time to eat” was all he said.
“Fetch.” Apparently Scarlett had come at the request as well. “You really are his slave.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re the parasite’s little bitch is what I’m saying. He eats until he’s done and then when that’s over he makes you go and get some more. What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?”
“I am in control here!” I yelled at her.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” she said evenly, not raising her voice to match mine. “What about this alludes to the illusion of control?”
“I do things for him under my own volition.”
“You do things for him because if you don’t, he will kill you. Pretty close to the original definition of slavery.”
She was making points I didn’t want to hear, so I started off in another direction hoping to move her from the point she was trying to make. “So what the fuck are you doing here? If I’m the slave, what does that make you? Even worse is what it is!”
“Me? I’m biding my time, Tim-Tim. I’m figuring out how all of this works, and when the time is right I’m going to kill the both of you.”
I laughed. I could only hope she didn’t see it was more of a cover-up for how nervous she was making me. She sounded so confident, so sure of herself. I don’t fucking know why I didn’t just take action right there and then; part of it was because I didn’t want her believing that she was somehow unnerving me.
“You’re just a bitch.” That was my parting shot, and for some reason she shut up. I thought wrongly then it was because I’d “told her.” Turns out it was just her being smart. I walked over to the door that led up, got over to the side and knocked heavily on it.
“Pizza delivery!” I shouted. Kindzi put a nice fat round into the heavy door.
“We didn’t order anything!”
I admit I was relieved to find out she was not on par with Yorley. She was still there awaiting my arrival up top.
I knocked again. “Land shark!” I called out.
“What do you want, you psycho cunt!”
“See that body off to your right … scratch that, sorry; my right, your left. That’s what I want to do to you. Do to you all. Just like I did Andy and Sauerkraut Stan over here.”
Three more rounds impacted the door, none of them having enough juice to burrow through. I wondered how long I could keep tempting her into using her diminishing supply of projectiles. I knocked again. “This is going to end with you three in my stomach.”
No more shots; either she’d wised up or she was out.
“Give me the boy and the mother and I’ll let you go!” It wasn’t true, but just giving her that option had to be a serious mind fuck for her. It would be great if she actually did it. It had to be wreaking havoc on her psyche. Even the most altruistic person walking the planet has to have thoughts about doing something just for themselves every once in a while. That one did strike deep, since a short volley of rounds was punctuated by a sharp “Fuck you!” I’d planted the seed into her head, now the question was whether I could make it bear fruit.
“Seriously Kindzi, you could walk away from this. Who are they to you anyway? Have you said more than a handful of words to them since they came here? You and I both know they’ve been a drain on your resources.”
There was nothing for a long time. I was thinking of a way to get out there, even wondering if it was worth it. I was startled when she actually responded.
“You’ll let me go?”
“There’s my girl,” I said softly. “You have my word.”
“You can’t!” Scarlett raged.
“Are you kidding me? I can do whatever the fuck I want. The idea is that we keep Manny happy, and eating those people, well, that will definitely make him happy.”
“All right, I’m sending them out! You’re going to have to unlock the door.” There was begging and crying. There was no language barrier with the word “no.” The mother was not going peacefully into the night. I’d no sooner flipped the lock and Manny had seized control.
“Hold on!” I yelled. “It could be a trap!”
He yanked the door open. The mother and child were behind Kindzi and her rifle; a round blasted through our chest plate. There was a sonic screeching in our skull. As quickly as Manny had taken the lead, he had relinquished it. I slammed the door shut, another bullet ripping Scarlett’s middle finger clean off. Manny processed pain differently than Scarlett and I did, but we were all in agony. Scarlett was not enjoying being the vict
im of high speed projectiles and was struggling to do anything else besides scream. I was doing my best to make sure the door was secure and to get us to a place of relative safety while Manny marshaled the forces and began the process of getting us back into fighting shape. I got us to one of the bunk beds and laid down as quickly as possible. It was a struggle, as the pain was blinding and all encompassing.
“You dead yet?” came through the door.
I had to respond. If I didn’t, she’d shoot through the lock, find us on the bed, and finish the job.
“Manny, going to need some help here.”
He was in his own agony, doing his best to repair issues that no human being was meant to suffer. Scarlett’s entire breast plate had received damage. Where the bullet had hit was drilled out completely, but spider web cracks had radiated out from the impact zone as well, completely across the expansive bone. Scarlett’s left lung had collapsed, and the bullet at this point had taken a hard left and blew through two of our ribs. Right this very second, I would have welcomed a quick and merciful death. Breathing was difficult and painful, felt like a small car was parked on our chest. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not get a full breath. I felt like I was slowly suffocating.
“Endorphins man, flood this fucker with some endorphins!”
Manny started shifting and cataloging Scarlett’s thoughts looking for the reference. It seemed like days, maybe eternities had passed and then a warm tingling feeling began to flood through our entire system. I wanted to tell him he may have gone a little overboard with the drugs, but fuck it, we’d just about died, so I’d take being a little loopy for a while.
“Besht ri’ve rever been!” I let Kindzi know.
“Oh, you sound fantastic.”
“Rum and ree,” I baited her.
“Oh I think I’ll wait a couple of minutes until you bleed out.”
“Good fucking thing,” I said internally. “Manny, you’d better get on this; she’s going to be coming soon.”
What happened next threw me for a fucking loop. Not sure if Manny was affected by the drugs or I was and I’d heard it wrong. “I’m sorry.” This from Manny.
“Umm, yeah, next time, maybe run the crazy shit by me and we’ll see if it’s going to work.”
He didn’t say anything else, but by degrees we all started to feel better.
“We’re not dead?” Scarlett asked.
“Why? Would you have missed me?”
“I would have missed my opportunity to make you pay for all the suffering you’ve caused.”
“Only a woman could sour how good we’re feeling right now. Can’t you just enjoy this for a little while before you become Super Bitch and Queen of the Rag again?”
“We just got fucking shot. Or have you already forgotten?”
“We’re a zombie now dipshit; you’d better get used to the feeling, I’ve got a hunch it’s not going to be the last time.” I brought my right hand up to our face. “Hey, at least I can’t flip you off anymore.” And then I started to laugh.
I could sense the deep horror within her. “Where’s … where’s my damn finger?!”
“On the floor over by the door.” I tried to point with my phantom digit. Scarlett was not keen on my attempt at humor.
Chapter 6
Kindzi knocked a few more times during the night, trying to ascertain our condition. I didn’t respond. I was feeling leaps and bounds better and had since gotten off the bed, gone to the kitchen, grabbed what I needed, and stood guard by the door in case she had enough guts to give it a go. Darkness prevailed. Kindzi was going to wait for what she perceived as the relative safety of day. The sun was just poking its intruding nose through the windows when there was a slight rap on the door. It sounded like Kindzi was trying to prevent waking the dead.
“You up?” She’d said it so softly, so intimately, I would have sworn she’d known I was right on the other side of the door. I stepped to the side; I knew what was coming next. She twisted the knob a few times then put five rounds in the handle. Metal parts fell to the floor in a jumbled heap of junk. My heart quickened as the light coming in from the new hole was blocked out, Kindzi was looking through it trying to see if anyone was on the other side. What I wouldn’t have done for a screwdriver right then. I would have scrambled her fucking brains if I’d been given half a chance.
She kicked the door in. It slammed against the wall opposite me. I could hear her scurrying back up the stairs.
“Come on,” I hissed. “Papa’s gotta eat.” Honestly, right there, I don’t know if I was speaking on behalf of myself or Manny, and being even more forthright, I didn’t give a shit.
After a couple of minutes of nothing happening, Kindzi was on the move again. Her footfalls were as quiet as an ant’s on shag carpeting, and still I heard her. The barrel of her rifle slowly poked through the opening. When half of it was through, I sprang into action. With my left hand, I grasped the metal tube and pulled it toward me. Kindzi’s face was a mixture of surprise and horror. As she got closer, I brought my cast iron frying pan-clad right hand down onto the top of her skull. The rifle came away easily into my hand as Kindzi fell to the ground. She was twitching violently from the crushing blow. Her legs were moving like she was in the midst of a road race, and her arms as if she were in a prizefight.
“Was that so fucking hard?” I asked, staring down at her body.
“Let her go,” Scarlett sobbed.
“Yeah, as if that’s going to happen.” I looked up from my soon-to-be fresh kill. The sun had been blocked, and Heimlich was standing there. I was stuck in the crosshairs of her pistol.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
She tried to pull the trigger, and nothing happened. When she realized that I knew that, she turned, grabbed her boy, and started running. I don’t know where the hell she thought she was going, but I was close on her heels. I certainly hadn’t been expecting what happened next. She jumped off the roof, dragging her boy with her. He hit the concrete head first, and it had ended quickly for him. Heimlich, though, she was in for a much worse ride. I wouldn’t know until after we dragged her back into the firehouse and ate her, but she’d shattered both femurs and her pelvic bone in addition to her spine. The great thing about it was that whatever cruel god monitored the earth, it had not seen anything in its great mercy to sever the nerves that connected to her pain receptors.
Her throat bled from the screams that ripped through her vocal chords. Normally, I like to eat in relative peace, but this was like mood music as we chomped through Gentry then Kindzi. She’d calmed considerably by the time we worked our way to her. Probably had something to do with me holding up the severed head of her son to her face right before I started eating her genitals. I wonder if that classifies as having some sort of an Oedipal complex? I actually got Manny to use the bathroom, felt like I’d finally potty trained my dog or some shit. Couldn’t have been any prouder. Of course, no one was ever going to be able to use that thing again, but we were now as clean as a whistle. We used the shower in the station house to clean up. The problem was once again going to be clothing. This was as bad as being the Hulk. That should really make sense to just about anybody; if not, he rips all his clothing every time he transforms into a giant green monster. Just like we destroy ours every time we eat. Must buy his wardrobe in bulk from Wally World. Now that I’m thinking about Wally World and clothing for large monsters, why the fuck didn’t he just wear spandex all the time?
I’d seen some over-sized ogres walking the aisles of Wally’s, having stuffed five hundred pounds of blubber into an outfit created for a yoga master. Why the hell couldn’t the hulk have donned it as well? Random thought, I suppose. If I was going down that road, it might be better if I found us some rain slickers so we could just hose them off every time we ate. Luckily, we were downtown, and there had to be some sort of overpriced boutique selling used shit as retro and trendy. All they were really, were Goodwill stores with higher price tags. The shower was also going to
be a no go for the next poor souls to find themselves there. Chunks of things I don’t think I could identify had filled in all the small holes in the drain. Bile swirled around the bottom. I got out and looked in the mirror. Besides the puckered hole in our chest and the missing finger, we still looked pretty good. I’d fuck me, and that’s saying a lot.
Funny, Manny had eaten more food in the last couple of days than Scarlett had probably eaten in a year, and yet we’d lost weight. Sure, Scarlett was horrified with what she’d become and what her body was doing without her permission. The scarring was cause for concern, and she just outright ignored the missing digit, but I could sense a sick sort of fascination within her as she looked at her svelte body. Gone were any more of the traditional trouble spots she’d been working on. The apocalypse had sculpted her body, and she was sort of ashamed to admit she liked it.
I grabbed my bag and Kindzi’s no-longer-needed weapon and left the devastation of the firehouse behind, naked as the day Scarlett had been born. She was mortified, like she might meet up with Tiffany from the country club, or something. A few zombies had been milling around by the front door, they quickly went in to see if I’d left them any scraps. I’m sure if I were to go back in, I’d see them leaning down in the shower stall lapping up the excrement that had sloughed off of me. Scarlett had sort of checked out, much like Clarence had in my previous body. This kind of existence wasn’t for everyone; it took a certain mettle to deal with this. Not everyone had it.
“Two hundred and forty fucking dollars for this? Why?” I asked, holding up the pair of jeans, thinking that maybe the stitching was made from 24 karat gold. We were inside Francesca’s Fresh for You shop, where everything had been worn before, most of it being from the closets of dead people! Sure, the last part of the slogan I made up, but it’s certainly true. Why the fuck Aunt Sophia’s clothing is now hip and in style I don’t fucking know, since she had about as much class as a summer vacation. Oh come on, don’t tell me that you’ve never watched Fat Albert? Whatever. I grabbed somewhere close to two thousand bucks’ worth of stuff, even had the presence of mind to get a large handbag and shove some extra things into it for when I inevitably ruined my stuff. I was three steps out of the store when I realized I had no fucking idea what I was going to do.