by Will Lemen
Unfortunately for Kyle, the realization of his situation came too late, and although he had now completely stopped his unsettling yowling and adopted a demeanor of total calm and silence, Dick had already began his grisly deed.
The two women watched in horror, as Kyle's eyes began to bulge out of their sockets as Dick slowly twisted his head clockwise one hundred and eighty degrees.
A sickening and slight crunching sound was heard as Kyle's immature neck bones were stretched past their limit and began to separate from one another.
Kyle had died almost instantly when his head reached 94°, his almost non-existent neck muscles being no match for Dick's strong twisting grip.
However, Dick didn't stop there.
Letting go of Kyle's limp drooping head, which was now 180° awry. Dick quickly renegotiated his grip on the small head and began twisting it another 180° further.
Then with a forceful tug on Kyle's light brown hair, the maniacal bruiser wrenched the child's head from its body and a muffled popping sound ushered in a split second of total silence inside the warehouse.
Kyle's lifeless small frame that was being cradled in Dick's left arm like a football, leaked his life's blood onto the floor, and his decapitated head that Dick now held in right hand similar to the way a basketball player palms a basketball; was dripping the same crimson liquid onto the floor as well.
Within seconds, the headless body of the eight-week old child began to squirm in Dick's grasp as the toothless jaws of the infant started to open and close and its eyes rolled up and down and back and forth, glazing shortly at each adult before moving on to the next one.
Cassandra, speechless and paralyzed with shock, stood there with her mouth hanging wide open.
Pam on the other hand was now hysterical with grief; and let out a blood-curdling scream and then yelled breaking the momentary quiet.
"What have you done to my baby? You monster!"
Dick, startled by Pam's sudden high pitched squeal and the feeling of Kyle's bobbing head trying to escape the hold he had on it, released his grip on both the dead baby's body and head and let them drop to the floor as he stepped back.
Kyle's head dropped straight down and landed neck first on the smooth concrete floor of the warehouse.
A low bass-toned squirting sound reminiscent of a fat woman's diarrhea fart shot out into the room as the air in the small neck was forced out between the concrete floor and the torn flesh that comprised the rim of what was left of the little baby's neck.
The release of the bubble of air out of the neck caused a vacuum that attached the ogling infant's head to the floor like a suction cup.
Pam who was beside herself and not thinking clearly, allowed her maternal instincts to skew her clarity in the matter, as most mothers would, and almost before her bone-chilling screech had stopped echoing throughout the empty warehouse, Pam dove to the floor toward Kyle's decapitated head like a professional baseball player might slide into second base headfirst.
As she scooped the head between her arms and drug herself to Kyle's face using her elbows to pull her along and the vacuum-sealed skull as an anchor, the chomping head attached itself to Pam's lower lip by clamping down on it with its toothless gums, as it would have done with a nipple during breast-feeding.
Now, with Pam and her baby seeing eye to eye (do I have to say it?), Pam's maternal instincts turned to panic and she stretched her captured lip to its limit as she tried to pull away from the anchored head that was determined to suck the life from her lower lip.
However, Dick was still pissed because even though the kid had stopped howling, he felt that his girlfriend had taken up where her little brat had left off.
So, Dick took a half step forward and kicked the seven pound wallowing infant's carcass (with the head attached it would have been closer to ten or eleven pounds) toward Cassandra.
With his other foot he proceeded to launch a full soccer style kick to the back of Kyle's small head, detaching it from its hold on the floor, and forcing it to smash hard into Pam's face, breaking her nose and flattening it against her face, while splitting both her upper and lower lips in the process.
The powerful kick crushed the soft bones of the baby's skull, allowing the toe of Dick's boot to penetrate into part of the neonate's brain, killing it dead, and sending Kyle to the train station with a one-way ticket to hell.
The broken bones in the back of Kyle's now caved-in head, were crunched together by Dick's impromptu boot battering, causing the tiny jaws to clamp down even harder on Pam's swelling bottom lip and lock into place.
The impact from the collision when the two faces collided, caused not only Kyle's head to be mutilated even more, but also did serious damage to Pam's face and lips as well, leaving both her and her baby with open lacerations on their faces, and unintentionally trading bodily fluids with each other.
Even more panicked now, with the crumpled head of her dead baby seemingly permanently latched, and dangling from her broken and bleeding face and lips. Pam stood up and began to swat at the crinkled head, bitch slapping it back and forth as if she was playing tetherball, Kyle's head being the ball, and her lower lip being the tether, and her body serving as the pole.
The horrendous sight of Kyle's crushed skull being swung around and spattering blood in all directions, along with pieces of his small pink brain that wasn't stuck to the top of Dick's boot, snapped Cassandra out of her shock induced trance as she watched Pam wallop the swinging cranium, trading hands with each whack, like a New York City pimp slapping the shit out of one of his stable whores for trying to hold back a fifty-dollar bill on a Saturday night.
As Pam pummeled the lip-locked head around the room, both Cassandra and Dick realized that the saliva coming from the dead baby zombie's head, mixing with the open cuts on Pam's bruised and battered face, and especially her split lower lip, was akin to her being bitten by one of the undead.
As a result of the infant's spit entering her blood stream, it wouldn't be long before she too would turn into one of the diseased cannibals that she was busy slapping silly as they watched.
Soon after that she would turn to them for her first meal in three days.
Dick who was still angered by the continued noise that Pam was making as she screamed and relentlessly continued to slap at the head of her dead son. Now was fearing that he might lose his life to his (now former) girlfriend, didn't hesitate to step up to the plate so to speak, and put an end to the macabre display of mayhem.
Grabbing the flailing Pam by the scruff of her neck with one hand, and lifting up on the back of her pants by her belt with his other, thereby lifting her feet off the floor. He used her face (and Kyle's still attached head) as a battering ram, running it headlong into the skinny side of one of the I-beams used as part of the structure's supports.
The bones in Pam's face were crushed, her forehead was split open like a ripe watermelon that had been hacked into with a large butcher knife, and now she too was dead.
Cassandra had been fearing for her life as well, not only from the likely forthcoming zombie sister that was soon to be present within the walls of their sanctuary, but also from the crazed baby killer in her midst.
Now with one of the potential threats eliminated by the other, Cassandra knew that she would have to act fast if she wanted to live.
After all she thought.
"If he would do that to a defenseless baby just because it was crying, what does he have in store for me?"
As Dick dropped Pam's limp body and watched it collapse downward, the two sides of her brain squeezed the steel beam, causing her to slide slowly towards the floor. The slow movement of her sister's body slipping down the support, gave Cassandra enough time to rush toward Dick with her knife in hand, (the knife she had lost just before meeting Jack).
Waving her knife over her head to compensate for the height difference between the two adults, Cassandra attacked her would be murderer with a violent fervor.
Dick never saw h
is demise or Cassandra coming.
As he watched the fingers on Pam's lifeless body beginning to twitch, while both hemispheres of her dissected brain still squeezed the thin side of the vertical steel I-beam, the last thing he remembered seeing was two inches of Cassandra's eight-inch butcher knife blade which she had stuck through the back of his skull, now protruding out of his forehead.
******
Several weeks later...
"And after I stuck my knife through Dick's head, I had no choice but to sit in that warehouse and try not to pay attention to the three dead bodies that were squirming around on the floor.
So I waited in that god forsaken warehouse and stayed quiet until I stopped hearing the resurrected ones... damn it, I did it again, I mean the eaters. Anyway, I waited for what seemed like a lifetime for them to stop moaning and groaning, scratching on the side of the building, and milling around outside, when they finally did leave, that's when I left the warehouse and made my way to my other sister's house," Cassandra described, wiping her tears on her sleeve. "I guess they lost interest after awhile."
While listening to Cassandra's story, I was reminded of a theory of mine relating to the emergence of the almost instantaneous body movements of anyone or part of anyone that has been killed.
In the beginning, only the severed heads of the dead were still active after their owner's demise. As long as they hadn't received enough trauma to destroy the brain inside.
However, as time passed (well over a year now), the bodies of the twitchers, or the severed body parts thereof, began moving almost immediately after the brain had been killed or the head had been separated from the body.
My theory on this subject goes something like this.
The virus, which is apparently lying dormant in everyone, ferments for an unknown period of time, which seems to be getting much shorter, then at some point in the fermentation process it begins producing positive charged ions, which titillate the nerve endings and makes the muscles in the body (or body parts) involuntarily flex. The result of this process is the bizarre phenomenon of twitchers.
"Well Dick sounds like a fitting name for the asshole," I claimed. "I mean considering everything that you've told me."
Cassandra nodded in agreement as she pointed to a white house with a big yard that sat on a corner lot.
"That's my sister's house right over there."
I pulled my truck over the curb and into the yard and drove it close to the front door of the building like I always do, parking it close just in case a timely exit is called for.
After hearing the story of how Cassandra's sister Pam had met her maker, and how the boyfriend Dick had tweaked the kid for lathering up the zombies that had them surrounded, I thought.
"I probably would do the same thing if the need for such activity ever arose. Only I'd do it without all of the bitching and moaning that Dick did."
"Would you like to come in for a while, you can if you want too, maybe have a drink or two, and who knows, maybe I'll take you up on your offer to ride along with you," Cassandra invited with a smile. "There's really not much left for me around here anymore and I really would like the company, my sister Carla isn't much of a conversationalist."
"Sure!" I responded cheerfully to the gracious invitation. "It's been a long time since I had a drink with a pretty girl."
Needless to say, I kept my thoughts about Dick's behavior to myself as I prepared to meet Cassandra's other sister Carla.
Thinking that I probably wouldn't be very long inside her sister's house. One drink was going to be my limit, because I wasn't about to get slobbery drunk in a strange house that I hadn't secured for myself, pretty girl or not.
So I stuffed my Glock 19, and tomahawk under the seat, and crammed my Sub-2000 along with my M-4 and tactical vest into the small space behind the seat where I had stored the tainted bottle of whiskey, and took only my machete and suppressed Beretta with me.
As we bailed out of the truck and jogged the three yards or so onto Carla's porch, I asked.
"Are you sure your sister won't mind you bringing a strange man into her house with you?"
"Oh she won't mind at all, she's been dead for quite some time now," Cassandra answered, showing no emotion.
I found it odd that Cassandra hadn't mention to me earlier that her sister was dead. Even when I had asked her back at the river if her sister would mind her bringing a stranger home with her, she made no mention of the death of her sister Carla. All she said was that her sister doesn't say much since the other sister had died.
With all of the killing and dying that she relayed to me in her tale of the little baby Kyle and her sister Pam's ultimate demise, it seemed to me to be a rather easy segue to transition to.
On top of that, she had been blubbering like a schoolgirl all the way from the river as she told me how she managed to escape the zombie entrapment at the warehouse.
All at the expense of three other people, one of which she cacked herself because she felt that he needed to be cacked, I might add. Now she didn't even blink an eye at the mention of this other sister being dead.
Maybe she was immune to all the killing and death this world had to offer, I know I was getting to that point myself. And all the sniveling in the truck was just a relapse into previous emotions.
Or, maybe she hated her sister Carla's guts, and never really gave a shit about that particular sibling.
Of course, the reason for her uncaring attitude might have been because she has so many brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, cousins, dogs and cats, not to mention gold fish, that she feels that she can spare a few from time to time if the occasion calls for it.
A little sarcasm to lighten the mood, it's one of my best distinguishing characteristics you know.
Whatever the reason for Cassandra's emotional perspective, something didn't seem right to me, so I decided to maintain my usually combat ready situational awareness until I was completely sure that Cassandra posed no danger to me.
Cassandra led the way, unlocking the door with the house key that I had found during my search of her personal assets.
We entered the house, which looked a lot bigger on the outside than it did on the inside.
"Make yourself comfortable and I'll get those drinks I mention," Cassandra said, as she disappeared into the kitchen. "Sit on the couch, it's way more comfortable than the chair is."
I took her advice and planted my slightly sunburned butt in the middle of the couch that she had recommended, placing both my pistol and my machete on the couch cushion at my right side. That way if Cassandra chose to sit beside me, she would be free to sit on my left side, leaving my right hand available to do any pleasurable work that might become necessary. Such as another impromptu weapons search.
I mean if the evening went in that direction.
After all, she had already seen me naked as a Jay Bird, and who knows, maybe she liked what she'd seen.
And besides, a cavity search of the woman would go a long way in convicting me that she was harmless.
It wasn't long before Cassandra returned to the living room with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
"Sorry I don't have any wine glasses, I hope you don't mind," she said, with a somewhat artificial smile on her face.
I had seen the fake smile that Cassandra had plastered on her puss (puss fits better than mug, or face, in this particular narrative). It was the same fake smile that strippers used to get guys to pony up bigger tips at the titty bars where they danced, in every city in the world, before the end days that is (see what I mean about puss).
Cassandra stood in front of me pouring equal amounts of wine into the generic glasses sitting on a coffee table that separated the two of us.
"Before we get started partaking in this complementary libation that you've so generously offered, I have a question about the warehouse and the starving baby," I said, canting my head to the left.
"Sure, go ahead and ask," she said, as she finis
hed pouring our drinks. "I've got nothing to hide."
I really wished that she hadn't made that comment, because everybody knows that people that find it necessary to announce that they don't have anything to hide, usually have a hell of a lot to hide.
With my senses now heightened to possible danger, I proceeded to ask my question.
"Well as you, and your sister which had recently had a baby, were trapped in that warehouse, surrounded by ravenous eaters, with said baby starving and crying for food, did it ever occur to anyone that one of the two of you girls might want to flop out a tit and feed the kid? Or at the least, cram one of your natural pacifiers into his mouth?"
A confused look swept over Cassandra's face, momentarily wiping away her smile.
Then as fast as her smile had disappeared, it was back, and the look in her eyes was like someone had illuminated a light bulb over her head.
"Speaking of breast feeding, that reminds me, I need to change my shirt," she replied, as she lifted the bottom of her bloodstained shirt and pulled it inside out over her head.
Now as the shirtless woman with what I guessed to be a choice set of 38 D's, wagged her impressive pair of juicy exposed breasts at me from across the room as she began a slow and methodical dance.
Now you might think that I would sit back, drink my glass of warm wine, and enjoy the show. After all, I had placed my paraphernalia on the couch in a place that would free me up in hopes of just this type of event.
However, I still had this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right.
So with a smile on my face, I took what was to be the last sip of my wine as I nonchalantly reached for the handle of my machete.
I picked up the bush-trimming tool (under the circumstances, no pun intended) and began to tap the flat side of the blade on the couch in time with a chorus of imaginary music that Cassandra was dancing to.
As the blade bounced higher with each strike on the foam rubber cushion, the dull reflection on the blood stained steel blade reflected an image that was moving behind the couch, which confirmed the ominous feeling that had been pestering me by revealing the danger that was lurking there.