The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman

by Feren, Todd C.

  "Time to take a nap,” I said as I swung the shoe down hard.

  Even as I write these words now, it still doesn't make sense. As the shoe was making its way towards the dog, the dog didn't even look up. It moved with a speed that I thought was impossible for something so small. It shot between my legs, and took its new chew toy with him. I spun to see where it was heading, and I only made out a blur of white and tan turning the corner into the kitchen. I ran after it holding my rubber soled weapon high in the air. I inadvertently let out a battle cry as I ran down the hall. The dog took me on a chase through my entire house. It leapt over obstacles, and climbed over furniture like some dog parkour champion. If I wasn't trying to kill it, it would be impressive. The dog somehow made it onto my kitchen counter. It must have used the trash can as a spring board. Its uncut nails clickety-clacked across the corian countertop, and it pranced like it was enjoying this new playground. I slowly tried to sneak into the kitchen without it seeing me. I crouched low and entered the kitchen in a squatting waddle. My soft cotton socks ensured my entry was silent. I watched as it sat on the same place that I cut my sandwiches and chewed on its ass. Luckily, I knew I had industrial strength cleaner under the sink. I made a mental note to scrub the enter counter to make sure there were no flea corpses and fecal flakes left behind by this mongrel. I positioned myself behind the garbage can, and my legs started to burn from remaining in my stealthy squatty position. My legs were tight like springs ready to be sprung. The dog still hadn't detected my presence. It then stopped chewing its ass, and moved its attention to licking its....

  Well, its a boy. HE was licking himself blissfully unaware of his fate. But I suppose if any man could lick himself, he too would be blissfully unaware of the world around him. Now was my chance. My knees popped like cannons as I leapt up. The sound must have startled the dog, but I was too close for it to make a difference. I had him dead to rights. I only made one near fatal mistake...

  Remember when I said I was wearing really soft socks? Socks were always a passion for me. Socks, underwear, and nice bed sheets. I spent more on fresh socks than I did on laundry detergent. Once you wash a pair of socks more than three times, they’re ruined! Well, I happened to have been wearing very cushy, very new socks. Socks on polished tile mixed with over excitement isn't a good combination. If you add a video camera to that equation you'd have internet gold.

  I'll paint the picture for you. I jumped up, and my knees made that cracking sound that only gets louder with age. The dog lifted his head to see me attacking with my shoe held high above my head with both hands. It was at that moment that I felt my feet start to slip out from under me in opposite directions. I swung my arms wildly to try and regain my balance, but any attempt to stop this nightmare would be in vain. All that swinging my arms did was add to the comical nature of my inevitable fall. Both feet continued to betray me as they slid further away from each other until a white hot pain in my groin sent spots in my eyes. I looked at the dog who simply turned his head to one side and wagged his tail at the show I was putting on for him. I made one attempt to throw my body up and bring my legs and feet back together. The result was my body shooting up about six inches before doubling down into my split. The upper half of my body slumped forward as I writhed in pain, and my head caught just enough of the counter to knock me completely unconscious. As my vision tunneled out, I heard a bark that sounded a million miles away.

  But I would swear it sounded a lot like a laugh.

  Chapter 4

  Blackness. Nothing existed in unconsciousness. I often referred to sleep as time travel. I would close my eyes at four a.m., and they would open at eight a.m. with no noticeable passage of time. Like a four hour blink. It's not that I've never dreamed. I remember having a dream when I was much younger. It was very vivid and terrifying. I'm content with time traveling now.

  So I smacked my head on a counter and closed my eyes. Suddenly, I had an unusual dizziness, and a massive headache. Also, there was something wrong with my mouth. My lips felt numb, and everything was warm. The numbness in my mouth spread over my lips, and then I could feel it on the roof of my mouth. Then, the numbness gave way to a meaty taste that assaulted every taste bud. My teeth felt coated like I hadn't brushed them in a month.

  I opened my eyes and saw the eyes of my enemy mere inches from mine. I lowered my eyes and saw its snout almost two full inches inside my mouth. His tongue lapping away wildly, "cleaning" the entire inside of my mouth. My eyes widened in horror, and using two hands, I shoved the dog hard away from me. I pulled myself up to the sink and began dry heaving. I tried desperately to make everything come out of me. My stomach churned, and jets of saliva coated my throat to prepare for vomit, but none would come. So I went with plan B and began spitting continuously into the sink. I used a dish towel to scrub my tongue, but no matter how hard I scrubbed, I could still taste dog mouth. How long had it been tonguing the inside of my mouth? My stomach spasmed at the question.

  The dog let out a soft bark, and I turned to it with a fire in my eyes. It then took one step back like it finally saw the monster that it had just awoken, and then he sat upright and one ear shot up like a teenage erection. It stopped its justifiable fear of me and turned around slowly. I could see the hair along its spine start to stand on end. He let out a low guttural growl and then turned to me with a "what the fuck are you waiting for?" look.

  I stood upright and turned my head to one side as if that would help me hear whatever it was that the dog heard.

  Nothing.

  The dog began to march down the hall where I previously had him trapped. The guest bedroom is there, but the door was closed. He began to sniff at the crack of the door, and then raised his haunches as even more of his fur stood up on end. His tail shot out straight behind him like an arrow, and he turned his head back to me.

  "What's in there, dog?" I whispered.

  He turned back to the door and gently scratched at the door with one paw. I went to the door and put my hand on the knob, and from the other side of the door, I could hear a moan. The dog looked up at me, and our eyes met. Then, he slowly turned his gaze to the shoe I was still holding as as a weapon. After a second he looked back at me and his eyes narrowed.

  Might need something more than a shoe. I imagined him saying.

  "You're right," I responded to the words he never actually said. "The shoe's not gonna cut it."

  A quick trip to the kitchen, and I was back at the door with a better weapon.

  Why couldn't I have been a gun nut? You know, those people that always scream about the government trying to take away their guns? There's one who lives across the street from me, and I guarantee he’s armed ready for a government invasion. I've never fired a gun in my life, and I've never thought I needed any sort of weapon in my house. But, here I am standing in front of my guest bedroom, holding a large stainless steel barbecue skewer as my only defense from a zombie that somehow ended up inside my house.

  Now, the big question is, do I fling the door open and jump in? It's not like the element of surprise really works on a zombie. They don't get surprised. They don't get scared. They don't get happy. I never thought about that before, but I actually have a lot in common with these guys. Be that as it may, I still wasn't about to let one live in my guest bedroom rent free.

  I cracked open the door, and the dog pushed his way in first. Clearly this dog thinks he's a hundred pounds heavier than he actually is. I followed quickly behind with my barbecue skewer at the ready. The dog was surprisingly quiet when we saw the monster that made his way partially inside.

  Apparently, I suck as a carpenter. I used the closet door from the guest room to cover the window. At some point, this undead asshole either bumped into the window, or they are smarter than I thought, and he tried to sneak in. Either way, the nails that held the closet door in place pushed right out of the drywall when the zombie crashed through the window. It must have happened when I knocked myself out in the kitchen. Luck
ily for me, the closet door fell out of place, and trapped the zombie half way in. He couldn't pull himself out or climb all the way in because he was wedged in between the closet door and the window frame. The glass that he broke was slicing into his chest and causing dark brown sludge to pool at the base of the window. The smell was rancid.

  The dog and I looked at each other, and I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, nothing to do but do it." I said. The unfortunate houseguest was a teenage boy with dark shoulder length hair and the worst acne I've ever seen. He was more on the portly side, and the fact that his thick black framed glasses remained on his chubby face was a testament to their construction. This fat, zit faced, four eyes was probably better off as a zombie. I can't imagine life was easy for him before all this. He probably spent most of his time in a basement staring at a computer screen leveling up his sorcerer for an epic battle with a dragon. After all those online battles, after all that leveling up, after rescuing all of those fare maidens...This is how it ends for you.

  He tried desperately to grab at both the dog and myself. His teeth gashed and chomped, and his mangled hands clawed at the air between us. I stepped forward, and he reached for my leg. I stepped on his hand to keep him from being able to grab me, then I grabbed him by his greasy hair. I turned his fat pepperoni face up towards me, and with one quick jab, ran the barbecue skewer through his thick glasses and directly into his brain. It's like shutting off a robot. Instantly, they just drop. It's not nearly as dramatic as you would think.

  I lifted the closet door off of him and then hefted his chubby ass out. I quickly duct taped a garbage bag over the window to try and keep the smell out. Then I re-screwed the closet door in place, making sure I got the studs this time. As a further measure, I flipped the guest bed mattress on its side and placed it against the window. I pulled the dresser in front of it for additional support.

  Once I finished, I was fairly certain that nothing could get in through the broken window. I sat on the floor and leaned against the dresser. The dog sat down next to me and seemed to have a smile on his muzzle.

  "What?" I asked. "I would have heard it eventually..."

  His expression didn't change.

  "If it wasn't for you, I would have heard him break the window to begin with!"

  His tail began to wag.

  The adrenalin was wearing off, and as I slowly stood up, and felt a twinge of pain in my crotch from my earlier split, my head began to throb again where I hit the counter, and my ass was still hurting from the fall from the roof. I have a metric shit ton of Excedrin, and two of them sounded like heaven right now. So I went to the kitchen to get the pain medicine, taking baby steps to avoid irritating my inflamed nether region. The dog followed me in, but he kept a safe distance. Once he was fairly sure I was in no shape to chase him, he trotted off into the living room where he sniffed at the window. I chased two Excedrin down with some room temperature Coke-a-cola to let the caffeine work double duty. I made my way into the living room and looked out the window to see what the dog was sniffing at.

  More zombies.

  I figured they would be there, but it was good to know the dog was able tell just where they were. It was also good that he alerted me of the uninvited chunky guest I had just disposed of. I spoke softly, but mustered a solid tone of authority as I addressed him.

  "Okay." I said to the dog. "You can stay...but only as my alarm system, and only until I get really fucking sick of you…and we are almost there.” I know, he doesn't understand what I was saying, but his tail wagged happily at my words, probably due more to the attention I was now giving him. Then my eyes drifted to the left, and I saw the now hardening pile of shit that blinded me with rage to begin with.

  "And THAT is definitely something we are going to have to figure out."

  Using a paper towel, I carried the shit upstairs to the second bathroom. I opened the window, knocked out the screen, and threw the shit at my neighbor’s house. The dog watched how I disposed of his waste with a curious expression. Like he didn't understand why I would get rid of his "gift" in such a way. I pointed my finger at him.

  "You fill my house with shit again, and I'll throw you out this window. You understand?"

  His mouth dropped open to what looked like a smile, and then he bounded off down the hall.

  Chapter 5

  The next few days were pretty uneventful. The dog kept away from me for the most part, but I would occasionally see him watching me from doorways. When we passed each other in the hallway, it was like passing that coworker you kind of know but don't care enough to learn more about. His shit continued, but I was surprised that he was intelligent enough to at least do it right next to the window that I threw his first shit out of. I would still get angry every single time I had to deal with it, but there was a nice pile forming outside my neighbor’s living room window where I continued to throw it. A sick curiosity wondered how high I could get that pile. If I wanted to really build the pile up faster, I could mix my poo in as well. But that would be cheating.

  One night, I was staring out of the window, watching the business man walk in a small circle. He's been doing it for days. The grass was worn and dying under the repetition of his shuffling steps. I wanted so badly to smash his head in. I worked really hard on my lawn before the world changed. I didn't even want to work on the lawn, but it's what normal people do, and I had to do my part to blend in. Also, the home owners association gave me shit the first time I let the grass grow for more than three weeks. After a heated exchange with the old bastard from the HOA, I kept it nice and trim. I even started to take a modicum of pride in it.

  Watching everything out the window reminded me of TV. It didn't seem real sometimes because of the glass that separated us. I was casually enjoying a bag of Red Hots and watching the "action" when I heard the clickety-clack of untrimmed nails on my tile. The dog made his way to the window and plopped down right next to me. I could feel his stare, but I felt no need to acknowledge his presence. After a few moments, I felt the slightest tap of a dirty paw on my calf.

  "Don't even..." I said sternly.

  I heard a heavy sigh, and then he laid down and stretched on the floor next to me. A few moments passed, and then I felt that same dirty paw on my foot. Rather than yell, or kick, I turned my gaze down to him with a look of fury. Upon seeing my rage, rather than cowering, he rolled onto his back and exposed his white belly to me. His two front paws waved in unison when he realized he had my attention. I said nothing. I just took in another handful of red hots. His eyes watched intently as my hand moved from the bag to my mouth. His tongue shot out of his mouth like he was trying to taste what I was from all the way down there.

  "You don't want this..." I assured him. "You'll shit fire, and I'm the one that has to pick it up."

  He sat upright and waved a paw at me while he licked his chops.

  "Don't do that...Don't beg for my food..." I started, then, the thought of the dog running around with a burning mouth kind of amused me. Maybe if I give him one, it would cause such pain and discomfort that he would never beg for food from me again. The more I entertained the idea, the funnier it seemed. My imagination exponentially increased the humor with every pass of the idea. The last one was straight out of a Loony Toons cartoon. Fire shot out of his mouth, and his eyes bugged out while he ran around in circles looking desperately for a horse trough of water to jump in.

  "Okay, dog..." I reached into the bag and took out a single Red Hot. "Enjoy." He took the candy from my proffered hand and chewed it greedily. Even after he swallowed it, his mouth continued to chew, and his tongue flopped out between each chomp. I chuckled slightly at his discomfort. His eyes never bugged out, and flames certainly didn't shoot out from his mouth, but he did run straight into the kitchen where I had placed a bowl of rain water for him several days ago. Moments after he disappeared into the kitchen, I heard a loud crash.

  "Fuck." I said out loud. "What now?"

  I put down the Red Hots and walked
into the kitchen. His water bowl was still full. Idiot didn't realize the cure for the fire was right there. His tiny furry ass shot around the corner and down the front hallway when he heard me enter, probably afraid I would kick him for knocking over the trash can. I righted the fallen receptacle, and went back into the living room to return to my regularly scheduled program. I turned the corner and saw the dog standing on the coffee table with his entire snout in my bag of Red Hots. He chomped and gulped as fast as he possibly could, and I was frozen with indifference. Part of me was angry that he was eating one of my favorite sweets, yet I was impressed that he was polishing off the entire bag in record time without so much as a tear coming out of his eyes. He saw me, and his head shot up to look at me, but the plastic bag stayed wrapped around his muzzle like a feeding bag on a horse. He briefly looked tense, like he expected me to chase him, but once he realized I wasn't, he wagged his tail and began to polish the inside of the bag with his tongue. I walked to the pantry to grab a small bag of Skittles, so that I had something to snack on while I watched the business man and his circular march. The dog apparently had his first ever sugar high. He ran like a blur in circles, chasing after his tail. He almost caught it a few times. Then after about a hundred circles, he tore off through the rest of the house with the plastic bag still on his snout. He ran so fast that at one point, I thought he was going to slam into a wall and knock himself out. Instead of slamming into the wall, he jumped sideways, and bounced off of the wall into his new direction without missing a beat. After about three minutes of continuous running, his sugar high was at an end. He plopped down in front of me at the window and breathed heavily into the cinnamon scented bag. He stretched his body out and put his head on top of my foot. My first instinct was to kick, but I controlled my urges and simply pulled my foot out from under him and walked away. It was getting late, so I did my nightly pushups and then laid down on the couch to go to sleep. As I began to drift off, the dog with his Red Hot bag popped into my mind. Maybe I should have taken the bag off the dogs snout. Nah. Maybe he'll be fine, maybe not. It's really not my problem. Darkness fell over my consciousness, and the word faded away.