Sex in the Time of Zombies

by William Todd Rose

  I pulled him real close to me, let him just lay his head on my chest and cry as I held on. I didn’t even care that he was snottin’ all over my tits or leavin’ these sticky little smears everywhere. I just held this poor man and stroked his other head for a change, lettin’ him cry it out like Wanda Polowski used to say.

  Now, he’d cried in front of me plenty of times. Just damn near every time we did it the waterworks would turn on at one point or another. This time was different, though. Afterwards, when he was wipin’ his eyes on this dirty ’ole t-shirt, it almost seemed like he was embarassed.

  Couldn’t look me in the eyes and just kept mumblin’ about how sorry he was, how I didn’t need to see that and all. But even then there was somethin’ different between us. It was like there was this little silver cord connectin’ our souls and when I went to hug him he only resisted for a second before squeezin’ me back.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet.” I told him. “A friend of mine. Not far from here.”

  He just kinda nodded and started puttin’ on his clothes, not really sayin’ anything at all. But I got the felling that I coulda told him we were gonna walk to China and he woulda been okay with it.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not sayin’ that he fell head over heels in love with me just ’cause I let him cry and listened to ’im talk about his old life. But, somehow, that did make us connected. I’m sure of it… even if I can’t explain why that would be.

  So anyways, we’re walkin’ toward the factory where Gin was hangin’ out and inside I’m feelin’ like the cat that just got the cream. I just can’t wait to see the look in her eyes when the two of us walk up to her and I got this little speech prepared in my mind. How I’m gonna say that me and John were just talkin’ ’bout the old days and it got me to thinkin’ about her. By the time it was all over, she’d been eatin’ her words more than that squirrel she had her eye on.

  Only we got to the factory and there weren’t nobody around. It’s quiet most of the time these days. There ain’t no planes roarin’ overhead or cars hissin’ by, no radios thumpin’ out that damn hippity-hop as Granny Foster used to say. But the silence surrounding that factory?

  Somehow, it felt heavy. Like it was just hangin’ in the air and waitin’ to drop down outta the sky and crush us.

  “Gin?” I called out. “It’s me… Jaimie Lynn.”

  And then I hear something. It’s almost like a muffled scream, how I imagine it would sound if someone was shoutin’ into a pillow.

  “Gin?”

  I hear it again and now I got this nervous feelin’ all up in my chest and goosebumps start crawlin’ up my arm just like someone done walked over my grave.

  “The factory!”

  The words weren’t hardly outta John’s mouth before he’s runnin’ toward that rusty old building. And I’m right there behind him, tryin’ to keep up with my heart skippin’ beats and this this feelin’ that I just couldn’t shake. It was like I somehow knew we was gonna find somethin’ really, really bad in there….

  Part of the metal wall of the factory looked like it’d been peeled back with a giant can opener and John ducks in there quick as a whistle with me hot on his heels. It was dark and cool inside the building and everything has almost gasoline like smell to it. We could hear that scream a little more clear now and John ran over to where there were all these dented drums layin’ on the ground and picked this metal tool up. It looked kinda like one of those forks people use when they’re tunin’ an instrument, only it was a lot bigger and its handle was shaped like a T. Ginny had one just like that she keeps at her place for protection and she told me once it was called a bung wrench and was used on bung holes. At the time, I thought it was pretty near the funniest thing I’d ever heard and mentioned how I wouldn’t let anyone put that thing in my bung hole even if they were offerin’ an entire Chinese buffet.

  It weren’t so funny now with those screams seemin’ to come from all around us and John lookin’ like he was about ready to go postal on someone. We didn’t say nothin’ but just kinda looked around, tryin’ to figure out where those screams were comin’ from.

  All at once John’s runnin’ again and I figure he musta got a bead on it so I’m right behind him. We turn the corner over by this big, rusty machine that looks like somethin’ outta Star Wars and I stopped so quick I almost fell forward.

  Funny thing is, the first thing I noticed was that Ginny was naked. Maybe it was cause I’d never seen her without her clothes on before and my mind just kinda blanked when I saw tits and a dick connected to the same body. But then I saw that her skin was covered in these red smears and she had all these lines criss-crossin’ her flesh like she’d just run nude through a briar patch. And I see how her hands and feet are tied to this metal framework and she’s all spread out like she was in the middle of makin’ a snow angel. She’s got this wild look in her eye, like a muskrat caught in a trap, and there’s this guy leaning over her and yanking on this bandana that’s tied around her mouth. He cinches that thing so tight that even from a distance I could see the way her cheeks just kinda puff out around it.

  Maybe John was just as shocked as I was ’cause we both just stand there for a second and the realization dawns on me that the guy gaggin’ my best friend is that same fucker with the beady eyes and the squirrel. Only he must not know we’re there yet since he doesn’t pay us no mind. He picks up this big ’ole knife and he just kinda slices it right across Gin’s belly and she’s squirmin’ around now and I saw that twisted fuck lean over her.

  He’s workin’ himself with his hand and for a second I think he’s kissin’ her at the same time. But then I get this sick feelin’ in my stomach as I realize what’s really goin’ down.

  “He’s lickin’ her.” I think. “Lickin’ her damn tears.”

  I kinda snapped outta whatever daze I was in and see that John is almost to where Gin and the tear drinker are. He’s runnin’ like there’s no tomorrow and he’s got that bung wrench raised over his head, yellin’ to beat the devil.

  The bastard attackin’ Gin looks up just as that wrench smacks into his jaw. His head jerks to the side and I see this spray of blood shoot outta his mouth along with a white chunk of tooth. And John is just swingin’ away with more and more blood eruptin’ outta that fucker’s head

  The dude is flat on his back now and John is straddlin’ him like a cowboy at the rodeo.

  From where I’m standin’, all I can see is his back and how he keeps on bringin’ that wrench down again and again. The factory is echoing with these wet smacks and panting and it almost seems weird, the way nobody is talkin’ or yellin’ or anything.

  Next thing I know I’m halfway across the factory and thinkin’ I gotta get Gin untied but I don’t really remember startin to run or anything. It’s like there’s this tiny little piece of memory that was just washed away somehow.

  I’m almost to where they are when I catch movement outta the corner of my eye. I’d been so focused on Ginny, I’d totally lost track of John and how he was beatin’ the mortal fuck outta the tear drinker. My head snaps to the side, thinkin’ that maybe there’s actually two of ’em, but all I see is John just kinda stumblin’ around like he was a damn rotter or somethin’. His face is so pale it almost seemed to glow and his mouth and eyes made these perfectly round O’s. He’s got his hands pressed against his belly and I notice how there’s this big, red stain spreadin’ across his shirt.

  And then I saw the hilt of the knife stickin’ outta his belly like a meat fork in a turkey.

  He kinda falls to his knees, sees me watchin’, and reaches a blood soaked hand toward me.

  “Mon… Monica….”

  Somehow, I’m suddenly right over there next to the tear drinker and his face is this bloody pulp of swollen skin. I see a tooth stickin’ through his top lip like a piercing and that rat-like nose is now all swollen and bloody and blackened from where that wrench busted it up real good.

  After that I only have
these little bits and pieces of memory. Kinda like photographs that flash through my mind. I see his hands raised in the air as if he were tryin’ to push me away.

  My hands in his hair as I slam his head against the concrete floor so hard I can feel the thud jar my body. That bung wrench halfway down his throat and me just leanin’ on it, driving it deeper and deeper with all my weight.

  I see John staring at the ceiling with eyes that don’t never blink or move, a pool of blood surrounding his body like the crimson wings of an angel. Someone who might be me pullin’ the knife outta his gut and tryin’ to muster up the courage to drive that blade into his eye, to make sure that he finds peace with his wife and daughter and doesn’t come back as a freshy.

  Then there’s Gin pressin’ against me, cryin’ and screamin’ while I take off my own clothes and put them on her. The two of us, huddled together and staggerin’ away from that damn factory, me in nothin’ more than my dirty undies and her all covered in blood with these little squiggles where the tears cut through it all to showed clean skin beneath.

  It musta been close to a week an a half before I actually started gettin’ hungry. Most of the time I just layed around in my lean-to, cryin’ until my stomach muscles felt like I’d done a thousand situps and I couldn’t cry no more. I didn’t sleep much, but when I did I saw Master Twinklebottom in my dreams. He was sittin’ in his shack and tellin’ me stories about how he’d once seen a fish as big as a car and then Granny Foster would come in with this steaming apple pie and say somethin’ about the cows gettin’ outta the barn again.

  But a girl’s gotta eat, right? Even if those damn rotters out there seem like they’ve got more life in ’em than you do, sooner or later ya gotta put somethin’ in your belly. Ya gotta find a way to carry on, to keep movin’ forward in the hopes that someday you might feel whole again. It’s what he woulda wanted, see?

  So that’s why I’m kneelin’ before this skinny little guy who came around with his cans of tuna. That’s why I’m kneadin’ his prick in my hand, tryin’ to coax an erection from that limp noodle and whisperin’ encouragement.

  “You can do it. That’s it. Come on, now. Get it up for me. You want it, don’t ya?”

  He nods his head rapidly but his eyes are closed tight and he’s kinda got his tongue peekin’ out between his lips.

  “That’s it, John… that’s it….”

  His eyes flutter open and he gets this confused look for a second. He seems unsure of himself, like he don’t know whether he should say somethin’ or not. Finally, he does talk. He says in this shaky, small voice, “Uh, yeah… ummm… I’m… my name’s not John.”

  I smile as I close my eyes and press his junk against my cheek.

  “Honey,” I say with a sad smile, “when you’re with me it is.”

  Tiffany Shepis and the Fanboy of the Apocalypse

  That no good, two-timing, sneak thief Tanny Henderson had to die. A bullet or two to the head would drop a rotter like Judgment Day, but that would be too good for that degenerate son of a bitch. No, Tanny had to be made to suffer: he needed to experience every agonizing second of the brutality Owen was going to unload on his sorry ass. That backstabbing piece of shit would end up praying to God and the Devil to release him from the torment that would be wrought upon his fleshy prison; and if Old Scratch answered first, the fires of Hell would seem like a welcome relief after what Owen had planned.

  He’d already touched down in the center of the campsite, devastating it within the span of a few seconds like a tornado in a trailer park. Clothing was scattered about the clearing as if it had exploded from a central point; rocks and limbs lay atop crushed boxes of food and the little elbows of macaroni resembled the discarded bodies of those who could not withstand the fury of nature. Even the tent hadn’t been immune: its pegs had been pulled from the ground and guy lines coiled about the trunks of trees like nylon serpents; the canvass flapped in the breeze, having been ripped into long, jagged ribbons that fluttered like banners heralding the arrival of some dark god.

  Owen stood in the center of the destruction and his nostrils flared with each labored breath. His shoulders were hunched to the point that his neck seemed to be swallowed by the collar of his shirt and his features were as twisted and gnarled as the trunks of the oldest trees in the surrounding forest. Behind the cracked lenses of his glasses, the man’s eyes smoldered like the embers he’d kicked from the remnants of last night’s campfire. The heat quickly spread to his face and tinted his normally pale complexion a fiery crimson as the little vein above his left temple throbbed in time with his racing heart.

  That little weasel was out there somewhere. Right now. With her. And doing God knows what.

  His eyes darted to an old stump he’d drug into the clearing and the corner of his mouth began to twitch. Embedded in the outer rim of the wood was the shiny, steel blade of a hatchet. The metal contorted his reflection into a fun-house caricature that seemed to pulse in the sunlight dappling through the canopy of of leaves.

  You dirty, filthy, little pervert….

  Images of Tanny flooded his mind like geysers of sewage from a broken main. Owen saw the twerp brushing her cheek gently with his stubby fingers. Staring into her soft eyes with that lecherous smile of his. Reducing her into nothing more than an object for his sick little fantasies.

  You son of a bitch, you mother fuckin’ son of a bitch….

  Owen’s body trembled as if the temperature had just dropped thirty degrees and he felt something like a deep rumble vibrate within his chest. The reverberation grew in intensity and within moments a pressure had grown within that threatening to burst his flesh like an overinflated balloon. It erupted through his esophagus, shot up past his vocal cords with acidic fire, and spewed from his mouth in the form of a guttural scream that echoed off the hills and startled a flock of birds into flight.

  He stormed across the campsite, clearing the few feet between him and the stump with short, quick strides. Wrenching the hatchet free, he raised it above his tangled mop of blond hair like a victorious gladiator and yelled his threat to the rising sun.

  “Here comes your nightmare, man. Here comes your frickin’ nightmare!”

  He’d find them. He’d rescue her from that little troll and prop her against the base of a tree where she could relish every bloody moment of Tanny’s punishment; where she could bask in his screams and delight in his pleas for mercy.

  No… that wasn’t right. She was so good and kind; she’d probably flinch, maybe even beg Owen to stop. But there would be at least a small part of her, he was certain, that would recognize how special she was to him. How far he would go to defend her honor and keep her safe from all the things that slithered through this season of darkness, whether that threat be from the hordes of shambling dead or a pathetic excuse of a man who thought he could just waltz right in and steal the only woman who’d ever meant anything to Owen.

  “Kiss your ass goodbye, mother fucker. I’ll find you. Mark my words, I will.”

  With this final statement of resolve Owen crashed through the undergrowth, the hatchet swinging in his hand and already feeling like a natural extension of his body.

  It hadn’t taken Tanny Henderson long to realize his traveling companion has some serious issues. Oh, he’d seemed normal enough when they’d first met on the muddy banks of the Elk River. More than normal, in fact: he’d seemed decent… which was a rare commodity in this day and age. He hadn’t cracked any of the lame jokes Tanny had heard a million times, hadn’t held him down and laughed about claiming the pot of gold. Nor were there any references to The Lollipop Guild, hobbit holes, or the ever-popular reply that everything was just smurfy. If Owen Reid had any misgivings about the stature of a man who stood eye-level with his belt buckle, he’d done a damn good job of keeping it to himself. Even the most conscientious of people normally couldn’t resist the subconscious impulse to stoop down with their hands on their thighs when they spoke to Tanny. As if they were speaking to a small
child and not a man with thirty plus years of life behind him.

  “I think we should probably stick together for a bit.” Owen had said as he watched the emerald waters of the river gurgle over some rocky shoals. “I hear that Charleston is crawling with them undead bastards.”

  “Where you heading, anyway?”

  Owen’s eyes had gotten a distant look to them: as if he were peering straight through the hills with their lush foliage and hidden reams of dark coal. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that it was like listening to someone through the muffled veil of impending sleep; but, at the same time, there was a reverence to his answer. Almost as if he were uttering the name of a some mythical land where gods were born.

  “Tuscon, Arizona.”

  “Me,” Tanny had replied, “I’m going to Chattanooga, myself. Hoping that my brother might still be alive. Hook up with him and see where fate leads us, I guess. You got someone in Tuscon, Owen?”

  “Yeah… my girl.”

  Owen had flushed slightly and jammed his hands in his hips pockets as he stared at the tips of his red Chucks. He glanced at Tanny every few seconds as if half expecting his new friend to laugh and seemed as uncomfortable as a teenager asking his first crush on a date.

  “You don’t say? You lucky, devil, you….”

  A smile had flitted across Owen’s face and his eyes seemed to twinkle in the afternoon sunlight.

  “Yeah, I guess I am. Aren’t I?”

  Tanny had just finished taking a long pull from his canteen and wiped the droplets of water from his red beard with the back of his hand. He lifted the round container as if in a toast.

  “Well, here’s hoping she’s still alive, buddy.”

  In the time it took for a bird to warble twice, everything about Owen changed. His body tensed and his eyes sparked with seething rage as his hands balled into fists. He thrust himself forward so quickly that Tanny stumbled backward and instinctively raised his hands in an open-palmed expression of submission.