Addicted to the Dead

by Shane McKenzie

  There was snickering from the other men, and Donnie opened his eyes to see them lining up the dead and walking them out of the warehouse, taking bags of guns too.

  “I guess Don Fatass was a meat eater. Figures. He ate everything else, right?” The men laughed some more.

  Sal’s wife? Carmen…

  It took every ounce of willpower Donnie had to keep himself motionless on the ground as the men finished up. He gave it another few minutes after he heard the vehicles driving away, tires crunching over gravel and peeling out.

  The first thing he did once he was certain he was alone was scream in pain. It didn’t help, only made his body hurt more, but it was a scream he’d been wanting to belt since the men first arrived, and it felt good to get it out. He sat up, checked his wounds. They continued to bleed, and he worried he’d be dead from blood loss before he had the chance to help anyone.

  He struggled to get to his feet, clenching his teeth and whimpering as his wounds burned. Sal sat in his chair, chin resting on his chest. The bullets had all hit him between the tits, his button-down shirt soaked red. Donnie grabbed the back of his boss’s head, rested his forehead against Sal’s.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “They won’t get away with this, Sal. I…I won’t let ’em.”

  Then it was like a voice whispering into his ear. Sal’s family. They’re going after his family…and probably yours too. All the men.

  Fleet’s men had taken most of the weapons, but Donnie grabbed the shotgun Sal always kept loaded under the desk. He tried his best to run, but every pounding step was like a knife twisting into his gut and chest and arms. He had the keys to Sal’s Buick in his pocket still, always did all the driving for his boss.

  As he sped toward his home, his vision began to darken at the edges, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Jesus fuck, he wanted to sleep so bad. He slapped himself across the face, then again, shook his head like a dog drying off.

  Every inhale was still torture, and he tried to breathe slow and steady but it didn’t help. His wife’s face, his twin boys’ faces, swam in his mind, and he wanted to pray to God that they were okay, but instead he promised God that if anything had happened to them, he would make each and every one of those men suffer until their last second.

  When he finally pulled up to his house, he parked the Buick crooked in the driveway, rolled out of the driver’s seat. He let out a shriek when his body hit the pavement, then forced himself to his feet, ran toward the front door. Which stood wide open.

  No…oh Jesus no…

  “Samantha!” He stumbled into the home, checked the kitchen, the living room. No sign of anyone. “Samantha! Boys, where are you!”

  Still no answer. He painted the hallway wall with blood as he slid his hand across it to steady himself.

  Then he stopped in his tracks.

  His knees went weak and he collapsed, stared at his wife and she shuffled out of their bedroom, blood running crooked lines down her face from the hole in her forehead, riding the creases on either side of her nose.

  “S-Samantha? Please no…please…”

  “Nungh…” She reached out for him, but her eyes were blank, mouth working up and down as she took clumsy steps along the hall.

  Donnie growled, rose to his feet. He planted his fist through the wall, knocking family pictures to the floor, then stepped around his grunting wife’s corpse into his sons’ room.

  At first he thought they were playing, both sitting on the floor facing each other. But then they looked up at him as he approached and he saw the bullet holes in their foreheads, just like Samantha. They clicked their teeth, moaned, then swung their attention back to the pile of toys.

  Donnie’s momentum sent him crashing into the playthings between his sons, and he sobbed there on the floor, reached up and grabbed them both, hugged them as hard as he could. They struggled against his embrace, desperate to get back to their toys, groaning and whining.

  Carmen!

  Donnie kissed his sons, then his wife, then forced himself back to the car. Maybe there was still time to save Sal’s wife and daughters. Carmen had always been like a mother to Donnie. He wanted to just lie down and die with his family, but if there was a chance he could help Carmen, he had to try.

  It was a short drive. Sal had put all his boys in houses close to his own. Donnie didn’t even throw the Buick into park before he jumped out of it, the car sliding back down the driveway and hitting the neighbor’s fence across the street.

  His entire body throbbed with pain and sadness, his vision getting blurrier by the second. He lost his footing as he rushed over the threshold, crashed to his belly. His chin smacked the ground, and his teeth slammed shut, filling his mouth with the taste of more blood.

  Someone approached. Donnie pushed with his arms so that he was on all fours, blood sprinkling the ground beneath him. He looked up with groggy eyes as Carmen stumbled toward him. Nude. Covered in blood and bruises. She groaned once, her dark tongue hanging from her mouth.

  And then everything went black.

  ***

  Donnie woke up in a bed. He blinked the fog away and was immediately welcomed back to consciousness by pain. A scream ripped its way past his teeth and erupted into the air. He tried to sit up, but the burning, twisting agony in his belly and chest made him lie back down. Sweat covered every inch of him, and his mouth still tasted like blood.

  “Shhhh.”

  The sound of the voice startled him, and he nearly swung blindly at it, but his injured shoulder wouldn’t let him. He turned his head toward the noise and found an old woman sitting beside him. She held a wet towel in her hand, and she reached over, patted his forehead with it. It was cold, felt good.

  “My wife…oh god…my wife and my boys. They—”

  “Shhhh. Quiet. You need rest. Need to heal.” She popped something into his mouth, then touched his chin with a long, yellow nail. “Swallow.”

  The morsel wiggled against his tongue, but he swallowed it down. “P-please,” he said through clenched teeth. “I have to help them. And Carmen and…”

  Sal’s mother. This is Sal’s old mother.

  The realization only lasted a few seconds before the pain melted away and became ecstasy. What was once unbearable agony became fluttering euphoric tremors across his flesh. He could still feel his bullet wounds, but they pulsated with bursts of pleasure. A smile found its way onto his lips, and he leaned his head back and allowed himself to sink into this newfound bliss.

  “Yes,” the old woman said as she dabbed his forehead with the towel again. “You need to rest. Need to heal. So that you’ll be strong enough to kill them all.”

  ***

  Donnie didn’t know how long it went on. He would regain consciousness, and the old woman was always there, beside him, soothing him with words, stroking his forehead, feeding him those wriggling nuggets. It got to the point that when he woke, he immediately opened his mouth, waited for his treat like a dog after a trick.

  As this continued, the pain began to diminish. As the pain lessened, his anger rose to a boiling point. The only thing that mattered anymore was vengeance. He no longer cared if he lived or died. He only wanted to feel Ted Fleet’s throat in his hands, wanted to watch the life seep slowly out of him as he squeezed. And every single one of his men. For Samantha and his boys. For Carmen and Sal. For Frank and Angelo and the rest of the boys.

  For Calico and Beauty. If you’re still alive, brother, I’m coming for you. And we’ll carve these motherfuckers up good.

  The medicine melted over his tongue and he drifted back into the embrace of his high.

  When he woke the next time, the old woman was gone. He sat up, and though there was discomfort in his wounds, it wasn’t so bad as to keep him from moving. He threw his legs over the side of the bed, but they refused to obey his orders to walk. He could stand, though he still had to steady himself on the wall, but taking a step proved damn near impossible.

  When the boy walked into the room, Donni
e nearly pounced on him. He bared his teeth and growled, and the boy took a step back, eyes wide. Then the old woman shuffled in behind him, smiled at Donnie.

  “You’re up. That’s good. You look strong,” she said. “Here…this’ll help you.” She stepped forward, a writhing chunk of meat pinched between her fingers.

  Donnie dodged it, grabbed her by the wrist and studied the morsel. “Is that…is that what you’ve been feeding me? Fuckin’ dead meat?”

  She shrugged. The boy stepped forward, looked ready to rip off Donnie’s head. Donnie let her go, but scowled at her.

  “You were dying. The meat took you to another place, a place without pain while I pulled the bullets out of you, stitched you up. It was the only medicine I had that could help you.”

  Donnie wanted to me pissed, but as he stared at the nugget, he realized how badly he wanted it. Realized he had known all along what she was feeding him.

  She must have seen it in his face, because she smiled, popped it into his mouth. “You’re still weak. But the meat will help you forget about that. The meat will make you strong.” She clapped the boy on the back. “Do you remember Bobby?”

  “Bobby?” Donnie said. Sal’s nephew. The last time Donnie had seen him, he was only a child. The boy looked strong now, covered in muscles and tall.

  “He’s going with you.”

  “Going with me? Where?”

  The old woman grabbed Donnie by the arm and led him across the room. As the meat worked its way into his system, he found he could move his legs again. Whatever discomfort he felt was gone, and he walked confidently alongside the woman, Bobby behind them. She led him through the house into a back bedroom. Even from their side of the door, he could hear the moaning from within.

  “I had Bobby help round them all up,” she said before throwing the door open.

  They were all there. Sal’s men and their families. All dead. All shuffling around the room or sitting on the floor. When they saw Donnie at the door, they moaned, clicked their teeth. Donnie locked eyes with Samantha for a brief second before closing the door, resting his forehead against it. His sadness cut through his high like razor wire, and just as quickly, he was filled with the need to kill. To feel hot blood on his hands.

  “They didn’t take them for meat,” Donnie said, though it came out a whisper. “Why?”

  “I figure they wanted to send a message. They wanted others to see what they did. But…Bobby? You want to show him?”

  “This way, Uncle Donnie,” the boy said. He smiled, looked proud.

  They moved to the backyard where Bobby led them to the toolshed. He smiled again before opening the door. “Found this one at your house. Came back to round them up I guess.”

  The man was chained to a chair. His head drooped, hair wet and hanging, dripping sweat and blood. When he looked up, he squinted against the light, his face a mess of purple and red and black swollen flesh. His lips were fat, teeth knocked out.

  Donnie chuckled, clapped Bobby on the back, then knelt before the man, grabbed him by the hair and yanked. “Where’s Calico?”

  “F-fuck you…”

  Donnie lifted the man’s upper lip, dug his fingers into the bleeding craters where his teeth used to be. He could still feel some root stuck in the gums. The man bucked and shrieked, blood spraying over Donnie’s hand and face.

  “Where the fuck is Calico? Where’s Beauty, you fucking cocksucker!”

  The man was trying to say something, so Donnie ripped his fingers from the guy’s mouth, leaned in close.

  “What was that?”

  “The…the m-meat plant. Fleet’s got him w-working jobs for him…keeps the girl l-locked up. Please, man. P-please. I was just doing what I was told…you know how it is…please!”

  Donnie stood, faced Bobby and the old woman.

  “Bobby’s already got the car packed,” she said. “You’ve got weapons, money, and meat.” She stepped forward, pulled Donnie in close, kissed him on the cheek. “Kill them all. Every one of them.”

  Donnie kissed her back, squeezed her arms lightly. He patted Bobby on the shoulder and the boy smiled.

  The toolshed was well stocked. There was a pile of bloodstained tools lying at the man’s feet, and Donnie knew Bobby had already been working on him. As badly as Donnie wanted his turn, he knew there wasn’t time.

  So he grabbed the hacksaw.

  When the man’s eyes landed on the tool in Donnie’s hands, he started to fight his restraints, grunting and wailing, begging for his life.

  Donnie’s flesh tingled from the meat swirling through his body. He never stopped smiling as he sawed his way through flesh and bone.

  In another few minutes, the head’s eyes popped open and its mouth got to moving up and down on the shed’s floor, making a squeaky gurgling sound.

  “You ready?” Donnie said to Bobby.

  “Yes, Uncle Donnie.”

  “Let’s go make some corpses.”

  Shane McKenzie is the author of Infinity House, All You

  Can Eat, Bleed on Me, Jacked, Addicted to the Dead, Muerte

  Con Carne, Escape from Shit Town (co-authored with Sam W.

  Anderson and Erik Williams), Fat Off Sex and Violence, Fairy,

  The Bingo Hall, and many more to come. He is also the editor

  at Sinister Grin Press. He lives in Austin, TX, with his wife and

  daughter. He eats his portion of meat every day and has the most

  amazing Corpse Snuff collection you’ve ever seen.

  Addicted to the Dead by Shane McKenzie

  is provided through Dark Regions Digital.

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