by HC Hammond
“It was getting better for little while, it is getting better.” Rufus ran his hands through his hair.
Zork spit out its cigar with a growl. “Nothing is going to change what you are, you might as well get used to it.”
That started it. Rather than rallying Rufus’ spirits it only served to further depress them. He sobbed, face down on the card table, one open palm slapping the table so cards and chips flew in wild arcs across the room. The zombie stood creakingly to pat Rufus on the shoulder as he sobbed. Creak, pat, creak, pat, creak, pat.
Zork blew through its air holes and hopped up on the table. Faster than greased lighting with a mucous trail, it slimed over to Rufus and grabbed him by the hair with an eyestalk. With strength that belied the creature’s diminutive size, Zork lifted the man’s head up and began slapping him in the face with the other eyestalk.
“Shut up,” slap. “You stupid,” slap. “Ignorant,” slap. “Sack of blood.”
The three carried on their interplay, leaving Harold to watch, poker cards in hand, dazed expression on his face. Creak, pat, slap, creak, pat, slap, creak, pat, slap. Slippery tears, sweat and mucous splattered across the walls and ceiling in some horrific work of violence. Rufus cried, whined and disturbingly… started to howl in great long, hiccupping vowels. Before Harold’s eyes, the wolf man began to change.
Zork and the slow moving or slow-witted zombie appeared not to notice the darkening of his eyes, the rapid spread of sandy hair along the jaw, across the cheek, over the nose and even from his receding hairline down his forehead and over his eyebrows. It grew long and coarse with amazing rapidity. The face elongated, pulled up, and only then did Zork stop slapping, only then did the zombie stop acting sympathetic. Harold stood as Rufus let out one long, high howl. He tore at his clothing with hairy, clawed hands, scratched at his chest as hair grew up from the sternum down to the abdomen and around his back.
His blue, glossy eyes glared out from two thick, bushy brows at Zork. Harold imagined, intimidating even the slug and it seemed to back up just the slightest bit. He pushed the zombie backwards into the floor with a creaking crash. Rufus ran around the side of the table, his movements crazy, desperate with something wild. He ran to the thick backroom door and tore it off the hinges, a feat impressing even Harold with his own modest super strength.
Howling defeat, the wolf man tore out of the room and into the back alley behind the club where Harold had met Zork earlier. In the aftermath of their bizarre encounter, Zork, the zombie and Harold stared after the retreating figure until it disappeared into the darkness.
Ever practical, the zombie stooped to pick up a chair. Harold followed suit, picking up his own chair and setting it before the table. Zork slithered back to its seat, hopped onto it and then moved to the floor. The zombie cleared up the cards while Zork urged Harold to divvy up the chips three ways instead of four. Their meager room now straightened of the recent mess, the three of them went out the broken door. Harold set the door in place where it tilted angrily to the left of the portal.
“Come on,” urged the slug to Harold. “Let’s cash these out at Mephisto’s.”
Harold stilled, recognizing the name from David’s conversation with Orlen.
Harold took one last look at the small dark room and the door tilting crazily over it before turning to follow Zork and the zombie into the night. It took a series of sharp turns into various alleys and across empty roads to Harold knew not where. He’d only heard from Zork during the phone call about the card game that it would involve real cash stakes and when Harold showed up he was asked to put down cash in exchange for chips. They traversed several blocks of darkened alleys. Harold was certain they passed others in the night, perhaps others who were just as skilled as he in seeking the camouflage of the night, for Harold didn’t get a good look at any of them. Frankly, Harold was lost. If his companions hadn’t been slow enough to keep up with Harold would have had a hard time finding his way back to his car.
Eventually, they wound their way closer to a crowded scene. Lights picked up the gloom. People joined them in their slow ramble towards the place ahead. A particularly bright spot lit up the night and Harold heard the sounds of laughter and music in the distance.
They walked a few minutes further before coming to a crowded area. Lots of people milled around a casino on the dock. Thousands of lights twinkled brazenly like some mini version of Las Vegas. Now Harold knew what Zork meant by Mephisto’s, the only major casino in the city, operating at maximum capacity every night with hundreds of normies. The most popular and only casino in town. Harold never came here. Too many people, too much temptation and with it too much risk of being discovered. He pulled a chip from his pocket and saw it was indeed stamped with the Mephisto’s logo, “Enjoy Endless Night.”
They skirted the large crowd of people heading into the casino and veered around to the side of the building and the small alley in back of it. Harold’s stomach growled. All of those people reminded him, he was getting rather hungry.
He fleetingly wondered if David were in the crowd right now, waiting to get in and start gambling more of his life into danger, or carrying a couple fresh pints of blood pay off his debts.
Blood, money, normies and freaks, and it seemed this Casino catered to everyone. What exactly was he about receive by cashing in his chips?
Chapter Ten
Harold obediently followed Zork and the zombie to a darker, much less well lit entrance of the building. A set of wooden double doors were their target. The zombie knocked three times and waited.
Three responsive knocks sounded on the other side. As the zombie knocked two more times the slug hit Harold in the leg and told him he’d better pay attention to the passwords. Something about not dragging his sorry ass back through this a second time.
The door opened and a shadowy occupant growled at the zombie. The zombie leaned into the doorway to whisper to the bouncer, Harold picked up the phrase with his supersensory hearing.
The door pulled back to let them in. As Harold followed the zombie and Zork into a small hallway he brushed the door’s bouncer. Several tentacles rustled and slithered away from him. He did not turn his head to glimpse the thing in the corner. There were just some things one could do without seeing in life.
A threadbare and oft walked carpet lie beneath their feet. Walls painted matte black did little to illuminate their slow march, but Harold detected a battered metal door bearing the sign, Janitor, on it as they walked past. He could also hear the growing sounds of laughter and background casino noises. Up ahead a second door with a thin bedraggled beam of light running along the crack between the door and the carpet seemed their destination. They stopped just short of it and Zork hit him again to get his attention.
“What you see past this point is not to be told to any normies. Not your girl toy. Not Mother Donald. Not even the spooks or cops. Or we’ll stake you ourselves. Got it?” Zork asked, peering up at him with both eyestalks. The slug, better sighted than even Harold in the dark, widened its eyes until they looked like a black ping pong balls. Harold couldn’t help it. He laughed a little. All of this doom and gloom stuff was starting to get to him. The zombie groaned and ran a finger across its throat for emphasis. Harold swallowed.
“Yeah sure. Whatever you say slug.”
The slug hit him again and urged the zombie on. It creaked on the door and a window opened. The zombie exchanged a few brief words with the creature on the other side, which Harold made sure to take note of as per Zork’s orders.
The door opened and Harold hissed as the light hit his eyes. Not brighter than a properly lit room, not by a long shot, but it still stung after being accustomed to the dark. The soft lighting of thousands of candles spread throughout a massive room. He followed the others past the bouncer which turned out to be a large and warty fellow, an ogre. As he looked around what he now saw was a large gaming room filled with dozens of creatures he’d never before seen in his nightly prowling of the city. All hap
pily playing cards, roulette, slots, drinking, eating, and even singing in a corner bar with karaoke. High domed ceilings with golden light sweeping across them put Harold in mind of some kind of Renaissance age church. A wrestling match caught his ear from a few hundred feet away in a boxing ring filled with mud. Ticket holders merrily screamed at the fighters, one of whom was human, at least according to Harold’s nose. The scent of blood filled the air like a delicious aroma before Thanksgiving Dinner. Sounds of coins clattering, slot bells ringing and people assaulted his ears as Harold followed Zork to the cash cage.
This place was incredible. A regular store for the undead. It teemed with the life of hundreds just like him. Amazing, so many others, all of this going on in his city for how many years, right under his nose. He really ought to get out more. He was going to get out more.
A sultry seductress wandered by Harold waving a bag of warm and fresh blood under his nose. He turned tail to follow her box of edible goodies as she called out to Casino patrons. Blood, flesh, oranges. Sweets for the little ones. Get your warm blood for the parched throat!
Zork’s harsh call pulled Harold away from the girl and back to the task at hand. There would be time for food later. He had an eternity to check out this wonderful place. Although Harold had to admit as he stepped up to the cage to hand over his small cache of chips he was beginning to feel a bit like a kid in a candy store. He didn’t know where to go next!
The zombie completed his transaction first, handing chips to another zombie working inside the cage. He split his chips with the house seventy cents on the dollar. Harold didn’t know a lot about gambling, but they sure had a racket going. They’d been playing away from the casino. Maybe there specific rules for games held off casino property. It certainly wasn’t legal. Instead of cash, the zombie behind the window handed over a small slip of paper.
Harold stepped up to the cage window. He handed over the chips, keeping one for himself as a souvenir. The zombie with a blank face behind the window counted out his chips. Although, it could be the creature’s facial muscles were frozen in place with various degrees of decay. According to Harold’s estimates he got a cut of sixty to forty and a slip of paper of his own.
“I think you miscounted,” Herald started as the zombie looked up at him. He got shouted down before he could get going by Zork and a few other creatures in line. They pushed him aside. Harold looked down at his dinky slip of paper. So far tonight he was hungry and out one hundred twenty bucks. Last time he ever comes to a poker game with Zork.
Harold muttered softly about the cut, pointing it at the slip in his hand and the slip in the dealer’s hand for emphasis. His dealer zombie scratched its head, causing a dry chunk of scalp to come out.
Zork oozed over to the two of them with a slip of paper clutched into one eyestalk.
“Never argue with the house,” Zork shrilled at Harold. “A good way to get yourself kicked out of here with no invitation to return.”
The slug peered up at him. It seemed to be oozing an extra amount of goo from its pores. Not a great look on any planet. Harold didn’t see the fuss with speaking up about his money. It was his cash after all.
“I don’t see the problem. They gave me a sixty-forty cut and him,” Harold said gesturing to the zombie, “a seventy-thirty cut. That’s not square.”
Zork you made a gross a sound in its air holes. “He’s a dealer for the house, you idiot bloodsucker. He gets an extra ten percent of the cut.”
“Oh.”
The zombie groaned beside him, which Harold only took for groaning, but apparently it meant something more because Zork nodded to the flesheater and said he’d see him again same time next week.
Harold watched the zombie teetering off into the crowd, green visor still firmly wrapped around his head and paper slip clutched in one upheld hand. A lot of zombies worked in the casino. They stood behind betting cages, dealt cards and tended bar, and even walked the floors selling trinkets in fishnets stockings and wigs to cover unsightly craniums. A casino run by zombies. At least on this side of the casino it was, the normies playing away their cash in the main front of the store would probably all die of fright if they realized how close they were to all these undeads.
Left alone with an angry, irritated, irritating slug, Harold followed the slow mover as he took in the sights. He felt like a starving man at the only free buffet in town. Harold felt pulled in all sorts of directions and pulled away from some sights he didn’t understand or want too. What a casino it was too. Huge. Harold couldn’t begin to fathom how such a place operated under the noses of so many people and the authorities. The network operating to keep this place secret must be enormous.
They came to a bar also protected by a wire cage and several guards, some were zombies, others, ogres like the one from the door towered over the crowd. A line had formed in front of the two open windows. He and Zork stepped in.
“What are we doing here?” Harold hissed at the slug.
Zork waved the paper slip in Harold’s face. “Collecting our winnings, of course. Too bad the wolf freaked. He’s going to regret not turning in his chips for some meat.” Zork’s tongue smacked happily against the edges of its mouth.
“Meat?”
“Just shut up and hand over your slip when you get to the cage. You’ll see what I mean.”
Slowly they crept forward, step-by-step. As he got closer to the cage Harold smelled fresh blood and decaying meat. It made his mouth water. People walked away from the windows with plastic grocery bags of something, happy, hungry looks on their faces when he could identify their faces. Some only had one small bag, others had several large bags. For them it had been a good night. The reason for the guards quickly became apparent. As they got closer the smell became so intense and alluring, he didn’t know if he could control himself much longer. Others in the line were also getting antsy.
Harold got to the front and almost tripped in his hurry to get to the window and hand over his slip. Another zombie, much less decayed than the others, took it from him. She looked at the slip, giving him a once over. He closed his mouth, wiping it surreptitiously just in case he’d been drooling.
“Vampire. Blood. Okay, you can get four pints A-positive or two pints B-negative. We’ve had a run on the O-negative, so really I could only give you a pint of it tonight,” She said.
“A-positive’s fine, I mean,” Harold stilled himself, “Ah, where exactly does all this stuff come from?”
Behind the girl were several coolers and refrigerators with clear glass fronts. Harold could see a range of meats wrapped in newspaper and blood in standard pint containers.
The zombie raised one eyebrow. Besides a grayish skin color and some obvious bite marks she appeared in good shape. She was actually quite attractive, for a dead woman. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, he figured.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, honey. Do you want to exchange this receipt tonight or what?“
“Yes.” The answer came a little too quickly from his own mouth for Harold’s liking.
Yet, he couldn’t help himself from eagerly hugging the double-bagged blood pints when the zombie handed them over. She humphed quietly and had him sign the back of the slip. She popped the slip into a slot on the counter and let him know it was time to go by wishing him a good night.
Harold ripped into the first pint of blood, still icy cold from the refrigerator, burying his fangs straight into the plastic and sucking it out like a tick gorging on a fat deer.
A few minutes later he was joined by Zork who asked him to hold a plastic grocery bag of miscellaneous meat parts. Harold grabbed the bag from Zork one handed while muttering into the pint of blood. It really hit the spot.
“Hungry?” Zork teased from below, expressing humor for the first time this evening. Getting your favorite foods tended to put anyone in a good mood, a little tidbit he picked up from childhood, and it still applied no matter what he ate. He drained the pint of the last of the blood and shoved it back into his ba
g, which he promptly hid in the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Harold responded. “Do I have blood?” He bent forward so Zork could look at his face.
The slug eyed him carefully. “No, you’re good.” He pulled away and motioned Harold to follow him over to the bar, less kept up than the rest of the Casino and ensconced in darkness and not the soft golden glow to which Harold’s eyes had grown used. He and Zork found a table against the wall. Zork slimed up onto a chair. Harold set Zork’s bag on the table and the slug pulled it towards itself, rummaging around inside with an eyestalk until it found what it was looking for and pulled it out. The food looked ...
“Is that?”
“Yep.” Zork said as it took great care in positioning the flesh on the table.
Harold shook his head as Zork latched onto its midnight snack with glee.
“How did they get that?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, as long as they got it,” Zork mouthed a big hunk of meat. It slowly dug needle-sharp teeth into the frozen hunk and pulled it into its mouth. Zork whistled with pure pleasure, grounding up the meat and swallowing. Zork’s eyestalks twisted around themselves right up to the eyeballs and squeezed until they bulged out of their sockets. It burped politely. Then, dove face first into the rest of the meal.
Harold decided to people watch while Zork ate. He still couldn’t believe how many different infecteds existed in one place. Big ones, small ones, tall ones, dead ones and more, literally an encyclopedia of Abeos cases, dominated by Zombie workers teeter-tottering at a fast clip from here to there.
He sank fangs into another pint of blood. It went down smooth before he even fully realized he was drinking it. Harold stared at the empty pint container and sighed, while Zork happily munched away. Well, might as well make it look like he attempted to get some information tonight.