Sid snatched a desk ornament as he lunged forward—some kind of golden oar trophy. He jammed the pointed end through the small hole, felt it hit and sink in. Felt something pop.
Crow bellowed, the first proof that the sonofabitch could feel pain. Sid backed away, the golden oar rattling around the busted hole in the door. The flat end kept getting caught on the splintered wood as Crow tried to pull, and every time it did he howled again, slamming either a fist or foot against the door.
Sid looked for another weapon, anything to defend himself with once the big fucker got inside. And he knew the guy would eventually.
Then the oar fell to the floor and rang as it rattled to a stop. The long, pointed end was painted with blood, and Sid crawled across the floor and grabbed it, held it like an ice pick.
The banging at the door had stopped. No more screaming. Sid pressed his body against the furthest wall from the door and ground his teeth as his imagination ran wild. The hissing only grew louder, along with the burning scent. The air became hotter and thicker by the second, soaking Sid’s tattered shirt with sweat. Strips of torn cloth hung off Sid in wide ribbons, barely holding on by a thread. He ripped it the rest of the way off and tossed it aside.
The door shook and blew a rainstorm of wooden debris into the office, and then an intense pain erupted in Sid’s shin. He cried out, dropped his weapon, and grabbed his leg, rocked himself as he whimpered. A 50-lb barbell rolled away, leaving a gash in Sid’s leg that leaked lines of blood down his calf. Another crash and Sid tossed himself to the left just in time to miss another fifty-pounder crashing through the door.
He crawled toward the corner of the room and rubbed soft fingers across the swelling spot on his shin. The pain pulsed and he thought for sure it had to be fractured. But he stood and was able to put weight on it, though he still hopped in place to relieve the pressure.
Crow roared as he pummeled the door with more weights, the barbells and medicine balls and weight plates littering the office floor and clanking against each other. Then Crow’s face was through the door, peeking inside like Jack Torrance on steroids. His left eye was pinched shut, swollen and purple, and awash with blood. His other eye landed on Sid and it was as if just the sight of him fueled the beastman’s rage. He hammered his fists and arms into the door, breaking off big pieces of wood as he destroyed it. The desk that Sid had worked so hard at shoving was slid across the floor with ease as Crow forced the door out of the frame and pushed his way in.
Steam entered the office behind Crow in thick plumes. He resembled a professional wrestler walking out from backstage. Sid choked on the smoke, coughed, but didn’t have time to think too much about it as Crow flew toward him. Sid ducked under a swinging arm, rolled away from the big man. The adrenaline pumping through him masked any pain he might have felt, and he wrapped his fist around a dumbbell, swung upward with it.
The metal collided with the underside of Crow’s chin, rocked his head back. Blood flung from his eye wound, spattered over the wall behind him. He spat a wad of thick, mucusy blood to the floor and came for Sid with outstretched hands.
The barbell hit him again, slammed against his collarbone, but he ignored it as he swung and filled Sid’s face with knuckles.
Sid stumbled, cupping his aching face as he fell backward. Everything sparkled and he couldn’t figure out which direction he was facing.
Strong hands on his arms. His legs kicked but he couldn’t feel the ground under his feet. Sid blinked the stars out of his eyes and realized he was being carried over Crow’s head at the same moment he was launched through the shattered door and back onto the gym floor. Jagged shards of wood bit his flesh as he passed through it. He crashed onto his back and writhed in place.
Crow stepped out, face full of hate, and grabbed Sid by the throat with both hands. He lifted him and quickly walked toward the closest window.
Sid struggled, kicked his legs, clawed at the tight, hard hands around his neck, but couldn’t break free. He was tossed again, and when his back hit the glass, a scream ripped free from his stomach and out his mouth like exploding bottle rockets.
The glass felt soft, partially melted, but burned like a frying pan. It was still hard enough for Sid’s body to bounce off it, and once his eyes unsquinted, he saw the green sliding across the floor toward him. Then the burning was there. By the time he had jumped to his feet, the gash in his shin pulsing and bleeding, his gym shorts had already begun to disintegrate, and he quickly shook them off. There was a slight burn on his left buttock, close to the injection spot, but not too much.
He turned away from the window and ran into a sweaty, rock-hard chest. Crow grabbed him by the forehead and shoved him back…into the slime.
“Nooo! No, please…please!”
He splashed in the slime as he circled in place, not sure where to go. The goo had oozed into the gym at every window now, and any escape from it was blocked by Crow’s bulk. Sid’s sneakers smoked, the rubber bubbled. He could feel himself lowering little by little as the soles were burned away. A chorus of wet, sloppy groans revved up behind him, and he spun to face the countless bloated zombies. The glass looked stretched out and thin, and it bulged and bubbled out here and there.
Sid tried to chew down the panic rising in his stomach, didn’t even realize he was backing away from the zombies again, but was reminded when a shove between the shoulder blades sent him hurtling back toward the glass, feet splashing in the slime that continued to pour into the gym.
The zombies stared in at him with their boiled egg eyes, shoving themselves closer to the glass and warping it with their weight. More vomit rocketed from mouths and nostrils and eye sockets. When it hit the glass this time, it burned holes through it, opened up the panes like warm cake frosting.
“Shiiiit!” The bottom of Sid’s feet burned as the last of his sneakers was dissolved and his flesh touched slime. He sidestepped away from the torrents of vomit as it burned through the glass and streamed over the floor. His steps were high and fast as if he were stepping on hot coals. Crow stood by, grinning like a maniac.
“You feel that burn, kid? That’s hell soaking right into you. You belong to them now. And I’ll bash your motherfucking skull in just like I’ll do them.”
Countless bloated and verdant faces stared in, moaned and gurgled the slime filling their throats. Sid thought they would come pouring into the gym just like the zombies he’d seen in every Romero movie he’d ever watched. They gain entry and then swarm like frenzied ants on a worm.
But they still stood their ground outside, watched as the slime rushed in. Their mouths stretched wide as they spewed more in, adding to the flow, but they didn’t seem interested in attacking Sid at all. Definitely weren’t trying to eat him.
They are the slime.
Gabe’s voice rang within Sid’s head, and he turned to look at his friend’s mutilated body. The slime slid across it, mixed with the blood and skull fragments, wrapped around the flesh. The woman’s and child’s bodies were covered too as the slime worked its way across the gym.
Sid took careful steps away from the molten window panes, away from the countless sets of white eyes and soupy green faces. And then he realized all at once that his feet no longer burned. He could still feel the slime on them, but the pain had disappeared. There was a sort of tingle there now. Not quite numb. It felt almost good, almost orgasmic. The feeling slowly moved into his toes and he found himself standing there, just staring down at them, wiggling each one and sort of chortling.
The zombies glared in at him, then looked past him and into the gym.
Just as Sid turned, something massive landed on top of him. Hit him so hard that he found himself on his back in less than an instant, something intensely heavy on top of him, crushing him. Every breath was like being stabbed in the chest, and what little air he could get into his lungs was hot and muggy. He thought Crow must have swan dived on top of him, but when his eyes unrolled from the back of his head, he saw Crow standing on top o
f the leg press machine, face bloody with a rictus like a scooped-out trench in his face.
A barbell, stacked on both sides with weight plates, lay diagonal across Sid’s chest, starting at his right shoulder and ending toward his left oblique. He tried to lift it, get it off him so he could escape the stinging acid bath coating the entire back of him.
But it was impossibly heavy. Like trying to lift a fucking house. His ribs jabbed at his insides, prodded at the underside of his skin.
It felt like the slime was cooking him alive, and a hoarse, raw scream exploded from his mouth as he dug deep within himself and pushed. His face felt ready to burst from the pressure.
“Push, kid. Push that shit up before Hell drowns you.” Crow cackled as the machine he stood on sizzled at the bottom and the smoke swirled up around him.
But it was something else that caught Sid’s eye. Something behind Crow and to the left. Behind the desk.
“No, no, no. Oh godjesusfuck…” Sid wailed through clenched teeth and kicked his legs as he pushed up on the weight with new urgency.
Gabe had sat up. The slime had soaked into the torn and caved in mess of his face, turning the meat and gore a dark green. The blood-heavy clothes he’d been wearing were gone, and his flesh was puffed out and gooey. He didn’t make a sound as what used to be his face turned toward Crow. Sid wasn’t sure this thing that was formerly his friend even had the ability to make sound anymore.
Gabe climbed to his feet but was still hunched over. He cupped both hands into the slime and splashed it into his tattered face. The shredded meat soaked it up, the caved-in portion filled like a bowl. And then Gabe slowly trudged toward Crow.
The slime brought him back.
Just as the thought oozed its way into Sid’s head, two more bodies sat up. The woman chortled as she rose to her feet and drank handfuls of slime. The boy was on his hands and knees lapping at the layer of slime that now coated the floor.
“Fuck me!” Crow pulled weight plates off the leg press machine and held them with his fingers through the donut holes in their center. It looked like two thick, iron shields.
The woman’s face was a smashed-in pile of bone and meat and hair. Everything from her nose and up was broken and sunk in like a collapsing pumpkin. But her mouth still worked, the bloated lips opening and closing like a largemouth bass out of water. Fresh slime cascaded down her fat legs as it poured from her wide ass crack and cunt. Thin streams showered from her dark nipples. She shambled toward Crow with jerky movements, gurgling like a dying cow.
“Come on, bitch! Come get you some!” Crow twisted his torso backward, arm outstretched, and launched the weight plate like a Frisbee.
The weight hit the woman in the mouth and split both cheeks open. She stumbled backward and splashed in the slime when she fell, the plate dislodging from the back of her throat and clattering to the floor. She made a wet clicking sound, her head rolling on her shoulders as she moaned and started to stand back up.
Gabe had stopped his journey toward Crow to lean over and scoop more slime into the opening of his face.
And then the boy was there. Standing and facing Sid. Green ooze bubbled from the dented and cracked flesh of his forehead. It dribbled from his mouth and nostrils, green tears trailing steadily from his eyes. When he opened his mouth wider, the stuff streamed from his gums where his teeth used to be, drooled over his marshmallowy chest and stomach.
“Sh-shit…shit!”
The boy stumbled forward as a squeaking noise emitted from his throat. Like a dog’s whine covered in phlegm. The slime splashed as the boy took unbalanced steps toward Sid.
Sid’s back still felt like it was being boiled as the slime coated it. More of the green stuff spilled from the boy’s mouth as he approached, and Sid knew it was only a matter of seconds before a hot stream of it exploded out of the kid’s throat and into Sid’s face.
Sid tried to slide out from under the bar, but couldn’t manage it. A cry sputtered from his lips as he squeezed the metal and pushed. Spittle rained as he strained against the weight. The bar’s angle across his body made it extra difficult, and when it started to move, Sid nearly shrieked with joy.
The boy shuffled forward, grabbed both of his cheeks and pulled his mouth extra wide.
“Fuuuuck!” Crow grunted and bellowed, but Sid couldn’t see what was happening.
The boy burped and choked and wiggled his tongue.
Sid’s teeth felt ready to crack as he clenched them and lifted. The weights shook on either end of the bar, but centimeter by centimeter, Sid lifted it. His growl’s turned into a scream and his wrists felt ready to snap, his elbows ready to break free from his skin. His arms shook and he felt his strength giving out, felt the bar start to lower again.
“Nononono…”
Crow screamed again and something heavy hit the floor.
The boy crept forward, slime bubbling from this widely-stretched mouth.
Sid threw his arms backward, trying to toss the barbell away before it dropped and crushed his skull. He released it and tried to scoot forward at the same time, but the bar clipped the top of his scalp before crashing to the floor. The pain blinded him for a minute as his eyes teared up, and stabbing pains speared him in the chest with every breath. He tried to get to his feet, but stumbled. Felt like he’d been spinning in place and then attempted to walk directly afterward. Something dribbled over his forehead and rode the creases on either side of his nose, and he wiped at sure it was slime, but his hands came away red.
His vision blurred, went in and out, but he stayed on his feet, faced the boy and…
The vomit hit him in the chest like a pot of boiling grease. The burn on his back, his legs, the back of his head was already gone, replaced by that tingling sensation. But his chest and stomach roared with fresh pain.
Sid nearly dropped to his knees, but caught himself and rushed toward the boy. He lifted his leg and thrust it forward into the kid’s chest, like he was trying to kick down a door. A waterfall of slime burst from the boy’s mouth on impact, and he flew backward and crashed just in front of the leg press machine.
Crow’s flesh dripped with slime and burned a bright pink. He stomped the woman’s twitching body into the ground and had already reduced her to less than roadkill. One of her arms still moved and slid across the floor, making one half of a slime angel. And Crow just kept stomping on her, his face pulled back into a snarl.
Gabe stood behind Crow, his body swelled to bursting. His head was so pulverized that the slime bubbled up from his throat like toothpaste from a tube. Gabe’s body jiggled as he stumbled forward the last few feet and wrapped his arms around Crow’s neck.
Crow growled, grabbed the arms by the wrists and yanked forward. The arms pulled free from the torso and were tossed to the floor like dead fish. Crow threw his head backward to headbutt his assailant, but the back of his head lodged into Gabe’s sunken face.
And then the slime exploded out of Gabe’s body like a fountain, completely engulfed Crow’s head and face. More slime poured from Gabe’s arm stumps and marinated Crow’s chest and shoulders in sizzling ooze.
Crow screamed at first, but it quickly transformed into a monstrous roar. Slime rushed down his face and filled his mouth. His teeth had already started to dissolve and fall away like wet cookies. Green ooze flung from his mouth as he bellowed.
Sid’s shins began to burn. He flinched, yelped, pumped his legs to avoid the pain. The slime had filled the gym now and was beginning to rise.
Fuck fuck fuck…
Crow spun and grabbed Gabe’s annihilated head with both hands, twisted it until it popped free, but that only unleashed another splash of slime. The boy was back on his feet, but his attention was on Crow, and he unhinged his jaw and let loose a wave of bile. It soaked into Crow’s back and neck, and he spun toward the boy and shoved his arm through the kid’s chest. It popped out the other side, the fist covered in green jelly. The hair on his knuckles sizzled away. He shoved the other arm throu
gh as more slime poured over him from both sides. Gabe was still on his feet, an endless spray of slime squirting from his neck stump.
“I’m the monster!” Crow ripped the boy in half vertically, splitting him from belly button up to his neck. He ripped both halves free from the hips and tossed them away, but not before all the slime within the boy showered him. Dark green entrails plopped into the slime and thrashed like eels. “I’m the motherfuckin’ monster!”
Sid ran across the gym, screaming the entire way as the burning rode the length of his legs. He tried not to look down at his self. He couldn’t count how many places the slime had soaked into his flesh. And even though the tingle was pleasurable, he knew it couldn’t be good. Knew he was fucked.
He hopped onto the desk and it collapsed beneath his weight. He held onto the edge and prepared to dive back into the slime, winced and clenched his teeth. But the desk collapsed in on itself leaving a bit of rubble for Sid to stand on.
But now what?
He turned and looked into the parking lot. The remaining zombies, human and animal, were wandering off now and diving into the slime ocean. Their fat bodies floated atop the vast sea of green as they squirmed and swam away.
They are the slime, Sid thought. They just wanted to get the slime in here, just wanted to dissolve the windows so it could get in.
Crow’s cries of rage turned into gurgling gibberish. He had dropped to his knees , what little clothing he had on already eaten away. His mouth moved up and down and his eyes had turned white from exposure to the slime. Gabe’s body leaned over him from behind, coating him in the ooze.
Crow fell face forward in the slime and Gabe fell on top of him. Gabe’s body weaved like a bloated water moccasin as he swam out of the gym and into the parking lot. Crow’s body rolled in place as the slime consumed him, transformed him.
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