by Mark Tufo
Was that what I still was? Manny certainly was the master. I wanted to consider myself the obedient servant, biding his time until an opportunity presented itself that allowed me to flip the script.
“Don’t make me show you the pecking order again. My foot still hurts from kicking the shit out of you.”
“You must have been quite the ladies’ man in your day.”
“I already told you, I got all sorts of pussy.”
“How about from anyone with some self-esteem or an I.Q. above seventy-five?”
“As long as they’re smart enough to walk to my apartment, why should I give a shit if they have daddy issues or a brain?”
“You are fucking loathsome. Must have been a high suicide rate from the women that spent time with you. Too bad your mother didn’t spare the world and strangle your twisted fucking head from its body the moment you were released from her what must have been festering womb.”
I was about to go caveman on her ass when I realized that the barrel of a rifle was less than a foot from my head.
“I didn’t think you’d actually show. In fact, I didn’t really want you to. Wanted to kick Greg out of our group for telling you. There’s something different about you. No, it’s not that, there’s something wrong with you, and I can’t figure it out. I just watched you walk down this street without a care in the world, muttering to yourself. The only kind of people that would do that with all the dead heads crawling around would be a crazy person. Are you crazy?”
I tightly gripped the scalpel I had in my pocket. Her smooth neck was so close. I could feel the blood coursing through it, right there, so close to the surface. I could plunge the implement into her porcelain neck and drink deeply, eat contentedly. She moved forward, placing the barrel directly against my forehead.
“Even now, you crazy bitch, I have three pounds of pressure on a five-pound trigger. This 5.56 bullet will rip through your head with no problem, and you look like you’re getting your feet massaged. What is wrong with you? Seriously, tell me.”
“Kindzi! What the fuck are you doing?” It was my savior and their ultimate killer, Greg.
“There’s something wrong with this bitch.”
“Yeah, the fact that you’re holding a gun to her head.” Greg batted the weapon away.
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Kin, you know this war hasn’t been easy on everyone. We all deal in our own way.” He threw a protective arm over my shoulder. I almost shrugged it off; I didn’t want him thinking I was gay. I turned my head to the side so I could see Kindzi and then I licked my teeth suggestively. She was not a fan.
“How many of you are there?” I asked as innocently as I could. I was afraid he would feel the excitement that Manny was thrumming up inside of us leak through me and creep into his arm like a wayward electrical charge.
“You’re safe here; there’s five plus me. We’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”
“You really want inside my pants don’t you?” I asked. It was kind of comical being on this side of the courtship.
“You’re about as smooth as gravel,” Scarlett piped in.
Greg stuttered and sputtered, “I umm, I’m not sure what. That’s a very forward question.”
“I’m a guy, I mean you’re a guy, I’m a girl. It’s a zombie invasion … should we just get it on? You know, start procreating and all that shit.” Scarlett was right, I could barely believe the words coming out of my mouth.
“I think you were lying about getting laid by real women. Unless she was rubber or vinyl. Fruit doesn’t count,” Scarlett said, a knife edge of humor to her words.
I thought for a moment she had located that memory where I had drilled a hole in a large watermelon and planted my seed in the so called seedless variety. At the time I thought that was the funniest thing ever. I’d had to hide my transgression by slicing the fruit up into small pieces and placing them in a bowl. It got real weird when my mother put that bowl out with some other snacks for my father’s weekly poker game. I about lost my shit when Mitch Dunham, one of my dear old dad’s oldest friends, said that was some of the best watermelon he’d ever had. That it had a sweet salty thing going on. Fuck him, he was an asshole too. He’d once laughed when my father had smacked me so hard I’d fallen into the little stream we were camping next to. It was fall and early in the morning, my teeth were chattering from the frigid dip, and yet my father would not let me change. Said it would toughen me up. Mitch just kept saying, “Sucks to be you.”
“No, Mitch, it sucks to be your cum eating self,” I said softly from the kitchen entryway before I went back to my room.
“You okay?” It was Greg. He was holding a candle up to my face.
“Yeah, yeah sorry.”
“You dazed out for a while.”
“Sorry, just stress. Been on the run for so long I sometimes forget how it is to act normal.”
We headed up to the second floor, and Greg showed me the accommodations, which consisted of eight bunk beds. My stomach rumbled with enough force to ripple my clothes. I swear it sounded like it said “eat.”
Greg looked astonished that someone as small as me could produce such a noise. I couldn’t wait to show him what my anus could do. All in good time. I had to know where everyone was and what they were up to. And I was sure as hell not going to underestimate Kindzi. Women were proving to be the much more difficult enemy in this war. She was no Yorley, but she was deadly and suspicious. Two very dangerous attributes. The other three that rounded out this small troop were a family. Dietrich, his wife Heimlich or some shit and their son, Gentry. They were German tourists caught over in the states when the world ended. Greg told me that they hardly spoke any English, that the father had mostly checked out after losing two of their other kids. Heimlich was the point of contact for them, though they didn’t do much of anything.
“Why do you help them?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“You said they don’t do anything but sit there. They don’t go on guard duty, and they don’t hunt for supplies. If they don’t carry their own weight, they’re just a burden to the rest of you. Why wouldn’t you just cut them loose?”
“That’s not how civilized people act.”
“Greg, I don’t know if anyone has told you this yet, but there’s no civilization left. People don’t have to act one way or the other.”
He was looking at me strangely, probably trying to reconcile what his dick was thinking with what his ears were hearing and his eyes were seeing. He was a guy; he’d stick it in me if I was reciting the Gettysburg address in a Yoko Ono high-pitched twang. Nonetheless, I needed to tone it down a bit.
“I get why you’re doing it though. It’s admirable.” I was trying to act all coy and endearing as I reached up to touch his shoulder, but I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing and I ended up shoving him backwards a couple of inches, in a move reminiscent of what guys typically do to each other.
“Why don’t you just bat your eyelashes at him. You fucking Neanderthal,” Scarlett said.
“Like I need your help.”
“Like, I’m happy to help.” Greg was smiling, thinking I was talking to him.
“I have got to stop talking out loud,” I bemoaned.
“You’re losing your shit. Sooner or later, someone is going to catch on and put us all out of our misery,” Scarlett said.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not miserable; I love this.”
“I’m … I’m happy about that,” Greg said.
Scarlett was laughing like a loon. I’d been talking aloud again. This was basic shit; if I couldn’t control thinking from talking, I was indeed screwed.
“Is there somewhere we can be alone?” I asked. It took Greg so long to answer I was afraid this I had not said audibly. Then I saw his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Uh, yeah.” He held his arm out and pointed to a set of stairs that led to the roof.
“No one’s up
there?” I breathed in his ear.
“No.”
“No one watching for guard duty?”
“Andy Holman, who you met earlier, will be coming up soon to relieve Kindzi. She says she’d rather be on the street, can tell if anything is coming better that way. I think she’s just being reckless and endangering herself.”
“Switch with Andy, and we can watch what comes together.” I stressed the suggestive part. Crude but effective. Who knew guys were so easy to manipulate? I headed up the stairs while Greg quickly let Andy know what was going on. Andy sat up, looked over at me, gave Greg the thumbs up and laid back down. Seemed that everyone was getting what they wanted.
The door to the roof was unlocked. I walked out into the brisk air and entertained the thought of letting Greg get a little before I killed him. I pulled my sweatshirt up and over my head and tossed it to the side, then yanked the pants off in one fluid motion. The feeling of the cool air on my skin was exhilarating. Greg had come up, the door hit him in the side as he stood looking agape at my form. He took a small step and let it shut tight behind him. He was dumbfounded, but he wasn’t dumb. He began to strip down as quickly as he could before he figured I could change my mind. He struggled with his boots. When they were off, he started coming toward me, his penis leading the way. I’d initially thought I’d let him die with a smile, but it just seemed like it would be a little gay if I let him in. When he stepped closer, I shoved my blade deep between his ribs, searching for his heart. It was a great strike. His struggling was kept to a minimum and the puncturing of at least one of his lungs kept him unable to scream out and warn anybody. He didn’t have enough strength to reach up and grasp the handle. I grabbed him before he could fall over, and I gently lowered him to the ground.
“Have at it,” I said, not sure that more superfluous words have ever been spoken. Manny was chowing through his neck before he touched down.
I could feel Scarlett standing off to the side, shaking her head in disapproval. Then the wind picked up, or more accurately it was the feeling of wind picking up, but this was more intense. Maybe like at first we were ankle deep in a fast moving stream and the water was quickly rising to our knees, then thighs. I knew I was in serious danger of being dragged away from the surge. I burrowed deeper into Scarlett’s mind, found the memory of her Great Aunt Greta, whom she had stolen a bottle of Scotch from so her and her friend Emma could drink. Both of them ended up getting sick. I was watching both of them take turns puking in the toilet when I heard Scarlett screaming. She’d apparently lost her footing. I should have just let her the fuck go, ah live and learn, or die ignorant I suppose. I reached a hand out and snagged her as she was about to whistle past. I know she must have been petrified because she thanked me, until at least she realized it was me touching her, then she rooted herself next to me.
When the shock wore off she began to talk. “What’s happening?”
“Well, for good or bad, it looks like we’re intertwined with Manny now. Not sure when that happened or how. When he bites another victim he injects a part of himself into the new potential host.”
“Greg’s going to become a zombie?”
I looked through our eyes, Manny was sucking at the marrow in Greg’s spine. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say no. Manny isn’t in infection mode; he’s all about eating right now. Something has clicked in his little virus brain that says it is more important to sustain than repopulate.”
“So we would have been pulled from here and deposited in Greg’s body?” She was shivering as she spoke.
“Sort of, I think we’d be in both. And trust me you don’t want to do that, especially one that’s dying. Manny can deal just fine with multiple exposures. I think we’d go crazy.”
“At least you wouldn’t have far to go.”
“That’s how you thank me?”
“Let’s not fool each other. You didn’t do it for me.”
“And yet I did save you.”
“I’ll have to live with that.”
Manny moved through Greg with a reckless abandon, I’m not kidding—pieces of him were flying up in the air as they got caught in the motor boat spinning that was Manny’s mouth. It was pretty impressive the way he reduced the body down to just the basic building blocks. There wasn’t all that much blood. Still probably a good thing I removed my clothes.
“You done?” I asked a lip smacking Manny.
“Next.”
“You’re a fucking glutton. Do you need to do any sort of elimination before I get us dressed again?”
Manny let a belch go that sounded like an F-16 was shooting by overhead. I realized I was once again back in control. I stood, went over to Greg’s pile of clothes and cleaned off as best I could. My hopes were that we didn’t look like the murderer that we were. Getting the clothes back on wasn’t nearly as easy this time, not with all the meat we had just packed on.
“You need to let me know when you’re going to go again Manny. We aren’t water buffaloes that just randomly shit whenever the mood strikes. We have to plan this. You pop a squat down on the floor below us and you’re going to get us killed.”
“Next” was all he had to say.
“Do I look like the fucking Galloping Gourmet? You’re starting to sound a lot like Hugh.”
“You do realize you’re having a conversation with a bug right?” Scarlett just had to throw that in there.
“Yeah, well, this bug runs the show, so I’m prepared to grovel at his little spider legs if it comes down to it.”
“You’re pathetic.”
“Nope, I’m alive and that’s all that matters. Let me tell you, sister, being a dead hero is for losers. The only fuckers that care that you’re a hero are the living. You don’t give a shit because you’re dead. Wretched, dismal, despicable, strong, heroic, altruistic—those are all human constructs. I do what I do for survival, which is an animalistic construct. Most people like to think they’re above that, that they are somehow better than animals. I say fuck that, those beasts have it right. You do whatever it takes to survive, end of story.”
“Talk about twisting the facts to suit your own twisted mind.”
“Well, enlighten me.”
“Yes, it is survival of the fittest in the animal kingdom, but not for the sole reason of keeping that animal alive but rather to pass his genes on, to become immortal through the raising of offspring. Now unless I’m mistaken, the world has lucked out and there are no little Timmies running around. See, you couldn’t even get that right. That’s how I know there’s a God, He realized the mistake that is you and did not allow you to procreate.”
“Oh, Scarlett, there’s going to come a time when I’m going to miss these discussions. This isn’t one of them.” I turned to focus all of my attention on obtaining the rest of my dinner.
I opened up the door, a part of me expecting to run headlong into Kindzi’s barrel and the explosive sound of a round drilling through my skull. What I received instead were the combined snores of the Kraut family and Andy. I’d sort of been hoping to find Kindzi in bed; she was the one that needed to be dealt with next. For all the faults I believed women to have, they were proving to be the most resourceful in this struggle. Had it always been this way? Did men just believe themselves to be better fighters because they were stronger? Women would have to rely more on stealth and their minds to achieve the same results. I didn’t want to think about it and I certainly didn’t want to believe that the gender I’d been belittling my entire life might actually be better than myself. Fuck that! Why are you thinking like that?
I moved slowly over to a slumbering Andy, Manny was as excited as a pit-bull about to receive a giant steak bone.
“Careful, Manny, careful.” I tried to slow his roll, but he was having none of it. Took the reins from me easier than I’d taken Cathy Higgins’ virginity in the back of my Olds. Crazy what a fifth of Jack can make a girl do.
“What are you doing?” It was Kindzi, and she was off to our right in the
deep shadows of the room.
Manny didn’t turn to look, and I couldn’t.
“I asked you a question, bitch!” Then came the telltale sound of a round being chambered. Manny still didn’t give a shit; he was locked on his target. The hunt was all that mattered. For as much as he was advanced compared to Hugh, he had a lot of dangerous similarities. Andy was just sitting up as we were leaning over. His forehead smashed into our mouth. Manny just started biting down, grasping a sliver of skin and ripping it free.
Andy started screaming, Kindzi wasted no time and fired. The bullet hit high on the shoulder. The pain was intense; I knew because Manny had relinquished the extremities controls so I could extricate ourselves from the fucking predicament he’d got us into. Manny had torn Andy’s nose clean off and was thoroughly masticating it. Andy was trying to push us away, and I was trying to pull him closer while also attempting to turn him over. Kindzi was approaching to get a better shot as I pulled Andy into a tight hug, trying to use him as a barrier.
“I’m shot, I’m shot!” Scarlett was screaming and running around like her hair was on fire.
“Yeah, that’s helpful,” I muttered through closed teeth. “Manny, you need to let me talk.”
He wasn’t happy about it, but he gave it over to me pretty quickly.
“Any closer, and I’ll kill him!” I shouted, hoping to halt her progress. It worked. Now, if Andy would shut up his incessant wailing about how much pain he was in, I could get us out of this situation.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kindzi still had her rifle up. She was less than ten feet away. Being small was definitely an advantage this time, as I was almost nearly shielded by the bigger man. “I knew you weren’t right in the fucking head.” She began to look around. “Greg? Greg, where are you?” There was a slight quiver in her voice. There was not a note of that when she turned her full wrath on me. “What did you do with him!?”
“I fucked his brains out.” It was sort of true, I’d more fucked him out of his brains. That’s funny shit right there. My humor was lost on my dim-witted audience. I pulled Andy back a step or two. Right there on his nightstand was my key to getting out of this tight spot; I just had to hope it was loaded. I leaned down and grabbed the gun. Kindzi shot again. Pain radiated up from the wound. She’d impaled my left hand.