by Mark Tufo
It didn’t take long for my food to find me. I was moving through a business district when I heard faint cries. Sounded like ‘help me’ but could have just as easily been ‘kiss my ass and die.’
I stopped the car trying to figure out where the cries were coming from – the small buildings were echoing and channeling the screams. Then I saw a woman round the corner of a building about two hundred yards up and over to my left. Two men were in hot pursuit of her, I could tell they were men by their movements. I loved this new world; it brought out the worst in all of us. Maybe I would fight them off so I could get some first. Shit, I didn’t want sloppy thirds. She looked good enough from this distance, but pencil dick couldn’t be a chooser; his time was limited and I did promise to get him some before I offed him.
One of the men had a crowbar. The other looked like he had a bat and the woman…wait. I sat up. She was carrying a gun. Why didn’t she just turn around and blow them away? Unless she didn’t have any ammo...and then the true picture formed, as a horde of zombies appeared chasing the trio.
“They’re together,” I said aloud.
It would make things a little trickier but manageable. Clarence might be fat, but he was strong. His muscles needed to be, to carry the added girth. The woman was frantically waving at me to drive up to meet them. I idled where I was. I was thinking that the salty sweat they produced would add a nice flavor to the meat. I almost rubbed my hands together in anticipation. And no matter what the anti-meat proponents say, adrenaline created in fear adds a sweet tang as you get deeper into the tissue.
“Run, my little pretties.” And they did. The setting sun was to my back and the headlights were on, I figure there was not much chance of my guise being spotted. I stepped out of the car and urged them on. “Come on!” I shouted waving my arm in an exaggerated gesture.
“Run away!” Clarence screamed.
I had not realized it had come out of my mouth until the woman’s steps faltered. But where else was she going to go? Add to that, she probably thought I was talking about her present situation…not the worse one she was about to find herself in.
“You fucking do that again and our deal is off. I’ll let Hugh do to you whatever it is Hugh does,” I cursed silently.
Clarence shut up—he knew that was no idle threat. The woman got into the range of the headlights. She lost some of the pretty she had from a distance; she was somewhere in her forties, a little older than I liked them, but she had a body of a woman half her age. She looked like one of them uptight office overachievers. All business and dollars and cents and when she got home after her three hour marathon sessions on her treadmill, she probably fucked her husband with a strap-on while he sucked his thumb. I knew her kind, had two at the office I worked at, walking around in their power suits, hiring and firing people like they were gods.
“Thank...thank you,” she said breathlessly as she got close. Her head was down, she was breathing hard like she was an asthmatic that couldn’t find her inhaler.
“Get in.”
“Wait for Dan and Pete,” she told me.
“Wouldn’t dream of leaving without them.”
She paused again. I could see her hand tighten its grip on the pistol. I was fairly certain it had no rounds. Her fear of the zombies far outweighed any trepidation she may have had in regards to me. She did, however, go in the sliding door so that she was in the back and not seated next to me.
“Come on! You’re about to be zombie food!” I told the two men who looked like warehouse workers in their blue duds and extended bellies of the working middle class everywhere. The two added another gear to their pathetic pace not realizing what I had truly meant by my words. They were keeping me waiting.
“Thanks,” the first said, not even looking up at me, his head bowed in an exertion he hadn’t felt since high school was my guess.
“Get in,” I directed him to my meals on wheels van.
The next man was within ten yards and the zombies behind him were within teeth gnashing distance.
“Hugh, we’re about to lose our lunch,” I told my buddy. I braced for impact, but I might as well have tried to stop a train with a lamb. Hugh sent out a call to the approaching zombies, attending a knitting club with a gaggle of crack-infused grannies would have been a more welcome than Hugh’s cry. It felt like he was pulling apart layers of my brain much like a gray onion, and there was crying…that was real.
I think Clarence had passed out again because he was quiet, either that or he had died. The shout did have the desired effect, though, as the zombies stopped dead in their tracks. Fucking pun intended!
Dan or Pete chanced a look over his shoulder. He didn’t stop running though.
“Come on, man, let’s go!” he shouted to me as he approached.
“They stopped,” I said, holding my finger up and pointing.
He turned cautiously. “What the hell?” he asked, coming to a stop not more than ten feet away. He let the arm holding the bat go down by his side.
“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said as I came up beside him. I reached down and snatched the bat from his hand just as he turned to look at me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, getting ready to start the fleeing process all over again.
As quick as I could get Clarence’s muscles to fire I whipped that bat around and caught him on the side of the knee. The resulting fracture was so loud I thought I had cracked the bat. Dan or Pete’s leg bowed inward from the impact and he went down hard.
He was screaming in pain.
“What the fuck, man?” Dan or Pete asked, getting out of the passenger seat. I came around to him; he held the tire iron up in a not-so-serious threatening manner. It might have given me some pause to reconsider, but it was shaking around so violently he was in more danger of dropping it on his own head than of using it on me.
“Put down the iron,” I told him.
“You just hit Dan!”
“Pete, you guys come here with weapons, man, I’ve got to protect myself. There’s real bad people out there. Now put down the iron.”
“Don’t!” the woman in the back shouted.
“Don’t hurt us, man, we just want to get out of here,” Pete said as he bent over to put the tire iron down.
“Kick it over here,” I told him.
“Pete, what are you doing?” the woman shrieked.
“Brenda, he won’t take us out of here if I don’t,” Pete said, looking back.
“Don’t make me say it again.” I pointed with the bat at the iron, gesturing to the ground.
He kicked it over, Beckham he wasn’t, as the thing traveled about five feet, but it was enough.
“You’re an idiot,” I told him as I ran at him, bat raised.
He placed his hands over the top of his head. Little good that was going to do as I swung and caught him flush in the mouth. Blood breached from his lips as they burst open in a dozen places from the impact. I shattered at least ten teeth from what I could tell as he staggered backwards. Osseous matter littered his tongue, some splintered parts were forced into the roof of his mouth; his screaming would have been much louder than his buddy’s except for the blood choking his throat.
He fell over to the side, striking his head against the mini-van before he fell completely over. I checked his breathing and carefully turned him onto his side so he wouldn’t choke. He wouldn’t do me any favors if he died abruptly.
“You’re fucking sick!” Brenda shrieked. She had gotten out of the van and was pointing her pistol at me. Unlike her knocked out co-worker she was as steady as a rock with the death dealing device.
“Put the pistol down,” I smiled at her.
She faltered as she probably got her first decent look at me. “I saw what happens when you disarm people.”
“You know what I think?” I told her as I took a step forward.
“I don’t really care. Now don’t you move another muscle.”
“I bet y
ou don’t care much about what any human without a six figure income has to say do you?” I took another step forward. “Listen, we both know you’re proficient with that gun, I can tell by the way you’re holding it. And I’ve given you every reason on the planet to believe your life is in danger, which it is by the way. Yet…you haven’t shot me. And we both know why that is. What you’ve got there is a beautiful paperweight or potential walnut smasher if you can find any of them. And unless I stand very, very still, bend over a little bit and let you repeatedly crash it over my head, I should be fine.”
“Why?”
“Put down the gun and I’ll make it quick,” I lied.
She wasn’t buying any of what I was selling. She took off running. I thought momentarily about giving chase, but Butterboy here was about in as good a shape as a stuffed turkey and I had two meals already lined up for me.
“Hugh, tell our buddies there’s a meal loose.”
The screeching communication only lasted a moment and the pursuit was back in full swing. I decided to eat Dan first; his shrill bawling was beginning to give me a headache and this way I’d get to eat Pete in peace and quiet. This was turning out to be a delightful evening.
Dan was, in a word, delicious, I enjoyed every last morsel of him. I was sated by the time I moved over to Pete. Hugh, though…well, his stomach is like a black fucking hole. I disengaged as I let Hugh contentedly ‘go to town.’ I was going to lie back, so to speak and digest my meal. It bothered me not one bit that the meal I had just eaten was human. I no longer was. I was a higher order of beast of prey; it would be like a person giving a shit about the pig he was eating. Oh I know there are those flower-in-the-hair liberal types that tell us ‘meat is murder.’ All I can say is they must have never eaten a bacon cheeseburger.
I don’t care if my food has feelings – or hopes or desires. It’s my food. It fuels my feelings, hopes, and desires. As it should. I was a zombie hybrid, an apex predator, humans were fair game. I can’t be held liable (or is it accountable) for that. I’m not sure why I needed to convince myself, must be this shared consciousness with Clarence. The sooner I got what I needed from him, the better.
“Wakey, wakey, Clarence,” I said, pushing at him with my mind.
“Leave me alone,” he pouted. “I saw you eat that man.”
He said it like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Hell, I was proud of capturing my food. I was hunting much like our forefathers. And this was the most dangerous game on the planet. Shit, I wanted to beat my chest with my fists.
“Want to hear a story?” I asked.
He was silent.
“Hey, we only have time. Hugh likes to go slow when he eats.”
“There’s another one?”
“Yeah, you missed all the fun. Almost had three but the woman got away.”
“You’d eat a woman?” he asked. He may have been gagging.
“She was a little on the skinny side, lithe might be a good word. She probably worked out two hours a day before. She’d be stringy, I guess. Probably get a lot of her stuck in our teeth. But oh yeah…I’d eat that. So how about that story?”
He was silent again.
“A couple of years back, my knees were killing me. Used to play football and not Madden you fat fuck. Small divergence…sorry. Back to the story. So I was popping some pain pills, not oxy, couldn’t get a hold of those. Had a fistful of hydros, they do the trick if you take enough of them and swig some beer for optimum effect.”
“I wished you’d have overdosed.”
“Oh good, you’re still here, I thought your gooey ass might have passed out again. So basically I’m high as a kite, and now I can’t sleep. Had the TV on, wasn’t really paying attention until this ad comes on…it was a dating site. Now I’ve never needed one because I’ve found woman to be the most insecure species on the planet. The bolder you are or the more confident you act, they’re drawn to you. They can’t help themselves. They lack it so much that they seek it out from others. Didn’t matter if everything I blew at them was laced in smoke, they would suck it up until they got black lung.
“But this site was special. It was a Christian dating place. Christian Tingle or something like that, can’t remember. So I’m thinking, ‘Holy Shit Catholic schoolgirls!’ Sexually repressed women are always the most sexually depraved. Handcuffs, whips, strap-ons, you’d probably like that one.” I psychically nudged him.
“Just shut up.”
“So I said what the hell. I joined. I’m thinking I either end up with Kelly Can’t-wait-to-blow-you McGillicuddy, or I end up with the Virgin Mary and maybe I can part her Red Sea, if you catch my meaning.”
“I get it,” he bemoaned.
“Either way I’m going to start boning more chicks, and there’s never anything wrong with that. I mean it’s not as cool as capping soldiers on Halo, but what do I know.”
“They weren’t soldiers, they were aliens called The Covenant.”
“Kid, I could guarantee that once you docked into a woman’s spaceport you would have forgotten all about what a joystick was for, at least the handheld kind. Well that doesn’t work either. Let’s just say the kind that you have to buy at the store.”
“I get it, asshole, just finish your story.”
“So you’re interested now? I thought you might be.”
“No, but at least when you talk I can’t hear the chewing as much.”
“So I sign up. It wasn’t cheap, but in reality about as much as a night out’s worth of drinks. They start asking me what my religion is and how often I attend. My views on certain topics.”
“They still let you through?” Clarence asked.
“Well I lied, Clarence. I couldn’t very well tell them I thought God was a farce and I just wanted to fuck everything on their site. Well not everything, a lot of those women didn’t have a prayer. Fuck I’m funny.”
Clarence grunted or moaned, maybe both.
“I hit enter, went to bed. My head felt like it was swimming in soup. When I got up ten hours later, my email box was full. My answers on their questions were for shit, I half-assed my way through all of them. But you know what the women saw? They saw a confident, six foot five giant of a man…that means security. Doesn’t matter color, culture, or religion, that’s what ALL women want, Clarence. Not a man with strong thumbs. I picked the first one, figured I’d just go down the line. If I’d known the fuckers had a feedback option for each date, I would have chosen more carefully.
“Amy Brannigan was her name, the only reason I remember was because she was smoking hot. I’m talking porn star quality. She walked into that restaurant and I almost swallowed the ice in my Jack Daniels. Which I had to finish quickly because her profile said she didn’t like people that drank. Her profile also said she was a virgin, which in itself was a sin against mankind. There were probably multiple cases of whiplash at that restaurant as every swinging dick turned to get a look. She probably put a couple of chiropractors’ kids through college that night. She’s wearing this full-length, form-fitting dress that leaves nothing and everything to the imagination. I tell you, I’d seen more skin showing on a Muslim woman. I showed her to our table, she smiled up at me…and for a fucking minute I thought about converting.”
“Converting?”
“Yeah to just about anything she wanted me to. I mean she looked like the gods had graced her. Then I started to rationalize that the three stiff drinks I’d had before she got there might have something to do with her heavenly visage.”
“What could you two have possibly talked about?”
“See this is where it gets good, because I’m a world class liar. If they ever had allowed a lying competition in the Olympics, I can guarantee I’d medal every time. And the beauty of it is that most women know…they fucking KNOW you’re lying, but they’re so desperate to be loved, to be taken care of, they look past it, ignore it, or pretend it’s true. I don’t know. I’ve told women I was a fighter pilot, an author, and even once a sem
inal student. They ate it up like I was spoon-feeding them sexual chocolate.”
“You’re sick, Tim. Why didn’t you seek help?”
“I lied to her about everything, about my devout Christianity, how many times I attended church, even volunteering for the Big Brother program. The only place she almost tripped me up was when we discussed how we would remain virgins until we were married. I truly thought she was full of shit. We dated another two weeks, but her pussy was like the crown jewels all hidden away behind six-inch thick safety glass. Only in her case, it was a chastity belt. It was a good thing I was still banging other chicks that I picked up at bars or I might have exploded. On our two week anniversary she thought it would be a good time to meet her parents.”
“And you went? Why?”
“Oh, I knew I was going to break up with the uptight prude, but I was going to get some payback for all the dinners I’d laid out for her. I showed up, made sure I had a good buzz going too. When she opened the door to her parents’ house…and hers, I guess, too. She still lived with them and I almost changed my mind. I mean, you have no idea how gorgeous she was.” I pictured her in my mind as best I could so that Clarence might have an idea. From his sharp intake of air I could tell he felt the same way. “Definitely worth it, am I right?”
Clarence’s thoughts indicated a nod.
“So she invites me in and the true depths of her dementia set in. There are crucifixes everywhere. Looked like a fucking military graveyard there were so many of them. I’m not sure how the wall supported the weight. Votive candles, stained glass depictions of the Stations of the Cross. Dude, it was brutal. I thought her parents were going to make me do a confessional before we sat down to eat. Hell, they probably had the booth in the living room. If I was Amy’s dad I would have done a lot to preserve her sanctity, too, but this was a little overboard.
“Our pre-dinner conversation revolved around how God should kill all the Jews. Listen, I know I’m no saint, but I’ve never advocated the elimination of an entire race. Who knew Hitler junior’s last name was Brannigan? Hate groups have nothing over this Christian man.”