by Mark Tufo
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Rise and shine, pretty boy. Fuck you’re ugly.”
The softest of light basked against my eyelids. I struggled mightily as I came up from the depths of consciousness. Pain rushed into the void. Crusty blood and thick drool hung from my mouth as I swayed slightly in the morning breeze. We were encapsulated in a loosening fog. It was giving the feeling that if I were to make it through the Pearly Gates this would be very much what it would look like.
“You still with us?” Olaf asked as he cracked a good sized stick across my back.
I would have screamed if I could have found the strength.
Jürgen got up and wiped the sleep from his face. “He’s still with us?” he asked, peering into my eyes. “Figured he would have snapped sometime during the night.”
“That’s just going to make this that much better,” Olaf said as he went back to the now smoking fire to retrieve his chainsaw, which started in one effortless pull.
“Motherfucker,” I sighed.
“You say something, precious?” Olaf asked as he got closer.
It took multiple gulps through my arid throat, but I was finally able to get out what I figured were my last words. “Parents...had a...chainsaw...always...took fifty fucking...pulls.”
Olaf laughed. “Proper maintenance,” he said, revving the machine making sure to have the teeth whir dangerously close to my face. “You’ve suffered enough, I figure. I’ll make this quick.”
Enough talking already, just fucking do it, I thought.
Olaf brought the chainsaw high above his head, Jürgen stepped back. Sven was cleaning up camp and had stood to watch my demise. There was a lull in the engine noise as the engine choked for a moment accepting the intake of gas as Olaf squeezed the trigger a little too enthusiastically. The tinkle of the can as it hit the ground froze all the men. If I could have found a way to speak I would have told him to finish me off first. The stay of execution did not seem like such a favor right now.
“Zees!” Sven shouted, grabbing his rifle.
“How many?” Olaf asked, peering into the diffused light.
“Dozens! Hundreds!” That last part cut off as he began firing.
The imagery took on a surreal feel as I watched the battle through an insubstantial light. The ground fog and the fog of pain contributed a lot to my take on the scene in front of me. The three men fought with a vehemence I’d only ever seen in movies – and those were the unbelievable kind. I don’t know what kind of battle Sven had been expecting when he first entered the woods, but he appeared forewarned as he kept pulling magazines from strategically random places on his body. It was impressive. The chattering of his rifle was keeping the zombies at bay.
Jürgen had not taken any lessons from Sven and had already resorted to using his rifle like a club. His time left was measured in hummingbird heartbeats. It was Olaf that looked like a Norse god as he slaughtered zombies with his mighty chainsaw. Odin, the Norse God, was looking down enviably as he watched Olaf cut down the hordes as they approached. Heads rolled through the grass, arms flopped down. Butchers with band saws weren’t as productive as Olaf that day. Although, to be fair to butchers they weren’t overly concerned about the cow getting up off the table and trying to eat them.
The ground became slicked with the brackish fluid that leaked from the zombies, Hugh was mourning and I was laughing in delirium. I was struggling with even remembering who I was pulling for. Was it the kind I had been most of my life? Or the other that was threatening all I’d ever known? Did it matter? The pain had a way of both distorting and crystallizing every thought.
Olaf moved like a samurai; instead of a sword, he used a four-foot-long rotary blade. It was magnificent. I think he could have survived, too, if not for the fact that Jürgen got pushed into him. As Olaf brought his blade left to right, Jürgen slammed into the back of his right leg making Olaf fold down to that side, the torque of the blade brought it into Jürgen’s thigh. I didn’t have the angle to truly see, but with the power Olaf wielded that death-dealing machine, I had to imagine he was halfway through Jürgen before he realized his mistake. I’ve got to imagine having your junk cheese-grated with a chainsaw might just be a worse way to go then I was dealing with right now. I started laughing uncontrollably as I thought about Jürgen’s junk being repeatedly pulled across a steel slicer.
“I’ll take a pizza with head cheese!” I screamed.
Jürgen easily drowned me out. Olaf made the mistake of stopping to see how bad he’d hurt his friend. That was the final mistake he would ever make. Zombies piled on to him even as Sven fought desperately to keep them off. He fought valiantly for another couple of minutes before finally succumbing. I was thankful they were dead, happy to realize they would no longer be a threat to my kind who were even now ravenously feasting on their bodies.
“Hugh, I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
The words had no sooner escaped my thoughts when I wondered if I had just made my own final mistake in this life time. Hugh could do this forever, discomfort, pain, bodily damage; he basically didn’t give a shit. I, on the other hand, was holding on like only a man that fears what awaits him can.
“Hugh, please.” I was begging a parasite, how low had I stooped? I could feel him in the peripheries of my mind lurking about. He was avoiding me like he owed me twenty bucks.
“Hugh, I know how to get food!”
That piqued his interest; it wasn’t hard, it’s not like he was a nuclear physicist. Hugh was an eating machine, his entire world revolved around food. And how different was he from man whose entire existence revolved around finding a place to put his penis. I laughed again, maybe outwardly, it was getting difficult separating fiction from fact at the moment. One of the zombies involved in the feeding frenzy looked up and over at us.
A deep-seated fear roiled in my gut as we became the center of that thing’s attention. Its head tilted like the world’s ugliest dog hearing a strange sound. It stood completely up, half-chewed intestines spilled from its maw as it silently mouthed its disapproval at being pulled away from its meal. Hugh was going to kill us both. He had pulled back so far from the fore that the zombie thought I was human.
“No, you stupid fuck, I’m one of you!” I shouted as the zombie advanced.
I struggled against my bonds so hard that I thought for sure I would fall to the ground as the rope cut through my wrists. As it was, blood leaked from the serrations, curved around my back, down my side, and was even now creating a stain among the carpet of the forest.
“Hugh, if I die…you die!” I said as I tried to get my body rocking, hoping that I could generate enough force to possibly head-butt the creature and knock it to the ground. The zombie easily avoided my pathetic attempt at self-defense and circled around. I tried to kick my legs to swivel in his direction, but it was a useless cause. I waited for the inevitable crunching of my spine. I’ll admit I was somewhat curious to how much it would hurt, I’d been doling out punishment for so long, now I’d have insight into the damage I’d done. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t looking forward to it, quite the contrary. What I was feeling was resigned and defeated, and I was laying that all on the feet of Hugh for putting us in this situation.
I waited and then I waited some more. I couldn’t figure out what was going on; zombies don’t generally play with their food. And then I felt it, a slight tug at my wrists that became more pronounced. The thing was biting at my bonds. Hugh had somehow communicated enough with the zombie to give it direction. If I hadn’t been so immersed in my own misery and need to be released I would have realized the grave implications this had for the remainder of mankind. Right then I didn’t give a shit if Tiny-fucking-Tim himself were to be snatched up and eaten if it would get me free one second sooner.
Even over the crunching of multiple bones being snapped at the buffet I could hear my zombie gnashing at my lashings, occasionally busting a tooth, but that didn’t deter my eager little go-getter. The longer
he took, and presumably the closer he got to completion of his task, the more I begged to be released. My shoulders burned in an unimaginable pain that radiated down to my fingers. I think they were only being held in place by sheer force of will at this point. The strain of my bulk malformed my shoulders nearly into wings as it pulled back on the bone and connective tissue.
Something(s) cracked as I dropped to the ground. At least the top half of me did anyway. My face slammed into the ground, my features grinding against the ground as I swayed back and forth. I thought I couldn’t be in any more agony than I had been. I was wrong. When my hands became free and my arms flopped in front of me, my shoulders popped with a force that had me screaming, but that’s not quite right I had gone to a pitch that was inaudible. My arms hung uselessly by my side as I sobbed. We swung there for time undefined as my new best friend chewed through the rope attached to my legs. I hardly noticed as they joined me on the ground. I was slipping into unconsciousness at an alarming rate, and Hugh was watching with great interest.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I awoke some time later; the zombie cavalry was long gone. I was drawn up into the fetal position, my still-tied legs drawn up against my chest. My shoulders had dulled to a minor ache as Hugh must have been at work making the necessary repairs. He acknowledged my rising into cognition and then resumed whatever it is parasites do to pass the time.
He’d had ample opportunity to finish me off. I needed to figure out what value he figured I still brought to the table before he figured out how to do it himself and then disposed of me. First things first, as I untied my feet. I took cautious moments to stand fully up, even using the tree I had been strung to as a brace.
The three men were dead as were somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty zombies. A small battle had been waged here, one that history would never remember. When I felt like I could walk without needing support, I began to follow the trampled pathway the zombies had left in their wake – it seemed like the easiest course of action.
“Glad to still be alive,” I told Hugh. “Thank you.”
He responded with a picture of a person. I got it. And maybe that was why he kept me around; I was pretty adept at finding food stores in a time and place in which that was becoming an increasingly valuable commodity. Humans were on the short end of the stick and things were only going to get more difficult. My belly was cramping and I realized that our last meal might have been as long as forty-eight hours ago. Plus, Hugh’s ministrations were always a strain on our internal holdings.
With Highway Z completed, I was able to get out onto the roadway a lot quicker than I had expected. I did not see our car as I came out, but I had a good idea it was north of our present location. With a renewed vigor for life and an absolute hatred for mankind I walked on. It was at least fifteen minutes before I saw where my latest melodrama had started off. Another five before I arrived. I was exhausted both physically and mentally. I wanted to sleep, but I was pissed off, too. Pissed off that I had been scared and helpless. I would make sure to not make those mistakes again. I started the car and turned it around.
There had to be easier pickings than my little Rambette, but I didn’t have time to flush them out. If I didn’t get some meat into Hugh, he was going to make me start eating myself. I’m sure I’d be tasty, but that was not the road I wanted to go down here. I did some soul searching while I drove; it was not a long and arduous journey, and there wasn’t much of it left. I was thinking back to my and Hugh’s first encounter, how I had fought for my self-preservation at every turn. He had done some horrific things beginning with eating my latest pussy pump and my father – neither of which were pillars of society but didn’t deserve to go out that way.
And then what?
When I realized Hugh was as dumb as a post, I showed him the way. I basically led him to salvation. What did that make me? Did preserving one’s own life at the expense of so many others make me a traitor to man? What were they to me? So many fucking questions…it made my head ache. They were obstacles to my existence. I had transcended them and they had given themselves up to make something better, something more powerful, something damn near immortal.
I quickly shoved down the thought of being hog tied and potentially chopped up into pieces down into a dark corner. This wasn’t a violation, it was an evolution, Hugh and I were becoming the next best thing. Some day in the future, little zombie children would be learning about the history of us: their forefathers.
“Hugh, we still have about a half hour drive ahead of us. Did I ever tell you about the time my father made me stay in a cemetery overnight? No? Well you’re going to love this. I was seven, nope eight, sorry, don’t want to embellish. My grandmother had just died. She was the only relative I had that I’d felt anything close to feelings for. Alright, I said I wasn’t going to embellish, except for one girl in high school, she was the only person I’d cared for besides myself. Does that make me a narcissist? Fuck it, like I care. So I’m eight, my grandmother died and I’m balling my eyes out.” Hugh was in the background not really paying attention, but then again, I wasn’t really telling him the story as I was reliving it for myself.
“My father called me a baby for crying so much, blamed it on my mother…said she was raising me to be a sissy boy. Can you believe that shit? I was eight! He told me if I kept it up he was going to toughen me up. The day of the funeral came; I sniffled and cried throughout the entire proceedings. I just kept remembering all the kind things she had said and done for me. How she had produced such a cold and indifferent offspring like my father…I don’t even know how that could be possible. From the church we had to drive about a half an hour because my father found the cheapest plot he could drop her ass in. His words not mine.
“Started to drizzle about halfway there. I had my head pressed against the window and was looking at the pastures as we rolled by. My mom had gone home after the mass, presumably to get shit-faced, which was a pretty normal occurrence with her. After one of my sniffles my dad flicked my head against the glass. I almost started crying anew, but I knew that’s what he wanted. I sat back, staring out the front, not letting him think he had got the best of me. Grandma was a fairly well liked person; she still had a lot of friends that weren’t pushing daisies yet. Must have been twenty or thirty blue hairs there that day. Dad and I stood in the rain as the priest did his ashes to ashes yada-yada spiel.
“Oh, I guess I sound indifferent about it now, but I was crying like a little pussy that day. My dad kept trying to move away from me, I think he was so embarrassed. All of the blue hairs came up to my dad and offered their condolences and also to me, giving me words of encouragement, like ‘she is in a better place’, or ‘you loved her didn’t you?’ I nodded and cried every time one of them came up and called me a little dear. I could feel my father tensing up next to me. He was coiling like a cat getting ready to spring. But the cagey fuck, he smiled and nodded and thanked each and every one of them. We stood there long after the last of them shuffled off to their bridge parties or home to their crappy frozen dinner. We stood there long after the rain went from a calming sprinkle to a downpour. We stood there long after the grave digger had pushed in a mound of dirt, forever enshrouding my nana in an earthen grave. I was shaking, some from the coldness of the rain, some from the fear of my father.
“You done crying, boy?” he asked me, not turning to look down.
I nodded.
“I can’t hear you, boy, if you don’t speak.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes sir what?”
“Yes, sir, I’m done crying.”
“I don’t believe you,” he told me, this time looking at me.
What could I say? My father was calling me a liar, not like I could turn it around and say the same about him.
“You’re going to prove to me that you’re done crying.”
I agreed. What the fuck else could I say or do?
“You’re staying here tonight until you’re done sniveling like a
little bitch-boy.”
“Staying where, Dad?” I asked, looking around wildly for some sort of comfortable habitat. Panic was welling up inside of me as dread was weighing down heavily. I simultaneously felt like I was watching this horror unfold from outside myself, whilst also feeling myself retreat into a deep, dark corner as I tried to escape this nightmare.
“You are staying right here on top of your grandmother’s grave.”
“Where...where are you staying?” I choked out, tasting the crappy baloney sandwiches my mom had made for the trip as they made a return visit. Nothing quite as tasty on the planet as a regurgitated baloney sandwich. Baloney and belly butter, ummm ummm.
“I’m going in to town. There’s a little motel. Gonna get myself a bottle of Jack and a hooker.”
I didn’t know what a hooker was, sounded like he was going fishing, but I’d seen enough empty bottles of Jack Daniels to know that my dad planned on getting blistered. A night in a graveyard almost seemed like the better bargain. Odds were a ghost couldn’t punch.
“Dad?” I asked as he started to walk away. I guess I thought he was kidding. I knew on some level he was as mean as a snake, but he was my dad, this couldn’t possibly be happening.
“Oh yeah…one more thing,” he said, turning around. I was pretty happy thinking that maybe this was just a joke and he was going to bring me along with him. I even started to follow. “Stay near your grandmother’s grave…she’ll be able to protect you,” he said as he turned and left. I abruptly stopped following him and immediately went back to my former spot within the rectangle of my grandmother’s freshly filled in grave.