by Mark Tufo
“Please, Tim, please! I will do everything and anything that you ask! No tricks ever, man, I swear it!” he begged.
“See…this was the allegiance I was looking for, it’s almost a damn shame it had to get to this point.”
“SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HUUUUUUUNNNNNGRY!” Hugh raged as I bit down on the nape of Anne’s neck.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Clarence screamed and wailed.
I tore through her body like a fat man to a stack of cream-cheese filled waffles. Her skin had a dewy lusciousness to it.
“Not bad,” I said as I smacked my lips. I had devoured her; I don’t even think her soul could have escaped I had so thoroughly picked her clean. I lounged around waiting for the inevitable. I was comforted only by the sounds of keening by Clarence.
My stomach began to grumble wildly. “Hold that thought, Hugh,” I said as I waddled my expectant food belly to the bathroom. “We’re going to do this right.”
I was thankful the toilet still had water. I had to flush every few seconds to keep up with the outflow from my ass. “Man, that feels good. Don’t you agree, Clarence? I mean the going out part is damn near as satisfying as when it’s going in. She sure does smell, though, can’t ever say her shit doesn’t stink!” I started laughing.
Clarence charged. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
“I was wondering when we’d get to this point. Hugh, we have an invader,” I told my other roomie as I finished the elimination process. It wasn’t much of a fight, Hugh had pretty much just devoured whatever was left of Clarence: his psyche, his ID, his consciousness – whether sub or not, hell maybe it was even his soul. How would I know? Whatever the case, Clarence was now officially deceased and this body was mine...and Hugh’s…but that was fine; the two of us were at least on the same page.
“Thanks, Hugh, it was getting a bit crowded in here. You ready for the main course, pal?”
“Food?” Hugh asked inquisitively.
“Oh, you know it,” I told him as I whistled. “Just one more thing…” I told Hugh as I rifled through the utensil drawer happy enough with what I found.
It was only after we had left the house that I had wished I’d fucked her first. Must be growing up, my priorities were changing. I had a mouth to feed now. And I laughed. Fuck I was great company. I was feeling pretty good; I knew where a store was with a football team’s worth of food. There were a couple of small details I had to work past, the guard on the roof with the night vision goggles being one of them.
I loved my clown outfit, it reflected who I was, but right now it was a bit of a hindrance. Without it on I’d be able to walk right in and ask for sanctuary. (Quite literally a zombie with a human coat.) Then I remembered my face; yeah that would have worked out well! Even if I had changed into a three-piece suit and strode up to the door, I was pretty sure my sewn on face would give them pause to consider letting me in. I’m sure I’d get a face full of shotgun pellet.
I could get a gun. I had as much dexterity as any true human, but where was the purity in that? Zombies everywhere would look down on me, probably even vote me out of their club. Who was I kidding? I was already on thin ice for slaughtering a bunch of them. Much to Hugh’s discontent, I was going to have to wait for the cover of darkness. Odds were, only the guard on top had the goggles and he couldn’t watch the entire perimeter. I was making a lot of assumptions, but even if they spotted me, it would be difficult for them to tell exactly what I was. I took some refuge behind a dumpster and even thought about napping when a thought hit me.
“Hugh, can you call out to some other zombies?”
“Eat alone!” he responded in an angry tone.
“Look at that, my little boy is growing up and he doesn’t play well with others! You make me so proud! Don’t worry, buddy, I don’t want to share either. I’m thinking we’ll use them as a diversion to get into the store.”
Hugh began to show me pictures, something he often did when there was a concept he was unsure of how to explain. It showed two zombies, sometimes close, sometimes at a distance. The close ones were normal and the far removed ones were shaped like an ‘x’.
“Okay so you can communicate only if they’re close, right?”
He nodded.
“That’ll work, a few close ones will come and the gunfire will draw more. Alright, I’m going to build a little cave to get away from your zombie-speak and then you let loose with a summons, okay?”
He did his nod again. I wanted to go deep down for this. His shrieks were mind scraping affairs, and the less I had to be witness to it the better. He gave me a few minutes when it was only seconds I needed, and then I sensed something strange just before he was to set loose on his volley of cries. I felt him prying around the edges of my cave. I would have confronted him there and then if not for the wailing.
What was that all about? It was disturbing, Hugh and I had an understanding…or so I thought. Would I kill him if the opportunity presented itself? At this point I didn’t think so. My body was gone and I was stuck with fat fucker’s for now. But Hugh kept me healthy and somewhat enhanced over the typical human. What wasn’t to love? Any compunction I’d had about eating a person had long since passed. I reveled in it, mankind had done nothing for me and I saw no reason to feel guilty for what I was doing. After all, I was a predator and I was surviving the best way I knew how.
It looked like Hugh was getting a little sick of sharing our one-headroom apartment. I would have to keep a close eye on him. He had destroyed Clarence in two squirts of my anus. If given the chance, I had to now assume he would do the same to me. After a few more moments his bleating to his pals stopped and I cautiously poked my head out. There was no trap set and he seemed his completely indifferent self as I fully emerged. Within ten minutes zombies began to amble past.
“Good job, Hugh,” I said, trying to gauge any kind of reaction from him.
None was forthcoming. It looked as if there were a dozen or so zombies approaching the store and still no shots being fired.
“What the hell?” I asked as I watched from a safe distance.
A group of five heavily armed and armor-wrapped people came out of the store. By the size and height, I’d say three were male and two were female; though it was difficult to tell with all the padding they had on. They had also donned what looked like lacrosse helmets.
“Smart,” I said. And what was even smarter were the melee weapons they were carrying: two had bats, one had a sword, another a homemade club with a spike and the smallest of the set had a compound bow…and she seemed relatively proficient. Within ten minutes they had chopped, bludgeoned, sliced and/or impaled all of the marauders. Hugh watched with a longing to eat and sadness at the demise of his brethren. I had not realized he carried any empathy. He sure as hell wasn’t getting that from me, possibly a legacy of Clarence.
When the last of the zombies smacked wetly to the ground, two of the attackers turned into guards while the three original plus three more from in the store came out and removed the bodies to the far side of the store. They had an efficient system going on. For a moment I even debated seeking out some easier food source. But what would be the fun in that?
I could have Hugh send for more zombies, see if I could wear the defenders out, but there were two reasons I didn’t want to do that. One – and most important – it gave Hugh a chance to work on a strategy against me; and secondly, for whatever reason, Hugh didn’t like seeing other zombies die. That would give him more reason to get rid of me.
“I guess we’ll wait until night. Got any good stories, Hugh?”
Then he did something that surprised the hell out of me…he gave me a story. It took me a minute to figure out that he had tapped into Clarence’s brain to do it. Surprise, surprise, it started off with Clarence eating. It was some sort of fast food burger joint but I didn’t recognize the color scheme.
***
Clarence looked down at his meal with a contented sigh. He had two bacon burgers, three large orders of frie
s and a bucket of soda with which to wash it down. Lunch was always his favorite meal; it was the one time he ate when he was not surrounded by nothingness. He still lived in his mother’s basement, but she didn’t get up to see him off before he went to work, and by the time he got home she had eaten and was already in bed. The rheumatoid arthritis kept her activity threshold low. She could barely move her gnarled fingers and toes, making some of the easiest maneuvers a near impossibility. Last Christmas Clarence had bought her an over-sized gag television remote. Not because it was funny, but because it was about the only thing she could operate. She managed by changing channels with her fist.
So it was lunch, with crowds of people around, that Clarence enjoyed his meals the most. Often he pretended that his beautiful wife was still getting her order as he sat not-so-patiently waiting for her to arrive. The cries of young children and the hustling business people fascinated him to no end – the ease of their conversations or warmth to each other. By day Clarence was a computer programmer and by night he was a Dark Lord Wizard named Grandalf (he loved his wit naming his character). His interaction with humans was limited to emails and short in-game messages. He longed to be with a woman, his depthless shyness and heavy weight kept him from pursuing that yearning.
He had just started in on his second burger when an attractive young woman wearing a blue floral dress approached his table. He started reaching for his ketchup thinking that she wanted to borrow it. He noted that she didn’t look well. She probably had a touch of the flu that he knew was going around. Clarence was under the assumption that his fat protected him from the virus and didn’t mind her coming over. Her forehead glistened in sweat, her eyes were red-rimmed and appeared sunken in. Red lines radiated out from her irises which were in an unnaturally dilated position considering the amount of light inside the restaurant.
The first hint Clarence got that something wasn’t quite right was when a cloudy white film slid over the young woman’s eyes. No…not that, the first was that she had been approaching in the first place. The second was the cloudy film. He stood to help her.
“Miss, are you alright?” he asked and reached a meaty arm out to steady the woman as she appeared to be on the verge of toppling over. Her mouth opened wide, ‘too wide’ and then she bit down on his offering, which in this case happened to be the bacon cheeseburger he was about to eat.
“Hey, that’s rude!” Clarence said angrily as he pulled his burger back in to get a closer look.
The woman had taken nearly half his burger away with one bite and had nearly taken his finger with it as well. The woman kept moving closer, a confused expression on her face as she chewed on his food. Clarence put his hand on her chest to hold her at bay. He was embarrassed that he was getting slightly excited as the top of his hand was rubbing against the bottom of her breasts.
“Are you going to buy me a new one?” he asked her. He had thought she was fixated on the burger that was plastered against her chest. Her teeth were gnashing and she was struggling to get at it.
“Fine, take it,” he said, trying to hand it to her. She wouldn’t take it outright and just looked like she wanted to be hand fed. “What’s the matter with you?” Clarence asked. He moved his hand up and moved the burger to her mouth, where she kept chewing. “You’re friggin’ nuts. You’re going to end up with a knuckle sandwich!” He was referring to her actually eating his fingers as opposed to punching her.
“Emily? What’s the matter honey?” an older woman asked of the woman Clarence was hand feeding.
Emily turned woodenly to the new voice.
“Sir, I’m so sorry,” the woman said. “My daughter told me she wasn’t feeling good but I took her out anyway. I don’t know why—” And then the woman started screaming as Emily began to chew through the side of her head.
Clarence backed up, the hamburger falling out of his hand. Emily had ripped off her mother’s ear. The exposed hole was spilling blood as Emily went in and started to chew through the temple.
“Get that shit out of here!” the chef shouted from behind them.
He had thought the women were merely fighting. Clarence had front row seats to prove that wasn’t the case. At least not any kind of fight he had ever seen. He thought he might be screaming, or it was the woman having her head masticated…he wasn’t sure.
His earlier arousal was all but forgotten as Emily pulled a large fold of skin from the top of her mother’s head. Mom was beginning to shake from shock. Her hands, which had been up fighting against her attacker, were now only part way up as if in submissive offer of herself.
“What the hell is going on?” the restaurant manager said as he came out from behind the register station.
“There’s a lot of blood.” Clarence continued backing up.
The manager had looked down to his floor, which had been mopped only moments before. Blood was plopping in fat droplets at first, and then rivulets and, as Emily punched through her mother’s skull the blood really began to flow. The mother’s legs began to shake violently, and she collapsed to the floor. Emily looked confused for a moment like maybe she had realized what she was doing and was horrified or more likely she had the development of a toddler and once something was out of sight it was quite literally out of mind and she was wondering where it had gone.
The restaurant manager solved that problem. He dove down to try and catch the mother before her soggy exposed brain fell moistly against the tile floor. It wasn’t altruism; after last month’s food poisoning incident he could not afford another lawsuit and subsequent pay out. Emily had witnessed him diving down and went in to see what the matter was herself. She latched onto the back of his neck and bit deeply. Clarence guts erupted, spewing his value meal as soon as the manager’s spine became exposed. Emily looked over at him briefly as she went back in to pull free a rope of muscle. That was all the convincing Clarence needed as he bounded out of the restaurant, sirens erupting all around him. Cries of alarm arose from the other patrons as they made their ways to the doors. He thought momentarily about going back to work, but instead sought the one place he felt the safest: his basement.
It had taken him close to an hour to make the normal ten minute commute. Even in bad weather the most it had ever taken was a half an hour. Cars were overturned, on more than one occasion he had to duck under his dashboard as gunshots fired from all around. Wildly running people clogged most of the roads. He noticed some young ‘capitalists’ trying to take advantage of the cacophony by raiding stores. He’d seen more than one looter running down the roadway with flat screen televisions in their hands. And sometimes he’d seen the ill-gotten booty disposed of on the side of the road as other people were eating them. He thought that was a little over the top in terms of punishment. He was having great difficulty processing all that was happening around him, he was aware there was danger but not the wide-scale event of it.
“Just gotta get home, just gotta get home,” became his mantra. Much like Dorothy and her ruby red slippers, he figured if he said it enough it was sure to happen.
His front lawn was a killing field. His postman Mr. Guilding had got a hold of the Thompson twins from down the street and was alternating bites from one to the other.
“No Game Informer magazine this month,” Clarence said to himself as he hastily opened his front door. He was greeted with the mustiness and overbearing scent of old Ben-Gay. “I’m home, mom,” he called as he made a straight line for the refrigerator. He grabbed a cold box of Twinkies and descended into his hovel. His Halo gaming room which was generally ‘standing room’ only was wide open and it took a full ten minutes before there were enough players online to get a match going.
“Anyone else notice anything going on outside?” Clarence spoke into his gamer microphone.
“Haven’t been outside in two days, why is it snowing?” one of his teammates asked.
Clarence thought that was a little strange given that the odds they lived in the same locale were pretty slim. “No snow, at le
ast not here, but I saw a bunch of people eating other people.”
“What the hell are you smoking man?” his wingman asked.
“No, he’s right,” the player watching their back added. “Saw the shit all over the news. Figured I’d get one more game of Halo in before the zombies came.”
“You wankers are pulling my leg. Just do what you Americans do well and shoot our enemies,” the player said, referring to the game.
The lights in Clarence’s home flickered, the Xbox360 powered down, followed shortly by the rest of the house.
Clarence fell asleep in his chair waiting patiently for the power to be restored, his headphones still on and the controller in his hands. When he awoke the next morning he had almost forgotten what had happened the day before as if it were the remnants of a bad dream. He stretched, scratched his belly, and headed upstairs. Then it all hit him, the incident at the restaurant and his front lawn. He ran to the window in the living room, seeing that what remained of the Thompson twins was still there. Mr. Guilding thankfully was not.
“Mom?” he yelled, calling up the stairs. She didn’t respond. He was torn between calling in to work and checking on his mother. Picking up the phone solved that problem, it was as dead as what laid out in his yard.
“Mom?” he asked again halfway up the stairs. He walked heavily down the hallway.
“Mom?” he asked for the third time as he opened the door.
She looked over at him, her eyes were wet with pain. “Clarence, I took my medicine.”
Clarence sagged in relief, he hadn’t known what to expect when he opened the door. “That’s good, ma. How you feeling?”
“I feel good, Clarence, no pain. I’ve made my peace.”
“What are you talking about? Have you seen what’s going on out there?” he asked her, something was beginning to not sit right in the back of his head.
“You’ll be better off without me, you might have a chance. You’d never make it with me, I know that.”
