The Death Doll

by Brian P. White

  “Anything I can do?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  He sat at his desk, which was when he noticed her sword lay on it. “We lost a few, including Rusty. I guess everyone else is too scared of the outside to leave.”

  Didi nodded absently, as if she barely heard him.

  He had to try to cheer her up. “At least the secret’s out now. One less thing to worry about.”

  “I wish,” she said quietly. “Even if they all stay, they might try to take over and get themselves killed. And Rachelle. Did you see the way she looked at me?”

  The fright on that girl’s face was hard to forget. She couldn’t slide far enough away from Didi. Still. “She’s looked up to you all this time. She won’t forget what you’ve done for her.”

  “Everyone else did. They were so loud about it, I almost went deaf.”

  Someone cleared their throat behind Cody. He stood and faced the doorway.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” Sean said with his hands up. “We came to make peace.”

  Didi’s brows flew up, but she stayed on the bed. “We?”

  Paula stepped out from behind Sean and displayed her empty hands, her face penitent yet still skittish. She looked Didi up and down as if trying to find the flaw in her camouflage. Didi’s left hand fell near her closest pistol, but the farmer’s wife surprised her with, “I’m sorry I shot you. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Didi regarded the timid teacher for a long moment, then released her pistol. “Fear, just like everyone else out there. Where are your pals, Isaac and Pepe?”

  “I don’t know about Isaac,” Sean said, “but Pepe is comforting his new girlfriend Dawn.”

  Didi softly grinned. “Girlfriend? I didn’t know that.”

  “Maybe you should get out more,” Paula said with an ironic grin, which made Didi laugh. She slowly sat at the edge of the bed, keeping some distance from the dead woman in the middle of it. “Was that Clay guy right about you being a porn star?”

  Didi grinned sideways. “Retired. A zombie apocalypse can be a real career killer.”

  Paula grinned uncomfortably, then glanced downward, “What about the other thing he said?”

  “You mean my breast implants?” Didi asked with a humorous grin.

  Paula nodded.

  Didi let her legs slide down, which briefly startled Paula. “I bought them when I turned eighteen to help me net a rich guy. From there, I got talked into stripping, then movies. A few years and some well-calculated moves later, I made a fortune as a big name: Baby Dahl.” Didi’s smile faded and her eyes fell. “I was filming in Chicago when the plague hit. I hired a bunch of bodyguards to stockpile all the food and supplies I needed, but money soon became useless and they all took off on me. So, I hid, not counting on the gangs searching every house. That’s when I met Skull Splitter Murphy, leader of the Apocalypse Crew.” A sad chuckle escaped her. “I guess I should say he met me.”

  “What did he do to you?” Paula asked with a horrified gaze.

  “What do you think a gang does to a porn star when there’s no law?”

  Paula looked at Didi with equal parts horror, disgust, and sympathy.

  Didi tried to keep a straight face, but Cody could see the pain in it as she faced the wall. He wanted to reach for her but knew it wouldn’t do any good. All he could do was listen to her. “I would’ve done whatever he told me for his protection, but he took what he wanted every single day, and only once a day if I was lucky. Then he passed me around to his crew like a joint, and they weren’t as gentle. I went from being the great Baby Dahl to his personal rag doll; all because I paid for a boob job. So, I cut them off.”

  Paula’s mouth fell open.

  A sad grin crossed Didi’s face. “I bled to death with a smile on my face, because I was finally free and what was left of me would eat those bastards.”

  “Did you?” Paula asked both sympathetically and apprehensively.

  Didi smiled at Cody. “Not until I met him three weeks later. When he woke me up, I was chained to Murphy’s wall. I was cold, empty, covered in new wounds, my head hurt like a bitch, and I was so hungry. He offered me a hand if I gave him one.”

  Paula faced Cody with dread and curiosity. “You helped her kill them?”

  Cody had to stop himself from laughing at her mistake. “No. They stole some meds from me, so I needed her help to get them back.”

  “I was hungry and he offered to free me,” Didi said, “so I told him what he wanted to hear. I almost ate him when his back was turned.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Paula asked.

  Didi’s smile grew ten miles wide. “Murphy walked in. Even going blind, I saw his eyes grow three sizes. He reached for his sword,” she nodded to her blade on the desk, “but I was on him like he was made of pizza. Every bite made me feel warm; alive. I killed my tormentor.”

  Paula cringed.

  “Then what?” Sean bravely asked.

  “I gave Cody what he wanted, he went on his way, and I finished getting my revenge.” Didi grinned impishly, but that didn’t last. “I moved on, but I was still so hungry. I ate some random guy, but the pleasure wasn’t there anymore. Cody warned me that would happen, but I didn’t care. By the time it hit me, he was already gone, and I was too afraid to off myself again. If this was what one suicide got me, I was terrified of what would happen after the next. It was my punishment.” After a pause, Didi smiled appreciatively at Cody. “Then I ran into Cody again.”

  “Did you try to eat him again?” Paula asked less disgustedly.

  Didi flinched. “Of course not. He helped me. He treated me like a person. Respect goes a long way, you know. It’s what we’ve tried to instill in people here with our rules.”

  “Did you stop eating people for his sake?”

  Didi’s eyes fell. “That random guy I mentioned. He found me looking for clothes in his apartment and tried to help me. I ate him without a second thought. I heard someone else come in and I pounced right away. It was his kid.”

  “You ate his kid?” Paula whispered, as if too shocked to give full voice to the horror.

  “No. I stopped myself just in time. I didn’t want to be a monster.”

  “What happened to the kid?” Sean asked.

  “His mom showed up and took him.”

  “She saved them from a mob right after,” Cody said.

  Didi shrugged. He never envied how strongly she could relive an emotion, especially guilt.

  “Where did the name Death Doll come from?” Sean asked.

  “During my siege, one of my rapists told me what Murphy did to my corpse. He even said I was just Murphy’s dead doll. So, I said I was his death doll right before I ripped him in half. I didn’t realize someone was watching.”

  Paula nodded. “So, you came up with Didi to avoid scaring people. Is that it?”

  Didi smirked at Cody, which made him want to blush. “He started calling me D.D., which pissed me off at first, but I kept it after we met Chuck and Leticia. I couldn’t bear to tell an eight-year-old girl I was the Death Doll. I needed to leave my old life behind. Baby Dahl, Dollia Mae Whitford, they were legally dead. Thank God I didn’t end up with worse.”

  Paula regarded her skeptically. “Are you religious or something?”

  Didi smiled. “I’m a born-again Christian.”

  Sean’s sharp laugh hurt Cody’s ears. Didi’s smile vanished. Sean quickly regained control of himself. “I’m sorry, but you have to admit it’s a little ironic for a—”

  Gilda burst through the door, huffing a little. “We’ve got a problem.”

  CHAPTER 16

  DEARLY DEPARTED

  Jerri couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She sat lamely on the floor beside the hospital bed where she collapsed, watching her feral husband flail against his restraints like a wild animal. Her eyes and cheeks burned from unending tears. Her heart ached as if it had been stabbed. Her beloved Xing was dead, what remained was an affront to the kind ma
n she married in a bitter and dying world, and she didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. She could’ve ripped that bastard Pat apart for this, or worse: feed him to her husband. That would’ve been fitting. Then he could’ve known the pain he had just inflicted on her.

  Gilda walked in and scooped her off the floor, stroking her hair despite holding dead weight.

  Jerri sobbed into those bony shoulders while condolences and other soothing words bounced right off of her. She was glad Gilda didn’t say everything would be okay. It wasn’t at all. She didn’t want to be coaxed; she wanted blood and an end to her husband’s suffering. She just didn’t have the strength to do either herself. Yet.

  Didi and Cody ran in with the Herrins. Didi stopped at the door while Cody rushed to Xing’s side, stopping when the body snapped at him. “How did he get infected?” he asked.

  Gilda shrugged. “I don’t know. We followed all the cleanliness rules. I sterilized before I worked him. I did everything I could.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Jerri said through her sobbing. “Pat did this. He should be like this, not Xing. Not my Xing.” She went limp again as she cried harder. Gilda struggled to hold her until Paula helped keep her up.

  Cody regarded her with sympathy but said nothing. He obviously didn’t know what to do. How could he not? The answer stood in the doorway.

  Sean touched her shoulder and smiled. “It’s going to be okay. Cody will fix him.”

  Jerri regarded the naïve farmer with disdain.

  Cody winced at him. “I’ll what?”

  Sean’s smile gave way to confusion. “Aren’t you going to wake him up like you did Didi?”

  The suggestion filled Jerri with hope, but Cody looked offended. “It’s not that simple.”

  Sean frowned. “What do you mean? You can do it, right?”

  For the first time since its inception, Didi walked into the Clinic. She stared down Sean as she approached him, then grabbed his wrist and placed his hand on her crotch.

  Sean quickly snatched his arm away. His wife shoved her way in between them to defend her man, shouting, “What the hell was that?”

  “Pretty intimate act, huh? Touching me there?” Didi’s nose crinkled over her daring grin. “I should feel all tingly and vulnerable, shouldn’t I?”

  Paula looked like she was ready to tear Didi apart. “Look, I don’t care if you’re—”

  “But I don’t,” Didi said coldly, then pointed to her head, “because I can’t feel anything but this. I couldn’t get wet enough for you to put it in me, I couldn’t feel it if you did, and I couldn’t cum no matter how big or skilled you were. I pissed all that away when I killed myself.”

  Sean and Paula stared agape at Didi until she grabbed his shoulder, yanked him into position between Jerri and Xing’s body, and shouted at the thoughtless farmer. “Now you want to put her husband through all that after everything I just told you? Sure, we can bring him back. We could enhance him just like me. We might even be able to get his dick to work so they could be husband and wife again. Of course, even if he doesn’t eat her, he would still infect her. He will never feel her embrace again. She will never bear any more of his children. No matter what we did to him, they can never move forward.”

  Each point hit Jerri as if it had been aimed directly at her. Her knees buckled again, but Gilda kept her up. She could’ve wept again, but the thought of Xing enduring even half of what Didi described paralyzed her. All Sean and Paula did was gawk at her dead husband.

  Didi yanked Sean’s arm. “Still think we should bring him back? Is that what you want?”

  Sean finally took his arm back, but never looked away from Jerri’s flailing husband.

  No, not anymore. He was dead. Jerri had to accept that, no matter what Cody could do for him. She wanted him back so much, but not like this—not like Didi. Not a shell she could never please, and certainly not in any way that stopped them from being as free as they were together. No, that was gone. All of it. Because of Pat.

  A hand fell on her shoulder, and she realized Paula was right in front of her. “What do you want, Jerri?”

  She looked into everyone else’s eyes, absorbing ever ounce of their pity and sorrow. Then she stared into Xing’s fading brown eyes. For the faintest second, she wondered if he would want to try to resist feeding like Didi just so they could be together again, or if time would reveal a way around the plague, but the thought—the fear—of what he would be like with the kids left her only one decision. Neither she nor their triplets would be safe with him like this. He always had poor impulse control, and it wouldn’t be fair to subject him to the endless pain Didi endured. She didn’t want him to suffer any more than he already had. He deserved better than that. He deserved to be free.

  She passed Paula and stood before Cody, mustering up all the courage she had left for the next few moments. “I want to say goodbye.”

  After a few seconds of Cody’s are you sure gaze, he faced Didi, who seemed to acknowledge whatever look Cody gave her by walking behind Xing and forcing his head to the side.

  From there, Cody removed his mysterious device from its case and granted Jerri’s request.

  *****

  Xing’s head ached like never before. Aside from whatever was splitting his skull like an ax, he felt cold, hollowed out. He thrashed and grunted, trying to shake the pain away when he noticed he was strapped down to a hospital bed. He couldn’t feel the straps. He couldn’t even feel his arms. As he tried to figure out what was going on, he found Jerri staring at him along with Gilda, Cody, Didi, and two of the newcomers.

  The newcomer, he remembered as the painful beating replayed in his mind.

  “Where is he?” Xing asked, but no one answered. “What happened? What’s the matter? Is it bad?” Everyone just stared. “Jerri, what’s going on?”

  Tears spilled from his wife’s eyes while Gilda held her tightly, but no one said a word.

  Didi placed a hand on his chest, but he couldn’t feel it. At all! He started to panic. “I can’t feel your hand. I can’t feel—” He glanced around at all the sullen faces until he couldn’t take anymore. “What happened to me?”

  “You’re dead,” Didi said.

  He stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief. Dead? No, I’m right here. Have you been smoking something? He hyperventilated, so he knew he was still breathing. He looked down at himself and, despite the wounds he couldn’t feel, he was still moving. His confusion reminded him he was still thinking. He faced Jerri and immediately thought of how much he loved her, so his heart still worked.

  Then Didi touched his cheek, which he couldn’t feel, either; he didn’t even know it was there until he saw it. This wasn’t happening. “No,” he uttered.

  “It’s true, baby,” Jerri said as she slowly approached, which was when the smell of her hit him like a drug; skin, blood, hair, and everything else that was all woman struck his stomach like a lightning bolt. He reached for her, but she recoiled in terror. He kept trying to touch her, but he just couldn’t. She was right there, and he couldn’t reach her. If he could—

  “Hey,” Didi yelled, startling him. Didi didn’t smell like that; only leather and chemicals.

  As he faced Jerri again, he realized he hadn’t reached for her with his hands. He had tried to bite her. Thoughts of devouring her multiplied in his head, making him more anxious yet hungrier. He wept, but the frenzy within gnawed at him more than his remorse. His wife reached for him again, but he shouted for her to stay back, which shocked her in a way that shamed him. He wept again, but no tears flowed. He really was dead, and he wanted to eat everyone in the room—everyone but Didi.

  “You’re dead, too,” he said, to which she nodded. He faced Jerri. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I couldn’t, baby,” she tearfully replied. “I couldn’t.”

  “The Panel kept my secret to keep everyone safe,” Didi said, but he kept looking at his wife. “Hey, look at me,” Didi snapped, drawing his attention again. “You�
�re hungry, right? You want to feed, don’t you? Feed on them? On her?”

  “No,” he replied, but deeper urges told him otherwise, demanding release. “Yes.”

  Jerri gasped as she shuddered, the horror in her eyes breaking Xing’s heart.

  Didi jerked his face back to her. “How about your children? You want them, too?”

  The children! “Where are the kids? Are they safe?”

  “Not from you,” Didi said. “You don’t want them to suffer like this, do you? To be your next meal?”

  He wanted to argue with her, but his mind filled with images of eating everyone who crossed his mind, including his babies. He wanted so much to comfort his wife instead of letting the elderly nurse do it, but he wanted to consume both of them more. He wanted to know how Didi could resist and if she could teach him how, but he couldn’t risk slipping with his family. He tried to fight the urge with all of his might, but the hunger burned in his brain like fire and he desperately needed—

  No, he couldn’t live like that. He couldn’t put her or their beautiful children through that. The horror of the situation forced him to stop moving.

  “That’s right,” Didi said. “Just relax.”

  “How did you do this to me?” he asked as calmly as he could. “Why—”

  Cody stepped forward. “We woke you up because Jerri wanted to say goodbye. What do you want?”

  Xing mulled over what his silent heart wanted, but what his mouth wanted made the question easy to answer. “Please hold me down,” he asked Didi.

  She nodded, moved behind him, knelt, and clasped her hands on his forehead. He barely even felt the pressure.

  Jerri warily approached with a sad yet hopeful smile. She gave him the Chinese greeting he taught her, botching it once again.

  He laughed softly and rendered his reply.