Tim 3

by Mark Tufo

  “Whoo, glad I got that out of my system. I don’t smoke, but right now, I’d make an exception. That was somehow relaxing. But back to our current situation. Contrary to what you believe, Miss Scarlett, I can make this miserable existence you are suffering through orders of magnitude worse. I can make sure you taste what we eat, that you hear what we chew, that you smell what your face is buried in, and that’s just the beginning.”

  “I get it! I get it!” she bleated. “Let’s just get out of here. The girl deserves to live.”

  “Deserves? Why? Life isn’t a guarantee. There’s no fucking warranty on what happens to us. And even if there was, I can almost assure you that the underwriter would find a way to get out of the claim.”

  Manny’s head turned as we heard some sobbing above us. He knew the sound of his prey; the stupid girl had given herself away.

  “Fuck,” I muttered as Manny started up the stairs.

  “You promised!” Scarlett begged.

  “Do I look like I’m doing this?”

  “Stop him!”

  We were now in the upstairs hallway. Manny’s head turned from side to side as he tried to locate the source of the muffled sound. Something was looking out for that little girl, or more aptly named, my bargaining chip. The roar of multiple engines could be heard approaching. It was motorcycles, and lots of them. The little girl could have been professing her undying love for One Direction at the shrill shrieking trill of pre-teen girls, and we would not have heard it. Manny was easily distracted. He’d pretty much forgotten about the girl. Scarlett and I both sighed in relief, but for varying reasons. Manny headed back down the stairs two at a time.

  “Hold on! You can’t just run out there and start eating them! There’s too many!”

  Manny was a little thick headed in the survival department, but he was not suicidal. I could see the churnings in our mind as he began to work out strategies to best attack and still live. It was rudimentary, but it was sight better than what my first Hugh was doing. Humans were doomed; it seemed I had chosen the right side, and wisely I might add.

  “Hide, sneak up on. Drag away and EAAAATTTT!” I think Manny was getting his rocks off as he thought about his potential third breakfast. Fourth lunch, whatever the fuck it was.

  “No, Manny, you have to start thinking better than that!”

  He wasn’t a fan of the tone I’d used. He could somehow tell I was belittling him. I shifted instantly to a placatory mode.

  “Infiltration, that’s the key. We can walk among the enemy. Look how good it worked here.”

  Manny gazed at the eviscerated bodies of Vickie and Dylan. Scarlett was psychically vomiting over the many folds of her mind as she also looked upon the chewed up remains of her friends and neighbors.

  “Shut up back there. I’m trying to make a point here,” I berated her.

  “Outside,” he said.

  “No, not yet, you can’t,” I told him.

  “I can do as I want!”

  “Yeah, you can. Including getting us, I mean you, killed.” There was the minutest of hesitations. “Listen, Manny, you’re coated in blood, your clothes are drenched in it and I’m sure it’s dripping from your face. If you want to look like a human, then you need to look like a human.”

  “That does not make sense.”

  “To the bathroom, and quickly. We don’t have much time.”

  I got him to go back upstairs and into the master bathroom. He shed his clothes quickly and stepped into the frigid unheated water of the shower. I made sure he kept the glass privacy door open so I could gaze upon Scarlett’s figure. She really was a prize, every bit of her well-toned and defined. She would have no problem inserting herself into a population of males. They would welcome her with open arms and open flies. Oh, to be a man again in full form. I was reflexively gyrating my imaginary hips and grunting.

  “You know you’re dickless, right?” Scarlett asked.

  “Well aware, thanks for reminding me.” After I answered, I wondered if she meant physically or morally. I decided I didn’t want to know the answer. We were never going to be friends—that was clear—but she was my only link to Yorley, and that battle hardened bitch was on my to-do list. Well, my to-eat list really, but I’m sure you get the picture. And I didn’t give a shit what kind of deal we worked out here, I was eating Scarlett’s kids as well. That was just part of the price of doing business with me.

  Manny did a reasonable facsimile of getting clean, but unfortunately the fuck face left the bathroom soaking wet and nude, he was heading downstairs to go out and greet our new guests, who had since parked their bikes a few houses down.

  “Clothes, dumb-ass, you need clothes. You go out like this and you’re going to get gang-raped. You still might, but at least they’ll have to fight through some material for it.”

  I laughed at Scarlett’s horror.

  “What’s a little vaginal tearing among friends?” I asked her.

  “Were you ever human?”

  “Fuck it, Manny. You’re right, just head on out like this.”

  “NO!” Scarlett begged.

  “Listen, roomie, you’ve got to remember I’m the one in a position of power here. I don’t need you. Not really. Sure I want Yorley, but it’s not as if my life won’t be complete if I don’t eat her sweet meats. So I demand you give me some respect! We clear? Oh, and stop with the sobbing; it’s getting old. That’s all you fucking hags have up your sleeves when you start to lose a fight or want something. You think once the water works start, all men will just cave in to whatever the fuck you want. Well, I ain’t that man.”

  “You’re no man at all,” she said, and again I couldn’t tell if she was just speaking a truth or it was an act of defiance, but she didn’t follow it up with another statement so I let it lie.

  It didn’t take much to convince Manny to get some clothes. I took that as a good sign. That we were, indeed, developing a trust between us. We were once again in the master bedroom, but this time, instead of going to the bathroom, we were staring at racks of clothes within the large walk-in closet. For some fucked up reason, Manny seemed to be drawn to the business suits. We needed the dress section, but we had to be careful. When he had first walked in and scanned the room, I caught the sight of some small pink shoes attached to some skinny little girl legs. The daughter was hiding in this room. Scarlett had her hand over her mouth trying not to gasp, and I’ll be honest, it took all of my willpower not to pull Manny’s gaze down to that scrawny meat pile. I knew she would be delicious; I just had to forgo that one small meal in the hopes she paid out for a bigger prize.

  Manny was oblivious as I directed him to put on a sun dress. I didn’t think he had the motor skills to do anything more complicated than pull the material over his head. The stupid little girl I think had fucking worms because she was constantly squirming around. I have no idea how Manny was missing this. Scarlett would have pissed herself in fear if she was capable. We were all ready to go meet our guests when I heard the front door being crashed in. Seems our guests were impatient. My mind was scrambling; it was going to be difficult trying to talk away the two bodies downstairs.

  “Jesus,” someone downstairs said.

  “These are fresh,” the other replied.

  “Manny, let me talk.”

  “You will kill us,” he replied.

  “Are you kidding me? Everything I’m doing is to save our asses. You die, I die, and I don’t want to die.”

  Manny rooted around in our collective mind, looking for some sort of deception. But for once, I’d spoken the absolute truth.

  “You wanna kill it? Or do you want me to?” the first asked.

  “Manny, they’re going to come up here. And they’re going to shoot the first thing they see.” I admit I thought about dragging the little girl out and using her as a shield.

  “Let’s do it,” the second responded.

  “It is yours,” Manny said. I sensed some reluctance, but at least I had the ability to speak.


  I cleared my throat knowing that if I spoke now, I might sound like a large man with a giant frog in my throat. I over-compensated when I screamed “Help.” Sounded a lot like I’d just taken a large blast of helium.

  “Who’s there?” one of the men called from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Please help, my friends were eaten!”

  “Yeah, no shit. Now come out and with your hands up.”

  Manny actually did, without any direction from me. He stopped at the top of the stairs. We looked down on what I can only describe as a dirtier, smaller, non-mustachioed Tom Selleck, holding an Uzi. One squeeze on the trigger, and parts of us would be littering the hallway behind us. I would think from the spray that thing could lay down at least one would strike our head. I don’t know what the fuck Manny was thinking; he chomped his teeth three times, and hard. I think he was fantasizing about snacking on the movie star wannabe. Luckily, the dress had accentuated Scarlett’s features, because Tom was concentrating on her figure not her face.

  I felt like telling him, “Hey! My teeth are up here.” I would have got a laugh out of it right up until all brain function ceased.

  “Bubbs, come here man.” He turned his head slightly so he could yell over his shoulder. The gun never wavered.

  Manny was getting anxious to go down and greet our guest properly.

  Bubbs came quickly.

  “Holy shit, Raoul, you find a BILF.”

  I had a hard time seeing the Tom Selleck doppelganger as a Raoul, but whatever.

  “What the fuck is a BILF?” Raoul asked.

  “Bitch I’d like to fuck.” They both started sneering. “Who’s up there with you?” Bubbs asked.

  “No … no one,” I said in the most scared tone I could muster. Although inside I was gleeful. If this worked, I would in one fell swoop prove my worth to Manny and show Scarlett just how dangerous I was. Maybe shut the BILF up for once. I really liked that term; I was going to have to remember it when I got back into a male body.

  “Well, this is your lucky day.” Bubbs had put his pistol away and was coming up the stairs, fumbling with his zipper to get his flesh pistol out. “Come on, Raoul, let’s do her.” He beckoned.

  “I’ll do her after you. I don’t want to watch you—that’s some gay shit.”

  “Sloppy seconds for you then.” Bubbs had a sinister grin. He was all lust and desire mixed in with a heavy dose of psychoses. I could recognize the look in another. “I gotta admit I like it that you’re not running. Makes me feel like you kinda want it.” Bubbs had wrapped his arm around our waist and lifted us up like a sack of potatoes. This was unsettling for me. Most of my life had been spent as a nearly immoveable object, and to be nothing more than a wisp of a woman was disconcerting. Back in the master bedroom we went. Bubbs tossed us onto the bed, we bounced a couple of times.

  “That’s some sweet looking pussy, and shaved.” The dress had come up. Scarlett was losing her mind trying to control her arms and pull the material down. Manny did nothing; his hands were down by his side. Bubbs sat down next to the bed, nearly ripping the leather on his boots trying to pull them off his feet as fast as he could. He stood, quickly pulling his pants and boxers down in record time.

  I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing.

  “What are you laughing at, bitch?” Bubbs had grabbed his manhood.

  “You look ridiculous,” I told him. “I’ve seen pencils bigger than that thing.”

  “I’m going to fuck you real good!”

  “How would I know?” I was laughing outright.

  “You stupid bitch. I’m going to make you hurt.”

  “Careful. Something that small is bound to be sharp. What are you going to do? Sew me to death?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “What I’m saying, Bubbs, is that you have a needle dick.”

  Pissed, he raised his hand to strike. “ARM, Manny. I need an ARM!” The virus had somehow figured out what I was going to do. On one side, that was good because he didn’t hesitate to give me control, but on the other he knew what I was going to do. I turned so that the slap caught me across the mouth. I clamped down, catching the meat of his palm between my teeth. Before he could scream out, I wrapped my hand around his throat. A look of shock and fear crossed his features as I ripped away the skin and muscle right below his thumb. I dug Scarlett’s well-manicured nails around his bobbing Adam’s apple. Digging in behind it far enough that I was drawing blood. I had a death grip on that thing. The more blood that poured out, the more I imagined I was grasping a wet peach pit. Bubbs didn’t know what to do. He had two star bursts of pain going on, either one of them enough to send him into shock. I’d swallowed the palm meat like a pelican downing a good sized fish, and before he could pull away, I clamped down on his thumb, sinking my teeth all the way down to the bone. As he jerked it away, he left all the meat in my mouth. I stripped that thing clean. It was exquisite. No more opposable grasping happening on that side!

  He did manage to get something slightly resembling a noise out of his throat, but it was a strangled, wet, tortured sort of sound. Could have been a seal having an orgasm, underwater, for all the coherency it made. Scarlett was a well-toned bitch, a lot stronger than she looked, that’s for sure. I was almost as surprised as she was when we pulled that gullet nugget away from Bubbs’ esophagus. He was coughing up chunks of phlegm, blood, and bits of meat, all of which Manny was trying to catch in his own mouth like we were lovers and Bubbs was tossing us fresh strawberries. It was almost magical. Bubbs was losing blood at a good clip, pain and shock beginning to take over, and he was falling over on to us, pinning us on the bed. I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. It seemed that Raoul was getting slightly impatient. Seemed he didn’t care if it was some “gay shit” or not, he wanted in. The more the merrier, I always say. Fucking all-you-can-eat buffet was now open.

  “Oh she looks like she’s into it!” a clearly excited Raoul said, and I guess from his perspective it would seem that way. Bubbs was on top of me twitching like he was in the throes of some serious sex-capades. He tried to turn his head to elicit some help from his partner. I pulled him in close while Manny tore his lips off with a soggy smacking sound. Gotta admit I was pretty happy when I heard the heavy thud of Raoul’s rifle striking the floor then the jingle of his belt buckle.

  “Flip her over so I can get in there!”

  Seems he did know his way around a threesome for someone that thought negatively on that type of thing. Fuck it, I’d comply. Once again, Manny and I were on the same page. I let him know what I wanted to do, and he allowed it. Scarlett was nowhere to be seen or heard from, which was fine. Women had a place and a purpose, and both involved servicing men, whether in the bedroom or kitchen. And maybe sometimes the bathroom, which needed cleaning every once in a while. I placed a hand on each of Bubbs’ shoulders and pushed him off. I was in the process of sitting up just as he struck the floor. Raoul had been looking down, his hand wrapped around his engorged cock. Gotta admit there was a stab of jealousy there for a second when I saw it. Thing looked like a sleeve of salami; got to imagine there were a string of bow-legged women in his wake.

  “What … what’s going on?” he asked.

  I caught a glimpse of our profile in a mirror as we stood. We were once again covered in blood and gore. The sequence of events that happened next would be far too unbelievable for me to relate if it hadn’t actually happened. I mean no one would ever believe me. Hell, I barely believe it, and I was there; add the fact that I don’t want it to be real. Raoul, in his haste to add his dick to the fray, had not completely taken his pants off. So when he tried to turn and run, he ended up falling on his ass. His baloney pony was sticking straight up in the air. As we made a move to step in and claim our kill, Bubbs reached a hand out and wrapped it around Scarlett’s ankle. I didn’t think he had enough in him, but he used enough force to trip us up. We were going down, of that there was no doubt. And what also was not of an
y doubt was where and how we were going to land. Manny’s mouth was open in the traditional, “I’m going to eat you” way. Raoul’s flesh flute was half way down our throat before Manny had the presence of mind to start chewing. The meat stick was lodged in our throat; we were going to suffocate. Add to that the fact that I was horrified I had a meat popsicle in my mouth—well, Scarlett’s mouth. That makes it somewhat easier to think about it that way.

  I wanted to tell Raoul to quit his screaming, sounded like an eight-year-old girl watching a horror film with her little friends, he was shrieking so violently. Normally, I’m all into the human condition if it involves serious suffering on their part. Right now, I wanted nothing to do with this particular matter. Manny was on his own. As much as Manny was in happy land, Scarlett was in hell. Surprisingly, I found myself somewhere in the middle and that pissed me off to no end. This dysfunctional misshapen thing called a female brain was fucking with my psyche, and I was not a fan.

  I found Scarlett, who also seemed to be doing her best to ignore the white snake in the room. She was in surprisingly good condition for where we were in this mess. I think Clarence had already lost most of his mind by this point.

  “Funny meeting you here.” I thought it was pretty witty given the circumstances.

  She rolled her eyes at me.

  I wanted to smash her smug little face in for that, but here’s the thing. I couldn’t afford to kill her. Not yet, maybe not ever. I needed her companionship, not her humanity. These feelings were so foreign and, I’ll be honest, unwelcome. I generally liked being the uncaring asshole I’d always been. I needed empathy like I needed Raoul’s giant weapon of ass destruction up my rectum. Manny had got the tube steak dislodged from his throat and was now busy working on the rest of the man. He was looking less and less like Tom Selleck with every bite.