The Legend of Jimmy Headshot (Shingles Book 6)

by Rick Gualtieri

  If there was one upside to the world ending, it was that there weren’t any cops to give you shit about doing kick-flips in the middle of the street. Yeah, in the zombie apocalypse, the world was your skate park.

  Main Street was just ahead, but first I had to get through the seedier side of town. I passed a creepy old pawn shop, a burnt-out liquor store, and a place advertising adult novelties. The sign above read Hello Titty of all things. Maybe the collapse of civilization wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

  Despite the horrible pun of its name, I paused in front of the store as it appeared mostly intact. Of all the places to survive the looting that accompanied the breakdown of society, it kind of made sense that this would be one of them. After all, unless one counted edible underwear, there wasn’t anything to be had in there that would be of much use now.

  Or was there?

  The thought of presenting my dimwit sister with a bag of dildos to replace her broken dolls was almost enough to make me crack a grin. What the hell? Knowing that putz, she’d give them names and invite them to her tea parties. That alone made it worth the effort.

  The lock on the door was a flimsy affair, easily taken out with a couple of solid kicks. With SPAZ in one hand and a tactical flashlight in the other, I waited several seconds for any sign of movement from inside. None came, which was a relief. It wasn’t that I was afraid of zombies by that point. Fuck no on that shit, but dying in a sex shop was a pathetic way to go in anyone’s book.

  I stepped inside and saw pink...lots and lots of pink. The air was stale but free from the rotting decomposition that seemed to permeate the town, telling me that my first instincts were correct. The place was clear. It was time to go shopping.

  I’m not so tough that I’m afraid to admit when I’ve made a mistake. As I perused the aisles, I began to lose track of time, imagining uses for the various novelties—practical ones, I mean, nothing to do with shoving them up my ass. Gimp wear could potentially make for some new armor, handcuffs and whips had their uses, and posing sex dolls at strategic points in the scrapyard could give any potential interlopers the illusion of more defenders than we had.

  Hell, that actually wasn’t a bad...

  “We know you’re in there!”

  I froze in my tracks as the voice again beckoned me from outside.

  “Throw out any food and weapons you have, and we might let your perverted ass live.”

  9

  SURVIVAL OF THE SHITIEST

  Several weeks after settling in at the scrapyard, I’d gotten sloppy and been seen inside the gates by some guy wandering past. We’d locked eyes for a moment, and then it got weird. He’d started screaming shit about Jesus before racing up and trying to climb the gate. I’d dissuaded him of that notion with a double tap to the forehead. Fucking Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even at the end of days, they didn’t know when to quit.

  That had been the last time I’d seen other survivors, until now.

  I mean, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. It would have been foolish to think me, Mom, and Darlene were the only ones in town who’d made it through the initial outbreak and subsequent winter. But I guess spending half a year in relative solitude had made me complacent. I’d need to work on that.

  But for now, I had bigger fish to fry. Whoever was outside sounded decisively unfriendly. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling they weren’t looking to hand me some Bible tracts and call it a day.

  “I said come out before we burn you out!”

  Yeah. Definitely not looking to get on my friends list.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” I called back, trying to think up a good way to cause some trouble.

  “Neither are we, friend. We just want your food and weapons.”

  Something about the voice sounded familiar, but the windows of the sex shop were blacked out, putting me at a tactical disadvantage. I could’ve stuck my head out the door for a quick look, but I had a feeling that would have ended in a turkey shoot. No, thank you.

  I’d been traveling light that day. SPAZ and a handgun were the only weapons I’d brought. It was more than enough to handle a few undead. Human interlopers were a different issue entirely, especially if whoever was out there wasn’t alone. Time to go fishing and find out for sure.

  “How do I know you’re not full of it?” I asked. “You could be just one guy in a wheelchair for all I know.”

  “What the fuck?” a second voice replied quietly, probably intended for the first speaker’s ears only. “That sounds like a kid.”

  “Shit yeah, it did,” the first voice said, before yelling to me again. Fuckers must’ve thought I was deaf or something. “Hey! How old are you?”

  Old enough to fuck up your shit, asshole. They didn’t need to know that, though. I liked to consider myself wise beyond my years, but I could still use my age to my advantage. It was time to take some of the steel out of my voice, just enough to make me sound vulnerable. “I-I’m almost thirteen.”

  “Fuck me,” a third voice swore. Shit! “This is a waste of fucking time. It’s just a goddamned rug rat.”

  The first guy once again dropped his voice to a level where he stupidly assumed I couldn’t overhear. “He might have something we can use. You know how low the Shop-More’s running these days.”

  Shop-More? I knew that place. Big grocery store located in a strip mall a few blocks away, right next to the Builders Depot where I’d bought all the supplies to make SPAZ.

  “But he’s just a kid,” the second replied. “Should we maybe take him back with us?”

  “Fuck no,” number three said. “The community’s too big as it is. We can’t handle any more strays. Hell, we’ll be doing him a favor. A quick death, as opposed to starving.”

  That began to paint a picture. The strip mall, on its surface, would have looked like the ideal shelter for any apocalypse newbs. After all, a supermarket would be stocked to the gills with food, while an oversized hardware store like Builders Depot would have provided the tools needed to fortify the place and arm themselves. But therein lay the weakness too.

  The sheer size, as well as obviousness of the place, would have attracted a lot of people in the early days. Whoever had first set up shop there had probably been a soft-hearted pussy and let in whoever came knocking, assuming the crisis would be over in a few days at most.

  But things hadn’t gone back to normal. Add enough time and people to the mix and those rows of food would be quickly depleted. It wasn’t hard to imagine that by now they were down to the dregs, living off bottles of Sriracha, canned onions, or whatever else was at the bottom of the clearance barrel. But there would still be plenty of makeshift weapons from the Builders Depot. If people got hungry enough, it wasn’t hard to imagine that place becoming a powder keg ready to explode.

  I’d been exploring out of boredom and a desire to get away from my sister. These guys were most likely here out of pure desperation.

  That told me two things: avoid that part of town and I needed to make sure these fuckers didn’t follow me back to the scrapyard. If they realized there was a fully stocked bunker beneath, they’d ransack it and probably kill Mom and Darlene in the process. Well, okay, that was batting five hundred as far as losses went, but Mom still had her uses...for now anyway.

  “So what’s it gonna be, kid?” Asshole One shouted, their discussion apparently concluded. “We don’t want to hurt you. Come on out, and I promise it’ll be all right.”

  Too bad for them I wasn’t some dingleberry fresh off the short bus. Even Darlene would’ve been hard pressed to fall for their bullshit, maybe.

  I started to look for something I could use. There was no way of knowing if these chuckle-fucks had guns, but it was probably safe to assume so. If I stepped out with an aggressive stance, I’d likely be as good as dead. I needed to disarm them with my words before doing it with anything else.

  “I’m scared,” I cried out, putting a healthy dose of wuss flavoring into my voice. “I’ve been on my own for months. My mo
m and dad are both dead. Please don’t hurt me.”

  Gah! I think I threw up in my mouth a little, but it sounded like it got the job done. I distinctly heard a quick laugh from one of the guys out there. They thought they had me.

  “Shut the fuck up,” voice number one hissed in a low voice, before resuming his negotiating tone. “You got any food on you, kid?”

  “A-a little,” I replied, continuing to scan the place for... There! My eyes fell upon something that would do nicely.

  “Good. Then here’s what you’re gonna do, buddy. You slide out whatever food you have as well as any weapons you got on you, nice and easy, and then you’re free to go. Simple as that.”

  Buddy? Goddamned idiots, always assuming that being a kid meant you were soft in the head. That was gonna cost them, but first I had to get close enough to properly hand them the receipt.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “There’s my food. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.” That much was the truth. I’d only grabbed a few protein bars and a water bottle before heading out.

  “Weapons next,” came the reply, the greed in his voice so evident he might as well have been dressed as the guy on the Monopoly box.

  “O-okay. Please don’t hurt me.”

  I slid the handgun out the door.

  “Serious piece for a kid.”

  You ain’t seen nothing yet, cocksucker. Though I was loathe to let another person touch SPAZ, I had to send him out ahead of me. If this all worked as planned, I’d need him to be somewhere I could get to quick.

  “The fuck is that?” the second dude replied upon seeing me toss my beloved zombie smasher out to them. He was right to be awed. It was a pretty damned awesome sight to behold.

  “That’s a-all the weapons and food I have,” I said, grasping the items I’d purloined from the shop. “Can I g-go now?”

  “We’re almost done here, kid. Step out nice and slow so we can see you. If everything is kosher, then you’re free to go.”

  You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, but ball’s in your court, Fuck-face. I slowly stepped into the doorway, a plastic bag in one hand and my new friend in the other, letting them get a good look at me.

  “Fucking A, it is a kid.” The voice matched guy number two. He was a tall skinny fellow, early twenties and carrying a pickaxe. Didn’t look too bright.

  “What the fuck is that in your hand, you little weirdo?” Voice Three was the polar opposite of his friend—short, balding, and looking like he’d been dunked in French fry grease. He had sagging skin, suggesting that once, not too long ago, he’d been a fat fuck, but had recently gone on a starvation diet. He picked up my gun, sheathing the machete at his side, and looked winded by the time he was finished.

  That left the first one, the guy who’d done most of the talking. I could see why he’d taken the lead. He looked smarter than the other two and still carried a hint of muscle about him, but the several days growth of beard on his face left him looking haggard and... Holy shit! I recognized him. No wonder his voice had sounded familiar. It was Mr. McCarthy, the middle school gym teacher, and he was holding SPAZ.

  Recognition seemed to dawn on him as his eyes moved up to my face. “I’ve seen you before. You’re that Perkins kid, right?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” I replied.

  “Any reason you’re carrying a sex doll with you, son?”

  His two friends began to chuckle. Exactly what I was hoping for.

  “You’re going to laugh,” I replied, hoping I sounded good and pathetic.

  “I asked you a question, boy,” Mr. McCarthy said. Yep, just as I remembered him. Why bother showing any human compassion when you could just bully kids into doing push-ups?

  “S-sorry, sir. My mom, my family, they’re all gone. I just wanted something to...you know, talk to. Make me feel less alone.”

  “Well, goddamn,” Number Two replied, “if that ain’t the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Shut up, Dwayne.”

  Dwayne. That figured. Number Two kinda looked like a Dwayne.

  That left the third guy to offer his expert opinion on the subject. “Kid’s full of shit. Probably can’t wait to get home and jam it into that thing. Ain’t that right, you fucking little perv?”

  “N-no, sir.”

  “Don’t you lie to me! One more word out of your mouth and I’m gonna take you back inside and core your asshole like an apple.” He turned to his buddies. “Maybe even if he doesn’t say anything. What do you think, boys? Should we give junior here a lesson in growing up?”

  Oh, yeah. This one was a real charmer, but that was fine by me. He ensured that what was coming next would be a true pleasure.

  “Stow it, Bert,” Mr. McCarthy growled. “Save your sick fantasies for your own time.”

  “You know we can’t take him back,” Bert protested. “So we might as well have some fun with his tight little...”

  “Whatever we do, we’ll do it quick. End of story.” Mr. McCarthy pointed SPAZ at him as if to emphasize the point.

  “Q-quick?” I asked, playing dumb. “You said you’d let me go.”

  “Sure, kid, whatever you say. Hey, what else do you have there?”

  “This?” I held up the bag in my other hand. “N-nuthin.”

  “Come over here and show it to me.”

  “B-but...”

  “I said now. You mind your betters.”

  Betters, hah! That was a good one. If I wasn’t so busy acting like a scared pussy, I’d have busted a gut laughing. But now was not the time. This was the critical part. If I fucked this up, I could very well end up behind a dumpster with Bert.

  Lowering my gaze, I stepped forward, to within Mr. McCarthy’s reach. I held out the bag feebly, as if afraid he might bite.

  “Take it out and show me.” Though Bert was the designated sick fuck of the group, I could hear the joy in McCarthy’s voice. In his mind, he was probably back in PE class, instructing the big kids to peg the smaller ones with dodge balls. Well, it was about time someone showed him a new game.

  I dropped the blow-up doll. She’d served her purpose, mentally disarming the three goons before me. I then reached into the bag, wrapped my hand tightly around the item within, and pulled it out.

  “What the hell is that?” Dwayne asked, my body partially obscuring the shiny object.

  Mr. McCarthy saw it plain as day, though. He lowered his head for a better look, as if not believing the sight of the metal butt plug clenched in my fist.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” he asked. “And don’t tell me you were planning on talking to that too.”

  “Nah,” I replied, dropping all pretense of being scared. “My new friend here much prefers talking to assholes like you.”

  I brought the butt plug up with everything I had, slamming the pointy end into McCarthy’s left eye. Before he could fall back, I grabbed ahold of his jacket and shoved the sex toy in as hard as I could.

  As I was busy skull-fucking my former gym teacher to death, I heard the dry click of a trigger being pulled. Dumbass.

  McCarthy dropped SPAZ and toppled over. I bent, caught it, and swung low—catching his buddy Bert dead center in the kneecap.

  He went down squealing like the stuck pig he was. I snatched the gun out of his hand, reached behind me, and pulled a fresh magazine from my back pocket. “Next time, check to make sure it’s loaded first, numb-nuts.”

  By the time Dwayne had raised his weapon, I was already locked and loaded. He realized it, too. Guess he was a bit brighter than he looked. Smart enough to turn tail, but not so intelligent that he didn’t run in a straight line, giving me plenty of time to line up a shot and drop him before he’d gotten more than ten yards.

  Two down, one to go. I yanked SPAZ out of Bert’s kneecap and stood over him, enjoying the sound of him blubbering for mercy. “What was that you said about coring my asshole?”

  “I was just kidding. I didn’t mean it!”

  “Well, that’s a damn shame, Bert, old
buddy, because you were right about one thing. One of us is definitely getting fucked today.”

  10

  THE CHITTER CHATTER OF LITTLE FEET

  After ensuring they wouldn’t be getting back up again as zombies, I dragged Bert and his pals deep into the bowels of Hello Titty. That should have been the end of it, but I was kind of pissed, so I left them positioned in ways guaranteed to make sure whoever found them would be weirded the fuck out. Needless to say, the shop’s inventory of butt plugs and ass-spreaders had been quite extensive.

  Finally finished, I spared them one last smirk before heading straight home.

  On the upside, Darlene liked the new armless dollies—in various shapes, colors, and lengths—I brought back for her to play with, even if Mom gave me the side eye. Some people have no sense of humor.

  Regardless, after that incident, I was careful to make certain that if I was caught with my pants down again, I’d have enough firepower to make them think twice about staring at my dick.

  For a time, avoiding the Shop-More survivors was easy enough, especially since I knew where they lived. From my brief chat with their three ambassadors, I got the sense of a community bordering on desperation, but still scared enough to only be dipping their toes in the outside world again. The fact that the trio never returned home probably didn’t help matters for them, but that was kind of their own fault for sending out a group of dickheads.

  I knew the lull wouldn’t last, so I took advantage of it while I could by going on a mad looting spree throughout town. Yeah, I could have left stuff for them to scavenge, but fuck that shit. I might have been more charitable had their members not debated between killing me outright or ass-fucking me first.

  In the chaos that was our world, the phrase “I got mine” meant the difference between life and death. If I had to choose between me and a group with low enough standards to let people like Bert into their ranks, I knew who I’d go with.