The Way of All Flesh

by Tim Waggoner

  But the decay and dissolution that had affected the restaurant’s interior—indeed, which seemed to have blighted the entire town—had also transformed the buffet stations. The paneling was mold-covered and cracked, the metal so rusted it looked as if it had been painted reddish-brown. The food stations were empty, the bulbs of their warming lights missing or broken.

  Jimmy crouched down behind his station, took hold of something large and heaved it onto the carving table. David gasped when he saw that it was the naked body of a demon. He supposed technically it was a torso, as its arms and legs were missing.

  Jimmy picked up a rusty carving knife from the counter and gripped it tight, as if it were a weapon instead of a kitchen implement.

  “Who wants what?” he said cheerfully.

  The first customer in line, one of the two elderly women, leaned forward. David couldn’t see her face from where he was standing, but he heard the hunger in her voice as she spoke.

  “Do you have any pancreas?”

  The customers in line behind her let out soft moans at the word, as if pancreases were the greatest of delicacies.

  Jimmy’s smile fell. “’Fraid not, ma’am. This one got hollowed out as soon as he came in.”

  “That’s a shame,” the woman said. “I’m so fond of pancreas.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose there are any brains left?”

  Jimmy palmed the demon’s bald pate, twisted, and removed the top of his skull. He peered inside. “A couple spoonfuls, maybe. I have to warn you, though. They’re not very fresh.”

  “Live is best,” the mother said.

  “Or at least still warm,” her husband added.

  “I don’t like cold meat,” one of the little girls said.

  Her father smiled down at her. “No one does, sweetie, but sometimes we have to make do with what we can get.”

  “He’s right,” the woman at the front of the line said. “I’ll try what’s left of the brains, and I think I’ll take an ear too.”

  Jimmy’s smile returned. “Coming right up.”

  “‘Friends, Romans and countrymen’,” her husband said, and everyone but the children laughed.

  David felt his gorge rise as he watched Jimmy use the tip of his rusty knife to pry loose what bits of gray matter remained inside the demon’s skull and slide them onto the woman’s plate. David turned away. His stomach felt so goddamned full, and right then he thought he was going to vomit up everything in it. But how could he be full? He hadn’t eaten anything except for a couple bites of that whatever-it-was in the park.

  Simon looked at him with mock pity. “There’s always a price to be paid for overindulgence, isn’t there? Maybe you’d be more comfortable if you chose to see things in a more…palatable light. Just like you did in the park.”

  David had no idea what Simon was talking about, but he was too busy fighting to hold on to the contents of his stomach to reply. An image flashed through his mind then, a memory of being in the park, and seeing the roasted animal inside the cage. Except it wasn’t cooked meat anymore. It was a twisted, malformed, hairless thing that resembled the bizarre “kitty” he’d seen crouched in a tree when he’d been fleeing from the female demon. Above all, it was a living creature, scuttling about the cage, desperate to find escape. He saw his hand reach in, grab hold of the creature and pull it out. Saw himself tear the thing apart, heard its dying squeal of agony, watched blood gush and entrails flop as one creature became two halves.

  His stomach didn’t buck and heave, and he didn’t cough or hack. He simply opened his mouth wide and vomit poured out in an acrid, foul-smelling flood—hot, thick and, worst of all, chunky. His throat and nasal passages burned, as if seared by acid, and watery tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision. The horrid flow seemed to go on forever, as if instead of a digestive system, his gut housed a mechanical pump set on high-speed reverse. But finally he emptied, and after a couple last feeble spurts—like a man finishing up pissing and giving his dick a couple last shakes—the river of vomit ended.

  He drew in a gasping breath that felt like razor blades slicing the raw flesh of his throat and, his vision clearing, he looked down at the disgusting mess that up until a few moments ago he’d been carrying around inside him. Black liquid coated large chunks of something that David couldn’t identify. At first he thought they might be pieces of his body, that he had literally puked his guts out. And that black shit! What the hell was that? Some kind of poison? Maybe cancer? Is that what he’d just done, thrown up a bunch of tumors? Was something like that even possible?

  The stench hit him then, rank and foul, and it almost set him to retching again. If he’d had anything left in his stomach to void, he was sure he’d have done so now. One summer, back when he and Sarah were still married, they’d hosted a cookout for some friends and neighbors. They’d done it up right, with grilled chicken, ribs, burgers, hot dogs and steaks. It had been a good time, one of the last purely good memories he had of his marriage. There had been no bickering, no fighting, not even mild disappointment. He and Sarah had enjoyed being with their friends, as well as with each other. But five days later, when David was taking the trash containers down to the curb, he got a whiff of what the summer sun had done to all those meat packages. The blood-smeared plastic and Styrofoam had cooked for days in the heat, and now, even with the trash container lids sealed tight, a slaughterhouse stink wafted forth, hitting David with the force of a sledgehammer. As bad as that had been, what he’d upchucked on the carpet was far, far worse.

  This is what death smells like, he thought.

  “Damn, son,” Simon said. “Next time eat someone with a higher standard of personal hygiene.”

  David’s throat was too raw to reply, not that he had any idea how to respond to what the boy had said. He heard the sound of someone sniffing the air, breathing in and out fast, the way a dog takes in a scent it’s excited by.

  “Is that pancreas I smell?”

  He turned to see the old woman who’d been first in line to get meat from Jimmy. She was standing close by, the others gathered around her, including Jimmy and Maribel. They had left their trays at the meat station and were now all staring with naked lust at the puddle of half-digested chunks and gastric juices. A few of them, including the pancreas-obsessed old woman, were drooling, thick, ropy strands of saliva dangling from the corners of their mouths as if they were starving animals.

  Without another word, both customers and employees rushed forward, fell to the floor, and began scooping meaty chunks and black goo into their mouths with both hands. They moaned in ecstasy as they gulped down the meat without bothering to chew it. And why should they? David had already taken care of that task for them.

  Maribel paused in her sickening feast and looked up at David. Her mouth and chin were smeared with black goo, and she held a piece of purplish meat clenched between her teeth. She swallowed the grisly morsel, then gave him a smile.

  “Waste not, want not,” she said, and then rejoined the others, who were now fighting over what scraps remained.

  It was too much for David. He turned and fled, running through the dining room, past the registers and out the main entrance. He was unaware if Simon followed him, had indeed forgotten all about the boy. His only thought was to get the hell out of the restaurant and away from the vomit-eating lunatics inside.

  Being outside wasn’t the relief he’d hoped it would be, though. No fresh air to cool his hot skin or soothe his burning nasal passages and throat. No blue sky or white clouds above to calm his nerves and help him begin to relax. No familiar view of the restaurant’s parking lot to reassure him that normality still existed in the world. The air remained stale, flat and still, the sky a nauseating infection-yellow. The parking lot suffered from the same destructive blight that had befallen the rest of the town. Fissures ran through the asphalt, and some sections of it bulged upward, while others had sunk. The trees that bordered the lot were leafless, twisted, lifeless, and the ground they emerged fr
om was barren, dry and dusty. The cars in the lot, what few there were, had been parked with no regard to designated spaces. They rested at awkward angles to each other, bodies rust-nibbled, paint faded, tires gone flat, windows broken or missing altogether.

  How did I get here? he wondered. Not outside—he knew that part—but how did he get here in the first place? He had no memory of walking across the distorted version of Lockwood to get to Country Time Buffet. The last thing he remembered was sitting on the ground with his back against the side wall of a house, an older black man approaching him, and then…then…

  “Are you all right?”

  The rest of the memory—the part that wouldn’t come, no matter how hard he tried to force it—faded at the question. David turned to see Lindsey had followed him outside. He’d been so preoccupied he hadn’t heard her leave the restaurant. He noted Simon’s absence then, and he wondered if the boy was down on his knees with the others, shoving handfuls of vomit into his mouth, or if he was just standing there watching them feast, arms folded, a wry smile on his face and a dark glint in his eyes. The latter, probably. Simon didn’t strike him as the vomit-eating type.

  “I’m all right.” His throat was raw, and his words came out in a low croak. Worse, his mouth felt like he’d licked an outhouse clean. He swallowed a couple times, and when he spoke next, his voice sounded closer to normal. “What’s wrong with Maribel, Jimmy and the others? Hell, what’s wrong with everything? Do you know?”

  He hated the way he sounded: pleading, desperate, almost on the verge of tears. But he couldn’t help it. Ever since he had found himself walking down the street with Simon at his side, he’d been living a nightmare, one that he couldn’t seem to find his way out of.

  “They’re just hungry, that’s all. Everyone is. I bet you are too. You didn’t just toss your cookies in there. You tossed the whole damn bag of groceries.” She smiled. “You got to be empty as a church collection plate on Monday morning. Don’t feel embarrassed, though. It happens sometimes. You just filled your belly too full, that’s all. It’s one of the problems with being so hungry all the time. It’s hard to know when to quit. Of course, there’s all kinds of hungry, aren’t there?”

  She walked toward him as she said this last bit, until she was standing only a few inches from him. She’d kept her gaze fixed on his, and her smile widened and took on a slightly naughty edge. He was uncomfortable with her being this close, but he didn’t take a step back. Doing so would be broadcasting just how uncomfortable he was, and he didn’t want her to know that. It would give her too much of an advantage.

  Lindsey had flirted with him on and off before his divorce, but once she learned that his marriage was over, she had kicked her flirtation into overdrive. He wasn’t a saint, and he’d been tempted to play the game with her, but he hadn’t been certain how serious she was. Besides, he was her supervisor, and not only wouldn’t it have been appropriate, it could’ve gotten both of them fired. But neither of those reasons was the full truth behind why he hadn’t called Lindsey’s bluff. Despite everything, he still wasn’t over Sarah yet.

  But here he was, playing the game now—or at least not protesting as Lindsey came on to him. He was actually grateful for her attention. After everything that had happened to him in the last few hours, Lindsey’s flirting was a welcome bit of normality, even if what she’d said was anything but normal.

  “How could anyone be hungry enough to—” He broke off as his stomach rumbled.

  Lindsey giggled. “Told you!” She took another half step forward, and put her hands on his shoulders.

  It was crazy. A few moments ago he’d been vomiting so hard it had felt as if he were turning inside out. But now he wasn’t just hungry—he was ravenous.

  An image passed through his mind then, an older black man approaching him, cold, raw hunger in his eyes.

  Only take a little. Promise. Promisssssse…

  David wasn’t sure what it meant. It felt like a memory, or rather the ghost of a memory, something he should be able to recall but for whatever reasons couldn’t. The more he tried to focus on the memory and bring it into sharper relief, the more it slid away from him until it was gone, and all that remained was his hunger.

  “I can help,” Lindsey said, almost whispering the words.

  David experienced a sensation of arousal at her words, but it wasn’t sexual. It was stronger than that, and it went deeper, to the very core of his being. What he felt was need, primal and all-consuming.

  Lindsey let go of his shoulders and took a step back. He almost reached out to stop her, would have if he’d thought she was trying to get away from him. But she kept her gaze fastened on his, and he could see the same powerful hunger mirrored in her eyes.

  Slowly, she began unbuttoning her blue work shirt, exposing the pearl piercing between her breasts. She lowered her arms and shrugged the shirt off. It slipped away from her body and fell to the concrete walk in front of the restaurant. Her healthy breasts overflowed a black bra that was a size too small to do its job properly, and when she reached behind her back to undo the clasp, they seemed to spill out of the cups with twin sighs of relief.

  She slipped the bra off and dropped it to the ground to join her shirt.

  “No one’s tasted me yet,” she said. “I haven’t let them. I wasn’t sure why. Everyone does it. You know…when it’s needed. I suppose I was hoping you’d show up.” Her smiled turned shy. “And you did.”

  She cupped her breasts and raised them, as if presenting them to him.

  “Go ahead. Take a bite. I want you to.”

  Warring impulses fought within him. He recognized that her breasts were great looking, but seeing them revealed like this sparked no sexual desire in him. He did desire them, but in the same way he desired a Thanksgiving turkey fresh from the oven, one that was perfectly prepared: succulent, moist and dripping with juices. But accompanying this desire was a wave of revulsion at Lindsey’s offer—and at the sick hunger it stirred within him. Was he really contemplating lunging forward, gabbing hold of one of her tits with both hands, squeezing it tight to make the flesh firm, and then biting into it with all his strength? What would it be like? Would the taut skin pop beneath the pressure of his teeth? Or would he have to work at it—chew, tear, rip, like a dog worrying a steak? He really wanted to find out, and all he had to do to make it happen was give in and let nature—“red in tooth and claw”, as the poet said—take its course.

  His hands rose without any conscious control on his part and reached for Lindsey’s left breast, and he found himself leaning forward, mouth opening wide, far wider than he remembered it ever opening before. Wider…wider…

  “That’s right,” Lindsey whispered. “Make sure you bite hard. I want it to hurt soooooo good, Davey! And take a nipple if you want.” She laughed. “Hell, take ’em both!”

  Maybe it was the way she drew out the word so, or the way she called him Davey. No one had ever called him that before, not even when he was a kid. Or maybe it was the way his stomach scream-scream-screamed to be filled, like a frenzied, mindless thing that knew or cared for nothing but its own insatiable need. But somehow David shook himself free from the trance that gripped him, and he stepped away from Lindsey, horrified.

  He felt an absurd impulse to apologize to her. Sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. Instead, he turned and fled into the parking lot.

  “Chickenshit!” she shouted after him. “Limp-dick motherfucker!”

  He ignored her as he ran, a single driving thought blazing in his mind.

  Home.

  Chapter Five

  Dinner was served in the school cafeteria around five o’clock. When it came to keeping time, “around” was as precise as anyone got these days. Without jobs or appointments, there was nothing to be on time for, and without electricity, none of the clocks in the school worked. Some people wore digital watches or kept battery-powered clocks in their quarters, but over the months, even those people had stopped paying attention to them
for the most part. Now people moved to the rhythm of the day instead of in response to ticks and tocks, just as they had throughout most of human history.

  Kate wondered if the world would ever become so civilized again that people would organize their entire lives around the demands of a simple counting machine. Part of her—a part that had taught students much younger than the ones who had gone to this school and who’d lived for two-thirty, when classes ended—hoped not. There was something liberating about not having to worry about what time it was. Every apocalypse had its silver lining, she supposed.

  She filed in with the others and queued up at the serving line. Everyone carried a cup of some kind, their cup, one they kept in their quarters with whatever meager personal belongings they had. Kate’s was a ceramic mug that said Coffee Is Not My Cup of Tea. She’d gone to school here—as had David—and every time she ate she felt as if she were fifteen again.

  Some of the people in line chatted about nothing in particular. What work had gotten done that day, what hadn’t and what needed doing tomorrow. A few made plans to play euchre later, and she was careful not to meet their eyes. She hated euchre and didn’t want them to invite her to join them. Not that there was much chance of that. While she had some acquaintances, she didn’t consider any of them friends. Nicholas was probably the closest thing she had to one of those, and that was only because she tended to pair up with him for work more than she did anyone else.

  In general, she tended to keep to herself, but that wasn’t so unusual. For every person chatting in line, there were two who remained silent and expressionless. There wasn’t a man, woman or child still alive in Lockwood who hadn’t suffered the loss of family and friends. Lose too much, hurt too much, and you didn’t want to make any new emotional connections. Relationships were just more pain waiting to happen. Before today, Kate had thought she understood the pain of loss, but after seeing what David had become…well, now she knew better.