The Way of All Flesh

by Tim Waggoner

  Given how few humans still survived, Toby guessed his brother’s three semesters of college made him one of the most educated people left on the planet. This was something else he’d chosen not to point out to their father.

  Speaking of Dad, he would beat the holy living hell out of the three of them if he had any idea what they were doing. The Dempseys lived on a farm outside town—one that, like the pickup, Whit Dempsey had acquired after Blacktide had taken the lives of the previous owners. Up to that point, the Dempseys had lived in a run-down suburb in one of Lockwood’s less desirable sections. Once Dad had claimed the property, he’d gathered his children, their spouses and kids, and a few select friends. He’d established his own tiny kingdom. Aside from the occasional supply run into Lockwood, the family had nothing to do with the town. Things were simpler that way, Whit believed.

  But as far as Toby, Seth and Annie were concerned, hanging around the farm day in and day out was boring as hell. The old man wanted the farm to be more than just a place to live, so there were chores to do, but not that many. Certainly not enough to keep everyone busy. They’d only planted enough crops to feed themselves, and they didn’t keep many animals, just some chickens and a couple cows. They were all the animals that the Dempseys had managed to rescue from the surrounding farms. Zombies had killed the rest of the livestock in the area.

  With no TV, no Internet and no alcohol—the Dempseys’ one attempt at a still had blown up in June—their entertainment options were limited to the few books they had, board games or cards. And sex, of course. But even that could get dull if it was all you had to do.

  So once a month or so, in the middle of the night, Toby, Seth and Annie snuck out, pushed the pickup down the long driveway to the road, started the engine and drove into Lockwood for some fun. They always made sure to return well before sunrise, and so far they hadn’t been caught. And if one or more of them got killed during one of their trips…well, the thrill was in the risk, right?

  “How about the school?” Toby suggested.

  That got Seth’s attention. He turned to look at his brother. “That’s a dipshit idea. You know we can’t trust the people who holed up there.”

  At best, Whit Dempsey regarded the other group of survivors in Lockwood as competitors for resources. At worst, he considered them to be thieves, rapists and murderers who’d love nothing better than to steal the Dempseys’ food, fuck their women and kill everyone when they were finished. As far as Toby knew, Dad had no reason for believing this, but then, Whit Dempsey wasn’t the kind of man who allowed something as insignificant as a piddling lack of evidence to get in the way of his opinions.

  “I don’t mean the high school,” Toby said. “The elementary school.” Although Lockwood had only one high school, it was large enough to have two elementary schools. But Toby didn’t have to say which one he meant. The three of them had all gone to the same one: Briarwood Elementary.

  Seth thought about it for a moment, and then grinned slowly.

  “Yeah, that’ll work.”

  David walked past a group of people gathered in the middle of the street. They were finishing off what was left of the skinny demon, and their hands, faces and clothes were covered with blood. David barely glanced at the demon’s savaged corpse as he walked past, although his stomach cramped painfully when he got a whiff of meat, blood and offal. He ignored his gut’s plaintive urging and kept walking.

  He had no destination in mind. He just wanted to get away from the house, wanted to forget about the nightmarish transformation that had occurred to it. He supposed that would happen of its own accord soon enough. He found it so hard to hold on to thoughts. They slipped from his mind with the ease of snowflakes melting in the sun. He was already having trouble remembering meeting Simon this morning… Or had it been yesterday?

  And then something had happened in the park right after that. There had been food, he remembered that much, but otherwise it was a blur. Soon, it wouldn’t even be that. Just an empty space where a memory once had been. On one hand, it was a blessing. Who would want to remember the horrible events he had recently experienced? But the fading of his memories terrified him too.

  It was one thing to forget the bad stuff. It would be quite another to forget the good things, like Steve and Lizzie, and even his marriage to Sarah. There had been enough happy times in their relationship that he didn’t want to forget it. But he was afraid he wouldn’t have any choice in the matter.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? Not only couldn’t he think straight, he’d developed a craving—no, more like an all-encompassing, insatiable hunger—for flesh. The more raw and bloody, the better. And he wasn’t the only one. Everyone he’d met had been in the grip of the same hunger. Demon flesh, human flesh, it didn’t matter. Meat was meat as far as they were concerned. The only person he’d encountered who didn’t seem to experience this sick hunger was Simon. He then remembered something the boy had said.

  Maybe this is Hell and I’m your very own personal devil.

  David had been raised a Catholic, but both his parents had drifted away from the church while he was a preteen, and he’d never missed it. Nor had he felt a need to return to the church after his own children were born. Sarah’s family was Jewish, but it was more a cultural identity than a religious one for her, and thus she also felt no need to indoctrinate the kids into any kind of organized religion.

  But while you can take the boy out of church, you can’t take the church out of the boy, and those early religious teachings had helped form the bedrock of his personality. The priest in their church had subscribed to the modern view that Hell was more a spiritual state than a physical place: eternal separation from the presence of God. But David had been too young for such sophisticated theological abstraction, and he’d seen enough cartoons and read enough comics to know what Hell was really like: flames, never-ending punishment and pitchfork-wielding devils that cackled maniacally while they tortured you. This distorted, insane version of Lockwood he’d found himself trapped in certainly seemed like Hell—and if it wasn’t, it would do until the real thing came along.

  But if this was Hell, what had he done to deserve being sent here? He was no saint, but he wasn’t Hitler, either. He was just a normal guy who tried to work hard and take care of his family. He could understand why he wouldn’t rate a first-class suite in Heaven, but there was no way he deserved this.

  You don’t remember dying, do you? he thought. Maybe there are other things you don’t remember—like what you did to earn a one-way trip to Satan’s Funhouse.

  But as bad as this version of Lockwood was—and it was pretty goddamned bad—he felt certain Hell would be infinitely worse. The torment would be beyond imagining and human endurance, but this place, as fucked up as it was, didn’t fit that bill. Besides, if this was Hell, his memory would function perfectly—better than perfect—it would be photographic. He wouldn’t be allowed the relief of forgetting. So…not Hell. But then…what was this place?

  “Why did you let the old demon go?”

  David wasn’t surprised to hear Simon’s voice. In fact, he’d rather been expecting it.

  He glanced sideways at the boy. “Why do you care?”

  Simon shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “You know what’s going on, don’t you? You know what’s happened to the town, what’s happened to me.”

  Simon said nothing, but his knowing grin was all the answer David needed.

  He stopped walking and whirled on the boy.

  “Tell me or I’ll kill you,” David said. The calm, cold tone in his voice sounded nothing like him. It was as if someone else—or something else—had taken control of his body and spoken through him. He felt like a living ventriloquist’s dummy: mute and helpless, aware that someone else was putting words in his mouth but unable to do anything about it.

  Simon didn’t seem intimidated in the least by David’s threat.

  “How’s this for a counteroffer? Answer my question, and I’ll
consider answering one of yours.”

  Anger—hot, fierce and blinding—took hold of David then, and he wanted to wrap his fingers around Simon’s neck and squeeze so hard that the son of a bitch’s head popped right off like a dandelion’s. But Simon’s offer was too good to pass up. David needed answers, hungered for them even more than he hungered for flesh. Besides, there wasn’t much point in choking someone who didn’t feel it.

  “All right. Ask your question.”

  “Why?” Simon said. He didn’t repeat the rest of the question. He didn’t have to.

  “Because he didn’t matter,” David said. “There’s only one thing that matters.”

  Before he could answer, Simon said, “Family.”

  “Yes,” David said.

  Simon nodded, seemingly satisfied. “All right, it’s your turn. One question, one answer. And before you ask, consider this: I can tell you where to find your children.”

  Sudden hope rushed through David, hitting him so hard he felt dizzy.

  “Are they alive? Are they safe? Are they—” He broke off, reminding himself—one question, one answer.

  “Where?”

  Simon told him.

  He had no idea how long it took for him to reach Briarwood. On one hand, it seemed to take forever, but on the other, it was as if one moment he was walking down the street not far from his old home and the next he was crossing the school’s parking lot. There was running in between, he was fairly certain of that—a lot of it—although he wasn’t out of breath and he didn’t feel tired. His journey was a blur of decaying and half-collapsed houses, lifeless trees, barren lawns and rust-eaten vehicles. And hanging above it all, the unvarying pus-yellow of the sky.

  Simon walked alongside him, and although he had no clear memory of the youth accompanying him every step of the way, David felt he must have. Then again, maybe Simon appeared and disappeared whenever he felt like it. If this was some kind of fucked-up afterlife—not Hell, but perhaps Purgatory or just some nameless, purposeless limbo—then maybe Simon did come and go as he pleased, winking in and out of existence as the whim struck him. David didn’t care. All that mattered was finding Steve and Lizzie. He couldn’t stand the thought of them wandering alone through this twisted version of Lockwood, avoiding ivory-fleshed demons and insane cannibals. They must be so confused, so scared…

  I’m coming, he thought. Daddy’s coming.

  Briarwood Elementary School was located in the midst of one of Lockwood’s nicer suburbs, although it drew students from some of the poorer neighborhoods to the south. The school had been here since the late 1960s, but the buildings and grounds had been renovated a decade ago, giving it a more modern, upscale appearance that made it look less like a place for educating kids and more like a facility that housed doctors’ and lawyers’ offices. At least, that’s what it had looked like.

  Now the buildings were as decayed and dilapidated as the rest of Lockwood, window glass cracked and clouded, brick walls covered with the omnipresent mold that infested the town. On the wall next to the main entrance, above corroded metal letters bolted to the brick that had once spelled out BRIARWOOD ELEMENTARY but now said BR ARWO LEM TA Y—a phrase had been spray-painted in white.

  Can’t stop the Tide!

  David paused and stared at the words for a moment. There was something about the phrase that niggled at his memory, but he couldn’t say what. He considered asking Simon, but he decided not to bother. He’d only make a smart-ass comment or an enigmatic one. Most likely a combination of the two. But whatever he said, it wouldn’t be helpful. Besides, David was here for his kids. Nothing else—nothing—mattered.

  “Where are they?” he asked Simon.

  “I told you. They’re here.” Simon’s tone was one of complete innocence, but David wasn’t fooled.

  “You know what I mean. Where exactly are they? Inside?”

  “What are you going to do if I don’t tell you? Threaten to kill me again? You saw how well that worked the last time.” He let out a theatrical sigh. “But if you must know, they’re at the one place you’d expect kids to be.”

  David cudgeled his fog-enshrouded brain for the answer. It took him a couple seconds, but he found it.

  “The playground.”

  Without waiting for Simon to respond, he started walking around the side of the school. Briarwood had been constructed in a blocky U shape, with the bottom of the U facing the street. Inside the U was a small courtyard, which contained a miniature flower garden and pond. Teachers took their classes to the courtyard several times a year, weather permitting, to perform various small-scale science experiments.

  The playground was located behind the building, and past it lay a soccer field that, as far as David knew, didn’t see much use except for Field Day in the spring. Both of his kids attended Briarwood—Steve was in fourth grade, Lizzie in second—and sometimes on the weekends when he had them he’d bring them here to play. He was always a bit surprised that both of them were so eager to return to their school on the weekends. When he’d been their age, the last thing he ever would’ve wanted to do on the weekend was go back to school. But then again, he’d never had a playground as cool as Briarwood’s.

  Simon, of course, walked at his side, and as they continued past the south side of the building—cracked windows, fissured brick, thick clumps of greenish-gray mold clinging to the outer walls—David glanced at the boy. Up to this point, all David had been able to think about was getting here. But now that they were approaching the playground, he was beginning to feel a fluttery sick feeling in his gut, as if some kind of large, half-dead insect was trying to take wing inside him.

  “So what nasty surprise am I going to find waiting for me?” he asked Simon.

  “I didn’t realize you were so cynical,” the youth responded, one corner of his mouth ticking up in a ghost of a smile.

  “You said my kids were here, but you didn’t say they were all right.”

  “True,” Simon admitted. “Life—even the mockery of it that you find yourself living right now—comes with no guarantees. As always, you pay your money, you take your chance.”

  “But you know what’s back there, don’t you?”

  “I know a great many things,” Simon said, not answering the question. “But there’s at least one thing I don’t know.”

  “What’s that?”

  Simon’s smile vanished, and he gave David a penetrating look. “Whether or not you’re the One. It’s what I’m here to find out.”

  Before David could ask what Simon meant, they came around the side of the building in sight of the playground, and the boy’s cryptic statement was driven from his mind.

  When Briarwood had undergone renovation a few years back, the school had put in a top-of-the-line playground. Slides, swings, climbing equipment, twisting tunnels, sliding poles—everything an elementary school kid could wish for—all fashioned from sturdy plastic and set atop a layer of soft cedar chips in case anyone fell.

  When David had been a kid, his school playground had been erected on hard blacktop. If a kid fell to the ground and was injured, teachers called the emergency squad, and after the howling child was hauled away to the hospital, they hosed off the blood and everyone went back to playing. Sometimes he thought it a wonder that any of them had lived to see adulthood.

  The playground was still recognizable as such, but like the rest of Lockwood, it had changed and—also like the rest of the town—not for the better. The equipment was now a nightmarish conglomeration of meat, bone, skin, muscle and tendon, an organic obscenity that appeared to have grown instead of having been assembled. Children, a dozen or more, played on the grotesque structure, running and laughing as if unaware of the grisly nature of the equipment beneath them. The fleshy material glistened with a sheen of blood and sweat, and it made soft, moist sounds as kids ran across it. Instead of cedar chips, the ground was covered with a thick layer of gleaming razor blades, and David felt a cold shudder as he imagined what would happe
n to a child if he or she fell into it. Slice and dice, he thought, and shuddered again.

  Children weren’t the only ones present. A group of adults stood at the edge of the playground, watching them play. Teachers or parents, he figured. Three men, five women, all but two clothed in professional dress—suit and ties, or blouses and skirts. Their outfits were torn and soiled, splotched with dark stains he didn’t want to think too much about. The other two adults—one male, one female—were naked. The woman was middle-aged and overweight, and her flabby flesh had large chunks bitten out of it. The man was in his late thirties, with tangled, matted hair and a patchy growth of beard. From this angle, David could only catch a glimpse of the man’s front, but from what he could see, it looked as if the man had a gaping hole where his cock and balls should’ve been. He didn’t question how a man could survive after receiving a wound that severe. This one clearly had.

  If anyone, adult or child, cared that these two were standing bare-assed—not to mention partially mutilated—on school property, they gave no indication. And really, why should they? David thought. Public nudity and even disfigurement were small potatoes compared to some of the shit he’d seen recently.

  The playground was crawling with children, perhaps two dozen or more, all running and laughing as they put the equipment through its paces. At first he didn’t see his kids, and he feared that Simon had lied to him—something which would’ve come as no surprise—but then he spotted them.

  Steve was sitting on a hideous parody of a tire swing. The “tire” was made from a pair of dead bodies lashed to a circular metal frame with barbed wire, the chains attached to the flesh by large, gleaming meat hooks. Steve sat on one of the bodies, legs dangling over the sides, holding on to the chains for support as the “tire” swung around in wide circles. Steve grinned as if he was having a fantastic time, and David thought that grin was the most soul-sickening thing he’d seen since finding himself in this nightmare version of Lockwood. His son—his little boy—seemed not to recognize the true nature of the obscenity he was playing on. Or worse, maybe he did.