Twisted Tales

by Edward Grey

  “Robot, can you carry me while you run?”

  “Yes.” He said, and then ran over to Tommy and scooped him up.

  As Robot ran, Tommy looked back and saw six more of the hunter-like creatures appear from behind the trees. Thankfully, Robot’s mechanical legs were strong and fast, so they were able to make decent distance between them.

  After roughly fifteen minutes, Kitty started to feel safe again so Robot slowed his pace as well, and finally set Tommy down.

  “What the hell were those?” Tommy asked.

  Robot said, “I have no idea.”

  “Right… no brains.” Tommy said. “Do you know, Kitty?”

  “I’ve seen them before, but I don’t know what they are either.”

  Tommy knew he had seen something similar to them before, but didn’t want to believe it. In the theater he watched a movie starring a nerdy looking kid and Woody Harrelson. It had these same creatures, though they were in the form of someone’s imagination. The world was also ravaged by something far more dangerous than time. He couldn’t help but think he was now smack dab in the middle of a zombie sci-fi horror flick.

  “I think they’re zombies.”

  “What is a zombie?” Robot asked.

  “Flesh eating creatures that were once human. In my world, time, or whatever, they are born from diseases or viruses.”

  “You have these were you come from?” Kitty asked, and shuddered.

  “No, only in books and movies.”

  “We need to keep moving and find a place that is safe for us to stay for a bit.” Robot said.

  “Good idea.” Tommy agreed.

  They walked for half a mile in total fear. Well, Tommy and Kitty walked with fear. He suspected Robot was indifferent. He could fight the zombies with little effort, and he also figured Kitty could as well, but unfortunately didn’t have the courage to do it.

  On the right side of the street, Tommy saw a small check-cashing store. Like much of the others Tommy had seen, this building had broken windows too. However, they were boarded up from the inside, and through one of the cracks in the wood he could see a warm light burning bright. It flickered like a fire, which meant that someone was probably hiding in there.

  Robot and Kitty followed him to the structure. He cautiously approached the door, expecting that at any moment the zombies would jump out from the bushes, from behind the building, from somewhere and attack them. Thankfully, they reached the door without incident.

  Tommy tried to open the door, but the lock resisted his attempt. He wasn’t surprised considering the dangerous creatures that lurked in this place.

  He knocked once, and no one replied. He knocked harder still, and when it was left unanswered, he reared his foot back to break the door. Just before he kicked it however, he heard the latch on the other side disengage.

  The door cracked open, and when it opened a little wider, there was a man behind it holding a large two-barrel shotgun that was aimed at Tommy’s head.

  5

  The man was probably no more than four feet tall, but the gun certainly made him seem much taller. He was wearing a pilgrim hat, buckle shoes, a green vest, and a large waxed mustache. Had he not had eyes that warned of a man who would sooner pull the trigger than accept a stranger into his home, Tommy might have laughed at his weird appearance.

  When the man spoke, his voice was deep, unsettling, and nothing like you’d expect from someone so small. “What do you want?”

  “We need a safe place to stay.” Tommy said, “We were just attacked by those things and need to get out of the dark.”

  The little man studied Tommy’s companions, and then gestured with the weapon at Kitty. “Why is that Homofelis with you?”

  “Who, Kitty?” Tommy said. “He’s harmless.”

  “If I let you in, then he better behave. If he doesn’t, I’ll blow his head clean off.”

  Tommy wasn’t sure why the little man had such a problem with Kitty. He suspected that he must have had run-ins in the past with his kind, and as a result, has far less than favorable opinions of them.

  The small man pushed the door open and stepped aside. He kept the gun pointed into the street, probably because he too expected the zombies to attack without warning.

  Once they were all inside, the man closed the door, engaged three deadbolts, and wedged the knob with a stick. The place was kept clean, and had signs that he used it for long term living.

  While Kitty and Robot walked to the back room, a small picture upon one of the walls caught Tommy’s attention. It showed the little man standing with a smaller wife and a tiny child. They appeared happy, and he didn’t seem at all as if something dark had penetrated his soul.

  Tommy said, “Is this your family?”

  “It is.” The man said with some discomfort.

  He tried to hide it, but Tommy could tell there was extreme sadness shadowing his simple answer. There was complexity behind it that made Tommy’s heart ache, and he couldn’t probe further without feeling like a jackass for bringing up difficult and personal memories. “I’m Tommy. You are?”

  “Randall.” He said as he sat down to clean the shotgun. “What are you folks doing out there anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but mostly trying to stay alive.”

  “I bet.” He said, “If you’re hungry, I got food over there. Take what you need, I have plenty.”

  On a table near a wall covered in posters of unknown politicians and graying A-list movie stars was a plate with freshly cooked slices of bacon. Tommy knew he smelled something tasty when he entered the man’s fort, but he didn’t realize how hungry he was until he saw the juicy strips.

  Kitty walked from the back room and straight to the table. Evidently, he heard Randall’s offer and started eating some of the strips right away.

  When he smiled with delight over the flavor, Tommy walked to the table and popped a piece into his mouth. The small strip crunched under the pressure of his jaw, and the flavor was amazing. After stuffing a few more pieces into his mouth he turned to the small man. “Where did you find bacon in the city? Aren’t all the stores abandoned?”

  “It’s not bacon, its Chetula.” Randall said.

  “She-toola?”

  “Yeah, those walking meat heads outside that probably tried to kill you and your friends.”

  Tommy dropped the piece that was in his hand. He began to feel nauseous, and as he watched Kitty continue to down more of the human meat sticks, he said, “What possessed you to cook human flesh?”

  “Do you see any other means of nutrition here?”

  “I’m not from this place, so I don’t know what’s available. Seriously though, humans?”

  “They aren’t humans. Those filthy creatures are murderers, and as far as I’m concerned, animals to the core.” Randall said. “Wait, what do you mean you’re not from around here?”

  Tommy watched Robot reenter the room and sit on the floor with his back against one of the walls. Tommy said, “I appeared here out of nowhere.”

  The man looked up at him with a queer eye. He clearly didn’t understand what Tommy meant, but he didn’t know how else to explain it to him.

  “What I mean to say is that I’m new, and I need to find my way home.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Irvine.”

  “Irvine?” He said, “That’s this place, though it hasn’t been called that for years.”

  “Years?”

  “Yeah.” He said as he put a steel brush into the shotgun shaft, “About fifteen years ago, when people started going crazy, it was still called Irvine. Now it really doesn’t have a name anymore. I’m surprised you don’t already know all this…”

  “It’s a long story. Why doesn’t it have a name?”

  “No one ever comes here no more, and no one needs any reason to call any place anything. Everything is destroyed just the same.”

  Tommy’s skin felt icy, and then the blood drained from his face. I
t seemed that the whole world had crumbled and fell victim to whatever it was that afflicted it. He had hoped that if there was no way home, that there would at least be a normal city full of some degree of normality that would help him adjust. However, Randall’s words seemed finite, and it appeared that he wasn’t going to find happiness any time soon.

  After a deep sigh Tommy said, “What happened here?”

  “Don’t know.” He said, “One day everyone was normal, and the next people were trying to eat each other.”

  “Virus?”

  “Well, that’s one theory. Others say that it was disease or technology. Others blame God. You name it, and people blamed it. Many people even blamed that pig flu, or whatever it was called.”

  “Really…”

  “Yep.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “I really don’t know, but I don’t much care to know either. All I want to do is survive, and take as many of those fuckers out before I die.”

  Realizing that it was too touchy a subject, Tommy said, “Is there a place around here I can learn more about what happened?”

  “Not really. Books aren’t being published anymore, and newspapers only offered speculation when shit hit the fan.” Randall said, but when he probably realized Tommy was losing hope, he continued. “Come to think of it, I did get some travelers a while back that told me they were heading to a medical facility that was studying those bastards. Some place called Z Industries.”

  Robot said, “I know it. The building was changed a year ago from a Sam’s club into an office building.”

  Randall said, “That’s the one.”

  “They said they were going there to find the answer?” Tommy asked.

  “Yep, but haven’t heard from them since, but I don’t expect to either.”

  “Well, I guess we have no choice. If they have what we all need, then it’s worth a shot.”

  Kitty turned from the table and fear had gripped his face again. “Do we have to?”

  The man said to me, “He really is terrified ain’t he?”

  “Yeah, he is.” I said, then to Kitty, “You can stay here for as long as this guy will let you, but I’m going to that building.”

  Tommy stood from his chair and walked to the door. Robot joined him a moment later, but Kitty remained near the food.

  Randall said, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Positive. I really just want to get home, or at least find out if it’s even possible.”

  Randall grabbed a large pistol from the table and a box of ammo from the floor. He handed it to Tommy. “Take these. You’ll need it. The box has about thirty rounds and the clip has ten.”

  “Will this be enough?”

  “I don’t know. These bastards are as wild as it gets, and there could be one or hundreds out there. I don’t know what kind of trouble you’ll find, but good luck just the same.”

  Tommy stuffed the weapon into the waist of his pants, and then handed the heavy ammo box to Robot. He opened his chest and put them next to his power supply.

  “Thanks for the food and the weapon.”

  “You guys be careful.”

  “We will.”

  Randall unlocked the door and Tommy followed Robot into the cool night. When he looked back, Kitty was also exiting. “I might as well go with you. I really need to find my family.”

  The street was clear, calm. No movement and no eyes. Tommy was thankful for that because forty rounds would only keep them alive for so long. Besides, he really didn’t have the stomach to shoot something even it was a flesh hungry zombie.

  6

  They traveled the road for about an hour with Robot guiding them. He was the only one that knew how to get there, so Tommy let him lead the way.

  As they approached an intersection that Robot said was roughly a block from Z Industries, Tommy saw a small doll in the gutter. It’s ginger hair and pale fabric skin was soft and made him feel as though it belonged to a young girl at some point.

  That was one of the many problems he had with the whole world being succumbed to such malicious fiends as zombies. Everyone was either attacked or turned into zombies, and children were no exception. He thought about the girl who might have owned this particular doll at some point, and it turned his stomach while plucking feverishly at the soft strings of his heart.

  He walked to the small toy and looked down upon it. When he kneeled to grab it a female voice said, “Can you help me?”

  Tommy looked around, and saw no one. Robot was searching the sky for the voice, and Kitty was frantically eying the shadows probably hoping the woman was not a dangerous predator.

  “Down here.” When Tommy looked back at the doll the voice continued. “Yeah, me.”

  He was thrust into a strange dystopia where darkness seems to be an appropriate condition of its circumstances, and while the android is far more plausible than a cat with human-like features that can walk upright and talk, the whole thing seemed unreal. When all seemed crazy enough, he meets a talking doll. True it was no stranger than what had happened thus far, but he still felt like he was losing his mind. All of this and zombies wrapped up in a neat little package that required several daily doses of stability pills to manage.

  Tommy wiped the sweat from his brow and took a deep breath. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get up.”

  “Why not?”

  “As you can see, I am a doll, and as such, I am filled with gossypium hirstum. I do not have the capability to move my body as you can with your advanced muscular structure.”

  Tommy felt his eyes glaze over with confusion. “Gossy-whatium?”

  The doll sighed, “Cotton.”

  “Oh.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Z Industries. It’s just down the road.”

  “I see. I know about it. Can you take me with you?” It said, “I promise not to be a bother. It’s lonely in the street, and I’ve been here far too long. Besides, I know that I will find answers for myself there.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

  He grabbed the small doll and stuffed it into his pocket. As they all continued down the street towards their destination, he had several questions he wanted to ask. The doll seemed intelligent and might have had the answers he was seeking, but he decided to wait to see what he would find at Z Industries.

  After just a few minutes, they finally arrived. Tommy was surprised with the immaculate condition of the building. By contrast to all other structures, this one was perfectly clean. The walls were free of stains, each of the lamps in the parking lot burned bright, and the inside was well-lit as well. It seemed the building was providing its own power source, but he couldn’t see anything on the exterior to show evidence of it.

  On the roof, he noticed there were several sentries carrying heavy weapons, and on each corner of the building were manned machines that looked like they fired anti-aircraft ammunition. The place was well guarded.

  Because they were at the far end of the parking lot, the army on the roof probably didn’t notice their arrival. Tommy hoped that when they drew nearer, the guards didn’t mistake them for enemies and shoot them dead.

  “We’re here. Let’s see if we can find some answers.” Tommy said with a smile.

  The parking lot had a few cars, an overturned gardening truck, and several shopping carts. Among the debris were the bullet ridden bodies of zombies. The sentries seemed to be crack shots, and each step deeper into the lighted graveyard seemed like an omen to get the hell out of there.

  A quarter of the way in, a booming alarm began to sound and then a spotlight pointed them out. All of them except robot huddled in fear of being killed, but the light eventually moved and finally rested on hundreds of zombies. They were at the far end of the parking lot, gnashing and ready for dinner.

  The sentries began to fire, picking off numerous zombies that were running their direction. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the creatures were ru
nning, tumbling over each other, climbing back up, and looking for fresh meat once again.

  Tommy knew he needed to join the fight. The sentries were safe in their location, but they wouldn’t be able to hold off the mob long enough for the group to make it safely to the building. While the guards managed to kill a few of the zombies, more than half were still getting through their defenses.

  As he removed the gun from his waist, Robot was already grabbing the box of ammunition and opening it. When he looked at Kitty, he was surprised to find that he was picking up a chainsaw near the gardening truck. He thought for sure Kitty would be making a break for the entrance, but he was joining the fight with courage that Tommy never expected to see.

  While the chainsaw growled to life, Tommy began to fire into the crowd of zombies. He managed to hit a couple in the head, but the remaining eight shots either missed or did very little damage.

  Kitty went head-on into the fray. Like several war movies Tommy had seen during his normal life, the carnage of Kitty’s attacks was no less intense. In fact, the gore was far messier. He was slicing many of them to pieces, and the black blood painted the world around him into a dark and nasty décor.

  Robot tore a few in half, and used the halves to clobber the others. Tommy couldn’t help but smile, and might have chuckled too had his life not been in danger of being snuffed out.

  He moved closer to Robot, and then Kitty joined them. While the chainsaw defended, Tommy grabbed the box of ammunition and began loading his empty clip. Once it was filled, he fired aimlessly in the crowd again hoping to cut down at least one more.

  “There’s too many!” Tommy yelled.

  “What are we going to do?” Robot asked calmly.

  “Make a break for the door!”

  They all turned, and were about to head for the entrance when they realized the zombies had encircled them. They were trapped.

  Despair nearly forced Tommy to his knees while the fear of death raced through his veins. Robot would surely live, but he knew that both he and Kitty were sweet pickings for the adventure that waited for them in the afterlife.

  Tommy dropped the gun when the clip was empty and didn’t bother loading it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go out without a fight, but he knew that his attempt was futile. Eventually, they would break through and all defenses would fail, thereby leaving them to the gnashing teeth of the demonic creatures.