Tommy raised the knife one more time and tried to bury it in Tater’s laughing face, but Tater caught his arm. Bones cracked and splintered under his grip. Tommy screamed, and Tater responded by giving his arm a fast twist and yank. Tommy’s arm was now a meaty stump just past the elbow. Tater grinned, and started eating the forearm. He wrung out the forearm the same way a person might wring out a wet towel. Meaty pulp and blood dribbled into his mouth, and then as if to add insult to injury…he slurped the marrow.
“What the fuck? Somebody help me!” Tommy screamed.
“Yeah! Somebody help him!” Tater laughed.
Blood spurted, and Tommy tried to hold his hand over the wound hoping he could plug it up like a child plugging a water leak. “Help me please!”
A group of people ran out of the gas station to watch as Tater continued stalking his prey. Blood kept spurting through Tommy’s fingers, but he kept trying to block the flow with his hand. Tater kept biting the forearm like he was chewing on beef jerky. It wasn’t very long before he’d worked his way from the forearm down to the hand.
“Hey leave that poor man alone. He fought in the war.” An older woman screamed from the crowd. The others chimed in their support.
Tater spun around, spit out a finger at the old woman and yelled, “So none of you noticed that he somehow magically regrew his legs? Fucking morons!”
Tommy was getting dizzy from blood loss. He fell to the ground, blood spurting all over the ground, “Someone please help me!” He went from trying to block the flow of blood with his hand, to cupping the blood with his remaining hand and splashing it into the bloody stump in a misguided attempt to get the blood back in.
Tater stood over the man, and then bent over to grab him under the armpit. Effortlessly, he lifted the man off the ground with one arm. “Oh my God…can you believe how strong I am. I guess milk really does a body good.”
“Please don’t kill me.”
“Can you quit saying that? I mean it’s just irritating.”
“I don’t want to die.” Tommy started crying.
“Stop crying. How about a magic trick? You like magic right.”
“N-n-no…” Tommy sobbed.
Tater laughed, “Oh don’t be silly, everyone loves magic. Now watch close…are you ready?”
Tommy shook his head, “Please let me go.”
As the crowd watched the two men, they were all on their cell phones calling 9-1-1. Somewhere in a call center, several calltakers winced as they heard Tommy scream in agony as Tater laughed, “Got your nose” as he ripped the nose off Tommy’s face in one quick swipe of his hand. Then he popped it in his mouth like it was a chicken nugget.
“Why won’t any of you help me?” Tommy begged the crowd.
One of the men answered, “I’d like to, but the 9-1-1 operator told me police are on the way, and that I shouldn’t do anything that I feel might be dangerous.”
“Please!” Tommy begged.
“Hey Tommy…guess what?” Tater said while still chewing on his nose. Tommy didn’t even have the strength to respond. Tater swallowed down the nose and chuckled, “The snozzberries do taste like snozzberries.”
After all the blood loss, Tommy passed out. Tater shrugged, leaned in, and then began chewing his way through the man’s forehead. A few bites later, Tater was making happy sounds as he reached the man’s brain.
It was ten minutes before the police arrived. In that time Tater had eaten his way through the skull, and was picking out the last few bits from the skull like a child grabbing some sweets our of a candy dish. Deputies Cletus Redford and Bob Pocky arrived almost simultaneously. They stepped out of their vehicles and pointed their pistols at the man absentmindedly chewing off one of Tommy’s ears.
“Freeze!” Deputy Redford screamed while pointing his gun at center mass. Then the deputy keyed up on his radio, “We need E.M.S. en route, have them stage. Also give us the channel.”
A disembodied voice came through the radio, “Dispatch to all units. We are on emergency traffic only for Eagle twenty-one’s disturbance at highway twelve and Forest road. Dispatch to any available seargeant?”
After a moment of silence, Colton’s voice barked through the radio, “I copied. I’m currently logged off, but I’m monitoring. Do either of you have a tazer?”
“No…they’re still being repaired. Colton…this looks pretty bad. This guy is…I mean…just please get down here as soon as you can.” Deputy Pocky practically pleaded into the mic.
“…” The microphone keyed up, but no one said anything. Then a few seconds later, “I’ll be heading your way. Dispatch, can you log me on, and I have a rider. Coona…er um…Bobby Mullins is with me. Please note that in my login. Also note that he is carrying a shotgun. Dispatch…show us running code.”
“10-4.” The dispatcher’s voice answered with no hint of emotion.
Both deputies breathed a sigh of relief, and then began screaming for Tater to surrender. Cletus held his gun steady as a surgeon, but Bob’s hand shook like he had Parkinson’s disease. Both men were terrified, but only one was visibly showing it. To the crowd, Deputy Cletus Redford perfectly resembled the part of a tough young cop.
Don’t scream like a girl…don’t scream like a girl…and if you do scream like a girl, try to make it a manly girl! That thought kept circling over and over in Deputy Redford’ mind like a song stuck on a loop, but on the outside he was screaming at the man, and doing his best to maintain control of the situation.
Aim for center mass. Try to keep the suspect away from the crowd. If they don’t back up this could get bad really quickly, but I can’t turn away from the suspect to tell them to get to safety…I really wish I hadn’t listened to Cletus. We should have asked for a third unit to assist before we ever got out here. I mean sure we’re it, but we could have asked for mutual aid from another department. Now I’m gonna have to shoot this guy because Cletus wanted to play cowboy, and what’s wrong with this guy anyway? What kind of drugs is this whack-job on that could make him act like this? Deputy Pocky thoughts may not have matched his body language, but his mind was going as fast as it could to try to find a peaceful solution. Until then he was falling back on the old standby of screaming for the man to surrender.
“Dude…seriously, don’t yell. I’ll share.” Tater waved the dead body up at the deputies.
“Put him down…n-n-NOW!” Deputy Pocky also took careful aim, but his hand was visibly shaking.
“Damn…you people are so bossy. Fine.” Tater tossed the body away. Tommy’s corpse sailed through the air and landed into the trash.
“Get on the ground now!” Both officers screamed.
“What? Was I supposed to recycle?” Tater laughed, and bits of Tommy rand down his chin. The crowd started holding up their cellphones to record everything. Tater looked at the crowd and gave a very courteous bow, “I’m ready for my close-up Mr. Demille.” He immediately started moving towards the crowd.
The officers saw him moving, and began shooting. Each round hit Tater in the chest, but he barely noticed it. When the officers started reloading, Tater chuckled and said, “Man we got some big ass mosquitos around here.”
“How are you even still standing?” The old woman said. Her feet were frozen in place from fear.
“I don’t know…the power of positive thinking?” Tater said before biting into her shoulder.
“Oh God someone help me!” She screamed.
The crowd just formed a semi-circle around the old woman and collectively stared at the police as if to say, “Well? Are you going to do anything?”
Both deputies keyed up on their on their radios, “Shots fired!”
The dispatcher keyed up in emotional flatline, “Multiple units. Eagle twenty-one you were covered by Eagle twenty-two. Can you readvise your traffic?”
“Shots fired! We need assistance. We just emptied both of our guns into the subject, and he didn’t even flinch.”
Dispatch keyed up in a calm monotone, “Recei
ved, Eagle twenty-two? Go ahead with your traffic.”
“It was the same thing…and OH SH-“ Deputy Pocky hand slipped off the radio button before finishing, “IT!”
Deputy Pocky had been so shaken by the attack on the old woman, that he didn’t realize how much closer the suspect was to them now that he was attacking the old woman. When Tater leapt off the old woman, and onto the police cruiser, it took the deputy completely by surprise. Tater then ran across the hood and dove right into both deputies. He began biting them both, and tearing at them both like a dog that can’t make up its mind which chew toy to play with. Only then did the crowd start funneling back into the gas station for safety.
Chapter Eleven
Cletus Redford’s voice blasted out from Colton’s radio, “We need E.M.S. en route, have them stage. Also give us the channel.”
The dispatcher’s voice caused Bobby to wince, “Dispatch to all units. We are on emergency traffic only for Eagle twenty-one’s disturbance at highway twelve and Forest road. Dispatch to any available seargeant?”
Colton turned down the volume to his police radio, “Sorry, I try to keep that turned up so I can listen to the radio.” He then picked up the handheld microphone and said, “I copied. I’m currently logged off, but I’m monitoring. Do either of you have a tazer?”
“No…they’re still being repaired. Colton…this looks pretty bad. This guy is…I mean…just please get down here as soon as you can.” Deputy Pocky practically pleaded into the mic.
Colton keyed, up but unkeyed immediately when Bobby said, “Man that one dude sounds like he’s falling apart. What kind of chickenshit deputies do you have working for you?”
“Don’t worry about Bob, he’s skittish, but does a good job.” Colton then keyed back up, “I’ll be heading your way. Dispatch, can you log me on, and I have a rider. Coona…er um…Bobby Mullins is with me. Please note that in my login. Also note that he is carrying a shotgun. Dispatch…show us running code.”
“10-4.” The dispatcher’s voice answered with no hint of emotion.
“Wow, she sounds bored.” Bobby laughed.
“Not really, she’s just really well trained. A good dispatcher never flinches, and Lisa is a great dispatcher.”
“Really? It just sounds like she doesn’t care.”
Colton nodded, “Yeah, but that comes with practice. You don’t want your dispatcher getting emotional. The best dispatcher is someone that sounds calm and clear when the rest of us are freaking out.”
Colton reached down, but before he could do anything Bobby asked, “What’s code mean?”
“It means we’re driving to the scene with our lights and sirens on.”
Colton tried to flip the switch, but Bobby interrupted, “Can I do it?”
“Do what?”
“The lights and sirens…can I turn them on?”
Colton sighed, “Everybody wants to play with the lights and siren…go ahead. Flip those two switches.”
Bobby did as he was instructed, and then grinned like a big kid as the blue and red lights blinked and spun. “This is so cool.”
Colton pressed harder onto the gas, “Hopefully all of this will be taken care of before we get there, and then we can go investigate your crazy werewolf shit.”
“I know what I saw.”
“I’m sure you did, but that doesn’t mean that is really what happened. You were scared, and in the heat of the moment I think maybe your imagination the better of you.”
Bubba grumbled, “I wasn’t scared.”
“Sure you were. Shit…I’d be scared if someone came after me. There’s nothing to be ashamed of by that.” Colton answered.
The police radio squelched loudly. A moment later Lisa, the dispatcher, keyed up, “Multiple units. Eagle twenty-one, you were covered by Eagle twenty-two. Can you readvise your traffic?”
Deputy Redford’ voice was terrified, “Shots fired! We need assistance. We just emptied both of our guns into the subject, and he didn’t even flinch.”
Lisa’s calm voice responded, “Received, Eagle twenty-two? Go ahead with your traffic.”
Deputy Pocky screamed, “It was the same thing…and OH SH-“
Sheriff Mudd stomped the gas pedal almost all the way to the floorboard. The engine roared, and both men were pressed back further into their seats. The tires squealed as they rounded every curve and corner. Bobby tried to ignore it by turning up the stereo in the hopes that it might drown out the sound of the tires skidding and screeching as the Explorer slid all over the road. Instead it almost became a soundtrack to his friend’s terrifying driving. More than once the Explorer fish-tailed around a corner, and twice it felt like they’d just barely avoided rolling over. The flashing lights were a warning to anyone on the road. In seconds Colton went from driving seventy down the road, to flying down the road at almost one hundred and ten miles an hour.
“Should we be driving like this?” Bobby squeaked as he held onto the armrest for dear life.
“No.” Colton responded, but then pressed the gas down even further.
The two men were a blur of red and blue light as they raced to the crime scene. Ten minutes later they arrived. The gas station was dark, but there were cars parked with the fuel nozzles still in the gas tank. Two police vehicles were parked with their lights still flashing. A pickup was still running, and its stereo was playing Britney Spears’ “Oops!...I Did it Again”. As Colton pulled up he could see both of his deputies lying face down beside one of the cruisers. An old woman was flat on her back beside a rusty old wheelchair. Colton flipped off the siren, but left the flashing lights on.
“Can we turn that shit off?” Bobby asked as both men stepped out of the ford explorer.
“No…you might ruin evidence.” Colton answered as he went to check the two officers.
“But-“
Colton hissed, “Shhhh…we don’t know where the guy is.” He then pressed the button on his radio, “Dispatch, the scene is not secure, but I need ems up here now. I have two officers down. An elderly woman, and an unknown number of victims.”
Lisa responded a few moments later, “Eagle one…be advised fire and ems are not responding. GPS shows them about one block north of your location.”
“Shit…be ready.” Colton spat.
Both men ran north. They found the medics gutted with bloody handprints covering the inside of the ambulance. One of the men was still going through his final death spasms, but the other man was clearly dead. Both paramedics had bites taken out of their faces, and their internal organs were strewn all over the ground.
“Jesus…” Bubba whispered.
“Keep your eyes out. Let’s get to the firemen.”
The two men walked carefully to the fire engine. Bobby squinted, “I can hardly see through these damn flashing lights.”
Colton nodded, “Yeah, but if we are having trouble seeing, then so is whoever is doing this.”
“Maybe we should get another paramedic?”
“We can’t. They were our only paramedics for the night, any more and we’d need to ask for mutual aid. I want to hold off on that until we have this under control. No sense if having someone stage and get attacked just like those two back there.”
There was a scream of pain from behind the fire engine, “Take that you son of a bitch!”
Bobby and Colton ran to the fire engine. Colton was wheezing from the run, “Jesus…I have to start working out.”
Both men stepped around the back of the fire truck. Several firemen were sprawled out on the pavement, all of them nursing bite wounds. Two of them looked to be dead. Esteban Martinez, the fire chief, leaned against the bumper of his fire truck nursing a bite to the leg. His salt and pepper hair had clumps of dried blood in it. At his feet was Tater. A fire axe was buried in his head.
The fire chief looked at Colton, “It took you long enough. Where are the rest of you?”
“Dead.” Colton said. His voice cracked with emotion.
“Damn shame. W
e kept expecting them to tell us to come in, and then we heard some screaming, but policy says we can’t go in until it’s clear. This guy was on us before we even realized it.” The fire chief shook his head and sat down on the bumper beside a bumper sticker that said, “If putting out fires was easy…police would do it.”
“Damn Esteban, it looks like he was kicking ya’lls ass like it was going out of style. You guys couldn’t have just held him down?”
“Like I said, he just was on us. We didn’t expect anyone to come walking up here, and the next thing we knew this guy was tossing us around like rag dolls, and biting everybody. Shit, he threw Jake like a knuckleball into that Toyota over there. That has to be twenty feet.” Esteban pointed at a blue car. Its windshield was smashed in, and only a leg was sticking out.
“Retard strength.” Bobby said.
“Stop saying that. Someone will hear you, and I’ll be the one catching hell for it.” Colton snapped.
“Remember when the Salinger kid got high on PCP and it took everybody to hold him down.” Esteban asked.
“Yeah, little bastard was squirrelly, and he kept pissing on us.” Colton shuddered.
“It was like that, but this psycho was stronger. He barely even felt what we were doing to him. He walked up here with gunshot wounds, knife wounds, and a face that looks like somebody pounded it into hamburger. How the hell he kept coming is beyond me. The son of a bitch was even making jokes. I mean look at the exit wounds. Three of those bullets had to have gone through the heart, and one of the cuts is through a major artery. How do you even survive that?”
Colton and Bobby stared at Tater’s now lifeless body. The exit wounds were all over his back, but both men could see the fire chief was telling the truth. At least three of the bullets had to have struck the heart, and the knife wounds were deep. Any one of them would have been enough for the man to have bled to death eventually.
“Zombie.” Bobby whispered.
“What?” Colton asked.
Uncle Gary's Campfire Stories: Bayou Zombie Werewolves Page 12
