What kind of absurd coincidence could have…
But, he stopped. It was no coincidence. Her vomited face on the floor disproved his virus hypothesis. Something larger was at play. She wasn’t ready to be killed. And she wasn’t ready to be eaten. And had she been ready to be killed and eaten, it certainly wouldn’t have been at the hands or teeth of this fool. She had returned to make him pay.
He wondered if this is how it is with all the terrible things in the world. With all the consequences that went unseen. What if the slaughtered cow staggered into the burger joint? Could you still eat a happy meal? What if you had to fuck your Mistress in front of your sobbing wife? Could you keep it hard? What if the pierced and pulverized body of a dead soldier appeared on each citizen’s doorstep and they had to undress it, clean it, stitch it, and prepare it for burial? Would we still go to war? This was his chicken come home to roost. This was his failed consideration during what he thought had been a rarified and elite act. This was his consequence. And it was back to fuck him in the face with a dark terror dick. If only he had known.
It was too late to take it all back. Too late to hit reverse and begin the swooping jerkiness of a rewind replay that would have his chin push off the tub and launch him back onto his feet and re-dirty his teeth and crouch him back onto the toilet. Forcing the puke to levitate off the floor and gush neatly back down his throat with her appetizing body bits to magically re-emerge from his innards onto his tongue. Just like a snack dropping out of a vending machine, only to be neatly reapplied to her body with the cellular structure meshing back together just before pulling the rubber mallet quickly off her face as her final breath; re-inhaled to become her first breath again. It was too late for that!
He needed a breather. But his heavy breath blew ripples into her puke face making her vomit cheeks tremble and her muscle meat lip, appear to quiver with rage. Hot tears leaked into his eyes.
The flash of remorse he felt earlier was no fluke. It was an omen of terror to come. And now, in his mind, it had arrived in the form of three shadowy bounty hunters. Guilt slithered onto the tub to his right, its dusty boot stepping on his puke drenched fingers. Embarrassment knelt down on his left side, dug out a hunk of his shoulder meat and started to nibble at it. Regret straddled and sat heavy upon his back, with a fork and knife poised by his neck.
I’m so sorry.
How do you apologize for something like this? Hadn’t that been exactly what was so appealing about it before? That you couldn’t apologize for this? It was a taboo fetish he was crazy enough to try but not deranged enough to live with. He was both a freak and a fake. No, what he had done was a nasty, unforgivable thing. And the acute realization that he would never be able to apologize and never be able to make amends for eating her, as well as the insult of vomiting her up, stood him square at the threshold of an eternally vexing madness.
There would be no turning off the horror. No luxury of having someone getting rid of the ugliness a thousand miles way. There was no out of sight, out of mind. Because like the worst atrocities, once it goes in the mind it never comes out. If only his belly had worked that way all of this could be avoided. Now, his hell was here to eat him alive.
But, he only did it once. Surely he wasn’t the worst offender. He was no Dahmer, Chikatilo, or Gein. Or one of those wild jungle savages who eat Legs Benedict for breakfast, and followed that with balls, lung, tongue BLT sandwiches for lunch before piling their tree bark plates high with a backwoods buffet of Skin Salad, Child Chops, Daddy Ribs, Mommy Breasts and a side of Backaroni Asserole for dinner. They thought it was finger-lickin’ good!
Why didn’t they feel guilty? To them, culinary carnage was as normal as gravity under their feet. It’s what they liked and what they wanted. He was, like them – at last! - a cannibal. But instead of feeling that exotic erotic rush of such a rare snack…instead of sectioning her off and cutting her into steaks for the coming week’s meals…he was down on his knees crying into her body part puke face on the bathroom floor. What was his problem? Is she a person or is she food, dammit?
Oh, god! She was still staring at him, still expecting an answer. He looked around anxiously. He saw the mess everywhere. He clenched his fist, and when he released his fingers; his hand landed in her cold one in the tub. He gasped audibly, petrified. The back of his hand was being stung by the clammy cool of her dead skin and it sent through him a chill so sharp; it about froze his asshole.
Had she reached out?
It dawned on him. He had been the inconsiderate one. Not because he had eaten her face, but because he simply assumed she’d just disappear down his throat and, like a discreet lover, hasten away out the back door. She had given him so much. Everything, as it turned out. The least he could do was spend some time with her. Be a gentleman. As a cannibal… his pallet may have evolved, but his manners certainly needed work.
Well, if there was one thing he wasn’t going to be, it was ungrateful. That had been the defect behind this entire misunderstanding. Square that and all is fixed. He would show his gratitude. Let her know that she was more than just a meal. She was his first. That made her special. And he would never forget her. She would not become a hex on his life. She would become his inspiration. She was a bloody, mangled, rapidly spoiling testament to all he had achieved and all that he could achieve if he followed his heart, his passion, his appetite. She was a gift!
He felt exhilarated and giddy and alive. He was redeemed. The hard shell of burden cracked and fell off his heart, which soon began pulsing with love.
She had committed to him. Now he would to commit to her. Heart and soul! His, hers, each other, joined together to forever follow an enlightened and gory path. Her corpse was his co-pilot.
He clutched her dead hand, affectionate as a newlywed. He looked down at her mongoloid puke face. He smiled. His heart swelled and began to utter the words....
“I do.”
He lowered and kissed her muscled meat lip. He pushed his face down into the bile, his nose bending against the tile. The air pressure of his kiss sucked vomit passed his teeth and it fell back to the ground as his tongue snaked out of his mouth and wagged across her face, temporarily exposing swirls of white tile under her spew-chunked cheeks. He rubbed his hand flat through her rippling hair. Waves of barf, crested over his fingers and washed across the backs of his hands.
He released her dead hand and lowered his body down. He writhed upon her. Rubbing his face against hers, his hair was wet with upchuck. He licked her up and he licked her down. He drank her in and he spit her out. He sucked her regurgitated eye into his mouth. He held the eye between his lips and spun it around with his tongue. The pupil faced out. Now, she saw things from his point of view. She was in him. She was part of him! She would have to understand. She would have to accept his motivations. She would approve of all his dirty desires. She would forgive him!
His pelvis slid and squirmed across the tile with each thrust, faster and faster. Pushing the vomit forward and back, making a slutty puke angel. Vomit splashed between his thighs and onto his ass and drained down the backs of his legs. His legs kicked. He moaned. The eye popped between his lips and milky fluid burst out. His body stiffened then relaxed right in the puddle.
The piercing scream could not have caught him more off guard. His body snapped and leapt like a fresh caught mackerel. He flipped over and landed hard on his back, eyes wide, chest heaving, hands flailing for anything he could grab. A violent coughing gasp launched the burst eyeball out of his throat and onto a formerly folded stack of towels now rumpled at his mother’s feet. She was standing in the doorway, her hands clutching the sides of her vein-bulging head.
He had lost all track of time. And now it was crack of dawn Thursday. The time she always stopped by to visit and fold towels. Neither could believe what they saw.
He was frozen with shock. The visage of his terrified mother faded away as the shadowy specter of the three phantom bounty hunters stepped through the doorway and lower
ed down upon him. Guilt pinned down one shoulder. Embarrassment suppressed the other. Regret straddled and sat on his chest, rubbing a fork and knife together.
He shrieked pure agony as regret’s dark silhouette swung the fork and ripped the fleshy throat right off his neck and took a bloody bite.
ZOMBIE CHRIST
Armand Rosamilia
The young girl behind the counter was blonde, with vibrant blue eyes and a warm smile. She had a bounce in her step as she made coffee, not bothered by the long line almost to the door. She was also going to be a zombie very soon.
She handed Benjamin Lawrence his large black coffee with a smile, and told him to have a great day. He stopped short of tossing the scalding coffee in her face and finding a weapon to crush her skull. She needed a beheading. Instead, Benjamin faked a smile, pushed through the line, and made his way outside before he did something stupid in front of witnesses.
He decided to take a walk down the street and do some window shopping before going back to the rented condominium and his wife and kids. All they did was whine and complain.
"The world is ending and they can't stop bitching about food and sunlight," he said to himself. He stopped in front of a liquor store and stared at the whiskey and rum display in the window. Benjamin had been clean and sober for thirteen years, ever since his wedding night. Now, he knew it was a long time to waste without having a drink.
He entered the store, glanced at the bored balding guy with the ponytail behind the counter to make sure he wasn't going to change anytime soon, and went straight for his old friend, Jack Daniels. He bought a Jack Daniels Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey (he'd polished off many of these in his time) and something called Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey. He decided one bottle of each would suffice for tonight, when he was alone with his thoughts.
Two doors down, a used bookstore caught his eye. Before he got married he used to read all kinds of crazy books: horror, fantasy and even pornographic stories. On his wedding night, Wendy took his vast book and magazine collection to the fire pit, he asked Jesus for forgiveness, and they doused it all with lighter fluid. The only book he still owned was his Bible, which Wendy had given to him as a wedding gift.
It was supposed to be the only book he ever needed to read, and he'd read it cover to cover in the thirteen years, until he could recite vast passages and even give you a page number.
Now, he decided he needed new reading material. With the End Times coming, it didn't matter what happened to him now. Any of them.
The store was musty when he entered, smelling of old books and dust. There were no windows, except the front ones, and they were blocked by bookshelves and flyers on them. A single hanging light in the middle of the long, thin store cast a feeble glow.
"Howdy," the man behind the counter said, looking up from his newspaper.
He had the tell-tale signs. Behind his smile was rot and ruin, his teeth gapped with gore and chunks of flesh. Benjamin had never seen someone this far advanced in the months since he'd started to see the signs.
Benjamin nodded at him, but backed away and down a cramped aisle, over-packed with books. He kept glancing back as he moved: sure the almost-zombie was going to stumble after him at any moment and try to take a chunk out of his arm.
The aisle ended in a wall, with a stack of reference books piled over his head. There was a broom handle that had a piece of metal taped to the end. Benjamin pulled off the addition, smiling at the broken tip and thrusting it in the air before him.
"What are you doing?" the clerk asked, coming down the aisle.
"I'm doing you a favor before you turn."
The guy-zombie stopped. "If you don't put that down and leave I'm calling the cops."
"It's too late for that." Benjamin took a step forward. "Have you ever read the Bible? The Book of Revelations?"
"That's it, buddy. I'm calling the cops. Weird fucker."
Benjamin charged down the aisle and thrust the splintered end into the back of the man's neck, trying to force it upwards into his brain. Instead, it broke in half. But the zombie was now dead in a pool of extending blood.
A calm look behind the counter found a hammer and two different box cutters, as well as a loaded Desert Eagle. Benjamin locked the front door, put up the CLOSED sign, and went to work dismembering the head before the zombie rose and tried to bite him.
Even though the world was going to end soon, he raided the cash register. He'd need more supplies. "Thirty-six dollars?" He shook his head. What was the world coming to?
"Oh, right, it's ending. My bad." Benjamin laughed at his own stupid joke. He searched the zombie's pocket and found his wallet with another seventy-five dollars in cash. Better than nothing. The store keys were in another pocket, so he took those, casually stepped outside onto the sidewalk and locked the door.
His car was up the road so he went to it and drove around to the back of the store, parking as close to the back door as he could. One of the keys opened the door (he was getting hot and glad he didn't have to walk around the block) and he stepped inside. It was cooler, but not by much.
Benjamin found some cardboard boxes in the stockroom and brought them up front with him. He carefully wrapped the head in plastic bags and put it in the first box, then began cutting off limbs to add to the next boxes, all wrapped in cheap plastic bags the zombie-owner had gotten from various food stores in the area.
It ended up being six boxes, which he put in the trunk of the car, making sure no one was watching him. It was too nice a day. Most people, especially vacationers, were across the bridge sunning and swimming and out of this heat. The locals were probably in their double-wides cooking up their meth and watching another episode of Cops, the one where Uncle Bubba got arrested.
Benjamin decided he did need a new book or two. Wasn't that the reason he came into the bookstore, or was there a bigger purpose? Something had shown him the way to the zombie before it turned. Now he closed his eyes and asked The Almighty to guide him for some books.
He began walking to the far aisle, his hands brushing the spines of cracked books with his eyes closed. Benjamin stopped, his hand resting on a thick book. He pulled it from its prison on the shelf and beheld an ornate cover, script in gold and a thick silver Cross bookmark sticking from its pages, hidden among a wall of children's books.
"The Real Book of Revelations," he whispered in awe. He cradled it to his breast, feeling the divine heat it generated. This was why he was here, this was his omen. Ignoring the rest of the worthless items in the store, he left, not bothering to lock the back door.
"Honey, do we have any paprika?" Benjamin called out but his wife didn't answer. She was always so damn rude. "I can't make this stew without some of my secret ingredients. Remember that time I cooked that pig in the ground at your cousin's in Georgia? Good times." He searched the cabinets in vain. "Good times."
"I'll go get some. Don't want to bother you and the kids. God help us, we can't peel you away from something more important than cooking dinner."
Benjamin went downstairs and stopped at the front desk. This was his first time in such an expensive condominium complex, but it was worth it. Besides, by the time the bill for this came in, the world would be gone anyway. It was like a free vacation for him and his family. Not that they deserved it, but still…
"What's the rule on grilling?" he asked the woman behind the desk, who showed no signs of turning. He was glad because he was sure there were cameras trained on her.
"Just be careful," she said slowly. "You're welcome to use the grills behind the swimming pool area. If you'd like to reserve one I can set that up."
"Excellent." He really wanted to grill dinner. This place was fancy. "I need to buy some secret ingredients first, and some veggies, before I can begin. I have the meat naked upstairs."
"Just come back to me when you're ready. We have twelve grills and only two are in use right now."
Benjamin smiled at the woman and hoped she survived when the others died an
d came back to feast on her organs, but knew she would die like everyone else. Oh well. He went back to his car and drove two blocks to the nearest supermarket.
He decided to go wild with dinner and selected two expensive wines - one red and one white since he knew nothing about wine - and several pounds of fresh vegetables to grill. He decided to get a cheese and cracker platter, selecting the biggest they had, and a decadent-looking chocolate cake from the bakery as well as four fresh blueberry muffins for the family's breakfast tomorrow. He also bought a gallon of milk, a box of Fruit Loops for the kids and a six-pack of Corona as well as a lime. He remembered the Jack Daniels bottles, still in the car, and smiled. Tonight he'd be well-fed and well-skunked.
The spice aisle was a treat. He selected the most expensive ingredients, and added as many things as he felt like in the shopping cart. He'd need plenty of salt and pepper as well as crushed garlic, so he grabbed five of each. It would go to waste but he wasn't actually paying for any of this in the long run. Why not splurge?
He found the grilling accessories and put two large bags of charcoal, four bottles of lighter fluid, a box of big matches, and added tinfoil, a mixing bowl, and a set of grilling tools in a nylon case.
Benjamin grabbed some pizzas and assorted boxes of frozen finger snacks for tonight as well. When he glanced and saw the restrooms he left his shopping cart and entered the badly-lit hallway, following the signs.
When the near-zombie suddenly opened the men's room door and stepped out, Benjamin did the only thing he could do: he slammed his fist into its throat and pushed it back into the bathroom, knocking it over and jumping onto it, punching and slamming the head into the ground until it stopped moving.
Satisfied it was still, he dragged it to the last stall in the row, but the trail of blood was too great to clean up without attracting attention.
"I'm sure I'll see you again, and when I do I'll rip that head of yours off," he whispered. He washed up his hands and face and went back and retrieved his cart. He'd piss when he got back to the condo.
Masters of Taboo Presents: Cannibalism, Digesting The Human Condition (Limited Edition) Page 17
