by Mark Tufo
I peered out of my eyes, which were not mine to control just as my body ripped a breast free with an audible sucking sound. “Fuck! This feels real,” I yelled as jets of saliva shot in the back of my throat. My teeth gnashed through the fatty material, my hand grabbed onto the voluminous piece of flesh so that I could tear pieces from the handful of beef. I reached out with my mind for that was the only tool I had available. I could ‘sense’ my body, could see and hear through my eyes and ears. I could feel my hands, sticky with blood; could feel Gina’s intestines as my hands grabbed large portions, could feel my muscles strain as they pulled parts of her free. I could feel my teeth as they tore into slick casing, I blacked out momentarily as I allowed myself to ‘feel’ the taste as the coppery, shit taste flooded through my mouth.
Occasionally, my head would whip up from time to time in accordance to the cacophony of sounds that were exploding outside and I could catch brief glimpses of my alarm clock before it completely went out. But it was much easier to keep watch on the sun that blazed through my window. It was Saturday when the bitch had come to get her purse, two sunrises later and my unresponsive body had completely picked her clean. Somewhere deep inside myself I was slightly impressed, I had consumed fifty to fifty five pounds of meat a day. There was nothing left of Gina except for her skeletal remains—oops scratch that—and two bags of silicon. Yup, definitely going insane, because I laughed like a loon for the next ten minutes. Apparently, there is nothing funnier in the world than the sight of the remains of a devoured body with two silicon bags left over because yes, even cannibals have their standards.
My body stood, fully upright for the first time since I had started to bang the bitch, I was heavy with the weight of her. And then my body let loose easily one of the most voluminous blasts of gas ever. Even in this state I had wished that I had caught it on tape or at least had a witness, Gina didn’t count, she was dead and I was pregnant with her remains. For a count of 47 Mississippi I ripped ass, I’ve got to admit even under the circumstances it was magnificent. I took a chance and allowed myself to tap into my sense of smell. I immediately regretted the decision, it smelled exactly like what you would expect a decomposing body to smell like. Rotten fucking meat enshrouded in shit. I couldn’t close that doorway quick enough. And then it got worse, the farts turned liquidy, I was shitting down my leg, pools of the thick liquid were gathering at the bottom of my pants where my elastic cuffs were holding it back. I could feel the tepid substance as it began to seep and leak through the choke point, within a minute I could feel my feet completely covered.
It got worse, the liquid escaping my bowels tapered off to be replaced by more solid waste material, logs of offal began to course down my thighs and calves. Unlike the liquid the chunkier material could not escape the trappings of my clothes and began to bunch up around my lower legs. I cajoled and begged and screamed at my hands to take my pants off so that I could get in the shower. Nothing happened, my body was immobile as I was apparently disposing of Gina in her entirety. I guess I could call her a piece of shit and mean it now.
I don’t know how much longer I stood there, I had stopped counting when my body had switched from gas to solids, but at least ten minutes later the release stopped, I blessedly moved from the location. My head scanned the room, the splatter of blood, gore, bile and shit looked like someone had dropped a grenade in a B-movie prop department. There was too much of everything—it couldn’t be real, even the portion of hair attached to scalp that was stuck to the wall, it was all just overkill. One body could not make this much evidence, and then I seized up–that’s what this was now, one major fucking crime scene. I would never be able to hide this much. FIRE, welled up in my mind, my only chance was to burn everything. Great thought, but I couldn’t even make my hands scratch my nuts if the desire so came. Which now that it was on my mind was the single act that I most wanted them to do. My left nut was stuck to my thigh, I was trying to not think of WHAT it was stuck with just that it needed to be let free and it itched uncontrollably, my body paid it no mind at all. Which in a sense made sense, because I was the mind and my body was not paying me any heed.
I flipped the sensory switch off, better to not feel at all than to feel that. Relief was sweet but the back of my mind still tickled with the phantom itch. This was the first time I could ever remember in my life of hating my own balls. Sure there were the times I had taken a shot to the nuts and dropped to my knees, but even with my legs drawn in and my stomach threatening to heave, I didn’t hate them, I cherished them even more, fearful that now they might somehow have suffered a damage that would not allow them to work properly. But right now they were shit-encrusted globules that pushed me that much closer to the edge. For insanity was the line I was straddling of that I was sure.
My body began to pace around my apartment, apparently in search of more sustenance. It banged up against the fridge a few times but then seemed to lose interest. Around and around we went, where he stops nobody knows, (and then I laughed maniacally in my head). Yup, no matter which way this panned out I was going to end up in a room padded with loads and loads of rubber or foam. The constriction of the straight jacket couldn’t be any worse than what I was going through now, at least my arms would be mine to not move.
I tuned back into the senses of the creature that looked like me but wasn’t, we, he, it was staring out the window at a particularly succulent looking fat man running for his life with a dozen or so something’s chasing him. Now why would I call a fat man succulent?
My senses were ripped to the fore as an all consuming gnawing clawed through my belly. I was so hungry it was all I could think about. The hunger was a tangible entity it was threatening to rip its way through my bowels until it found solace. ‘Must feed’. It said over and over. I severed that connection at this point I figured it was just better to stay with the eyes and the ears. And even that was two senses too many.
My head ripped around as a soft tapping came to the front door. “Tim, are you there?” came an even softer voice.
“Dad? Dad? Get the fuck out of here!” I screamed, sure it was only in my head but it was still loud. I was petrified of what my old man was going to think if he saw me like this, he didn’t know I made extra money as a clown! My body moved closer to the delicious smells pouring forth from under the door. ‘I shut smell down!’ I thought. Every tumbler as it clicked into place was like sweet ambrosia to my hulking alter ego self.
“Oh, dear God. What is that smell?” my father asked as he opened the door and quickly slid in, making sure to reengage the lock before turning around to survey my place, which was bathed in the shadows of twilight. A partially cloud-shielded full moon could not hide the nightmares that awaited Liam (my father) as he looked down my hallway.
“Timothy? Tim, you’re alright.” My father said with relief. “Tim?” He asked as I kept approaching him soundlessly. I passed by the mirror I had in the hallway, I looked through my peripheral vision, because my zombie self’s eyes never strayed from their target. I was the stuff of nightmares. A giant zombie clown bathed in blood and shit—fuck other people, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep for a week after seeing that.
“Tim, you look horrible,” my father exclaimed as he backed up into the door he had just moments before closed. I watched as his hand slid up, trying to find the locking mechanism. The old man was quick but not quick enough, my body sensed that its next meal was about to flee . My dad placed his hands up, which I summarily began to chew through, I could hear my front teeth shatter as they crashed down upon his wedding ring. I don’t know why he still wore the damn thing, I got my philandering ways from my father, the difference was I didn’t pretend to be married.
I couldn’t believe how incredibly good his fingers tasted once I swallowed the wedding ring, the pinkie ring and the watch, almost choked on that garish thing. My father’s screams didn’t stop until I was halfway up his wrist by which time it became more of a high keening. Then ceased all together. My bod
y quivered with the delight as it rendered mercilessly through his body, I had long retreated to a dark recess. Maybe not as soon as I should have but I went, eventually. There was a measured sense of satisfaction as I killed my father—he was an asshole, plain and simple. His idea of love usually revolved around a beer buzz and the back of his hand—that was of course until I turned fourteen when I became bigger than him.
The only reason I can figure he even came over here was for me to protect his scrawny little ass, it wasn’t to make sure I was alright. My father blamed me for all the ills in his life. Most fathers past their prime try to live vicariously through their kids, not my old man, though. He wanted his old life back and he saw me as the roadblock that prevented him from getting back there. When I was eight years old he had locked me in the basement for a solid week. I was old enough to realize that crying out would have brought more wrath than mercy. Not once did he check on me to see if I needed anything or if I was even alive. The day after Christmas I heard the bolt slide back on the basement door and then he had just left, most likely to the bar with his friends. Luckily, my mom had been sort of a canning freak in those last few years she had managed to stay with the old man and to this day though I cannot eat, pickles, beets or sweet relish. I get the cold sweats when I pass jars of them at the grocery store. My hands and piss smelled like vinegar for the rest of the week, every time I rubbed my eyes they would burn for hours.
Before he went out he had left me a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon on the table and on a napkin he had scrawled ‘Merry Christmas Shithead, save the can for redemption’. I thought about crying as I looked through the kitchen window and out into the daylight, but as I drank that beer down I swore I would someday pay him back for that.
***
It was many hours later before I dared borrow my senses just because this was the second person I had eaten. Didn’t mean that I had gotten used to it.
‘I’m blind!’ I screamed, and that was terrifying. I was already a prisoner in my own body but now I couldn’t even see! As I controlled my faux breathing, trying to suppress the panic that was welling up in me I began to sense a soft light. The harder I concentrated the brighter it got before I realized that dawn was approaching. My body was pinned up against the front door; that was why I couldn’t see anything except the dark maple stained pine.
My dipshit body couldn’t figure out how to get out of the apartment and apparently, I was starving again. Three hundred or so pounds of meat in two days just wasn’t good enough, it’s not like they were Chinese.
‘Turn the knob, fuck head!’ I yelled.
My head whipped quickly from side to side and then up and down like it was looking for what had spoken to it.
‘Holy shit! Fuck wad, can you hear me?’ That head movement came back. This could get interesting. It beat the hell out of quivering in the dark like a victim.
‘Hey big fella, can you turn the knob?’ The head movement happened again but it wasn’t nearly as pronounced. Whatever was controlling my motor functions had at least enough of a thought process to potentially realize that whatever was talking to it was internal. I sensed ‘feelers’ wriggling through the ripples of my mind. It… they were looking for me and they would devour me much like they had my dear old dad. I pictured my hidey hole as a room, a small black dark room which I immediately closed the heavy iron door to, just as the ‘feelers’ slid on by. I was tempted to make a moat but I didn’t want any undo activity to cause anything to come investigating.
‘Fuck you!’ I yelled. The feelers halted their progress, their heads all shot up like prairie dogs in their dens. I covered my mouth lest it betray me. Being like this sucked, it sucked bad but being dead was worse. I was pretty certain that there was no afterlife, no God to atone to and I had lived my life accordingly, but always something niggled ‘what if I’m wrong?’ in the back of my mind. Best to just delay any mythical meeting with this person; now that two murders were on my resume. Although, if my feet were really held to the fire I’m not sure how I could be held accountable for them.
The worms/feelers were still moving around but much slower as if they had caught a scent. I held my breath, figuratively and turned, listening to the noise as a worm scraped up against my door, it had found my hideout. The noise traveled farther up the closure. It was raising its head to let its brethren know. The first thing I could think of was ‘sword’. I nearly dropped the two handed broadsword that appeared. I imagine it would have been in the neighborhood of fifty pounds. The steel shone bright and was encrusted with gems of varying colors and sizes, it looked a lot like the one Arnold used in the Conan movie.
The worm turned to look at me as I opened the door and rushed at him. Although, ‘look’ is a stretch—it didn’t have anything resembling eyes. The thing that stared at me was roughly humanoid, it looked like something a retarded five year old would draw. ‘Fuck you!’ I screamed again as I swung my sword clipping the end of its stinger. Caustic fluid flowed from the wound and I watched in horror as wherever the blood came into contact with my mind, the pinkish matter turned gray. This thing was destroying in moments what I had planned to do over the span of many years with booze, pills and definitely some grass.
I brought my sword back up, the man-shaped thing in front of me was struggling. I had not incapacitated it. Whatever this was, it was safe to assume it was a battle to the death, I brought my sword crashing through its fuzzy head quickly stepping back lest I get any of that poison blood on me. But the white fluid that ran from its head was not made of the same material, it merely coursed through the channels in my mind. The thing collapsed to the ground, that’s when it hit me. ‘Dumb ass, why didn’t you just wish for a gun?’ Dozens of various weapons began to form in my hands, I settled on the AA-twelve, yup, a fully automatic twelve gauge shotgun, that would work perfectly.
‘Fuck this cowering shit—I’m going on the offensive.’
I could sense movement all around me they were coming. ‘Be careful for their swords,’ I heeded that advice unlike my mom’s advice to be nice to women and they would be nice to me. Chicks are flawed animals, the worse I treated them the more they came around. I had once sodomized a girl who had begged me to stop, had to throw my sheets away she had bled so much on them. She had called me for a month straight trying to go out on a second date, I had finally picked up the phone and told her I’d had better. I’m fairly certain I had heard from one of my friends that she had moved to Seattle or maybe killed herself, I don’t know never really cared enough to get any further explanation.
I let lead fly, the ‘men’ fell all around me, only one got close enough to make it interesting, his head disintegrated for the effort. I felt like Rambo, hell I think I was screaming like him. I was blowing thousands of imaginary rounds through an imaginary weapon, never worrying if my barrel would overheat or if I would run out of bullets, it was damn near orgasmic.
What came next finally made me stop holding the trigger down. I could feel my invaders looking through my mind for something. It was unnerving, all attention had been diverted away from me, the sound that emanated from my mouth could hardly be considered speech, it sounded more like a rake being dragged over bones.
“Truce?” Came the sound from my mouth, using my thoughts to talk to me.
Was this a trick? ‘What, so I’m kicking your ass—you want me to give up? Fuck you!’ I shouted to myself.
I was allowed to sense ‘men’ by the millions amassing for an assault. I began to wonder if I could call in an air strike.
“Truce?” Came the one word question again.
‘Stop talking!’ I told myself. ‘Girls in the morning sound less irritating than you!’ I stood for a moment as I lost concentration the gun I had fabricated quickly dissolved into the material it was made out of. ‘I want my body back!’ I yelled.
“Must feed.” Was my only response to myself.
‘You fat bastard, you just ate two whole people—how much more do you need?’
“Mu
st feed.” My tortured voice box repeated.
And then it hit me, whatever had control of my body needed my help, the dipshit couldn’t figure out how to open the door. “So you’re pretty much asking me if I’ll drive,” I said.
“Feed,” it pleaded with me.
I took too long in my thoughts. “Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!!” it keened.
‘Shut up!’ I said placing my hands over my ears, about as effectual as pissing on a forest fire.
“Feed, feed, feed, feed!”
I think it would have gone on forever or until me or it died. I wasn’t willing to find out just how long that might be.
“Turn the knob!” I told it while also imagining how the process looked.
My alter ego composed self, wrenched its gaze down to its hand and grasped the handle, it turned the lock so hard I could hear the innards snap, I had a moment of panic thinking that I would be stuck for eternity in this dark shell while Bozo here cried for food.
‘Pull!’ I shouted before it completely tore up the inside of the door.
A drunk eighty-year old with Alzheimer’s would have reacted faster to my command but at least it did as it was told. I personally would have stopped to take in the carnage that was all around me but my other self had other ideas. Smoke from fire, ruined cars smoldered, people or things lay in various states of decay. Bullet casings littered the ground, more than once we almost lost our footing on them.
‘We?’ When had that thought crept into my head? It was still my enemy and I would do whatever it took to get my self back.
‘What are you?’ I asked the thing in control of my body. But if it couldn’t turn a door knob, could it be self aware? I doubted it. It might not be smart by my definition but he/it was most assuredly running the show, he had taken complete control of me. I was thinking about what it could potentially be; an alien, a demon, a germ, or maybe a virus. I had once read on the internet about a zombie virus that the government had been working on during World War II, called operation Hugh Mann, but I had skimmed over most of it and considered it to be just more conspiracy bullshit. I wouldn’t have read it at all if it weren’t for the fact that I had to click away from porn as my boss came out of his office to check on all his good little worker bees in Cubicle City. Even as I had struck an answer I shied away from it, I had just eaten two people and I had no control over my own extremities but the fact that I was a zombie still hadn’t hit home.
