by Mark Tufo
‘Food good, Hugh hungry.’
“Don’t!” Anna yelled in alarm.
Our new guest was a lot closer than I had anticipated.
“Jonas? Ben?” the man asked from right outside the door. “I’m going to shoot through this door if I don’t hear either of you. This is no time for practical jokes.”
Who does that? Who pulls tricks during an apocalypse? The new guy must have had an itchy trigger finger because he didn’t give a second warning before he blasted two dime sized holes through the heavy door. Must be carrying a small cannon to get through that wood. The ass punched a hole through my ruffled collar. Not sure why I cared, it’s not like I was going to be able to get the gallons of blood and shit out of the rest of the outfit anyway.
Thinking about shit triggered something in Hugh, he stood stock still as he began to evacuate his…I mean my bowels.
‘Not now! Danger!’
‘Need room to eat!’ he yelled back at me.
I heard retching from the other side. “What the fuck is that smell?”
I didn’t think it was that bad, maybe I was getting used to it.
“Frank! I think we got zombies in the hallway. Jonas and Ben are most likely K.I.A.
Anna was whimpering but she had moved farther away.
“Lock the door, Tom,” Frank yelled down.
“No damn lock,” Tom said. “Anna, come here. I need you to help me move this pew over.”
I imagined her shaking her head because Tom asked her two more times for help.
“Tom, hurry up,” Frank yelled. “We need you up here.” “We’re having a hard time keeping them from the front doors.
“Shit,” Tom said. I heard him dragging something over to the door, didn’t sound much bigger than a chair, probably the candle votive. The frame shuddered as he placed it up against the door and then I heard Tom beating feet to help his comrades in arms.
I smiled, I don’t know if Hugh mirrored my gesture but if Tom had taken an extra second he would have realized the door opened inwards. Hugh kicked back into gear after dropping a good ten pounds of digested human.
‘More food,’ Hugh stated, looking at the door.
This was Hugh’s way of asking me how to open the door. ‘We need to wait. I can smell Anna from here, she’s watching the door and if we come strolling through now, we’ll die.’
I could sense Hugh was struggling with his insatiable need to feed and his desire to not get shot.
“Long how?”
‘How long? Is that what you’re asking, buddy? Do you have any concept of time?’
No response.
‘Until it’s completely dark, when the moon goes down.’
I think Hugh sighed but at least it wasn’t the three year-old spoiled screaming that I was expecting.
‘Want me to tell you a story to while away the time?’ I asked him. He didn’t respond so I took that as a sign to continue.
***
‘I was eleven years old when Kevin Thompson went missing, I didn’t do it but I didn’t help, either. I was a big kid, bigger than most kids four and five years my senior, didn’t have many friends back then.’
I stopped my narrative, now that I thought back on my life, I’d never had very many friends. Whatever.
‘But that was why I was alone in the woods that day. I had just nailed a squirrel with a rock and its head was gushing blood. I was busy poking it with a stick; its legs were twitching like crazy. I looked up when I heard the muffled sounds of conversation not too far away. I wasn’t scared when I went to check it out, just curious. Thinking back, I should have been afraid.
I knew these woods well. I’d been playing in them for the last four years, I knew how to get around certain obstacles and I knew how to be quiet. More than once I had been able to sit and watch as some teenagers from the high school partied or had sex. And a few times I had even watched as the high school quarterback boned a cheerleader or two. Even back then I didn’t have a name for it or know exactly what they were doing, but I wanted to be doing it. Although I had on more than one occasion jerked off to the memory of that QB pounding the shit out of some girl. The memory was bringing about the painful realization that my manhood was most likely in tethers. I’m like every man on the planet, I love my penis. I’m not one of those crazies that name it or anything, but name me one other piece of the human anatomy that comes even close to the instant gratification that it delivers. Still waiting for an answer from Hugh on if he could mend it. I wondered how far Hugh’s medical expertise extended.
‘Hugh, fix my junk!’ I demanded.
Nothing.
‘Asshole!’
‘Sleep!’ he shouted back.
Wait, was he telling me to sleep or telling me that he was asleep? Ass wasn’t even listening to my story. Might as well finish it, I wasn’t going any place soon.
I was up on a small rise in a particularly dense copse of trees that gave a perfect view to the clearing below. There were four kids down there. I recognized a couple from the high school football team, although not the QB. There was Kevin and then some other guy who looked to be about the same age as the football players but he was way too stringy to play. The one I didn’t know was dressed all in black, black boots, black shirt and weirdest of all was a black full length jacket, which in the middle of summer made no freakin’ sense. I knew Kevin, he was in my grade. We ate lunch together a few times. He was nice enough and I almost thought to go down and say ‘hi’, but I don’t know something just didn’t feel right. First off, why he was even with these guys was strange, but that tall skinny kid had a look about him. I can’t say back then I knew but I guess sinister is what comes to mind he had something planned out and it didn’t bode well for Kevin.
“Where’s the junked out car?” Kevin asked.
“We’re close,” Garrett, one of the football players said. He had a grin on that would have made the big bad wolf proud. It was entirely too toothy and his lips were pulled back way too far.
The other player, I think his name was Lyle looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Yeah, something wasn’t right. I was with Lyle if I thought I could get out unseen I would have left too. I saw the glint of the shiny steel as the stringy kid pulled it out from a sheath on his belt. Kevin never saw it as Stringy stuffed it right into his gut, Kevin grunted like he had been punched. Stringy pulled the knife clear just as Kevin fell to his knees, he placed his hands over the wound in his belly.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck! What did you do?” Lyle yelled backing away from the scene. “You said we were just going to scare him.”
“Well, he looks pretty scared, doesn’t he?” Stringy replied.
“You know what I mean,” Lyle said, his volume decreasing as Kevin’s blood flowed.
Garrett’s wolf grin seemed to be frozen on his face, I couldn’t tell if he was enjoying the scene before him or not.
“Garrett, could you get my brother?” Kevin asked.
That must be how they got him here, Garret and Kevin’s brother were friends. Man, in a world of messed up things, luring your friend’s little brother into the woods to kill him has to rank pretty high up there.
“We… we can get him some help,” Lyle said, approaching Kevin.
Stringy pulled his still glistening blade on the kid who was damn near twice his size. Lyle stopped short, I guess he knew that if the psycho would use it in cold blood on Kevin he wouldn’t care a crap if he used it again on him.
Lyle tried a different tactic. “Garrett, come on man. This is Rog’s brother, you’ve known him for almost his whole life.”
“Yeah, I can’t really stand the little turd,” Garrett said, his face looking even more predatory.
“Polks, come on man, let’s get him some help before this goes any further it’s not too late.”
At least I had a name for Stringy, not that I was ever going to tell anyone what I saw here, but still.
“It is now,” Polks said, striking Kevin square in the throat
with the knife.
Garrett laughed, and loudly drowning out Lyle’s puking. Blood must have shot out a good five feet as Polks ripped the blade free. Kevin had a moment of indecision as he tried to figure out which flow he was going to try to stem. The crack as his nose snapped on a rock as he pitched forward was loud enough that the birds hightailed it from this area. Lyle stood up, brown bile coated the sides of his face.
Garrett turned Kevin over with his foot, frothy blood was running from the boy’s mouth. “He’s a goner,” Garrett laughed.
“You say anything,” Polks said, pointing at Lyle with his knife, “it will be your sister lying there and I’ll make sure she doesn’t die a virgin.”
Lyle looked whiter than Kevin. Lyle could only nod his head, his sister was even younger than Kevin.
The three of them stood there a few moments longer before heading away. Lyle’s head was bowed so much it was almost on his chest. Garrett looked like they had just won the state championship and Polks looked like he was ready for another victim.
I made sure they were long gone before I moved from my spot. I had been in the same position for so long my legs had gone numb, I straight-legged it halfway down the embankment before I lost my balance, I rolled to a stop face-to-face with Kevin, his pupils were the size of saucers and they were fixed on nothing as near as I could tell. I had just placed my hands under my chest and was beginning to rise when his pupils shrunk down to the size of pinpricks and this time they had found an object to latch on to…me. Sleeping legs be damned, I scurried so fast away from there I think I dug out a small rivulet.
“Please,” he gurgled softly. His hand rose ever so slightly. There was not much of what made Kevin, Kevin, left. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I thought I could see something, a white mist departing his body. All these years later I’ve tried to convince myself that it must be steam from the holes in his body but the mist originated square in the center of his forehead, not his throat. Never have been religious. I don’t pretend to understand what others see in the divine but my existence within this body lends validity to what I saw that day. I would be that mist, of that I was sure.
I walked back over to Kevin slower than I had previously. To be honest, I was hoping he would just up and die before I got there. He was having trouble moving his head but those fucking eyes followed me all the way.
“I didn’t do this,” I told him nearly in a panic.
“Help… get,” he eked out.
“Man, this is fucked up!” I told him. “I don’t really want to get involved.”
“Already are,” he answered me. I could tell he was getting toward the end of his rope.
“You’re the idiot that came into the woods with them. Polks is meaner than a woman with a cheap engagement ring (I’d heard that gem from my mother, I wasn’t sure what it meant but it always made her laugh so I used it when it seemed right).
“Please…” Kevin managed.
Poor fucker, he was stupid enough to go into the woods with them, and then had the horrible luck to be discovered by someone who was too reluctant to help.
If I had helped him, he would most likely have made it. Sure, it would have been one hell of a scar on his neck but that would have been a small price to pay. He never uttered another word, but his eyes stayed on mine for the next three hours, never wavering. I was stuck now. I couldn’t leave him. If by some miracle he got up and walked out of here or some other person stumbled upon him and rescued him he would rat me out. Wasn’t I nearly as guilty at this point as Polks, Lyle, and Garrett?
The sun was close to setting and I had not checked in. I was going to have hell to pay for being late, plus I was famished. More than once, I looked around for a big enough rock to finish him off. I was trying to justify that I was going to put him out of his misery, but that wasn’t true. I wanted him out of my misery. Those eyes would not stop watching me in that accusatory way.
I felt a small chill run up my spine the exact moment that Kevin seemed to have left his body, his eyes focused on nothing and he seemed forever frozen in a thousand yard stare. Maybe his departing soul had brushed up against me, I don’t know, back then I was just happy that he wouldn’t be able to get me in trouble. I ran home as fast as my legs would take me, I was terrified that I would end up for the night in those woods with Kevin and Polks. I didn’t sleep much that night or the next few for that matter; I kept dreaming that Kevin was going to show up on my porch with his dead flat eyes and cold presence, demanding an answer. What was I going to tell him?
The cops found his body eight days later. Seems there wasn’t much left to identify him, feral cats had got to his body. The little bastards had stripped him clean of all his meat from what I heard, now that’s something I would have liked to have seen, from a distance. Within a few days of the discovery I was playing in my room when I heard the cops talking to my mom in the living room. I didn’t even realize it at first but with my ear pressed to my door, my bladder had involuntarily loosed, hot piss ran down my leg and onto the rug.
“Yes ma’am, some of your neighbors said your son frequents the woods where Kevin Thompson’s remains were discovered. We’d just like to ask him a few questions, maybe if he had seen something.”
“My son hasn’t gone to the woods in over a week.”
‘Oh shit’ I was thinking, that sounds pretty suspicious to me and I’m not a cop.
“Is he a suspect?” My mom asked, almost like she was expecting them to reply,
‘Yes he is public enemy number one.’
Now I know I’m not Johnny damn Appleseed but I’m not Al Capone, either.
“No ma’am, at this time there are no suspects, we are just trying to gather some information.”
“Because that thing with the neighbor’s dog was not his fault.”
“Shut the fuck up, Mom,” I moaned against the door.
“The dog, ma’am?” The cop asked.
“I mean, how does anyone call something that small a dog, anyway? Thing wasn’t much bigger than a sewer rat and not much better looking, if you ask me.”
“The dog, ma’am?” The cop asked again.
“Oh, that thing,” my mom started up like she had completely forget about what she was talking about. “My Timmy was riding his bike when the rodent darted out in front of him. My poor Timmy almost fell off.”
“What happened to the dog?” the other cop asked.
“Deader than a doornail, that thing was. My Timmy ran right over its head and my son is a big boy, crushed its skull right into the pavement. It was pretty grotesque, the thing’s legs were all sticking up in the air, twitched for close to twenty minutes. The whole time the neighbor bitch is yelling at my Timmy and me. The cops actually hauled her away to calm her bitchy ass down. Now if she had a real dog like a Doberman pinscher or something you boys wouldn’t be here trying to pin a crime on my son.”
“Ma’am, no one is here blaming your son. Like my partner said earlier, we are just trying to see if your son saw anything suspicious while he was out playing.”
“Like I said, he hasn’t been out in those woods in over a week.”
“Ma’am, Kevin Thompson went missing eight days ago.”
I could almost hear the audible gasp my mother had produced at the coincidence in time frames. “Well, that means nothing.”
‘Nice recovery,’ I thought sarcastically. My left leg felt cool as a breeze came in through my window, it was then I noticed the darker wet spot extending from my privates all the way down to my socks.
“Fuck,” I mumbled. If the cops saw me like this they would just go and haul me off, only the guilty piss themselves.
I could hear my mom coming down the hallway as I frantically ripped my jeans off. I put on the first thing I could get my hands on, that it was Batman pajamas was inconsequential at this point. My mom entered without knocking, which was standard practice—and gave me the once over. Wadded up wet jeans in one hand and wearing pajamas at two in the afternoon, she had her s
uspicions but luckily she didn’t say anything.
“There are some policemen here to see you,” she said a little louder than she needed to. “Could you please get up and speak with them?” She turned so that she was facing back down the hallway. “He hasn’t been feeling too good.” Then she turned back to me, I think I saw a hint of fear in her eyes, like maybe she thought I could have had something to do with it. She’d never tell the cops that but things would forever be different between us—I was no longer to be her big teddy bear. From this point on she would always hold me at arm’s length.
And the fucking dog had deserved it, thing nipped me twice. Now I didn’t specifically go hunting the thing down like the neighbor lady said, but I also didn’t swerve to avoid it when it came out to get me for the third time. I’ve got to admit it grossed me out when I crushed its skull but there was also a sense of satisfaction too, watching its brains leak out onto the ground, knowing that it was never going to bite me again. I wasn’t expecting Mrs. Daniels to go quite so ballistic on me; she called me some names I’m still trying to figure out their meaning. By the time my mom figured out what was going on, the dog had just about stopped twitching and Mrs. Daniels was about to become even more volatile.
My mom pretty much sent me home before she jumped into the fray, looking back I don’t think it had so much to do with Mrs. Daniels and the dog, it was more in the vein of ‘if anyone is going to yell at my boy, it is going to be me’. Whatever, I didn’t care all that much, I had put my bike up and gone back into the woods.
“Son, I know you don’t feel so good,” the first cop said to me.
I nodded, I bet I didn’t look so good either, I was scared almost shitless, which was a good thing because if I crapped myself now that would just about be an admission of guilt. Confession by shit!
“Could you please tell me where you were on the twelfth? I guess that makes it last Monday,” the thinner of the two cops asked.
“I… I think I was here,” I answered honestly—who really knows what they were doing more than a week ago?
“What about earlier in the day, son, before it got dark? The day your friend went missing.”
