by Mark Tufo
“Dad, get the fuck outta here!” the son said, smacking his father on the shoulder, never taking his eyes off of me.
“We need his stuff, just shoot him,” the father replied.
“Not very neighborly!” I yelled, standing up as far as I could from the confines of my seat. Half of me leaning out the window.
The father looked over I wouldn’t have thought it was even possible, but his look of fear was worse than his son’s. Must have had a wicked case of coulrophobia (fear of clowns, for those of you without a thesaurus). He almost tipped the truck attempting to turn it around so quickly.
“Oh, and just when we were getting to know each other.”
I turned to follow suit. The SUV was pulling away, its engine being almost double the size of mine, and add to the fact that the guy was probably trying to drive the gas pedal through the floor. I would have been more concerned that my ‘fast food’ was a little too fast, but the writing in this case was on the wall. The highway was not completely debris free. Sure, it was fine and dandy for someone going forty…not eighty. His swerves were becoming more erratic and less controlled as he frantically kept looking over his shoulder to see if I was still following.
It was three miles later when the SUV sideswiped a parked VW Van, it rolled three times before it came to a stop on its roof. It was slowly spinning like a second hand on a watch as I pulled up. The heavy ticking from an over-worked engine and the dripping of multiple fluids were the only thing I heard. Then the moans started in earnest. I leaned against my car wishing right then I had a cigarette. That sounded like just about the best thing in the world right then.
“Dad, you alright?” I think the passenger asked.
“Unnhh,” was the reply. I was going to need my pocket-dictionary for that meaning.
“Jerry?” the passenger asked the person I guessed was sitting in the back.
“My leg is bent,” came a definitely pre-pubescent, shocked voice in reply.
Well he’s not going anywhere any time soon, I thought as I sauntered up to the turned over hunk of shit.
“Whose out there?” the passenger cried out.
“Well it’s either Triple-A, or Triple-F, where the ‘F’ stands for Fucked. I’d guess option two, if I were you,” I said as I peered through the windshield.
He started screaming and throwing punches into the air. He was hung upside down from his seatbelt – they all were as I took a closer look. The father seemed to be coming to and was looking at me. Blood, which should have been pooling in his head from the way he was oriented, was instead blanching out. His mouth defied gravity as it fell open. It looked like I was going to lose him to unconsciousness.
“So let me get this straight, Dad,” I said sarcastically. “You care enough about your kids to have them put their seatbelts on, but then you put them in danger by attempting to hijack unsuspecting people? Well you sure did fuck up this time, didn’t you,” I said more as a statement of fact. “Damn, the way you guys are all hung up there, you look like vending machine food. I can only hope you taste better. Might as well get started, all this chasing has worked up my appetite.”
“Please, mister,” the passenger said, scrambling to undo his belt that was keeping him prisoner.
“I’ll get to you, just wait your turn like everyone else,” I told him as I walked over to the driver’s door.
I was happy for small favors. The door had nearly been sheared off its hinges from the force of the accident and subsequent somersaults. With a modicum of effort I was able to pry it open. I got lost in the symphony of screams as I bit down on the father’s arm. He was half-heartedly trying to push me away.
The boy in the back was crying for his momma – and so was the driver as a matter of fact. I paused for a moment, wondering if they were one in the same. We weren’t in the South, but stranger things have happened. I had ripped through most of the man’s left side when I heard the solid ‘thunking’ of the passenger as he was finally able to rid himself of his constraints. No measure of humanitarianism in him as he climbed through the passenger side window and hastily made his way towards the tree line. Forgetting to take a weapon as he drunkenly weaved away.
“Kids these days,” I told the father; he was convulsing.
Blood and a mixture of foamy bile were running freely from a mouth that had not and now would never close. The boy in the back seat was getting the glassy-eyed stare of one going deep into shock, plus, his damn eyes wouldn’t blink. It was sort of unsettling, although he was smiling grotesquely at me. I had to stand up and hold my gut when I started to laugh so hard. I realized he was upside down so, what I thought was a huge smile, was more – I guess – a gigantic sneer.
I finally undid the dad’s buckle and let him drop onto the roof and then I violently yanked him out onto the pavement. “I’ve been telling people for years that seatbelts kill! Waste not, want not,” I said aloud.
The boy started wailing with the disappearance of his dear departed dad. “I’ll be back soon,” I told him. Jets of vomit began to spew from his mouth, almost hitting the windshield, which I thought was pretty impressive. It began to taper off and runnels of it flowed up his face, and across his eyes, and still he didn’t blink. “You’ve got talent, kid, I’ll give you that.”
I got back out and started tearing anew into his old man. I was shaking him back and forth like a rabid wolf. His body was continually coming up off the ground as I tore ragged strips from him, and then falling back to earth each time with a little less force as I consumed him.
“I had no idea how hungry I was. You’re up, kid,” I said as I tossed his dad into a ditch. What was left of him might keep a rat or two happy for a few minutes.
The kid was alive, but he was full-on catatonic. He was as rigid as a board in his folded up position. I had gotten a crick in my neck from eating his dad at a weird angle inside the truck, so this time, I unfastened him. He hit the roof head first and fell to the side, not even acknowledging it. I pulled him out and deposited him pretty much in the same bloody mess of his father’s remains. Seemed fitting; as they always say, like father like son.
His leg was indeed bent at an awkward angle. It looked like he would be in excruciating pain. “Here, let me help you with that,” I told him as I placed my foot on his chest and gripped his leg in both arms. He winced some, but he was deep down in whatever world he had retreated to as I yanked hard on his leg, bending it back and forth like one would with a piece of wire they are attempting to snap.
“Oh screw this.” I chewed through the skin and muscle to release his lower leg from the rest of his body. I held it up over my head and yelled a victorious war cry, my foot still on his chest.
“A nice cold beer right now and I’d be all set.”
I started to eat the leg like a tailgater with a turkey leg. I belched long and deep after I finished him off. I didn’t think I could eat another bite, that was, of course, until I looked up and son number one was staring blankly back at me from just before the line of trees. Maybe a hundred yards away.
“You’re about as stupid as your dad,” I told him as I started to lumber off toward him.
I’d only made it about a quarter of the way when his brain started working again and he figured that now would be a good time to run. I’d thought about letting him go along on his merry little way, knowing full well he was going to be hampered with the guilt of his actions for the rest of his life. But fuck it, he looked tasty.
“Hey…wait…hold up,” I yelled mockingly to him. “Well that’s very rude,” I told him as he vanished into the woods. “You should quit running, you’ll just die tired,” I said, thinking I was being witty, but in retrospect, I may have seen it on a t-shirt. I don’t have any recollection of how long it had taken to eat my would-be way layers, but the sun was nearing its descent and the woods were painted in a growing, dreary darkness. This had to be terrifying for the young man, and I was eating it up – bad pun intended.
Within ten minutes of
being in the woods the sun had set. I felt no pang of remorse thinking that the man had seen his final day. Shouldn’t have been hanging out with his dad and he would have been fine. He was still a ways off, but I could hear him running blindly for his life. I could make out his occasional curse as he stumbled into a tree or maybe poked his eye out with a branch. I was aided greatly by a moonless night and a cloud cover to boot. Saint Lorenzo must be on my side tonight; patron saint of food eaters, I think. I could be wrong; I was usually too busy pulling on Cindy Lillie’s pigtails during catechism classes. Had more than one scar across my knuckles to attest to that fact.
After one particularly nasty shout out, my prey stopped completely. So…he had either knocked himself out, or he was packing it in for the night. I can’t say I blamed him the woods were a deep, dark, and dank place. Also, there were creatures out there that would rend you from your heart.
“Almost poetic, Tim,” I murmured. I had a general idea in the direction he had headed, but without his constant bumbling, this was going to get a lot more difficult.
“Nothing ventured nothing eaten.”
I trudged on. I was as quiet as I could be, but let’s face it; I’m half zombie, with a fused ankle and zero tracking or hunting skills coupled with the mentality of an offensive lineman. I figured the only thing that might be noisier than me in these woods would be that man’s heart as he heard me approaching his position. Now I was going to have to play the part of hunting dog and flush him out, otherwise there was a good chance I would pass him on by, and I still had a date with my two girlfriends at some point. I certainly didn’t want to disappoint them.
“Oops, I just burped, or your dad said hello,” I said not too loudly.
I had a feeling I was close, like a snake can detect a rabbit, it was kind of like that. I couldn’t see him, but I could sense him like an existence in the darkness that didn’t belong.
“I can almost hear your heart thrashing around. Do you have your hand over your mouth too? Like you want to scream from the insanity of this situation, but you can’t because your life depends on it? Fuck…that sounds scary when you say it aloud. I’m really thankful right now that I’m not you.”
I moved a few feet to my left, still nothing. I was wondering if maybe he had fainted. A flash of light so fast and dim I mistakenly figured it for a lighter. That was up until the point another followed.
“Storm’s coming, my friend. How about we get out of the approaching weather and seek some shelter together.” I was rewarded with a fat drop of rain hitting the top of my head. “This is going to be a good one!” I yelled over a distant rumble of thunder.
“If you come out now I promise to eat you fast. I don’t want to get wet either.”
Still nothing. Either I had missed him, or this guy was the living embodiment of a black hole. I seriously thought about leaving his worthless ass to the elements and then he chose that moment to move. A brilliant display of arcing lightning outlined him better than a spotlight as he was in mid-stride not more than twenty feet from me.
“Just got to have faith,” I told Hugh like it was he who was the one wanting to cut short our hunting party.
The kid was stumbling almost every step on the uneven terrain, I wasn’t even running, I felt like Jason of Friday the 13th fame, just slowly methodically slogging my way through the rain and dark. Meanwhile, the heroine – who in this case was male – tripped constantly. If he had spent less time looking over his shoulder at how close or not I was and kept watching where he was going, he would have completely avoided the wall of brambles he ran headlong into.
His cries were punctuated with brilliant iridescent flashes of lightning; his screams matched the crescendo of thunderclaps. It was a symphony all adding to the climax of the event.
“What do you want with me?” he begged, struggling to free himself from the inch long thorns. The smell of the blood as he tore his skin was heavenly. I reveled in it.
“Surely you cannot be so ignorant. I realize that the American school system is not what it once was, but they had to have taught you something, boy,” I said as I stepped up next to him. He was shaking so violently, the rainwater that was cascading down was having a difficult time adhering to him. A dog fresh from the tub didn’t shed that much water.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I told him as I dipped my finger into one of his many puncture wounds. I stuck the blood-dabbed finger into my mouth enjoying the sweet, metallic taste.
“You...you ate my brother and father.”
I looked off for a moment in sweet remembrance. “Yes...yes I did,” I told him, matching his cadence.
“Why?”
“Why? Because I was fucking hungry.”
He shirked back as far as the unyielding hedge would allow. I absently dipped my finger into a blood flow, swirling it around and getting as much to stick as possible before popping it in my mouth.
“Please, mister, just let me go.” His face soaked with tears and rain; it was so thick and heavy it almost looked like he was underwater.
“What’s your name, son?” I asked tenderly, although in physical years he looked a little older.
“Ned Ferguson,” he gulped out, maybe thinking that if we got personal it would be that much more difficult for me to murder him.
False hope I can assure you, but he grabbed at it anyway.
“Well, Ned,” I said, pinching his face and turning his neck slightly more than nature had intended. His eyes cinched shut, his mouth quivering. “Look at me, boy,” I said with authority. His eyes opened up, at first only wide enough to insert a dollar bill. I gripped his jaw harder, grinding his teeth together. “Wider,” I said menacingly. We were at coin slots now and I was tiring of the game. “Son, you’d best open your eyes wide or I’m just going to rip your jaw off,” I told him as I stuck my finger in his mouth and began to pull down. He gagged as he sampled the remains of his kin that had coated my entire hand and was nestled deep in the crevices of my chipped and broken finger nails.
“Good stuff, wouldn’t you agree?” I told him with a laugh. He looked like his body couldn’t decide what action to take: cry or puke. At least I finally got him to open his eyes all the way.
“Look at me,” I told him. This time I only needed to gently guide his chin in my direction. The lightning was flashing so brilliant and so often that it was the light that was interrupted by the night rather than the other way around. The thunder rolled in long continuous arching booms. Rain and wind were pelting our clothes, alternating between making them stick and lifting them from our bodies.
Ned had not yet resigned himself to his fate, but the storm alone should have been his omen. Tenderly I spoke, “Ned, does this look like the face of someone that is going to let you go?” He passed out.
The storm had passed by the time I had completely devoured him. Funny thing is, I don’t remember either Ned’s or the storm’s ephemeral wake. At some point during the tempestuous night, I had stripped naked, delighting in the feeling of the cold hard rain against my skin. I had marveled at the pain as I willing thrust myself into the large spurs, cutting myself dozens, hundreds of times. Even Hugh seemed to be caught up in it, the siren song of the power we wielded. Life and death…well…in all honesty, mainly death. We weren’t so much an amnesty group; we were most alive when we took the precious gift from others.
“That was amazing,” I said to Hugh as I pulled my pants up. From the sound of my voice and the actions I was performing, one might have mistakenly thought I had just concluded an incredible sex session but they’d be wrong. What I’d done last night had been infinitely better. I may have had a hard-on or two while I sucked the marrow from Ned’s bones, but it was the lust of living…not sex, that had spurred that reaction.
“Well, my sweet Scarlett and Yummy Yorley, if you guys can even half match the ecstasy I felt last night, we’re in for a ruckus!”
Getting out of the woods was not quite as easy venture as going in. Refer back to the par
t where I said I wasn’t a woodsman. Ned had gone a lot further and deeper than I thought he had. I was more turned around than a blonde watching a record player. My useless dad had once told me that if I ever got lost in the woods I used to play in, that the best thing to do would be to sit still and be quiet for a moment. Eventually you would begin to hear the noise pollution of people. At that point you just followed the sound.
“That advice isn’t so fucking good now, Dad.” I won’t lie; I had a slight moment of panic thinking about being lost in the woods.
Hugh was a champion eater. We could have cleaned house in those eating competitions that showcased our gluttony. Can you imagine what a starving kid in Zimbabwe – fuck Detroit even – would think if they saw some asshole eat twenty-seven hot dogs in eleven minutes? Kid was clinging to life by the slimmest of nutrient intakes and there were sports on television where people uncaringly shoved mountains of various offerings into their stretched out bellies for prizes and cash. I’m glad I wasn’t an alien looking down trying to figure out what we were all about.
Although, I did have a moment of humor when I thought about a zombie Kobiyashi with a pallet full of humans as he devoured them in record time. I’d pay to see that. I meandered for well on three or four hours, if the movement of the sun was any indication. And I had to pat myself on the back when I realized I was exiting the woods not more than a tenth of a mile or so from where I had entered. I was happy in the thought of getting back into my ride and on to my reunion.
“What do we have here?” I asked the day as I came out into the clear and was now looking at the turned over truck.
I stopped and watched as a big man dressed in typical lumberjack attire was either looking for supplies to steal or admiring my handiwork. I could hear him yelling clear as a bell from where I stood. I would have gone up and introduced myself if not for the hunting rifle in his hand. I wasn’t pleased at all with the scope he had mounted on it either. The man turned away from the truck, looked up towards the heavens and then down to the ground. He followed something to the edge of the road and then even went a few more yards more or less, following the trail Ned and I had made.
