by Mark Tufo
“Ollie, ollie oxen free,” I said softly, hoping the spirits would honor this safe zone.
I knew of no stronger charm to implore. I heard a car door slam and then the roar of an engine from a distance; he was really leaving. The rain had stopped, but the damage had been done, I was soaked and so was the ground. I was shaking from the cold leeching into my bones or maybe from the passing of so many spirits within my proximity.
Night descended in full force, a sodium light burned brightly about a hundred yards away. It shed not an ounce of light on my present location; it merely served as a reminder that light did exist somewhere, just not here. My legs hurt I had been standing so long. Every so often I could hear the caw of a crow off in the distance and the sighing of the wind as it whipped around the mini monoliths that represented the final resting place of so many people.
“Grammie, are you here?” I asked, looking at her headstone.
A small crescent moon rose that night but was quickly hidden behind a curtain of clouds. For the longest time I didn’t cry, mistakenly thinking my father was watching from some distant vantage point and when he felt an appropriate time had passed he would come and get me and say I was brave. But that wasn’t going to happen, he was busy getting a case of syphilis. Gave it to my mom, as a matter of fact. That was one of the biggest blowouts they’d ever had. Even at that age I was able to kind of piece the puzzle together of why and what they were fighting about, and I thought it served him right for leaving me in the graveyard.
When I sort of came to the conclusion he had really left me in this dark, bleak, and deathly place, I lost it. My head pounded from the force that I had cried. Snot ran from my nose with the same intensity as the tears that cascaded from my eyes. I was panicking; so much of me wanted to run to that distant sodium glow and bask in the circle of light it provided, but my father’s last warning halted me in my tracks. To leave grandma’s protection was to invite a gruesome end. I’d watched enough horror movies to know that.
When I got to the point where I could no longer stand, I sat down, the bottom of my pants instantly soaked through as I rested my back against her headstone. The cold became a tangible thing. It had a force of its own, but it paled in comparison to the fright I felt. I was as much locked in place by the fear of the unknown as I was by my loss of body heat. The stone slab was extracting heat as if in payment for its use. I dozed a couple of times that night, awakening when I dreamed my grandmother was reaching up through the ground to pull me down with her in a deadly embrace. Funny thinking back on it now, but it was just a couple of pointy stones – one sticking on the right side of my ass and the other on my left leg. At the time, though, I thought my heart was going to stop I had been making it work so hard.
By the time the sun had come up the next morning, I had slid off to the side and my face was now covered in dried dirt and my ear was filled with it. Birds were singing and the sodium light had gone out. I had survived the night, no thanks to my asshole dad. The only thing that never made any sense were the footprints in the dew covered grass surrounding grandma’s plot. They were slender and small almost like a woman’s or a young girl’s. They had come right up to where I was sleeping but had not actually made an impression on the grass itself like a person would but rather, as if the imprint of the footfall had removed all the moisture in that exact shape or more likely had not allowed it to ever form come the morning.
I watched as the rising sun burned the dew off and erased any signs of my visitor before I stood. My pants were caked in dirt and I thought about taking them off and draping them across the grave stone so they’d dry, but the idea of being in my underwear in this place seemed sacrilegious, and if my father caught me he’d call me a fruit and cuff me around my ear.
It took longer this way, but I just kept turning with the sun to make sure the wettest part was exposed to the sun’s rays. I was like a fucking human sundial. The sun had crested and was starting its downward trek. I really thought my old man was going to make me stay out here another night. The thought of the girl coming back almost made me involuntarily empty my bladder. My stomach ached from emptiness, and the sun had done its job pushing the cold out, but just barely. Another night in the crisp air and I’d have some exposure problems. Although I didn’t know that’s what it was called then.
I didn’t cry that day; not because I didn’t want to, but rather, if I did and my old man saw me he would leave my ass again – and also because I was fairly dehydrated. I hadn’t pissed the entire day I don’t think there was any water in my system to spare. My dad showed just as the sun began to slip past the horizon. His shirt was untucked, he had a couple of day’s growth of beard and he looked like he’d gone a couple of rounds with a pissed off monkey. He tossed a Happy Meal box at my head and then turned around to head back to the car. Only the fries that had slipped out of the small bag were remaining, and the burger was half gone, but I wolfed down what was left before we got to the car. The toy I tossed to the side when I realized it was for a girl. Maybe my ghostly visitor would like it better than me; it was a pink plastic pony.
I sat in the back seat wondering if anything back there with me would be sufficient to cave in his skull. I had an ice scraper and beer bottles to choose from. I leaned down to grab one of the rolling empties when my father finally spoke, freezing me on the spot.
“Learn your lesson?” he asked, looking back at me through the mirror.
“Yes, sir,” I told him, and I had. Maybe not the one he’d meant.
I’d learned to hate my father and not trust anyone. Unless of course that was what he’d set out to do, because if that was the case, then yes…he had succeeded. Thanks, Dad. It was that happy thought that almost had me plow into a hastily erected defensive perimeter.
My screeching brakes momentarily caught the attention of the beleaguered bunch. There was seven of them, five men and two women that would have given runway models a run for their money. I’m talking in terms of how skinny they were, not how pretty, because the scraggly gap-toothed hag that had turned to look back at me was going to disturb my sleep tonight. This was a pack of humans who certainly were not doing well, and from the looks of it, they had been this bad off from the start. Their mismatched clothes and demeanor suggested that they had all, up until recently, been transients. And upon having awoken one morning from their slumber under a bridge, discovered that the world had now been drastically altered. If they hadn’t mushified their brains with excessive drinking of cheap liquor, they could have been kings of this new domain. But stupid people are stupid people. Instead of finding a vacant mansion and setting themselves up nicely, they were probably running around stealing shitty booze from liquor stores.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I said.
The car had come to a complete stop about twenty feet from them. To prove my point only two of the men were armed and only one was shooting as the other appeared to be working on a malfunction. One of the women was jumping up and down waving wildly like her fucking hair was on fire.
“The bitch is on crack,” I said aloud as I pressed down on the gas pedal. Two of the men jumped out of the way. The one with the misfire and the one still shooting did not. I pinned the both of them up against the side of the car they were using as a barricade.
I beeped my horn wildly to drown out their cries of pain and surprise.
“Fuckin’ hurts, I bet!” I smiled as I stepped out of my car.
“Sweet Mary mother of Jesus!” one of the women screamed upon seeing me.
In her haste to get away from me she ran right into the zombies that had been attacking.
“Shut up!” I told the man closest to me.
He had dropped his gun and was trying to bend over and touch his shattered knees. The other man that had been stooping down wasn’t moving, I had caught him sideways and it looked like I had caved in his ribcage. Only one of the men stayed to fight; he had a broom handle.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked him.
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br /> “I’m going to shove this up your ass!” he said valiantly as he approached, the stick whistling in the wind as he swung it rapidly around.
“I’m not sure why you’d want to do that, and to what end?” I asked as he came closer, the stick still swinging wildly.
The shocked expression his face took on as I snatched the stick out of the air was priceless. He was tugging on it with both arms, I was pulling him in closer before he let go and went running.
“What about the wooden enema we talked about?” I shouted to him.
Zombies peeled off from the main attack force and began to pursue him. He was screwed. Years of alcohol and drug addiction had left him ill suited for a prolonged chase, and even as I was turning back to my meal, I heard his cries as they caught up to him.
“I wonder if I should shove this up your ass?” I asked the man with the busted knees. His eyes were glazing over. “It’d be like beef teriyaki, meat on a stick…or a fucking corndog looking at the quality of food you represent.”
Hugh was keeping the zombies at bay from this prize, but the rest were free game, even the one being squished. Zombies had crawled under the car and where even now ripping strips off his ankles and lower legs. He wasn’t quite as dead as I had originally thought, but the punctured lungs he’d suffered made his screams for mercy sound weak and pathetic.
“Dammit, we could have saved him for later,” I said as I watched the man being yanked back and forth in his confines as zombies scrambled to take chunks off of him. “Well I guess you’re up,” I told the man standing before me.
His eyes flew open as I took my first few bites. They closed quickly as I tore chunks from him. I started to feel strange. The more I ate of the man, the weirder it got. Hugh was acting strangely, randomly throwing images up. Birds, tv show credits, watermelons; he was going through them so fast I couldn’t keep up, and at this point, I didn’t really care enough to do so.
I was halfway done tearing through the man’s carcass when it dawned on me what was going on. The guy had been hopped up on something and now we were taking it into our system. My guess from looking at the scraggly fucks was that we had just broke Benjamin – meaning we had just done meth. I was torched, my head was swimming, and I had a rapidly building feeling of euphoria. Now I know why the ‘spin tops’ did this shit.
“This is great,” I said, smacking my lips. I was touching my faces enjoying the tactile feel as my fingers ran over the dual layers of skin. Now I knew I should have saved the second guy just to keep the high going.
“Hugh, call off the dogs, the rest of this little tea party is ours.”
I was not going to share this with the zombie slobs. Apparently Hugh was having as good a time as I was and wanted to keep the party rolling. The shout he spiked through my head barely went noticed as I reveled in my stoned state. Echoes of zombies moaning and growling drifted up from my feet where they were dragging what was left of the crushed man underneath with them.
“Whoa, that’s weird,” I said as I stumbled away.
The man that had originally promised to make me a puppet had already fallen and was being stripped faster than a Honda on a dark side street in L.A. That still left two men and one woman, and one of the women was even now getting up warily. She had fallen and was seconds away from becoming chowder. The zombies that had been chasing her were now watching intently but were not coming any closer.
Her crack head partner was urging her to come on, but he was not going to her to help. They seemed so far away as I began to make my way through the haze of my buzz, and then the brilliance hit. I showed Hugh what I wanted, and he did the rest. A couple of zombies stayed with the fallen princess making sure she didn’t move and the rest headed off to round up the remaining two like the good hunting zombies that they were. This was fucking brilliant. I was going to use zombies to flush and contain my food. Perfect!
I walked up to Pockmark Paula. She was shaking violently as I approached. I didn’t really notice as I was enjoying the sun upon my skin and the feel of the breeze as it blew past.
“This is great,” I told Pock.
She smiled, seven or eight teeth missing. “Am I gonna die?” she asked.
“Without a doubt,” I told her as I turned my face upwards to gather in the rays of the sun.
“Can I smoke one more rock?”
“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” I told her. “I’d prefer you that way,” I added without even looking at her.
The zombies seemed to be getting a little impatient just standing there; I had Hugh send them on their way. Pock wasn’t going anywhere except on a mind journey. She had sat down on the grass, I sat next to her.
“Want a hit?” she asked through gulps of smoke. She attempted to hand me the glassware.
I politely refused. I liked the infusion through blood.
“I got another rock,” she said after a few minutes.
“By all means please,” I told her.
I watched in fascination as she took in the harsh smoke. She was making so much merry in her high, I don’t even know if she realized when I ripped her nose off. She went quietly, odds were she had given herself a hot dose and was dying anyway. If you were going to die (which she was and violently) there were worse ways to go. I laid her down so I could also lie down. At that point I just rolled over and grabbed a few mouthfuls, turned onto my back and chewed appreciatively, admired the day, and then grabbed some more. I don’t know how long I did this, but however long, it was well worth it! By the time I’d ransacked her drug-ravaged body, I had attracted a small crowd. Zombies were swarming around and jockeying for position to eat any scraps I had left. As I got up and stumbled past the throng, I heard Pock’s bones getting crushed as the crowd converged on her.
“This is fucking great, Hugh!” I’d smoked a little weed in college and drank to excess, but never had I been quite this altered of state. I could get to enjoy this new sense of well being. Who knows, maybe if I’d been a meth addict I wouldn’t have been such an ass in life. Doubtful, but fun to think about nonetheless. The next guy I came across was pinned up against a tree, with a ring of ten zombies surrounding him, his lip was twitching like he was in the throes of a major stroke.
“What the fuck, man?” he asked me as I came up. I was smiling so wide both my sets of lips were hurting.
“What...the...fuck...man,” I said haltingly in return. “You got any rock?” I asked him.
“Is that what this is all about?” he asked, looking around wildly.
“Well it wasn’t when I came up on you guys but it is now.”
“Yeah, yeah I got a couple of rocks,” he said, his hand shaking as he pulled out a handful of twisted off baggie ends.
“Damn,” I told him as my vision blurred. “Smoke them,” I told him.
“I don’t smoke, been sober a year and a half.”
“You’ve got like fifteen bags there.” Then it dawned. “You’re a dealer, so you don’t do the poison you just peddle it. Gotcha. Now fucking smoke it,” I told him as I got within an inch of his face. Then I smiled, honked his nose and backed up.
“I can’t,” he begged.
“Are you afraid of a parole violation? Don’t be a dipshit,” I told him.
“I made promises…I’m trying to live my life the right way.”
“By selling drugs? Could you be any more hypocritical? And as for ‘living your life’ how much more of it do you think you have left anyway? Might as well meet your maker all glowy eyed and smiling wide. Don’t you think?”
He fumbled in another pocket pulling out a glass pipe that was clean but that had obviously seen a lot of use in its day.
“That just a reminder of better times?” I asked him cynically.
“In moments of doubt I would pull it out and reflect how bad it had been when I was smoking it.”
“I would think you’d want to get lost in that crystalline haze,” I said wistfully.
“Oh I did, trust me,” he said as he unpackaged a
couple of rocks and placed them into the bowl.
I watched in a spellbound trance as he inhaled deeply of the white gray smoke. His pupils immediately dilated, thin red veins streaked out from the center of his eye to all four corners of his eyeball. His lids drooped and sweat blossomed on his forehead and under his arms. I placed my hand on his chest; his heart had increased its beating.
He took another hit, holding this one in for a little longer, by the time he exhaled, there was only the slightest hint of vapor to emerge.
“That’s talent,” I told him.
“I’ve missed this,” he told me like we were old friends and were catching up after a particularly long time apart.
“Me too,” I answered back.
He screamed a little as I tore into him, but I think it had more to do with him dropping his rocks than with me ripping through his Adam’s apple. Blood and air foamed as I chewed through his neck, some smoke that must have been trapped in his lungs leaked out as well. To be honest, the concoction was pleasing to the senses. His body spasmed for a lot longer than anyone I had thus encountered. I think it had to do with the fact that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of his high no matter how much of him I ate.
Hugh was lit like a Christmas tree, running around like a six-year-old who had just left Grandma’s house and she had him hopped up on Red Bull and Pixy Stix. Random parts of my body would begin to flail about as if independent from the rest of me. I thought it was both hilarious and upsetting. Funny in how fucked up he was, and scary at how easily he could take the physical controls back. Even in my altered state I knew this for the concern it was.
“Well, Hugh, three down one to go. Should we go look for him?” I asked, rubbing my belly as I stood.
It was then that I noticed the ring of zombies, not so unusual because they liked food, but these – or at least most of them – were looking up. I craned my head to see what they were looking at. The vertigo this caused almost spilled me back on my ass. I saw two boot-clad feet above me. I stepped away from the tree to get a better view. The last of the meth crew had gotten himself treed like a bear on a hunt.
