by Mark Tufo
“You’re kind of fucked,” I told him.
He didn’t say anything, but stood up and climbed a little higher. He was about twenty-five to thirty feet up. He was relatively safe; as I don’t think I could have climbed stairs in the state I was in. Even if I was stone straight, I don’t think I could have pulled Clarence’s bulk up that tree.
“You should come down,” I told him, motioning with my arm for incentive. He didn’t buy it. “You’re going to have to sleep at some point. We all know how this is going to end, just come down so we can be done with it.”
“You want me to come down so you can eat me? What kind of freak are you?”
“Well, actually a relatively full one and pleasantly stoned, thank you very much,” I graced him with a bow.
“Go fuck yourself!” he screamed down.
“The first thing to go in an apocalypse is manners,” I said, and showed Hugh how to send a couple of our brethren up the tree to bring our quarry down. Our success was limited; the best any of them could do was about five feet. That’s not to say it didn’t scare the shit out of our holdout at least for the first few attempts, after that he realized the futility.
“You’re really planning on being this big a pain in the ass?” I asked him.
“To save myself? Yeah,” he answered like I was the dumb ass for asking.
“Hugh, tell our buddies to hold tight, I’m going back to the car.” It was about a half hour round trip because I meandered a bit, and a few times I actually forgot what I was even trying to do. When I returned, my holdout had not moved. If anything, he had climbed a little higher and looked as if he was going to try and do a Tarzan thing and jump from tree to tree. I pointed my gun at him for incentive. He had been watching warily as I came back.
“You can shoot?” he sighed.
“Not great at it, and I’m sure even worse right now, but I’ve got enough bullets that I figure I’ll get lucky eventually.” I held the gun up, pointing in his general direction. “Just come down so I don’t have to watch out for the bullet while I’m eating. I could break a cap or something,” I guffawed.
He didn’t respond. I was beginning to think he was a barbarian and then he did it – the unthinkable. It’s amazing to me what a person will do when their options are limited. He was a good fifty feet in the air when he pushed off that small branch.
“No way,” I said aloud, watching as he fluttered through the air, my words an indication of the chances I thought he had of getting to the tree next to this one which was about fifteen feet as a crow flies and about fifty-five feet for a human’s trajectory. Even if he made it, he was fucked. I did appreciate the effort he was giving forth. Dinner and a fucking show, or in this case the other way around.
“Son of a bitch,” I said as I watched him start to careen off branches, loud ‘umphs’ were punctuated by the splitting, tearing, puncturing and general breaking of the human body as he battered himself through thirty feet of tree boughs. He did one final flip around the bottom most branch before his still near-lifeless body fell to the ground not more than five feet from where I stood.
“Well that was handy,” I said as I dug in.
He had not been quite as high as his counterparts but his self-tenderizing made for a delicious meal. I left close to half of him remaining for my hunting zombies. My bulk had gained some girth during my recent gluttonous feast. I stripped off my clothes as I waited for Hugh to store away what he needed and eliminate the rest. It wasn’t long before the elephantine-sized mound of excrement began to leave my body in a vile red-brown river of death and stench. I watched as bits of bone, clothes, buttons, and several other unidentifiable objects flowed past my splayed feet.
“Probably should have pointed myself uphill,” I said.
The force with which I expelled my waste made me wonder if I was going to make my asshole prolapsed. I’d seen it on a girl once; it was pretty gross, just picture an asshole turned inside out, what more do I need to say? Had no real desire to stick my dick anywhere near that thing. I was afraid it would never let it go once in its clutches.
Twenty-five blissful minutes later I was finished, the lower half of my body was covered in filth in some places more than an inch thick. I was like a strawberry that had been double dipped in chocolate fondue. Well, not really, but you get the picture.
I needed to get cleaned up. When you realized that maggots, cockroaches and rats wanted nothing to do with you, then you had serious issues. If I went to find Yorley like this, she’d smell me long before I could get close. I traipsed around the woods for a little while until I found what I was looking for; the stream wasn’t as big as I would have hoped, but at least I’d be able to break the bigger blocks of solidifying shit off of me. I was going to foul up the local eco-system, I mused as I watched the water behind me turn brown. I imagined that choking conflagration concoction as it flowed in and around fish downstream.
“Sucks to be lower on the food chain,” I said as I briskly wiped more and more of the solids away.
It was actually quite refreshing to be scrubbing myself clean. I wasn’t in any rush to get soap and shampoo as I turned my skin pink from my actions, but the feeling of getting the grime off was invigorating. When I was done, I even dipped my clothes. This wasn’t a Tide commercial, and I didn’t get the myriad of stains out, but they did smell a little better. Although, in reality, I could have rubbed Muenster cheese all over them and they would have smelled better.
“I hope Yorley appreciates this,” I said as I wrung my clothes out. I walked out of the woods with the dripping wet clothes strewn over my back. I was as naked as the day I was born. Well at least as naked as the day Clarence was born that is.
Hugh was still off in buzz-land as I got in our car and headed off to my date with destiny. There was something extremely liberating about driving a car naked. I wondered what a cop would think if he had the misfortune of pulling me over. I was naked, high as a kite, and craved humans as food. Yeah, it would be a bad day for that cop. Although bringing the absurd thought out to its fruition, prison would have been fucking spectacular. All the food I could eat housed in ten-by-ten foot containers. I’d eat like a king for years in a maximum-security facility. John Q. Public would love me; just think of the tax money I’d save them. Capital punishment could be administered by me! Lethal injection, electric chair, firing squad, hanging…or Timothy, perfect! Everybody would be guilty in my court of law. Guilty of tasting delicious!
“Shit I must still be high,” I said aloud.
The sun was setting as my buzz was beginning to wear off. Hugh had completely withdrawn as the drugs pulled back their cloak of mirth. Normally I didn’t feel the need for sleep in the zombie state, but the events of the day had worn my ass out – that last part was even literal! I pulled over to the side of the road. Last thing I wanted to do was get plowed into by some wayward tractor-trailer. I let the seat recline all the way back and, even in the uncomfortable confines of a car, I got a pretty restful night of sleep. It was a pretty easy procedure; all I really needed to do was withdraw from the fore and get into my hidey-hole and that was it, no light, no sounds, no thoughts, and no distractions. Sleep came effortlessly. It was upon waking up that I found something truly unsettling had happened.
Sun crept in my crusted up eyelids. I tried to wipe it away but was unable to do so. Then I realized we were in unfamiliar territory and on foot.
“Hugh, what’s going on?” I asked, seeking some way to regain control of my movements. There were zombies all around us and we were moving as a pack.
“Stomach empty,” was his reply, better than ‘hungry’ I suppose.
“Well, let me help you find some food then.”
No reply. We were in the midst of a fairly good-sized zombie horde that must have roamed by sometime during the night. There had to be close to a hundred, but I couldn’t get an accurate fix as Hugh didn’t seem to give a shit about anything other than what was in front of him and the invisible pull of th
e group.
Where were we headed? It was impossible to tell and Hugh was as non-communicative as ever. He had slid effortlessly back into the driver’s seat so to speak. Wait, how the fuck did he get the car door open? That showed a level of intelligence light years above the rest of this clan. These fuckers couldn’t find their way out of a refrigerator box.
“Hugh, come on, man, we had a deal.” Nothing. At least he wasn’t attacking, that was something. “Is this about the drugs? Come on, you have to admit that was fun, right?”
The herd changed directions in mid-step almost like a flock of swallows. A moment later I heard engine noise and it was approaching. Within moments we were at full sprint trying to keep up with the rest of the zombies as a tractor-trailer pulled up to a stop on the side of the road.
What the fuck are they doing? I thought. There’s no way they can’t see us; we’re running straight for them. Two men got out, both holding wicked looking rifles – the kind I would imagine specifically built for the military. They were kind of antsy with so many of us coming for them, but they weren’t shooting and they weren’t running. What the fuck is going on?
A few of the faster zombies were already to the men, and this was where the strangest part came in, they weren’t tearing the men apart. They sniffed around them a few times and moved past them.
Were they men like me? Would they know a way to get control back from a zombie host? I needed to get up to them and ask.
“Shit, Remy, come over here, man, look at this fat, ugly fuck, he’s naked!” the man I came up to said.
“Grant, come on, man, let’s just round these things up and get going, they fucking creep me out. Special vial or not, I don’t want to be around them,” Remy replied.
“Dude, what is the matter with your face?” Grant asked shoving me to the side with the butt of his gun. I tried to scream at him for help, but I couldn’t get past Hugh.
Hugh moved back in closer, sniffing like a truffle-seeking hog.
“Listen, you ugly fuck, I’m not going to tell you again. You come near me and I’m going to beautify the world by blowing a fucking hole in the center of your head. Orders or not!” Grant shouted, shoving us so hard we fell to the ground.
Hugh’s thoughts were going faster than I could intercept them, but the gist of it was that the man was human but had some special protectant on him that kept us from eating him. Something about a ‘Liza’ but I couldn’t get him to make any sense.
“Eat…can’t,” Hugh moaned in my head.
“I thought you were kidding,” Remy said, standing over my grounded form. “Even for a zombie he’s ugly. Must have been a lady’s man when he was alive.” The two men laughed and turned their backs.
“Can you eat him?” I asked Hugh, pissed off that I was the butt of anyone’s joke.
Hugh’s head hung low. “Dammit,” I said as Hugh stood. We just kind of milled around for a moment.
“Let’s get the bait ready,” Remy said.
Hugh followed (but not too closely) as Grant went to the back of the truck. We turned the corner and saw what looked like a family of four tied up and taped together. The father’s eyes widened as he saw Remy come around. Well if Remy scared him, the sight of me must have just about made him shit. The wife was unconscious; it looked as if she had taken a serious beating. The two kids were both in their late teens, both boys.
I figured them to be the bait, but for what purpose? Hugh was salivating at the prospect of getting a hold of that smorgasbord. But the same clouded look of confusion settled over his thoughts as he sniffed the air. It was then that I noticed something in common with everyone in this little drama, they all had a small vial attached by a silver chain hanging low on their chests.
What in the fuck was it?
Remy went up into the truck, there was a small hole, way in the back of the trailer – so actually the front – he grabbed a rope and fed some of it through that hole.
“Got it!” Grant shouted.
What in the hell is going on? I wanted to ask.
Remy took the other end of the rope and tied it to something on one of the boys. I couldn’t see from this angle, and I knew better than to ask Hugh to go up and get a better look. Zombies were all around, jostling about, realizing there was food around but unable to do anything about it.
“Just about ready!” Grant shouted pulling on the rope making sure it was secure. “Any last words?” Remy asked the father as he ripped the tape off.
“Please let my kids go,” the man pleaded.
Remy lifted the small chains from the four and bolted for the back. “Ready!” he shouted as he dropped down. Something clicked in Hugh’s brain, it must have happened in all the zombies as well. It was like chum had been dropped in a shark tank. Zombies began to stream in to the truck. I then realized what the rope was for as Grant began to pull the family back towards the front of the trailer, zombies following by the score. The father was screaming as zombies fought over the rights to get into the truck first and get first bites. Hugh was not exempt. And with his bulk he was winning his way there with sheer determination.
“EAT, EAT, EAT!” He repeated over and over again, a broken record would have been proud.
“NO!” I shouted with as much force as I could muster. Hugh was squishing a woman zombie up against the tailgate. She was grinding her teeth, but not at us. She was agonizingly close to food, but had not used the ramp like a plethora of her brethren were. Some were even now beginning to dine. She keened, her moans rising as she watched others partake. Hugh, however, was no ordinary zombie. He was beginning to climb over our line jumper, his (our) hand on her head, he was pushing her down as he (we) started to rise.
“No, Hugh, this is a trap!” I was screaming at him, but he was fixated on the prize like a gold digger on jewelry. There was no distracting him. “Fine…we’ll play this your way, dumb ass.” I started marshaling my forces, namely white blood cells. They had been lulled into believing Hugh – the virus – belonged here just like everything else. That was the beauty of being this in tune with my body, I might not be able to control Hugh, but I wasn’t defenseless or without power. Like a prized bloodthirsty pit bull I directed my white blood cells to attack the invader.
It was a little more complex than that, and I’d be lying if I said that I completely understood the particulars, but it boiled down to getting ‘in touch’ with them and letting them know who the foreigner was. The real trick was going to be, once I released the hounds, is if I would be able to recall them. Hugh had just stepped on the woman’s head and was bringing his other foot up to step into the trailer when the first of my minions attacked. The effect was instantaneous and devastating. Clarence went rigid and luckily teetered off to the left side away from the truck.
Fortunately, this was like stage diving. We landed on a host of zombies before our body kind of slid in between a few and then down to the ground. We were too tightly packed for any true movement and we weren’t in any danger of being trampled. Hugh quickly moved into damage control mode, his previous meat mania all but forgotten. I could feel Clarence’s body temperature begin to soar as an internal war was waged. Snot and puss leaked from our nose, sweat dampened the ground. We alternated between shivering and roasting; vomit gorged the ground as it was thrust out.
“Must have ate something bad,” I said, directing the troops like a field general. Off in the distance I heard a truck engine start.
“Shut the doors, Remy. Let’s get the fuck out of here. We’ve got all that’s going to fit.”
I heard the doors close.
“Can I have a little fun?” Remy asked.
“Go for it, I’ll finish this chapter.”
“Why in the fuck do you read books about zombies? Don’t you have enough of them already?” Remy asked Grant.
“I read ‘em because I like to see how wrong they were about it, or to get some pointers, whatever the case may be. Some of these fuckers were damn near prophetic. Hurry up…and make sure y
ou shoot away from the truck this time,” Grant said as he climbed up into the cab, closed the door, and rolled up the window.
I began to ‘blind’ the white blood cells to Hugh’s invasion just as Remy opened fire. He was blowing zombies away with a grim determination. There was something else there, too; it was pure enjoyment. More than once he would step up and place the barrel of the weapon against some unsuspecting zombie, normally a child, a sick grin spreading across his features as the back of the head would yield its gristle-covered prize, with the zombie child falling sickly to the ground.
Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t bother me in the least, but it certainly was getting the Hughster all riled up.
“You ready to listen?” I asked him as our in-house domestic dispute began to wind down.
“Food,” he said as an accusation.
“Yeah, yeah, I took food away from your mouth. It was a trap, dumb ass.”
“Killing,” he said, showing an image of Remy.
“Aw, look at my little bleeding-heart-Hugh. Are you angry that he’s killing your kind?” I saw an opportunity. “Want to do something about it?” I asked him.
“Different,” Hugh said, talking about Remy.
“How about you let me work the controls? I’ll stop him from killing your buddies, and I’ll get you a decent meal.”
He didn’t answer, but when I was able to put my hand under my body and push my head out of the pile of chunder-from-down-under, I had already received my answer. Remy was plowing through a seemingly infinite supply of ammunition as he gunned zombies down. I waited until his back was towards us before I fully stood. He was a good fifteen feet away and I had a few dozen zombies between him and me. If he spun at any particular time I was screwed. I placed my meaty hand against more than one zombie face and pushed them to the side as I advanced quickly. Remy had taken that inopportune time to turn. I was thankful he had not brought the gun around with him.
