* Walking Dead Man Rots in the Water
with a poem in his mind
gleaming fangs and
venom trails at the crossbones in the cracks
the monsters of night have
hissed and growled in the yawning grave-sky gap
and we live on the blind side of a madman's sharpened ax
our tearing claws arc wide within the blackest cloak of night
a shining moon, a silver skull that strikes you from the deep
a flaming sun, a gilded scythe that cuts your body down
we've risen in your empty sleep and killed you in your mind
now you're in a netherworld lost somewhere in the dark
weeping like a ghost of doom with sorrows and with bones
and all the many lives you led are shattered on the rocks
that were swallowed many years ago by the waves of angry seas
*Blog entry October? @
WalkingDead-man.blogpower.com
*This entry is hashed in
story form. I would rather paint a word portrait of my personal history than
bore people with inane political comments, reviews and offbeat opinions.
Guess Who’s Truckin’ Again?
Sure, I’m a dead
man on the move,
and I plan to rule
this crummy northern city. If you think you can stop me, then scrape your
ass off the gutter slime and try. But don’t count on success with those
silver bullets, because I absorb the poison as fast as it's dosed out.
Here’s how my new walking dead man
deal began.
An oppressive dream stank in the
broken chamber of my soul. Eyes burned with a razor’s light and I could not
move or breathe. A heavy hand of death snaked from eternity to lie across my
melting brow … its sweaty covering stirring murky thoughts of some grotto of
the soulless as I wakened partially; the veil lifting enough to grant me
awareness of the nightmare. Beyond me, I saw sterile darkness, and the cold
of death. Icy, bitter cold like a man frozen in ice would feel if feeling
were possible.
Pinned in my corner of Hades, I
could do little but look up through the cracks in one evil eye. Currents in
the gloom became fresh flashes of light and dead silence grew to the whisper
of a song in my right ear. Tongues of evil rose and spoke as the roar of a
storm; rain lashing the shore and trees. The dragon whistle of a hurricane’s
wind as it recklessly shattered something large and wooden on the rocks.
Desperate cries for help reached
me and faded in circuitous routes of the wind. A boat or a shipwreck I
thought, then a flash of lighting snapped beside me and my vision spun in a
kaleidoscope of rain as the charge threw me over. I felt a dull hammer blow
and my opening nostrils picked up smoky odors. They clung like the perfumes
of a rank swamp and of the grave and pyre; an incense of slime, burning
flesh, unspeakable rot, and festering corpses.
Water spilled in all directions.
Spray burst in streams from dirty waves breaking on the shore. Heavy rain
and hailstones threshed the landscape like the beating of monster wings.
Something huge and wooden battered the rocks continually. I kept trying to
move, to escape the dream, but I remained numb and bound; drifting in a
hellish flood of half thoughts and uncertainty as the storm shook me in and
out of consciousness. Then over time the air grew crisp and still.
My head cleared. Oily water oozed
out of my ears and nose. I could see a break wall composed of huge broken
stones. It had a hole cut through it for a culvert that carried a thick flow
of polluted water. The storm had caught me up and thrown me to the bottom;
water tumbled into the lake next to me. Something fat and swollen like a
huge dead fish existed above me and it stank like death. A trickle flowed
into my mouth and the taste wasn’t of fresh water but industrial pollution …
and something else; blood … a trickle of blood was pouring steadily over my
lips and into my throat.
Dawn broke faintly red through
leaden clouds. I could see clearly and the picture held a repulsive aspect.
Twisted half-dead trees bit the sand with exposed roots. The stained walls
and tall stacks of an ancient factory rose in the distance. What I’d though
were huge dead fish were my legs, swollen with watery corruption and
existing above my fattened and fish-chewed middle. The storm had left me on
my back on a downward angle, my head and broken neck propped bizarrely on my
rib cage.
My condition was ghastly. I was
dead; long time dead and I was healing. The healing flowed from the blood of
another body and energized some bath of pollution and chemicals that had
gathered in parts of my cortex and brain. Two corpses hung from the rocks
above. Freshly storm killed they were bleeding; a blond woman heavily
through a gash in her neck. A natural cut in the boulder directed the flow
to my lips.
The hull and mast of a sailboat
lay smashed over the break wall nearby. A willow tree sat partially uprooted
on the sandy shore. Doom and devastation had come with the wind storm, but
it hadn’t killed me. Instead it had washed me up from a watery grave and
somehow given me new being … awareness but not genuine life. I wondered how
it could be possible, and then I remembered my past life, and other lives
I’d lived. I hated them all … hated myself. I’d always been evil; though
this was the first time I’d known of it. It made me unique; people lived and
died once. Perhaps there were others like me.
They were full lives, reincarnated
existences; but this time I’d come back as a dead man. There seemed no
explanation for it. Lightning, blood, a body and brain fed on the vile
wastes of a factory ... I thought it over and I knew. Power of evil; I’d
always been wicked. If I was back, it was an accidental formula of depraved
men and demons. They had called me and as their unknown messenger, I would
carve out a new frontier of hell in the land of the living.
The light grew salty and washed
gray as I continued to feed. Slowly the healing worked its magic. I watched
the swelling subside. My body expelled vile gasses, maggots, worms, and
liquids. Eventually I could move my arms enough to reach up and put my
twisted head and neck in place. Convulsions seized me and tossed me about
for an hour. When the time had passed, I could move; my first act being to
crawl to the dead bodies above, sink the remains of my decayed teeth in and
eat some of their flesh.
Evening arrived with a blaze of
hellish red. I was well enough to stand; my brain clear enough to take
stock. “Human,” I thought. “Perhaps barely.” My body remained a moldered
mess. Rotted clothing, dead skin and greenish gore formed a scaly coat over
my flesh. My face remained mostly eaten. I felt hard clumps of hair on my
head. I could move but I did not breathe and my heart did not beat.
Looking to a moonless sky, I
shivered and the hunger rose again. For some evil reason, whatever reason,
the secret was blood. I needed more of it to heal and to walk as the dead.
It was my guess that enough of it, a large feeding could give me a passably
human appearance.
Stumbling in the twilight, I got
over the rocks to the shore. My left leg dragged wretchedly as I moved
through the sand, using my nose more than my eyes in my hunt for fresh
blood. There was none and I seemed to be in a remote spot; nothing but empty
sand beach, forest and the spotlights on the distant factory stacks.
Returning to the rocks and the
bodies, I tore off the man’s shoes and laboriously put them on; wishing the
skin on my hands was new like the leather. Then I climbed back to the beach
and headed through an open field toward the factory. It was strange to be
walking when I had no feeling, but in some ways, it was better. Dry weeds,
thistles and stones had no sting; my legs didn’t get tired and I wasn’t
winded. But the more energy I expended the more the hunger grew. Blood
powered me though my heart did little more than quiver occasionally. The
blood spread through my body with hundreds of tiny shivers and convulsions.
I needed, will always need, to be situated near a strong supply.
The factory leaned visibly,
crouched like a predator in its shadow; this boarded-up beast was dead but
not buried. I saw lights in the southern section and heard some faint
clanging of machinery. The rest of the factory was dark and the whole thing
stood behind rusted fencing with barbed tops. Moving to the front, I spotted
a gravel road winding into darkness. There weren’t any cars in the lot so I
assumed that automated machinery had been left running unattended in the
night.
A blast of hunger hit me with a
fist to the belly. I was at the point where a man would stop to catch his
breath. Since I’d just fed, I knew the feeling would get much worse and I
would be ravenously desperate if I were to exert myself for any long period.
Perhaps I had to heal more to reduce my craving.
Following the road out, I walked
in the haze of yellow-tinted light. I thought little and felt nothing other
than hunger, the slow swing of teeth and the taught pull of my tight jaw and
neck. Insects of some sort were fluttering and I caught one in my mouth. It
did nothing for me. There were animals near in the woods. I could smell
their blood, but had little chance of catching anything. Slower moving human
meat was the prey. I speculated on the wisdom of animals. They wouldn’t come
near me; not in a million years. They were far too smart, while men, in
their pride and assumed glory would take a quick and bloody fall to their
proper place beneath me in the food chain.
I came to a light and lane. There
had to be a house as there was a mailbox, but it was too far in to see. Dr.
Dean Randall was the name on the box, and that was good enough for me. I
needed a doctor and more … so I went down the lane cursing my bad foot as it
dragged in the muck.
A lonely spotlight illumined a
quaint country house. It had once been a farmhouse; it was clear that the
doctor had refurbished it as his own private digs. He had satellite TV, an
added two-car garage and all the other modern amenities. The doctor was also
in the house. Lights were on downstairs in three of the rooms.
With the scent of blood as my
guide, I moved through a lilac hedge and across brown grass. Breeze and open
windows told me the doctor’s location in the house, and that no one else was
present. Sliding a swath of flowering bush aside, I peeked in. The room had
been extended with a big screen TV at the front and a half wall hiding the
back section. The glow of what looked to be computer screens lit the back.
The curse of hunger gnawed at me
as I dragged my aching leg around back. Dizzy spells, a feeling of falling
downhill and the throb of my rotting brain shook me with mini earthquake
force. Staggering in the unlocked screen door, I seized the edge of a heavy
table and held myself up. The roaring poured like wax out of my ears and
nose. I shuffled quietly toward the doctor’s scent, resembling a dying man
in the desert making those last steps to water.
But I didn’t dare jump in …
fortunately darkness webbed most of the house. The doc was an energy saving
sort of person; but not conscious enough to turn off appliances. Light
flickered from a movie playing on the big screen; he had two computers
setups on in the back room and sat in silence at one. Blue-white light shone
on his face, revealing a plump and aging man with a respectable shock of
gray hair. He was typing a message to someone on one screen; on the other
screen, he had a photo image. I strained my eyes and saw someone naked in
the picture. It was a child; a naked kid with fully dressed older men.
Meaning the doc had to be a pervert; but that was of little concern to me as
he would suit my purposes.
A blood spell came on me like
unseen powers of the moon and tides. I launched myself out of the shadows
and over the hardwood floor with unbelievable liquid speed. An impossible
and terrifying kill roar emerged unbidden from my throat, and it ignited Dr.
Randall’s screams as the struggle began.
He proved to be unusually strong,
but my ghastly hunger gave me the aggressive edge. He blocked me and
wrestled me off, hit me with a lamp, blocked me with a stool. I managed to
get him from behind before he could escape through a window.
Blood and pus flowed into my eye
from wounds left by the glass lamp, but I knew I’d gotten a piece of his
shoulder. My frozen muscle tissue became hard and elastic and from that
moment on I delivered a mean beating … breaking his right leg, pulling him
back in the window … slamming him across a table … and choking him before
coming down on his chest for the final feed.
Slipping into unconsciousness and
death, disbelief replaced the terror tightening his brow. His training as a
doctor told him it could not be happening. He could not be dying at the
hands of a walking dead man; but the pain and the vision told him the
nightmare was real. Soon I’d choked him silent; his lifeblood poured from
severed veins and sizzled into the jolts and spasms that made up my
circulation.
The moon rose in a clearing sky
outside the open curtains. Strength returned, giving me time to prepare the
blood and body for maximum food supply. I carved him up in the bathtub with
his surgical knives, allowing the richer blood to pool at the bottom.
In the bedroom, I worked on a
change of clothes. My dead man’s duds had rotted right into portions of my
skin and flesh. It took painstaking work with tools from the doc’s scissor
bag. My nerves were mostly dead so I was able to cut off the rot, water
bugs, ooze, and wash much of the smelly stuff off myself.
I turned down the light to soften
the blow of staring at what had become of my body, and with my fresh meal
taking effect I saw healing taking place – purple gashes closed, scaly gray
skin hardened over exposed flesh. It created a patchwork of a man. Corpses
would look better due to the preservative effect of embalming. As a walking
dead man I‘d come back far uglier than the dead. Especially my face; it
upset even me. But it was an advantage. The grey-green mess of lumpy
moldering skin and the stark look in my eyes combined to make a fright
knockout. The burning soul of a demon rested in my gaze. I didn’t have the
dead look of a mindless zombie.
One of Dr. Randall’s best dark
suits, some dark glasses, a hat and silk scarf had me passing off for the
living. I dragged back and forth at his mirror. The limp showed but the rest
of my hideous appearance stayed effectively camouflaged, especially in the
dark.
Coiling tongues of evil spoke in
my brain, a scheme emerged like a dream. This guy would have patients. Maybe
there were appointments here at his cottage. Heading back to the computers I
sat down at the one next to his shelf of medical books and checked the
screen. He had his business set-up in computer office software. I quickly
found that his main office was nearby in Grimsford; appointments were there.
Unfortunately, he was on vacation for two weeks and this summerhouse was in
a remote Northern area. Not even a farmer’s village nearby.
Sitting back, I pondered and the
voices in my head nibbled my brain to life. What to do? Make house calls
maybe? Then, to my surprise, the screen saver disappeared on the second
computer and I saw lines of text appearing.
I got up and moved to it. It was a
laptop and other devices attached to a larger screen. The doc had a chat
program running. Looked like he kept it up all the time and that’s why he
had the laptop.
A message had come in from
FunlandAlice. Rather than answer I took some time to read his saved chats.
Minimizing the window, I was hit by a screen-sized wallpaper photo of a
young girl engaged in sex with an older balding man. It wasn’t the doc, but
I got the gist of it quickly. The good doctor fancied kids; he had a
computer full of child porn and possibly a list of victims.
It made me grin and it was opportunity knocking. I got back
to the chat window and chatted with Alice, thinking that perhaps I could be
her salvation. Feeding on her would spare her from a life of sexual abuse,
and she probably had lousy parents in need of being swallowed by me.
“… I’m naughty, naughty,” she
said. “My daddy spanked me hard today and I bit his hand so he’d hit me
more.”
“Really, don’t they feed you
there,” I replied. “Did I tell you about my doctor bag? What I’ve got in
there?”
“No, you didn’t tell me about the
bag. Is it why you name yourself Doctor Wunderful.”
“It is one reason. I have many
things in my bag, but one special thing is a strap. It is fashioned from a
beaver’s tail and I use it on bad little girls like you. I hit them harder
and …”
“Oooohh! Oooohh!”
Pulling the keyboard to my lap, I
kept up the chat. It felt rather strange, staring down at my bony fingertips
and my lap. Genitals were something I had very little of … even the memory
of sex seemed extraordinary. As the walking dead, all parts of the human
body were appetizing to me. The dead me had one appetite and feeding was far
superior to any sexual experience. As for little Alice; she or her entire
family would do as a food source. They certainly would give her a spanking
if they knew she was talking to me … unless, they were in on it, too.
“So you live in the city?” I said.
“I’m up north.”
“Downtown Toronto.”
“When could I pop down to see
you?”
“Not now, I have to go. My parents
are back. They go away day after tomorrow. They always leave me home alone.
You could come then. You’ll have to be careful. My daddy is a policeman and
if he ever catches you he might shoot you.”
“Don’t worry. I’m smarter than
your daddy is. Make sure you don’t tell him anything.”
The chat ended, I took her address and I considered it a
lucky strike. Visiting Alice would get me out of this nowhere county and
starting fresh in the city. After that I spent the night going through the
doc’s laptop, finding it a goldmine of contacts and addresses across the
country. I’d definitely be taking it with me as some of them were in
Toronto.
I spent another day at the cottage
feeding on the doc. He wasn’t due back at work for nearly two weeks. I still
took time to dispose of him. Best to keep skeletons out of the closet;
missing persons bring no future grief. If I was thorough, it was because I
had little else to do. TV just doesn’t have programming for the walking
dead. It’s more for zombies and the living dead. His bones I picked and
packaged. I planned to take them with me and bury them far from the
cottage.
A beautiful northern sunset faced
ruin. I stepped out the door feeling myself to be the genuine embodiment of
the nasty pollution behind those magnificent sweeps of cloud and light. It
was time to leave and I had the doc’s car in the driveway waiting. Tossing
the gym bag containing his bones into the back seat I got in behind the
wheel. Pulling out of the garage had already shown me the lousy driver I’d
become. Luckily, he owned a small Ford Fusion; a big vehicle or truck would
be beyond my handling skills.
Control of the gas pedal was
difficult with my stiff foot. I ripped up a spray of gravel and took off
like a punk in a drag race, only managing to slow about 100 yards down the
road. Soft shadows from drifting trees swept the car and I felt the weight
of a dozen tombstones in my belly. The light nudged, the darkness stung, my
memories were something better forgotten … the whole of this new incarnation
dragging me down to the shallow grave I belonged in. My mind had grown clear
enough for speculation and it was grim. The living go from day to day trying
to find some small pleasures in life and the walking dead go from meal to
meal in a thickening zombie dead zone. Awakening the mind merely awakens
knowledge of evil; and sadly, my memories were even darker. I’d lived as an
ad executive, a big corporate manager, a police captain and more. In all of
those lives, I’d been eviler than any walking dead man had. I’d killed with
lies, pollution and false charges. It would have been easier to just drink
my victims’ blood and end their torment quickly.
A hungry animal strikes and never
thinks; and the return of a mild gnawing in my belly came as great relief.
Soon I’d be able to forget … the good I’d never done … the thick album
containing the faces of victims … the worthlessness of life, death and the
walking dead.
Pools of darkness began to blind
me and an hour passed with the road growing wider and from gravel to
blacktop. Other cars whizzed past as I drove slowly. I caught my reflection
in the mirror. Blood flecked my lips and crusted on my cheeks; my eyes were
healed but dark and blackened. I felt like road kill that had got behind the
wheel and my need had grown to a light burning in the sky.
I found enough country roads to
avoid the freeways. The city grew closer even though it still seemed like
the middle of nowhere. Bright lights suddenly appeared out of inky darkness,
and ragged shadows began to swirl. Vehicles blocked the road ahead so I
slowed and came to a stop. A group of men flashed lights in the gloom at
roadside. They dragged something from the underbrush. Odors of blood dilated
my nostrils and lifted my spirits. But it wasn’t human blood; they were
dragging a bear.
Hunters … their boots and orange
jackets showed in the headlights and one of them approached my car. I didn’t
want him to see me so I turned my head away as he came up to the window.
“Looking for something?” he said.
“Just trying to get through,” I
rasped. “You’re blocking the road.”
I glanced at his rifle. He
suddenly switched on a huge flashlight and shone it in my face. Then he
choked and stepped back. His fat face whitening as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Hey boys, we got some kind of
freak here!” he yelled, and then he dropped the light and swung out his
gun.
I should have quickly backed up.
Instead the scent of blood roused me to attack and I threw open the door and
rushed him. Seizing his rifle, I pulled it free and bashed him on the head.
The other men moved toward me as I dragged him around the car. I got him in
the passenger side then got back around to the wheel. A shot blasted out
part of the window as I backed up and I felt shot penetrating my shoulder
and left side.
I swung around, pulled a U-turn in
the ditch, and began to drive away. The hunters were running to their trucks
to give pursuit. The man I had captured was semi-conscious and starting to
move, so I grabbed him as I drove and pulled him to me. Biting into his
shoulder and neck, I slurped on his blood. He began to struggle fiercely and
the car snaked down the road barely avoiding the ditch. He’d kicked the
passenger door open so I shoved him away and he fell to the road as I spun
in the mud and regained control.
As I raced away I saw the other
hunters stopping to pick up their pal. Speeding off through the night I felt
both anguish and the strength of healing that blood brings. Ten minutes
passed and I saw no one in pursuit, so I figured I’d spooked them bad. They
liked easier prey like bears; no one wants to chase a genuine bloodsucker,
especially not one that bullets don’t kill.
The city tumbled down on me like a
big ogre of lights and smells. I had to come in on the freeway but it wasn’t
so bad. The blood fragrances on the wind were enough to boost my spirits. My
wounds had healed and I’d been granted some time to look around and maybe
think before I visited the girl.
The downtown resembled a colossal
graveyard where every building would soon be multiple tombstones of my
making. The feeding possibilities were endless, yet all logical thinking
told me to begin at the beginning. Follow up the invite and use the leads
I’d stolen rather than randomly hunt. Perhaps frame the old doctor for a
bunch of murders and leave the police hunting for him while I started anew.
Alice lived in the downtown area so I used the laptop and an
Internet map to pinpoint her. Taking a slow pass by I found her place to be
a large house on a quiet side street; renovated Victorian brick with a
couple tower rooms. A few lights were on. The front drive stood empty.
Turning my eyes back to the road, I considered that she might be a liar. If
her father really was a police officer, she wouldn’t live in such an elegant
place.
After circling the block a few
times, I decided to park around the corner. I got out under the streetlights
and admired my reflection in the glass doors of an apartment building. An
older woman passed, restraining her mutt as he tore at his leash and yipped
at me. She hadn’t seen me as odd so I walked the other way, with new
confidence in my disguise and the powers of healing.
“What’s life if you take no risks,” I thought. Then I stopped
at a phone booth and called Alice’s home number.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“I’m just down the street,” I
said. “Is the coast clear?”
“It is,” she said. “You can come
over now.”
I waited until the street was
completely empty, checked nearby windows for peeking faces, then went up the
walk and buzzed. She came to the door and opened it and I studied her for a
moment before stepping in. Alice was cute and blond with a small nose, and
like most modern young kids, wearing clothing far too sexy for her age … a
tiny skirt, running shoes and a strapless elastic top.
She didn’t seem afraid of me but I
was in the shadows. On stepping into the light, I saw a ginger cat and it
immediately hissed and ran off down some basement stairs. I hoped the musk I
was wearing would cover the smell, as I didn’t want to kill her immediately.
My scarf blocked my face but I couldn’t hide my battered-looking eyes. To my
surprise, she stared at me but no fear showed on her face. She seemed to
take my odd appearance as a simple fact.
“Come into the living room and we
can talk,” she said, waving her hand.
“Sure,” I said, following and
trying to hide my limp as much as possible.
It was a large room with two
chandeliers. Through some quirk of mercy, they were dimmed. Shadows
flickered as I scanned the room with weak eyes … sculptures, paintings,
racks of glassware, some antique chairs, a marble floor and a large couch
and armchairs at the west of the room by the fireplace.
I followed her there to the
fireplace and sat across from her on the chair. Sniffing quietly I gathered
the scent of her young blood. I wanted to be sure she was alone, but incense
was burning in the room and it stung my nose. Some lingering traces of blood
odors came through but not enough to show someone else’s presence.
Alice grinned … a baby’s grin but a wicked one. “You
certainly overdress,” she said. “And I can see you’re trying to hide
something.”
“Trying to hide something? What do
you mean?” I said.
“Your eyes, and probably your
face. It looks like someone used your doctor’s bag on you.”
“Not exactly. I got into a small
accident on the way down. Hit my face on the windshield in a fender bender.
I thought it best to cover it up.”
“I hear you like to spank little
girls,” she said.
“I certainly do.”
“Anything more?”
“Well, I probably shouldn’t tell
you,” I said. And I was about to continue when my nostrils suddenly flared.
I smelled blood. Someone else was in the house. I turned and looked around,
and then rose to my feet as two stocky men entered the room.
The biggest man was about the size
of a bear. He wore a dark suit and a long trench coat. “What else do you
like, you perv?” he said.
Alice giggled. “That’s my daddy,” she said. “He doesn’t like
anyone else spanking me.”
“Shut up, Alice,” he said. “Listen, pal. I got a present for
you.” Then he stepped closer and pulled a gun from his coat. A sawed off
shotgun. I could see light gleaming off the Winchester marking.
“I thought you were a cop,” I said
as calmly as I could with my rasping voice. “You’re going to shoot a man
with a shotgun. That’s overkill, don’t you think? Especially when I’m a
doctor.”
“No it isn’t, because you’re a
perv. Besides, the gun is loaded with rubber pellets. It’ll blow your balls
off but you’ll live.”
“Hold on, Marv,” the other cop
said. “We got him so why not bust him. In this city he’ll get at least
fifteen years and we’ll get promoted.”
“Nope, I’m going to blast him.”
Alice giggled again. “They always play this game,” she said.
“What they want is a lot of money.”
Rage crossed Marv’s face like
sudden lightning. He stepped over to his daughter and yanked her off the
couch by the hair. I could see muscles rippling under his coat. The guy was
a steroid freak of sorts. It looked like he was going to break her neck then
he threw her hard on the marble floor. I saw her roll over and wince like
her back was sprained. She didn’t cry or gasp, just stared at her father
like she hated his guts.
“Okay, you got the picture, doc,”
the other guy said. “We caught you cold and we know that a doctor like you
earns at least 200 grand a year. We want 500 grand, converted to cash.
Either that or your life and career are over.”
I didn’t speak immediately but
fell into brief reflection. Theirs was certainly a lucrative and clever
business. That thought flowed on the surface of growling hunger spasms
rising from my belly. Even as a monster, I had my pride. Marv’s labeling of
me as a pervert angered me immensely. The guy was a creep himself; his
daughter was completely warped because of his brutality. There would be no
mercy on either of them. I wasn’t sure what to do about the kid.
“Do you get the picture?” Marv’s
pal said gruffly, for the second time.
“Yes, I do. So picture this,” I
said, pulling off my scarf.
Stunned by the sight, Marv stepped
back and his gun hand shook. His partner gasped and pulled a Glock pistol
from his coat. I looked to Alice on the floor and she remained unmoved. At
least for a moment … then she quickly ducked out of sight when the shooting
began.
I imagine the dappled light from
the chandeliers gave me a more ghastly appearance than usual. Then the
shotgun blast hammered me and I saw a spray of my own flesh and puss as I
got thrown down and slid across the floor. I took out a shelf of glassware
and small sculptures and then slowly got up amid the broken glass.
Marv looked panicked as I started
to walk toward him. He moved quickly to reload … real shells this time. His
buddy didn’t wait, but unloaded his Glock on me. The bullets hit hard,
sending spurts of gore up my chest and slowing me like boxer blows. I got to
Marv as he was raising his gun. Then I seized it and the fight began.
I pulled the shotgun loose and
struck Marv’s pal with it as he moved in on me. The handle glanced off his
head, the gun flew from my hands, and then I went down as Marv nailed me
with a knee and a hard right hand.
Being repulsive was to my
advantage. They didn’t want to jump on me and that gave me time to roll up
and grab Marv’s leg. His buddy tried to help and tripped. He crashed to the
floor, and I sent Marv tumbling backwards.
I used the free moment to jump his
pal on the floor. My sharp broken teeth hit pay dirt and blood spurted from
his neck. In seconds, he was dead and I’d been briefly refreshed.
The strength of healing hit me and I rose to a strange scene.
Marv was back on his feet and Alice had come out into the clear. She was
holding the shotgun.
“Toss me the gun!” Marv yelled.
“Do it before he eats you, for Christ’s sake.”
Alice remained frozen, an icy and unfathomable look in her
widening eyes.
“I’m not going to eat you,” I
said.
“Don’t believe him,” Marv said.
“Give me the gun now.” Then he lunged at her and she swung the gun and
fired. Marv took the blast full on and was thrown up in the air. He hit the
floor like a sack of butcher’s meat, his guts snaking up like a strange
birth from his opened torso.
Another abusive father had earned
his due … slaughtered by his daughter. Only Alice didn’t see it as the kick
knocked her back against a chair and her lights went out.
So now, it’s like I said at the
beginning of this post. Guess Who’s Truckin’ Again? Sure, I’m a dead
man on the move, and we’re going to rule this dark city. That’s the two of
us, because I kept my promise and didn’t devour Alice. It’s more like she’s
my adopted daughter now, and I got her riding shotgun as we fly through the
shadows of another city night in her poor dead poppa’s sports car.
So what the hell, eh. Every
walking dead man needs a friend; a sidekick to take the pain out of this
race through the gutter slime of what used to be life.
. .
. . . . . . . . .