Walking Dead-Man's Blog


Walking Dead-Man's Blog By Gary Morton 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 deal as a dead guy 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 felt the cold of death; icy, bitter cold, like a man frozen in ice would feel. Pinned in my corner of death, 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 lashed 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 lightning 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 of the wall, and water tumbled into the lake beside 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 thought 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, a body washed ashore, 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 windstorm, but it hadn’t killed me. Instead, it had washed me up from a watery grave and somehow given me a new being and 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 to be 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 were 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 gases, 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 was 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 was 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 walk without 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 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 tight pull of my jaw and neck. Insects of some sort were fluttering, and I caught one in my mouth. It did nothing for me. There were animals 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. The lights were on in three of the rooms downstairs. 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 computer 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, he had a photo. I strained my eyes and saw someone naked in the picture. It was a child, a naked boy 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, and blocked me again with a stool. It was just my luck to have picked a doctor who stayed in stellar physical shape. I managed to get him from behind before he could escape through a window. It had to be a fast kill because I would never be able to catch him if he escaped. 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 blows. 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 changing 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 dimmed 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 closing, scaly gray skin hardening 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 knockout fright. 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 a silk scarf had me passing off for the living. I dragged back and forth in front of 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, and 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, and that 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. Apparently, he wasn't fussy and liked males and females. It made me grin, and it was an opportunity knocking. I got back to the chat window and chatted with Alice, thinking I might 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 and what I have 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 thick leather, 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. Ah, it suddenly struck me. FunlandAlice was a little girl, all right, because the doc checked everyone closely. But he wasn't smart enough to figure out that she was probably a bad little girl and working for the parents who'd made her that way. “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 the 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 considered it a lucky strike. Visiting Alice would get me out of this nowhere county to start fresh in the city. I spent the night going through the doc’s laptop, finding it to be a gold mine 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 corpse. 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 dead guys. I mean real dead guys, not the fat fake ones. TV is more for zombies and the living dead. The doctor's 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 more evil 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 and 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 gotten 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 the 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 and 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 was whitening as if he’d seen a ghost. “Hey, boys, we've 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 a shot penetrate 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 a tombstone of my making. The feeding possibilities were endless, yet all logical thinking told me to begin at the beginning. Follow up on 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. Alice lived in the downtown area, so I used the laptop and an online map to pinpoint her location. Taking a slow pass by, I found her place to be a large house on a quiet side street, a renovated Victorian brick house with a couple of 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, was 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. As I stepped into the light, I saw a ginger cat, which immediately hissed and ran 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 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, and it was 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. What I'd expected was now happening. 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 over 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 at 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 was thrown down to slide across the floor. I knocked down 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 but real shells this time. His buddy didn’t wait, but fired his Glock at me. The bullet hit hard, sending up a spurt of gore up my chest and slowing me like a boxer's blow. 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 backward. 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, you stupid little tart.” 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 into 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. Alice and I have a big list of people to kill, and her father's list combined with the doc's would keep us busy for a long time. -END-

By Gary Morton

*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 deal as a dead guy 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 felt the cold of death; icy, bitter cold, like a man frozen in ice would feel.

Pinned in my corner of death, 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 lashed 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 lightning 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 of the wall, and water tumbled into the lake beside 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 thought 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, a body washed ashore, 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 windstorm, but it hadn’t killed me. Instead, it had washed me up from a watery grave and somehow given me a new being and 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 to be 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 were 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 gases, 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 was 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 was 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 walk without 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 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 tight pull of my jaw and neck. Insects of some sort were fluttering, and I caught one in my mouth. It did nothing for me. There were animals 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. The lights were on in three of the rooms downstairs.

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 computer 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, he had a photo. I strained my eyes and saw someone naked in the picture. It was a child, a naked boy 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, and blocked me again with a stool. It was just my luck to have picked a doctor who stayed in stellar physical shape. I managed to get him from behind before he could escape through a window. It had to be a fast kill because I would never be able to catch him if he escaped.

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 blows.

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 changing 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 dimmed 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 closing, scaly gray skin hardening 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 knockout fright. 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 a silk scarf had me passing off for the living. I dragged back and forth in front of 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, and 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, and that 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. Apparently, he wasn't fussy and liked males and females.

It made me grin, and it was an opportunity knocking. I got back to the chat window and chatted with Alice, thinking I might 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 and what I have 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 thick leather, 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. Ah, it suddenly struck me. FunlandAlice was a little girl, all right, because the doc checked everyone closely. But he wasn't smart enough to figure out that she was probably a bad little girl and working for the parents who'd made her that way.

“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 the 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 considered it a lucky strike. Visiting Alice would get me out of this nowhere county to start fresh in the city. I spent the night going through the doc’s laptop, finding it to be a gold mine 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 corpse. 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 dead guys. I mean real dead guys, not the fat fake ones. TV is more for zombies and the living dead. The doctor's 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 more evil 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 and 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 gotten 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 the 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 and 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 was whitening as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Hey, boys, we've 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 a shot penetrate 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 a tombstone of my making. The feeding possibilities were endless, yet all logical thinking told me to begin at the beginning. Follow up on 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.

Alice lived in the downtown area, so I used the laptop and an online map to pinpoint her location. Taking a slow pass by, I found her place to be a large house on a quiet side street, a renovated Victorian brick house with a couple of 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, was 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. As I stepped into the light, I saw a ginger cat, which immediately hissed and ran 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 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, and it was 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. What I'd expected was now happening. 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 over 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 at 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 was thrown down to slide across the floor. I knocked down 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 but real shells this time. His buddy didn’t wait, but fired his Glock at me. The bullet hit hard, sending up a spurt of gore up my chest and slowing me like a boxer's blow. 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 backward.

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, you stupid little tart.”

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 into 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. Alice and I have a big list of people to kill, and her father's list combined with the doc's would keep us busy for a long time.

-END-