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  “Hugh!” I screamed, coming out of my hidey-hole. I felt him stop short, clearly confused with the encountering of two conscious entities. But that didn’t stop him, he was now in full on attack mode. “Hugh!” I screamed again. “Remember me? We’re friends!”

  Were we though? We definitely had a symbiotic relationship; we kept each other alive. Had I made a tactical error by showing myself? How much would Hugh remember? My guess was that our relationship was housed in the memory banks of the body that lay at our feet. That was the master computer, so to speak. Me and Hugh were now what had fit on a pin drive before we moved into our new pc. I’d like to say it was an upgrade, but I’d seen his dick.

  “Hugh, buddy, it’s me!” I told him, giving him the signals – I was upraising my hands.

  I could feel him rippling through Clodhopper’s head. Clod moaned as Hugh did so.

  “What’s it doing?” Clarence wailed.

  “Shut up and be still for a minute or we’re both going to be in trouble. And I will hurt you bad if you fuck this up for me.”

  Clarence was quaking, again, something not so new and unusual.

  Hugh wasn’t a thinker to begin with; damn near made me look like Socrates. And this new curve might take him a minute to wade through, if at all. It was okay; I had nowhere else to go. And if negotiations didn’t go well, I knew how to make him see reason. (Funny, I assumed Hugh was a ‘he’ when the more likely scenario was it was female. What else could insidiously crawl into your head and mind-fuck you? Female, for sure. I wonder how it would feel about the name Hughette?

  Hugh was moving in closer even as he was trying to understand what was happening. He was smart in that regard.

  “We’ve done this before, Hugh. Are you sure you want to do this again?” And then inspiration hit, I knew his weak spot. “The sooner we move past this point the sooner we can eat.” Well that was the hot button.

  “EEAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTT!!” Hugh roared. It was pretty frickin’ loud in the confines of our enclosure. “Hungry!!” he bellowed again.

  “Who’s hungry?” I asked, tempting fate. I’d had time to think about this since our first go around. Was Hugh self-aware? Predators were always smarter than prey, it was just a matter of skill sets needed. What the fuck does a gazelle have to do but graze and run for its life? That’s about it. The lion has to plan, coordinate, stalk, and defend. Sort of the same with women. What do they have to do? Eat and fuck and…oh yeah…shop. Doesn’t take a big brain for that. Us men, well you have no idea the amount of planning it takes to get into a woman’s pants. Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t a hunt.

  “I am hungry!” he bellowed.

  We were making headway.

  “Who are you?” I prodded.

  It was long torturous moments before he spoke again. And still he advanced cautiously, stalking his prey, but I wasn’t a stupid grazer. He’d be in for a hell of a fight if he kept coming.

  “Hugh, keep prodding that wormy brain of yours before you attack!” He was getting closer. “Just because they say ‘history repeats itself’ doesn’t mean we have to.” I started hastily erecting barriers.

  Clapboard’s mind began to quake as Hugh nestled himself into every aspect of it. He was taking hold, more like deep-rooting himself really. “I am Hugh!” he grumbled.

  “That’s my boy!” I clapped. “And who am I?” I asked.

  He was searching through Clarence’s head for the proper vocabulary. “Other?” Hugh spoke.

  “NO! Not other!” I yelled at him. ‘Other’ equated to ‘bad’ in Hugh’s world.

  If Clarence had gears in his head they would be spinning.

  “Feed me!” Hugh beckoned. “Feed me, Timothy!!!”

  “Now we’re cooking with hot entrails!” I told him. “Same game?” I asked.

  The long whirring of his brain processing the request and then I clearly saw the symbol for question.

  “I find us food and you keep the house in order,” I told him. The question mark changed to an approving nod.

  This time I clapped real hands as Hugh released the reigns. I was back in business. Fuckers beware!!!

  “W-w-what’s happening?” Clarisse asked shrilly.

  Me and Hugh might have an understanding, but that in no way included Claustrophobia. Hugh was in full on pursuit of the invader, which was actually a strange way of looking at it because, technically, Hugh was the invader. But since the house was now his, I guess that was how he processed it.

  “Hugh, I’d like to keep Other for a while,” I told him.

  “Other bad!” he retorted.

  “This one not so much. He’s more of a pasty fuck, and he has the added bonus of knowing where a bunch of food is located.”

  “FOOD!” Hugh cried excitedly.

  Plus I wanted to tell him that he made about as much titillating conversation as some of the passed out chicks I’d banged. Not that it truly mattered, because I was comfortable being in my own skin. Then I laughed. I mean internally and externally as I thought of my joke.

  I reached into the pouch attached to Clarence’s right leg. I pulled out what I had hoped it was. I leaned down to my body, and went to work.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Clarence was screaming from some point behind me. I could hear him retching and gagging, which was followed immediately by silence. My ministrations on my old body had caused him to pass out. Right now that was preferred.

  “Eat now?” Hugh asked almost begging.

  “Soon, my friend. Just have to take care of a couple of things. You should tend to our thigh wound.”

  ‘A couple of things’ took a little longer than I had expected, but doesn’t everything worth doing and doing right take longer? I had to appease Hugh only once--found a drugged out teenager hiding behind a stack of milk crates in the little convenience store. I was more than a little pissed that he was so stoned he really didn’t even know I was eating him alive until I started chewing through his femur. That got his attention pretty quick though.

  I ripped through his jeans and his thigh easily enough. The long, thick muscle was vibrant in color and texture as I chewed through it. I’m not sure what Hugh does to enhance human teeth the way he does, but when I saw that stoner’s leg bone, I knew I had to have it. Screw the dental work. There wasn’t a dog on the planet that had salivated more looking at that pristine bone with meat still on it! I cracked it open on my first bite. The stoner jerked and came up from whatever world he had retreated to.

  I dropped one meaty paw over his head pushing him down as I tore through his extremity. He was convulsing as I completely chewed through. I stood up, ripping his leg off. I was now in possession of one giant-sized turkey leg, and I was going to savor it. Stoner’s eyes were huge as he watched me eat his now-severed appendage.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, raising his arms weakly.

  “Because you’re so damned tasty,” I told him, tearing through the meniscus that surrounded his knee.

  My voice came out entirely too high-pitched. That wasn’t going to do, not at all. I wouldn’t be taken seriously with a treble little bitch-voice like that. No wonder Clarence was a virgin, well…that and his stupid name. Did his parents think it was still 1926?

  “Hugh, need a little help,” I told him as a tore off a bloody strip of calf muscle. Stoner was passing out. “Hold that thought,” I told him. I liked my meat – I mean Hugh liked his meat – warm. I had some eating to do before business or pleasure; it really was just a matter of perspective.

  ***

  “Ah you’re awake,” I said to Clarence as I felt him begin to stir.

  “This isn’t a dream?” he begged.

  “‘Fraid not,” I told him. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  I could sense a small sort of hope surging in Clarence, maybe he thought we decided we didn’t like taking up residency in his body and were even now planning on leaving.

  “Look out your eyes,” I told him, smiling.
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br />   Clarence did. I’ll give him this; it took him a few seconds longer to start screaming than I thought it would. I don’t truly know what it takes to classify a man as insane, but I’ve got to believe Clarence crossed that bridge that night and I was proud to have driven him there.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Clarence had passed out as he watched me take his hunter’s knife and carefully begin to cut my old face off. I sliced from in front of each ear and down under my chin and completed the oval by cutting midway on my forehead. I cut deep enough so that I could begin to pull the flap of forehead down, I was careful not to slice through the thin viscous material. It was adhered a lot better than I had figured. It got a little dicey around the thin skin surrounding my eyes and nose, the tip of the knife blade came out once on the bridge, nothing a little pancake make-up couldn’t hide. By the time I started to cut my lips off I had worked up a sweat and an appetite; it was another five minutes before I was able to peel my face completely off.

  After finishing the stoner, I scoured the store until I found what I needed. A heavy needle and some even heavier thread. I lit a few candles and headed into the small bathroom, thankful that they had a real mirror and not one of those shiny reflective pieces of metal that really only allowed you to know that you were staring at yourself without any definition whatsoever.

  I positioned my old face over pasty boy’s dough-ish features. It was going to be a tough fit. My face was longer and much more angular than Clarence’s Twinkie-inspired rendition.

  “We can make this work,” I said aloud as I slogged the wet piece of facial meat around. I started with the forehead first, it took a few minutes to work out the mechanics of sewing a face on, but within a few minutes I was on a roll. By the time I was done, I had taken on a reasonable facsimile of my former self. Maybe like if you took a piece of paper and faxed it back and forth twenty or thirty times; the edges are blurred and some of the text is unreadable and canted at odd angles to the rest of the prose, but still a reasonable facsimile. That’s what I had.

  I was careful as I sewed around my eyes, Hugh had shown he could only repair so much and I was already having him work on a few things. The more I taxed him the sooner he would want to eat, and I really wanted to have this on so I could surprise my new roomie.

  ***

  “What have you done?” Clarence finally sputtered after about twenty minutes of body-racking sobs.

  “Making some improvements. If I’m going to live here I want to be comfortable. You know…in my own skin and all.” I laughed at my rapier wit. “Now we need to work on some proper clothes.”

  “Oh please let me be.”

  “You’re kidding, right? We’re just getting started. Me and you are going to be best buds, at least until I kill you. I guess at that point all bets are off.”

  Hungry, reverberated throughout our shared skull.

  “What is going on? Am I insane?”

  “No padded rooms for you, Clarence,” I told him. “That’s Hugh.”

  “Who the fuck is Hugh?”

  “Well I don’t want to get all philosophical on you, but Hugh is pretty much you now. Well, at least as far as your body anyway. He’s the zombie virus.”

  “I’m a zombie? But I’m still me?”

  “Not so much, Clarence. Try to move your arm. Better yet, here’s a visual that will drive you even further down the road of lunacy. This one almost broke my spirit.” I concentrated hard to make Clarence’s nuts – well, my nuts now – itchy. I mean ‘on fire’ itchy; the kind where you don’t care if you’re in the middle of Macy’s during Christmas and just need to shove your hand down the front of your pants and go to town. Women won’t understand this, but it might just be singularly the most irritating thing a man can experience besides a woman talking about her day.

  I could feel Clarence’s meager consciousness beginning to squirm. He was searching for any means possible by which to move a body part, even attempting to thrust his hips so he could have his underwear rub up against his balls…anything.

  It was actually starting to get to me.

  “Please.”

  “I was going to make you suffer a little longer, but it’s hurting me just as much.” I reached down and quenched the fire. We shared a moment as we both sighed in relief. “This doesn’t make us friends,” I told him. “Wish I could sew my old dick on, probably can’t even take a proper piss out of this thing. I’ve used bigger straws. What do you have? What’s the thing called? Oh yeah micro-penis. That’s it.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “I’d never even know it with this thing,” I said, squeezing his junk. I thought about rupturing his balls for the fun of it, but they were mine now, might as well hold on to them.

  Hungry, surged through us again.

  “Fuck, Hugh, you’ve been in two bodies now. You’d think you’d have picked up a little more vocabulary than that. Let me just clean up a little.” I washed as much of the grisly material off my face as I could. Blood, flesh, and muscle leaked from around the edges of my knitting job. I asked Hugh to see what he could do about that, and I promised him I would find us some dinner.

  “Where are we going?” Clarence asked.

  “Hunting,” I told him. “So shut up.”

  “Hunting for what?” He was quivering.

  “A zombie owns this body, me and you are just along for the ride. What do you think we’re going hunting for?”

  “I…we can’t!”

  “I can and we are. You have no idea how bad Hugh can get if we don’t. Now let me concentrate, it’s not easy moving a body like this. It’s almost like using a remote control, and you’re wiring is a little different, so I need to learn the controls.”

  “You said this Hugh was the zombie. Why are you doing this? What could possibly be your motivation?”

  “You know, Dumpy, not all of us got to live in our parent’s basement wolfing down fucking cupcakes. It’s called survival and I want to live. If I don’t make Hugh move right, he’d gladly walk into a hail of bullets looking for food.”

  “Death would be better,” Clarence said softly.

  “You don’t know anything!” I roared. “Nothing is worse than death!” I didn’t tell him my fears that quite possibly I would have to pay somewhat for my past transgressions. He didn’t need to know that. “Listen, you little weasel. I have my own conscience; I don’t need you throwing your nickel-and-a-half’s worth into the fray. Do you understand me?”

  “Why don’t you just kill me?”

  “You don’t know yet? I mean you’ve kind of seen the extent of Hugh’s dialog, but that’s really alright because I like myself just fine. I’m keeping you around because you apparently know where a safe house is.”

  “No!” Images of Tyler’s sister flashed in front of me.

  “And oh yeah, we have some unfinished business. I want to get you laid before you die. Hardly seems right, a man dying before he dips his wick. Huh, who knew that was a literal meaning,” I said, referring to his size.

  “I will never show you the way!” he said defiantly.

  “Yeah you will. Let’s get something to eat. I’m kind of hungry, too.”

  I realized this was not going to be a particularly easy venture as I walked out of the convenience store. The town looked deserted; I’d seen more people at churches in Sin City –Las Vegas.

  Then a stroke of pure genius struck. I started checking cars along the roadway, most were parked forever. Some had keys in them for when the unlucky soul had to evacuate on foot, most of them had finally ceased to run as the fuel supply ran out. I could get gas, but by the time I did all that, Hugh would be wailing incessantly and I wasn’t ready for that.

  It was about the tenth or so car I came across that the person vacating had the common courtesy to shut it off before they left screaming into the night to either live or die depending on their actions.

  “What’s in front of the vehicle?” Clarence asked just as I was about to sit down and see i
f she would start.

  “Who cares?” I grumbled. Hugh was beginning to get cranky and it was overflowing into my emotions.

  “There’s something there…someone, I think. We should help them,” Clarence said emphatically.

  Oh I’d help myself to them alright. This would make my job a lot easier if I had the good fortune of stumbling upon somebody right about now. I dragged my heft out of the car and quickly strode to the front. It was there that I found out why the mini-van had never left, dad had junior wrapped in what was left of his arms. It looked a lot like a skeleton holding onto a teddy bear. I moved dad’s arms hoping I could snack on a little something, I carefully unwrapped the blue blanket, my mouth was watering thinking about the fat little dumpling. And it was moving. I almost did a happy dance.

  I pulled free the last of the swaddling. The thing underneath was nearly as blue as its wrappings.

  “Fucking zombie,” I said as I swung it by its legs and let it fly, much like an Olympic hammer toss. The zombie baby arced and finally came down on its head about thirty yards away. Even from this distance I could hear its head explode like a firecracker-laden egg, it skidded a few feet further, stopping as it hit a street sign. It was a ‘dead end’!

  Clarence was dry heaving. I was laughing at him but saddened at the loss of a meal. It was a bittersweet moment for me.

  “How could you?”

  “It was a zombie. What did you want me to do? Take it home and suckle it?”

  He was crying in the background as I reentered the minivan. It started on the second crank, it didn’t necessarily have a throaty roar, but it was pretty loud in the natural quietness of a world not burdened with man.

  I pulled away, driving slowly. I was trolling for food. Thankful that the day was short and the night sky was beginning to take hold. I knew I looked good, but the more squeamish humans left might not see it that way.