Timothy Read online

  “Stay the fuck away from me!” He had a fire poker.

  Manny growled.

  “You reek, you filthy piece of shit!” the man yelled.

  I asked and received permission from Manny to speak. I don’t know why he was so willing to comply, but I wasn’t going to kick a gift horse in the teeth. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

  “You don’t smell so good your fucking self,” I said. “You definitely pissed yourself, maybe a little shit too. I think I can detect the slightest signs of festering infection coming from your broken leg.”

  His eyes grew wide with fear. Zombies were an evil he’d been dealing with for a while; whatever we were was the new monster on the block. And people always fear the unknown. It’s an evolutionary thing. It’s necessary to fear that which is not known, because those fucking things can kill you. We might not have made it very long if we’d gone up to every creature and tried to determine if we could cuddle with it or not. I’m sure the saber-toothed tiger would have loved our direct approach. Meals were hard to come by back then, and if they just knocked at the door, well, all the better.

  “What are you? Why are you doing this? We’re on the same side!” He said the words but he was looking at the shit stained legs and our blood bathed face and chest.

  “Bubbs and Raoul tasted fantastic.” Manny took a step closer. The man swung the poker around a couple of times. Tears of pain and frustration leaked out from the sides of his nearly squeezed shut eyes.

  “You’re just some sick twisted fuck who gets her jollies from eating people!”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Go fuck yourself,” he spat.

  “Well, Go Fuck Yourself—interesting name by the way—sounds like your parents were in the middle of one doozy of a fight when the nurse came in with the birth certificate paperwork. I’m not a cannibal. If I were, I don’t think I could have packed away three hundred and something pounds of meat, fat, organs, veins, brain and all the other tender bits that make a human in just one night. If you want, I’ll take you up there so you can see.”

  “I’m going to shove this through your eye!”

  “That’s very rude, Go Fuck Yourself. You’re a guest inside my home, after all.” I laughed. “Well, it was my friends’ home really, at least until I ate them. That’s not even talking about how I destroyed their bedroom. I’m killing their resale value.”

  “Zombies don’t talk!”

  “You don’t sound so sure of yourself,” I said while Manny was circling around, looking for a way to strike without receiving an eye enema. I could tell he was on the verge of going in when we heard something strike against the door. Manny the insatiable tapeworm turned to go get what he figured were some more warm meals; he opened the door before I could advise against it. Turned out to be some party crashers. Three zombies must have heard our discussion and were coming to investigate. They walked past Manny without so much as a “how do you do” and headed straight for our dinner guest. He was screaming as they descended on him. I gotta admit I was more than slightly impressed when he did in fact shove that poker through an eye, although not with enough force to kill the zombie but merely to extract an orbit.

  This is where it got weird. Manny, instead of joining in like was normal, began to get angry. I mistakenly thought it was Scarlett at first, but nope. It was Manny, he was pissed he was losing a meal. He grabbed the poker that had been dropped on the floor, and without a modicum of prodding from me, began to slam that thing down repeatedly on the skull of the closest zombie. It didn’t really have the heft to do enough damage, but when it was aligned right and the barb started breaking through to the skull—well, that’s when the fun began. The zombie began to twitch violently as its brain was repeatedly poked and mashed. He finally went down, and Manny turned his attention to the other two, who could not have cared less that their trio had been diminished by a third. Unfortunately, the poker had bent and was about as effective a weapon as a pool noodle.

  “The garage, Manny. Go to the garage,” I told him.

  “They are eating my food! My food!” He was enraged. Enraged was good. I could use enraged. Shit, I’d been it enough times to know how to mold and meld it into a useful tool. Unbridled, it could get away from you, get you into hot water in a hurry. Saddled up and ridden properly, well, you could seriously fuck shit up that way.

  “The garage,” I urged again. I was thinking we’d find a nice tire iron or perhaps a piece of steel. I should have known richie rich fucks like this couldn’t be bothered with ordinary tools. The garage was so clean I don’t think their autos even had the audacity to leak fluids onto the floor. Luckily, the little snot nosed kid must have been a lesbian in training. There was a whole rack dedicated to her sports equipment. Kid-sized golf clubs and aluminum softball bats. Manny took one look over at those and grabbed a bat for each hand.

  “Impressive,” I told him.

  Manny entered back into the house proper; the zombies were still going to town on the man when Manny started wailing on the second zombie’s head like it was a drum and he was wielding drum sticks. The first strike sent shivers up Scarlett’s forearm, the second was a more satisfying crack of skull, the third broke away the remaining bone, and the fourth made a loud squashing sound as it crushed into brain matter. Another zombie down. The third zombie did turn, seemed she knew something was amiss here but was not quite sure how to deal with it. The length of forearm muscle she held clenched in her teeth was more important than the question of whether or not her personal safety was at risk. Manny turned his attention and battalion of bats on the last and final food opponent. I imagine it was on purpose, even if this brought everything already going on to another level. The first swing came sideways, smashing into the zombie’s face—well, more specifically, teeth. Sure, crushing a skull is brutal; it’s a way to kill your enemy to take them out of the fight permanently.

  But cracking a bat repeatedly into one’s face to take out all their teeth, that’s sending a message. A “don’t fuck with me” in neon lights message. Manny kept swinging, shattering the zombie’s jaw to the point where it was hanging askew from the top half of her skull. This zombie would never chew anything again, especially since their healthcare system sucked so bad. Then, every time I figured that shit couldn’t get any stranger, it did. Manny grabbed the collar of the blouse the zombie was wearing and dragged her out, tossed her down the stairs and once again closed the door. He dropped the bats, walked over, moved the two dead zombies out of the way, and started eating as if nothing untold had happened this morning.

  “What the fuck just happened?” I managed to say out loud before our mouth was full of lower intestine.

  “That’s not normal is it?” Scarlett asked.

  “Not at all.” I was scratching my figurative head.

  “You didn’t do that?”

  “I’d like to say that was all me, but no,” I said honestly. I was so perplexed about the goings on I hadn’t realized I was acting civil to Scarlett. It was shaping up to be a really fucking weird day. Manny, all contented with himself, was eating in relative peace, the only sounds being his slurping and wet smacking sounds as he pulled arteries and veins free from their moorings. I turned my attention to Scarlett; it seemed we were going to have plenty of time to hang out together uninterrupted.

  “Where did Yorley go?” I asked it suddenly, hoping that it would cause her to frantically cover up the portion of her brain that I know housed that information.

  She was a stone wall of determination not to tell me.

  “You do realize I can sift through your brain and find what I’m looking for, right?”

  “It could take you forever. My children could be grown and have moved away by the time you find it.” There was regret in her voice but also pride in the knowledge that she knew she was right. Without some sort of marker, I could hunt fruitlessly, forever, in the jumbled jungle of her memories.

  “No better time than the present.” I dove in.
/>   “What are you doing?” she asked in alarm.

  “Well, well, what do we have here? Looks like you kicked little Jimmy Beecham in the shin and blamed it on your sister.”

  “I was six, hardly an earth moving revelation.” She laughed.

  “Oh this one is a little juicier,” I said as I extracted another. “Seems like at the prepubescent age of eleven you had the hots for Father Galligan. I wonder what God would think about you getting nailed by a man of the cloth?”

  “Stop it! Stay out of my shit!”

  She was pissed. Got to tell you, though, I was loving this new game.

  “Holy fuck, this one is a keeper! Who knew you were into incest? You dirty little bitty. At fourteen, you gave your first beej and to your cousin no less. Under the docks at Pot Belly beach. The smell of low tide a turn on for you?”

  “That is none of your business!”

  I was watching what happened almost as clearly as if I had a blu-ray player inside her head. “I gotta tell you, Scarlett, that’s not very good technique. Way too much with the teeth, all that scraping against the skin can be a turn off, but Kelly doesn’t seem to mind too much. Oops, here we go! Money shot! Oh, and we have a gagger! Wait … what is that? Is that what I think it is hanging out of your nose? That’s priceless! Although you really should have hung in there for the swallow, definitely would have earned more points. Oh, and look at him go, he couldn’t be out of there any fucking faster unless he had a jet ski. Oh, you poor girl, you look kind of devastated with that cum hanging from your mouth and nose. What’s the matter, little Scarlett, did you think he was going to marry you after that? I’ll let you in on a little secret, he really just wanted to bust his nut.”

  “Stop it. Just FUCKING stop it!” She attacked, launching herself at me. Like that first blowjob, she really didn’t know what to do, but she was somewhat effective. I was caught unawares from the ferocity and tenacity. I was on the ropes; I didn’t think she knew that, so I did my best to play it off.

  “All right, all right!” I told her. “I’ll stop dipping my pen in the well, I promise!”

  She eased up.

  “Lord knows I don’t want to come across anything that involves you and animals or something.”

  “You’re a fucking pig!”

  I could tell her attack had taken damn near everything she had. I added a little insult to her injury. I gave her a backhanded smack that sent her sprawling away.

  She rubbed her jaw and then started laughing as she slowly stood.

  “What the fuck is so funny? You like getting battered around a little bit? You one of them BDSM freaks that likes a good spanking? Because I’ll give you one!”

  “You were scared.” She was still laughing.

  “Fuck you, I wasn’t scared.”

  “You were. Just for a second, I was beating you and it scared the hell out of you. Don’t forget, Tim, we’re in the same mind. I can easily pick through your cancerous thoughts as you can mine. And I’ve got a feeling I could root around a lot easier in yours than you could in mine.”

  If I wasn’t outright concerned before, I was now. It was a proven fact men were an easier read than women. We like food, sports, sex, bathroom humor, and sleep. Mix all that shit up, and you basically have a male. Plus, where all her thoughts were buried deep within the ripples of her mind, mine were sprinkled on top like sugar.

  “Wow, you shut up fast. I bet you have all sorts of skeletons in that giant warehouse you call a closet.”

  “I’ll kill you, Scarlett. Don’t doubt me on this. I know there is a piece of you that thinks you can beat Manny and me and somehow regain your humanity, like I had. And that maybe you can once again be reunited with your kids. I can see that as clear as day, so don’t push me any further. Because you’re wrong.”

  “You’re right, Tim, part of me thinks I can get rid of both of you parasitic assholes, but I won’t ever sacrifice my kids in an effort to see if it can be done.”

  She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t bluffing. She’d never give up Yorley, not by brute force or subterfuge anyway. Or, at least, a deception she could see coming. Light bulbs started to go on. There was a lot of truth to what I was saying, maybe more so than what I intended.

  “We may need to work together, Scarlett.”

  She didn’t say anything for quite some time. When I didn’t either, she finally replied. “Are you fucking kidding me? You are responsible for the death of my husband, I’m a damned zombie, and now my kids are without parents, and you want to work together? Just how insane are you? How insane do you think I am?”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’re insane, Scarlett. Desperate, sure, but not insane. Desperate to once again hold your kids in your arms. I can make that happen.”

  She grasped at that hope like any dying person will to a lifeline, openly and with both arms wrapped tightly around the notion.

  “Listen, we both know what I am and what I’m capable of, but I’m going to lay some things out and you can get a feel for if I’m telling the truth or not.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You don’t have the experience I’ve had. Manny is different. Smart, thinking-wise he can damn near solve problems. Hugh, the other two zombies I was in were basically concerned with eating and nothing else.”

  “And how is that different from your previous experience?” We were both staring out through her eyes as Manny chewed through some thick chest meat.

  “Okay, so they have that in common, but how they go about getting to there is very different. Hugh blindly stumbled into everything. He was in more danger of dying trying to eat than his intended victim. But Manny here, he’s starting to reason things out, he’s actively looking for ways to stay safe in an attack. Plus, that killing of other zombies—that’s different. Have you ever seen anything like it? A hundred or more zombies will crowd in on a small dog, and not one fight will break out. He could have easily shared the meal he had, and he chose not to. How long do you think he’s going to put up with our existence?”

  “You tell me; apparently you’re the zombie whisperer.”

  “Not very. Listen, all I want is Yorley; her and I have a score to settle. You can have the kids.”

  “Gee, thanks, I really appreciate you letting me have my own kids.” The words were dipped, coated and fried in a large vat of sarcasm. “You have to know that I don’t trust anything you say, right?”

  “That goes without saying. But you can see the truth for what it is, can’t you? Manny has to go, and I want to be in another body. One where the mind doesn’t look like the bottom of a large pocket book and Manny doesn’t exist.”

  “So you want me to help you ruin someone else’s life?”

  “You’re a zombie, Scarlett. Your kids are orphans.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  I dismissed her words. “I know how to give you back your body, and then you can get your kids back. Isn’t that worth it? I can tell you’re thinking about it.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Tim. If I get even the slightest of chances, I’m sticking an arrow straight through my eye and killing all of us. I’d rather light myself on fire than allow you to spread your disease-addled self around.”

  Furious doesn’t begin to describe how I was feeling. I wanted to rip her asshole off, stretch it over her head and pull it down the entire length of her body so she would be swallowed up in the black void of it. I couldn’t though, partly because I just hadn’t mastered the controls in that fucked up mind of hers yet, plus there was still a very good chance I was going to need her help in dealing with Manny when the time came. I wondered if all women were this screwed up inside or if Scarlett was just an anomaly. But naw, I knew better; how they functioned as a fucking species was beyond me. Every thought they had was in direct conflict with the previous one. Theoretical physicists had an easier time explaining string theory than they did the inner workings of women. I didn’t say or do anything, because I wouldn’t have stopped until Manny had come to investiga
te. Besides him scaring me to my core, I wasn’t sure I could take Scarlett out. If she knew she could best me, she’d do so in less time than it’s taking me to think about it. I needed to swing the ball back into my court, to put her back in the place she was supposed to be in—the corner, all sniveling and begging me to stop fucking her up.

  Manny did what all zombies do and took a T-Rex sized shit in the living room. With the sheer diameter, about as fat as a standard wine bottle and length, twenty feet if an inch, of the thing escaping Scarlett’s asshole, I had to wonder if her poor anus was prolapsed yet. Pulled out and hanging down like a broken accordion. Easier to wipe that way, I suppose, you could just drag it on the carpet like a wormed up dog does. There were some things I needed at the hospital, how I was going to convince Manny was the question of the hour. I’d have to do what I’d always done with his kind. Promise food.

  “What are you getting at?” Scarlett asked after a time.

  “Just because you don’t want to help doesn’t mean I’m not going to move forward. If it helps you morally by standing back and watching, then do that. Just don’t you dare fucking stand in my way. I will crush you.” I was pretty convinced I sounded threatening, and since Scarlett didn’t reply, I could only hope that she felt the same way. I was formulating my plan when Manny threw me a curve ball. He began to strip, then he headed upstairs and back into the shower. He had a little bit of a problem with the controls, but in less than five minutes he was under a steady stream of water sloughing off the filth that comes with eating and evacuating entire human beings. The drain in this bathroom was never going to work correctly again. Water filled up the small basin we were in and begin to spill out into the rest of the room. Ten minutes later, the sludge had crept over the metal transition and found its way onto the beige carpeting of the bedroom.

  “How do I look?” Manny asked after getting out of the shower. He was standing in front of a large mirror.