“Ohh wee!” I said as Manny pulled her pants down. “It’s pretty fucking gross with all that caked on shit down there, but I wouldn’t have taken you for a shaver. It’s as smooth as a baby’s ass. Wait, wait a sec, a thought is coming to me. Naw, this is like laser removal, you just got back here. I wouldn’t think the first thing you would do would be to shave your snatch. Although I don’t know, maybe you needed a good ramming.”
“You’re disgusting!”
“Food, Slave!”
Manny was getting impatient.
“Hold on Manny. This here Yummy Mommy.”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“MILF maybe? You like it, you know you do. Why else would you work out like this? You like the stirring your body does to men. You like that control you think you have, holding that pussy over our heads like a trophy. Well I’ve got news for you, Scarlett. I don’t need your damn pussy. Women used to fling it at me!”
“What makes you think I was offering? You sick bastard.”
“Come on, that’s what every woman wants. That’s why you work out, wear that tight clothing. You live for dick.”
Scarlett laughed. “I don’t know if you could be more wrong, and as for your impotent pathetic little dick, I wouldn’t have wanted it if we were the last people on this planet. In fact, I’d probably fill my sexual organs with cement before I’d ever allow you in there.”
“You … you need to shut up!”
“Or what?”
“Enough! Slave and Slave’s thing, I will hear no more. I will eat or you both will perish, slowly and painfully.”
I don’t know if Scarlett kept quiet on her own or was physically compelled by Manny, but she said nothing. I’m thinking the latter considering her compunction to speak out.
“You need to clean your lower half off, Manny. You look pretty good, hardly like a zombie at all. We can play Trojan horse.” I sent him the condensed version of the story. I was surprised there was no push back. He saw the benefit of being able to blend in with our desired food choice. Manny did a decent job of washing up; he did so in the small shower. He didn’t take off her shirt, which was a shame. I would have liked to have got a look at her rack. It felt pretty big. Her shirt was white, though, so they were still revealed. Ah the joys of see-through cotton. This would work to our advantage if we were lucky to come to a residence with a male in it. Shit and sludge sluiced off of us and onto the floor. I tried to have Manny avoid stepping in it; again he didn’t care.
Aggravation really began to well up in him as he wrestled with clothing. It was like trying to teach a bear how to drive. They had all the necessary parts and in theory could potentially do it, but you didn’t hold out much hope for it happening. He put the pants on backward and would hear nothing of my entreaty for him to fix it.
“Let me at least put your shoes on. We’ll starve to death by the time you figure it out. Probably put those on backwards too.” I wanted to add “stupid fuck” to the end of that sentence, but he would know. “Listen, Manny, you can take back control when you’re done, but only zombies walk around with no shoes. We do that, and we’re as good as dead. Plus, it will be harder to find food.” He relented when I said that part. He might be smarter, but like men that are driven by getting their dicks wet, he was driven by food. Press the right buttons, and I could make him do what I wanted while I sat back and strengthened. He didn’t say anything, but one second I was merely an observer, the next I was a participant. The arms were mine to do with as I pleased. I didn’t let the opportunity go by. I immediately grasped Scarlett’s tits.
“They’re divine and they’re real. Nice. Usually, you uptight health nuts lose all your breasts. I could play with these all day.” Manny was hovering over me like a parent might the first birthday of their child that they let him cut the cake with a butcher knife and they want to make sure he doesn’t cut his fingers off or stick it in Suzi’s throat by accident.
“Let me go!” Scarlett hissed.
I yanked on both nipples to the point where if she could have felt it, she would have cried out in pain. “Was that as good for you as it was for me?”
“I will kill you.”
She said it so evenly, I paused for a moment. “Relax, bitch, I’m just playing. Manny, you need to bend at the waist so I can reach.” He finally got the idea, and I was able to get the shoes on. I tied double knots. On the bench, not more than five feet away, was a small handgun. If I were a smarter man, or maybe a more caring man about humanity, I would have picked that thing up placed it to the side of my head and blew our brains across the room, where all the suffering and death we were going to cause would have slid down the cement wall to collect in the small drain set in the floor. I didn’t do that. I did grab the gun and stuff it into the pack along with our other supplies. I’d no sooner zipped up and placed the pack around my shoulders when Manny took control back. I thought we’d made a breakthrough and I was on the road to taking the helm. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He was going to use me for his own ends.
“How can you be so wrong?” Scarlett asked me. “What could have possibly happened in your life to make you so twisted? You’re helping a fucking zombie for God’s sake.”
“You know nothing about me,” I grumbled lowly and menacingly. “I’m a survivor. I do what’s necessary to stay alive.”
“At what point is the cost of your own survival too high?”
“No such thing, honey.”
She recoiled at the term of endearment.
“Food, Slave.”
“Well aren’t you just a buzz kill. Okay, this is what you need to do, Manny. You can’t just go parading down the middle of the street like you own the place. It will look suspicious. You need to pretend you’re hiding behind bushes and cars, and as we come to houses, you need to go up to the door and knock. If anyone is home, they will let a delicious looking dish like you inside.”
It took some convincing. Manny was positive he was the top of the food chain, and he was. He wasn’t all about this stealth angle. I told him that when man was the dominant species, more than once a lesser animal like a tiger or an elephant or even feral cats had taken them down. There is no shame in caution.
“Is it not better to eat without injury?” That was the persuasive question. His “hiding and evading” tactics looked much like a D-list actress in a B horror movie. I’d seen better acting from chicks who told me they didn’t want to have sex. As if. Much of Scarlett’s neighborhood had been ransacked and burned, but there were more than a few houses that stood. Some of them looked like medieval castles from long ago that still stood among the ruins. It was at the third door we finally got some action.
“I will blow your fucking brains out if you don’t get off my porch,” a man’s voice rang out.
“We should probably go,” I told Manny. He was starting to lose reason with a food source so close.
“Brad, who is it?” a female asked.
“I don’t give a—”
“Scarlett—my God, Scarlett, is that you?” A face peered down at us from a window directly above us.
Manny looked up and began to growl.
“You’re going to blow this!” I yelled. “Give me control of her voice, for fuck’s sake.”
“Scarlett?” There was a questioning gaze on the woman’s features.
“Vickie, kill us!” Scarlett screamed. I was thankful the message was contained within the four walls of our skull.
“I’m … I’m sorry,” I was finally able to speak. Hearing myself talk in the much higher feminine pitch was unsettling, emasculating even. “What’s your husband’s name?” I asked Scarlett.
She was quiet.
“Fine.” I told Manny to start crying before I spoke again. “My … my husband is dead, my kids are missing, and there are zombies at my house. Vickie, help me.”
“You bastard!” Scarlett screamed.
“Dylan, for God’s sake, open up. It’s Scarlett,” Vickie said, pulling her head b
ack into the window. I could hear her coming down the stairs.
“I can goddamn see who it is. She don’t look right though.”
“Harold is dead and her kids are missing. What would you look like?”
Manny was drooling as we heard the heavy locks being unlatched and what sounded like a cross beam being moved away.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I told Manny as the door popped open a few inches. Yeah, that was like trying to tell a deviant at a porn store not to jerk off. Manny pushed that door open, reached out, yanked the rifle from Dylan’s hand and immediately began to work on his face. And by work on his face, I mean tear chunks out of it. Vickie could only place her hands up by the sides of her head and begin to scream inconsolably.
“You’re going to burn in hell for this,” Scarlett told me.
“We’ve been through this. I’ve already averted that crisis!” I was laughing as Manny split through Dylan’s cheek, exposing his jaw and teeth, which right now were as far open as it could be in a gurgling scream. Manny took no note as Vickie bolted upstairs.
“Manny, she’s going to get a weapon.” I was sure of it. She wasn’t shrieking or blindly running in panic. She had a set of determination to her. She’d witnessed her husband getting attacked, and after the initial shock had worn off—rather quickly, I might add—she’d left. “Manny, stop smacking your fucking lips and listen to me. The bitch is going to kill us.”
“Eating!” Manny shouted, sounding pissed that I was interrupting his favorite pastime.
As I’d feared and suspected, Vickie came back down the stairs with a shotgun. It looked entirely too big for her, but that didn’t make it appear any less deadly or dangerous looking.
“Let go of my husband!” She was screaming, the gun up to her shoulder. Dylan was convulsing as blood was filling his lungs and choking the air out of him. Manny was playing at Captain Oblivious as he chewed through Dylan’s larynx and esophagus, pulling on the spongy material.
“I’m not going to tell you again, Scarlett! Let him go!”
“I’m so sorry, Vickie,” Scarlett said sadly. This I let her speak aloud, just for dramatic effect.
Dylan’s back took the brunt of the pellets as Vickie shot, but that didn’t mean we didn’t sustain some damage. Scarlett’s blouse puffed open as her right breast was pelted with bird shot. Manny barely slowed down as, I believe, he was pulling Dylan’s voice box free from its moorings. Vickie moved closer, the gun moved up higher.
“Manny, you fucking dumb ass, she’s going to put one in our head!”
“DO IT!” Scarlett said shrilly. I think it was that more than anything that got Manny into action. His mouth kept doing his chewing motions, but he’d given me the arms back. I let go of Dylan’s shirt. He fell away, his legs no longer able to support him. He wasn’t quite dead, though it was only a matter of time. Vickie made the unfortunate mistake of watching her husband collapse. Manny had taken two steps toward her, and I’d gripped the rifle, pulling it free from her. I turned it around and brought the butt stock against the side of her skull, knocking her unconscious.
“Okay, now we can eat in peace,” I said proudly.
“How could you?” Scarlett sobbed.
Manny took back the arms immediately and did not so much as grunt a thank you as he turned and dropped to his knees, burying his face deep into Dylan’s stomach as he tore through the soft belly and into its contents.
“Fucking ingrate,” I mumbled. I was effectively alone for the moment. Manny was too busy eating and Scarlett had retreated away. Nobody was a fan of watching bowels get devoured. Hell, I’d been doing this for a while, and that still grossed me out. My strength was returning, but I didn’t know if I’d ever get to the point where I could challenge Manny and he was keeping a short leash on all aspects of this body. I could not take over the mind or the physical. At first, I’d been happy I’d made it, but I didn’t want to just be a passenger at the mercy of a ruthless driver. A time would come when Manny no longer saw any value in me or felt I was a threat. We were not on level footing, not even close. If I could not convince or compel him to keep me around, I was done for.
I sat back and thought on my predicament. Manny had motored through Dylan in record time. If the gurgling of our belly was any indication, we were suffering a severe case of indigestion. Vickie began to stir just as Manny was sucking the toe meat from Dylan. It was almost a slow, sensual gesture, like this was one of Manny’s fetishes. I’d done a lot of strange things sexually, even going so far as to let a woman peg me once. But licking toes and feet was off limits for me. This chick I’d picked up at a bar once kept spinning around while we were getting it on and shoving her size twelve boats in my face.
“Yeah baby, lick them!” she’d squealed.
I maybe would have entertained it if they hadn’t smelled like skunk’s ass and looked like crow’s feet. She had at least one plantar’s wart I could see, and dry, split skin I could have hid a pencil in. I slapped them away the first time. The second time she did it, she had rubbed her feet all along the side of my face. I told her I really wasn’t into that kind of thing. The third time she’d stuck them under my nose, I’d forcibly spun her around, pinned her to the bed, fucked her hard, ramming her head into the headboard until I busted a nut, then physically removed her from my apartment. She’d banged on the door for a few minutes, but she was starting to garner attention, and without her clothes on she didn’t want to stay around too long.
“You’re an asshole!” she’d yelled before she took off.
“Yeah, at least I don’t have monkey feet, you fucking freak,” I’d mumbled as I’d stepped into the shower, hoping to wash off the stink that she’d transferred there.
“Run, Vickie, run!”
“Will you stop screaming, you fucking idiot? She can’t hear you this time, and you’re giving me a headache. Which is kind of funny because this isn’t my head.” I rubbed my imaginary temples. “You and Vickie seem to be about the same age, so where’re her kids?” I asked.
Scarlett clammed up and then blurted out, “She’s infertile, but they thought about adopting.”
“You suck at lying, plus there’s toys over in the corner. Dylan doesn’t look like the Legos type.”
“She’s only seven. Let her live. Please.”
“You’re breaking my heart, you truly are. I won’t tell our host, but we need to come to an agreement, or I’ll cash this card in faster than rabbits fuck. You believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. I don’t think I’ve ever known or heard of anyone more detestable than you.”
“You’ll get to love me. Now, I get that you have no desire to live like this; I sort of understand it. While I had a soul, it took me some searching to make sure this was how I wanted to exist.” I paused. “Yeah, that sounds like bullshit even to me. Listen, I want to live and I don’t care the cost, I really don’t, and for some fucking reason, I am going to need your help. I know that sounds about the worst thing you could do in your life—maybe it is, maybe it isn’t—but what will be worse, me showing Manny here the hidden storage closet upstairs, where little Becky is hiding? And trust me, kid meat is excellent, very tender. We’re missing out on a good meal.”
Scarlett stayed stoic.
“Now, I’ll do this for you so you’ll help me. And if you think about crossing me at some point, which you will, and just letting Manny do me in, I’m going to send out some insurance policies, sort of like having letters in a safe deposit box with instructions to mail out to media outlets and police should things not work out.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? There are no police or news stations.”
“If you’d shut up, twat, I’d tell you.”
“Your mom should have wrapped the umbilical cord around your neck and pulled it tight when she saw you come out.”
“Nobody talks bad about my mother!” I shouted.
“That? That is where you draw the line? A psychotic with mommy issues, it d
oesn’t really get much more cliché than that. Does it? Did mommy tickle your little pickle? Make you feel all funny inside your tummy.”
“Shut up, bitch.”
“Maybe stick her pinkie finger up your asshole when you were just a mere lad?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Oh and I bet you liked it a little more than you care to admit. Am I right?”
“Manny, I know where food is.” She obviously wasn’t going to shut up, and I’d had enough.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Your actions have consequences. Upstairs, Manny.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” she shrieked. My eardrums would have been as effectively shredded as if I’d shoved an exact-o knife in each of my ears and had an epileptic seizure.
“Not so fucking funny now, is it?”
She was sobbing. I could picture heavy wet goblets of water falling upon the ground. “Anything, I’ll do anything.” She sounded broken, I wasn’t convinced. There was no more convincing liar on the planet than a woman, and especially a woman trying to protect the young, whether her own or someone else’s. No matter how much I wanted to give up the kid to Manny, though, I needed to use the brat as leverage, as a bird in the hand kind of thing. If we ate the little bird, then I’d have nothing left to bargain with. I wouldn’t have anything to control her until we caught up with Yorley, and I was going to make that Manny’s number one priority somehow. The further we got from this house, the less likely little Becky-bitch would be around. Either she would split for parts unknown and get eaten, or she would stay here and get eaten. No matter what, her shortened life was forfeit on the teeth of a zombie. Whether ours or another. It was a small window I was working with.
“That’s a start, but I’m going to need more.”
“More? More what?” she cried.
“To be honest, Scarlett, I want to rip your fucking head off, pluck an eyeball free, then whip out my dick and basically and literally skull fuck you until I drop a load right on top of your brain. That’s what I want to do. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I am only going to be able to figuratively screw your empty eye socket.” I flashed her images of me holding her severed head to my groin as I gyrated against it with a fevered pitch that ended in a body convulsing orgasm covering her head in more semen than a sperm whale would have been able to produce. I thought I was pretty fucking humorous. She started retching again. I, unfortunately, had to get stuck with a woman that had the stomach strength of an E. coli victim.