Timothy 01: Timothy (5 page)

Ben’s major screaming had subsided it was mostly whimpers at this point but I’m sure someone on the other end was going to think something was a little fishy with one of their own trapped in the door. While Hugh was busy munching away, I wrenched the door open, grabbed a handful of Ben’s head and pulled him into the hallway with us, but not before I gave little miss Anna my best ‘Here’s Johnny’ gaze. She froze—it was brilliant!

“
Anna, what’s the matter?” somebody from upstairs yelled.

Nothing. Maybe she died of fright.

“
Anna!” The voice yelled.

“
There’s a… there’s a clown,” Anna said softly.

“
Anna, look at me!” the voice commanded. “There’s a lot worse than clowns out there.”

‘
Not this clown,’ I thought. Hugh was crunching through one of our two victim’s eyeballs.

“
Where is Ben?” the voice asked.

Anna was in shock. She whimpered much like Ben had only moments before.

“
In the hallway?” the man guessed.

Anna must have been pointing, maybe she was little tougher than I had given her credit for. As long as her flesh was tender that was all that really mattered right now.

“
I’m going to come down and check.”

Anna was hot, that was how she was getting two guys to come down and do a job she should have done. That’s why the military didn’t want women in combat. Guys would be pushing other guys out of the way so that they could fall on a grenade to impress the girl. Dipshits, the key to getting a girl is to be the one to throw the grenade at her, she’d come running at that point.

‘
Danger coming, Hugh.’ Damn thing paid me no attention. I started flashing him images of guns and bullets.

‘
Pain… hurt,’ Hugh thought.

Wow, so something does bother it besides hunger pangs. Hugh stopped rending through the old man’s genitalia to look up at the door.

‘
Good boy, Hugh. More food coming.’

‘
Food good, Hugh hungry.’

“
Don’t!” Anna yelled in alarm.

Our new guest was a lot closer than I had anticipated.

“
Jonas? Ben?” the man asked from right outside the door. “I’m going to shoot through this door if I don’t hear either of you. This is no time for practical jokes.”

Who does that? Who pulls tricks during an apocalypse? The new guy must have had an itchy trigger finger because he didn’t give a second warning before he blasted two dime sized holes through the heavy door. Must be carrying a small cannon to get through that wood. The ass punched a hole through my ruffled collar. Not sure why I cared, it’s not like I was going to be able to get the gallons of blood and shit out of the rest of the outfit anyway.

Thinking about shit triggered something in Hugh, he stood stock still as he began to evacuate his…I mean my bowels.

‘
Not now! Danger!’

‘
Need room to eat!’ he yelled back at me.

I heard retching from the other side. “What the fuck is that smell?”

I didn’t think it was that bad, maybe I was getting used to it.

“
Frank! I think we got zombies in the hallway. Jonas and Ben are most likely K.I.A.

Anna was whimpering but she had moved farther away.

“
Lock the door, Tom,” Frank yelled down.

“
No damn lock,” Tom said. “Anna, come here. I need you to help me move this pew over.”

I imagined her shaking her head because Tom asked her two more times for help.

“
Tom, hurry up,” Frank yelled. “We need you up here.” “We’re having a hard time keeping them from the front doors.

“
Shit,” Tom said. I heard him dragging something over to the door, didn’t sound much bigger than a chair, probably the candle votive. The frame shuddered as he placed it up against the door and then I heard Tom beating feet to help his comrades in arms.

I smiled, I don’t know if Hugh mirrored my gesture but if Tom had taken an extra second he would have realized the door opened inwards. Hugh kicked back into gear after dropping a good ten pounds of digested human.

‘
More food,’ Hugh stated, looking at the door.

This was Hugh’s way of asking me how to open the door. ‘We need to wait. I can smell Anna from here, she’s watching the door and if we come strolling through now, we’ll die.’

I could sense Hugh was struggling with his insatiable need to feed and his desire to not get shot.

“
Long how?”

‘
How long? Is that what you’re asking, buddy? Do you have any concept of time?’

No response.

‘
Until it’s completely dark, when the moon goes down.’

I think Hugh sighed but at least it wasn’t the three year-old spoiled screaming that I was expecting.

‘
Want me to tell you a story to while away the time?’ I asked him. He didn’t respond so I took that as a sign to continue.

***

‘
I was eleven years old when Kevin Thompson went missing, I didn’t do it but I didn’t help, either. I was a big kid, bigger than most kids four and five years my senior, didn’t have many friends back then.’

I stopped my narrative, now that I thought back on my life, I’d never had very many friends. Whatever.

‘
But that was why I was alone in the woods that day. I had just nailed a squirrel with a rock and its head was gushing blood. I was busy poking it with a stick; its legs were twitching like crazy. I looked up when I heard the muffled sounds of conversation not too far away. I wasn’t scared when I went to check it out, just curious. Thinking back, I should have been afraid.

I knew these woods well. I’d been playing in them for the last four years, I knew how to get around certain obstacles and I knew how to be quiet. More than once I had been able to sit and watch as some teenagers from the high school partied or had sex. And a few times I had even watched as the high school quarterback boned a cheerleader or two. Even back then I didn’t have a name for it or know exactly what they were doing, but I wanted to be doing it. Although I had on more than one occasion jerked off to the memory of that QB pounding the shit out of some girl. The memory was bringing about the painful realization that my manhood was most likely in tethers. I’m like every man on the planet, I love my penis. I’m not one of those crazies that name it or anything, but name me one other piece of the human anatomy that comes even close to the instant gratification that it
delivers.
Still waiting for an answer from Hugh on if he could mend it. I wondered how far Hugh’s medical expertise extended.

‘
Hugh, fix my junk!’ I demanded.

Nothing.

‘
Asshole!’

‘
Sleep!’ he shouted back.

Wait, was he telling me to sleep or telling me that he
was
asleep? Ass wasn’t even listening to my story. Might as well finish it, I wasn’t going any place soon.

I was up on a small rise in a particularly dense copse of trees that gave a perfect view to the clearing below. There were four kids down there. I recognized a couple from the high school football team, although not the QB. There was Kevin and then some other guy who looked to be about the same age as the football players but he was way too stringy to play. The one I didn’t know was dressed all in black, black boots, black shirt and weirdest of all was a black full length jacket, which in the middle of summer made no freakin’ sense. I knew Kevin, he was in my grade. We ate lunch together a few times. He was nice enough and I almost thought to go down and say ‘hi’, but I don’t know something just didn’t feel right. First off, why he was even with these guys was strange, but that tall skinny kid had a look about him. I can’t say back then I knew but I guess sinister is what comes to mind he had something planned out and it didn’t bode well for Kevin.

“
Where’s the junked out car?” Kevin asked.

“
We’re close,” Garrett, one of the football players said. He had a grin on that would have made the big bad wolf proud. It was entirely too toothy and his lips were pulled back way too far.

The other player, I think his name was Lyle looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Yeah, something wasn’t right. I was with Lyle if I thought I could get out unseen I would have left too. I saw the glint of the shiny steel as the stringy kid pulled it out from a sheath on his belt. Kevin never saw it as Stringy stuffed it right into his gut, Kevin grunted like he had been punched. Stringy pulled the knife clear just as Kevin fell to his knees, he placed his hands over the wound in his belly.

“
Oh fuck, oh fuck! What did you do?” Lyle yelled backing away from the scene. “You said we were just going to scare him.”

“
Well, he looks pretty scared, doesn’t he?” Stringy replied.

“
You know what I mean,” Lyle said, his volume decreasing as Kevin’s blood flowed.

Garrett’s wolf grin seemed to be frozen on his face, I couldn’t tell if he was enjoying the scene before him or not.

“
Garrett, could you get my brother?” Kevin asked.

That must be how they got him here, Garret and Kevin’s brother were friends. Man, in a world of messed up things, luring your friend’s little brother into the woods to kill him has to rank pretty high up there.

“
We… we can get him some help,” Lyle said, approaching Kevin.

Stringy pulled his still glistening blade on the kid who was damn near twice his size. Lyle stopped short, I guess he knew that if the psycho would use it in cold blood on Kevin he wouldn’t care a crap if he used it again on him.

Lyle tried a different tactic. “Garrett, come on man. This is Rog’s brother, you’ve known him for almost his whole life.”

“
Yeah, I can’t really stand the little turd,” Garrett said, his face looking even more predatory.

“
Polks, come on man, let’s get him some help before this goes any further it’s not too late.”

At least I had a name for Stringy, not that I was ever going to tell anyone what I saw here, but still.

“
It is now,” Polks said, striking Kevin square in the throat with the knife.

Garrett laughed, and loudly
drowning out Lyle’s puking.
Blood must have shot out a good five feet as Polks ripped the blade free. Kevin had a moment of indecision as he tried to figure out which flow he was going to try to stem. The crack as his nose snapped on a rock as he pitched forward was loud enough that the birds hightailed it from this area. Lyle stood up, brown bile coated the sides of his face.

Garrett turned Kevin over with his foot, frothy blood was running from
the boy’s
mouth. “He’s a goner,” Garrett laughed.

“
You say anything,” Polks said, pointing at Lyle with his knife, “it will be your sister lying there and I’ll make sure she doesn’t die a virgin.”

Lyle looked whiter than Kevin. Lyle could only nod his head, his sister was even younger than Kevin.

The three of them stood there a few moments longer before heading away. Lyle’s head was bowed so much it was almost on his chest. Garrett looked like they had just won the state championship and Polks looked like he was ready for another victim.

I made sure they were long gone before I moved from my spot. I had been in the same position for so long my legs had gone numb, I straight-legged it halfway down the embankment before I lost my balance, I rolled to a stop face-to-face with Kevin, his pupils were the size of saucers and they were fixed on nothing as near as I could tell. I had just placed my hands under my chest and was beginning to rise when his pupils shrunk down to the size of pinpricks and this time they had found an object to latch on to…me. Sleeping legs be damned, I scurried so fast away from there I think I dug out a small rivulet.

“
Please,” he gurgled softly. His hand rose ever so slightly. There was not much of what made Kevin, Kevin, left. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I thought I could see something, a white mist departing his body. All these years later I’ve tried to convince myself that it must be steam from the holes in his body but the mist originated square in the center of his forehead, not his throat. Never have been religious. I don’t pretend to understand what others see in the divine but my existence within this body lends validity to what I saw that day. I would be that mist, of that I was sure.

I walked back over to Kevin slower than I had previously. To be honest, I was hoping he would just up and die before I got there. He was having trouble moving his head but those fucking eyes followed me all the way.

“
I didn’t do this,” I told him nearly in a panic.

“
Help… get,” he eked out.

“
Man, this is fucked up!” I told him. “I don’t really want to get involved.”

“
Already are,” he answered me. I could tell he was getting toward the end of his rope.

“
You’re the idiot that came into the woods with them. Polks is meaner than a woman with a cheap engagement ring (I’d heard that gem from my mother, I wasn’t sure what it meant but it always made her laugh so I used it when it seemed right).

“
Please…” Kevin managed.

Poor fucker, he was stupid enough to go into the woods with them, and then had the horrible luck to be discovered by someone who was too reluctant to help.