Timothy 02: Tim2 (13 page)

“I’d be more convinced if you put it up by the side of your head.”

I ignored him as I braced for impact. The shell casing fell to the floor as I staggered back from the slamming pain of the bullet as it parted the meat on my thigh and buried itself deep. It felt like it may have even nicked my bone. It was an intense pain, and I was thankful for Hugh’s interference as he quelled the nerve centers that registered the ache. George was quiet; his eyes were wide with hope.

“That’s a fair amount of blood leaking out of me, Hugh, you may want to take care of that,” I said – more as dramatic effect.

I did some contortions for theatrics although it didn’t really matter, Hugh was busy rectifying the injury. Fixing muscle, stopping bleeders, and even better, pushing the lead out. I’ll admit it, was hugely satisfying to see George’s surprise as the bullet hung precariously in my gaping wound then clattered to the floor. I had pulled my pants tight just for this moment.

“Believe me now?” I laughed.

He looked up into my face, trying to find some means of deception.

“Damn near good as new,” I told him as I took a few steps around the room. I also noticed something about Hugh while he was repairing the damage; something I had missed previously. Can’t really be held against me, getting shot was a new process, so while I was panicking I never noted how Hugh would completely retreat as he did his work. He wasn’t looking over my shoulder and demanding things – mostly food – he had a task to do and he was busy doing it.

“You could be so much more,” he said, looking at me somewhat tenderly, most likely shock. “You could be the answer we’re all looking for. The first step towards a cure. We could have our world back. Son, you’ve got to see that, don’t you?”

I stopped for a few seconds. “That was really entertaining, you had me going there for a sec. I never cared about the world such as it was, I’m intelligent enough to realize that my best days wer
e behind me, I was a lowly pissuant barely making a living in that world. Here, well…here I’m a king.”

“A king? Hardly,” George scoffed. “You’re a monster.”

Po-ta-to, po-tah-to. King of monsters, I’ll take that. Point is, George old buddy, I am master of my domain, I rule all that I survey.”

“How very far-looking of you, Clarence.”

“Timothy,” I hissed into his face.

“Timothy,” he repeated, looking visibly shaken. “You could be hailed as a hero, a savior. So much more.”

“You really are good, are you a shrink wannabe?”

“I’ve been around people, Cl...Timothy, my whole life. You have a chance here, a real chance.”

“You have no idea of the things I’ve done, George,” I said like I cared.

I’d pretend just to let him think he was getting through if only to maximize the expression of surprise on his face as I ripped into him. I put my hand to my face, wondering if I was going too far overboard.

“You didn’t know, like you said you were doing what you needed to survive, people get that. You could save the human race, Timothy, and you’ll just about walk on water.”

“Oh, George…but you don’t get it.”

“Tell me,” he replied. He was really ramping it up.

“I just realized the other day when we took over Clarence’s body that I’m pretty much immortal. Hugh can fix almost anything, and if he can’t we can always move to another body,” I said as I slapped Clarence’s chest.

George’s face changed from hope to disgust. “You’re a traitor to your species, I’ve got a pretty good idea your buddy Hugh won’t be able to do anything with a bullet to that sick head of yours. I can only hope I’m around long enough to either witness it…or better yet…deliver it.”

“Sadly, you’re right about the bullet to the head aspect. Good thing is you won’t be there to see it.” His screams shredded the night as I tore his nose free from his face. “Keep screaming, George.” I said between chews. “That’ll put the fear of an uncaring God into the others’ heads. I was right you are a tough bird,” I said as I gulped through his cartilage.

“What are you doing?” he sobbed wetly, blood clogging his airway.

“I’ve never been much of a foot fetish person, but right now, man, sucking on some toes sounds like just about the best thing in the world,” I told him as I untied the laces to his boots. “These are a little old, George, probably should have bought some new ones with your gift card,” I told him as I tossed them to the side. “Not much into bathing, are you?” I asked as I peeled off his dirty sweaty socks. “That’s a hefty case of toe jam you got going on there,” I told him as I looked at his deep nail fungus which had completely turned most of the nails on his feet a disgusting array of browns and puss laden yellows. “
Bon appetite
,” I said as I stuck his entire big toe into my mouth.

He jerked for all he was worth as I bit down where the toe met his foot. I then pulled back and stripped the flesh and meat clean from the bone. His screaming started anew as I moved through all of the toes on his left foot. It didn’t cease until I came away with the tidbit from his small toe.

“Tastes like mushrooms.” I said as I smacked my lips. “Must be the fungus. You ready for round two, or three I guess, if you count your nose?” He was heaving with racking sobs. “Big strapping guy like you, I thought you’d take this a little better. Eh, what do I know?” This time I started on the small toe on his right foot and worked my way up to the big toe, saving that for last. He passed out somewhere in between the second and third toe.

I undid the tape around his waist, it was safe to assume at this point that he wasn’t going anywhere. I pulled his pants down and was all set to rip parts off his meaty calves when I heard something from the end of the hallway.

“Sounds like reinforcements are coming, George old buddy, but they’re a little late for you,” I said as I began to blow out all the candles, plunging the room into darkness.

I grabbed a gun and headed to the doorway. “Please help.” I said in as pathetic a voice as I could.

“George?” came the tentative question.

“Sure,” I answered back.

“Who are you?” the person asked from the end of the hallway. They were at least smart enough to not come blindly down the darkened narrow way.

“We could go with ‘your worst nightmare’ but that seems so cliché, don’t you think?”

“What have you done with our people?”

“Why don’t you come down here and find out?”

“Chris is dead,” someone else said, talking to the person that was asking me questions. She said it in a high-pitched, panic-laden voice. “He’s stripped clean,” she added. I could hear her stifling some gagging.

“Mister, I don’t know what your problem is, but there’s other issues going on here. There are zombies in the store. Why don’t you come out and we can work this out? We’ve got a few people back there with you that we’d really like to have back.”

“You mean we could really just talk?” I asked in my sincerest voice.

“That would be preferable.”

“Gosh, mister, after all I’ve done we could still talk?”

“Just give us our people back and you can walk out of this place,” he replied angrily.

“Why in the fuck would I do that? I’ve got everything in here I need.”

“Because I’ll put a bullet in your head if you don’t.”

“Oooh…I’m scared now. I guess I’ll just give myself up.”

A shot rang out, clipping the wall next to my head. I spun and saw the crazy bastard George
, he was teetering on his meatless toes trying to get off another shot. His face twisted in agony. How in the hell he had seen enough of me to even get it off, I didn’t know.
Duh, you’re framed in the doorway
. Sometimes I was a meathead. I moved to the side, the wall at my back, and I came at George’s left side, he was looking around wildly trying to line up a shot.

I grabbed the outstretched pistol with my right hand and then stepped down hard on his exposed bones. He withered, letting go of the firearm without so much as a struggle. Multiple bones shattered as I ground them into the cement floor. He couldn’t even get air into his lungs to cry out. I turned the gun and blew his fucking skull out.

“Shoot at me, George? Fuck you.”

“What’s going on down there!” the man shouted.

“Domestic disturbance,” I replied. “George and I had a heated argument about how much I liked to eat. So I shot him.”

I could hear the man start running down the hallway.

“Better hold on there, Rambo. I’ve still got a couple of other delicate little flowers all bundled up and ready for processing.”

The footsteps stopped. “Let them go!” he shouted from a much closer vantage point.

“Doubtful.”

I could almost hear him weighing his options in his head. He could come in with guns blazing, but he had no idea where I was or where the two women were. Or head back to the mouth of the hallway, tail tucked between his legs. Not a great pose for a typical American alpha-male if – like I suspected – that was what he was.

“There’s no way out of there, you know. I’ll personally wait here until you have to come out.”

“I’ve got some time to kill. Bunch of meanings there.” I quipped.

“You can’t risk it,” the female voice said.

I don’t know if she was talking loud, or the acoustics were working out in my favor, but I could hear her almost as well as if I were part of the conversation. Then I had a palm-to-forehead moment; if my bionic buddy Hugh had enhanced my vision, I would imagine he had done the same for my hearing.

“My girlfriend is down there, Jan, I have to.”

“Vince you’re not going to do
April any good if you get yourself shot.”

“This is bullshit.” He must have stomped his foot and walked a few feet away, as his voice softened and then came back strong. “You heard, Charlene, this guy is full on crazy. We have to stop him before he hurts them.”

“Vince, Chris is dead, apparently so is George, and Calum is in there as well, so we’ve got to assume he’s dead or near to it. You’re the last guy left and we can’t afford to lose you.”

“Well that’s some useful information,” I said softly.

“Shit,” he said. I think I could even hear him drag his hand through his hair. I would have to thank Hugh for this.

“Jan, you stay here, I’m going to talk to Charlene again and try to get the story straight on this nut job.”

“Vince, you can’t leave me alone here. Get Yorley to do it, she’s nuts.”

“Jan she’s on roof duty right now. I need her shooting skills up there. If the zombies get in, then we’re screwed on both ends. Don’t worry, he thinks I’m here. I’ll be right back.”

I licked my lips in preparation and hardly noticed I cut my tongue open as it grated against my teeth.

“Hurry,” Jan begged.

This was one time where I regretted my fashion choice. There was no way that I could go down the hallway silently, my clown pants made more noise when I walked than howler monkeys having sex. I waited until I could no longer hear Vince’s footfalls.

I stepped out of the break room.
Go big or go home
. “Hey, Jan, do you know how you steal a piano?” I asked as I walked down the hallway.

“St-stop…” she hesitated, “or I’ll sh-shoot.”

“That’s no way to answer a riddle. You steal a piano by pretending it’s yours. You do it out in the open during broad daylight. You gotta have nuts the size of bowling balls, but that’s how you do it.”

I didn’t figure the bitch would actually shoot, and I would have kept thinking that…right up until the left side of me spun from the impact. High-powered rifle shot from the feel of it. I was glad she hadn’t shot my arm, probably would have taken it clean off.

“Supposed to shoot moose with that thing, not people, asshole,” I told her as I kept advancing. “And to think I voted NRA congressmen into office, never thought it was going to bite me in the ass.”

“Stop.” I could hear the lever action of her rifle move, the clatter of the expended brass hitting the floor made me move quicker. She had a rifle and apparently wasn’t averse to using it.

I was moving faster down the hallway than a three hundred and fifty-pound fat fuck had any right to. Jan was sighting me in down the barrel of her rifle.

“Clarence?
What is wrong with you?” she asked hesitantly. Pulling her sighting eye off of the aperture.

Well…she could die safe in the fact that she had made her last earthly mistake.

“Jan!” Vince screamed from off to my right.

The hero would be back here lickety-spit. I had to take care of business. I had meant to shoot her in the thigh or somewhere less deadly and then drag her injured-but-alive self back into my den of inequity, but Hero-boy was not going to allow that to happen.

“Sorry,” I told Jan, not because I had to shoot her, but rather because it meant wasting some intimate time together.  My shot was fairly dead-on considering I was running at a 4.4 forty pace, at least that’s what it felt like. The side of her head plumed into a shower of deadly debris, chunks of dirty blonde hair fell softly to the ground. The bits of her brain that the bullet had seared with its passing would end up somewhere on the far side of the store.