Timothy 02: Tim2 (4 page)

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 if 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.

It didn’t take long for my food to find me. I was moving through a business district when I heard faint cries. Sounded like ‘help me’ but could have just as easily been ‘kiss my ass and die.’

I stopped the car trying to figure out where the cries were coming from – the small buildings were echoing and channeling the screams. Then I saw a woman round the corner of a building about two hundred yards up and over to my left. Two men were in hot pursuit of her, I could tell they were men by their movements. I loved this new world; it brought out the worst in all of us. Maybe I would fight them off so I could get some first. Shit, I didn’t want sloppy thirds. She looked good enough from this distance, but pencil dick couldn’t be a chooser; his time was limited and I did promise to get him some before I offed him.

One of the men had a crowbar. The other looked like he had a bat and the woman…wait. I sat up. She was carrying a gun. Why didn’t she just turn around and blow them away? Unless she didn’t have any ammo...and then the true picture formed, as a horde of zombies appeared chasing the trio.

“They’re together,” I said aloud.

It would make things a little trickier but manageable. Clarence might be fat, but he was strong. His muscles needed to be, to carry the added girth. The woman was frantically waving at me to drive up to meet them. I idled where I was. I was thinking that the salty sweat they produced would add a nice flavor to the meat. I almost rubbed my hands together in anticipation. And no matter what the anti-meat proponents say, adrenaline created in fear adds a sweet tang as you get deeper into the tissue.

“Run, my little pretties.” And they did. The setting sun was to my back and the headlights were on, I figure there was not much chance of my guise being spotted. I stepped out of the car and urged them on. “Come on!” I shouted waving my arm in an exaggerated gesture.

“Run away!” Clarence screamed.

I had not realized it had come out of my mouth until the woman’s steps faltered. But where else was she going to go? Add to that, she probably thought I was talking about her present situation…not the worse one she was about to find herself in.

“You fucking do that again and our deal is off. I’ll let Hugh do to you whatever it is Hugh does,” I cursed silently.

Clarence shut up—he knew that was no idle threat. The woman got into the range of the headlights. She lost some of the pretty she had from a distance; she was somewhere in her forties, a little older than I liked them, but she had a body of a woman half her age. She looked like one of them uptight office overachievers. All business and dollars and cents and when she got home after her three hour marathon sessions on her treadmill, she probably fucked her husband with a strap-on while he sucked his thumb. I knew her kind, had two at the office I worked at, walking around in their power suits, hiring and firing people like they were gods.

“Thank...thank you,” she said breathlessly as she got close. Her head was down, she was breathing hard like she was an asthmatic that couldn’t find her inhaler.

“Get in.”

“Wait for Dan and Pete,” she told me.

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving without them.”

She paused again. I could see her hand tighten its grip on the pistol. I was fairly certain it had no rounds. Her fear of the zombies far outweighed any trepidation she may have had in regards to me. She did, however, go in the sliding door so that she was in the back and not seated next to me.

“Come on! You’re about to be zombie food!” I told the two men who looked like warehouse workers in their blue duds and extended bellies of the working middle class everywhere. The two added another gear to their pathetic pace not realizing what I had truly meant by my words. They were keeping me waiting.