Timothy 02: Tim2 (9 page)

“What the fuck, Clarence!” I said, finally letting go of my mini-me.

“What’s the matter? Big strong virile man like you can’t get a hard on?”

“I’d be fine if Grandma Moses would leave me alone. Listen, pinhead, I don’t need a hard-on to kill her, although I’ll probably get one later on thinking about it. You get me
safely
into that safe house and our deal stands. You’ve got five seconds or I’m going to crush her pretty little face with a rock, and while she’s still warm I’m going to strip her clean of flesh. Tick fucking tock, clocks a-ticking.”

I went a few feet over to my right, it wasn’t a stone like I’d promised, but I figured a cinder block would do the trick. I straddled Anne and raised the heavy cement block above my head.

“My God, no! I swear I’ll get you in there, NO TRICKS, please don’t!” Clarence was sobbing. 

“I thought you’d come around, although right now I’m kind of wishing you hadn’t, that could have been some fun,” I said as I tossed the
block to the side, I grabbed Anne’s blouse and hefted her up onto my shoulder. “Your chariot awaits, madam,” I told her as we walked to any house that would satisfy mine and Clarence’s agreement.

An even baker’s dozen later I found something acceptable: a small two-story number with bars on the windows, a bit of food in the pantry, and a bed. There were no regular dead people or irregular dead people. Whoever lived here had never made it back once the zombies came and the place looked unassuming enough that looters hadn’t been desperate enough to bother with it.

I tossed Anne into the queen-sized bed in the master bedroom, her red hair fanned out over the dusty pillow. I was pretty close to saying ‘fuck the deal’. There were things I wanted to do to her that would have made a Thai hooker blush. Clarence and I both stared longingly at her but for very different reasons.

“You swear to me now, Tim, that once you get that store you will forget about this place. You tell me now.”

“I already told you, I wouldn’t touch a hair on her head. What more do you want, I’m not a fucking animal.”

“You’re worse.”

“What?”

“You’re worse than an animal, Tim. Animal’s kill to eat.”

“I kill to eat.” I answered him.

“Maybe a part of you does, the Hugh part. But you, Tim, you kill for the fun of it. You love the devastation it causes and the chaos that ensues. You love taking what people cherish the most; their lives or their loved ones. I saw, man, I saw how excited you were when you killed Tyler. A big part was the thrill of the hunt, sure. But the bigger part was how you knew what it was going to do to Anne…how it would affect her. You got your fucking jollies off watching her have a breakdown. Who does that to other people? What happened in your life that you derive happiness from inflicting suffering on others?”

“Holy shit, Freud, you talk a lot. Can we get this show on the road?”

“Someday, Timothy,
someone’s going to come to collect and you’re going to come up short in payment.”

“Deep, man, deep. Get me my fucking dinner!” I roared.

Clarence’s heart was heavy as we walked. More than a few times I could feel him weighing his actions. Sacrificing the many for the one was not the way we were wired, at least most of us. But there’s a huge caveat to that line of thought – how much weight does the one have if we love them? As a parent, would you sacrifice five of Johnny or Jill’s classmates if it meant your child came home? How about ten maybe twenty? When does it become too much? Is guilt a stronger motivator than personal happiness? I don’t think so. You altruistic fucks can kiss my ass, you might sacrifice yourself, but you sure as shit aren’t throwing the kiddie to the wolves.

I don’t know if Clarence was religious or not, but he was praying to anyone that would listen to forgive him for what he was about to do.

“He doesn’t care,” I said nonchalantly.

He prayed louder.

“Suit yourself. Praying is worthless, you pray for things you want but are out of reach, or you pray for forgiveness for sins committed. Both are just to make you feel better. There’s no huge puppet master in the sky pulling strings, sometimes letting a winning lottery ticket fall in your lap or absolving your sinful actions. We do shitty things and then we ask for absolution from an imaginary being and think everything’s going to be alright. Well, you know what, Clarence old buddy, you’re half right. It will be alright, but not because we prayed, but because there isn’t a final tally somewhere. There is no gatekeeper that weighs our actions while we were alive. The whole fucking religion thing was created by man to reign in the chaos, that’s it. We’re thinking apes, that’s it. We were running around caving in skulls with clubs and someone had the bright idea to say ‘If you keep doing that, Big Spirit in Sky will make you pay!’ And the funny thing is, for some insane reason, the guy swinging the club believed him. It’s horseshit! Religion, civilization, it’s just a means of control.”

“What about just common decency, Tim? Being kind to others? What’s wrong with that? Of striving towards the good of all mankind?”

“A billion people and I inhabit a damn tree hugger. Just my luck.”

“Food?” Hugh asked.

“Dammit!” Clarence exclaimed, he had been startled. “What do you know about him or them?”

“We off the theological rant then?”

“Yeah I think so, since you’re pretty much devoid of redeeming qualities,” Clarence replied.

Clarence seemed to be gaining confidence; I knew our time was limited. I was getting sick of the little bastard, but he still had a part to play in the bigger picture, and I wasn’t going to kill him until I had my food source secured.

Keep saying condescending things
, I thought in a remote portion of his mind. My hatred for him was festering and seething in some deeply rooted spots. On the surface where I allowed him to play I was calm…maybe even somewhat hospitable if you can believe that.

“Stop!” Clarence shouted.

I pulled up short.

“That’s it,” he said as he mentally pointed at a small grocery store.

If he hadn’t said anything, I would have walked right out into the middle of a street and the armed guard on the roof may or may not have taken a shot at me, the love of clowns had been on a steady decline for a couple of decades now.

“We’ll have to wait until night to get in,” Clarence informed me.

Hugh was beginning to pester me about eating, and something wasn’t quite right with Clarence – he was hiding something and he was hiding it effectively, I was getting pissed off. I pried at his psyche as best I could without him knowing. When I couldn’t find the answer, I dug deeper, but this he could feel. Clarence began to throw up mental images as fast as he could in a desperate bid to hide what he was thinking. I just about killed him when he got stuck on a pink elephant, and then I had finally broke through.

“What the fuck are NVGs?” I asked him.

He was obstinate.

“Clarence, one last time. What are NVGs?” A blip of over-engineered binoculars splintered my view and was immediately gone. I still had not pieced it together.

“HUUUUUUNNNNGRY!” Hugh bellowed upon having seen the man on the supermarket roof.

“Well we can fix a lot of problems right now,” I said angrily as I turned around and started walking back the way I’d come.

“What are you doing, Tim?” Clarence asked, fear interjected in his voice.

“I’m starving. I figure I’ll eat at home tonight instead of
dining out.”

“You promised!” he cried.

“Yeah and you promised about getting me into that safe-house, but you’re holding something back and I’m done playing.”

Clarence was doing all he could to put the brakes on his body. He would have had an easier time stopping a hippo with a leash made from string. I strode purposefully towards the house where I’d left Anne. I was chewing up the pavement with the pace I was making.

“Stop, Tim! NVGs are night vision goggles, please stop!” he screamed again when I didn’t even acknowledge him.

“Honey, I’m home!” I yelled as I kicked in the front door. Clarence had made me lock it as if that was ever going to stop me. I heard noise from the kitchen. I moved with a cautious purpose down the hallway; who knew if she had found a weapon or was now looking for one. Either way, I saw no reason to take an unnecessary injury.

I walked into the kitchen. Anne had her back to me. There was a pan on the stove and, unless I was mistaken, she was cooking spoiled eggs on a cold range top.

“Looks delicious, honey,” I said.

“Oh, your home,” she replied, a huge smile plastered across her face. It wavered for a moment as she got a good look at my mug and then her eyes glazed over and the happy expression was back.

“Don’t you fucking do this!” Clarence was raging.

“We had a deal, dipshit. I gave you every opportunity to hold up your end of the agreement, but you couldn’t do it. And you call me the greasy used car salesman. Go fuck yourself,” I said as I brushed the hair away from Anne’s neck. She had turned back around to administer to her brown, cold eggs.

“Please, Tim, please! I will do everything and anything that you ask! No tricks ever, man, I swear it!” he begged.

“See…this was the allegiance I was looking for, it’s almost a damn shame it had to get to this point.”

“SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HUUUUUUUNNNNNGRY!” Hugh raged as I bit down on the nape of Anne’s neck.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Clarence screamed and wailed.

I tore through her body like a fat man
to a stack of cream-cheese filled waffles. Her skin had a dewy lusciousness to it.

“Not bad,” I said as I smacked my lips. I had devoured her; I don’t even think her soul could have escaped I had so thoroughly picked her clean. I lounged around waiting for the inevitable. I was comforted only by the sounds of keening by Clarence.

My stomach began to grumble wildly. “Hold that thought, Hugh,” I said as I waddled my expectant food belly to the bathroom. “We’re going to do this right.”

I was thankful the toilet still had water. I had to flush every few seconds to keep up with the outflow from my ass. “Man, that feels good. Don’t you agree, Clarence? I mean the going out part is damn near as satisfying as when it’s going in. She sure does smell, though, can’t ever say her shit doesn’t stink!” I started laughing.

Clarence charged. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I was wondering when we’d get to this point. Hugh, we have an invader,” I told my other roomie as I finished the elimination process. It wasn’t much of a fight, Hugh had pretty much just devoured whatever was left of Clarence: his psyche, his ID, his consciousness – whether sub or not, hell maybe it was even his soul. How would I know? Whatever the case, Clarence was now officially deceased and this body was mine...and Hugh’s…but that was fine; the two of us were at least on the same page.

“Thanks, Hugh, it was getting a bit crowded in here. You ready for the main course, pal?”

“Food?” Hugh asked inquisitively.

“Oh, you know it,” I told him as I whistled. “Just one more thing…” I told Hugh as I rifled through the utensil drawer happy enough with what I found.

It was only after we had left the house that I had wished I’d fucked her first. Must be growing up, my priorities were changing. I had a mouth to feed now. And I laughed. Fuck I was great company. I was feeling pretty good; I knew where a store was with a football team’s worth of food. There were a couple of small details I had to work past, the guard on the roof with the night vision goggles being one of them.

I loved my clown outfit, it reflected who I was, but right now it was a bit of a hindrance. Without it on I’d be able to walk right in and ask for sanctuary. (Quite literally a zombie with a human coat.) Then I remembered my face; yeah that would have worked out well! Even if I had changed into a three-piece suit and strode up to the door, I was pretty sure my sewn on face would give them pause to consider letting me in. I’m sure I’d get a face full of shotgun pellet.

I could get a gun. I had as much dexterity as any true human, but where was the purity in that? Zombies everywhere would look down on me, probably even vote me out of their club. Who was I kidding? I was already on thin ice for slaughtering a bunch of them. Much to Hugh’s discontent, I was going to have to wait for the cover of darkness. Odds were, only the guard on top had the goggles and he couldn’t watch the entire perimeter. I was making a lot of assumptions, but even if they spotted me, it would be difficult for them to tell exactly what I was. I took some refuge behind a dumpster and even thought about napping when a thought hit me.

“Hugh, can you call out to some other zombies?”

“Eat alone!” he responded in an angry tone.

“Look at that, my little boy is growing up and he doesn’t play well with others! You make me so proud! Don’t worry, buddy, I don’t want to share either. I’m thinking we’ll use them as a diversion to get into the store.”

Hugh began to show me pictures, something he often did when there was a concept he was unsure of how to explain. It showed two zombies, sometimes close, sometimes at a distance. The close ones were normal and the far removed ones were shaped like an ‘x’.