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  ZOMBIE GRIND

  C. G. Banks

  Zombie Grind

  Copyright 2015 C. G. Banks

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  Dedicated to

  Champion Joe Lansdale

  Zombie Grind

  If you’re reading this you already know about the rest of the shit I done. And I know, sitting here thinking about it, it’s almost got me laughing just to keep from crying. What a Fuck-All. Me, the guy who didn’t really start living till he was dead.

  But, like everything, strange shit happens all the time.

  From where I stand now it’s all hard to believe. Staring through the window a this hotel, looking out over the city, wearing the best clothes that are still around, I just don’t see how it all came to this.

  Way I’m figuring, I shoulda been dust, or at least lunch, a helluva long time ago, but it ain’t worked out that way. But…like I usually do, I’m way off base. You ain’t got a damn idea about what I’m talking about. Well, here it is.

  Last you probably heard a me, I was wandering around with my head up my ass, noticing my eyes had gone red. And let me tell you, that was a helluva revelation. Fresh off the compounds, after seeing what those Red-Eyed somebitches was capable of, and then realizing I’d somehow become one of em too. What a bitch.

  For about a week, ten days, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I holed up in the attic of this dilapidated building not far from where I made the discovery and vowed I’d never come out. Right. After several days and nights hunched tight in the corners up there I got to say the cabin-fever set in. And that motherfucker set in hard. I got itchy, that bone in the back of my throat kept constantly poking at me, wondering why the hell I’d anchored my ass up here and was refusing to come down. And I got to say I didn’t have the slightest notion myself right about then.

  When I first went up it was to jump off the roof straight on my head. If you read the first bit you know it wasn’t the first time I ever thought a that little jewel and up until the moment on the street, gazing into the shop window and seeing the ghoul I’d become staring back, I’d been able to convince myself that it wouldn’t be right. I’d fuck up somehow and end up still alive, smashed like a rat in the street, but moving, still livin this dead life. It was not a pretty picture and I just wasn’t sure I was up to it. Sure I was sick of it all. The babies, being on constant alert for any gun-toting rednecks, watching zombies kill and maim, I got to tell you, it was laying heavy on me. I wanted out.

  But I musta not wanted it bad enough.

  Because when I got up to the attic and stared out the dormer windows up there I realized just how far a drop it was and wasn’t too all-fired excited about stepping out to the next level. So I hunkered down and stayed all those days.

  Finally it was hunger forced me down. I’d been seeing spots in front of my eyes for the last little while and the bone was striking up with band force. I uncurled like a snake in its hole and thought about food. Thought about it hard. Gnawed on a board up there to try and ease the tension but it didn’t do shit. Caught my lip on a rusty nail and that just about was the last straw. Decided to go down and hunt up something, hell a dog if I could catch one. Or if not slurp the bottom of a damn dumpster. I tell you I was hungry.

  I waited till dark and started down. Got out to the street and took a lay of the land. Of course it looked different from down here and there still wasn’t a damn soul stirring. Living or dead. Hell at that point I’da eaten a zombie cockroach but I didn’t see one to track down.

  Anyway…

  Round about midnight the mudheads come on. I was still standing in the middle of the street when I saw the first one. Some old shambling somebitch, looked like he couldn’a found his way out of a paper bag if the sonofabitch was wet. The bag, I mean. We’re always kinda wet ourselves, dripping, oozing. Going about things the way we’re used to.

  He come hog-stepping across the street from somewhere, the rags of a shirt across his shoulders and nothing else. His shlong pointing straight out like he was taking directions from it. And then, for no reason at all I just went ape-shit. It was like all that time up in the attic had been priming me for a case of whip-ass. I lit across the street like Jack Rabbit Slim and let that motherfucker have it. First thing I did was grab him by the arm and sling him around like a rag-doll and I got to tell you he wouldn’a been shit for a dance partner. The arm I had a hold of popped off like a cork clearing a bottle and I started beating that motherfucker with the hand end like I was gonna bitch-slap him back to the stone age. It was like a heavy-weight attacking a town drunk. After the first coupla slaps he went back on his ass with a wet thud and I stepped in to finish whatever the hell it was I’d started. When I caught myself trying to cram his own hand down his throat I stopped.

  Just stood there.

  Looking down.

  I’d made a helluva mess of him. One leg was bent back and he was mostly laying on it. I’d knocked most of his hair off and his nose was a black smudge. One eyeball was still looking up at me and seeing it there, like that, eyeing me like a pickle in a jar, I just kicked it up another notch. Dropped down on both knees and started gnawing on his face. And let me tell you it felt good. Between the symphony in my head and the violence I was doing this poor fucker I seemed to somehow transcend nature.

  When my teeth raked across bone I stopped, the rotten smell like filet minion in my mouth. Thought, what the fuck are you doing, man? Backed off and struggled to my feet. Shook my head like a rabid dog in the street trying to get some clarification. Spit out what I had left in my mouth. Hell, if I’da still been alive my heart woulda been going about a hundred and eighty clicks a minute. And my prick was hard as a rail-spike.

  I stood up. Thought again, what the fuck? Felt a shiver pass all through me. Then I looked over my shoulder and found myself outlined in another window. A ghoul in the street, eyes glowing red like a motherfucker.

  Wait a minute, I thought. Hold up a second and get a grip on yourself. The mudhead I’d attacked was moving feebly in the street, his good leg vibrating and the good eye poking up at me wondering what the hell had brought all this on. And I didn’t know shit from shinola. Across the way I got the feeling some other eyes were on me and then, without another thought, I tucked tail and high-stepped it outta there.

  I ain’t great at running, never have been, but right about then I coulda probably won the zombie Olympics.

  The rest of the night went by like a slow train to hell. I was asshole and elbows, breaking through brush and stumbling over fallen logs. Grunting and groaning to beat the band. Just trying to put as much distance as I possibly could between me and the thing I’d just done. Thinking as well as I could, considering.

  I did this until the sun come up the next morning.

  Now don’t get the idea I don’t appreciate much. It just ain’t true. Standing there in the middle of the woods I took time to look down at the green grass beneath my rotten feet. At the trees standing sentinel against all the hell Time could throw at em. It was nice actually, finally standing there alone and not having to think about the way things had gone. Thinking that with all the shit that had gone down since that day at Momma’s some things hadn’t changed at all. Hell, if you took away the fact that most people were no longer nothing but a buncha stumbling mudheads, bent on killing and maiming, then things outside a humans hadn’t see
med to take much notice. I even started hearing more birds in the trees, took notice of em flying high against the sun.

  It got to me so much that after a while I just sat down and took inventory.

  Here I was, dead, sure. But alive nonetheless. My clothes were stinky and torn but I had to admit I hadn’t paid much more attention when I’d been alive. And just sitting there I heard a small noise and looked up in time to see two rabbits hop into view. Wasn’t no time one came up behind the other and they started humping like…well, rabbits. I watched em go at it. Didn’t make sound one, didn’t move a muscle. It’s times like these I thought, with the sun high in the sky and rabbits fucking in the woods that I’d never paid much mind to in the past. Again, the story of my life. It took this much for me to finally slow down enough to recognize things for what they were. The miracle of life.

  And then I thought about the little girl I’d tried to save from the compound. I wondered if I’d done enough. Wondered if I hadn’t hit that last stump if she’d still be alive today. Well there wasn’t no mileage in that. I slapped the ground and those two rabbits broke off and were gone in a wink. Leaving me sitting there feeling sorry for myself.

  I needed a