The God Zombie, page 12
“Mommy, what’s going on?” asked Jude.
“I don’t know, baby,” replied Carla.
Carla turned on the radio.
“This just in to the One-Eight-Three-Nine-Three News Desk. A health emergency has been issued for Fairfax County and all surrounding areas. The police and local health authorities are asking everyone to shelter in their homes or businesses for the next forty-eight hours. We’ll have more updates shortly.”
Carla quickly turned off the radio. The last thing she needed was for her sons to be riled up by an emergency. Both had asthma, and neither was good at handling excitement. She pulled back onto the road but immediately stopped; she was in the middle of a traffic jam with dozens of cars unable to break free.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” complained Blake. “Can we get burgers?”
Frustrated, Carla turned around. “I can do many things, Blake, but none involve lifting an SUV into the sky.”
Suddenly a giant red webbed foot landed in the center of Carla’s windshield, shattering the glass.
“AAAAAHHHH! MOMMY!” screamed the children, pointing at the window.
A red face appeared on the windshield, two enormous eyes peering into the car. The creature pressed its human nose against the cracked glass and sniffed, releasing a terrifying giggle as it captured the scent of the family. It looked deeply into Carla’s eyes, searching for something inside her—emotion, fear, or something else. After a few seconds, the creature slammed its four arms against the glass, shattering it thoroughly before stepping onto the car’s roof and moving on to the next vehicle.
Carla and her sons watched in horror as the creature smashed the car’s windshield behind them and yanked the driver from the vehicle. With its spiderlike arms, it held the terrified man by his torso while the other two arms held the man’s neck and head; in one powerful motion, it pulled the man’s head off his body with the spinal cord attached, and let the torso slide down the hood of the car onto the street. The creature held up the man’s head, seemingly celebrating the beheading of its victim, spinning in a circle, showing it for all to see. Suddenly the creature’s body jerked, and its chest opened like the wings of a bird. It grabbed the dangling spinal cord of the dead man and inserted it into its chest. Soon the man’s eyes were blinking, his eyes blood red, and a terrifying grimace on his face. In one motion, it retreated into the monster’s chest cavity and the opening closed. The creature turned back to look at Carla, and released another terrifying scream before jumping onto the next vehicle.
Carla and her sons were silent, staring in disbelief at what was happening on the street. There were dozens of the creatures running through traffic, ripping open car doors and tearing people apart. Suddenly a machine gun sounded from behind, and Carla turned to see several men dressed in military uniforms firing shots at the monsters. The bullets hit two monsters beside her car. Still, they only seemed to be a minor annoyance—the creature’s smaller arms fell to the ground, transforming into glowing red-winged scorpions that buzzed into the air and attacked the soldiers, ripping off pieces of their faces with their claws. The host of the scorpion arm stood in the center of traffic, breathing heavily as it watched the creature rip the soldier’s body to shreds. Suddenly two thin, branch-like arms appeared, replacing the missing ones and, in seconds, were functional.
When the two monsters left, Carla saw her chance and gunned the car into traffic. Swerving around open car doors and running over corpses, she pushed the car as fast as possible. But suddenly, a voice came from behind her.
“Mom,” whimpered Jude. “Blake.”
Carla turned to see her son leaning to the side, clutching his arm; a bullet struck him in his shoulder, and he lost a lot of blood.
“Blake!” screamed Carla. “Mommy’s coming!”
Carla stopped the SUV, climbed out of the car, and ran to the passenger side. Just as she was about to open the car door, she felt a great thrust inside her chest that lifted her off her feet. She landed on her back and screamed—something was inside her, pushing at her stomach to get out. In excruciating pain and vomiting blood, Carla tried grabbing for the door handle to reach Blake, but another thrust came from inside her, and she lost feeling in her legs. The thing inside her stomach shredded her and climbed out of Carla’s body. It looked like a tiny red devil with enormous eyes and a human nose, a smaller version of the monster on the hood of her car but more terrifying.
“SOMEBODY! HELP ME!” screamed Carla.
The baby monster buried its face in Carla’s stomach and pulled on something that sent a sharp pain directly to her heart. It was the worst feeling Carla had ever felt. The sensation was like someone had cut her chest open and was poking her heart with a rusty fork. Carla screamed—but nothing came out. The sound of the beast sucking her blood and chewing on her flesh was driving Carla insane. She couldn’t take much more of the tearing and ripping. She lay on the side of the road, wanting it all to end, drifting in and out of consciousness as she watched the fantastical creature devouring her body right before her eyes.
The beast grew in size with each gulp of entrails, giggling like a child as it found more delicious pieces of her body to devour. Within seconds it was the size of one of Carla’s children, all the while eating bigger bites of her stomach and intestines. Finally, the monster was the same size as the others and stood like a towering menace over her damaged body. With two hands, it grabbed Carla’s neck and held her torso with the other two hands. The pull brought instant blackness to Carla’s eyes—she didn’t feel her head and spine separate from her body. The monster’s chest opened, and it plugged her into its insides. Suddenly Carla could see again, her head swimming around the creature like the tentacles of an octopus, watching a new world covered in red. Her eyes fell on her children, terrorized in the car, crying, clutching one another as they watched their mother’s transformation into something with evil intent. She felt nothing for those children. The wholeness of evil was all that mattered, and she was one with the creature that brought forth this world of pain. Seconds later, Carla was resting inside the creature’s chest, waiting for a new kill.
Sisterhood
“Shit!”
Indigo came storming out of the bathroom and stood before her two sisters. “Okay, which one of you took a dump and didn’t flush?”
Inez lowered her glasses and looked at her sister. “Not me. That’s disgusting.”
Both sisters glared at Penny until she paused the game. “My bad,” Penny responded dryly.
Indigo shook her head, walked back into the bathroom, and flushed the toilet. “You’re unbelievable. You’re three hundred years old and behaving like an infant. It takes less than one second to press the handle!”
“Oh, stop your bellyaching, Indi. You act like you never made a mistake.”
“I swear. I’m so tired of living with the two of you.”
Inez closed her laptop. “You two always do this. You see that I’m working.”
“Working? Since when?” yelled Indigo from the bathroom.
Penny snickered and restarted her video game. “She means searching the ads for a new boyfriend.”
“Since when is finding a boyfriend a job?” chuckled Indigo.
Inez got up and went into the kitchen. “Since I live with two unsupportive sisters intent on making me single for all eternity.”
Penny paused the game again. “That’s cap, Inez, and you know it. The last guy left because of your behavior.”
Indigo walked into the living room, rubbing lotion on her hands. “She’s got you on that one, Inez.”
Penny winked at her sister. “Damn right. You talked hella shit to Parker on the phone.”
“I did not!”
“I heard you! That sharp tongue gave him every reason to leave. Well . . . that plus that four-hundred-year-old cookie.”
Penny and Indigo burst into laughter. “Forget you, Penny. Cap? Is that another one of your slang words? Grow up already.”
“Yes, it’s slang—capping means lying. Catch up with the times and stop acting like an old sour puss from the 1800s. But I don’t know why you call me immature when you’re the one surfing the web for a date.”
Indigo flopped down on the sofa next to Penny. “Don’t worry, Inez. Dating is difficult for all of us. It’s hard to be in a relationship with a mortal with only forty good years.”
Penny put down her video game controller and gave Inez a peck on the cheek. “Yeah, sis, I’m just playing. We know it’s hard out there. How long have we been doing the hotel hook-up thing?”
“Since forever,” piped Indigo. “I don’t even bother anymore.”
“Me, either, “continued Penny. “Explaining why I can’t take someone home is a bitch! What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, I live in a crystal house on the treetops of Blood Mountain.’ The first time I said that to a guy, he’d look at me like I was insane.”
“Yeah, that would certainly make them run—well, that plus your rotting hand,” quipped Inez.
Penny removed the glove from her hand and inspected it—the skin was green, and the nails on the fingers were still black.
“That fucking bitch!” she cursed. “But I think it’s getting better.”
“Jeez, that stinks!” complained Indigo, covering her nose. “You should go outside to air that thing out.”
Penny put on her glove, went into the kitchen, and removed the bag from the garbage can. “Be back in a sec,” she said.
Penny snapped her finger, and a green aura appeared around her body. She walked through the crystal wall and tumbled head over heels through the air until she landed on her feet on the ground.
“Shit. I forgot,” Penny said, remembering the rain they started.
Penny tossed the garbage into a pit, snapped her finger, and aimed, shooting a stream of fire from her index finger, igniting the trash. Penny heard fluttering on the opposite side of the clearing as she watched the flames burn the refuse.
“Hey, Indi!” Penny yelled up to her sister.
“Yeah!”
“You forgot to bring the laundry in out of the rain. Did you forget about the spell we cast?”
“Shit!”
“The clothes will smell like a dog’s ass for a week! Do you want me to grab them?”
“What kind of stupid question is that? Of course I want you to bring them in.”
“Ungrateful jerk,” Penny whispered.
She waved her hand, and the clothes flew off the line, folded, and landed in her palm. As she turned to fly back up to the house, she heard the deep growl of an animal in the bushes. Suddenly a flame appeared in Penny’s fist, and she slowly turned around.
“You may as well come out. There’s no sense in hiding.”
A large black wolf walked out from the shadows, raised fur glistening in the rain. Although the creature had a menacing growl and piercing eyes of fire, Penny remained calm. Without looking in the wolf’s direction, she sniffed the laundry as though the creature wasn’t there.
“Hi, Forneus. We’ve been expecting you.”
The growling wolf shook the water from its coat and moved closer.
There was a slightly noticeable breeze in the air, and Penny smiled. Her sisters were here.
“Hey, Forneus,” said Inez from the opposite side of the clearing.
The beast turned in her direction, snarling and curling back its lips to show its sharp teeth.
“Stand when you speak to my sister,” demanded Inez.
Inez clapped her hands together, and the wolf fell to the ground. As it lay incapacitated, a ghostly image of Forneus’s skeleton, covered in fire, rose from the wolf and stood before them.
“I mean no disrespect,” said Forneus.
Another voice rose from behind the skeleton.
“We know why you’re here, so let’s get this over with,” said Indigo, stepping out from the shadows.
Penny tossed the stack of clothing into the air and waved her arm, sending the clothes flying into the house.
“You want us to help you start a war,” said Penny.
Forneus’s eyes moved from one sister to the other. “Not start. I need your help in protecting the innocent from being attacked.”
Penny shrugged. “It makes no difference to us. We hate the boy and his bitch of a babysitter.”
“So you know what they intend to do?”
Indigo chuckled. “Do we know? We helped them fortify their soldiers.”
Forneus seemed confused. “You know the Demon Balam controls the boy, and still you offered assistance? They intend to kill millions, and you will be partially responsible for those deaths.”
Inez became angry. “Don’t come to us with that self-righteous I-want-to-save-the-world crap. You’ve been filling Hell with souls for years, gravedigger.”
“But Hell tricked me!”
“Potato, potato. Either way, we know the punishment Heaven gave you.”
Indigo moved closer to Forneus’s image. “Look, let’s not waste our time bickering. You don’t like the boy, and neither do we. Let us improve our positions through a mutually beneficial collaboration.”
“What do you suggest?”
“The rain.”
Forneus looked around. “This is your doing? I knew it was attached to Hell somehow—the liquid is thick with the scent of evil.”
Penny wiped the liquid from her arms. “Yeah, I hate it, too,” she said.
Forneus was silent for a moment. “I want to resurrect the dead,” he finally said.
Inez seemed confused. “Don’t you already possess that power? You don’t need us for that.”
“I need much more than I could bring back alone.”
Indigo looked at her sisters. “Balam’s army will cover the city in two or three days, and within two or three months, they’ll be everywhere,” she explained to her sisters.
Penny shook her head in disagreement. “We cannot be responsible for resurrecting all the dead souls. Doing something like that would surely get the attention of Heaven, and I don’t want that kind of smoke.”
“Penny, the number of Huturo will be enormous. We have to do something.”
“How about this,” explained Inez. “For every Huturo created, we allow the resurrection of three souls.”
Penny laughed. “A fucking three-for-one sale? Are you serious? What are we, a discount department store?”
Forneus and the other two sisters remained emotionless as they contemplated the agreement.
“It’s an acceptable number,” said Inez. “But the Huturo are powerful creatures, and the only power the dead possess is abnormal strength.”
“Not to mention their need to feed,” piped Indigo. “The undead will kill their fair share of innocents.”
Forneus lowered his head to think. “It is a necessary evil I’m willing to accept. The Huturo will kill many more than the undead, and I have to do what I can to protect the innocent.”
Penny laughed again. “Fuck, Forneus. That punishment from Heaven must be a serious bitch if you’re contemplating this one.”
Inez’s mouth fell open, and she moved closer to Forneus, staring into his eyes. Finally, she turned to Penny. “Don’t laugh, sis,” whispered Inez. “Can’t you see? He’s doing it for love.”
All three sisters suddenly grew silent, staring at Forneus in awe as he looked away into the dark, rainy forest.
“We will help you,” said Indigo.
Forneus looked at the women. “Thank you. But there is something else. The boy under my tutelage, Arlo, should possess the power to command the undead.”
Inez seemed surprised. “Are you sure about this? He’s only a teenager with underdeveloped volatile emotions.”
“It is what I request.”
The three sisters huddled together, whispering. After a few moments, Inez turned to Forneus. “Anything else?”
Forneus shook his head.
“We will alter the rain spell without the boy’s knowledge. Give us two days,” Inez said.
“Thank you.”
Penny’s hand began glowing, and slowly Forneus’s image melted into the wolf. After a few seconds, the wolf stood, shook the rain off, and turned toward the forest.
“Forneus!” yelled Inez.
The black wolf turned and looked back at the girls with glowing eyes.
“There is something you should know. Your boy’s mother is alive and being held captive by John.”
The wolf growled and nodded its head before disappearing into the dark forest.
Inez sighed. “That’s so romantic. I wish I had a man that felt that way about me.”
Penny agreed. “Yeah, men like him are hard to find.”
Indigo shook her head. “Too bad he’s not going to make it.”
Inez wiped a tear from her eye. “We don’t know that because we didn’t see it in the bones. Still, Forneus’s suffering will be tragic.”
Penny wiped the rain off her face. “Come on. Let’s get out of this rain before the smell attaches to our hair.”
Penny waved her hand, and all three women disappeared.
Recalibration
While Isadora lay sleeping on the grass, Arlo sat looking at something peculiar across the field—he spotted a miniature orange tree. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the numerous larger plants, but Arlo couldn’t turn away after he saw it. It seemed so out of place amongst the other lush foliage that he wondered if someone had come into the garden and secretly planted it there. Unable to keep his curiosity at bay, Arlo pushed aside the sleeping puppies on his lap and walked over for a closer look.
The orange tree was a runt of a sapling, its trunk barely long enough to bend toward its portion of sunshine amongst the other tall plants. But it was still there, pushing, surviving despite other taller plants, reaching for what it needed. Its fruit was pathetic; the four tiny oranges with uneven coloring were no larger than a cherry. Arlo picked a fruit from the tree and inspected it; the orange’s partially green skin was thin and burst in Arlo’s hand, squirting juice everywhere. Arlo lifted his wet hand to his mouth and tasted the liquid.
