The God Zombie, page 9
Suddenly something moved behind the door, and Jennifer jumped back.
“Mommy? Daddy?” asked Jennifer, backing away from the room. She hoped her parents were behind the door, but she knew it was something much worse. Slowly, two pairs of long stringy red fingers grabbed the side of the door and began pulling it open. Next, four large eyes looked out from behind it.
“AAAHHHHH!” Jennifer screamed before falling to the floor.
Two terrifying creatures stepped out from their hiding place, laughing and cupping their long, spiderlike fingers over their mouths. They were hideously deformed caricatures of human beings with enormous plate-sized watery eyes, muscular bodies, and shiny red skin. Though possessing a human nose and mouth, their faces had blood pouring out of them. Branded on their chests was an eye that blinked and looked around the room. Each monster had four arms—two like humans and two smaller arms sticking out of their shoulders, all filled with dozens of tiny living scorpions that moved beneath their skin. Instead of walking, they slid along the hardwood floors on webbed feet, laughing in a high-pitched giggle that both terrified and taunted.
Jennifer pushed herself along the hardwood floor until her back was against the railing.
“What are you?” she asked. “Where’s my mother and father?”
The monsters looked at the girl simultaneously and turned to one another, whispering in a strange language. Finally, they faced her again and screamed, their chests splitting down the center, opening to reveal the dead faces of Bob and Debra tucked inside.
Jennifer saw her parents’ faces and passed out. The creatures’ bodies closed, and they stepped over the girl with their hoofed feet. With their massive legs, they squatted, crashed through the ceiling, and disappeared into the night.
The House
John stood in the dark, taking in the ambiance of the empty house. The place that used to be his home had so much joy and laughter, but now it was just a cold wooden structure, filled with dust and the faint smell of pine oil. Still, John couldn’t help but smile as he remembered growing up in the house. His life as Manuel had been the storybook life most kids would kill to have—filled with the pranks of an annoying sister, candy, and friends.
“Friends,” John whispered, spotting a familiar corner of the room. He remembered the old brown sofa that was once there, a couch on which he and his best friend, Arlo, used to spend hours playing video games.
“I’m sorry, bro,” whispered John. “We should be conquering this world together.”
Although he knew Arlo was dead, John couldn’t help feeling the regret of taking his friend’s life. He missed Arlo, and no matter how many souls he took into his body, nothing could erase the guilt of betraying his best friend.
“Are you okay, my Lord?” asked a voice from behind.
John turned to see the Witch Asura standing in the doorway. “I’m fine. I’m just reminiscing a bit.”
“You are thinking of your life as the boy Manuel.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot waste time thinking of Arlo. His betrayal was a necessary step in fulfilling Lord Balam’s wish.”
John sighed and walked past the old woman onto the front porch. After taking a deep breath, he opened the gate and stepped onto the street.
“I wonder if they still live here,” said John, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Asura exited the gate behind Arlo, looking around nervously as they moved down the dark street. The two walked past several houses until Arlo’s house came into view.
Just as they moved within a few feet of the house, the front door opened, and Arlo’s father walked out, carrying a garbage bag. As soon as Jamie spotted John, he dropped the garbage on the ground.
“I don’t believe it! Manuel, is that you?”
John smiled and moved closer. “It pleases me that you remember, but I’m different now. My name is John.”
Jamie looked puzzled. “John? What are you talking about? Did you get a name change or something?”
John chuckled and nodded toward the house. “Is Mrs. Ortega inside? Where’s Arlo?”
Jamie’s face hardened, and he grabbed the trash bag from the ground. As he was about to respond, terrifying giggles rang out from the shadows.
“What was that?” asked Jamie.
John turned to Asura. “The Huturo are here,” he said calmly.
“Yes, my Lord. I sense two of them,” replied Asura.
Jamie looked around, confused. “Huturo? What the heck is that? Who is this, your grandmother?”
Asura pulled John close and calmly lifted her palm. A flash of light shot from her hand and wrapped around her and John like a snake before finally exploding into an electrified purple bubble that enveloped them.
“Holy fucking shit!” yelled Jamie, backing away.
Frightened by Asura’s bubble, Jamie turned to run back to the house, but stopped—two giant shadows stood lurking, blocking his entrance.
“Manuel, I don’t understand. What the hell is going on?” he asked, terrified.
John and Asura remained silent as they watched from inside the bubble. A twisted smile soon appeared on John’s face as he remembered all the moments he’d interacted with Arlo’s father. John never liked Jamie and remembered Jamie behaving like an arrogant jackass whenever John visited. Jamie was domineering, always intent on showing everyone he was the man of the house, and frequently humiliated his family to prove it. To John, there wasn’t a more fitting target to test the killing power of Balam’s Huturo soldiers.
As Jamie backed away, the creatures moved out of the moonlight to reveal themselves—two deformed monsters with large plate-sized eyes and red skin stared at him through the darkness. Jamie saw the monsters and started peeing in his pants.
“W-w-what the hell are they?” he asked.
The creatures lifted their heads and sniffed the air; they could smell the fear in Jamie’s urine, making them giggle like children. With one set of hands, they tried covering their smiles to hide their glee while the other arms reached out to Jamie like thin tree branches, beckoning him to come closer. They stomped across the grass like cattle, pulling up clumps of soil with their hoofed feet.
As the creatures moved across the yard, Jamie saw the lights in his house turn on. Terrified, he watched as his wife passed by the window into the other room.
“Claire,” Jamie whispered, quickly looking away.
Hoping the creatures didn’t see the light turn on, Jamie tried to distract them by running past the purple force field to the neighboring house. One of the Huturo gave chase, leaping over the purple force field, while the other monster stopped in front of it, mesmerized by the color. Jamie started banging on the door.
“Please! Open up!”
All of the lights in the house turned on, and a voice yelled down from an upstairs window. “Who the fuck is out there? I have a gun in here, you son of a bitch!”
Jamie recognized the voice. “Tom, it’s me, Jamie! Open up!”
“Jamie, is that you? What the hell? It’s late. What do you want?”
As the Huturo grew closer, Jamie began to panic. He spotted a large stone on the ground, picked it up, and smashed the windowpane closest to the door.
“Son of a bitch!” cursed his neighbor.
Jamie could hear his neighbor fumbling around, searching for his rife. When Jamie’s neighbor started running down the stairs, it was too late—the Huturo had reached Jamie. With one of its claws, the creature latched onto Jamie’s throat and began squeezing until blood poured from his nose and eyes. Its three other hands firmly held Jamie’s torso in place. Then, with one powerful motion, the Huturo lifted, tearing Jamie’s head off his body with the spine still attached, dangling and dripping with blood.
Suddenly the house’s front door opened, and Jamie’s neighbor appeared, dressed in a stained t-shirt and boxers, holding his shotgun.
“You crazy son of a bitch! How dare you come to . . .”
The middle-aged man looked at the Huturo holding Jamie’s head and tried slamming the door shut. But the Huturo splintered the door and walked into the house without effort. The man fell to his knees, trembling while the monster towered above him, eyes wide and covered in blood, giggling uncontrollably. It dropped Jamie’s head in front of the man and covered its mouth to hide its laugh.
“I’m going to Hell, aren’t I?” the sobbing old man asked.
Suddenly the creature opened its arms to reveal its chest, and the flesh slowly began tearing down the middle until it opened, showing the two faces of Bob and Debra, the husband and wife they’d killed earlier. Suddenly the two dead faces opened their eyes and shrieked. With their spinal cords still attached to the Huturo, the heads shot out of the Huturo’s chest and began biting the man’s face. The man screamed horribly as the possessed faces tore the skin from his face and neck, continuing to eat until he fell silent.
Fortification
John stared at the Huturo standing in front of the force field. The creature seemed more brutal than the creatures he conjured from Hell—twisted with a sense of killing that the others lacked. The beast stared at John and Asura with its enormous eyes, becoming distracted as electricity moved through the purple bubble. Finally, it reached out to grab John and was instantly shocked by the force field. The Huturo recoiled in surprise, and attempted it again with a different hand. This time the electrical current of the bubble was more violent, burning the creature’s hand and sending the smell of burning flesh into the night air. The Huturo’s eyes filled with tears, and it screamed angrily at John before throwing its entire body at the force field. A massive bolt of electricity struck the creature in its chest, sending it sliding out onto the street and crashing against a car. The Huturo fell to its knees, gasping for air. Eventually, it sat on the ground, defeated and visibly out of breath.
“It’s tired,” said John.
One of the monster’s smaller arms fell from its shoulder and began squirming on the pavement, transforming into a scorpion, then a spider, before bursting into flame and melting away. The Huturo started furiously sucking for air and fell on its back. Its large eyes turned black and then exploded, sending baby spiders scattering onto the street. Suddenly the creature’s body burst into flame and disappeared.
Asura waved her hand and deactivated the force field as John walked over to the stained pavement and stared at the remains of the Huturo.
“Weak,” said John.
Asura nodded her head in agreement. “What will we do, my Lord?”
“We need to find a way to make the transformations of the Huturo permanent.”
Suddenly there was a sound behind them, and they turned to see the other Huturo walk out of the house down the street. With its chest open and the heads of the husband and wife flailing, the creature fell to the ground. It saw John and Asura watching and tried to stand, but it wasn’t strong enough and fell back to the pavement. The heads detached from the Huturo’s chest and slithered down the street toward John, but they didn’t get far—large pustules appeared on their faces and exploded, sending hundreds of spiders scurrying into their eyes and mouths. In seconds they were nothing but skulls lying in the street. The Huturo, chest open and unable to move, growled at John and Asura before disintegrating into a thick black fluid.
John turned to Asura. “Call the Witches now.”
Asura reached into her robe and pulled out a glass jar containing a wrinkled human hand submerged in thick green fluid. She opened the container, lifted the hand, and inspected it closely.
“With the Black Magic of Dorosha, I summon you,” she whispered.
Asura grabbed the pinky finger, broke it off, and put it in her mouth. She slowly began chewing, and her eyes turned emerald green. She started chewing faster, and her face twisted in disgust. Finally, she swallowed, and her eyes returned to normal.
“It is done, my Lord. By the setting of the sun, the Witches of Blood Mountain will stand before you.”
“Are you sure?”
“If they do not arrive, the young Witch will descend to The Caves of Trango, where she will spend an eternity in darkness with the Stone Worms feasting on her flesh.”
“Excellent.”
Just as John turned to leave, he heard a door open. It was Claire. “Oh my God. Manuel? Is that you?” she asked.
Asura turned to John. “I sense other Huturo in the area.”
Asura extended her arm again, and the force field returned. Claire stared at the pair, terrified. She immediately retreated inside the house and slammed the door.
“We have one more stop before returning to the hospital,” John said with a wicked smile.
With the Witch following closely behind, John walked across the yard to the door and went inside.
Parental Rights
The streets were mysteriously empty when Arlo looked out from the edge of the forest. He decided not to take the same route to the back of his parents’ house because he feared his father would be armed and waiting. Arlo staggered across the street and ran to a yard several spots away from his mother’s house. As he was about to run to the neighboring home, Isadora emerged from the bushes.
“Arlo! It’s me, Isadora!” she said inside his head.
Arlo stumbled over to her hiding spot.
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw you running through the forest, and I followed you. What’s going on?”
“That jerk, Forneus. He told me something bad’s about to happen.”
“The Red Army? Yeah, he told me about that, too.”
Arlo hadn’t thought of it earlier, but Isadora never talked about her family.
“Did you warn your family?” asked Arlo.
Isadora looked away. “What family? All I had was my mom and dad, and you know what happened to them.”
“You mean you don’t have any family? No cousins or aunts? Uncles?”
“Sure I do, but I’ve never met them. Mom told me she had a brother, but he’s a truck driver, always on the road. I heard I have cousins in Florida, but no one communicated with us. Something about my father being abused and cutting people off. Who knows? Everyone has the right to be alone, I guess.”
“That’s messed up.”
“Yeah, families are fucked up like that.”
Arlo ran into another yard and waited until Isadora caught up.
“What’s the plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t your dad try to blow your head off the last time? How are you going to convince them to hide?”
Arlo shrugged and stared at the house next to his mother’s; the door was open, and something was lying on the doorstep.
“Well?” asked Isadora.
Arlo turned and looked at her. “What?”
“How are you going to convince them to move? Look at you. Your guts are hanging out from the gunshot wounds. How are you going to communicate? They can’t speak with their thoughts like us, and the rot in your throat is getting worse. Soon all you’ll be able to do is moan.”
Arlo ignored Isadora and crept closer to his neighbor’s house. The object on the doorstep looked familiar—like a human head. Isadora moved next to him and continued her conversation.
“Even if you could speak with your parents, what would you say? ‘Hi, Mom, I’m a zombie, and there’s about to be an invasion from Hell. Run and hide.’”
“Jesus, Isadora! Shut up!” snapped Arlo. “Something’s wrong. What’s that over there?”
Arlo ran through the darkness to the yard and slowly began inching toward the door. As he got closer, he saw blood splattered on the ground and the house.
“Wow! What do you suppose happened?” asked Isadora.
But Arlo didn’t respond. He spotted a head attached to a spinal cord lying next to a lawn chair. Soon Arlo saw the victim’s corpse. The clothing looked familiar, but he didn’t know why. Finally, with his foot, Arlo kicked the head, and it turned over—it was his father.
“Daaaaadddy!” Arlo cried.
His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground sobbing while Isadora stood over him, her eyes filling with tears.
“This is your father?” she asked inside his head.
But Arlo’s only response was another moan. “Noooooo,” he cried.
Arlo grabbed his father’s head and held it in his lap, caressing it, rocking back and forth.
“Don’t go, Daddy. Please! I need you!”
As Jamie’s eyes stared up into nothingness, Arlo’s tears began falling, dripping on the dead man’s face. Isadora watched as Arlo became inconsolable, crying and speaking to his father as if he were alive.
“Remember that time we went fishing, and I caught that turtle? I’ll never forget that day. We spent all day on that boat, and that’s all we caught.”
Isadora was touched. She’d never seen Arlo so emotional, like a child lost in the wilderness. Although he was holding his dead father, Isadora felt a powerful urge to embrace Arlo and ease his suffering. Although the moment was macabre and depressing, she felt something powerful inside—Isadora was in love with Arlo.
Suddenly Isadora heard giggling in the forest behind them. “Um, Arlo? We’d better get out of here. Is your mom inside?”
Arlo’s eyes widened in surprise. “Mom!”
Arlo laid his father’s head on the porch and sprinted across the street to his house. Without hesitation, he burst through the door.
“Moooom,” Arlo moaned.
There was no response.
Arlo ran upstairs and searched the bedrooms—his mother wasn’t there. He stumbled downstairs, ran into the kitchen, and froze. There on the linoleum floor was a large blood stain. Arlo fell to his knees and started sobbing again.
“She’s dead,” he cried.
Isadora peered over Arlo and saw the large puddle of blood. “You don’t know she’s dead. Where’s the body?”
Arlo looked up at Isadora, tears streaming down his face. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you see all of this blood? She’s dead! Everyone is fucking dead!”
