They Eat Read online

Tammy trotted back to the van to check her makeup in the side mirror.

  “You look great as always, Tammy,” Gus sang to his crush.

  “Beauty is in the eye, lover boy,” she quipped softly. She twisted her hips as she smoothed her pencil skirt on her hips and looked over her shoulder at Gus.

  He was watching.

  Men! Doesn’t matter what’s going on, all they can think about is their dicks.

  Gus caught himself staring at Tammy for longer than the ten seconds he normally allowed himself.

  “We’re on in 30, Tam,” he stuttered awkwardly.

  Tammy grabbed her breasts with both hands and shifted them into place.

  “My tits look good too?”

  “Perfect.”

  “5, 4, 3, 2 …”

  Again that was footage taken just a few moments ago in downtown Trenton. My cameraman and I are a little shaken, but we’re fine. Our newsroom has yet to receive any comment from the mayor’s office or law enforcement officials, but we’d like to strongly urge you to stay indoors. In the meantime, we’ll continue to bring you updates as the story develops. This is Tammy Collins live for WTRE News from Passaic Street in Trenton.

  Gus lowered the camera to reveal his gleaming white smile.

  “That was great, Tammy!”

  “I know it was.”

  “And you looked great!”

  “I know that too, Gus!”

  Tammy set her microphone down on the hood of the warm van and approached him.

  “You know, Gus. I’ve always thought you were handsome.”

  “Really?” Her advance was sudden, unexpected, but he couldn’t stop his erection from shooting up his body and lodging itself in his throat.

  Tammy giggled flirtatiously.

  “Of course.”

  She placed her hands on Gus’ chest and pushed her lips toward his.

  “I think we should celebrate our –“

  They both looked down as the loud humming erupted from Tammy’s chest.

  “Calm down, lover boy.”

  Tammy ripped the phone from her bra, touched the screen and turned away from Gus as she talked to the person on the other end.

  “What?! Really!? You’ve got to be shitting me!”

  She roared into the phone, blue veins popping out of the side of her face with each word.

  “Calm down? … OK … OK … OK.”

  Tammy pressed the screen and ended the call. Her hands fell to her side in defeat.

  “You OK, Tam? Who was that?”

  Tammy straightened her shoulders, threw her head back and wiped the dripping makeup from her eyes before she turned to face Gus.

  “Well, my love, it seems we have a slight problem.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They don’t believe us.”

  “Who?”

  “The people … that was Abe. Apparently our social media platforms are exploding with jokes about the footage. They’re saying our broadcasts are going viral, but people think this is one giant George Orwellesque hoax.”

  “What?” Gus put the camera in the van and started pacing. “We almost died back there … twice.” His uncontrollable shaking sent him stumbling but he caught himself on the hood of the van.

  “Calm down! Calm down, Gus. Let me get you some water.”

  Tammy grabbed Gus’ hand and led him to the passenger side of the van.

  “Sit down.”

  Tammy meandered around to the driver’s side of the van and climbed in.

  “I know I stashed a few bottles of water in the back. Give me a sec,” she hollered from inside as she crawled into the back of the van and began fumbling around.

  “Fuck this station. We gotta get to my mom’s house. She knows we work together and she watches the news every night. I know she believes. She’s probably scared as shit right now. We gotta get …”

  Tammy raised the spare WTRE microphone over her head and bashed it into the base of Gus’ neck. His body hit the dashboard with a hallow plop.

  “Fuck your mom. This is my career.”

  *****

  Tammy jumped into the driver’s seat and put the van in reverse. She turned around in the middle of the road and drove the wrong way up the one way street, pushing the speedometer to its limit as she sped into the heart of the city where they first witnessed the carnivorous destruction.

  “I’ll show these stupid fucks what’s real.”

  Behind her, the rising sun was making its first trail across the sky bringing with it a new day.

  *****

  “Wake up, Gus!”

  Gus moaned from the passenger seat.

  “I said wake up!”

  “Momma?”

  “No, I’m not your fucking mom!”

  Gus shook the confusion from his spinning head and tried to straighten himself in his seat.

  “What happened? Where are we?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  Gus rubbed the back of his head. “It feels like somebody hit me.”

  “Oh stop whining. Nobody hit you. You fainted and bumped your head when I told you about the viewers. I had to drag you back to the van … tore my daggone stockings up.”

  Gus looked around and tried to focus on the streets they rocketed past in the aging van.

  “My mom lives out west.”

  “I know. You told me.”

  “Then where are we going?”

  “Back to Crystal Waters!”

  9 Michael Preston

  I added it up once and I’ve spent more time in New Jersey’s correctional facilities than I have as a free man.

  Go ahead and throw your labels at me. I don’t care. It won’t be the first and certainly not the last time. I came to understand a long time ago that labeling me helps people feel better about themselves. And while it took me a long time to get here, I’m pretty happy with myself and where I am in life.

  The first time I was arrested I was 13. And before you ask, no, I didn’t come from some broken home, nor did my dad abuse me. I just wanted some candy.

  Having already spent my allowance on juice and soda, I decided walking into the bodega, snatching the bag of candy off the shelf and running out the door was my best option. It never crossed my mind that the owner was getting tired of the neighborhood kids stealing from him and would chase me down.

  My mother cried when the cops showed up on our doorstep. “But he’s just a kid,” she sobbed as she begged the store owner to change his mind.

  He complained in broken English about the kids stealing from him all of the time, looked her in her tear-filled eye and said, “Yes officer, I want to press charges.”

  My father came down to the police station an hour later to get me. The look of disappointment weighed heavily on his tired eyes.

  He didn’t beat me or yell or call me names. He just took me by the hand and led me to the quietest car ride home ever, where I sat in the passenger seat and deflated as I watched the trees and street signs pass.

  While it hurt me to be the source of my father’s disappointment, I was still unsettled by the rush I felt when I stole that candy.

  More arrests that me and my parents would care to admit later, I was a ward of the New Jersey State Prison. After the judge banged his gavel and sealed my fate with a 20 year sentence for running off with a bag ripped from an armored car guard’s hands, I ceased being Michael Preston and instantly transformed into inmate # 7764927.

  Eh, wasn’t so bad.

  I actually enjoyed and thrived in the structure.

  My father would always bite his top lip in worry and regret as he told me if I liked it so much I should have joined the military.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I also thrived off the thrill of taking things that didn’t belong to me.

  *****

  Every morning started off the same.

  I opened my eyes and stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling of my cell until the sunlight reached the largest piece. It had been dang
ling from the ceiling by a cobweb for 6 months and I was wagering against myself on how much longer it would hang there before it fell. In the meantime, I used it as my makeshift sundial. It was 8 am. I shifted my feet off the bed and into my slippers.

  They didn’t give us mirrors, but the piece of metallic plastic bolted to the wall above the sink was just as good.

  But something was different that morning. The man staring back at me was old. My medium brown skin now stood out in sharp contrast to my salt and pepper hair. The whites of my eyes were no longer burned with youth, but yellowed and dull.

  I was confused.

  I’d looked in the mirror the day before and I didn’t see any of the deep lines that cut into the corners of my eyes and around my mouth.

  I splashed water on my face and looked at my reflection again.

  The old man was still there staring back at me.

  “Preston!”

  The young guard we called Smitty stood in the open door of my cell, a huge circle of keys hanging from his belt.

  “Let’s go, Preston!”

  “Sorry, Smits.”

  *****

  William, the only other inmate I actually spoke to didn’t ask me what my problem was when I got to the cafe. He said greeted me with a nod, looked at the expression on my face and put his head in his tray.

  That was the main reason why I liked William; he had a knack for knowing when to leave me alone.

  I sat under the horrible lighting in the cafeteria and pushed what they called breakfast around on my tray. Most people hated the food, but I never thought it was that bad – until that day.

  “Let’s go, Preston!”

  It was Smitty again. I looked up at the young man, only to realize the cafeteria was empty.

  “Where the hell is everybody?”

  “They done already went to work. Same place you should be. Fuck you think?” He asked his rhetorical question in a way that would have seemed aggressive to most people, but we both knew his choice of words were anything but malicious.

  “Sorry about that, Smitty!”

  “It’s cool, old timer. Just get ya stuff and come on.”

  Those were the words that stung. Even he could see I was getting old.

  *****

  I walked out of the side door of the prison and crossed the street to the warehouse where they kept the landscaping equipment. The state had long ago deemed me a low risk inmate and would let me cross the street on my own. We both knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

  The sun was brighter than it had been in a long time, or at least it felt that way.

  It warmed my skin to a humming glow as I stood out on the curb alone and watched the traffic saunter by, wondering where the people inside were going.

  To work?

  To drop the kids off at school?

  I caught my reflection in a passing SUV and wondered what they thought of me in my orange jumpsuit. The traffic broke giving me every opportunity to cross the street, but my feet moved backward toward the prison. I stepped quickly toward the door I’d just come out of, but I didn’t stop. I passed the door, my heart beating calmly in my chest and kept going. Down the block I looked back at the giant metal door, but my feet moved faster and faster still when I hit the corner.

  I had no idea where I was going or why I was running. I just knew it felt good – almost as good as the feeling I had when I stole that bag of money from that armored car.

  The breeze from my sprint glinted across my skin as I slammed each foot down in front of the other.

  Freedom.

  My eyes sprinted across the neighborhood around me … the passing cars … their drivers with watchful eyes. I never expected any of them to stop though. They were scared of me, which was ironic because I was more afraid of them.

  I stopped at the corner of Crystal Waters Drive and Center Street, about a half mile from the prison, doubled over with the pain of overexertion finally in my chest. My heavy breathing sent tears down my face while it suddenly became clear why I decided to run.

  I’d stolen away my own life in prison having spent the better part of it behind iron bars. I had no children, no wife. I never even had a bank account.

  The sound of sirens wailing in the distance sobered me from my thoughts. They quickly picked up in weight and volume as I tried to steady myself on my emotions. I fell to my knees and clasped my fingers together behind my head.

  Thoughts of my trial for this attempted escape ran through my mind just as quickly as I had decided it would be a good idea to run in the first place.

  I would plead for leniency, but that wouldn’t be any help.

  The 7 to 10 years added on to my already 20 year sentence would mean I would die in prison.

  The sirens blared around me. I braced myself for the knee to the back and pieces of broken cement in my teeth in my immediate future, but the wind brushed past my body like a Jersey shore breeze. It almost knocked me on the ground as the first cop car sped past me and rounded the corner onto Crystal Waters Drive. The second and third cars moved just as fast, blowing right past me.

  I stayed on the ground for the next few minutes waiting for them to come back. But their sirens fell silent and never came back to life.

  Pulling myself up from the ground with apprehension hanging from my limbs, I brushed the dirt from my knees and straightened my back. I arched around the corner to catch a glimpse of what the police found to be more important than an escaped prisoner, but could only make out the back of their cruisers parked awkwardly at the end of Crystal Waters Drive and the small remnants of smoke pouring from the buildings around them.

  My feet started moving again, but this time they walked gingerly, like I was supposed to be a free man.

  The sun was on my skin again, but this time I was eager to surrender to its warmth. It’s funny what a quick change in circumstance can do to the way we perceive the world. My reflection drove past me in the side of a shiny black Acura and the orange glow of the D.O.C. jumpsuit smacked me in the face harder than before.

  Considering the fact that a plan was an afterthought for me, I figured it was best to start with finding something else to wear. The semi-attached houses that lined the block in front of me were quaint, but welcoming. I remembered seeing them when I was transported to the prison after my trial.

  They looked exactly the same, even after all of the years that passed.

  The breeze picked up, taking the sheets lying across the clothesline in the back of the house next to me with it. They danced like lost dollar bills in the wind as they licked and pattered at the small throughway between the house and the one next to it.

  I thought it was a sign from God.

  If they had sheets back there, they had to have clothes; clothes I could change into so I wouldn’t stick out like an erection at a bachelorette party.

  “Hello!” I called out as I moved through the small passageway that led to the backyard separating the two houses, the towering brick structures casting shadows on me as I cautiously moved through.

  “Anyone there?”

  Much to the pleasure of my growing anxiety, the backyard was just as empty as I hoped it would be.

  Someone had carefully planted flowers all along the perimeter of the fence that lined the small square yard. A patio lounge chair sat in the middle of the small patch of green grass, making the yard look like someone’s hideaway from the rest of the world. The clothesline extended from a hook on top of the back door to the top of a pole at the far end of the yard.

  Next to the gleaming white sheets hanging on the line was the cleanest pair of denim overalls I’d ever seen.

  I’ll probably go down in history as the first man to jump up and down at the sight of a pair of overalls on a clothes line, but some things just are what they are.

  I’ll take that.

  I jumped out of the D.O.C jumpsuit and into the crisp denim like my old bones didn’t hurt.

  “Who’s there?” I whispered over my shoulder.

/>   The beads of sweat from my quick change of clothes slid down my forehead and landed with a sting in my eye.

  The sheets pattered in the wind again.

  There was a wet dragging sound coming from the passageway between the houses. It sounded like a fat man riding a bike with flat tires on a rainy day. I backed away from the throughway as the person continued to approach.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not here to hurt no one. I just needed some clothes is all.”

  The person’s heavy breathing got louder as he entered the backyard. I could feel the expression on my face sliding down from heightened fear to disgust as the man finally emerged from the side of the house.

  “Are you OK, sir?”

  He limped toward me, letting the long strings of saliva hang from his bottom lip unapologetically. The skin on his face sagged lower than his youthful, baggy clothes and brand new sneakers told me it should have. He was obviously a young man, but his face defied his years. His jeans were torn and bloody on his right calf. As he closed in on me, the fabric shifted around his wounds, exposing a puss covered gash.

  “You alright, boy?”

  He whispered something into the air but the deep rasp of his voice made it hard to hear him over the puttering of the sheets in the wind.

  “What you say, boy? I can’t hear you.”

  He took a few more steps in my direction.

  “I said … I’m so fucking hungry.”

  The battered boy fell face first to the ground. His head landed at my feet, crashing open on the driveway’s hard concrete.

  “Oh, shit!”

  I grabbed the young man’s head in my hands in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but it spirted between my fingers in angry, deep red blobs.

  “Help us! Somebody help us!” I screamed from the driveway completely forgetting I was an escaped prisoner and the last thing I needed was attention and a dead teenager in my arms.

  My mind raced like it was trying to keep up with my heart pounding in my chest.

  I ran over to the clothesline, ripped the sheets down and folded them into a giant, messy ball. The pieces of his cracked skull crunched as they rubbed together under the pressure of my hands.

  The broken young man stirred beneath me.

  “It’s OK, son. Don’t move. This is a pretty serious wound.”