They Eat Read online

  I didn’t see how he could have still been alive on account of how much blood he lost, but I’d seen crazier things happen on the yard.

  I yelled out for help again.

  The young man rustled harder.

  “Calm down. You’re bleeding out real bad.”

  The sound of my voice seemed to excite him.

  I looked around the backyard hoping someone heard my cries for help and had rushed to their back door to see what was going on.

  But the yard and all of those I could see over the fences stretching down to the end of the block were just as empty as they were when I first got there.

  “I’m gonna have to leave you here while I get some help.” I said reluctantly as I loosened my grip on the sheets.

  “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  The young man grabbed my arm with both hands.

  “I know you’re scared, but you’re going to bleed to death in this yard if we don’t get you some help soon.”

  His grip got tighter on my arm as I tried to pull away.

  “I need you to let go of me,” I said firmer, a speck of annoyance hanging from the last syllable.

  I tried to back away, but the boy pulled me closer to him so my face was just a few inches from his.

  “I said let go of me!”

  I pulled away from him again, this time my arm slipped from his tight grip.

  The hair on my forearm stood on end as I watched as the 5 slithers of transparent skin in the shape of his fingers slide off and onto the cement.

  “What the fuck kind of shit is going on out here?”

  I scrambled backward, wiping my arm frantically even though the dead skin was already gone. The young man pushed himself up from the ground, his arms unsteady and under confident. He pulled the blood stained sheet from his head, revealing just how nasty the fall had been.

  Gelatinous bubbles of blood escaped his head wound in horrid ejaculations while he used his forearms to drag himself into the backyard in my direction.

  His eyes were glazed and the skin on his face took on an ashen, grey tone.

  He crawled toward me on his arms while his legs dangled lifelessly behind him.

  “Relax, son.” My voice trembled more than I wanted it to.

  The sound of my voice sent a hungry hiss spitting from his mouth. He showed off a set of obscenely white teeth that dripped with buckets of frothy white spit as he slowly closed the gap between us.

  “I said relax, boy!” I drew my foot back as far as it would go and released it into the kid’s face. The impact made a loud thopping sound, but didn’t deter him much, so I did it again and again until he stopped moving and the backyard fell silent, my heavy breathing echoing down the block.

  Having just escaped from prison and just killed a man (even though I swore he was already dead), the panic set in. I knew I couldn’t take a chance being seen on the main streets in the overalls I’d not long ago coveted for their cleanliness, since they were now covered in the young man’s blood.

  I scaled the fence that bordered the backyard, falling into the grass in the yard next door.

  My age snuck up on me again as I thought my feet would be under me, planted firmly in the grass.

  I landed on my ass instead … hard. The pain darted up and down my back, prompting a fierce howl that was only silenced when I saw the yard full of putrid, twisted faces staring back at me. They looked and moved just like the boy that just met the wrong end of my shoe, except one.

  It ran toward me faster than I’d ever seen a man move and stopped just short of standing directly on top of me.

  I could feel the cold of its skin pressing down on my face as it snapped its teeth at me.

  My fist clenched on its own and flew at the side of the thing’s head.

  It stumbled backward, but I didn’t want to see what it did after that.

  I jumped over the fence that lead to the next yard and ran until I got to the fence in the yard after that.

  I never looked back, but I could hear and feel the thing chasing me, snarling hungrily at my back.

  My chest and back were on fire, begging me to stop running. “If you do you’re going to die,” I scolded myself.

  I jumped the fence of the last house on the block and was out on the open street again.

  A lifelong resident of the city, the name of the street escaped me, but I knew I was right around the corner from a police station.

  My feet stuck to the insides of my battered prison issued shoes each time they met the pavement, but I pressed on.

  The thing met my pace, stride for stride as I turned the corner so sharp that my feet almost fell out of my shoes.

  The pain shot up my back again, reminding me of the fall, but the grunting creature tracking barefoot on the pavement behind me pushed it out of my mind just as I saw the police station was ahead of me. The fenced in parking lot wrapped around the sides and back of the small square building. The front entrance was marked by double metal doors with the only windows of the building framing the large offices in the front.

  I found myself excited about police presence for the first time in my life. I pushed forward harder, reinvigorated by the possibility of protection. It wasn’t until I got closer and saw the patrol car out front that hope fled faster than it came.

  The patrol car’s lights were still on, but the officer lying with his body half in the driver’s seat and half on the ground screamed inside my head. One of those things, the same thing that was chasing me, was lying on the ground next to him. They both had holes in their heads the size of baseballs.

  The windshield of the cop’s car was webbed in a million pieces and the blood on the pavement leading up to the front doors of the police station was almost enough to make me stop running. And I would have too -- if it weren’t for the two men I saw standing in one of the offices. One lean, brown, and slender and the other a burly, pale, and redheaded, they stood chest to chest like whatever they were arguing over was a matter of life and death.

  I tried to run faster.

  The thing on my back was close – too close.

  My chest burned; then my legs.

  “Almost there,” I thought to myself as I closed in on the front door. “You can do it.”

  I was 10 feet away from the door, the creature snapping eagerly at the back of my head, when the door swung open.

  I ran past the huge man standing in the doorway, the same redhead from the window and turned in time to see the thing run right into the butt of the shot gun in his massive hands.

  The thing fell backward and would have recovered quickly if the massive ginger hadn’t pumped two blasts from his gun into its face.

  It slumped to the ground like a doll baby without a toddler mom.

  “The fuck you doing out there?” the ginger giant shouted at me as he slammed the door shut behind us.

  “Came … from … prison …”

  “Well, son you picked a fine time to do that.”

  He turned his back and began walking down the hall.

  “You really are one lucky SOB. I’ll tell you that,” he hummed over his shoulder.

  10 doug gregor

  He kicked the legs of the chair under the sleeping man, jolting him hazily awake.

  “Fuck you do that for?” Mitchell screamed before catching full view of who woke him. Rubbing his eyes to rid them from blur, he saw Doug standing over him. The anger pooled in the formerly pale skin of Doug’s cheeks, turning them as red as the fiery hair running around the base of his balding head.

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt your peaceful slumber, but I thought it was called work because you actually had to do something to get paid,” Doug spat.

  “Oh, um, sorry, Sarg!” the smaller framed Mitchell said into his chest.

  He’d been on the receiving end of Doug’s fists many times and remembered the seething pain every time the man spoke at him.

  Doug turned to leave the small office. “Let’s go Mitch. We’ve got calls co
ming in from around Crystal Waters.”

  Mitch hurried to wipe the drool from his mouth when he heard the chuckling from the corner.

  “Fuck you laughin’ at, asshole?” he barked at the man handcuffed to the chair in the corner of the small room.

  The prisoner laughed harder.

  Mitchell pushed his chair from under him and charged the prisoner, grabbing him by the front of his white t-shirt.

  “Laugh again and we’ll see how well this taser works,” he hissed between his clenched teeth. “Bet by the time you wake up I’ll have found 10 more bags on you.”

  The expression on the prisoners face remained still, unbroken.

  His deep brown eyes peered into Mitchell’s with a strength that told him if the situation was reversed and he was the one in handcuffs, he would have had every reason to fear for his life.

  Mitchell pushed the man’s chest as he let go of his shirt, but his slender frame was deceptively sturdy. He barely moved.

  “Tough guy, huh?”

  Mitchell reached for his waistband where he kept his taser tucked in the black leather pouch. “Mitchell!” Doug yelled from the room down the hall. “I said now.” Mitchell walked out of the room, gritting his teeth. He looked back over his shoulder in a last attempt to intimidate his prisoner, but the man only laughed hysterically from his shackles.

  “I just got a few calls from the residents around Center Street near Crystal Waters Drive,” Doug said after a huge gulp of coffee. “Sounds like some old crazies from the nursing home are out there scaring the shit out of folks.”

  “So why do I have to go?” Mitchell asked shyly as he ran his fingers across his closely cropped, blonde hair.

  “Switchboard’s down. Can’t get anyone from downtown on the phone or the radio. None of the uniforms are answering …”

  Doug stopped mid-sentence, the look of exhaustion and annoyance hanging on his face.

  “Trust me, you’re far from my first choice, but look around us, skip. It’s just me and you. Plus, I already sent Watson out there, but that was an hour ago.”

  Doug got up from his seat and approached Mitchell until the smaller man disappeared in his shadow. “Plus, I think it ought to be in your best interest to shut the fuck up and do what I tell you.” Mitchell flinched as the drops of coffee flew from Doug’s lips in his face.

  “Sorry, Sarg. I heard ya.”

  “Good! I’m glad we understand each other.”

  Mitchell silently gathered his things, grabbing the keys to the cruiser from the hooks on the wall.

  “Don’t forget your cell phone, ass. I need you to report back, you know, the usual shit when you get out there.”

  Mitchell shot Doug a nod to say he understood and walked out of the communications room toward the front door.

  He could still see his prisoner handcuffed to the chair laughing heartily.

  “Hey, Mitch!” Doug called out. “I’m serious. We’re out here on an island right now.”

  “K, Sarge. I got it.”

  *****

  Mitchell climbed into the driver’s side of the battered police cruiser and turned the key in the ignition to bring it to life then fumbled through his pockets for his cell phone. The small screen lit the interior of the car of a warm blue as he swiped through his phone before pressing the “Call” icon under “Babe” in his contacts.

  “Hey, sweetie,” he said softly into the phone. “Yea, I thought I was in for the night too. I got the first one I saw.”

  He paused as his wife spoke to him.

  “I know, sweetie. I don’t like being out here with these people either. I swear I thought I was going to be in the office all night doing paperwork on this fucker, but Big Red got it in his head that I needed to check out something going down on Crystal Waters.”

  He paused again.

  “He is a fucking bully! I told you that! Acts all tough and shit in front of us, but curls up like a wet blanket when the chief comes around. Fucking pussy! He thinks I don’t know what landed his bum ass out here in this hellhole with the rest of us.”

  Doug had driven four blocks to the corner of Crystal Waters and Center when he saw Watson’s patrol car parked in the middle of the street, the red and blue lights still flashing absently.

  “Uh, hun. I think I gotta go.” He could still hear her talking on the other end of the phone as he pressed the red button to end the call.

  Mitchell opened the door to get out of the car, but was pushed back into the seat, strong and quick. “Tha hell?” he growled. He was confused, scared, but he grabbed for his gun.

  The blood drained from his face and his eyelids spread to their limit as he tried to make sense of his assailant. Whatever it was, he thought, it was no man. It stood over him, hovering with a blank strength. “What the fuck,” Mitchell exclaimed as he fumbled with the safety on his glock.

  It looked at him with its puss-like white eyes, let out a soft, but threatening growl and pulled Mitchell with both hands from the car.

  Mitchell tried to grab the steering wheel for leverage, kicking and spitting in his defense, but found himself to be no match for its strength.

  It lifted Mitchell in the air by the starched collar of his uniform, giving him full view of its sunken, old skin and brilliant white teeth.

  The shots rang out as Mitchell closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.

  *****

  Doug sat back in his chair. He was finally alone and could let the worry wash over his face.

  He hadn’t heard back from central headquarters or any of the patrol cars since earlier in the day. He had been watching TV, but turned it off after the big tittied blonde girl gave her second report on some kind of crazy people trying to eat her. He thought it was bullshit the first time he saw her prance on screen in front of the burning homes on Crystal Waters, but her second report made it real to him. That and the smoke he smelled wafting through the windows.

  He tried to ignore the phone at first but the non-stop ringing was driving him mad.

  By the third phone call, he’d wished he had more self-control. Not only would it have prevented him from being transferred to the hell hole in the city called the Southside Police Station in the first place, it would have saved him from having to hear the callers blood twisting screams as they begged for their lives and the crunching and sloshing noises that meant the end of them. He vowed to stop answering the phones, just as the calls started to slow to a trickle.

  But he was still afraid.

  He’d sent Watson out first, but when the older black officer didn’t return, he had no other choice but to get Mitchell.

  But there was a silver lining to Doug’s shit sandwiched cloud. Mitchell didn’t know it yet, but the man he brought in the door was Nasir Brown, Trenton’s most sought after menace to society at the moment. Doug knew Mitchell had planted the small amount of cocaine on the man in an attempt to get himself out of cruising the streets all night, but an arrest was an arrest.

  “After all this shit down Crystal Waters clears up, I can get back in touch with downtown,” he said into the empty room. “They’ll be singing my praises when I tell them I bagged Nasir.”

  Doug walked out of the communications room and into the hallway. There were three other offices lining the far end of the hall just like the one he’d pulled Mitchell out of. But he was only interested in one: the one where Nasir Brown, his redemption, sat handcuffed to a chair.

  He smiled wide as he opened the door to the small office.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Nasir!”

  Nasir burst into laughter again, rewetting the drying tears that ran down his cheeks.

  “Something funny?”

  “You, Big Red! You always were funny to me,” Nasir paused, licking his full brown lips. “I always wondered what happened to you after my lawyer got done suing the city for that bullshit case you fucked up, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”

  Doug fixed his eyes on Nasir, a glint of hatred seething through his blue/
green irises.

  Nasir smiled wide, his beautifully white teeth standing out against his even brown skin.

  “I need a glass of water, Red,” he said with a smile. “Think you could fetch that for me. You wouldn’t want to be caught dead denying a prisoner his basic rights, would ya? I mean again, of course.”

  The triumph in Doug’s face turned into an angry scowl. He wanted to thrash the man’s body around the room, but opted for an approach that wouldn’t get him demoted again.

  “Whatever you want, Mr. Brown,” Doug sung sarcastically, mustering every ounce of restraint in his thick, massive body.

  He stopped at the water cooler in the far end of the room and pulled the plastic cup from the holder when he heard the his cell phone singing the song he assigned to Mitchell’s calls.

  “Excuse me for a minute,” he said to Nasir with as much cordial as he could muster. “I have to get that.”

  Doug walked out of the room with Nasir’s laughter on his back. He waited until he knew he was completely out of Nasir’s view before he started running to catch the call.

  “Sarge …”

  “Mitch?!”

  “Sarge, I’m coming back right now. I need you to open the front door.”

  “The fuck is going on out there, Mitch?”

  “Crystal Waters is fucked. Watson is dead. I need you to open the door now, Sarge.”

  Doug heard the tires of Mitchell’s patrol car grind to a halt in front of the building followed by the sound of breaking glass.

  He dropped the phone on the freshly waxed floor and hurried to the gun cabinet where he grabbed his favorite shot gun.

  Loaded and cocked, Doug stared down the barrel to get his bearings. His aging hands shook slightly, but he pushed the fear aside. It’d been a long time since he held the shot gun, felt its weight, and steadied himself for a clean shot, but the sound of Mitchell screaming in the parking lot told him he needed to be ready for what was waiting on the other side of the door.

  *****

  Doug flung the door open clumsily as the fear invaded his limbs and stared out at a man on top of Mitchell’s patrol car, bashing in the windshield with his bare hands.