Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 100

Fleshbags, ep. V

Mr. Anders came home, looking disheveled. Sarah watched him fumble with his keys and eventually get in. She knew he walked to and from work at that federal building a couple blocks over, but she'd never seen him home so soon. He lived all alone and had been very friendly to her and Bill since they'd moved in three weeks ago.

She supposed she liked him because he seemed so fatherly, even though he'd never mentioned anything about children or even a wife. Mr. Anders had brought over a welcome basket filled with fruit, cheeses and an expensive-looking bottle of wine after they'd moved in and had invited them over for dinner after. They'd felt obliged to come, but Sarah had quickly found herself liking him.

Bill was another story.

"What's going on now, babe?" he said, coming up behind her and squeezing her.

"I don't know." She tossed the remote on the couch. "The television just went out. Mr. Anders just came home."

"Oh, that fairy?"

"Why do you always say that?" she said.

"Aw, I'm kidding around. But he is gay."

"You don't know that. And no he's not."

"Either the guy is gay or he's trying to get my wife into bed." Bill kissed her cheek and walked over to the TV. "We just got cable cut on two weeks ago. How can it already be out?" He slammed one of his paws on the side of the television as if that would do something. Sarah could tell he was bothered, but he was shy about getting upset in front of her. His temper had almost driven a wedge between them when he'd beaten some guy half to death for hitting on her in a bar. He took a deep breath and stood, but his eyes were locked on the cable box.

She walked over to her husband and wrapped her arms around his neck. "We don't need the TV to keep ourselves entertained…"

"What?" He looked at her. Thankfully, he saw the look in her eyes and his face softened. "Oh. Yeah." He picked her up, tossed her on the couch, and ran toward the bedroom. "Race ya!" She got up, laughing, and chased after him.

Fleshbags, ep. IV

After the pain had subsided some he snapped the bracelet on next to its mate and cradled his wounded hand. He never mastered dislocating his other thumb and would have to live with the handcuffs until later.

He hoped whoever that was the police had shot was the only one they were looking for, but he doubted it. He'd seen manhunts on the news and they never looked like this. It was like they were cutting a section of the city off.

That meant it was going to be tricky going in. He'd have to keep off the main streets, avoid everybody he saw. No way was he leaving his little girl out there all alone.

Ms. Mila dry-swallowed another vike. She'd only take one or two when she was hungry to control her appetite. She had no idea if that was an approved use for it—it worked for her. Ms. Mila didn't abuse them (well, only in the traditional sense), but it wasn't like she used them to replace food. She ate. Just not when she was hungry. If she ate when she was hungry she couldn't control it and before she knew it she'd have a pooch again. And once she had a pooch again she'd get depressed and start eating even more.

No. She would wait until it was time to eat and would have nothing more than her controlled portion- a half sandwich three thin slices of turkey on wheat with fat free mayo and a leaf of lettuce along with two half stalks of celery, schmeared with a low-fat ranch dipping sauce.

Ms. Mila reached for her bottle of water and pulled back. She only permitted herself one sixteen ounce bottle of water a day (as a measure of her control) and had allowed herself a few too many sips by her estimation. She stood up and strolled through the play area. It was thankfully empty of children—twenty-plus years in daycare had an indirectly proportional relationship with her ability to abide their presence. Oh, she loved each and every one the way any person loved a child. But she no longer had the capacity to like any of them. If she could only maintain her barriers, her defenses, for the next five years, three months and—she counted forward from today's date—six days, she could retire.

She already had her spot picked out. A condo in a senior community in Punta Gorda. She'd inherited it from her parents after they'd died during Hurricane Charley and continued paying the meager mortgage payment on it pending her own retirement.

By that time she'd only be fifty-eight. It'd probably be weird being around so many old people, but it would be a welcome change. Being around babies and toddlers all this time had driven a craving into her for getting old. Then she would dress like old people did, walk like they did, ate where they ate, and learn to talk about the things they talked about. Everything would move so much slower and it would be so nice.

Perhaps grandchildren or great grandchildren would visit occasionally, but she could easily stay in the house on the days they rode their bikes or hang a sign when they came around trick-or-treating saying Halloween was against her religious beliefs or something. It would be a helluva lot easier to avoid them down there than it was up here.

No, there wasn't a single child she liked. Well, save for her own so—

"'Scuse me, Ms. Mila." She was rudely snatched away from her daydream as one of the bigger boys almost collided with her. He snatched something out of a bin and headed back to his classroom. It was that room's outside time. Who was he again? Oh yes, Bobby McCaulder. Asthmatic. Probably grabbing his inhaler.

Ms. Mila picked up some random toy and put it on top of the little table. That was her other complaint about this place. Everything was just so tiny. It made her feel like a giant. There was no space here for a woman to be demure. You had to play catch with the boys and roughhouse and even the girls—sure, there were those rare moments of doll hair brushing and clothes-changing, but that didn't mitigate the snotty noses, tantrums and having to lug them to the window to wave bye-bye to Mommy and Daddy.

She walked to the glass front door and pushed through to the vestibule. She looked through the front door at the street, wanting a smoke. Ms. Mila had had to quit seven years ago because of a change in company policy. So she imagined being outside with a cigarette instead.

There was something going on out there. Two police officers were standing over what looked like a dead body, guns trained on him.

"Oh my," she said, not really feeling anything for the corpse of the person she didn't know nor the perceived danger that had precipitated law enforcement officers drawing their weapons and shooting someone.

She had lost the feeling for male companionship since her black boyfriend had been driven away by her racist parents. Ms. Mila hated him for leaving, but found every other man after him to be lacking in the things he'd had in abundance.

But her curiosity was piqued. She stepped outside, folding her arms to warm herself against the cool spring breeze.

Fleshbags, pt III

Loman caught the door with his knee before it shut. If everything was going to hell, he didn't want to wait for it to arrive handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. He waited until both officers were far enough away before climbing out.

Traffic was light for lunchtime and what cars there were did at least sixty-five on Sixteen Mile. He had to put as much distance between him and the officers before he got arrested for real.

Loman had to get to his daughter. Whatever was going on, the police obviously wanted people from heading south and that was the direction where he needed to go. Kiddie Kamp was on Livernois just north of Fourteen. He'd seen the roadblocks lining Sixteen and wondered what they were for. He heard several shots and turned to see the cops shooting some guy. Something looked wrong about him (other than the getting ventilated), but he didn't know what. But then he realized the guy was still standing. Was the guy coked out?

Never mind that. Can't get involved.

There was a police cruiser parked in the middle of the street about a quarter mile away. He turned in the other direction, the wrong way, but he wasn't interested in getting put in the back of another squad car. Especially with a pair of handcuffs on.

Speaking of which…

He ducked between the gas station and another building. His stepfather had been a Wayne County Sheriff's Deputy. Loman had always been fascinated with the stories he came home with and one in particular had always stuck with him. Michael had told him about these Chinese gangs and how they slipped handcuffs by dislocated their thumbs. It hurt like hell, but when Loman was fourteen he taught himself how to do it.

He looked around to be sure no one was watching and stepped over the bracelets, putting them behind his back. He'd never learned how to do it with them in front of him. After a few deep breaths he wrapped his left thumb over the link connecting the bracelets and yanked. It felt like his thumb were on fire, but nothing gave.

"How long has it burn since I've done this?" he asked aloud. He'd probably done it last at some party in his early twenties. He tried again.

Still nothing. He hoped he didn't wind up breaking his hand. He had to get it right and soon, before his hand swelled up and there was no way for him to get them off. Loman had a moment of panic, imagining an employee coming out of this building for a smoke and spotting him, flagging down the officer down the block and him having to run for it with his arms still behind his back.

"Keep cool," he said to himself. He took a moment to pop his knuckles and then wrapped his other thumb over the links again. He remembered now; his angle had been all wrong. Loman leaned over like he'd done all those years ago. It had to be swift and certain to dislocate the thumb.

He closed his eyes and counted swiftly.

"One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten!"

There was a pop, louder than his knuckles had been and the bracelet slid right off his hand. Loman held it in front of his face, forcing himself not to scream before he opened his eyes. He looked and was amazed at how foreign it looked. For a moment he registered it as something he was holding, not the thing he used to write with.

Relocating it was going to be just as painful and he didn't want to wait until the pain stopped to start it all over again. He grabbed the thumb, extended almost to the tip of his index and pulled back on it and it slipped out of his grip and back into place.

Loman danced around, a high-pitched whinny escaping his mouth. He couldn't help it this time.

Fleshbags, pt II

"All we need you to do is stay calm 'til we get this all sorted out." Capel rapped on the hood of his cruiser and smiled at the man in the backseat. Poor guy probably didn't have anything to do with any of this madness, but they had to be cautious. He stood and felt the belch coming before it erupted, loud and bassy. He should have taken it easy with those hot peppers during lunch.

"Scuse me?" Capel spun and looked at the officer coming out of the gas station.

"What?" Mumford said.

"Thought you said something."

"No, but it's pretty cut and dry in there. Guy wanted some cash. His gun wasn't loaded, the cashier's was." He nodded to the man in the back of Capel's cruiser. "Don't think he had anything to do with it."

"How do you know?"

"Cashier says he'd paid cash for his gas already. He was coming back in for change."

"So what the hell do we do with him?"

"Same as everybody else—let him go."

"No, I mean this guy's got unpaid parking tickets."

Mumford rolled his eyes. "You wanna babysit with what we got goin' on?"

The Fire Department was already down on Fifteen Mile, along with every spare officer, rounding up anybody on the street. Capel and a chosen few were patrolling, making sure everyone got off the street forthwith. Everyone who didn't look wrong.

He'd only seen two of them so far. But Captain Lewis had warned them to be cautious when approaching. They didn't know if these guys were terrorists or what. Biological suicide bombers, maybe, but the two he and Mumford had run across were saggy and bloated, their guts hanging out of them while they practically frothed at the mouth. They didn't listen, didn't lay down and when Mumford shot the one that lunged at them he popped and goo got all over Capel. It stunk, but he was thankful that was all. If it was acid or something, he supposed he would have been okay except for where it soaked through his shirt sleeve. But nothing happened.

He popped open the rear door. "Look, I'm gonna let you go. But your license is suspended, so you're not taking that car. It's going to stay right over there at that pump."

The man shook his head. "I need my car. I gotta pick up my kid."

"Look, not my problem. Consider yourself lucky you're not going to jail today. If my plate wasn't already full, you would be." He jangled the man's keys in his hand. "I'm gonna keep these."

"How am I supposed to get in my house?"

Capel nodded and took the key to the car off the ring. He tossed the rest into the man's lap and gestured at his hands. "Gimme."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Mumford shouted behind him. "Contact-contact! We got contact!" Capel whirled, slamming the door and turning. Mumford had his gun drawn on a man in tattered clothes coming around a corner. It looked like he had a bag of garbage hanging off his stomach, swaying back and forth with each twitchy step. Capel drew his gun and stepped over, keeping it pointed at the ground.

"Stop right there!" Capel said, raising his gun. Of course, just like with the other one, he didn't. He knew if he opened up now Mumford would do the same, but the problem was the gasoline pumps between them. In the heat of the moment, shots could go wide. Capel didn't want to start a barbecue. They were going to have to draw him away from the pumps before they took him down.

Fleshbags, pt I

By all rights, this man should have been dead. No pulse, no blood pressure, but he was moving. Gene had had to strap him down to keep him from trying to get up. Every time he tried to look at that neck wound the man lunged at him, tried to bite him.

There was no way Gene was going to get a CPR mask on him. The best he could try was chest compressions.

"Hope you're not too attached to this shirt, buddy," he said under the facemask, grabbing the medical scissors. The man's smell was repugnant; the mask was the only thing making it tolerable. Gene sliced open the front, making a flap he put over the man's face. He jumped back at the sight of the man's abdomen, grabbing for his cell. He'd made a habit since he'd gotten the smart phone of taking pictures of the more interesting people who'd gotten on his bus. The man's skin was sleeked with sweat, but specifically at his belly the skin was transparent and Gene could see the internal organs inside his body cavity. The large intestine appeared swollen and red. He could barely make out the small intestine, shriveled and black and the stomach was completely crowded out.

Gene pounded on the window.

"Matt, we gotta report this! This guy's really sick." He'd never had anybody who looked infected before. What was it—ebola? Marburg? Whatever, he was certain a facemask wasn't enough. "Matt, stop the bus."

"What?" Matt called back.

"Pull the bus over and stop. We gotta… we gotta pull over."

"Don't worry, we'll be at Beaumont in three minutes."

The man tugged at his restraints, but he wasn't getting out.

"No. This guy… he's got something. We have to call somebody. The CDC or somebody. We can't take him to the hospital."

"What? What do you mean he's got something? Got what?"

"I never seen anything like this before. I… don't know."

Clear fluid flowed freely from the man's mouth. Gene looked at his gloved hands. He'd touched the man no fewer than two dozen times, he'd had to have gotten whatever that was on them. Was latex enough?

The man's insides shifted. His head thrashed from side to side as if he were in pain. He convulsed and Gene's training went into effect. He gave the man who should have been dead a shot and that seemed to agitate him even more. He yanked his hand free from the restraint, giving himself a compound fracture of the wrist in the process and slashed at Gene with the ragged bone.

He leapt back, but the man must have been emboldened because he ripped his other arm out of the restraint a moment later. Rather than undo his legs he reached for Gene and overturned the cart, falling at the EMT's feet.

"Matt-Matt! Help, this guy's loose!"

Gene kicked at his hands as he reached, crawling closer on his elbows. The hand with the broken wrist locked around his ankle and Gene screamed as the bones were crushed. Even in his agony, he knew there was much more than what he'd seen. No, not even living men were this strong. He tried to kick again, but putting weight on the broken ankle sent shards of lightning from his foot to his brain and in the next instant he was on the floor.

The man turned over and his insides spilled out into a clear sac formed by his abdomen. He crawled over on his elbows and Gene made the mistake of pushing away at his face when the man chomped off two of his fingers. Somewhere Matt was yelling but he didn't see him, only this man who had no business moving around. That clear fluid was gushing from his mouth, spattering Gene in the face. But just like his screams or Matt hammering at the man's head with whatever it was in his hands, it didn't matter.

By the time the explosion happened he was dead.

Working on Something New

Of course I wasn't going to be able to keep tossing out old stuff forever.  So I've been working on something new.  Don't know yet where this is going, but I have the basic idea of a father trying to get to and rescue his child at the onset of the zombie apocalypse (I've got The Road on the brain for some reason).  These zombies are going to look and move a tad bit different.  Man, I wish I still had my copy of The Cobra Event.

Keep your eyes peeled.  Fleshbags are coming.

Some Advice

I got a message from someone in a Yahoo group a week ago.  First is what he wrote, followed by my response:

"--- On Thu, 4/14/11, Mark Langerman wrote:

From: Mark Langerman 

Subject: Re: [writing_horror] Virtual Book Release

To: writing_horror@yahoogroups.com

Date: Thursday, April 14, 2011, 2:50 PM

Hey Gerald, I have been working on a book for a while hand writing it and then transfering what I get done later to ms word.

I was thinking about submitting chapters to Amazon but am a little leery because once you put it there and people read it it's kinda set in stone.

Do you just freelance your submissions chapter by chapter or do you usually plan ahead and carefully go over what you have typed before you submit it? I know it sounds funny but there are some stories (the fun ones) that you can just poke around with and not really worry about where its going but then the ones your serious about doing and work hard to finish .....do you submit those on a blog as well?

Thanks for your time.

Mark.

From the desk of Mark Langerman"

 

I blog without abandon. Some of the stories (including The 5000 Fingers of Bob which I'm blogging now) are oldies, but I blog stuff that I might not otherwise finish and most times it turns out better than expected, but at the very least, even if I am disappointed with it, blogging gives me a direction to turn away from once I'm ready to go back to it. My blog also feeds into my author's page on Amazon (as well as a few other sites), but when you check out the titles I have there, those are stories I've uploaded specifically. And I only upload a story once I've had a chance to edit it to my desire.

I am writing some things that I won't blog. Like the follow-up to my first novel because that's a little more major than a short story. Perhaps I might blog a section I'm excited about or that I'm trying to work through, but The Golden Ones and a couple other babies I have in mind will not be blogged. I would suggest you start one if you don't already have one. It's a great way to reach out to people.

I did what you are doing when I was writing my first novel. I wasn't able to be around a computer all the time and to tell the truth, it helped me focus on the story as opposed to being on a computer and being distracted by email or the internet. I've since moved on to a Neo Keyboard and now I swear by it. I suggest looking into one.

The Ghost Toucher

www.feelmyghost.webs.com

The 5000 Fingers of Bob, pt XVIII

Bob was never found. Despite what had gone on, we'd all begun to return to a state of relative normalcy in a few weeks time. People weren't sure who they'd seen attack them or they'd dreamt someone was in the house with them. Somebody passing through had killed their dogs just for a giggle. No one wanted to believe because it was easier to forget what they'd seen.

Howie went to live with some family he had in Alabama working on a farm they had. His thick head of hair was white the rest of his life. We got word a few months later he'd fallen in a combine and been ripped to shreds. Ed died of a heart attack two years later at the ripe age of forty-two. His wife found him sitting in his favorite chair with his mouth open like he'd died screaming. Jack was never the same after Jenny disappeared. He would wander through town, drunk out of his mind talking about how proud he was of his little girl living in New York City. Howie and I never had the heart to tell him. One day he just disappeared.

Apart from Nettle dying, I was left alone. Fifty years without a thing ever happening to me. After the depression, I bought some land with some Sears and Roebuck stock I'd sold and made a decent living. I sold the farm and drifted to Tennessee for a change of scenery back in 1959 and until I couldn't take care of myself, lived in a ranch with nothing to do all day but watch television.

I started thinking back to those few days in summer when things started happening again. First, Mrs. Everett's costume jewelry. Then Mr. George fell down the stairs. He didn't even remember getting out of bed that morning and his mind has always been sharp. And he swore he saw somebody at the top of those stairs as he fell. Something's seemed to happen to everyone, except me. But this time I feel like things have come full circle. I just sit here in my room and wait with the door open. I sit and stare at that doorway, waiting for Bob to step through it and I wonder if instead of killing him if we just set him free from that poor, stupid boy we all used to wave to and make fun of. And I wonder why he saved me for last.

The 5000 Fingers of Bob, pt XVII

I ran outside, headed to my house at full speed. The raw emotion spilling from Jack grew an urgency inside me to get home immediately. I hadn't run that hard since high school and when I finally made it, everything looked the same as we'd left it on the outside. No sooner had I stepped inside than I heard Nettle whimpering. I was relieved and afraid all over again as I stepped into the kitchen. Nettle sat with her back pressed against a wall, huddled up against herself, face all puffy. Her arms were bruised, but she looked otherwise unhurt.

"Honey, what happened?" I asked, kneeling down to her.

She screamed like an animal and shoved me off of her. I fell on my butt and slid a few feet, bumping my head against the kitchen table.

"Don't you touch me, Thomas Richards! Don't you dare!" she screamed, pulling her skirt down past her knees and clutching her legs until her knuckles went white.

"Net, what's wrong?"

"Shut up, shut up! Don't talk!"

"Net, it's me. It's your Tommy."

"I know who you are! You didn't come home last night 'cause you was killin' that boy!"

I gasped in surprise. "What?" I said reflexively.

"You killed him, you killed him. I know you killed him. And afterwards he came here and told me everthing ya did."

"That's crazy talk, Net. Ain't no such thing as ghosts."

"I didn't say nothin' 'bout no ghost. Wasn't no ghost come in this house 'til you got here!"

"Nettle, please," I said, reaching out to her. She sat there with her head turned down from me and eventually she broke into whimpering again. I approached her again and put my arms around her, this time she didn't strike out, but she didn't relax in my arms. She moaned like a wounded animal as I held her in my arms for the next hour. I could feel something had been lost and my feelings were confirmed three months later when she killed herself.

In the next few days Jack, Ed, Howie and I discovered something had happened the night we'd killed Bob. People who'd been attacked said it had been Bob they saw, minus the look of innocence he'd always had. He'd stolen their jewelry and killed their animals, he'd banged on their bedroom doors screaming at them or looked up at them outside their houses as they stared down terrified from bedroom windows. Over and over again the Sullivans watched horrified as he went through the front door and out the back, then walk through the front door again in the same instant the back door shut. The Kenney boys could only stand and watch as their father was beaten to death by five men who all could have passed for him, screaming, "Hi, Bob hi, Bob, hi, Bob!" He'd done something to almost everyone in a town of five thousand plus people and he'd done it all in one night. For those who noticed the hour, it was the same time as when somebody else said he was at their house. Someone had found Bob's mother's body in back of the house, half eaten. The coroner in Atlanta said she'd been dead at least a week, but some of the teeth marks were more recent. All of them were human.

The 5000 Fingers of Bob, pt XVI

"It's the screams again," I heard him say. He seemed dazed as he reached out to it.

"No!" I yelled at him, grabbing him by the wrist and pressing him against the wall. I felt the electric hum coming off that cord when I got near it; felt like it could have lifted me off the ground and thrown me.

We stood frozen in our places until the generator finally died. It was a while, breathing the air choked with burning flesh, our eyes blinded by smoke, but we stayed. Ed was the first through the door, unable to hold the contents of his stomach and I stumbled out after him. I was surprised at the light, thinking it was sometime around three o'clock in the morning. The sun was already high up, but as I turned my eyes skyward I felt completely disoriented, as if the sun were wrong somehow.

I felt myself in a violent spin like I was in a whirlpool when a voice called out to me.

"What are you doin' way over there?" Jack called. I looked down and saw him, Ed and Howie all standing by the rusty shed about a hundred yards from where I was. I wretched on my empty stomach twice and collapsed.

Bob had been cooked thoroughly. His corpse was almost half the size it'd been when he was alive, the remains of his skin as black and shiny as an eight ball. Howie and Jack buried him outside the shed and later on we all buried Glenn in his back yard next to his dog, just on the outskirts of town.

As we drove back, there was an abnormal amount of hustle and bustle in the streets. People moved frantically from neighbor to neighbor, checking on each other. Jack stopped outside the Woods' and asked what was going on.

"My husband didn't come home last night," Mrs. Woods said. "Walter's never late, but he never came home at all! Please help me look for him."

We all sympathized with her, but the need to get home to our own loved ones pressed in. As we rode, we heard bits and pieces from others. People had been attacked, windows smashed in, jewelry stolen. We drove by, seeing Norm Townsend cradling his wife's too still body and weeping openly.

Ed leapt out the truck once Jack stopped, running down the street.

"Keep going," he yelled. "I'll catch up later!"

We didn't stop by Howie's house because where it should have been was nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes. He looked on, shocked as he stepped out. Jack pulled off again, racing to his house and five minutes later we were there. He dashed out and ran inside.

Before I'd stepped through the door I heard Jack scream, "Noooooooo!" I ran to where I heard him and saw him standing over Jenny's empty bed. The room was undisturbed except for the fist-sized spot of blood on her pillow.

"Glenn said that— "

"Don't you say it. Don't you dare, don't you dare say it!" Jack's voice whined as he picked up the pillow and cradled it to his chest. "My little girl's in New York City." Blood in a streaming trail oozed out of it, like it had been used for a sponge. Jack dropped the pillow in horror and fell to his knees, chanting, "Yes, she is, yes she is, yes she is," his face buried in the pillow.