Flesh-Eaters Anonymous - pt 2

Jack got that dull look in his eyes. The one just before a z-word gets all chewy. Every day I walked to work and I was coming to a cross street one morning when I saw a human and a hoi about to cross the street. They were dressed in the same navy blue suit, even had similar briefcases. I guess they knew each other when they both were alive, but the hoi stopped at the corner, looked both ways and glanced at his wrist.

"Uhh, what time is it?" he asked, scratching his head.

"Seven forty—"

And the hoi was on him. He knocked the man's wrist into his mouth and sent him reeling into the street, the left side of his mouth a bloody ragged mess. I froze, watching it—I'm sorry, but I thought of him as a thing at the time—eat the man's face, holding him down by a fistful of hair as it tore away at his lower left cheek, stripping skin all the way down to the side of his neck. The man's screams turned into drowning gurgles as it chewed through an artery, blood spurting all the way to within a foot of me.

Then the hoi was back. He realized what he'd done and recoiled from his friend's body. And then of all things—he tried doing CPR! I watched him count out—one, two, three, four, then pinch his nose and breathe into his mouth. Imagine a corpse trying to revive someone!

His friend did get up. When he stood it was obvious the CPR wasn't what did it. The hoi had eaten a big chunk of muscle out of his neck and it was obvious the man was dead.

"Dave, I'm sorry man," the first hoi said.

"Dude—my suit!" the second said, looking down at himself. He threw his hands up in frustration and turned away, walking across the street. "C'mon, maybe we can catch breakfast."

They hadn't even looked at me. Maybe that was the first sign I was different. Maybe that was the reason Jack had chosen me. By the time I knew it was too late to ask.

"Ah, yes, the future," Jack continued. "You know one of the keys to any thriving community, John?"

"No," I said.

"Growth. Works the same with the living as it does in here. G.O.W., John. Either we grow or we die." I gave him a look. "You know what I mean."

"Right now they think they have us trapped in here. Every now and then one of the M.F.E.s—mindless flesh-eaters—slips through and they put him down, study him or whatever it is they do, but that's pretty much it. They don't realize we really don't want to get out just yet. Full out aggression is too iffy at this point. We could succeed, we could fail, hell we could over succeed."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm glad you asked that." He leaned back in his chair, made a face and sniffed. "Hey, what's that smell?"

I was nervous, thinking he might have been smelling me. But he looked around and opened one of the drawers at his side, looked up at me and smiled.

"Wow, they're really rolling out the welcome wagon." He reached into the drawer with both hands and pulled a pile of entrails, dropping the whole stinking mess on the desk. He put his face over it and breathed in like it was manna.

"I could use a little B.T.E. You mind if I?" he asked, pointing at it. He had that look in his eye again.