A Boy Ate His Parents

 A Boy Ate His Parents

Death and the Maiden. Frans Van Kuyck. 1890.

There was a sad story out of Ruford. It was a tiny town of 53. Most businesses closed long ago. The church bell hadn’t rang in decades. The only business was a gas station that opened up when the owner felt like it. Bars across its windows and doors because of the things that tried to get in so often. It was quiet town that stopped growing a century ago yet the people stuck there could never leave. A boring, doomed place. Just as the monster attacks started to wane, that boy murdered and ate his parents. 

Emergency responders fled the scene. The boy sat there in the corner. His mother’s dead body twisted up in sheets. They found him kneeling over the head of his father. The body was down the hall. The zombie boy didn’t seem to notice them. The call to the ACOD went out.

Arty Welch listened to their concerns, and the usual fight broke out. The detective didn’t want to drive out from Angel City all the way to Mallum county. As the only officer of the department left alive, he felt it was more important to keep the forces that creep in Dagan from getting into the city.

“You know we can’t do that.” the responder said.

“Are you telling me you can’t determine if this thing is a zombie or not?”

“We don’t know how this happened. We need the Occult Department.” 

“I’ll put out a PSA for the area.” 

“Don’t you care that a boy ate his parents?”

“Honestly, I don't see why you people stay out there. With the monsters and all.” 

“We can’t leave. Soon the zombies will kill us all.”

“Did you get his phone? Send the files on it. I’ll look for this zombie.”

Arty opened the files. He looked  through the boy’s messages, his social media accounts, his saved images. Every space on that phone was investigated. 

Then Arty called Mallum County back. 

“Did you kill that zombie?”

“No, we sealed him in his house. He’s starved by now.”

“Keep him alive. We’ll need him find whoever bit him. 

The Angel City Occult Department made his Tinder Public. 

The boy had met a girl. 

“Hey whats up?”

“Hey” 

“How’re you?”

“Good lol”

“You from around here?”

“Yeah you?”

“Close enough.”

Then one thing lead to another.

“So… how big is your brain?”

“Pretty big lol”

“Wanna meet up tonight?” 

“Sure” 

Her profile consisted of 6 photographs. In each one, she looked pale. In each photo she looked directly into the camera. Indoors, by the bathroom mirror, or in a room dimly lit with plaque colored lights. She kept her thin vieny lips shut. Eyes wide open in each shot. 

The boy thought it was cute. Arty Welch of the Angel City Occult Department did not. He studied her in each photo. Indoors. Dirty house, A dim light that made the picture either look green or yellow. 

In a message the boy sent to his friends before the murders, he said “She’s a little bitey”.

Arty travelled down the zig zag interstate to Mallum County. We went to Ruford. The town had four streets. The locals were leery of him. They shut their doors, scowled at him, hid behind the curtains. The only open business was a flower shop. It was midnight. Arty bought two bouquets. 

The first thing he checked was the boy’s car. The driver’s side door was open. One receipt lay crumpled on the floor. It came from a Chinese restaurant. They fortunes from the fortune cookies still lay in the cup holder. 

  In the seat was a small blood smear. Blood splatter on the steering wheel. A little on the dash. Even more in the backseat. Large trickles bled down the seat to the floor cover. Arty tried to peel the cover up but the blood beneath it had dried and turned to glue. On top of the blood was loose clothing. An under shirt, socks, a bra, boxer shorts. 

The house where the murders occurred wasn’t difficult to find in the town of 20 buildings. The neighbors watched him pull into the driveway. They watched him from the window holding guns against the gap. Arty examined the barricades they built around the doors and windows. He used a hammer from his kit to yank out the nails. Each one jingled on the porch as they fell. He heard something drag on the floor inside. Mournful, in pain, dragged out for hours. Days. The creature didn’t breathe, it just wept in the corner. 

“So you’re the trouble maker.” Arty Welch said once inside.

The headless body of the father still lay on the floor, nearly gnawed clean. Like unfinished taxidermy.  His mother’s remains lay in bed, like a heap of tissues from a bloody nose. He took a ball and chain from his kit. While the zombie was chewing on a femur until his teeth cracked, Arty got the collar around his neck. He stood just a step back from the length of the chain. He began pulling at the zombie, shining a flashlight in his face. The creature grew angry but Arty was out of reach. 

He noticed bruising. Bites just hard enough to break the skin to suckle at the fat of his muscles. 

“It’s definitely a zombie. The question is where is she?” Arty dragged the Zombie.

He dragged him through the house. Tug by tug. The zombie didn’t want to leave. Even in death, he was attached to where he was the safest in life. He grabbed the walls, the door ways, even the floor board. Arty jerked the zombie aside, bit by bit, breaking off some fingers in the process. 

Then Arty stowed him away in the reinforced cage in the back of the car. 

He studied the map of the county in the driver's seat. Behind him the zombie moaned and kicked at the cage. It was double reinforced, and even if he broke through, the bed was enclosed and locked. The zombie barely had the strength to stand. He was no match at all against the bars of the cage. Along with the messages in the phone he had with him, and the remote places on the map, he decided to try a quiet spot on an abandoned road outside of Ruford. 

Arty activated the PSA from his phone. He listened to it on the radio. 

ANGEL CITY OCCULT DEPARTMENT PUBLIC SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT

POTENTIAL ZOMBIE OUTBREAK IN MALLUM COUNTY

DO NOT APPROACH PERSONS EXHIBITING UNUSUAL BITE WOUNDS, EXTREME HUNGER, PALE SKIN, OR UNUSUAL BEHAVIOR.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE CONTACT WITH POTENTIAL INFECTED PERSONS.

REPORT ALL SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES OR THE ANGEL CITY OCCULT DEPARTMENT

He snapped it off. The local authorities did not have the equipment to handle this problem. People would still wander up to the zombie, even if they heard the PSA. Unwise to the danger, some in Dagan just believe they have nothing to fear from the dangers, and those who fail to heed the warnings become the victims. Bravery. Foolish bravery.

The roads became narrower. Houses became far apart, and badly dilapidated. Still eye balls shined off the porches and cackles came from the windows. The trees bent sideways and the road went up and down tight cliffs. Then he finally stopped.

The moon shined like puddles in the grass. The sharp stalagmites below the cliffs looked so small. He could see the black towers of the church. He parked by a tree with white leafs. He could still smell perfume and sweat from the last car that was here. He let the boy out of the cage and wound the chain around the tree. He parked the car in the dark, and waited. A gun lay on his lap. 

Her name was Emily. At least, that was the name on her Tinder account. They had eaten Chinese food. Then they went to a movie. She laughed at all the right parts. She liked horror movies, but she covered her eyes during the scary scenes. When she jumped, she huddled against her date. Afterward, they drove to a quiet overlook outside town.

There were no streetlights.

Only the moon.

The boy said he had never seen anyone so beautiful.  Emily smiled. Her teeth were tiny, sharp, and dark. He liked them. 

She told him she hadn't been on a date in a long time. He kissed her. She kissed him back. Then she bit him. At first he thought it was playful. Then she bit harder. He pulled away.

"I'm sorry," she said. There was blood on her lips. "I'm really sorry."

“Are you okay?”

“I’m not like other girls.” She began to cry. 

“That’s… what I like about you.”

He giggled. She giggled. 

They looked into eachothers eyes and held eachothers hands. She decided to tell him the truth.

“I died about 8 months ago. I don’t remember how. I just remember feeling sick, and tired, and cold. And it hurt! Then I woke up beneath the ground. And I was hungry. So hungry! And it never went away no matter how much, and no matter what I ate.”

The boy looked into her eyes and rose her hands to his chest. 

“You seem nice.”

“I eat people.”

“No one’s perfect.” 

In that moment, they fell in love. However, being a zombie, she was unable to help herself. She tried not to bite him. She restrained her mouth, but the tighter her lips became, the harder he kissed her. The smell of flesh, the warmth of flesh. She could no longer help herself. She gave him wounds that bruised quickly. Each one large and black. He groaned in pain, she stopped.

“No, I’m okay.”

But he wasn’t. He started getting sick after that night. 

He stopped going to school. Stopped seeing his friends. Stopped eating. His parents tried to intervene, but by then the boy had re animated. The hunger took over.

The sun began to rise. A pale blue glow lit up the bleak morning sky. Gray torrents of clouds spiraled around the town of Ruford. Arty heard it.

“Emily!” 

Nothing happened. Then there was movement among the trees. A girl stepped into the twilight. She wore the same clothes from her Tinder photographs. She looked almost alive.

Almost.

The boy smiled. Emily smiled back. Black stuff oozed between her tiny rows of teeth. They walked toward one another. She took his hand. For a moment, Arty simply watched. The two of them stood beneath the early morning moon, holding dead hands together.

"You came back," Emily whispered.

"I told you I would."

She touched his face.

"You look different."

"So do you." She laughed. Then she kissed him.

"Now that you're a zombie," she said, "we can be together forever."

Arty didn't hesitate.

 He drew his pistol. One shot. Emily fell to the cold gravel. The boy screamed. 

Arty fired again.

Then there was silence. The moon continued shining. The wind moved through the trees. The two bodies lay together. Arty stood over them for a long time.

Somedays he hated his job. People thought the ACOD existed because it’s officers were fearless. Truth is they were terrified by what they faced. They just pulled the trigger at the right time .

Arty filed his report.

CASE CLOSED. TWO INFECTED PEOPLE TERMINATED. 

The PSA was taken off the air. 

After Arty’s divorce he developed a bad habit. He’d come home, take off his coat, and sit in front of the television. He’d watch the news, watch Midnight Tonight, watch old movies, or just stare at the blank screen for hours. On occasion, he’d get lonely, and open up his dating app. He didn’t expect much, he was tired, some browns hairs left in his gray hair, a job that left a permanent mortification on his face. He worked strange hours. He had a scar on his cheek. His profile was terrible. Just a batch of hand held selfies with the camera shooting up from his chest, framing his chin and making the fat beneath it look massive. Usually when he checked he saw nothing. 

But that night after returning from Mallum county, he checked again. A little red flag over the message box. Arty tapped it. A profile opened up. A woman who lived in Restless County reached out. 

“My name is Claire.” 

Arty frowned. Restless County was a bad place. The ACOD hadn’t received communication from there in decades. People vanished there. Roads vanished there. Entire towns vanished. 

Arty checked her photographs. She was beautiful. Dark hair, pale skin, a shy smile. 

Arty stopped scrolling. Something bothered him. Something about her eyes. 

He sent her a message. 

“Hey what’s up?”

She messaged him back. Arty reached for the handle of his gun. Maybe she was a monster. Maybe not. 

She messaged again. “I looked at your profile. You’re very handsome. Would you like to meet up tonight?” 

Arty relaxed his hand and lifted it from the weapon. 

“Sure. Where?” 

“I know a quiet little place.” 

Arty put back on his coat. For the first time in his career, he realized he had absolutely no way to tell whether the woman on the other end was alive, dead, or something in between. He could investigate her. He could run her name through the ACOD database. He could even bring his pistol. Instead, he put the gun in a drawer, put on his coat, and answered her next message: I'll pick you up at eight. Outside, the moon was coming up over Angel City. Arty smiled at his phone. Somewhere in the darkness, a woman was waiting for him. He just couldn't decide whether he was going on a date. Or if he would become dinner.