Sex in the Time of Zombies

the hatchet so that it was slightly behind his own ear. Nor did he witness the sharp flick of Owen’s wrist or the blur that spiraled through the air with a soft whistling sound.

Tanny’s skull felt as if it had shattered into a thousand fragments and he collapsed to his knees as he pressed his hands against his temples. The hatchet lay on the ground beside him, the blunt end splotched with fresh blood from where it had hammered against his head. As the little man swooned, Owen scooped the weapon from the ground and grabbed a fistful of red hair with his free hand.

“Steal my fuckin’ girl, will ya? Fuckin’ dirty her up like she was just some common piece of trash? Well, you’re about to join the fraternity of the dead, mother fucker. And you can consider this the hazing.”

Owen yanked Tanny’s head back and drew the blade of the hatchet sharply across his brow. A furrow of blood added a new crease to the little man’s forehead and the sting of severed nerve endings cut through the fog that had overtaken Tanny’s mind as cleanly as the hatchet had his flesh.

“Zombies….”, he gasped. “Owen… coming….”

“Zombies? You’re about to embrace the darkness and that’s all you can think of to say, you fuckin’ turd? Now, you tell me where she is and I might make this quick.”

“Zombies….”

“Zombies, zombies, zombies! I fuckin’ get it… now where the hell is she, motherfucker?”

Tanny nodded his head slightly to the side and Owen’s eyes followed the movement, thinking he’d see his beloved starlet lying on the road like a damsel tied to the train tracks in some old film. For a moment all of the rage drained from his face and his eyes grew large and round.

The dead were close now. So close that the stench of decaying flesh wafted to the two men like a hot wind. Fifteen to twenty of the undead bastards staggered forward with outstretched hands, their skin blackened and bloated and seeming to rip with the force of escaping gasses.

“Son of a bitch…”

Owen pulled Tanny by the hair, dragging the man across the street as his small legs flailed and kicked.

“Hurts! Ow… shit… let me go. Let me go!”

“I ain’t done with you yet, fuckwad.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Tanny squirmed and writhed.

“Let me go! Where the hell do you think you’re going anyway, you bastard?”

“The red door.” Owen panted. “Get a bit of privacy. What d’ya say?”

The rotters were closing ranks and formed a tight cluster of purification as they zeroed in on the living.

“Damn it, Owen!”

The rickety stairs leading to the porch jarred Tanny’s spine and the picture of Tiffany Shepis wedged in his back pocket raked the skin beneath his shirt with its crisp edges. Somehow, he had to make sure it remained hidden: it was the only card he had to play and his life, quite literally, could very well depend on what he chose to do with it.

Tanny was pulled to his feet and roughly shoved through the doorway as Owen spun around and slammed the door behind them. The red door, however, had long since given up its locking mechanism and swung back open with a creak.

Outside, the dead clamored across the lawn. They bumped into one another, tripped and stumbled over the tangle of feet, and teetered like players in some macabre slapstick. But, even still, they kept coming. Kept pursuing the warm flesh within the house with mindless, dogged devotion.

Owen knew he could probably take out a few with a couple well placed blows of the hatchet. But not all. There was simply too many. He scanned the room quickly, taking in the dust motes that swirled lazily in shafts of light. Furniture so feeble and decrepit that it seemed to be held together by sheer willpower. Peeled wallpaper.

Tanny was scooting across the floor and tears streamed down his pale face. He whimpered softly as Owen stormed toward him and threw his hands in front of his face.

“Get the fuck up, maggot!”

The larger man shook the hatchet at Tanny.

“Where the hell are we going to go? We’re trapped, dumb ass!”

It was more of a high pitched plea than any sort of defiance; in fact, Tanny looked as if he were struggling to come to terms with his impending death. If this maniac didn’t cleave his skull in half, then the rotters would soon be streaming through the door. Either way, he was fucked. Maybe if his ankle didn’t feel as if it were wrapped in barbed wire. Maybe if he had some sort of weapon of his own. But he hurt like hell, he was tired, and he just wanted it to be over. All of it.

He pushed himself up off the floor slowly and wobbled back and forth, trying to support as much of his weight on his good leg as possible. Meanwhile, Owen was still searching the house with his eyes.

“There! Through there!”

“Where?”

More like a sigh than a question.

“The basement, jack. Get your scrawny ass down there!”

Owen indicated a door just down the hall. Tanny could see a hint of stairs descending just on the other side. Without further complaint, he limped toward the opening like a death row inmate taking that final walk toward The Chair. His chin hung against his chest and Owen occasionally encouraged him with rough shoves in the back.

“Move it!”

The stairs creaked and popped as Tanny struggled down them. They seemed to shift with his weight as if the entire structure was about to come crashing down.

“What the hell is with the locks in this damn place?”

Owen gave up on trying to secure the door and took the steps two at a time, seemingly oblivious to the way they shook beneath him.

“Look here, little man, this all ends now. You hand over that picture and we find a way out of this shit, all right? You go your way, I go mine. Deal?”

The cellar smelled musty and greenish mold clung to the block walls. On the far side of the room, a small window was embedded just above ground level and it let in enough light to reveal the stack of boxes and cluttered junk below it.

“You promise? I give you that damn picture and we call it even?”

“What fuckin’ choice do I have? But I swear, if you don’t hand it over in the next three seconds I’m gonna peel the skin right off your body.”

Dull thumps and thuds came from overhead and released a shower of dust in the air. They were in the house now and Tanny could track their position by the sound of their shuffling footsteps. Maybe one of them had seen Owen fighting with the door. Maybe they somehow just knew. But it was obvious that they were slowly making their way toward the entrance to the cellar.

Pulling the rolled up photo from his pocket, Tanny thrust it toward his one-time friend. He jerked his hand back just as Owen snatched it away and edged backward.

“Ok. There. You’ve got it.”

“Tiffany… sweetie.” Owen’s voice was a soft whisper. “What did he do with… to you? It’s okay. I’m here now. Everything’s okay.”

“So… what now, Owen?”

Owen propped the picture against a can of paint that sat on top of a rusty chest freezer. He fiddled with it slightly, angling the photo as if he were trying to ensure that the brunette could see as much of the room as possible. When he was satisfied with his handiwork, he turned to Tanny with a cold smile.

“Now? Now, you wish you’d never been born. Now this place becomes a fuckin’ death factory!”

“B-but… we had a deal, man!”

Owen threw back his head and cackled as he gave the hatchet a few practice swings. “It’s the rule of three, you little shit. What goes around, comes around? You really think I’m just gonna let you get away with the shit you did? You think I don’t know the disgusting things you were doing to her out there?”

Owen walked calmly forward as he spat the words but his eyes twinkled with brutal amusement.