What happens when an imaginative kid finds himself in a series of creatively bankrupt jobs as an adult? What will he do when he's forced to grow up? "Emblogification Capture Device" is a humorous exploration of education, career, employment, lifestyle, politics and pop culture.
Showing posts with label Night of the Living Dead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Night of the Living Dead. Show all posts
First off, an apology in advance. The videos and links featured in this week's post are decidedly NSFW. And for once, it's not my fault: it's reality's.
I've been a fan of All Things Zombie w-a-a-a-a-a-a-y before it was chic. It all started back in 1982 when I first saw George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). I already documented this pee-inducing event right here, so I won't bore you with a rehash. Just suffice to say that, in scaring the ever-lovin' fertilizer out of me, NOTLD made me a zombie fan fo' life.
After experiencing the addictive properties of fear, I promptly sought out and devoured every new zombie film like a plate of chilled "B-R-A-A-A-I-I-I-N-N-N-S-S!" What I found most amusing were the sometimes-considerable lengths that the screenwriters had to go through in order to explin how the recently deceased were sudden'y gettin' all ambulatory and developing a taste for the contents of our skulls.
In Night of the Living Dead a deep space probe returning from Venus blows up on re-entry, scattering radioactive MacGuffins all throughout our atmosphere. With the next two entries in his original zombie trilogy, Romero wisely dispensed with the cheesy 50's Space Age-era psuedo science. In fact, in both Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985) no reason for the zombie shuffle-fest was given at all! Actually, I kinda liked this a bit better since it gave the films a weird alternate universe/Grimm Fairy Tale quality.
But in every other zombie flick, there's always a raison d'eeeccchhh. In the Lugosi classic White Zombie (1932) and Fulci's ultra-gory Zombi 2 (1979), good ol' Voodoo is to blame. Return of the Living Dead (1985) gave us a corpse re-animating chemical spill. 28 Days Later (2002) managed to square things away with the fictional "Rage Virus".
But then, just when think you've seen every possible cinematic permutation for a zombie uprising, reality comes along and trumps the shit right out of it.
Okay, seriously, what the flying f#@k; is going on here!?!?!
Some authorities are blaming a new, innocuous-sounding designer drug called "bath salts", which apparently makes crystal meth look like friggin' Excedrin. And, like so many other junk drugs, I'm told that this shit can be whipped up easier then coq au vin. Which always makes me wonder: why the hell are people so willing to ingest something that was cooked up in some redneck's bathtub?
Maybe it's because of the initial heroic effects promised by this stuff: insta-courage, super-strength and Tick-like levels of nigh-invulnerability. Too bad they didn't read the fine print since taking this crap also makes you suicidal, psycho-aggressive and, apparently, a tad cannibalistic.
Okay, is there anyone out there who even heard of this stuff, like, six months ago? Is drug advancement developing at the same rate as technology now?
Speaking of technology, this brings me to a stupid observation. As we all know, a lot of kids who watched Star Trek during their formative years grew up to be scientists and engineers who went about making the fictional technology featured in the show a reality. For example, the original series had communicators, so someone out there felt compelled to invent cell phones. And in Next Generation, crew members used Personal Access Display Devices, so someone had to invent tablets (the iPADD?).
Which makes me wonder: is there a similar but clandestine think tank out there for designer drugs? Is there a cabal of dodgy scientists who routinely get together and say things like: "Hey, zombies seem to be pretty popular right now. Why don't we cook up something up that simulates the effect? I'm sure tons of people out there will be stupid enough to take it!"
For our parent's generation, Hollywood served up plenty of epic yet slightly conventional visions of doomsday in the form of Avalanche (1978), Earthquake (1974), Meteor (1978), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Andromeda Strain (1971). But having witnessed these films (as well as a slew of similar television shows, books and video games), I suspect that our generation requires a much more scary, imaginative and well, geeky, end-of-days scenario.
Let's face it, living in a day and age when the ludicrous comic-book super-villainy of Osama Bin Laden is fathomable, what's a simple zombie apocalypse in comparison? Our generation has marinated in speculative pop culture for so long that dealing with an undead uprising is the equivalent of Ray Stantz picking the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man as his preferred method of self-destruction.
All of this has gotten so out of completely hand that the Centers for Disease Control (and the brainless media) have started issuing statements as if they're scripted from a Romero's zombie flick:
Dear Jesus.
Y'know, I'd always hoped that when people my age assumed control over insitutions and the media we'd at least be able to keep our heads and not embarrass ourselves. I guess I was being overly optimistic since this is downright pathetic.
But it's still fun to speculate, isn't it?
What if bath salts aren't just some random new step in drug (de)evolution?
What if this is just a more palatable and (dare I say it) entertaining form of apocalypse for a generation who'd ultimately be let down by a lame solar flare, global earthquake or yet another humdrum economic catastrophe?
Well, 'tis the season when you can't help but ruminate on all things scary and I thought I'd look back on the things that have given me a serious case of the wiggins over the years.
The first time I remember being terrified of something was when I was about six or seven years old. It happened after a trip to the Bill Lynch traveling fair. Now, I know that carnivals can be scary just due to the genetic casualties who run and repair the Spanish Inquisition-style torture equipment that passes for amusement rides, but the source of my terror was incidental.
My Dad had won game of ring toss game and the "prize" was a green and black felt head shot of Frankenstein's monster. I tried to put on a brave face and told my Dad how "cool" I thought it was. When we got home, he put up on the wall opposite my bed.
Well, that was all well and good until the lights went out. Turns out that f#$@%^ glowed in the dark. All night I stared at that baleful visage and thought it was the face of my inevitable doom. I must have been a pretty sheltered kid since this was the first time I recall seeing something so pregnant with the insinuation of death and horror.
Next day I was so tired I nearly fell forward into my Rice Krispies. My folks confronted me and I tabled my theory very calmly that the poster on my wall intended to murder me in my sleep. They took it down and put it away, much to my relief.
But this moment was watershed. My parents had done such a good job taking care of me, it was the first time I'd really felt a primal fear. It was as if I had been suddenly made aware that there were things in the world both real and imagined I'd been protected from, things that were spawned from dark, sinister and unconventional places. The thrill of terror, agonizing at the time, now seemed like a rush in afterthought. I'd survived the process and could look back on it now and feel just a tad stronger.
But fear could come out of left field, when you least expected it. Not long after I got cold-cocked on, of all things, a sunny Saturday afternoon. The first of my assailants was, believe it or not, the classic Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". I don't know how many of you Kind Readers out there remember this one so here's a quick summary:
The U.S.S. Enterprise comes across a scout ship in deep space, which looks like a glowing version of those hydrogen molecule models that you used to see in school. Of course, Kirk goes all aggro on the thing and phasers it into oblivion. Well, things go from bad to worse when the mother ship shows up, which resembles a ginormous soccer ball with a bunch of Christmas lights stuck on it. I, like many other impressionable viewers, watched in rapt fascination as the pilot of this mammoth vessel opened up a ship-to-ship conference call with the Enterprise and this is what we saw on the view screen:
Some fuse in my brain burned out when they revealed this thing for the first time. All I could think was "RED ALERT! RED ALERT! FIRE ALL PHASERS! DAMN THE PHOTON TORPEDOES! KILL IT!!! KILL IT!!!"
Well, as it turns out, the alien pilot (named Balok, which was creepy enough in it's own right) is merely a more-intimidating stand in for Ron Howard's freaky older brother Clint:
Y'know how kids usually grow out of their awkward phases? Well, poor Clint didn't. He's known, along with folks like Michael Berryman, as one of the more unconventional-looking character actors out there right now.
It's pretty sad when Ron Howard is considered the cute one of the family:
Anyway, when I first saw Balok's true appearance it kinda freaked me out even more. "Bring back the scary dummy!" I yelled at the screen. "At least I knew he wasn't real!"
As if my jangled nerved hadn't been through enough that day, the T.V. station I'd been watching decided to segue from the world's scariest Star Trek episode into the world scariest movie. And what was the title of this magnum opus of fear?
THE GREEN SLIME
That's right, baby, The Green Motherf#@$%^ Slime, yo. Don't think that sounds scary? Oh yeah? Well, watch this trailer and keep a change of Haynes nearby:
Ummmmmm.
Okay, so, in the immortal words of a certain habitually howling SCTV character: "Even Count Floyd wasn't scared of that and I get scared real easy!"
By the way, do ya like the groovy theme song there at the end? Well, here's the extended dance mix version. See how far you can get through it before you lose control of your bodily functions...
♫♪"Is it just something in your head? You'll believe it when you're DEAD! Green Sl-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-me!!!"♪♫
All I can say is...Wow. Y'know, I always thought that the Saw movies might benefit from a country and western theme song...
John Kramer was a civil engineer Who built a place where addicts had no fear. One bumped his wife with a door one day So their baby went away That's why John Kramer became Jigsaw so they say! Yee-HAW!!!
Okay, so in retrospect, The Green Slime certainly looks more goofy then scary, but in the mind of a six or seven year old kid it was pretty intense. In fact, there's a scene where an astronaut goes into a confined space by himself to look for the Green Slime and gets all f#$@%^ up just like Tom Skerritt did in Alien. To this day I'm convinced that Ridley Scott saw this piece of poo and said: "Yknow if I replace the goofy, tentacled one-eyed blobs with something designed by a borderline insane Swiss surreal artist I'm pretty sure I can scare the piss out of people."
After this one-two punch of unmitigated terror, I was shaken up at first, but ultimately left exhilarated, like someone proud to have survived the roller coaster at Crystal Palace in Moncton. In light of the scarcity of home video availability at the time and my complete and utter chicken-shittery over being caught sneaking into "R"-rated movies, I trained myself the only way I could: though monster movie books.
One by one I digested such illuminating titles as Horrors: A History of Horror Movies, The Encyclopedia of Horror, and Everything You Wanted To Know About Monsters (But You Were Afraid To Ask!). A series of library staples particularly near and dear to my heart were the Crestwood House Monster Series, collected here in this awesome photo:
So, by the time I was eleven or twelve, I knew the real names of horror icons Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff (Bela Blasko and William Henry Pratt respectively), the best method to destroy the vegetable-alien in the original The Thing From Another World (you cook it!) and the pains that Lon Chaney went through to realize his startling makeup as The Phantom of the Opera.
At around the same time an affiliate television channel WLBZ out of Bangor, Maine started a "Midnight Monster Madness"-type show on Saturday night called Weird. It was through this show that I finally managed to see all the classic Universal monster movies like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Mummy.
More television fare continued to toughen me up. The 1982 T.V. movie The Fall of the House of Usher staring Ray Walston and Martin Landau scared the fertilizer our of me. This effect was further compounded when I manged to negotiate the ability to stay up late one night to watch a heavily-edited version of Alien on ABC. Even with half the scenes chopped out and the film barely making any linear sense, it still gave me friggin' nightmares.
Feeling as if I'd been suitably toughened up, I now felt ready to venture back into the terror dome. Still "bustable" if I went into a video store to rent horror movies I had to wait until one of the pay cable movie networks like "First Choice" decided to have a free trial weekend on Halloween. In the Fall of 1982 I got my grim wish. My folks went out for the night and I settled in for a long marathon of good-old fashioned, unedited, no-hold's barred frights.
And soon discovered that I was in w-a-a-a-a-a-y over my head.
First up was George A. Romero's original Night of the Living Dead. As the eerie music cued up and the stark black and white scenes established a grim and austere mood I thought: "Cool! It's just like the old 'Universal' monster movies! This is gonna be neat!"
For the record, of all the colorful adjectives you can apply to Night of the Living Dead, 'neat' is not one of them.
The film began with Barbra and Johnny, two bickering siblings, who have come to a spooky graveyard to pay respects to their dear, departed mother. All of a sudden, the two are attacked by a lanky, ghoulish fiend who kills Johnny and then chases after Barbra. She barely manages to make it to old abandoned farmhouse and barricades the door. She then ventures upstairs and, to her horror and mine, finds a half-eaten corpse, which the film-makers helpfully show us in wince-inducing close up.
More survivors appear. They barricade the house for a brief moment of respite, find a television set and this is what they see:
'Whoa!' I thought to myself. 'Dead bodies are coming back to life with a taste for human flesh? Even a resurrected loved one will want to nibble on your elbows? And you have to shoot them in the friggin' head to kill them? Man, this is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better..."
And boy, did it ever. Much worse. When a plan to get gas into an abandoned truck goes horribly amiss and a pair of the characters die in the resulting explosion, the zombies rip into the vehicle and partake in a little, shall we say, human fricassee.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A terrible thought dawned on me: 'Oh my god, the guy who made this movie is obviously insane. He's actually showing these zombies...*URK!*...eating people!'
I was horrified. If Romero was willing to flat-out break the taboo of cannibalism on screen, what the hell else was he willing to subject us to over the next forty minutes?
And Romero, the mad genius that he is, actually trumped himself not once, but twice more in Night of the Living Dead. I'd already been slapped in the face by the movie. But when the sick little girl dies, then gets back up and kills her own mother with a garden trowel, I felt like I'd been thrown down a flight of stairs. Then, as if my wits hadn't been abused enough, Romero throws on a brutal shock ending that is, in essence, the equivalent of someone in jackboots coming down to the foot of those steps and kicking me in the gourd.
I had no idea cinema could be that nihilistic, that devoid of scruples and so cruelly terrifying. Unlike the reasonably innocent frights provided by the monster movies from the 30's and 40's, Night of the Living Dead was refusing to play nice.
I fought the temptation to whimper and shut off the T.V., but up next was Poltergeist. I decided to stick it out since I'd heard good things.
'Okay," I thought to myself, 'I can handle this. It's just a PG-rated Steven Spielberg movie. Probably like a horror film with training wheels.'
Well, for the first third of the film, I was right. I was lulled into a false sense of security with the ample humor and familiar scenes of Spielbergian-flavored suburban bliss. In fact, for quite some time, it played out like the evil twin of E.T. which had come out earlier that same year.
But then when you least expect it, Poltergeist takes off the kid gloves and starts hammering you with loads of eerie lore, ghostly manifestations, and EEK!-worthy scenes with the inherently creepy Zelda Rubinstein.
And then this happened:
"No fair!" I yelled at the screen. "You can't show maggots and some dude ripping off his friggin' face in a movie rated PG! You just can't!"
Next up was the remake of Cat People, but I was too far gone. In retrospect, that's kind of a shame since Nastassia Kinski spends huge tracts of time strolling around in the film sans clothing. Idiot.
So, I shut off the T.V. and then proceeded to turn on every light in the house.
It was obvious at that point in time that I still had a long way to go before I could call myself a horror movie maven. I also knew there would be sterner tests to come, but also more rewarding chills.
For the next few days I'm likely to be AFK. The last time I did that there were no updates at all, and in retrospect, that's a bit of a cheat. Sooooooo, instead of offering nothing, I'm gonna post up a short story I did a little while back.
A bit of a lead in to what your about to read: I have a bit of a fetish for zombies. I don't know why but ever since I saw George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" when I was a (relatively) innocent thirteen year old, I've just been fascinated by the Walking Dead.
This short story is inspired by that seminal film and all the subsequent zombie fiction that's followed. I hope you like it...
WARNING: Due to scenes of violence and mild language reader discretion is advised!
The End of Days
ONE
On days like this Father Paul Guinn wished he hadn’t answered a calling that required him to have a belief in all things spiritual. Especially on this, what anyone would have to consider the END OF DAYS.
As he finished the rosary and blessed himself he looked up to the image on the cross and an odd thought struck him. Resurrection was supposed to be miraculous; a symbol of triumph over death. His dreams over the past few nights, the recent signs he’d witnessed, and the news from earlier convinced him that what was to come was anything but a triumph. It was an abomination against the natural order of things.
Surely there could be no other higher power with sway over life and death?
For many of his brethren, the coming crisis would surely shatter their faith. ‘How could God let this happen under his watch?’ they’ll cry.
For Father Paul, however, what was about to transpire would only serve to harden his resolve. This was proof positive that the spiritual world did, in fact, exist. He knew God wasn’t responsible for the coming trials, but he was also positive that He would certainly be there to provide comfort when things were restored to normal.
Father Paul stood up, walked over to the altar and took a small pewter crucifix from its resting place. He kissed it gently and placed it within his breast pocket. Even strengthened, the emerging sound of pounding on the walls and the breathy exhalations from the things gathering outside was unnerving.
Again he told himself that God would be there to give solace when everything was set to rights. He just prayed that there would be enough of His servants up to this task.
With that, he redoubled his resolve, strode down the aisle, passed through the heavy wooden doors and into the maelstrom.
***
Harmony’s door creaked open and she sat up in a start. Reflexively, the portal was pulled too a bit, leaving a small wedge of light from the kitchen that stretched across the floor.
“Sorry, darlin’”, said the silhouette in the doorway. “I was just checkin’ on ya. I thought you were asleep.”
Harmony blew a sigh of relief.
“Naw, not yet,” she replied. “I think I’m in for a long night.”
Her father considered this. Just knowing that someone was concerned for her seemed to drive some of the dark thoughts from her mind.
“Well, don’t you worry. I’m just in the next room here. Get some sleep, we got a busy day tomorrow.”
She smiled and settled down again.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, wincing at her own childish reference. “G'night.”
“G’night, darlin’. Sleep well, alright?”
The door creaked shut and the catch fell into place. Despite the comforting sounds of activity coming from the living room, she still felt strangely isolated. Just as soon and Harmony’s head hit the pillow, she knew she wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
Normally exhausted from what her father called “an honest day’s work”, the news she’d heard earlier was enough to chill her blood and ensure she’d toss and turn for most of the night. She didn’t know what was more upsetting: the news of a tragic death in town or the fact that her father seemed so affected by it.
She felt terrible for her poor dad and suspected that he must feel like the harbinger of doom. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Either the crops were blighted, the coming winter would be lean, her mother wasn’t well, and now this: a violent death happening just up the road from them.
She didn’t know much about Ed Munroe, only that he was Mandy’s father. There’d been rumors going around for ages that Ed was a drunk and he neglected his family. Harmony didn’t put much credence in rumors since she and her family had been the victim of more than their fair share of hearsay. But it was impossible to deny that something terrible had happened earlier and as news started to come out it was unlikely to get better.
Another sudden sound gave her a start. This time it was from behind her, above her head. It sounded like a faint drumming noise then a squeak. A few months ago her father caught some boys from school trying to peek through her window and she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to put up with that again.
“Daddy!” she shouted, hoping to scare away the interloper. “I think someone’s at my window again!”
A coughing noise from the living room distracted her. The light under her door was suddenly extinguished by darkness. A shadow from the window played across the side of her face and was gone. Slowly she twisted around in her bed and drew herself up. Just as her eyes cleared the edge of the sill a bloodied, decrepit palm slammed into the glass, nearly breaking through.
Harmony screamed and sprang from the bed, landing nearly half way across the floor of her room in the process. She dressed hastily and grabbed a small flashlight off her dresser just as the glass in her window gave way. She stood there aghast for a moment as a gnarled paw fumbled over the edge of the window frame, coming down on top of a particularly jagged remnant of glass. Harmony watched in horror as the clear dagger pierced through the top of the intruder’s hand. Oblivious to the injury, another arm shot through what was left of the damaged window.
Harmony jumped back again, bringing up against the door. She fumbled with the handle, tore it open and promptly slipped on something spilled on the floor just outside.
Her flashlight beam washed down upon the sight of her father lying on the floor. Open, bloodied and defiled by something hunched over him. Her wavering beam of light moved instinctively towards the sound of contented chewing.
Her brain took a gruesome inventory: two bloodied hands, a matted tangle of blackened hair, blue-gray flesh and milky, eager eyes that looked up from its horrible repast. Despite the cloudy eyes, Harmony recognized a distinct look of joy.
The joy of future prospects.
Harmony screamed, making a noise she thought herself incapable of. She tore towards the front door and burst from the house pausing at the tree stump in the front yard. Without effort she pulled free the axe buried there like the sword from the stone and raced on to the only place she thought to be safe anymore.
***
Regardless of how many graveyard shifts she’d served as a nurse over the years, Jessica knew she’d never get used to the intrinsic eerie quality of being alone in a hospital in the dead of night. Although anyone could see that the facility here in Styler was practically a day spa compared to the creepy asylum she used to work in up in Ravenswood, she still couldn’t keep the morbid thoughts at bay.
She chastised herself as she grabbed a clipboard bearing the same checklist she’d completed for the past four nights since she started at the hospital. Why did she find this place so creepy? After all, the hospital was brand new, nothing like that near-medieval asylum she'd presided over for far too long.
She set off down the hall to begin her rounds, measuring her footfalls as she went. Despite her hesitation, the bare stone floors and cold walls echoed the slightest sound. Each one of her steps sounded conspicuous. The muted lights on the vacant crash carts and wheelchairs cast odd shadows around her. Then her mind’s eye betrayed her and she had a flash of the man from earlier...
The body the sheriff brought in was reeking of alcohol and mangled from some horrible accident. After the son came to identify the body it was very late, and all Doc Mullins seemed willing to do was pronounce the obvious and go home.
‘Poor Ed,’ Jessica overheard the Sheriff say. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell him to quit drinking and take care of his kids over the years. Some higher power got to him by the looks of it.’
‘What a mess,’ Doc Mullins muttered back. ‘I’ll do an autopsy first thing tomorrow morning. I assume you’ll be bringing the detective in for this?’
‘Hate to agree, but I have to,’ the law man replied, sounding weary. ‘Do you think all this happened before or after?’
The doctor ripped off his blood-stained gloves, dropped them in the trash and pushed his glasses back onto his face with the back of his hand.
‘For this town’s sake, we better hope it was after.’
Over the years Jessica had seen the human body distorted in many surreal forms. That didn’t bother her. What was lingering in her mind’s eye was the odd nature of the clearly fatal wounds and the stark look of rigor-fear on the man’s face.
Had the victim actually been partially eaten?
As she hurried towards the morgue, a part of her was tempted to dart in, roll out the slab and have a second look, but instead she resolved to double-time right on by. She rounded the corner and promptly slid to a dead stop.
The very same body she’d been thinking about mere seconds ago was standing upright in the hallway, the door to the morgue still held open against a twisted leg. Reacting to Jessica’s pleasant arrival, the thing turned in a pivot, looked at her with glazed eyes and gurgled what sounded like a death rattle.
Jessica felt as if the mechanism in her brain that allowed her to scream burnt out at that moment. She was distracted momentarily by the sound of her clipboard rattling to the floor.
***
Bobby paused for a moment, suddenly seized by paranoia about the gun going off by mistake. He decided to err on the side of caution and stuff the revolver in the back of his pants instead. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he shot himself before he had a chance to be the big hero?
Before he took his father’s gun from the closet, he’d debated back and forth whether or not to load it. He knew for sure he could whip Todd in a simple brawl, but the little punk might still be armed. He’d killed Mandy’s step-dad earlier and he probably wasn’t above doing it again.
The bad-blood between Todd and Ed had been brewing for quite some time. Rumor had it that Ed had gotten drunk earlier, beat Mandy up pretty bad and Todd had responded to her call. With a pistol.
Three other kids already told him that Todd pulled the trigger. But with his father being the Sheriff, what would be the point reporting it? If he could just get the little bastard to confess even the Sheriff couldn’t deny that justice had to be done.
Todd would go away for a long time. Leaving Mandy alone...
The teenager put his head down and continued his strident trek across the park at the center of town. His sneakers were almost wet from the rain that had doused the grass earlier in the evening and it was cold enough on this October night for him to see his breath. He knew that Sheriff Cooper would probably still be at the station filling out a stack of paperwork. With some luck, he’d find his rival alone and catch him by surprise.
Seeing someone approach, Bobby adjusted his stride a bit so as not to look so hell-bent. He cursed under his breath as the figure seemed to recognize him and lurch in his direction. The thought that there might be a new candidate for the role of town drunk amused him, but it was Saturday night, so it could be any one of his countless friends.
Idly he wondered why he couldn’t see the man’s breath. This trivial thought evaporated when he realized that the approaching figure appeared to be carrying the remains of a human arm. In a flash, the appendage was discarded and the thing was upon him.
Instantly, Bobby was on the football field. The same instincts that had allowed him to avoid a blitz at the line of scrimmage countless times before kicked in. He straight-armed the encroaching tackler and was reviled as the flesh he made contact with gave way into something wet and cold. He screamed, pulled his hand free and then scrambled out of the pocket.
Unlike being at the ten-yard line on the school field, Bobby quickly realized he had a unique line of defense against this particular linebacker. He reached into the small of his back and produced his father’s pistol.
“Alright, freak!” he bellowed. “Don’t come any closer!”
With a sickening gurgle, the thing shambled forward. The teenager was almost relieved to be done with the courtesy warning phase and squeezed the trigger at point-blank range.
The man’s head vaporized like an over-ripe pumpkin.
For a moment Bobby could only stand there and shiver, despite the fact that he felt he was burning up under his varsity jacket. The miasma of stench, violated flesh and his last action all conspired to make him ill.
As he slowly came to his senses the thought dawned on him that it might not just be old Ed’s last night on earth...
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