Living Dead at Zigfreidt & Roy (2 page)

The fat man
had busied himself clacking keys and consulting his phone. “White
tigers are from India. They were a symbol of ancient royalty and
were considered to be an animalistic representation of the Hindu
gods. Some people say--”“Hey, buddy. Shut the fuck up and let the
man tell the story,” said the cook.

The fat man
looked up and went silent, sulking on his stool as the cook
gestured for the cowboy to continue.

“Well, that’s
just how it all started,” sad the old man, tipping his cup to drain
the dregs into his gullet. “Once them big cats were sitting at his
side, that Indian leaned down and whispered somethin’ in their
ears. The magicians was stompin’ around and yellin’ for security to
get the guy off of the stage. The Indian stood up and clapped his
hands together and held em’ there in front of him, yellin'
something in whatever the hell language he was speakin’ – judgin’
by what came next, it may have been the Devil’s own secret
tongue.”

The cook
rolled his eyes again. “Fuck sakes, you take a long time to get to
the point!”

Tommy
stiffened on his stool and glared at the cook. “Shut up and let him
finish, Earl.”

The cook
stared daggers at the mousy kid and flushed from his neck up, as if
he had just been slapped in the face. The old cowboy smoothed his
moustache, nodded his thanks to Tommy and continued.

“We was all
just settin’ there, shocked, and wonderin’ what the hell was going
on, the tigers had rolled over on their sides, moanin' and
twitchin', but when he slapped his hands together again and
hollered, those two tigers jumped like spring-loaded death machines
and took them magicians down. Blood came flyin’ up from the one man
and sprayed all over the place. The show was up on these big
screens so you could see close up. People started screamin’. The
other magician, the tow-headed one, had the full left side of his
face tore clean off to the bone, with a big flap of skin just
hangin’ there like wet leather slappin’ back and forth against his
naked teeth while he was thrashin' and flailin’ around. Those
tigers were tearing chunks off of the two of em' and they was
screamin’ like a couple of banshees. Those fancy jumpsuits were
shredded and tore up and blood was flyin' every which goddamn
way!”

The cowboy
paused for another sip from his cup, letting the image hang in the
air with the tension radiating from the men around him.

“Well, that’s
when the shit really hit the fan. The audience started stampedin’
to beat the band and folks were getting trampled left and right. I
was already up and at the exit, holdin’ the door open and trying to
wave the women and children through. I could see that spooky Indian
fella, standin’ up in the middle of the stage, his fancy suit still
spotless and white as the heavens. He had the biggest smile on his
goddamn face you ever saw. He threw his arms up towards the rafters
and shouted out some more of his gobbledygook. Then he started
jumpin’ up and down like he was callin’ down the very thunder of
Heaven itself.”The cook started searching the shelves under the
counter, and not finding what he was looking for, rushed into the
kitchen shouting, “Shit! Where’s my goddamn radio?”

The cowboy
drained his coffee, and Tommy got up to get him another cup from
the scorched glass urn.

“Good goddamn
coffee, that’s fer fuckin’ sure,” the old man muttered, “only
goddamn vice I got left at my age. Sure enjoy a good cup of
coffee…”

“So when did
this happen?” asked the fat man, once again caught up in tapping at
the keyboard of his phone.

“’Bout twenty
minutes ago.”

The fat man
was turning a sweaty, sickly yellow, and glanced nervously to the
front windows of the café. “Did they catch the guy? Did they trap
the Tigers? Are there fucking Tigers running around out there?”

“Worse than
goddamn tigers, friend,” the old man laughed.“Shit! The batteries!
My goddamn phone’s stopped working. Shit!” The fat man slammed it
onto the counter. He called to the couple near the front “Do either
of you have a cell with ‘net access?”

They responded
with a matched pair of blank stares, before returning to their
bickering.

The fat man
stood up and began pacing, pulling at his rings one at a time.

Tommy was
staring back into the recesses of the kitchen. “Where the heck did
Earl go?” he asked. “Hey! Earl! Earl?”

Tommy climbed
down from his stool and crept back into the kitchen before
returning to his seat. “He’s not there. He must have gone out
back...”

The fat man
was still fidgeting and staring out the window as if he expected
two rabid tigers to burst through them at any second. “Do you think
I can make it to my car? Do you they’re running around loose out
there? Fucking tigers?”

“Do you wanna
set yerself down and let me finish the goddamn story while I still
got it in me? We're runnin' out of time.”

“What about
the goddamned tigers?” The fat man sputtered, wild-eyed, as he
stumbled back to his stool.

The old man
sighed, ignoring the panic building around him and continuing,
regardless of whether any of them were listening.

“As I was
sayin’. After that Indian made the sign with his hands and shouted
out that spell or curse or fuckin’ voodoo-hoodoo-whatever-it-was,
the lights blew out. Exploded! Like there was some kind of power
surge that was more than they could handle, and - now this part’s
pretty clear in my mind, cuz I wondered how they made these fancy
special effects without no power - but a big ol’ wave of green
light kinda pushed out from the stage, over the crowd. I felt
scared then, like I ain’t never been scared before. I been bit by a
rattler. Been shot in the guts back in the war. Had to sit and
watch my sweet Alice waste away from the cancer. .. but I ain’t
never been so damn terrified as I was right that second. I was
still standing at the door when I saw that goddamn light comin’
right for me--and though I be cursed for a goddamn coward, I pulled
that door shut tight and I hit the fuckin’ deck.”

“Look, mister.
Maybe you need to see a doctor. I think you’re in shock. You’re not
even making any sense,” said Tommy. The fat man was up again,
muttering about tigers and fumbling with his rings. He was picking
up speed, pacing the room in an endless figure eight. His hands
were red and chapped and blood was starting to show around the
edges of some of the rings where he was frantically working the
fingers raw.

“What the hell
were you running from, old man?” the fat man demanded, his voice
quaking as it grew louder and his hands became more manic, “You
came barreling in here like a bat out of hell. You weren’t running
from a light or from some fucking magical Indian. Bullshit!” he
hollered, jabbing a fat, bloodied finger in the old man's
direction.

The cowboy
ignored the outburst and continued. “When that theater door burst
back open, it was like I was looking straight into the depths of
Hell's slaughterhouse. Every person that was still inside that
place was climbing up on the others, and they were tearing and
ripping each other apart with their teeth and their bare fingers.
There were hunks of bone and flesh--the whole place was muddy with
red - like a goddamn demon-buffet. Never seen nothing so horrible,
they were like animals tearing at each other. Hungry, evil,
horrible goddamn animals! It was a reckoning is what it was,” he
finished. The color had completely drained from his face and his
voice was flat and dead.

“What the fuck
did you just say?” hollered the fat man. His voice was sharp and
full of fear, but he posed the question like a threat. He was still
rubbing his bloody fingers, still frantically eyeballing the front
door.

“I said they
was eating each other!” The strain of yelling his reply seemed to
suck the last bit of life from the old man. He continued in a
hoarse whisper, fighting the weakness that was fast overtaking him.
It seemed to Tommy that the cowboy was about to pass out or die
from a heart attack or shock.

“You’re
talking about zombies,” said Tommy. “Zombies….”

The cowboy
leaned into the counter. “They was chompin’ and tearin’ and
feastin’ on each other like there was no tomorrow, which I guess
there ain’t. Some people seemed to still be sensible, or human, or
whatever you want to call it. They got the worst of it, gettin’
torn to shreds while still alive by those things that the rest
become. Then the dead ones started gettin’ the hell back up! End of
the goddamn’ world I tell ya. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like
that.

The fat man’s
jowls shook with utter terror , and his eyes took on a teary mania.
He turned to the old cowboy. “If all this was true, why didn’t you
come in here yelling to call the cops or... or the fucking army?
Isn’t that what they always do in the movies? I mean, you’re saying
there’s zombies out there! Right? Zombies? and fucking wild tigers?
This is bullshit! You are bullshit!”

“Then one of
em’ snuck up and grabbed me, tried to bite me. I put three bullets
in its chest,point blank, blew that thing straight back ten feet.
But it just got right back up and kept comin’. No life left in
those eyes. Just hunger. I turned to run and there was... ” The old
man’s voice began to waver. “I almost tripped over her. A little
girl, maybe only six or seven. She was settin’ there on the floor
by my feet, chewin’ on her mama’s throat. Just settin’ there in her
pretty blue dress, covered with her mama’s blood. She was smilin’
up at me like she was eatin’ some taffy. She had the dead eyes,
too. Them cloudy goddamn dead eyes. Her mama was layin’ there,
soaked black with blood, twitchin’ like a spastic. That little girl
just kept on chew--”

The cowboy
clutched at his chest, then slumped sideways off his stool and hit
the floor hard. Tommy leapt to the floor and caught the old man’s
head as it bounced off the linoleum.

“Somebody call
a doctor” he yelled. “Where in the hell is Earl? Somebody call a
doctor!”

Tommy threw a
desperate glance toward the fat man, who was backing away
nervously, tripping over chairs and bumping into tables until his
back hit the plaster of the wall. He was still pulling at the
rings, which were now wet with blood, dripping from his fingers and
leaving a trail of red droplets in front of him on the linoleum. He
cowered against the wall, wringing his hands against his chest and
staining the purple silk dark and slick. The young couple at the
front table had finally stopped arguing and sat, wide-eyed and
still, staring at the funny little man cradling the old cowboy and
calling out for help.

“Goddamn it!
Somebody call a damn doctor! What the hell is wrong with you
people?” He shouted at them.

Tommy lowered
the old man’s head to the floor, stuffing his apron beneath it as a
make-shift pillow, and scuttled on his knees around the counter,
stumbling to his feet to dig through the cupboards and shelving,
shoving dishes, utensils and junk to the floor. “Fuck!” Tommy
hollered. “Where the fuck is the phone?”

He shouted at
the young couple. “I’m going to go get help! You watch him!” Tommy
ran for the front door and the wailing of sirens outside, yelling
for help as more emergency vehicles tore through the street. The
harsh blaring had barely faded when the sounds of screaming and the
clamor of at least a dozen people came from the opposite direction.
Tommy stood wide eyed at the panicked crowd, then glanced back at
the cafe before running against the wave of people as he chased the
last ambulance down the street.

A few
staggered heartbeats passed in silence before the front of the
diner erupted in a barrage of sound. A hundred hands were slapping
at the big windows, smearing them with dark grime. Strange, furious
faces appeared out of the night, climbing over each other to get a
look through the windows. The fat man began to wail. He was
screaming uncontrollably and pointing one bloody finger toward the
front window. The young man at the front table looked at his
companion as if looking for instruction and then turned toward the
far wall as the big man began to wail. The young couple was still
staring at the big man screaming and flapping his bloody fingers
towards them. They had barely registered the thought to look behind
them before the windows blew, dirty glass and sticky spray
disintegrating overhead and around their faces as another scream
filled the air, this time from a familiar voice. The young man
lunged toward his girlfriend as her legs disappeared through the
window in a sea of arms and faces, bloody and furious with
movement. He watched, frozen and numb, as the frenzied mob of
filth-covered monsters held his lover down and clawed open the skin
of her bare midriff, emptying her guts onto the dark, wet pavement
as her screams faded into choking whispers. He fell to his knees,
unleashing a shriek as a wet gush of crimson mist soaked his face.
He managed one last word.

“Baby?”

The arms and
hands and hungry teeth came crashing through the window, pulling
him under a tide of ruined humanity that ripped and shredded his
flesh. The moans of his agony disappeared just as quickly, as the
noise of flesh torn from bone and the spatter of blood and raw meat
splashing to the floor became secondary to the satisfied grinding
of teeth and smacking of undead lips.

The fat man’s
screaming finally failed him, and he stood in silent terror as the
scrambling arms and yowling mouths of the cursed mob made their way
into the café, absently leaving hunks of their own flesh hanging on
the shards of glass that framed the broken window like crystal
knives. Their eyes were filled with hunger in spite of the blood
and gory remnants of the young couple still smeared on their faces.
A low rumble overtook the groaning chorus of the ghouls and
expanded into a deafening roar. The fat man flinched as a blur of
red and white flashed through the shattered window and over the
crowd, landing almost soundlessly on top of several of the
creatures, crushing them beneath its weight. The tiger stood
majestic and hunched its massive shoulders forward, breathing a
mist of red fog from its wide nostrils and growling from the depths
of its chest. It stalked forward, stepping slowly, its dead eyes
milked over a filthy grey. The fat man's eyes rolled back into his
head as he collapsed in a bloody, silk heap on the floor and was
immediately set upon by the big cat. The tiger opened it's jaws and
clamped down, rearing its head and tearing an arm free of the
unconscious man; tendon, skin and purple silk tearing in unison.
The tiger threw its head back and roared at the ceiling, pictures
clattering from the wall as the terrible rumble filled the ears and
shook the bones of the old cowboy, still laying on the floor,
praying for strength and salvation with each whispered breath. The
tiger went back to its meal, rending flesh from the big mans chest
and sending a fresh cascade of blood showering into its face. The
rest of the putrid mob shambled past the broken windows, pausing as
if considering something, but none of them seemed to dare to
intrude on the beast as it fed.