Rob Thurman - Roadkill

“You wish,” Robin complained as he climbed out of the car behind us. Salome stretched out to take the space he’d freed up, not interested in playing this time. “That would be the dhampir you are thinking of. The mullo and the dhampir have become two legends when they are but one reality. The mullo are the dead, reanimated flesh, raised by a highly annoyed healer. I’d say Suyolak is the only reason the mullo ever existed to begin with as he is the only evil healer-an antihealer, I suppose-that I know of powerful enough to do it.” He had his sword out now as well. “The dhampir are said to be the offspring of a mullo and a human, born as a large pile of flesh as slick as mucus. How decorative. Just what one wants around the apartment. In actuality, the mullo and the dhampir are one and the same-a raised corpse, the decomposing flesh of which slides off its bones. It then becomes a giant predatory and quite smelly amoeba. It covers its victim’s faces, smothers them, and then, I assume that with its task complete, goes back to rotting while Suyolak has a nice laugh.”

“Oh, you have got to be shitting me,” I said in disbelief. I’d done sewers and revenants, insane asylums and mummies, mud pits and boggles, caves and trolls. Hell, I’d even done butterfly-winged spiders that filled you full of acid and sucked out your liquified organs. But an entire graveyard full of giant decomposing amoebas that wanted to suffocate me? “At least tell me they creep along the ground at the same pace as zombies in the old movies.”

Abelia’s lips curled in a smile both satisfied and malignant. “We paid your price. Now let us see you dance for that shiny penny.” She closed the door behind her as she went into the RV.

I guessed that would be a no. Decomposing and fast; what a combo. I slammed the trunk shut. “We should’ve brought the flamethrower.”

“Be realistic,” Niko reasoned. “How often do we honestly need a flamethrower?”

“Two,” I said blackly. “This would make two. Two makes it a regular habit from now on. At least on road trips.” I looked down the gravel road dimly lit by the car lights. “How many dead people with flesh still on them could be there anyway? There have to be other graveyards. This can’t be the only one.” That had to cut down on bodies Suyolak could use.

Niko was already moving down the road. “Dyer, Indiana, has a population of just over thirteen thousand. I can’t imagine there are more than three cemeteries or so.” Nik and his damn memory; he couldn’t pass a sign with some mildly pertinent knowledge without committing it to a brain cell. “I wouldn’t think they have a high daily, weekly, or even monthly death toll, except for today when Suyolak went past and those corpses won’t be buried yet. As for bodies still moist and gelatinous enough to slither about in this cemetery, I suppose it all depends on how skilled the embalmer was.”

“Thanks for that,” I said, following behind him. “That didn’t make me want to barf at all.” Delilah loped ahead of us, tired of our careful pace. The path was lined with old trees, pines, looming enough to dim the car headlights further. The smell was sharp and fresh in the air.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t. “Does your work of fighting the rotting dead conflict with stuffing an entire bag of orange puffy chemicals down your throat in less than a minute?”

Before I had a comeback in defense of what I’d formerly believed to be the perfect food, I watched the ground erupt to one side of us. It was a man, a dead one, clawing himself out of his own grave. It was like a monster movie come to life, almost as if we were watching late-night television rather than something true and real directly before us. He kept digging until he was all the way out and swaying, his eyes and mouth stitched shut, his best Sunday suit covered with large stains of decay and rot.

Abelia had insinuated they were fast, but this one wasn’t. We could’ve cut him down before he managed to make it out all the way into open air, but… damn… this was our first semizombie. Of course, it wasn’t a zombie at all, not actually, but it was something you didn’t see every day, in our dark world included, and sometimes you had to let your curiosity get the best of you. This was B-movie legend. I’d seen this a hundred times on TV and in the occasional video game when I was younger. I’d enjoyed watching a good zombie throw down then-who didn’t? I wasn’t enjoying this one, but neither was I as wary or prepared as I should’ve been. What happened next showed me that.

The thing stood for a moment, wavering, and then the flesh literally fell off its bones, which did nothing good for its already compromised suit and did even less for my stomach. The rotting flesh continued to pool around the feet, wave after wave, before finally extruding hungry, mottled-green feelers in the air. Okay, that … that was not right. The skeleton, along with some stringy ligaments and cartilage left behind, abruptly collapsed with the suit, and I lost my taste for zombie movies just like that. A shambling zombie was one thing; a running zombie was not bad either, but zombie Jell-O I could do without.

And when a mass of putrid flesh dropped from the nearest tree to race across the ground on hundreds of tendrils, wrap around me, and climb to cover my head, neck, and shoulders while we were distracted watching the other show, that cinched the no- zombie thing for good. It happened in about two seconds. Abelia was right. It was so incredibly quick that I barely saw it; I only got a flash of what it looked like. It must’ve been only fairly fresh. It was still mainly flesh colored, spotted here and there with dull green and moist gray. One closed eye slid across it as it moved. How it sensed me, I didn’t know or much have the time to care. It still smelled strongly of chemicals-embalming fluid-not that it covered the stink of rot. Rot against my nose, my mouth-everywhere; it wouldn’t have to suffocate me. I’d choke on the stench first as it pressed closer against my face, wrapping even more tightly around my head.

I dropped the machetes. It wasn’t as if I could chop my own head off to get rid of this thing. I ripped at it with my hands. If Niko was calling my name, I didn’t hear as moist pulp filled my ears. He could’ve been under attack as well. I didn’t know. I continued to rip at the hood of skin and meat over my head. My fingers slid through it with a sickening lack of leverage. How do you fight putrescent pudding from Hell? You can claw and claw and never catch hold.

It wasn’t coming off. Jesus, it wasn’t coming off. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get it off and I couldn’t breathe.

But I could leave.

I pushed out blindly, because if he could be there, he would be there. I pushed once and hit nothing; twice and struck a hard form. Niko. I knew he’d be doing what he could if he could shake off any attackers of his own. I shoved again and let myself fall backward away from him at the same time to give myself space and not take part of him. I didn’t want to take a Nik fingertip, thumb, or entire hand through with me when I went. That wouldn’t be good-not good at all. As I fell, I made the gate around me, something that clung to my skin this time that I welcomed.

And then I was back in the car with small pieces of corpse in my hair and one or two sliding down my face. I vaulted back out, wiping them off with a hurried hand, and ran back up the road, promising myself a chance to yak up Cheetos-the perfect food no more-far and wide when this was over. I saw Niko ahead chopping my personal graveyard amoebas to smaller and more-manageable pieces. There was no martial arts skill required there; only butchery. The mullo was fast, but it-or Suyolak-had been taken off guard by my disappearing act. It slithered back and forth in confusion, still trying to find me. Niko wasn’t one to let an opportunity to fillet an opponent get away. “Are you all right?” he asked as he stamped his boot on one wriggling piece to hold it in place while he finished a damn fine filleting job on the rest of it.