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Eat the Food

Part one Feast!

By Michael J PenningtonPublished 5 years ago 24 min read
1

Eat the Food: Part one Feast

By Michael J Pennington Learning Disabled Author

The small ballroom was filled to the brim. Close to a hundred people packed themselves into that room It was a pretty exclusive event. Everyone dressed in their finest. The room was decorated with royal blue curtains with gold trimming. The tables were solid oak no table clothes, big circular tables that could seat almost a dozen people. Sitting at a table near the wall farthest from the stage was Will and his Wife. Will look at his elegantly dressed wife. Red satin, and backless to boot. It was rare to see Alice in a dress. Which just showed how much she wanted to be here. She was a fan of Peter Chao.

Peter Chao was the host of Good Chow! With Peter Chao. He was famous for his unusual but tasty food. Using ingredients most Americans wouldn't eat. Like his ant and grasshopper bisque. Or his eyeball bread pudding. Most steer clear of his unusual cuisine, but many were fans of the show nonetheless. His die-hard fans bravely ate anything he made. To reward them, he invited one hundred of his greatest fans to come and sample his greatest creation.

"Nervous?" asked Alice. Her face was aglow with excitement and perhaps just a hint of mischief. Her dark hair graced her face ever so slightly, bringing out the color in her cheeks. Her violet eyes seemed to sparkle in the light. Contacts of course, but beautiful.

"Maybe a little," said Will as he gave his best fake smile. Alice was not fooled. His bow tie was a bit tight. His suit fits him well, but the tie was borrowed. He didn't like suits either. The fact that he put it on for her and was here at all probably meant he was getting lucky later. It didn't hurt that he looked absolutely yummy in his suit with his short hair and goatee.

The lights went dim and Chao came right on stage no introduction. He waited patiently for the applause to die down. "Hello! I'll be your chef tonight. I'm Peter Chao!" he said proudly in TV show host style. This brought him more applause, but he kept talking. "Many might be mistaken to think we are here to celebrate me. That couldn't be further from the truth. You are the ones who deserve celebration. That is why I made this special dish for you." As he spoke the applause died down and servers brought covered plates to everyone.

Will reach for his cover, but the server stopped him. "Please wait for Chao," he said.

"Has everyone gotten plates?" asked Chao.

The crowd answered "yes" in unison.

"Okay on the count of three," said, Peter. "Remove your lid and put the food in your mouth. You won't be sorry. One! Two! Three!"

As he said three the sounds of covers being removed from all over the room could be heard as many including Alice did exactly as they were instructed. She only caught a glimpse of it as she picked it up and put it in her mouth; some kind of sushi. As the blob of food hit her tongue it felt and tasted awful, like it was wriggling in her mouth. The taste was that of dead flesh mixed with bitter vinegar.

"Swallow! Swallow-swallow-swallow!" commanded Peter impatiently.

So Alice did what she was told, despite the objection of her gag reflex. The distasteful food wriggled down her throat and seemed to crawl down to her stomach. "I'm going to be sick!!!" she said. But she felt better now the food was in her stomach, and the nasty aftertaste seemed to fade. She seemed to remember a warm citrus flavor.

Will had gotten only as far as picking up the nasty entry which smelled like dead rotting flesh, but dead was the last thing it was. It looked like a piece of a tentacle, and it was squirming between his fingers. It even seemed to grow a few more tiny tentacles. It was when the thing opened to reveal some kind of weird eyeball that Will dropped it. He looked around to see many looking disgusted and like they wanted to puke. None did. A few tried to spit out the food but they were unsuccessful; only those who didn't eat the food were spared the disgusting experience.

Seeing a few not eat his entry, Peter tried to convince them to eat. "You must eat the food, I swear it's the aftertaste that I want you to experience." But the many cries of disgust had convinced will not put that thing in his mouth. "Please just try it you'll like it." Seeing that wasn't working he began to cry and to beg. "Please eat it! Eat it! Look if you don't eat it you will turn into a monster! I'm not crazy! Please eat it now!" But it was too late, he felt very hot and fell over on stage.

Group A.

As Peter was talking Will begin to feel like he was burning up; he felt a sudden urge to retch and vomited all over his plate. He then collapsed on his plate.

Will awoke in a pool of dry vomit, the sun shining through the skylights in the ceiling. Sitting in front of him was the weird sushi thing that Peter wanted him to eat. It had seemed to have died turning black and sticky. Somehow worse than being covered in his own dry vomit, Will was covered in a black tar-like sticky web. He stood up and pulled the tar off his face and stood up, doing his best to remove as much of the black sticky substance from himself. He looked around and saw the whole room was just as he was. All of them were unconscious on the table or floor. His thoughts turned instantly to his wife.

She was collapsed on the table beside him. He put his hand on her back; perhaps he could wake her. She reacted to his touch instantly, jerking to a sitting position and looking at him. Her face looked dead and rotting, but there were diseased patches tool. Dark festering boils. Her eyes were very stark, one violet and the other her usual brown with black veins inside. The putrefied thing that was once his wife looked at him and screeched a horrible sound. It woke all the other corpses. It also awoke the few remaining people.

"What the hell!" cried a man as he woke to the festering zombies sounding him.

Another man close by waved at him to get his attention. "Here take this!" as he threw Will a gun and will turn it on the wall of zombies in front of him

"Oh my god!" cried Peter. He was on stage, as he saw the man who was surrounded get eaten by the zombies. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What the fuck is this!?" The screaming drew the attention of the zombies.

Will called out to the man who gave him the gun, "We got to get to Peter! He knows what's going on!" The two of them used a staircase near them to get onto to the stage. Will grabbed Peter and helped him up. "Come on!" he shouted.

The three of them made it to the backstage area. The zombies were following. Behind the stage was an emergency door. They went through it into an alley, closing the door and securing it with a pipe. The man who gave Will the gun said, "I'm Sam."

The door gave a jolt and they looked around real fast. There was a fire escape. "Up!" said Sam. They climbed up the fire escape. When they got to the roof of the building, they were able to look out at the world around them. As the sun was setting they saw a far different world from the one they knew. The buildings were dilapidated, the power was out and in the streets below they could see the zombies wandering the street. It was the zombie apocalypse.

Group B.

Alice watched as her husband collapsed in a pool of his vomit. "Will?" she said, reaching out to him, but she stopped as lone tentacle seemed to grow out of his back through his shirt. Alice heard screams she looked over in the middle of the crowd another man was also growing tentacles but it seemed like a monster was crawling out of him. It was also happening to Peter Chao on stage and another man not far.

Alice looked back to her husband; as a spider shedding its husk, a strange tentacled creature crawled out of her husband. It was a filthy brown color with multiple limbs; it had no head but there seemed to be a closed eye near the top. It had feet, if you can call them that, lower appendages that resembled claws, but it seemed to walk on them. As Alice watched it opened its eye, the largest of its tentacles had a mouth on the side and it gave an awful hiss. Alice shrieked in terror.

People moved away from it as it jumped to the person close to it, strangling them. It seemed to grow in size as it began attacking people. There was another one nearby, and they joined together forming a larger monster. Alice heard a terrible screeching noise; she looked back and it seemed someone had found an ax and killed the one in the middle of the room.

The now conjoined monster ran to the stage to combine with the one that crawled out of Peter Chao on stage. The creature then ran backstage. The sound of metal tearing could be heard. No one followed.

"What are these things?" asked a man standing over the corpse of the creature.

Group A.

Sam set upon Peter with rage. He grabbed his collar and asked him, "What was in that food?"

Peter was perfectly calm as he spoke. "It was the eggs of an eel pickled in a mix of pig urine and vinegar 'til they began to fester. Then they were then added to a mix of bat guano, maggots, and blood of goats. Some rituals changed the nature of the egg and made them susceptible to being changed into something else. Rotting flesh of the giant squid was added to them and they became the larva of an ancient demon monster. I performed a cleansing ritual on them. They were supposed to protect the people who ate them."

"That's disgusting," said Will, thinking he might vomit again.

"It's not very good at protecting people, it turned them into zombies," said Sam.

"I don't know what went wrong," said Peter. "I didn't have all the ingredients. It calls for Gorgon blood and the rotting flesh of a Kraken."

"You made substitutions," said Sam.

"I had too!" said Peter. "I had uncovered an ancient tome called the black cookbook. Or at least I think that was the translation. It warned of the coming of great evil and the only way to stop it was to get one-hundred people to eat this dish."

"How do you know this book wasn't lying?" asked Will. "Maybe that is why it turned those people... my wife."

"I'm sorry," said Peter. "I didn't know..."

"Well, that is just great, asshole!" said Sam. Putting his gun to Peter's head.

"No!" said Peter.

"Don't!" said Will.

"Don't tell me what to do!" said Sam. "He's responsible!"

"I'm not telling you what to do," said Will. "But he's the only one who knows something! We might need him."

"Fine," said Sam. "The Noob lives." He put his gun down. He turned to Will. "Name's Sam. I'm a cop."

"Will. I'm between jobs," he said. "My wife made money. Real Estate."

"You're a Goddamn house husband?" asked Sam.

"Yeah," said Will.

"Well, Will the house husband," said Sam. "It looks like we are Zombie Apocalypse partners."

"I'm not ready for this," said Will.

Sam laughed for what seemed like a long time. "I am! I'm a goddamn doomsday prepper. I never really believed in the zombie apocalypse shit, but they say if you prepare for that. You are prepared for anything. I've got a bunker, food, guns, a generator. We could last five years without even poking so much as a toe above ground."

"So where is this bunker?" asked Will.

Sam pointed to the west. "Three thousand miles that way. The goddamn zombie apocalypse happened while I was on vacation."

"So what's our first move?" asked Will.

"We get to Trip's car. He was my friend I was visiting, zombie now. He's got guns and ammo. We were going hunting tomorrow," said Sam.

They slept on the roof, then headed out in the morning. They made it to Sam's friend's car. They broke in and inside they found guns and ammo. Sam took charge of an AR-15, Will got a shotgun, and Sam insisted that Peter only had a pistol. The other assortment of guns were mostly rifles for hunting went in a duffel bag. Sam made Peter carry it.

Sam didn't have the keys to Trip's car, so they made it over to Will's car. The tank was full but the car would not turnover. The zombies had managed to find the front door and were coming out.

"Don't waste Ammo!" said Sam. "Shoot when you have to."

"We got to go." They made it into an adjacent alleyway. They easily outran the zombies. Sam and Will did. Peter struggled with the heavy gun bag. Will went back to help him. Still, they seemed to have plenty of time.

"Why are zombie apocalypse movies so scary?" asked Will.

"Speak for yourself!" said Peter as he panted heavily.

"Shut up Peter! They're scary when the heroes get cornered," said Sam. "When the zombies are around you, and there is no way out. You thought they were scary last night didn't you?"

Will had to think about it. "Yeah. What's the next move?"

"Food," said Peter.

"Shut up Peter!" said Sam.

"He's right," said Will. "I'm starving."

Sam looked out and around the end of the alley, there was a supermarket down the way. "This way!" he said. They made their way to the supermarket. It was mostly empty. They killed the zombies. Then they looked at the food in the store. The fruits and vegetables were all rotted. The meat had spoiled a long time ago, but it looked worse than spoiled. All the meat seemed to move like the food that Peter made.

They tried the dry food aisle, but no luck there either. The dry food was no longer dry. The rot had made it soggy and it soaked its box.

They checked the canned food next. Sam had a can opener and opened a can of corn. Will used it to open a can of spam. Neither was free of the rot.

"Is someone there?" cried a voice. The three men froze for a moment.

"What happened here?" said another voice. "Why is all the food gross?"

Sam peeked around the corner. He saw them and he motioned the others towards the voices. They looked out to see two women standing in the middle of the store. "Hey!" called Sam. "Look out!" Behind them was a zombie; it began to move after them.

"What the fuck is that Jackie?" asked one.

The girl who was Jackie pulled out her pepper spray. "It's one of those fucking pranks!" she said holding the spray at the zombie. "Look asshole! If you don't want a face full of this you will stop now!"

The zombie didn't stop. She used her spray on it. No effect. "Jackie! I don't think that's a prank," said the other girl as she was backing up. She was taller with short red hair. Jackie was shorter and had long brown hair.

As the zombie got close Jackie produced an asp, a small collapsible weapon. With a flick of her wrist, she extended it. "You asked for it!" she said taking a swing at the monster. The asp hit with good force in the jaw of the zombie, knocking its lower jaw off. "What the fuck?" she said in confusion. The Zombie was undeterred and grabbed her. It couldn't bite her so it just grabbed onto her and they tumbled to the floor. Jackie tried to get it off as its lower jaw bled all over her. A loud bang ended the fight as the zombies head exploded.

Jackie looked up to see Sam holding the gun that he just killed the zombie she was fighting with. "Sorry," he said. "I honestly thought you had that."

After pushing the corpse off herself, she stood up and said, "I did."

"Sorry," said Sam.

"Hi, I'm Alex, and what my friend Jackie was trying to say was thank you," said the redhead. "What is going on?"

Will said, "You are not going to believe me when I tell you this..."

"Don't tell me it's the zombie apocalypse!" said Jackie.

"Well, what do you fucking call that?" asked Sam pointing his gun at the dead zombie. "A leper on bath salts?" They didn't realize it, but someone was watching the conversation.

Jackie was silent.

"How did this happen?" asked Alex.

"Well, this asshole here apparently got a recipe for cursed hors d'oeuvres from the fucking Necronomicon of cookbooks!" said Sam pointing at Peter.

"It's true," said, Peter. "It is all my fault."

"I don't fucking believe this!" said Jackie.

"Well, what do you remember?" asked Will.

Jackie motioned to the uniforms that she and Alex were wearing. "We were working. Stocking the shelves. Then we fell asleep. When we woke everything was gross. Then you people and that zombie showed up."

"Say what is wrong with all the food?" asked Will.

"Rot," said a new voice. Everyone turned to see a steely-eyed man standing behind them. He was wearing a dusty old trench coat. His eyes were empty and cold but they couldn't help but feel compelled. "That's what I call it. It's affected nearly all food everywhere. You'll have to forgive my dramatic entrance. You can call me Colt."

Group B.

"What are these things," said a man standing over the corpse of the one creature that was killed before the other joined and left out through the stage.

Almost immediately after, the front door burst open. Armed troops rushed in. They were in black and well-armored but they were not cops. "Nobody move!" they kept shouting. Everyone put their arms up. A man walked into the room his gaze like steel. Cold and penetrating. He demanded respect.

"My name is Colt!" said the man. "I'm here to secure the area, as of right now you are all under quarantine."

"What!?" said a man in outrage. "We have jobs! We have lives! We have..."

Colt interrupted the man by screaming over him. "You have been exposed to an unknown contagion and could be infectious! What is going to happen to your job when you vomit toxic blood on your boss?! Or you children when you develop an uncontrollable urge for flesh?! What is going to happen to your precious lives when you are the reason they come to a screeching halt?!"

"I'll take my chances," said the man.

"I won't!" said Colt removing his gun and pointing it at the man.

The man stared at the gun for a moment. "You are full of shit! Where are the hazmat suits?!" He walked past Colt. "I'm walking out of here. If you're going to shoot, do it!" He walked right up to the door, Colt kept his gun trained on him the whole time. As the man put his hand on the door to push it open Colt's finger which had been resting on the trigger guard slid to the trigger.

"Colt!" cried, Alice.

"Okay!" said Colt. "We're not part of the government. We don't know what happened out there. Monsters everywhere, people have gone missing in record numbers like it's the fucking rapture! The people we are lucky enough to find are confused. It's best to try and get them someplace safe then break them in."

They heard a noise outside. The man at the door ran outside. Alice, Colt and a few others followed them. "My car!" said the man as he witnessed the monster tear apart his vehicle. It jumped over to another car. Alice recognized it as hers. The monster tipped it over and then ran down an Alleyway.

"We have to get off the street," said Colt. Nobody was sure why but they followed Colt and his men. As they moved through the city they saw the world much as Colt described. Monsters roamed the streets and people did not. The world was quiet in a disturbing way, there was an awful tension as the quiet of hunter and prey screamed all around them.

Group A:

Colt promised food, they had to follow. As he led them he explained, "When the Rot first showed up, I was the only one not affected, as far as I could tell. Zombies were everywhere, but a few people stayed dead. Or I assumed. I thought it was a little weird that the ones that didn't become zombies, but I never made the connection. It's only been recent that those survivors started waking up. "

"There are others?" asked Will.

"I hope," said Colt. "You're the first ones I've managed to reach before..." He didn't continue. The group was silent for a while.

He led them into a hospital. Down through the dark, He flashed his light around. "Something about these incubators keeps the rot out." He had rigged a generator in the room.

"I can't help but notice the dead nurse outside," said Sam. "You get many zombies down here?"

"A few," said Colt. "I haven't had a run-in this deep in a while." Colt proceeded to hand out the few things of food he had. It wasn't much, just a few cans of spam and some individual packages of chips, but it seemed a feast to the hungry crew.

Peter, who had been quiet since Colt had shown up, was eating his bag of chips when he began to realize something. He looked carefully at the chip he was eating. "Eat up," said Colt. "You need your strength."

"No!" said Peter dropping the chip and backing away from Colt. He was making his way to the exit.

"What's the wrong Peter?" asked Alex.

"Guys listen to me!" said, Peter. "I know what is going on! I'm so stupid!" he cried.

"Peter, look out..." cried Jackie.

They were all so focused on Peter that they didn't notice the zombie creeping in the door. He backed right into her and she sunk her teeth into his throat. Peter screamed in horror as she dragged him out through the doorway to a mob of hungry ghouls. They were too preoccupied ripping into his flesh to notice the others.

Sam was the first to act. He ran to the door and slammed it shut. "Will! Colt! Get me something heavy!"

Will looked around for Colt. "Where's Colt?"

"Never mind that!" said Sam now fighting against the horde of zombies at the door.

"The table!" said Alex. Will grabbed one side while Jackie and Alex grabbed the other together; they scooted it over to the door. They managed to block the door without crushing Sam. It seemed to be holding, the only problem: the only entrance to the room was blocked.

They looked around for Colt; he was nowhere to be seen, but there was a vent and it was open. "Up there!" said Alex. "Looks like a way out."

They began to move toward the vent, but then Will heard a voice.

Group B:

Colt and his men only engaged if they had to. Only when monsters attacked them directly. Or as he explained if they felt they had a good chance of rescuing a victim. Colt and his men had made a police station their home. Its fortifications made a good place to stay. It had a few entrances so it was easy to watch. Alice and the others stayed there while Colt insisted they train, and they taught them to fight. Soon Alice and the man who she came to know as Trip went on their first mission.

Search and rescue. Colt said he heard of possible survivors in a nearby hospital. It was a good starter mission for her and Trip. Colt was going, and he had three of his veterans going too. They made their way to the hospital.

In the darkness of the hospital, Colt led the way. "We've been scavenging for a while. Some places are different. We would hear voices."

"Voices?" asked Alice.

"Yeah," said Tim one of Colt's veterans. "Like people talking in another room. You could tell there was a conversation, but you couldn't make any of it out."

"Well, people started showing up in places we heard the voices," said Colt. "It was like the world hadn't changed for them. They didn't realize they were in danger."

"So that's why you constructed the cock and bull quarantine story?" asked Tripp.

"I'm open to suggestions," said Colt.

"So you think the survivors are going to show up here?" asked Alice.

"There is an electromagnetic disturbance associated with their appearance. We've learned how to track them. It gets really strong when they get close to showing up. We haven't been there for an event but we're getting closer," said Tim.

The lights came on. "Bingo!" said Colt.

They made their way to the maternity ward, but they were too late. Some babies did show up, but a monster had made it there first. "Damn!" said Colt in a hushed voice. "Can't save them! Abort the mission."

Seeing the hulking monster ravage the corpses of the babies lit a fire inside Alice. She couldn't watch anymore. She was holding a shotgun in her hands and she began to creep towards the monster.

"Alice!" whispered Colt. "Stand down!" Alice didn't listen to Colt's calls. She crept up behind the monsters and blasted it with her shotgun. The blast of the shotgun completely tore off one of its tentacles. The monster reacted to the wound in panic and it swung wildly with one of its other arm, knocking Alice out the door...

The tentacle she had blasted off had landed on her feet, and she had a brief moment to notice that it had a mouth on it. She realized that mouth was made of human teeth. She didn't understand the significance of it.

The monster had blocked the door with something, but there was a viewing window into the room Alice ran over to the window. The monster had removed a ventilation cover, but it was the reflection of the glass that caught her attention. The monster was the weird creature she had seen before, she was sure of it, even though it was dripping with blood. However, in the reflection, she saw her husband. "Will?!" she called to him.

Reflections:

Will heard his wife's voice. He looked at the glass and saw his wife's zombie. Her face dripping with Peter's blood. For she was the one that got to him first. What was she doing here? "Alice?" he asked.

"It's me!" said Alice.

"You're a zombie," said Will.

"What?" asked Alice. "Look at the reflection of the glass!" she said.

Will look at the glass and he saw his wife in the mirror, the way he remembered her, and they made eye contact. "I see you," he said putting his hand on the glass. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think you were still in there..."

"From my perspective, you look like some weird tentacle monster," said Alice.

"You ate Peter!" said Will.

"You ate babies!" said Alice.

"I don't understand," said Will.

"Neither do I..." said Alice.

"We got to go!" said Sam. Pulling Will away from the glass.

Will followed him and the others. Before leaving he looked back at his wife and said, "I'll find a way to help you!"

End Part One.

fiction
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About the Creator

Michael J Pennington

Yikes! Another bio, I'm not into this self-promotional stuff, I'm happier just writing my books and short stories. Really I'm looking to transition my obsession into some kind of income so I can keep doing it. I write so I can write more.

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