The Way of All Flesh Read online

  THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

  By Tim Waggoner

  A Macabre Ink Production

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2017 Tim Waggoner

  Original publication by Samhain Publishing – April, 2014

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Tim Waggoner has published over thirty novels and three short story collections in the horror and urban fantasy genres. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. Visit him on the web at www.timwaggoner.com.

  NOVELS AND NOVELLAS

  A Kiss of Thorns

  Blade of the Flame 1: Thieves of Blood

  Blade of the Flame 2: Forge of the Mind Slayers

  Blade of the Flame 3: Sea of Death

  Cross County

  Dark Ages: Gangrel

  Dark War

  Darkness Wakes

  Dead Streets

  Defender: Hyperswarm

  Dream Stalkers

  Dying for It

  Ghost Town

  Ghost Trackers

  Godfire 1: The Orchard of Dreams

  Godfire 2: Heart’s Wound

  Grimm: The Killing Time

  The Harmony Society

  Lady Ruin

  Last of the Lycans

  Like Death

  Nekropolis

  Nekropolis: Dead Streets

  Nekropolis: Dead War

  Night Terrors

  A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protégé

  Pandora Drive

  Return of the Sorceress

  Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

  A Shadow Over Heaven’s Eye

  Stargate SG-1: Valhalla

  A Strange and Savage Garden

  Supernatural: Carved in Flesh

  Supernatural: Mythmaker

  Supernatural: The Roads Not Taken

  Temple of the Dragonslayer

  The Way of All Flesh

  xXx: Return of Xander Cage

  COLLECTIONS

  All Too Surreal

  Broken Shadows

  Bone Whispers

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  Visit us online

  Check out our blog and

  Subscribe to our Newsletter for the latest Crossroad Press News

  Find and follow us on Facebook

  Join our group at Goodreads

  We hope you enjoy this eBook and will seek out other books published by Crossroad Press. We strive to make our eBooks as free of errors as possible, but on occasion some make it into the final product. If you spot any problems, please contact us at [email protected] and notify us of what you found. We’ll make the necessary corrections and republish the book. We’ll also ensure you get the updated version of the eBook.

  If you’d like to be notified of new Crossroad Press titles when they are published, please send an email to [email protected] and ask to be added to our mailing list.

  If you have a moment, the author would appreciate you taking the time to leave a review for this book at the retailer’s site where you purchased it.

  Thank you for your assistance and your support of the authors published by Crossroad Press.

  Dedication

  For John Russo, Father of the Living Dead.

  THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Other books

  Chapter One

  He was walking at a steady, measured pace, as if he had somewhere to be but wasn’t in a hurry to get there. Exactly where that might be, he didn’t know. He wasn’t concerned about this lack of knowledge, though. He just kept putting one foot in front of the other, figuring that he’d know where he was going once he got there.

  There were some things he did know, however. His name, for one. David Croft.

  And as for where he was at the moment, he guessed somewhere downtown, based on the businesses he passed: Skyline Chili, Chipotle, Five Guys Burgers and Fries… But something wasn’t right. He was walking down the middle of the street, but no angry motorists were honking at him.

  There were cars, but none of them were moving. The vehicles sat empty, parked in front of buildings at awkward, haphazard angles, sometimes with a wheel or two over the curb, or they sat abandoned in the street, doors open, no sign of their owners. A number were dented in various places, windows cracked or broken out entirely, as if the vehicles had been in collisions.

  Even stranger, everything was old. Really old. The surface of the street was fissured with cracks and riddled with potholes. The paint of the street lines was worn almost completely away, and what little remained had faded almost to the point of invisibility. The cars were rust-eaten, tire rubber rotted and sloughing off rims. The buildings’ facades were shot through with cracks, their signs dingy and chipped, windows broken, the glass that remained dirt-streaked and clouded. Greenish-black growths—some large, some small—covered everything. The growths reminded David of bread mold, except wet and sticky looking.

  Other things were wrong too.

  The sky was a strange sour-yellow, like pus oozing from an infected wound. No clouds, no sun, just that noxious yellow. The light from the pus-sky made everything seem hazy, as if he were viewing the world through grease-soaked cloth. The air was flat, thick and stale, and it made him think of an attic that hadn’t been opened in decades. It had the same smell of dust, decay and long-empty hours. The sound of his footfalls was muffled, as if he walked in cotton-swaddled shoes. It’s like the air’s weary, he thought. Too tired to properly conduct sound.

  What had happened? Why had everything changed?

  Up to this point, he’d been emotionally disconnected, walking calm and uncaring, as if in a dream. But now he began to feel the first faint stirrings of panic. And it only got worse when he realized he had no idea what he’d been doing before he’d become aware that he was walking.

  “Maybe you are dreaming. Did you consider that?”

  The voice came from his left, and although it surprised him, he was still emotionally numb enough not to be startled by the way it cut the silence like a knife, or by the fact that the speaker seemed to have somehow read his thoughts.

  Without breaking stride, he looked to his left. Walking alongside him was a skinny teenage boy wearing a Megadeth T-shirt, faded jeans with frayed cuffs, and old running shoes that looked as if they might fall apart at any moment. He was of medium height, half a head shorter than David, with straight blond hair that hung past his shoulders. His hair was matted and greasy, as if he hadn’t washed it in a while, and the clumps of acne spread across his narrow, angular face also suggested a lack of basic hygiene.

  David frowned. There was something familiar about th
e kid. He thought maybe he knew him, but he couldn’t remember how. He wasn’t a friend of either of his children, David was certain of that. Both Steve and Lizzie were still in elementary school. Maybe the kid was someone David had once hired to work at Country Time Buffet. He’d been manager there for close to ten years. The majority of the employees were local high school and college kids, and there tended to be a high turnover rate. They might only work a few months, sometimes just a few weeks. They came and went so fast that after a while they tended to blur together in his mind. Still, David usually didn’t forget a name, and it irritated him that he couldn’t recall this boy’s.

  “I’m Simon,” the kid said, as if reading his mind once again.

  “I knew a Simon once.” His voice was raspy, and it was an effort to get the words out, as if he hadn’t spoken for a long time. But the words came easier as he continued, his voice sounding more and more natural. “His last name was…Milligan. He lived in the same neighborhood I did when I was a kid. He was a few years older, and he used to pick on me a lot. Once he followed me into the restroom at a McDonald’s and punched me in the stomach a couple times just for the hell of it. He had skinny arms like you, but he still put plenty of muscle into those punches.” He remembered trying to suck in gasps of air afterward, remembered the leaden ache in his gut. “You look a lot like him, but he’d be almost forty now. You can’t be him.”

  Simon smiled. “Didn’t say I was. So…where you headed?”

  “I…” He thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Just out walking, I guess.”

  Simon nodded as if what David had said made perfect sense. “Considering all the restaurants around here, I thought maybe you were looking for something to eat.”

  David started to say that he wasn’t hungry, but then he realized that he was. Extremely. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d been hungrier. It wasn’t just that his belly was empty. It felt like something gnawed at his stomach lining, something with long teeth and sharp nails, furiously biting and scratching as it tried to tear its way out of his gut. It was an awful, horrible feeling, and there was nothing David wanted more than to make it go away.

  He looked at the run-down, abandoned restaurants around them. Then he looked to Simon.

  “I don’t suppose you have anything to eat?”

  The young man shook his head. “Nope. Guess you’ll just have to keep searching.” He said this with a hint of a smile, his tone almost challenging.

  David felt distant, muted irritation, as if his emotions were encased in thick layers of ice. But the emotion was stronger than any he’d felt since he’d found himself walking down this street, and he suspected the ice was beginning to melt.

  They walked silently for a time, and although David was certain he’d never met Simon before—this Simon, anyway—he felt a kind of comfort at having the younger man at his side. It wasn’t that they were friends. How could they be if he didn’t know the guy? But having him here felt right somehow, as if this was the way things were supposed to be.

  There were questions he should be asking Simon: Who are you, exactly? Why does the town look so damn strange? Where the hell is everyone? Not that Simon would necessarily know the answers, but as there wasn’t anyone else around at the moment to ask, David figured the kid would be as good a person as any to start with. But he felt no pressing need to ask his questions.

  It’s like a dream, he thought. In dreams, the weirdest things could happen and you’d take them in stride. You didn’t question them, didn’t even think of doing so. It was kind of like that now. David knew things weren’t right, but that was okay. All he had to do was keep walking, and everything would get sorted out in due time. He had no logical reason to feel this way, he knew that, but sometimes a man had to operate on faith, he supposed. Besides, maybe this was a dream. It sure as hell didn’t resemble any reality he was familiar with.

  They continued down the street in companionable silence. They passed a Ben and Jerry’s, and David’s stomach cramped so hard it felt as if a giant fist were squeezing it to a pulp. He took in a hissing breath, slapped his hands to his abdomen, and doubled over. He’d had appendicitis in his early twenties, and his appendix had burst while his girlfriend at the time had been driving him to the hospital. That had hurt like a motherfucker, but it was nothing compared to the pain he was feeling now.

  David had stopped walking, and Simon stopped too. David, still doubled over, looked up at the younger man and saw him gazing back with cool dispassion.

  “Did you know that without mucus a human’s stomach would digest itself?” Simon said. “Bet that would hurt like shit, huh? But from the look of things, not as much as you’re hurting right now. You jonesing for a pint of Cherry Garcia or maybe some Chunky Monkey? Too bad the store’s closed. Too bad they’re all closed. You want to eat in this world, chief, you can’t just walk into a restaurant, whip out your debit card and order two of everything. You have to work for your meals now. More than that, you have to fight for them.”

  David was still bent over. His stomach hurt so fucking much he thought it might explode out his ass any second. Simon bent down until his mouth was close to David’s ear, and he whispered a question.

  “Are you a fighter, David?”

  David wanted to tell the kid to go fuck himself, but he couldn’t concentrate past the pain well enough to form words. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he heard the scrape of a shoe. At first he thought Simon was leaving—and he was surprised to discover how distressed this possibility made him feel. But then he heard whoever it was take a second step, then a third, and he realized the sound was coming from somewhere out in front of them. More than that, the footsteps were nothing like Simon’s. His running shoes made soft rubbery slaps on the asphalt. But these were shuffling, dragging footsteps, as if whoever made them had trouble raising their feet off the ground.

  Doing his best to ignore the agony ripping his guts apart, David opened his eyes and straightened.

  The Ben and Jerry’s sat on a corner, and a woman walked on the cross street ahead of them. She moved through the intersection slowly, feet dragging, arms hanging limp at her sides. She looked to be in her early twenties, had strawberry-blonde hair, pale skin, and piercings in her right eyebrow, nose and lower lip. She wore black slacks and a light-blue, short-sleeved shirt that displayed colorful, intricate tattoos on her arms. They were images of fish, David realized. Koi, from the look of it. He thought she might be a college student. The university wasn’t far from here. She didn’t turn to look at them as she made her way through the intersection. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, her head tilted slightly back, nostrils flaring as if she were following a scent.

  A small park was located on the other side of the street opposite Ben and Jerry’s, and the woman headed toward it. The park wasn’t very big: a couple acres of land, a few trees, a jogging track, and a small playground set consisting of swings and a slide. Everything was tainted by age and corruption—grass dead and dry, trees leafless husks, track broken and cracked, swings hanging by a single chain, slide eaten by rust, and everywhere patches of that ugly greenish mold.

  David wanted to call out to the woman, wanted to make her stop. Maybe she knew what was going on around here. Even better, maybe she had some food. He was so damn hungry! He inhaled, intending to shout, but as he breathed in he smelled something wonderful. Something delicious. Something so goddamned amazing that it was like every holiday meal he’d ever had in his life—Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter—combined into a single wondrous, beautiful, intoxicating smell.

  It was food.

  The pain in his gut eased. Not completely, just enough so it was no longer debilitating. He started walking toward the park, trailing the woman. He was dimly aware that Simon followed behind him, but the teenager’s presence barely registered in his consciousness. His mind was focused like a laser beam on a single goal: finding the source of that fantastic smell.

  As David entered the park,
he experienced a feeling of familiarity, as if he’d been here before. The feeling was so strong that for a moment it caused him to forget about the hunger tearing at his insides. Images and sound flashed through his mind. A boy and a girl, neither yet ten, playing on the swings—the equipment no longer broken and rusted, the grass around them green, the sky above them blue. The girl, the younger of the two, laughed as they swung in unison, the boy scowling and protesting loudly that his sister was copying him and he wanted her to stop. Lizzie, he thought. Steve.

  His stomach cramped anew, pain burning through his midsection like a red-hot spear. The agony drove the images from his mind, and he refocused his attention on the koi woman. She was heading for the playset, her pace increasing as she drew closer to it.

  There was a plastic bench nearby, a place for parents to sit and watch their offspring play. The bench wasn’t empty, though. A small cage sat on it, the kind of thing you’d get at a pet store to keep a hamster or gerbil in. There was something inside, some kind of animal, but it wasn’t alive. It had been cooked, skin crispy and golden brown, and it was the source of the delicious smell that had drawn him here. He couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was. Something small and lean, with not a lot of meat on it. But he didn’t care. It was food, and that was all that mattered.

  It seemed to be all that mattered to the woman too. She made a beeline for the bench, and David wondered if she was also experiencing overpowering hunger. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could be as hungry as he was—although up to now he could never have imagined that it was possible for anyone to feel like this. So utterly and profoundly empty, as if there were an entire universe of nothingness inside him screaming to be filled.

  “Looks like she beat you to the noms,” Simon said.

  David ignored him. The woman ran the last few yards to the bench, and she snatched hold of the cage with swift ferocity, as if she feared the small metal prison was alive and might escape if she didn’t get hold of it fast enough. She held the cage up to her face, nostrils greedily sucking in the meat’s delicious aroma.