Chapter 17

                Tony DeFloure

                Avondale, Cincinnati, Ohio

                Even though my entire life has been one horrible experience after another, at the time it happened I still didn’t want the world to end. People thought their life was rough because they were bored.  Hah. Suck a few dicks for crack and then see if being bored is that bad of a thing. Those people were idiots and I hope they are all fucking dead. Fat asses that don’t exercise and live on Mountain Dew Code Red were not meant to survive in post-apocalyptic America, but then hell I wasn’t either. As a heroin addict I never expected to make it much longer anyways. I caught HIV a few years ago from a dirty needle and without the money for treatment it quickly turned into full blown AIDS. My only goal was to live out my last few years in a drug induced haze when everything changed.

Dumb fucking luck is the reason I am still alive, but I was still pissed at those lazy entitled fucks who fantasized about world ending. To be completely honest, I was pissed at everyone else too, so I guess it was wrong to single them out. Still, if I found anyone that liked those world ending comic books and stories, I killed them. And then ate them. Being an equal opportunity cannibal, I decided to murder everyone else as well.

*****

                It all started when I woke after on the dirty floor of a living room after shooting up some black tar heroin. That purple shit came down from the sky and everyone was freaking out. The guy who lived there, an asshole named Joel, kicked me awake to see it. I am sure he probably thought he was doing the right thing by getting me up to see the start of the apocalypse, but it just made me mad. I had to wipe my bloodstained eyes to get the crud that had accumulated out of my vision as we both looked out of his apartment window. My mouth tasted like a cat had shit in it while I was out, and I was getting a headache from staring at the weird light that seemed to be lowering over the world like a closing curtain. Joel was flat freaking out, but I was tired of this shitty  life anyways so I just wanted to get stoned.

                My whole life at this point was focused on staying right. I had made stupid decision a few years ago to switch to the harder drugs my so called friends were using, and it had devastated what remained of my miserable existence. Having tried everything, from crack to pills, my drug of choice was currently heroin. My body was dependent on it from my constant use and if it did not get a fix each day it would betray me. The get clean programs tell you to just say no to drugs. All you have to do is stop using. It’s sooooo easy, just have some will power. I tried that, didn’t take. After about 12 hours the shakes would start. At 18 hours I began enduring body cramps, switching extremes of chills and sweats before it really got bad. When I started throwing up and shitting on myself I gave up. When you’re going to die soon anyways, it’s tough to stay motivated.

                Death, the great nothingness, would could not be that bad. I would really prefer to stay alive. Even a being as pathetic as me strove to stay above ground. It just sometimes seemed like it was not worth the effort.

                From what I can remember my father started abusing me when I was around five or six. Most of the memories are not to clear, but the worst bits tended to stay with me. It started with some excessive washing. Even though I told him that I was big enough to take my own baths, he insisted on watching, and helping me wash. He would rub me excessively, and then ask if it felt good. I don’t remember if it did or not, but the pressure he put on me to say yes made me tend to do so. Children want to please their parents and I was no different. It advanced from me “washing” him, to him forcing me to rub on his hard cock until he finished during our “showers” together. The abuse eventually escalated to oral and then anal sex. The blood on my underwear was finally noticed by one of the teachers at school when I was ten, and after a meeting with the school councilor the cops were called.

                I knew something was wrong when it was happening but was just too frightened to tell anyone. When I mentioned to my mom that dad was hurting me, she would just yelled at me. She seemed to yell at me a lot, for pretty much anything. When I was older people would describe her as being extremely bi-polar. From what I have read, she should have occasionally had good days. I never saw them though, she was just full of anger all the time.

                She got worse after the cops came and took my father away in handcuffs. Mom did not work and had relied upon dad to feed her various drug addictions. She started physically abusing me shortly after he left, blaming me for him leaving. What kind of fucked up shit is that, my mom was mad at me for being molested. Fucking cunt. She told me that everything was my fault, and she was my mom so I believed her.

Mom ended up overdosing when I was around 13 and with no family around they put me in the system. I went through a few different homes, some of them having up to eight other foster kids living there, before I started running away. I was a messed up kid, and had a hard time adjusting anyways. Besides, I tended to get kicked around in the system a lot because of my fucked up sexual tendencies. Hey assholes, my daddy taught me that playing with a dick was showing love, and no one told me it was wrong until too late. Dealing with other system kids who were just as fucked up as me didn’t help me along, as most of them played the same way I did.

After the 8th grade I ended up on the street. As bad as it was, it just seemed better then dealing with the system. I ate food from dumpsters, ran drugs for local dealers, and occasionally exchanged sex for a roof over my head when I had to. I started to mature a little and decided that this shit was only temporary. These actions were necessary to survival, and I when I got older, it would all get better. I would change and be successful. I would be the person I was meant to be.

                Only it never changed. Malnourished I never grew and was continuously weak and abused. I had any true companions, as addicts don’t have friends. They only have their circle. The people they knew and conspire with to feed their needs. So at 19 years old, skinny as a rail, having just been fucked by some creepy forty year old white guy named Joel in his apartment for a shot of heroin, I was kicked awake too look at some purple shit that I didn’t care about. Fuck my life.

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                Joel was normally just my fence and dealer. I didn’t like doing it with dudes, so my preferred method of payment for the drugs was stolen property. Joel had been repeatedly lowering the prices on me for the stuff I had been bringing by recently. Joel had been taking advantage of addicts like me for years and must have recognized I was more desperate that normal. He had offered me a quarter of what he normally gave for a Playstation 2 and told me to fuck off when I asked for more. I did not have time make another arrangement and reluctantly agreed to his second more lurid offer.

                I got the fucker back though, he didn’t wear a rubber.

Special occasion and all, I asked Joel for another fix but he ignored me. Turning on the TV, I started flipping through the channels until he came over and snatched the remote away. The news showed madness and mayhem all over the world. The light through the open window started to burn our skin and he lowered the blinds. I didn’t like that though, the burn just felt right to me. It felt cleansing, like it was purifying my body, the proverbial washing away of my sins. Feeling the need for space, I went to the bathroom and stood in front of the window soaking the light in. My headache started to go away and I felt good. I wanted to fight, fuck, get stoned, whatever. The need do something, anything, was just overwhelming.

                I rarely looked into mirrors due to what they showed. The reflection in the bathroom showed only my shoulders and up due to my diminutive height. At 5”3’, my frame was a result abuse and lack of proper food. On the disturbing side of skinny, my emaciated frame only weighed in at 95 pounds soaking wet. My face was pock marked and scarred from childhood acne and fighting with other bums over the right to sleep over a warm vent. Sighing as I turned away, I left and returned to the living room with an idea.

                Seeing Joel still on the couch I approached him and sat on his lap like a good little bitch. I didn’t enjoy it, but I knew how to play the game. I was into girls. They were all soft, squishy and smelled delicious. But a junkie as far gone as me had little to offer the fairer sex. Screwing a guy just was not very fun. They were rough, stinky and crude. Plus taking it up the butthole at my size was just painful, although I did not mind it when the other guy was on the receiving end. A warm hole was a warm hole after all. It also gave me a since of power when I fucked someone else. It was the only time I felt in control of my life. Those situations were few and far between though. There were plenty pitch to a pathetic wretch like me, but not many welling to catch.

                “Hey baby, do you mind giving me some more. I’ll work it off.” I told him.

                “The world is ending Tony. Shut the fuck up, I am watching this.” He didn’t kick me off his lap though, so maybe there was still an opportunity to score a fix.

                Preparing for more drastic measures, I got down on my knees in front of him and began rubbing at his crotch for a while. He started to get hard so I went to unzip his pants and he backhanded me for my efforts. He yelled at me as sat back and wiped the blood from my mouth.

“Faggot piece of shit.” His face was red with anger as he cursed. He stood and kicked me in the ribs as I lay there, knocking the air from my lungs. Gasping like a fish, I was unable to move while he continued to berate me. A detached part of my mind knew the beating was coming when he started to call me a fag. My shitty path through life has put me in this situation before. Sometimes it’s not that bad. This time it was.

I could not tell how much time had passed when I finally woke up completely naked. It was long enough that some of the minor cuts had died up, but a large one on my forehead was still seeping. One of my eyes was swollen shut and the open one was blurry. I apparently got fucked while unconscious and my asshole was on fire. My body was starting to shake a bit from lack of dope, and the pain was coming if I did not get some in me soon. It was a testament to my fucked up life that I was more worried with scoring dope than being beaten unconscious and raped.

Fuck my life.

It felt like I was breathing fire, and I was sure some of my ribs were busted. It would take me months to recover from this, if ever. No ambulance would be coming for a homeless junkie with everything happening right now. Joel had fucked me in more than the carnal sense. These injuries would be my death. I lived on the streets. There was no way I was going to live through the chaos happening now with these serious injuries. Screw it, the world could burn if only I could get fantastically high. I was going to steal the rest of his stash and shoot it all in me. It was time to put an end to this joke that people called life.

 I crawled over to where Joel was passed out on the couch with a needle in his arm. I tried to get the rest the white stuff from his pocket but he woke up and pushed my hand away. I got mad. The least that motherfucker could do right now is let me get right. The news played in the background and I watched people killing each other in the streets. In front of the TV on a ratty coffee table sat a dirty plate with the remains of Joel’s dinner. The steak knife on it almost glowed in my vision. I looked over and saw Joel’s eyes were closed again when the homicidal urge hit me.

The need kill gave me the motivation needed to struggle my crippled body into position. Taking the knife, I held his head in place and then pushed the blade into his throat. Blood gushed all over us both as I sawed my out of his neck. His eyes opened and there was a moment of resistance as he struggled for life. Watching the light fade in them was one of the best moments of my life. This was the first time destroyed the hope of someone else, and I found that I liked it. It was a shame that I was only learning about this feeling now, at the end.

I dug the bag out of his pocket and looked at it. He only looked to have three grams left and I hoped it would be enough. Licking my lips in anticipation I began the process of liquefying the heroin on a dirty spoon. I had not noticed that some of Joel’s blood had sprayed onto my lips until my tongue ran across them, but the effect was immediate. It tasted delicious. The salty flavor of it was better than anything I had ever tasted before. It was so good that my blood covered hands involuntarily came to my mouth and I started licking them. Oh my god was it good. A new need surfaced in me. Far stronger than my need for heroin, as the bag lay forgotten on the floor. There was not enough on my hands to satisfy me, needing more of it I leaned down to get at the source.

I should have been disgusted by the way his neck was falling back and exposing the inner workings of his throat, but it did not bother me in the least. Any resemblance of control was lost as I started drinking dripping blood and then to my surprise, biting off pieces of flesh from the edges and swallowing them. Sweet, shivering fuck, the meat was even better than the blood. My attempts at vampirism were forgotten as I gorged myself on Joel’s flesh. The blood had only been an appetizer, complementing my grisly repast like a pungent cheese with fine wine.

I lost a little bit of time while I ravaged the corpse. My stomach seemed to have become a bottomless pit and I was able to eat far more than should have been possible. Joel was not a small guy, but by the time I was able to control myself I had consumed about a quarter of his 200 pound frame. As I sat back, feeling only a little full, I began picking at a piece of fat hanging loose between his skin and muscle underneath.

The Voice sounded in my head again.

“You are now level 2,” The Voice announced. “You may choose to advance one of the following attributes: Cannablism, Strength, Vitality or Pack Leader. Choose with care”

This must be the game the voice spoke of. There was not much opportunity to play video games while living on the streets but I had occasion to hang around people who did.

Tired of being weak, I said “Strength.”

“You have chosen Strength, Your current attributes are as follows:

Cannibalism - 1

Strength – 1

The effect was instantaneous. My wounds were healing and I felt stronger.

                “I’m a fucking Cannibal.” I spoke aloud.

                I also had a raging hard on, so I must like it.

Well, that must have been why Joel tasted so good. There was still some room left in my stomach and the meat was still looking deliciously fresh and appealing. For the first time in years I did not want any heroin. I was not sure if my addiction was cured, or if it had just changed into something else. Fuck it, it didn’t matter. I decided to have me some desert.