ZombieBerries

"Taste delectible, if you'd like to know," my father slurred in the most revolting manner I'd ever seen, bright purple juices spraying from his quivering lips, dribbling down his stubbled chin.1

I tried not to look. Watching old people eat was so... yech. I crossed my arms and sniffed and tossed my ponytail in revulsion and he knew he was disgusting to me, and maybe it hurt him, but I didn't care. I was so sick of all of it. The air was humid and torturously thick, sticky, boiling hot in the piney woods wilderness. My skin ached with the incessant buzzing itch of bloodsucking insects. My father was an idiot; a big fat bald disgusting idiot. Who the hell would want to come out here when parties and pools and malls lay patient, glittering, perfectly safe and air-conditioned, where my home and friends and nintendo awaited me? I loathe family togetherness.2

Me: hot, sweating, ugly and dumpy in cut-offs, my dad's shirt, bumpy, sore, bitten and scratched and frustrated to the point I really think I really do I think I will scream.3

My father: blissfully unaware of civilization, his hairy back bare to the unrelenting blazing blue sky, his face upturned like an ugly, happy child, lips, gums, chin stained with blue and pink and rotten black specks of strange little fruit.4

I just know it's poisonous, and I don't care. I will pull the keys from the pocket of his limp, obese body after the poison has sent him into spasms and vomiting and death, and walk all the way back to the car, skip in my step, and drive somewhere like... McDonalds.5

"Baby, don't give me that look," he chortles. I roll my eyes toward the heavens then squeeze them shut. He knows I hate him. Let's just go back home.6

But apparently he doesn't know, because he is still slurping away happily at the foreign vegetation he lumbered upon, sniffed and clawed at like a big fat hairy bear. He had said they looked like coralberry, which I knew he made up on the spot, and popped one in his watering, blubbering mouth.7

"You don't even know what those are dad!" I hollered, and my eyes wide in horror he just smiled and kept pulling them from the dark, twisted branches and sucked them in to his gut.8

"Try some, baby," he muttered again, but this time quieter, without thinking really, almost to himself. Like he wants me to, REALLY now, I know he's perfectly content with that bush all to himself.9

I wander. He's really diggin those whatever-berries, and doesn't even notice. I find a nice shady tree that- big surprise- offers little relief in this goddamned muggy atmosphere, but decide to climb it anyway. I'm bored. I close my eyes and settle in the crook of the wooden giant's arm. I relax, and think of Iced Tea. Popsicles. Nail Polish. Ice Cubes. Johnny Depp. White Plastic Fans. Seventeen Magazine. Why couldn't my vacation be spent like that?10

I even liked spending a little time with my cousins up in Coldspring, where I got to ride horses, and my Grand-dad bought me an honest-to-god gen-U-ine pair of ostrich leather cowgirl boots. Those bitches cost him a fortune. I love getting spoiled. But this? CHARACTER building of all things.11

My dad is such a nature buff. I usually humor him and go on hikes up the Colorodo ski slopes but hell, the groovy snowboarders make it ALL worth while. And besides, that's the cold, I like it so much better. And there are cabins, hot chocolate not TOO too far away, and yeah the toilets kinda make me wanna ralph, but at least I'm not scratching my ass with poison ivy.12

I nearly fall off my seat on the branch. My body feels electrified; the strangest most frightening sound I've ever heard erupts from behind me and I can't move, I only shake and feel the blood pulsing through my quivering bones and open my eyes wide, stare straight ahead into the green tangle of vines and leaves. I can not close them, I am too frightened.13

I hear it again. a gurgling, yammering, high-pitched animal shriek. Birds fly past me, and I do fall, hitting my head on something, scraping my ankle, shuddering I scream and scramble to my hands and knees.14

I can see now, it's dad. His body is heaving, and that inhuman sound is coming from deep within him like a siren. His entire face is bright purple and swollen- it looks like he's suffocating. his hands are clawing at the ground and he defecates and moans and spews purple slimy liquid.15

In seconds I am sprinting and my chest is quaking and aching, I feel like my heart will explode, but adrenaline siezes my nerves and I weave like a deer between the trees down an unmarked trail, into tall leafy thicket and dark viney wood. I collapse in between rock and tree and sob. My cries console me in that I can hear nothing else but my own childish wail, loud and vibrating in my ears.16

I get to the point where I am now tired from crying, eyes bloodshot, stinging, nose running; a stammering, panting wreck. I slowly rise to my feet and stumble, lost, in the direction I think that I came from. My father is so stupid.17

I'm sniffling, I wipe my face on my arm and plod through the brush, push aside limbs. My skin is stinging, bloodier, scratched from my run. Of course, I'm going to find him. I have to. I'm not going to find my way back to the highway just to wait for someone to give a panick-stricken fourteen-year old a drive into strange, wild hicksville. I can mark his body with a tarp from his bag, drive myself into Holy Cross Hospital of No-Where thank-you-very-much, and report my stupidty victim death. I'm begginning to feel a soft murmer of guilt gnaw on the lining of my gut. I was thinking about this only moments ago- rifling through his dead remains for keys... with glee.18

But I'm numb now, worn of emotion, and see him finally, after a circle or two trough the brambley wilderness, as I expect him to. He is laying face-down, arms and legs a tangled mess, berry-juice staining his curled fingers, blood and vomit trickling from under his head, feces and urine splattered around his thighs and knees, soaking the dried leaves below him.19

I don't know what makes me do it, but I reach out toward the damned bush and bite into a tiny purple berry, spit it back out again. It's bitter, but sweet. Really not bad at all. 20

I almost gag as the stench hits me. The fat bastard smells like death and blood and shit. I start to feel my eyes sting again and my shoulders tremor involuntarily. I decide to walk around a little more and gain some composure before going through his soiled remains.21

I hear a grunt and freeze. I turn around and stare at the lump of flesh on the forest floor.22

"Dad?"23

Tears leak from my eyes.24

"Dad, did you say something?"25

The warble I hear in my voice makes me upset. I turn around and move away from the scene. I walk a few yards when I hear it again- a deep, hollow, very distinct creak of voice. Stop and stare at the shoes on my tired feet, breathe, listen, wait. Something is moving behind me.26

I don't have to look. I've heard that footfall so many times, millions of steps stomping through the woods, millions of hours walking back and forth in the living room while I lay down in my bed, thousands of mornings shuffling, sleepily to the kitchen to pour a glass of orange juice.27

But my eyes turn without my consent and I see him, drained of life, jerking on his stiff, dead knees. His eyes are bulging, bloodshot, grotesque.28

The dirty, swollen body is rising, creaking louder, bellowing ghostly moans. I fall to my knees and sigh. Blood congealed on his face and hairy chest- his zombie bones shuffle towards me, outstretched, twisted, gnarled limbs reaching for me. I cover my face and cry, a scared child.29

I should be in Colorado. I want to watch TV.30

God, he smells disgusting.