Flesheaters and Bloodsuckers Anonymous: A Dark Humor (17 page)

            Eventually, they
wound their way closer to a crowded scene.  Lights picked up the gloom.  People
joined them in their slow ramble towards the place ahead.  A particularly
bright spot lit up the night and Harold heard the sounds of laughter and music
in the distance. 

            They walked a few
minutes further before coming to a crowded area.  Lots of people milled around
a casino on the dock.  Thousands of lights twinkled brazenly like some mini
version of Las Vegas.  Now Harold knew what Zork meant by Mephisto’s, the only
major casino in the city, operating at maximum capacity every night with
hundreds of normies.  The most popular and only casino in town.  Harold never
came here.  Too many people, too much temptation and with it too much risk of
being discovered.  He pulled a chip from his pocket and saw it was indeed
stamped with the Mephisto’s logo, “Enjoy Endless Night.”

            They skirted the
large crowd of people heading into the casino and veered around to the side of
the building and the small alley in back of it.  Harold’s stomach growled.  All
of those people reminded him, he was getting rather hungry. 

            He fleetingly
wondered if David were in the crowd right now, waiting to get in and start
gambling more of his life into danger, or carrying a couple fresh pints of
blood pay off his debts. 

            Blood, money,
normies and freaks, and it seemed this Casino catered to everyone.  What
exactly was he about receive by cashing in his chips?

Chapter Ten

            Harold obediently
followed Zork and the zombie to a darker, much less well lit entrance of the
building.  A set of wooden double doors were their target.  The zombie knocked
three times and waited. 

            Three responsive
knocks sounded on the other side.  As the zombie knocked two more times the
slug hit Harold in the leg and told him he’d better pay attention to the
passwords.  Something about not dragging his sorry ass back through this a
second time.

            The door opened
and a shadowy occupant growled at the zombie.  The zombie leaned into the
doorway to whisper to the bouncer, Harold picked up the phrase with his
supersensory hearing. 

            The door pulled
back to let them in.  As Harold followed the zombie and Zork into a small
hallway he brushed the door’s bouncer.  Several tentacles rustled and slithered
away from him.  He did not turn his head to glimpse the thing in the corner. 
There were just some things one could do without seeing in life.

            A threadbare and
oft walked carpet lie beneath their feet.  Walls painted matte black did little
to illuminate their slow march, but Harold detected a battered metal door
bearing the sign, Janitor, on it as they walked past.  He could also hear the
growing sounds of laughter and background casino noises.  Up ahead a second
door with a thin bedraggled beam of light running along the crack between the
door and the carpet seemed their destination.  They stopped just short of it
and Zork hit him again to get his attention. 

            “What you see
past this point is not to be told to any normies.  Not your girl toy.  Not
Mother
Donald.  Not even the spooks or cops.  Or we’ll stake you ourselves.  Got
it?”  Zork asked, peering up at him with both eyestalks.  The slug, better
sighted than even Harold in the dark, widened its eyes until they looked like a
black ping pong balls.   Harold couldn’t help it.  He laughed a little.  All of
this doom and gloom stuff was starting to get to him.  The zombie groaned and
ran a finger across its throat for emphasis.  Harold swallowed. 

            “Yeah sure. 
Whatever you say slug.”

            The slug hit him
again and urged the zombie on.  It creaked on the door and a window opened. 
The zombie exchanged a few brief words with the creature on the other side,
which Harold made sure to take note of as per Zork’s orders. 

            The door opened
and Harold hissed as the light hit his eyes.  Not brighter than a properly lit
room, not by a long shot, but it still stung after being accustomed to the
dark.  The soft lighting of thousands of candles spread throughout a massive 
room.  He followed the others past the bouncer which turned out to be a large
and warty fellow, an ogre.  As he looked around what he now saw was a large
gaming room filled with dozens of creatures he’d never before seen in his
nightly prowling of the city.  All happily playing cards, roulette, slots,
drinking, eating, and even singing in a corner bar with karaoke.  High domed
ceilings with golden light sweeping across them put Harold in mind of some kind
of Renaissance age church.   A wrestling match caught his ear from a few
hundred feet away in a boxing ring filled with mud.  Ticket holders merrily
screamed at the fighters, one of whom was human, at least according to Harold’s
nose.  The scent of blood filled the air like a delicious aroma before
Thanksgiving Dinner.   Sounds of coins clattering, slot bells ringing and
people assaulted his ears as Harold followed Zork to the cash cage. 

            This place was
incredible.  A regular store for the undead.  It teemed with the life of
hundreds just like him.  Amazing, so many others, all of this going on in his
city for how many years, right under his nose.  He really ought to get out
more.  He was going to get out more.

            A sultry
seductress wandered by Harold waving a bag of warm and fresh blood under his
nose.  He turned tail to follow her box of edible goodies as she called out to
Casino patrons.  Blood, flesh, oranges.  Sweets for the little ones.  Get your
warm blood for the parched throat!

            Zork’s harsh call
pulled Harold away from the girl and back to the task at hand.  There would be
time for food later.  He had an eternity to check out this wonderful place. 
Although Harold had to admit as he stepped up to the cage to hand over his
small cache of chips he was beginning to feel a bit like a kid in a candy
store.  He didn’t know where to go next!

            The zombie
completed his transaction first, handing chips to another zombie working inside
the cage.  He split his chips with the house seventy cents on the dollar. 
Harold didn’t know a lot about gambling, but they sure had a racket going. 
They’d been playing away from the casino.  Maybe there specific rules for games
held off casino property.  It certainly wasn’t legal.  Instead of cash, the
zombie behind the window handed over a small slip of paper.

            Harold stepped up
to the cage window.  He handed over the chips, keeping one for himself as a
souvenir.  The zombie with a blank face behind the window counted out his
chips.  Although, it could be the creature’s facial muscles were frozen in
place with various degrees of decay.  According to Harold’s estimates he got a
cut of sixty to forty and a slip of paper of his own.

            “I think you
miscounted,” Herald started as the zombie looked up at him.  He got shouted
down before he could get going by Zork and a few other creatures in line.  They
pushed him aside.  Harold looked down at his dinky slip of paper.  So far
tonight he was hungry and out one hundred twenty bucks.  Last time he ever
comes to a poker game with Zork.

            Harold muttered
softly about the cut, pointing it at the slip in his hand and the slip in the
dealer’s hand for emphasis.  His dealer zombie scratched its head, causing a
dry chunk of scalp to come out.

            Zork oozed over
to the two of them with a slip of paper clutched into one eyestalk.

            “Never argue with
the house,” Zork shrilled at Harold.  “A good way to get yourself kicked out of
here with no invitation to return.”

            The slug peered
up at him.  It seemed to be oozing an extra amount of goo from its pores.  Not
a great look on any planet.  Harold didn’t see the fuss with speaking up about
his money.  It was his cash after all.

            “I don’t see the
problem.  They gave me a sixty-forty cut and him,” Harold said gesturing to the
zombie, “a seventy-thirty cut. That’s not square.”

            Zork you made a
gross a sound in its air holes.  “He’s a dealer for the house, you idiot
bloodsucker.  He gets an extra ten percent of the cut.”

            “Oh.”

            The zombie
groaned beside him, which Harold only took for groaning, but apparently it
meant something more because Zork nodded to the flesheater and said he’d see
him again same time next week. 

            Harold watched
the zombie teetering off into the crowd, green visor still firmly wrapped
around his head and paper slip clutched in one upheld hand.  A lot of zombies
worked in the casino.  They stood behind betting cages, dealt cards and tended
bar, and even walked the floors selling trinkets in fishnets stockings and wigs
to cover unsightly craniums.  A casino run by zombies.  At least on this side
of the casino it was, the normies playing away their cash in the main front of
the store would probably all die of fright if they realized how close they were
to all these undeads.

            Left alone with
an angry, irritated, irritating slug, Harold followed the slow mover as he took
in the sights.  He felt like a starving man at the only free buffet in town. 
Harold felt pulled in all sorts of directions and pulled away from some sights
he didn’t understand or want too.  What a casino it was too.  Huge.  Harold
couldn’t begin to fathom how such a place operated under the noses of so many
people and the authorities.  The network operating to keep this place secret
must be enormous. 

            They came to a
bar also protected by a wire cage and several guards, some were zombies,
others, ogres like the one from the door towered over the crowd.  A line had
formed in front of the two open windows.  He and Zork stepped in.

            “What are we
doing here?”  Harold hissed at the slug. 

            Zork waved the
paper slip in Harold’s face.  “Collecting our winnings, of course.  Too bad the
wolf freaked.  He’s going to regret not turning in his chips for some meat.” 
Zork’s tongue smacked happily against the edges of its mouth.

            “Meat?” 

            “Just shut up and
hand over your slip when you get to the cage.   You’ll see what I mean.”

            Slowly they crept
forward, step-by-step.  As he got closer to the cage Harold smelled fresh blood
and decaying meat.  It made his mouth water.  People walked away from the
windows with plastic grocery bags of something, happy, hungry looks on their
faces when he could identify their faces.  Some only had one small bag, others
had several large bags.  For them it had been a good night.  The reason for the
guards quickly became apparent.  As they got closer the smell became so intense
and alluring, he didn’t know if he could control himself much longer.  Others
in the line were also getting antsy.

            Harold got to the
front and almost tripped in his hurry to get to the window and hand over his
slip.  Another zombie, much less decayed than the others, took it from him. 
She looked at the slip, giving him a once over.  He closed his mouth, wiping it
surreptitiously just in case he’d been drooling. 

            “Vampire. 
Blood.  Okay, you can get four pints A-positive or two pints B-negative.  We’ve
had a run on the O-negative, so really I could only give you a pint of it
tonight,” She said. 

            “A-positive’s
fine, I mean,” Harold stilled himself, “Ah, where exactly does all this stuff
come from?”

            Behind the girl
were several coolers and refrigerators with clear glass fronts.  Harold could
see a range of meats wrapped in newspaper and blood in standard pint
containers. 

            The zombie raised
one eyebrow.  Besides a grayish skin color and some obvious bite marks she
appeared in good shape.  She was actually quite attractive, for a dead woman. 
Beggars couldn’t be choosers, he figured.

            “Don’t ask, don’t
tell, honey.  Do you want to exchange this receipt tonight or what?“

            “Yes.”  The
answer came a little too quickly from his own mouth for Harold’s liking. 

            Yet, he couldn’t
help himself from eagerly hugging the double-bagged blood pints when the zombie
handed them over.  She humphed quietly and had him sign the back of the slip. 
She popped the slip into a slot on the counter and let him know it was time to
go by wishing him a good night.

            Harold ripped
into the first pint of blood, still icy cold from the refrigerator, burying his
fangs straight into the plastic and sucking it out like a tick gorging on a fat
deer.

            A few minutes
later he was joined by Zork who asked him to hold a plastic grocery bag of
miscellaneous meat parts.  Harold grabbed the bag from Zork one handed while
muttering into the pint of blood.  It really hit the spot.

            “Hungry?” Zork
teased from below, expressing humor for the first time this evening.  Getting
your favorite foods tended to put anyone in a good mood, a little tidbit he
picked up from childhood, and it still applied no matter what he ate.  He
drained the pint of the last of the blood and shoved it back into his bag, which
he promptly hid in the inside pocket of his jacket. 

            “Like you
wouldn’t believe,” Harold responded.  “Do I have blood?” He bent forward so
Zork could look at his face. 

            The slug eyed him
carefully.  “No, you’re good.”  He pulled away and motioned Harold to follow
him over to the bar, less kept up than the rest of the Casino and ensconced in
darkness and not the soft golden glow to which Harold’s eyes had grown used. 
He and Zork found a table against the wall.  Zork slimed up onto a chair. 
Harold set Zork’s bag on the table and the slug pulled it towards itself,
rummaging around inside with an eyestalk until it found what it was looking for
and pulled it out.  The food looked ...

            “Is that?”

            “Yep.”  Zork said
as it took great care in positioning the flesh on the table. 

            Harold shook his
head as Zork latched onto its midnight snack with glee. 

            “How did they get
that?” 

            “I don’t know and
I don’t care, as long as they got it,” Zork mouthed a big hunk of meat.  It
slowly dug needle-sharp teeth into the frozen hunk and pulled it into its
mouth.  Zork whistled with pure pleasure, grounding up the meat and
swallowing.  Zork’s eyestalks twisted around themselves right up to the
eyeballs and squeezed until they bulged out of their sockets.  It burped politely. 
Then, dove face first into the rest of the meal.