Zomblog 05: Snoe's War (26 page)

Authors: T. W. Brown

Tags: #Zombies

BOOK: Zomblog 05: Snoe's War

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It has four bedrooms! Now I wasn’t ever going to hear the pitter-patter of ghoulish feet, but maybe Lisa might give it a go when she is actually old enough and meets a nice guy. I have a feeling that I will be living vicariously through her.

And there you have it—my word for the day:
vicariously
. Take that Morgan. She always talks to me like I am the idiot child. Well now that I have hired a ghost writer—literally, I seriously have this ghost that comes in and helps, she possesses Lisa when it is time to sit down and put the story together—I get to hear all sorts of big words.

Chantal, my ghostly pal, likes to chat sometimes during the day. She sometimes slips in to Lisa while she is dozing and will chat with me about stuff. At first it was weird having these conversations that Lisa has no memory of, and I have to get it straight who I am talking to or what I have said to Chantal-Lisa and what I have said to Lisa-Lisa.

Hmm, that reminds me. I fiddle with my iPod docking station and thumb to a song. One of my favorite features of this home was the sound system. You can have music—or whatever you are watching on television—piped throughout the whole place.
Head-to-Toe
by Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam starts, and I head for the basement door.

“Back in a few minutes,” I call over my shoulder. I catch Lisa’s face in the reflection of the kitchen window. Her nose wrinkles. If I wasn’t so secure in our friendship, my feelings might be hurt. Hey…a girl’s gotta eat.

My basement is the other feature that really sold this house to me. A serial killer would blow his…well, whatever it is that they blow. You can bet my basement would be the thing that would send said serial killer over the edge.

It is absolutely sound proof. I tested it out early when I brought my ex-husband’s guitar amplifier down here. My actual goal was to check out the real estate agent’s claim that this basement was, in fact, sound proof. If I just happened to blow up his amplifier in the process, that would be icing on the cake.

I plugged in the pretty green guitar that was still in my closet despite the fact that we had been divorced long enough for that cheating bastard to remarry and have a pair of twin snot factories…err…I mean a lovely set of boy and girl twins. (I can never remember which is fraternal and which is maternal…not like I actually care.) Anyways, I plugged that guitar in, turned every single knob on the amplifier to “10” and strummed. I forgot all about my super-sensitive ghoul hearing.

For almost a week I was absolutely deaf. Thankfully I have the ability to heal. Supposedly, I can take a shotgun blast to the chest and not die. I’d just as soon not test the theory, but it is kind of nice to think that that little bit of insurance is in my tool box. To actually kill me, you need to either sever my head, or pierce my heart with a weapon made from cold-treated iron—whatever the heck that is. I feel comfortable sharing that with you because you will either dismiss this as just another one of “those” stories that are so popular right now, or you just won’t ever feel the need to go out and hunt down a ghoul that is trying to make the world a better place.

So once I could hear again, Lisa assured me that she did not actually hear a thing. She was really glad when my hearing came back. I guess I am one of those women with a naturally loud voice.

So back to my basement. As I told you, I am a ghoul. I eat the dead. To be clear, they have to be “unprocessed.” I don’t know if you are aware of what they do to a person before spray painting them and stuffing them in a box, but no ghoul would ever touch a body after a mortician got ahold of it. I keep about a half dozen corpses on ice for those times when I can’t go out and hunt down a fresh meal.

This is another of the perks from that job I did for Belinda-the-vampire-bitch. She occasionally has one of her minions bring by a thrall that might have been snacked on a bit too heavily or the chance human version of a monster that they might stumble across. I had no idea that so many icky beasties maintain human form and transform under whatever weird circumstance is their trigger: full moons, high tides, the opening day of football season.

Opening the walk-in refrigerator, I pull the first body out and set him on the huge table. Already the smell is causing my mouth to water. I know it will just be a moment—

“Mrrgl.”

Oh yeah. Sharkmouth makes the scene and I dig in. I can’t really explain it better than that. When I smell a dead body—something that you would probably find repulsive—it is like being in Martha Stewart’s kitchen on Thanksgiving. The smell is beyond delicious.

My mouth does this thing that sort of defies biology. It stretches out several inches and these three razor-sharp rows of needle-like fangs drop. I become the human equivalent of one of those wood chipper thingies. I can down a whole body in less than ten minutes. The only part that is a bit icky for me is regurging up the clothes. To my credit, I strip the bodies that are put in my fridge. However, I don’t exactly have control over my appetite. When I encounter a dead body out and about, I just can’t help myself.

The best thing I can equate it to is what used to happen with those spray cans of whip cream. I couldn’t open my fridge when one of those things were in there back when I was alive without grabbing it, popping the top, and shooting a mouthful of tasty, sweet whipped cream into my mouth.

So anyways, I got my Sharkmouth going, and made short work of my dinner. I think we found this one under a bridge. Probably not the solution to the homeless situation that they were thinking of with
Comic Relief
; but, in my defense, he was already dead. Being out in the elements is really not something that we are designed for in our human form.

When I was finished, I went back upstairs. Lisa was already asleep. She was sprawled on the couch, the remote slipping from her fingers. I glanced at the screen long enough to decide that if I ever got the chance, I might break my rule about eating a live human if I ever met the ‘Sham Wow’ guy. I turned off the idiot box and pulled the blanket that was draped over the back of the sofa across Lisa and headed upstairs.

My room is a marvel. It has shutters that allow in absolutely no sunlight. That way I didn’t have to stay in a rickety closet like I did back in the apartment. One of the drawbacks of being a ghoul is the vampire-like aversion to sunlight. For some reason, it burns like acid if it touches my tender, gray skin. (Although I do keep it airbrushed a golden bronze most times when we are going out in public.)

“Is this your idea of living a low key life?” a familiar voice whispered from the darkness.

I did my best not to shriek. However, I have this thing that happens when I get scared. My toenails and fingernails turn to three-inch claws. I’ve ruined more shoes in the past several months…