Global Swarming Sample

Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 October 2012 06:37

Global Swarming

Till Death Do Us Part... A Love Story with Zombies


Chapter 1 — by Kat Nove and Greg crites

Thorvaldson Seannity, who  repeatedly told his friends to call him Tom, drove the cleaver downward and severed a leg.

Thor is a butcher. Not just a butcher, but for the past few months, he was arguably the foulest natured butcher in any hemisphere.

“Take that ya tasty varmint,” he said, after delivering the blow. “Ham is good for the heart, and bacon is good for the soul...and women are good for the legal profession.”

Thwaack! Went the cleaver.

Thor is having some legal problems. He’s in the middle of a particularly nasty divorce. At least from his point of view he’s in the middle. His lawyer, a drunken Irish con artist, was ‘in theory’ on his good side, steadily draining his savings. His, hopefully-blessedly-soon ex-wife, was on his bad side. Backed up by, according to Tom, an evil shrew, horse-faced lawyer who hated men and would have been a lesbian were she not one of the top ten ugliest, scheming, acid tongued, misbegotten examples of a female on the earth.

Thor is not having a good year. But he felt confident things would not get worse.

Thor heard the buzzer which meant a customer had entered. He ignored it and continued the practiced division of the 600 pound hog’s carcass patiently awaiting deft delamination on the large stainless steel table. His friend and fellow meat cutter, Jersey, would take care of whomever it was.

The cleaver rose, reached its upper apogee, that point at which the  muscle memory in Tom’s arm  knew would create the optimum force for the creation of a pork chop, the swinging double doors flew open and Jersey burst through. Jersey always burst through. No matter where he entered. He came through a door, you blink, and he’s right there, smiling, looking you in the eye, rubbing a bony hand through his thick, black hair, body swaying almost imperceptively to some tune only he was picking up. At six-feet and a doubtful one-hundred and twenty pounds, Jersey made up for his lack of bulk by using speed. He was fast, gangly, and twitchy. This ceaseless movement giving one the impression he was not just a beanpole—but a group of beanpoles.

“It’s da crooked lawyer, McGoo,” he said.

“Tell him I ain’t here,” Thor grumbled. “Constant interruptions. How the hell am I supposed to work so I can pay corkscrew lawyers, and greedy ex-wives? And quit calling him Magoo. You know it bunches up his panties, and I’m in no mood to listen to you two carp at each other. You two jabber like a couple of elephant-ass state employees busy not working, and discussing why their husbands can’t find their G-spot without a fifth of Mad Dog and a hand-held GPS.” Thor’s muttering bounced, unheard, around the frigid room. Jersey had disappeared back to the storefront. The pig and cow sides hanging from hooks suspended on a center track leading back into the walk-in freezer were Thor-who-wished-everyone-would-call-him-Tom’s only audience. “Maybe that dimwit is right. Maybe I am spending too much time with...”

“Hey boss,” Jersey exploded back through the doors. “McGoo says he knows yer here and it’s imperative he speak with ya. Says there’s dark clouds forming over yer pending divorce from Lily. And quit daydreaming. You’re spending too much time with the meat.”

“Jersey, have I ever told you how I figured out, ya know, after owning a butcher shop for so long, how to completely dispose of a body? Did I tell ya about that? No DNA. No trace. I can make a thousand pound hog carcass vanish. I’m thinking a hundred pound pain in my ass will be real easy to dispose of.”

“You done tole me a dozen times,” Jersey replied, unconcerned. “You got three friends on this whole world. You can’t afford to lose one.”

“What are you talking about? I have two friends, and both of them are one level beneath worthless.”

“You got me,” Jersey said, pumping a fingertip against his chest. “You got that McGoo, who I agree is worthless, and you got Lily.”

“Lily!” Thor snarled. His face condensing into a tight ball of menace.

“She still loves you, man. I don’t know why. You’re not an easy man to love.” Jersey opened his arms wide. “But I loves ya. Give me a hug, man.”

Thor laughed despite his foul mood. “You take another step and I’ll snap you like an old pencil.”

“Ya see, man. It’s true. You’re impossible to love. But Lily, she loves you. That’s why she keeps siccing that wildebeest lawyer on you.”

“Just practice your feeble minded relationship psychology on someone who is not me. Go tell that Irish scumbag if he wants to talk— come back here. I know this room makes him uncomfortable.”

“I’m adding a verbal abuse surcharge to your bill, Thorvaldson,” Sean McGee said as he cleared the swinging doors. “And for one of the rare times in his life, I think Jersey’s correct. Lily wants to reconcile. Either that, or she wants to incite you to physical violence so she can shoot you and claim self defense.”

McGee, an extremely handsome, cleft chinned, long, lean, smiling wag in an expensive suit looked around the room and shivered. “This place is depressing.”

“What did you eat last night?” Thor asked. “And don’t call me Thorvaldson.”

“I had a delicious steak, Thorvaldson,” McGee said, closing his eyes as if remembering a particularly pleasurable event.

“That’s right, McGoo, you mooched it off’n me. It came from this room,” Thor raised his huge arms upward and made a quarter spin as if presenting the room on stage. “All you spineless jellypeople love your steaks, and porkchops, and ham, and ribs.; but you ain’t got the stomach to show a little respect to the man who carves ‘em up for ya! I’m getting tired of all of you. Why are you here and not slurping Shirley temples at some yuppie bar? What does the skank want now?”

“She wants half the butcher shop,” McGee said, eyeballing the floor to make sure he was not getting anything disgusting on his three-hundred dollar wingtips.

“WHAT!”

“I said, she wants half of the butcher shop,” McGee repeated, raising his head to stare at Thor. “Of course this is simply a ploy...”

“She ain’t gettin’ so much as a bleached cow bone and neither is that sow she has for an attorney. And if you dont get a handle on this situation, I’ll hafta...”

“You’ll have to shut up and listen, Thorvaldson,” McGee interrupted what was shaping up to be a massive bout of angry rant from his friend. “You can’t bellow your way out of this one. You can’t intimidate Lily any more than you can me.  I had my hands between your legs throughout four years of high school and another four years of college...”

“Yeah, you were blessed,” Thor said. “I shoulda let a few of those big bastards through to cream your scrawny ass.”

“Ah, but you didn’t, my friend. You upheld the unwritten law of football; the quarterback gets the glory...”

“And the center gets the gory,” Thor said this as the cleaver fell with far more force than necessary, severing an inch-and-a-half  thick pork chop from the hindquarter. He snagged it and held it forth. “Let’s crank up the grill and have some chops. Plot strategy.”

“There’s no eating your way out of dealing with Lily.”

“Screw Lily!”

“That would be a start. Probably make my job easier.” McGee said.

“This is Thor’s House of Meat. I own it. My father owned it before he died. That trollop never cut the first piece of meat. For Christ sake, she’s a nagging vegetarian. Nope. Screw her! And screw anyone else who thinks they can take away something I worked for.”

Thor lifted the 200 pounds that was left of the  pig carcass with one hand and draped it over a stainless steel hook. He rubbed the back of his forearm across his forehead and stared at Jersey and McGee in turn.

“I was going to cook us some chops, but you’ve gone and pissed me off.” Thor said, removing his rubber apron.

“Let’s go to Epcot and have a few bratwursts in the German pavilion,” Jersey said.

“Yeah!” McGee agreed. “Those big, blond German girls always make your personality, uh, almost tolerable, Thorvaldson.”

“I ain’t going out,” Thor said, tossing his gloves in the stainless steel sink. “Look at me.” He held his massive arms outward. “I’m six-feet two-inches tall and three-hundred pounds of muscle.”

“Two-hundred eighty pounds of muscle and forty extra pounds of flab. Dude, you gotta cut back on the bacon.”

“Fuck off, MaGoo,” Thor spat. “I ain’t normal. People cross the street when they see me. I try to look peaceful...”

Both Jersey and McGee snickered, until Thor glared at them.

“The point is...”

“We already heard it before, ya whining goober. Poor Thor. He’s big and ugly. Ya know, all you have to do is smile.”

“I don’t wanna smile. I don’t want to ask people what time it is. I don’t want to ask them for anything. I mind my own business. I leave people alone.”

“Clean yourself up,” McGee ordered. “I call a meeting at the German pavilion. We need to plot strategy for Lily and all the other lawsuits you have against you.”

“I’m trying to quit drinking all that beer,” Thor said, staring at the wall. “I was bloated with beer when I tripped and got my dick stuck in between Lily’s conveniently spread open legs. Look what that got me.”

“It got you the only woman on earth with the balls to tolerate you,” McGee said.

“Heh! That’s true,” Jersey affirmed. “You know you’ve been a miserable bastard since you two split. You were never much fun to be around but after you met Lily... well, you were a kinder, gentler Thorvaldson.”

“I told you assholes about calling me Thorvaldson. Call me Tom! I’m Tom! Shit! You normal sized people don't know what it’s like up here.” Thor pointed at his skull. “You don’t have any idea of the rigorous mental activity I...”

“I can safely guess that activity won’t be winning any Nobel science awards in the future,” McGee interrupted.

“I can envision some debilitating injuries in your future, Shyster.”

“Speaking of visions, did you guys hear about the UFO?” Jersey asked.

“Yeah,” McGee said. “They say the Air Force lost track of it somewhere around here.”

“Probably aliens visiting Disneyworld,” Jersey said.

“That’s the kind of reality shaking event it will take to get me anywhere near that moneygrubbing slattern.” Thor added, with finality.