I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 by Artie Cabrera Read Free Book Online Page B

with the damn gumball and sticker machines chained to the spaceship ride in the front of the store. Dusty stood with sad eyes in the immaculately clean circles left in their absence. I let him ride the one working conveyer belt at the registers and snack on some Cherry-Twisty-SticksIfound in a compartment underneath a counter. We even bowled and pitched rotted fruit down aisle three for a while.
    “Keep your eyes peeled and stay close, kiddo,” I told Dusty. We didn’t have much light as we ventured further back into the market, away from sunlight. Dusty and I had miner lights I found in my garage strapped to our heads to stay hands-free in case we needed to carry stuff back home.
    We found some canned goods: Spam, hash, and a pallet partially stacked  with an alcohol infused energy drink called Mojo-X (recently banned in New York and tied to three underage deaths) tucked away in the stock room of the supermarket.
    I cracked open a can of the Mango-Pineapple flavored Mojo-X and chugged it down despite the bold warning label, and it tasting like warm mango puke. Within minutes I felt lightheaded, my heart raced and skipped, and I wanted to dry hump the shit out of the cardboard bikini girl at the empty beer display. I saw why the kids went crazy for the stuff. It was fruit flavored Viagra disguised as beer, and it made your heart explode.
    I tossed a six-pack into the duffle bag I carried over my shoulder and continued through the market.
    Dusty was walking funny and holding his crotch. He looked uncomfortable and folded over, but didn’t say anything. “Stop doing that,” I told him. “What is it? Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
    He shook his head and crossed his legs. He bunched up his crotch even tighter with his fist as he shuffled down the aisle in a funny dance.
    “Didn’t I tell you to go before we left the house?” I said. “So go…go here.” I said pointing to the vacant meat bin. “No one’s looking, come on.”
    He refused with a suffering squint on his face.
    “Well, what are you gonna’ do? I can’t take you back home now. Can you hold it for ten more minutes?”
    He shook his head even faster and with a tighter squint—really bunching his crotch and then he froze in place.
    Dusty let out a fearful moan and soaked his jeans. His eyes widened with horror, like the piss stain spreading around his crotch and pant legs as he looked past me. I grabbed his hand and turned slowly, aiming my head-light down the long and narrow aisle-six.
    The squealing traveled around us in the dark with quick and wet slippery-slaps against the market tiles and walls.
    Aisle Six: Party goods, Pet care, Detergents, and…a human cocoon made of blood red gelatin and veins.
    The mucus-veiled coffin was covered in a feeding frenzy of ill-formed tumors tearing away at the body with teeth and stingers. This heaving meat was in the shape of a man.
    The massive clot jerked from side to side in squirming seizures from the force of these creatures going to work at it. They were on him, inside him, secreting out of pockets in his body, and puncturing him with the lightening speed of a sewing machine.
    Chunk-Cha-chunk-Chunk! Squeee! Chunk! With each collective puncture, the clot released thin red lines into the air and onto everything in its vicinity, bleeding like a stuck pig. The blood red amoebas swarmed on the ceiling above us, and slid their way down the market columns to the feast in viscous streams, coalescing over the body.
    Dusty collapsed to his knees, his hand vice gripped to mine, his face frozen with horror—pee on his sneaker. My legs did not respond to the signals from my brain—neither did my penis, thanks to the potent Mojo-X. There was a communication breakdown between my brain and sheer survival skills: slo-mo-tion, paralyzing fear, nerves exploding into pins and needles…React. React now. Move, asshole.
    I won’t let anyone hurt you, do you hear me? We’re gonna’ be okay. I won’t let fear make a