(And the exploration begins. This is a little gross, so if you’re weak of heart, grab a barf bag!)
When I stepped in the door of Rita’s Deli, a bell rung overhead. Ahhhhh. What heaven is this. I dropped by here every three days and spent a good bit on breakfast, lunch and dinner. Rita had the freshest meats and best cold cuts in town and she didn’t make me feel bad for what I was.
“Hey Rita!” I greeted her with a smile and peered over the glossy meats displayed behind clean glass. “Could I get two beef shoulders, four rib eyes, six flat irons, two sirloins…” Hmm. Bacon or sliced meats? I tapped my foot for a second. “And… and a party platter of your cold cuts, could you do that for me, love?” She grinned and began cutting portions of brown paper in an industrial sized cutter.
“Not a problem!” Her blond hair was pretty and her skin was pale, yet her blue eyes were sharp and piercing. I took a seat at one of the tables near the front window and watched her bag up my order. With a grace, she placed the large brown bag on the counter and beckoned me over with a cock of her chin. “You’re total comes to $82.25.” As I dug out cash from my back pocket, Rita slid her gloves off skillfully and tossed them into the trash beside the register. I handed her the cash and grabbed the bag. “You can keep the change, love.” She almost blushed. I saw it. Just a little rouge met her cheeks, just barely. As I walked away, she called out.
“I stuck some thick sliced bacon in with the cold cuts. Some pig left it lying around.” She waved at me with pink colored nails and grinned.
—
She was the only one that knew who I was and frankly, I think she liked me because I kept her business open. I’m sure I was her biggest client, and there was no way around it. She caught me the first time I entered her store. I was practically drooling on the glass cased in the beautiful meats. I was new too. Newly cured, that is. I was one of the last to contract the disease and I was one of the few that was cured of it. It turned me into one of those “brainsssss” zombies from the movies. I’m ashamed because I don’t remember anything but the searing pain of “dying” and the horrific feeling of being brought back. One syringe of the cure, a two week coma and I was human again. Luckily, they said I wasn’t infected for very long, just a couple hours, but they did say I got loose and hurt people. Most people who were infected, they said, did a lot more damage and lost more dignity than I did.
Well anyway, I’m required to go to IA, Infected Anonymous. It was mainly for the people who began to remember things, which came a few months after being cured. It was horrible. These people can remember biting necks, tearing ligaments, scooping eyes from their family member’s skulls like eggs. Me…I can’t remember a thing and I’m supplementing it with a heavy dose of herbal remedy to prolong my amnesia. A la marijuana. The post infected have a free pass to as much medication as we need. Hell. They want us to become functioning members of society again. I was thankful because most of “us” were murders with pleas of insanity and lucky we weren’t shot on the spot.
Fortunately, though the only thing I took from the situation was an abnormal urge for raw meats. Hence the deli visits twice a week.
When I got to my car, I sat in the front seat with the bag in my lap and carefully pulled a rib eye out with a napkin. I sniffed the edge and inhaled that metallic organic smell. I took a bite and savoured the taste. It was so…tender. It separated easily from the rest of the cut due to the thick marbling of fat, which is why it was my favorite. Tender, fresh, bloody. I licked the drips of blood from the edge like ice cream. I might like my meat raw but I don’t like a mess, and I most certainly don’t like smelling like I used to be a zombie. Come on now…
Writing off the World 