[ WP ] That 's Scary !

-091 
 
 He started on her breast, carving away the meat slowly. He speared the slab he cut off with the knife's tip and stuffed it in his mouth. 
 
 `` That's my chicken you're eatin'?'' Rosalee called out, a big smile splayed across her round black face. 
 
 `` I tried to resist, but dat smell. Uhm. You know how to cook a hen, baby bird.'' Boog complimented, slicing off more of the breast meat. 
 
 `` Ca n't go eatin' a bird like that, sugar. I got some roasted baby taters left over from last night. Let me warm you up some of dem and get you some greens.'' She said. 
 
 `` Here I am stealing your breast, and you go on and offer me sides. You a good woman and if yo husband were n't an honery rascal, I might steal you away and take you out to my cabin.'' He waggled his eyebrows at her. She clapped her hands together and fell forward with exaggerated laughter. 
 
 `` Good thing, Pete's a rascal den.'' She said, adjusting her top playfully. Boog laughed, then turned at the sound of the screen door squeaking open. His laugh died, still born upon his lips. Even Rosalee stopped her merry-making to consider the stranger standing in the doorway of her cafe. 
 
 `` Go, sugar.'' She called. `` Close dat door and do n't let them skeeters in.'' The stranger stood there a moment longer, taking in everything. He finally stepped inside and strode up to the counter, taking a seat a couple stools away from Boog. 
 
 `` Coffee.'' He called. His face was grave. He did n't smile. He looked straight ahead and waited for his order to be filled. His hair was short and greasy. Not too long. Dark like the coffee he'd ordered. His skin was olive colored, and weathered like an old boot. His face was pitted and rough, possibly from a bad case of the chicken pox when he was younger. His eyes were the eyes of an alcholic, red where they should be white. The area around his eyes was crimson like sick fevered skin. His face, however, was pale as corpse. 
 
 Rosalee looked to the stranger and raised her brows then she looked to Boog. He gave a little shrug and watched the man from the corner of his eyes. 
 
 `` You think you might like a bite?'' Rosalee inquired. 
 
 The man smiled slowly. `` Just the coffee. Black.'' The man responded. He looked to the screen door, his head seeming to turn further than it should. His neck made a crackling sound as he turned back. 
 
 `` You got it.'' She called slowly, looking to the screen door to see if she could spot what interested him. She grabbed a cup as she passed the rack on her way to the coffee pot. 
 
 `` How you get out here in the swamp?'' Boog asked. `` Did n't hear no car outside.'' 
 
 The man's head swiveled. His body did n't move. `` I walked I s'pose.'' He replied, swiveling back slowly. 
 
 Rosalee set the cup down before him and poured the black drink from the pot. She was n't even looking at the cup. She was looking at the stranger. Well, at the stranger's clothes. 
 
 `` It raining out on the road?'' She asked quietly, watching the slow steady drip of water coming from his sleeve. 
 
 `` I could use that coffee.'' He told her. His head swiveled toward her for a moment, and she leaned away bothered by the look. 
 
 She looked back toward the door. His foot prints were wet too. The porch outside was n't. The wet foot prints crossed it to the stairs. The deck was dry everywhere else. 
 
 `` See any gators out on the road?'' Boog asked. He turned back to his chicken breast. He heard a thump, a bump, and a sqeak from the stool at his elbow. When he turned back, the man was sitting on the stool next to him. His look was fixed, but intense, and worse, he was only inches away from Boog. Boog could smell the musty smell of his body and wet sour smell of a dirty body. 
 
 `` No. No gators on the road.'' He answered, leaning closer. He reached out slowly. Boog held very still, unnerved by the stranger's odd behavior. The stranger slowly wiped a finger through the chicken grease around Boog's mouth. He slipped the greasy finger in his mouth. 
 
 `` What yall doing to Boog?'' Rosalee asked, coming around the end of the bar to follow the foot prints out the door. They disappeared once they left the bottom step. 
 
 The stranger closed his lips around the greasy finger and closed his eyes as he sucked on the digit. 
 
 `` Uhm. You taste good.'' He moaned. 
 
 `` I-It's the... chicken.'' Boog stammered nervously, rubbing away the grease around his mouth. `` Man, what's up with your eyes.'' Boog asked, ducking so he could see the man's pupils. They were spasming, wiggling back and forth of their own voilition. They seemed vibrate in their sockets. 
 
 `` You're creeping out Boog.'' Rosalee called from the door way. 
 
 Boog leaned in closer to see those eyes and watched tiny little larvae wiggling around beneath the surface of the eyeball. `` Son, you infested.'' Boog turned to Rosalee and cried out in alarm as another man, much like the stranger stepped into view just outside the screen door. Rosalee turned to see that same intense look the stranger had on the man outside, only the man outside had a hideous grin and mouth that just opened to wide. 
 
 He thrust his hands through the screen and grabbed Rosalee. She cried out as the wet arms slowly squeezed the air from her lungs. Boog came to his feet only to have the stranger grab the top of his head and yank him across the bar so he was arched over it on his back with his feet dangling. 
 
 `` You... taste good.'' The stranger said, repeating his earlier observation. He opened his mouth and brought hit down on the soft flesh of Boog's adam's apple. 
 
 Rosalee screamed as she watched the stranger feed on her friend. She struggled against the embrace of the stranger on the porch. He was trying his best to bite her through the screen, but it kept foiling his attempts. She twisted around trying to see something she could use to gain an advatage and saw more of the men, and women too, in worse shape than these slowly walking out of the swamp. 
 
 `` Zombies.'' She called in warning, even though the only man who would have cared was Boog and judging by the way his body had gone limp, he was past caring. The stranger ate a little more, then went back to his seat and studied the coffee cup. He picked it up, and was bringing it to his lips, when -- Kaboom! -- the hand holding the cup, the cup, and most of the stranger's head disappeared. 
 
 Pete was what you'd expect of a swamp rat. He was big, prickly with whiskers, wearing a dirty spotted t-shirt that let his chest hair spill out over the top. He was chubby, but not fat, tall and imposing, and pissed off. He stomped past the collapsing body of the stranger, marched up to his wife, stuck the shot gun against the grinning man's head. `` Lean left, sweet heart.'' He told her calmly. She did. 
 
 `` Kaboom!'' The shotgun roared. The grinning man lost his grin and the face it was hung in. Pete reached out and twisted the arm of the grinning man till it broke the thing's grip. Rosalee twisted from the things embrace. 
 
 `` Zombies?'' He asked. She nodded and hurried toward the stairs. Pete laid the gun across his shoulder and was headed up stairs when he saw the chicken breast Boog had been picking at. He shrugged nad stepped over to retrieve it. Another zombie was on the porch. He stuck the gun out at arm length and pulled the trigger. The screen door and the zombie came apart. Pete grabbed the chicken and headed upstairs. Rosalee was waiting and just shook her head to see the man she loved with the plate of chicken and a twelve guage. 
 
 `` What?'' He said defensively. `` These things usually last awhile.'' He told her. She shut and barred the door behind him. 
 
 `` I did n't say nuttin'.'' She replied, pulling out the machetes and axes.
