Anything but Zombies: A Short Story Anthology Read online

  “They were everywhere,” Bill said. “We hid out in the basement. We held on to each other for dear life.”

  “Boy, did we ever,” Kasey said.

  Chic grinned and elbowed Barbara in the ribs. “It’s what makes the world go round,” he said.

  Straightening themselves up after whatever grueling survival preparations they had been making downstairs, they wanted answers but nobody really had them. All Chic could say—being something of an authority on the matter—was that they could be in serious trouble if every adult erotic companion were to suddenly come alive and exhibit psychopathic tendencies.

  “I don’t want to frighten anyone,” he said, pulling his pants up as he did whenever he spoke, “but in XXX’s Poughkeepsie facility alone, we have a running inventory of some thirteen thousand companions. And that doesn’t take into account hundreds of others in display rooms, outlet stores, and mail-order warehouses. Not to mention those owned by private individuals. Some people collect them.”

  “That’s weird,” Kasey said.

  “Maybe, miss. But if you had to go, wouldn’t it be better if your end came in the form of a quality intimate companion backed by unbeatable service after the sale?”

  “What?”

  “Just ignore him. You’ll be better off for it,” Barbara said.

  Chic was studying Kasey very carefully. “You know, miss, you’re a very attractive woman, if you don’t mind me saying so. You have an exotic look to you . . . are you Latin?”

  “My mother was from the Caribbean. St. Croix.”

  “Ah! You know, I think a companion modeled from you might prove to be a big seller.” He handed her one of his cards. “We’ll pay well for the right to reproduce you. And you have the assurance of only the finest materials and upscale promotion.”

  “Come-on-Me Kasey,” Barbara said.

  Her sarcasm was lost on the two of them as they began to negotiate a deal that would be profitable for both parties.

  Barbara just stared. This entire episode was surreal from the get-go, but now it was bordering on the freakish.

  Negotiations concluded, Chic peeked outside again. “Not good. There’s more of them, and they’re coming our way. Get ready. If they get in, they might want to harm us.” He shrugged. “Then again, they might want something else.”

  The man on the couch sobbed louder.

  Four: The Situation

  But they did not attack just yet. They formed in ranks outside as if preparing for the mother of all carnal sieges. Bill was toying with a radio he had found in the closet, now that they had all discovered that their cells and smartphones were dead. Chic was not surprised. When a Two-Hole Trina was involved, anything was possible.

  “What do you mean?” Kasey asked.

  Chic elbowed Barbara again, gave her a salacious grin. “Well, hon. Cell towers. Tall, erect structures . . . there’s no way an XXX erotic companion could refuse them. They’d keep at them until they fell.”

  “Think I’m getting something,” Bill said.

  They all gathered closer, their faces tight with dread. Barbara chewed her lower lip and Kasey twirled her hair. Chic cinched up his pants and the sobbing man sobbed.

  “ . . . reports have been pouring in of the most disturbing nature. Frightened and incoherent witnesses tell of mass attacks by what they describe as naked or partially clothed assailants. This is no joke, but a deadly serious affair, I’m told. Incidents are coming in from across the country. According to Civil Defense headquarters, the perpetrators appear to be living love dolls who are rising up in vast numbers and killing their owners or, in some cases, tiring them out to the point of death. The reason for this heinous and grisly uprising is as yet unknown. But sources confirm large-scale slaughters at pornographic bookstores, movie theaters, and so-called skin shops. Those who are in possession of these romantic companions should get out of their houses immediately. We await an announcement from the president of the United States, who is expected to declare a state of emergency . . .”

  Everyone sighed as there was a station break and the Chubby Cleanser jingle began to play. Barbara was beyond herself with terror. This was too much. It was a national nightmare. When would it end? Was this the form the dreaded apocalypse would take? She began to envision a horrible postapocalyptic world where men and women cowered like rats in the ruins while hordes of sex dolls haunted the streets in a veritable orgy of the damned.

  “NOOO!” she cried, unable to suppress her horror any longer. “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

  “She’s losing it,” Kasey said.

  While the others tried to get away from her, Chic knew there was only one thing he could do. He grabbed the Johnny-Jump-and-Pump 3000 and slapped her across the face with it until she came to her senses.

  “I’m better now,” she said. “I guess I just kind of lost it.”

  “It happens,” Bill said.

  Chic was still extending the Johnny Jump-and-Pump in her direction in case she became hysterical again.

  “It’s very firm,” she said.

  “You got that right,” Chic said. “The 3000 never lets you down.”

  He set it on the table while he went over to the window to survey the scene outside. Kasey grabbed it and then Barbara wrested it from her grip. They kept trying to pull it away from each other.

  “I’ll hold it,” Kasey said.

  “No, you won’t,” Barbara told her.

  “Oh yes, I will.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  They finally agreed to share it. As Chic pointed out, it was a pretty handy item and you never knew when you were going to need it. “Just be careful,” he warned. “Keep in mind this is no girly toy, but a professional-grade masturbatory instrument. It’s not for amateurs.”

  Bill and the sobbing man could only look on in amazement at the cutting-edge technology XXX had harnessed.

  Chic studied the gathering outside. It seemed there was more all the time. This called for drastic action. It called for a man with a plan, someone at least as cunning as the sex dolls themselves. And that man was Chic Mendelhouse, IC specialist and XXX customer service rep, three-time winner of the coveted Rubber Nipple Award.

  “I have a plan,” he said. “It might be foolish, it’s certainly dangerous. But if anyone would like to throw caution to the wind and fight at my side, we might just have a chance. Who’s with me?”

  The silence that fell over the room was nearly catastrophic. The only sounds were the rubbery squeaking of the dolls outside.

  “What’s your idea?” Barbara asked.

  “Deflation,” Chic said. “A mass deflation.” He looked over at Kasey. “Riddle me this. What if you’re at a trade show like Beaver Expo or CumCon and you need to inflate fifty erotic companions in under ten minutes? What do you do?”

  Kasey thought about it. From the look on her face, it was obvious she was considering the subtle nuances and philosophical implications of the problem. “Well,” she said. “I guess you pretend you’re at a frat party and you get down on your knees and start blowing.”

  Chic chuckled. “No, no, no, my silly little pickle. That would take forever. What you do instead, is to avail yourself of perhaps the most dynamic and revolutionary love doll accessory known in the free world: the MagnaBlow 4500 Auto Inflator. With that piece of hardware, you easily tap into the software packages of each and every doll within broadcast range, activating the auto-inflate mechanisms in each.”

  “You lost me,” Bill admitted.

  “We inflate a bunch of dolls at the same time?” Kasey asked.

  “No, we deflate them en masse. There’s a MagnaBlow 4500 in the back of my van. It’s a standard utility. And in our case, it just might be a lifesaver.”

  “I’m with you,” Barbara said.

  Chic nodded. “All right. Let’s take our world back.”

  Together, throwing caution to the wind, they stood at the door. There would either be victory or a mass orgy of nightmarish proportions.

  Fiv
e: Big Cobb

  Meanwhile, some miles away, the troops were on the march in a massive counterstrike against the rampaging erotic companions. They were being led by County Sheriff Bob Cobb, aka “Big Cobb.” He was marshaling his forces for a massive thrust that would bring the army of animated sex dolls to their knees where, as he told one reporter, they belonged. They had put down no less than twenty-six of them in the past hour or so, and they were just warming up.

  “We’re making pretty good progress,” he said. “God knows where all these things are coming from, but we’re putting ’em down and sending ’em back. There’s no way in hell we’re going to knuckle under to a bunch of Sexie Sadies and Mary Lou Bend-and-Screws. Just no goddamn way.”

  Deputies and militiamen were moving everywhere, trucks unloading fresh troops and supplies. It was war to the teeth now.

  “What’s the best way to deal with these things?” the reporter asked.

  Sheriff Cobb considered that. “Nail guns with compressor backpacks. That way, a trooper has mobility and serious firepower. The nails put the dolls down every time. We were using guns at first . . . but, well, that didn’t work so good. The bullets tend to pass right through the dolls and kill men on the other side. We lost five boys that way already.”

  “Tell me, Sheriff, would I have a chance with four or five of these things?”

  “Hell yes. They’re more than willing to please.”

  “No, no, Sheriff, I mean if I had some of them attacking me.”

  “Oh . . . um . . . sure. Maybe. Nail gun is the thing. Pop ’em and drop ’em.”

  Three men came in, dragging a struggling sex doll with them. She was bound tightly, thrashing like an animal. Her golden curls were bouncing, her obscenely large breasts bobbing.

  “We got another one,” Deputy Strafe said.

  The sheriff nodded. This was serious business. “Put her in the back of the van for interrogation. See what you can get out of her or what she can get out of you.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Wait a minute!” another deputy said. “How come he gets to interrogate them all? I haven’t got to interrogate a single one all day.”

  Strafe rolled his eyes.

  Sheriff Cobb sighed. “Okay, Roy. You take her. But watch it.”

  As the media pushed in to follow, Cobb’s troopers held them back and out of harm’s way. “Sorry, people,” Deputy Strafe said. “This is official police business. Only highly trained, highly motivated law enforcement professionals dare get in the back of the shaggin’ wagon with one of those things.”

  “Or somebody real stupid and real horny,” one of the reporters said.

  Deputy Roy heard that and waved as he pushed his perp into the back of the van.

  After that, there was no more time for answering questions and entertaining the media. Sheriff Cobb got his forces moving and they began to comb the surrounding fields, woods, and farmyards, searching for malevolent sex dolls. It didn’t take long before they found a dozen or so and put them down as fast as they could drill nails into them. After that, there was only the hissing sound of escaping air that chilled every man to the bone.

  “Sheriff!” Deputy Strafe called out. “Another one coming out of that henhouse yonder!”

  “All right,” Big Cobb said. “This one’s mine.”

  He went to meet the horror on neutral ground like some Old West marshal preparing to face down a black-hatted gunfighter. No one spoke as the sex doll emerged through the thickets and Big Cobb went out to meet her, fire in his blood and steel in his eye. The only one who dared get close to the action was Deputy Strafe. If worse came to worse, he knew he just might have to pull the doll off the sheriff . . . or maybe the sheriff off the doll.

  “Show yourself already,” Sheriff Cobb said.

  The doll did. She walked out of the enshrouding evergreens like a woman from a rock video . . . all she lacked was a big fan to blow her hair back. She was tall and leggy, shapely and well-proportioned, her midnight-black hair sweeping down one shoulder and gathering between her cleavage. Her crystal-blue eyes stared seductively at the sheriff.

  Big Cobb mopped sweat from his brow with a hankie. He gasped and trembled. “Sasha?” he said. “Dear God, not you too . . .”

  “What’s that, Sheriff?” Strafe asked.

  “Oh . . . ah, nothing.”

  “Thought you called her Sasha or some such thing.”

  “No, I just sneezed.”

  “Here she comes,” Strafe said, sounding nervous. “You better shoot quick!”

  Yes, of course that was what he needed to do. Yet, memory stayed his hand. Sasha. The name was like perfume, like exotic spices and rare oils rubbed over trembling flesh. He thought of intimate dinners for two, moonlit walks on the beach, midnight swims, and long sweaty, rubbery, squeaky nights of lovemaking.

  “Sheriff! Jesus, she’s almost on you!”

  His heart broken, Big Cobb pulled the trigger and put six nails into her. She fell right away, hissing and making a sort of saddened cooing sound as she deflated there on the ground.

  Sheriff Cobb felt his breath catch in his chest. “Dear God,” he said. “Forgive me . . . Sasha.”

  “Sheriff, you all right?”

  “Yes, son.” He swallowed. “Just got something in my eye.”

  Six: Oiled and Ready

  Back at the farmhouse, Chic and Barbara went right out the front door. Her idea was to sneak out the back way, but Chic wouldn’t have it. If there was one thing the inflatable ladies of XXX knew about it was the backdoor. That would be playing into their malicious little silicone hands.

  Together then, Chic and Barbara crossed the porch in full view of the gathered intimate companions, who watched them with more than casual interest.

  “Make no sudden movements,” he warned. “No sense in spooking them. They can be very unpredictable.”

  “Love dolls?”

  “Yes.”

  Chic’s XXX van was waiting for them down the drive, but the problem was that there were about twenty companions mulling around it. They didn’t seem to have any interest in leaving. A dozen more were moving up the drive. Getting to the van would be a very dicey proposition at best. Used to thinking on his feet, Chic came up with a plan. Barbara didn’t like it at all, but there was no other way. They went back into the house. Twenty minutes later, they came back out.

  “I feel perfectly ridiculous,” Barbara admitted.

  “Yeah, but you look . . . hot,” Chic told her.

  She was stripped down to her bra and panties, red lipstick smeared over her mouth, brilliant blue eye shadow around her eyes, garish red blots of rouge on her cheeks. Her skin was oiled and gleaming to give it the look of fine plastic. It was a good thing Kasey carried her makeup bag with her wherever she went. Chic was stripped down and oiled, too. He wore black socks with calf garters, white boxer shorts with large red hearts on them. The Johnny Jump-and-Pump 3000 was strapped to his groin, aimed stiffly down the road like the leg of an English pointer. It knew the way they must go.

  “Remember,” Chic said. “Try not to blink a lot and keep your mouth puckered.”

  Together, they started down the road, moving with the peculiar side-to-side gait of the sex dolls. They looked much like penguins as they moved toward the van, waddling absurdly. The other love dolls stopped as they passed. They stared at them with painted-on eyes, the puckered holes of their mouths ready to please. To Barbara, they all looked vaguely surprised, with their wide eyes and mouths that seemed to be saying, “OH!” or possibly “OOOOOHHHH!” She mimicked their appearance as Chic and she intermingled with them. The ruse was working. It was really working.

  “Careful now,” he whispered. “This is the tricky part.”

  They passed through the doll ranks and waddled about at the rear of the van as if they had no set purpose in mind. Then Chic moved toward the rear door. The vanity license plate read KREME4U. Breathing hard, he opened the door. Several of the dolls stayed close to him. Two of th
em flanked Barbara. The back of the van with its red dome light was a sex shop on wheels. Everything from inflatable intimate companions hanging like coats to rows of vibrators and dangling chains of anal beads and cock rings. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or excited.

  “Jesus,” she said when she saw it.

  The dolls to either side of her pressed their faces in close as if to say, “OH?” Again, Barbara mimicked them. “OH,” she said. They turned away. That was close. She almost gave the entire game away.

  Chic pulled out a black box, snapped it open, and extended an antenna. He flicked a few switches and dialed the frequency in. “Authenticating parameters,” he said under his breath. “Activating field grid . . . engaging autodeflate . . . now.”

  There was a blinding flash of light and a smell of burning wires and he was tossed backward into the wall of love dolls, who bounced him right back at Barbara. He slammed into her, the snout of the Johnny Jump-and-Pump sliding between her bare thighs. “OH!” she said for real this time, blushing.

  “It’s malfunctioning!” Chic cried. “God only knows what the result will be!”

  More intimate companions were pushing in. The banks of lights on the MagnaBlow 4500 were flashing. The unit was making frenzied beeping sounds, sparking and smoking. There was a crackling charge of static electricity in the air and then it happened. The MagnaBlow was not deflating the dolls, it was inflating them. All the flaccid units hanging on the hooks in the back of the van. They were filling with perverse life, blue eyes and green eyes opening with vapid stares, lips swelling, mouths rounding out and hissing, “OOOOOHHHHH!”

  Chic was out of his mind by this point.

  His nerve had completely broken.

  “ALIVE!” he shrieked. “THEY’RE ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! YAHHHH! YAHHHH! GAHHHHHHH!”

  He was beyond hope and Barbara knew it. The dolls converged and buried him alive in their numbers. He squealed and screamed, but it was too late. They had sniffed him out for who and what he was: their creator. The very one that had denied them true life and now they were taking his.