AUTHOR'S NOTE
I wonder if there's any of you guys left
If any of you remember
It's been so long. I just… want to impress you.
Joyful Tree Friends
Lumpy hated it. He hated waking up in the morning, he hated numbing his way through the day. He hated the people around him. He hated the way that skinny fucker looked at him when he passed the pills into his hands. He hated the feeling of swallowing them. He hated puking afterwards.
But he loved the pills. He loved feeling okay. He loved the tingle. The numbness. He loved her. He loved her body. He loved the feeling of it. He loved her beneath him.
He hated the way she screamed. The way she dug her nails into his arms until she drew blood. The way that the scars never really healed. He hated the way she looked at him. Those dead eyes.
He hated that he was still alive and she wasn't.
…
Lumpy choked. He was still here, in that little shack. He'd fallen asleep with one of Pop's burlap blankets draped over him. He didn't remember having it on him, but Toothy was sleeping next to him and had one too, so he figured that Toothy must've given him one when he nodded off.
"Ah, you're awake." Pop was sitting by the open door, puffing on a pipe.
"You were awake all night?"
"Ha! No, it's just dawn. I always wake up early. I suppose it's a leftover from back when I had to limp out the door every morning to get the paper for that potato bitch wife of mine. She'd moan all morning if she didn't have a paper to read while the coffee brewed. Dumb slut couldn't even make rest her soul." He puffed again, "It's crazy how it happened so fast. That bright light. I was sleeping when it happened and it woke me right up. I thought it was those fucking kids down the streets shining their high beams through my window again. But it wasn't. And then she was gone. All of 'em."
Lumpy's head hurt.
"Yeah. Pretty fucked up."
"You set to travel there, pal? You look a little roughed up."
Lumpy stood. His head nearly hit the top of the small shack, "I don't really have a choice. You still coming?"
"Well I said I would, didn't I?" Pop smiled at him, "Besides, I'm getting old and I don't feel like dying in this shack."
Lumpy nodded. He gave Toothy a quick kick in the side.
"Oof! Why did you… Oh hey Lumpy! Are we, uh, is it morning?"
Lumpy nodded.
Pop poured some of his soup into some old beer bottles and tucked them away. Lumpy dusted off his poncho. Toothy brushed his teeth with some dirty water. The sun was not yet up and the three slipped out with dawn still on their backs.
…
Cuddles had never seen so much barbed wire in his life. Every guard he passed stared him down. He was wearing their colors now, why were they still so hostile towards him? The rifle they'd given him should have reassured him, but it felt unbearably heavy on his back as he walked.
"I just need to talk to her." Cuddles said under his breath, to nobody but himself.
He climbed up the short hill to her hut with what felt like everyone in the camp's eyes burning holes in his back. The door of her "office" was wide open, so she saw him through the smoke of her fire pit before he'd even come inside. She was laying on a single bed in the room, one covered in pillows.
"You again?" She hissed. The cigarette in her mouth remained firmy tucked into one side of her mouth while she rasped through the other, "What the fuck do you want, you sniveling faggot?"
Cuddles grimaced. In the heavy smoke that filled the room, the face that Giggles wore stretched over her own almost looked like it belonged there. Almost.
"I just, uh,"
He heard her growl. She hated hesitation.
"I just wanted to know what's happened with Buddy."
She inhaled hard, blew smoke out of her nostrils, "What the fuck do you mean? She's still alive as far as I know. You wanna go see her then go to the cages."
"You're keeping her there?"
Giggles choked out a quick laugh. A strained bounce of her diaphragm, "Yeah, you got a problem? We're gonna keep her in the cage where you sick fucks can't get at her. She'll be fed and clothed and when her twat starts bleeding then one of you can take a shot at breeding her."
Cuddles felt sick. He wanted to say something to her.
"Okay." He nodded.
He didn't say it. He turned and left. He'd go see her, and maybe that would make her feel better.
…
"So where exactly are we headed?"
Toothy asked his compatriots as they slogged through the dirt. There didn't seem to be much in either direction. Nobody responded. Toothy sidled up to Lumpy and asked again,
"So where are we headed?"
Lumpy raised an eyebrow at him, "The closest camp here? Y'know, the one where everyone meets and drinks or trades or something?"
"Oh. I've never been." Toothy smiled nervously.
Lumpy asked, "Where are you from then? I mean if you've never been to the camp."
"I live around here. Just a ways over the ridge."
Lumpy thought for a moment, then asked, "You have trouble talking to people or something?"
"C-course not! I mean, I'm the hint master! I have to be, uh, eloquent if I want to pass my hint knowledge onto others! M-makes sense, right pal?"
Lumpy shrugged, "I guess. Look, we're almost there. Try not to be so nervous or someone might try to fuck with you."
Toothy forced a pained smile, "O-of course. Nothing to worry about!"
They were close to the camp then, and that's when things felt weird. There was heat in the air. There was the smell of blood. It wasn't long after that they saw the first corpse, with most of its top half ripped off. Toothy's eyes widened. Pop drew his gun. Lumpy just shook his head..
More bodies lined the road, all of them still oozing blood. All of them found it in the camp, but they heard it before they saw it. It squealed and the earth seemed to shake. Toothy froze in his tracks at the sound. His body was shaking. Across the way he saw it, standing ten feet tall even with how it was hunched over. The thing was pounding a body across the side of a stone hut that had once served as a bar. Its single enormous, tumorous arm was easily large enough to hold a body while the other arm hung shriveled and limp. The whole body of the thing was knotted with redundant flesh and sores, tumors and welts. The thing whirled around and the tossed the pulped body across the road. It squealed again, towards the sky, then looked down at the three that had just arrived. Two tusks twisted out of its face, blubber hung over them. It panted and the smell of buttercups rolled off its breath.
Pop pressed the trigger. There was a clap, the bullet caught the thing in the eye and it shrieked, then charged. Pop fired another, the thing's head recoiled but its body kept coming. He didn't have time for another shot. He dove to the side, Lumpy and Toothy dove to the other. The thing charged past them, turned and squealed again. Pop shot it in the side, it gushed blood but only seemed more vigorous. It came towards him now, frothing and gasping.
Toothy was cowering.
Lumpy bit down on something. He swallowed half of it. His pulse raced. He ran at the thing. He slammed his only fist into its side where the bullet had impacted. It shrieked and tried to knock him away. He dug his fist in deeper. Pop had loaded his gun again. He fired into the things face. Its throat. Its chest. Lumpy held it still by clutching its ribs hard enough to crack bone between his fingers.
It died. Pop shot it a few more times as it hung limp in Lumpy's grip. Lumpy threw it aside. There was no more sounds except the ringing in his ears.
Toothy pulled himself out of his hiding spot and crawled towards them, finally finding his sense again. He looked up to see Pop and Lumpy talking over the body of the thing.
"I think," Pop said, "I remember him."
"Yeah." Lumpy said, "He drank at this place sometimes. Think there's anyone left?"
Pop didn't answer. Maybe he didn't hear the question, "Knew him when he was younger. Truffles I think his name was. Wonder what happened to him."
Lumpy fished in his pocket. He dropped the half of the pill he had left onto the body of what used to be Truffles.
"Joy."
