If you have ever been to the city of Fairfield, then you must know the Pump ‘N Run gas station. And if you know the Pump ‘N Run gas station, then surely you must also know Oscar’s Corner Diner. And if you know about the diner and have been fortunate enough to live to tell the tale, then you probably already know the tragic story behind its proprietor, a horrifying example of the infection’s effect on even the most kind-hearted , innocuous humans. But for those who have never heard of Oscar and his diner, then come hither, where I shall relate this tragic tale…
Oscar walked up the steps of his apartment, whistling cheerfully and jingling his keys in his pockets as he deftly carried a bag filled with fries and burgers with one trained hand. He opened the door and walked into a bright green living room, all with matching sofas and rugs. On the couch, knitting tranquilly, was an elderly lady, apparently at ease with herself.
“Hey Grandma,” greeted Oscar as he set down the pizza onto a table. His grandmother smiled back sweetly and nodded back at him.
Then from across the room bounded Oscar’s son, Willis, as he cried , “Papa!”
He ran into his father’s arms as Oscar scooped him up and hugged him with his large beefy bearlike arms. When Oscar put down Willis, his son squealed, “Look, Papa! Look at what I drew!” Willis took out a crumpled sheet of paper with a seven year-old’s scrawl and coloring on it. On it was a morbidly obese, comical fat man with stretched out underwear.
Oscar smiled and patted Willis on the head. After Willis had left to go play with his toy box, Oscar talked to his brother, Ronald, privately in the kitchen over the burgers and fries Oscar brought home.
“Oscar bro, how’s the business?”
“It’s fine, Ron. I just took a quick break and had my employees take care of the place for a while.”
“So, what’s the latest on that octo-mom?”
And so the two brothers discussed ordinary affairs, from the rising cost of gas prices to how certain people need to have smarter family planning. After Oscar and Ronald finished their meal, Oscar decided to take off and leave. He had to get back to watch his diner, he told his brother. Just as Oscar was about to leave, Oscar’s grandmother said,
“Oscar?”
“Yea?”
“Don’t you think you could lose a little weight? I think you look a little too much like that Drew Carey fellow on The Price Is Right.”
Oscar laughed it off. He remembered how his grandmother spent her days watching that show. Grandma always used to squeeze his chubby arms and remark playfully how chubby he was. “I’ll be fine, Ma. Don’t worry, I’ll try.” Oscar kissed his grandmother and headed off for the diner. On the way there, Oscar looked at his wide frame and remembered how his classmates used to tease about his size. Without giving his size a further thought, he nervously chucked to himself again and strode into the diner.
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Oscar took on a genial attitude and greeted his old customers warmly. The aroma of fresh grilled burgers and sizzling fries filled the warm, comforting air of the diner. As he approached the kitchen, though, he heard coughing and wheezing in the other room. Oscar followed the noise to a back closet storage, where he found his assistant manager tending to a sickly, pale man. It was a fresh new face who just started working here a few days ago.
“Mamma mia, what happened here, Maria?”
Maria looked up and frowned. “I dunno. The newbie obviously caught something.” The man coughed and hacked, looking up at Oscar with red teary pleading eyes. Oscar had never seen anyone so pitiful.
Oscar said, “Fine. You get the rest of the day off. I think you should go to the hospital, you don’t look too good.”
The man coughed in consent and staggered his way out of the diner. He coughed numerous times at the counter and coughed all the way out the door.
Oscar looked at the man’s skeletal frame. For some reason, he had the stench of death about him. Maybe I should clean up the counter. Oscar, however, never got to that.
Nighttime. Oscar locked the diner, checked the alarm, and before he left, took out some burgers and shakes for dinner. After walking through the dark and into his own apartment, Oscar settled down into his couch and went channel surfing.
“New reports of a quara-,” *FZZTT*
“This afternoon, a man wa-,” *FZZTT*
Nothing interested Oscar on TV. Oscar then took out a movie from under his couch. It was his favorite movie, and he smiled at the cover of the DVD. It showed a man whose mouth was completely filled with fries. As he popped in the DVD, he settled back on the couch and sighed happily. Somewhere around the halfway point of Supersize Me, he fell into a deep, relaxed sleep.
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“HUHHH….haaacckkk…PTOOETY!”
Oscar stumbled out of the restroom, half-dazed and disheveled. He had begun to take a shower, but he had started hacking up green mucus. Lots of it. Oscar sat down on his couch again and rested his head, feeling very odd. He breathed shallowly. He just didn’t…feel right. When he opened his eyes again, he saw his reflection on the TV screen. It wasn’t pretty.
“Oh….God….”
Willis’s picture…
Before him wasn’t the Oscar he knew. He saw a morbidly obese fat man gazing back at him. It haunted him, yet the reflection was quite comical. Oscar stood up, with great effort, and stumbled to his restroom to look at himself. Pale and white. Big and fat. Big stubby legs and arms. His blue shirt was stretched out and so were his pants. Large, fragile boils stood up from his stomach, containing some sort of nasty green substance.
The man…the sickness…
Oscar stumbled out of his apartment. He waddled down to the lobby and pushed open the doors…to see an entirely different world.
Fires. Cars beeping. Bystanders seemingly running around aimlessly. The night sky was orange and pale against the dark smoke rising from the city. Armageddon. However, Oscar saw the bystanders. They weren’t the same. He saw pale, disheveled, bloodied figures run. He saw their muscular arms, their claw-like hands. But most importantly, he saw their desire to kill.
Gunshots erupted around him. A bullet whizzed past Oscar’s ear. For some reason, the howling ghostly figures ran past him, ignoring him. They went into the direction of the gunshots. The gunfire stopped. A corrupt feast ensued.
Oscar felt himself get sick to his stomach. He doubled over and groaned as he knelt to the ground. He felt the urge to regurgitate his insides, to get rid of the matter within. But first, he thought of Ronald, and his grandmother. They could help.
Oscar pounded on the door of his brother’s flat. Ronald opened the door almost immediately with a shotgun in hand. He gazed at his brother with wild, astonished, deer-in-the-headlight eyes and asked, “God, what happened to your face?”
Oscar felt his face and felt large bumps, but before he could explore the matter any further or explain to Ronald, a wave of nausea hit him. He reared back and his insides roared out of him.
Gallons of green matter sprang out of Oscar’s mouth. The matter covered Ronald entirely and some even splattered back onto Oscar. Oscar let loose with every single ounce of bile he had and more. In no time, Ronald was covered, head to toe, with green vomit.
“What the-”
Ronald staggered blindly, but not for long before a shadowy figure leapt from the shadows and smashed into Ronald. A shotgun blast rang out, and then the hapless man was down.
The creature dug into Ronald’s warm flesh and dug out his insides. Blood decorated the cement sidewalk. However, that was not the end of his ordeal. Almost as quickly as the hunter had pounced, an entire wave of pale, staggering, bloodied figures surrounded Ronald and turned their desire to kill onto him. Ronald was fortunate- his death was quick.
The hunter, with glaring, beady eyes, turned to the fat, obese figure and growled.
You know what to do…
The hunter pounced away from rooftop to rooftop. The horde of zombies entered the apartment to destroy their next two victims. However, the Boomer didn’t go into the apartment. Groaning and moaning, he lurched off into the shadows. The urge to vomit was great and he felt another wave of nausea come up.
Somewhere within the depths of the now corrupted soul, the last human part of this inhumane vessel cried out pitifully and feebly:
Mami…Willis…Ronald…
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Thunder crackled and shattered the silence. A stream of light pierced the dark and shone on a disfigured hand covered in goo. Out of the shadows emerged a grizzled old man, a tattooed figure, a somewhat neatly dressed young man, and a young girl in a red jacket.
“Hold up.”
The old man crouched down and touched the green goo experimentally.
“Never seen anything like this before.”
This time, the tatooed man said, “Jesus Bill, don’t let that stop you from smearing that all over yourself.”
With an annoyed look, Bill stood up and smeared the green gunk on the tatooed man’s vest.
“Jesus Bill, aw, it stinks!”
However, this little talk was interrupted by a wailing. It sounded like a little girl crying. Bill and the girl traced the crying to an adjacent door. They entered, determined to investigate the source of the crying. Another survivor…?
That left the neatly dressed man and the tatooed man outside to look out. They shifted nervously in the darkness, an imaginary enemy hiding in every shadow, every crevice of this decrepit alley.
The neatly dressed man sniffed. The air smelled of death. But wait…he smelled something else. As his curious nose sought out the source of the smell, his brain told him it smelled like something he had eaten at the office before for lunch…something that smelled familiar like…like…
“Burgers?”
