The Walk

An aging phys-ed teacher, facing the final days of his life, encounters an unusual situation that puts his values to the test.

“Alright you maggots, line up! Right over here!”

Coach “The Walk” Bottle was short on patience and in no mood for nonsense. As the young ones fell into line, he was reminded of just how meaningless these past five days of his long life had seemed. With a day or two left to live, he dwelled on whether being a phys-ed teacher to these fifteen squirmy brats was really making a difference in their small, filthy, smelly part of the world.

A flight instructor — now that would’ve been a job. Bad luck and a bad wing, though, kept Bottle rather firmly grounded. Teaching young cadets how to zip through the air with speed and grace remained a fantasy that only others his age got to fulfill.

At least it was wonderfully filthy and smelly.

“Hup to it! Hup to it, Bait! You’re holding us up! It’s workout time! Let’s go!”

Bait, the plumpest larva of the bunch by far, finally slid in place at the far end of the lineup.

“It’s about time. What in the heck were you doing back there, son?”

Swat, fit and at attention at the center of the line, sniggered as he spoke up. “He was eating poop, Coach.”

Bottle winced. “Is that true, Bait? You eating poop without a pass again?”

“Sorry, Coach,” Bait’s full mouth mumbled in reply. “It’s just so rich.”

The rest of the maggots laughed and groaned in disgust. The one closest to Bait nudged him away, out of line. Bottle was not amused.

“Alright, alright. Settle down! Bait, there’s putrid meat all around us. Poop is for slouchy drain flies. So help me, if there’s one thing I’m going to do in my final days on this fetid corpse, it’s to get you all fit and dining on rotted flesh! Now listen up!”

The coach walked over to a nearby exposed bone, whereupon diagrams and a list were displayed. Larger letters at the top titled the arrangement: TODAY’S WORKOUT.

“Today,” Coach Bottle continued, “we’re going to pick things up a bit. No more mister nice fly, you hear me?”

“Don’t you mean mister nice walk?” whispered an unknown student.

“What? Who said that?!”

The coach scanned the faces in the lineup. No one budged.

“I don’t care what happens,” Bottle continued. “You will complete this list today. Here’s what I want to see.”

Bottle pointed to each item on the list as he spoke.

“First: fifty squirm-ups.”

The group groaned in complaint.

“I’m not done!” Bottle interrupted, impatient. “Next we’ve got fifty squirm-downs, followed by twenty-five cling-ons. I know a lot of you have trouble with those, so I cut them in half this time.”

The class breathed a sigh of relief.

“But they are important! They could save your life, so don’t skip them! Last but not least, we’ve got twenty flesh-lifts. Pick a buddy to help spot you with those, in case you get a heavy piece with some bone in it. And no snacking! What are you waiting for? Get to it!”

The small group of maggots sprang to life, squirming about into positions around the rotting thigh of their human cadaver home.

“Remember,” the coach chimed in. “We are finishing this workout. No excuses! No snacking! You got that, Bait?”

Midgey, the youngest of the group, spoke up. “Bait’s gone off again, Coach.”

“Oh for flying out loud, is it the rectum again? Swat, you’re in charge while I go look for Bait. Keep at it, maggots!”

“You got it, sir.”

Listen to them, Coach Bottle thought, as he skittered away from the sounds of larvae grunting with exhaustion. Maybe I’m helping make grown flies out of them after all.

Before he got halfway up the dead body’s left butt cheek, Bottle spotted a crawling Bait. Instead of heading away, toward his favorite feasting zone, Bait was heading back to the group, carrying something.

“Bait! Get your fat abdomen back to the group, on the double!”

“Coach!” Bait cried out, clearly out of breath. “Coach, I found something! You’ve gotta see this!”

The old fly walked up beside Bait who dropped what he was carrying. It rolled to a stop at Bottle’s feet: a round, neon-green, pulsating ball of ooze. Its glow reflected off Bottle’s thousands of eye lenses as he gazed in wonder with them.

“What is that? Where did you get it?”

“I got it near my favorite eating place,” Bait said, a bit embarrassed. “There’s a whole bunch of it. It sorta fell from the sky and splattered all over the meat and stuff.”

Bottle was mesmerized. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all my days.”

“Do you think we can eat it?” asked Bait.

“What? No, you can’t eat it! Get your head in the game, boy! Get back to working out with the group and leave this stuff alone!”

Bait, looking guilty, turned away.

“Oh, Bait,” said Bottle, seeing Bait’s reaction. “Bait, you didn’t. You didn’t eat the weird green goop from the sky, Bait, did you?”

The little maggot remained facing away and started to weep. “Uh huh. And now my tummy feels funny.”

As Bottle prepared to unleash a hellish barrage of scolding remarks at the cowering, chubby grub, Bait began to transform. At first it appeared he’d merely taken a very deep breath, but it soon became clear that Bait was getting larger by the second. Bottle stared in stunned silence as the maggot quickly grew to match his own size, groaning in discomfort.

Behind Bottle, the other maggots continued on, oblivious, most moving on to the cling-on portion of their workout.

Bait’s size finally stabilized. His voice came like a growl. “You know what, Coach?”

“Bait?” Bottle replied, clearly shaken. “Are you OK, son? What is it?”

“You were right, Coach. Why eat poop all the time when the good eating is right here?”

“Like that green stuff, Bait?”

“No,” Bait responded, his voice deeper and shakier, almost growling. “Like brains.”

“But … we’re not near the brain, Bait.”

The now-hulking maggot turned to face Bottle. Neon-green fluid dripped from his mouth, his matching eyes focused and hungry.

“Those aren’t the brains I’m talking about!”

The coach stepped back in alarm, his wings at the ready. He knew, though, that he couldn’t leave the others behind, and flying with only one good wing was foolish. Only at that moment something perhaps more disturbing occurred.

The body — their home — started to move.

The fourteen maggots left on their own began to shriek in terror as their cling-on exercises were interrupted by a tremendous fleshquake. They clung to the rotting leg, as what was once dead became undead, somehow making itself upright. Then it began to walk.

“What’s going on?!” cried out Swat, dangling from a tendon. “How is this happening? Where’s Coach?!”

Bottle could hear his students’ terrified cries. His hooked legs held fast despite the jarring, shambling movement of the undead corpse. From above him he could see dozens of other maggots fall free from their snacking places, not knowing how to grab hold, then landing on the floor below.

“Why aren’t they clinging on, like us?” asked Midgey in alarm.

“Because their coach doesn’t make them do cling-ons!” answered Swat.

Despite his cling-on training, in his deranged fit of hunger for brains, Bait continued advancing on Bottle, undeterred by the surrounding situation. As the huge maggot made for one final lunge, several others falling from above slammed into him, causing him to lose grip and join them downward.

With that, Bottle knew what he had to do.

With blind faith, Coach “The Walk” Bottle let go.

As the plummeting fly gained speed toward the approaching floor, he let his wings open. Rather than continue vertically, he began to glide above the heads of the fallen maggots below, many floating in puddles of spilled purple fluid.

“Coach Bottle!” came a small voice from below. It was Bait, returned to normal size. “I’m all better now! I only like poop again! I think it’s this purple stuff!”

Bottle began to lose speed and altitude. Without much consideration and with much desperation, the coach rapidly beat his good wing. He began to lift further from the floor, stiffening his lame wing to keep from spinning out of control.

Ahead of the walking corpse, Bottle could see a lab-coated human holding a syringe of the purple fluid, unaware of the approaching undead.

He has to turn around! thought Bottle. He must be able to fix this!

Bottle’s good wing ached as he beat it even faster. Three feet, four feet he rose, closer to the man with what had to be the cure for a walking corpse.

“Look at Coach Bottle!” cried Swat. “He’s flying!”

“He’s not a walk anymore!” said Midgey. “Fly, Coach! Fly!”

To the man’s face Bottle flew, intent on getting his attention. With every effort he had left, he pushed his good wing further, gliding him past the bridge of the scientist’s nose.

It worked.

The scientist raised his hand and swatted at the passing fly. Bottle deftly dodged his efforts, turning sharply to behind the man’s right ear. Turning around, the scientist swatted once more at the air, connecting with Bottle and sending him across the room. Then the man saw the approaching corpse.

The scientist yelped in alarm. “We’ve got another contamination here,” he said to someone unseen. “I’ll take care of it.”

The man approached the oncoming zombie. He raised his arm with the syringe of purple fluid, then jabbed it into its chest. Almost immediately, the corpse ceased to walk any further and collapsed to the ground in a heap of inanimate flesh.

Coach Bottle lay dazed on the floor near the corpse’s leg. No longer having to cling for their lives, the students crawled to where they could see their befallen coach.

“Coach, are you okay?” asked a worried Swat.

Bottle slowly raised his head and looked up to his students, high on the leg above. He managed to open his mouth to speak.

“Quiet everyone,” said Swat to the murmuring others. “He’s going to say something. What is it, Coach?”

“Did …” He croaked. “Did you finish your workout?”

“No.”

With newfound energy, Bottle jumped to his feet, then sprang into the air, circling above the onlooking students. “Then what are you lying around for? Get to it!”

“Yes sir! You heard the fly, fellas. Let’s go!”

Fearing their teacher’s wrath, the maggots turned and squirmed their way back to their workout area, continuing where they left off.

As Bottle hovered and watched his students assist each other with flesh-lifts, another fly approached Bottle’s side. It was Gnatalie, chief instructor at the flight school.

“I didn’t think you could fly anymore. Those were impressive moves, Walk. I guess we’ll have to find a new nickname for you.”

“That’s okay. I was sort of getting used to it anyway.”

“We could use someone like you, Bottle. How would you like to change jobs, come teach flying with us?”

Bottle thought for a long moment. What kept his students safer that day: his incredible flight, or his insufferable workout routines? What would keep them safe for the next?

He watched as Bait attempted to climb back onto the body’s thigh to his classmates, clearly having come from his favorite feasting area.

“No thanks, Gnatalie. I think I’m doing pretty well right here for my last couple of days.”

Bottle shot away from the instructor with his one good wing, down to the struggling Bait.

“Oh, hey Coach,” Bait said, out of breath. “Is it lunch time yet?”

Bottle lifted the little maggot from the floor and flew him over to the others working out.

“That sounds like a great idea, Bait,” the coach said. He watched the struggling group of maggots finish up their final part of his list.

“OK, group, take a flesh break. Then we’ve got more cling-ons to do.”