Richard waddled through the shadows. He fumbled over some desks, burst through a glass window on accident, and slapped to the streets like a rag slathered with chunky mud.

It was the third time that week. Richard wasn’t the brightest. Or the strongest, or quickest. He was middle tier. Exactly middle tier. He was that way most of his life, even before the plague.

No one really noticed him in particular. Now, as he rummaged through the alleyways, dipping a dripping tentacle through the bags of trash, he’d say he was hard to miss.

The vampire infection turned his life positive!

He didn’t have the looks, or the body, or the temperament to run anywhere before. Now, he felt fantastic. Full of energy. Full of life. And more jiggly and sloppy than ever.

It took him longer than others to get the hang of running around. It wasn’t like he was particularly…contained. The lack of a head, he could live with. The enhanced senses, strength, and hunger, yeah, that seemed doable. The hanging, dripping, putrid, steaming, goopy masses that were plastered on a meat chunk vaguly representing their torso–Richard would never admit it, but he hurled half-digested organs the first time he ran in front of a mirror.

It was shocking, but he looked sexier than ever. At least, that’s what the voice telling me to destroy the world always told me. He was a nice man. Really knew how to bolster someone’s confidence.

Richard fell behind of the rest of the hordes pretty quickly. But, thanks to the nice man he eventually learned to scavange behind the stronger ones. Build his strength. Slowly, but surely, add and watch his collection build. Don’t be in such a rush to advance up the ranks, so to speak.

It took him a couple of months to realize the pattern. Most of the others reasoned out the correct order. Richard kept getting close but never quite reached that tip until he tackled his first victim. He ended up crushing him with his collected organs, like slimy turds that dropped off of his inside-out body.

At that second, Richard received a thought that he couldn’t ignore no matter how hard he tried. If he’d turned into a monster, he should eat people like a monster. It was instinctual. It was mind-numbing. It was okay.

Richard enjoyed it just as much as the next abomination. But, after doing it for years and years, he couldn’t stop thinking about the…

He found it a little…

He wasn’t sure how to put it.

Before the infection, Richard never considered himself having a type. He liked beautiful women. Plain and simple. Just like the next guy. And, of course, he’d had a few experiences of his own during his human days. But he’d never found himself attracted to a black woman.

Now, he found them insatiable. Richard wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He wasn’t sure whether to feel offended since he wasn’t even sure if he was being racist or not.

Richard worried little about it though. He wasn’t the one who started a vampire infection that only targeted white people.

Richard was a victim just like everyone else. He gargled a gallon of saliva and bile as a chunk of small intestine plopped to the ground. He scuttled over a car and scanned the end of the street when the iron whiff of blood hit his senses.

The sun was dipping. And Richard perked up, only losing one squishy lung this time.

The couple screamed. Richard sputtered something between a wet fart and another person shitting their pants. The couple booked it as much as their inefficient legs could carry them. They weaved and zigzagged around poorly placed cars.

Richard dissolved into a murky sludge composed of rotting body parts, and he zipped to the two faster than they could blink. Richard, definitely not a sexist weirdo, slapped the man into the side of a car, while a warty tentacle, definitely not shaped like a penis, shot down his throat, sucking up organs and blood like a straw. It added to Richard’s mass, and a tangled mess of tentacles wrapped the woman into an unbreakable grip.

The man was already dead. Her–

Richard wasn’t a messy eater. He didn’t care how long it took as long as he finished his plate in a decent manner. He slathered a few more pieces in mucus and aimed for the woman’s eyes and bellybutton. He preferred it quick and painless. It was easier for everyone.

Those creepy guys who made it sexual–

That was just weird to Richard. He’d never want to shag a meatloaf. That’s just weird.

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Next Prompt: Women exist to fight off ghosts.