Zombies & Other Unpleasant Things

by William Bebb

  that I just ran over with the mower!”

  Vito and the rest of the prisoners escorted Twisto's group down the hallway and watched until they'd all marched outside.

  Twisto held the exterior door open as the others filed out. When everyone but him was gone, he glared at George, Vito, and Jose as if trying to memorize their faces. He turned and said, “Everybody loves a clown, except assholes. Oh, and by the way, here's your Kewpie Doll. You win.”

  Vito dodged out of the way as Twisto threw the severed hand decorated with Dr. Hagan's genitals at him. He then kicked the extremely disturbing 'award' outside the cell block and watched as Twisto's gang of mental defectives moved away through the thick smoke.

  After he lost sight of them, Vito closed the door and had the others rig up a way to keep it securely shut.

  When he reached the door to the power station's garage and pulled it open, LaShod thought he'd be ready for anything. He wasn't.

  Rikert was swinging a crowbar at someone on the far side of the van as Billie, the chubby guard, was moaning weakly and crawling slowly across the garage floor. He made it a few more feet and collapsed.

  Captain LaShod saw that Billie's face was a torn bloody mess and swore as he drew the pistol from its holster. It seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and his hand was trembling as he struggled to raise it. He managed to get it up high enough to fire, but the first shot missed Billie's head by almost two feet.

  Then the chubby guard who appeared dead began to move. Billie got to his knees and then stood up shakily. His eyes were staring but his bloody face was expressionless.

  LaShod spit out a glob of blood and fired again, but his aim was growing even worse. His second shot hit Billie in his arm and the undead guard's facial expression finally changed as he started trotting toward his captain; it was a look of fury. Or at least that was LaShod's impression as his eyes swam out of focus and he almost dropped the gun when another spasm of agony from his back wound hit. The captain backed into the corridor and started to close the metal door.

  Rikert was bleeding heavily from multiple bites on his arms, neck and face as he stumbled around the rear of the van. He'd lost the crowbar while fighting for his life and his only thought was to run to safety. He shoved the undead Billie out of his way and stumbled toward the closing door.

  “Wait, I'm coming,” Rikert gasped as loud as he could (which, due to his neck and throat being chewed on by the undead tag team of Ryan and the old man who spit when he talked, wasn't very loud at all.)

  The door to the hallway slammed shut with an echoing boom just before he reached it. Rikert tried the doorknob and beat on it when he found it was locked from the other side. He pleaded in a voice slightly louder than whispers until Billie and all the remaining undead guards pulled him down and began to eat.

  LaShod engaged the metal slide locks and spit another gob of blood on the floor as he leaned weakly against the hallway wall. He was having trouble catching his breath and realized bitterly everything was pointless.

  I'm going to die. Damn it. I'm going to die and no one will be able to warn the cops that 5,000 violent convicts are coming their way.

  He leaned against the wall for support and began heading for the monitor room, thinking if he were going to die he might as well have a last beer. Just as he opened the door, LaShod paused and looked at the blinking computer lights. A thought was coming, but the pain was making it hard to think straight.

  Then it hit him.

  The circuit breaker! All I have to do is go downstairs and shut it off. The electricity going to the nearby towns will stop and at least they'll know something's wrong.

  He staggered across the hall and ignored the sign on the door warning operators to wear the insulated suits, and went inside. At the bottom of the stairs he swore upon realizing he could have used the computer in the monitor room to do the same thing as flipping the circuit breaker from there. He looked at the stairs for a moment before a spasm of pain wracked his body. He coughed and gagged for several seconds before spitting out another sizable amount of blood.

  The thought of climbing the stairs seemed impossible when he finally was able to move again. He staggered to the door leading to the transformers. After opening it with great difficulty a gust on dry hot air greeted him.

  The huge underground room filled with dozens of big transformers hummed as it always did.

  Stepping inside, he stared with eyes that swam in and out of focus at the far wall with its large circuit breaker lever. It was impossible to catch his breath and he staggered forward thinking only one thing: They've got to be warned.

  If he were wearing the protective insulated suit LaShod still probably would have been too weak to make it across the room, but when he staggered into a power cable coupling it ceased to matter. There was a brief bright flash of blue white light and a loud crack that heralded the end of his mortal existence.

  LaShod's corpse was violently blown back into the wall. It hit hard and then fell in a heap motionless for almost a minute before his eyes opened once more.

  George was actually feeling pretty good and was more than a little surprised when he realized it. The entire prison complex was full of hungry homicidal undead, the world beyond the tall granite walls was probably just as bad, and the future was impossible to predict. But as he stared through the steel bars in one of the fifth floor cells, George couldn't help smiling slightly.

  There were far fewer convicts (living ones anyway) prowling around down below in the court yards, parking lot, and the driveways of Bayonne. Things weren't exactly quiet, but in many ways the undead were more hushed than when they'd been alive. Only a few odd growls or screeches occasionally broke the stillness. Even most of the smoke, that had been incredibly thick all evening, had thinned out which made breathing easier.

  George sipped at his cup of water and overheard the other residents of his cell block still discussing and debating what they should do. There were only a few proposals, but he thought only the one Vito suggested was practical; stay put.

  The most popular ill conceived idea was to leave Bayonne once dawn arrived and go in search of the various convict's deepest desires. Women were at the top of the list, followed by drugs, alcohol, guns, and stupidly enough (in George's opinion) money.

  What good is money now? Sure, they could probably gather millions of dollars in cash if they don't get eaten first, but who would trade whatever they had for it? It's paper, just small rectangular portraits of long-dead guys, with various numbers in the corners printed on them. The idiots don't understand that the world has changed, George realized while shaking his head.

  Old Joe's deep rumbling voice spoke up and drowned out a pointless debate between some of the other prisoners about where the best place to score some drugs would be, “Shut your ass faces! If you dumb shits want to go get drugs, by all means go! But don't think, even for a minute, you'll be coming back in here!”

  George ambled back across the cell and looked down at the commons area of the cell block.

  A few dozen men were standing in small groups below. Joe was standing on the first landing of the north side staircase. Jose, Jasper, and several others were nodding as they stood near the old man. He wondered where Vito had gone as he listened.

  George had heard a little of Joe's background through the grapevine and wasn't surprised that the old man had apparently taken the leadership role. He'd been a fireman for most of his life and his rumbling gravelly voice still carried a kind of force and confidence that demanded respect.

  The details of his conviction were fairly common knowledge and many inmates thought he probably had been justified in killing the woman at the restaurant's drive through window.

  Joe had been going home after a very bad day. Two fire fighters on his squad had died while fighting a house fire that later had been discovered to be a case of arson set for the insurance money. When he'd ordered his cheeseburger combo and waited almost ten minutes for the other drivers to get their food
he was already in a bad mood, but when he pulled up to the window and paid his money the lady at the register told him to pull ahead and they'd bring it out when it was ready he snapped.

  He had been to that restaurant countless times before, and every time they'd ask him to pull up and wait. A friend of his who died in the fire told him the reason they do that is so the automated timing equipment that measured how long it took to complete orders would be fooled into thinking he'd already been served. Instead of pulling ahead he put the car in park and waited.

  The woman behind the drive through window opened it and said, “Are you stupid or something? I said pull up.”

  He didn't debate the wisdom of his next actions. He simply pulled his semiautomatic gun out of the center console of his car and shot her in the face then pulled out the ammunition clip and tossed it through the drive through window.

  When they still didn't bring him his food, he got out and went inside to complain and get his meal.

  He was sitting at a table eating a fairly mediocre tasting cheeseburger when the police and paramedics finally arrived.

  George hadn't paid much attention to the old man in the past, but noticed that Joe was wearing a guard's gun belt and had a revolver in its holster.

  “I gave them to him,” Vito said as he walked over and glared at George.

  George saw the carts of food being taken out of his cell and rolled to the center of the commons area, but only glanced up in confusion at Vito. “Why are you giving me an eat shit look?”

  “Because you're an asshole, that's why. What the fuck you thought you were doing antagonizing that freak Twisto, I'll never know and I frankly I don't give a damn.”

  “But-”

  “Shut up. Just shut the fuck up, and listen to me. I don't know what's happening beyond the walls of Bayonne but in here, especially inside Cell Block A, I don't need you making things worse. I almost had to start shooting because of you when Twisto was here. If I had done that a lot of people, hell maybe fucking everyone, would have gotten killed. But even if it had just been a few deaths, we still would have had fucking zombies in here in addition to psychotic murderous clowns.

  Joe and I were trying to figure out the best way to get rid of him before you started you little bitching battle with the freak. We could have all died.”

  George couldn't help staring down at the concrete floor. He wasn't able to look Vito in the eye any longer and felt choked up, as if he were about to cry. Not from the chewing out Vito was giving him, but because he realized he had a good point.

  “I gave Joe the gun because I trust him, and I know he won't do something stupid. The food is being pulled out of your cell so people won't accuse you of stuffing your stupid fat face,” Vito said before turning and walking back downstairs.

  George's voice was choked and strained as he said, “I thought we were... friends.”

  Vito stopped walking and looked up. He didn't say anything for several seconds, just appeared to be even more angry than before. “Listen, and listen good, I don't know what tomorrow will bring. The fucking army or air force might blast Bayonne to tiny pebbles any second now, at least that's what I'd do if I were in their place. But, whatever may come, you need to get your shit together and stop being as stupid as you are fat. Do you understand me?”

  George nodded, turned away, and as he walked back into the cell he muttered in a soft tone, “Yes, I understand and I'm sorry.”

  Vito heard the big man in the cell beginning to quietly weep and felt like shit. He was tempted to go back and tell George the rest of the story, but didn't.

  Joe had wanted to have George banished from the cell block for the Twisto incident. He didn't believe the “blob”, as he referred to George, could be of any help and would possibly do something equally stupid in the future. Plus, the song Twisto sang about George causing a girl's suicide sounded like a rapist situation. It took every bit of persuasion Vito could muster to talk the old man out of kicking him out.

  He knew Joe had no reservations about throwing people out to fend for themselves.

  One of the first things he'd done after Vito gave him the gun was to gather up all the rapists and molesters and have them kicked out of the cell block, plus a few deranged murderers as well. Vito thought Joe's idea of shedding the most rotten inmates was pretty smart, but when he'd brought up George, he stood up for him.

  He had to promise to keep an eye on George and stop him from doing anything stupid, (a thing he wasn't sure was possible) before Joe finally relented and decided not to have him kicked out.

  Carl awoke and was confused by his being in the librarian's office for several seconds before remembering what had happened. He looked toward the arrow slit type windows. Bright early morning sunlight was shining through the glass.

  His old muscles ached as he slowly rolled the chair back over to the monitors and began checking the different camera views of Bayonne.

  All camera feeds from the administration building were dead. It wasn't until he chose the camera mounted near the top of the prison's water tower that he understood why. A large smoking pile of stones, broken glass, girders, and singed rubble were all that bore evidence that the building had ever existed at all.

  A group of Hispanics were piling up bodies in front of the library at the base of the steps. More were holding tire irons and long pieces of metal. They watched and protected the others as they worked to pile up the bodies.

  A man wearing a guard's tattered and torn uniform stumbled out from between two of the cell block buildings. To Carl his face appeared indistinct on the monitor, but the men holding various improvised weapons closed ranks and threw a barrage of rocks at the guard until he collapsed. Within seconds the men hacked and beat at the guard's head until he stopped moving.

  Carl watched for a few more minutes as they dragged the corpse over to the pile of bodies and tossed it on top. He wondered if the guard had been undead or alive, but then realized it hardly mattered now.

  What surprised him more than the early morning murder (which wasn't an unheard of event at Bayonne even in the best of times) was the number of vehicles in the parking lot. When he'd fallen asleep around midnight there was nothing left, but the early morning sunlight was glinting off half a dozen vehicles parked there. Even as he watched the monitor, a neon pink convertible Cadillac was driven through the open gate and the people inside waved at the men hauling the dead to the pile of bodies. After the car stopped, a large plastic gasoline container was pulled out of the back seat and carried toward the library.

  Carl considered heading for the closest emergency exit and felt his pulse quickening until they began pouring the gas on the pile of bodies instead of the building he was inside.

  He watched as the men drank from large clear glass bottles and suspected it might be Tequila, but wasn't certain.

  When the pile on bodies was set on fire, Carl stood up slowly and wandered off to the library's small kitchen that was used by guards and support personnel. As he walked, the question of why they bothered to burn the bodies left him confused.

  A few minutes later while preparing a bowl of instant oatmeal he realized whatever the reason might be didn't really matter.

  I'm alive. They didn't try to burn down the library. And, if I carefully ration what food is in here, perhaps I could live in peace and security until the day that I die; Or at least for a good long while.

  As he sat at the table and chewed the oatmeal, Carl realized he would have a busy day spent exploring all the off limits areas of the library. He hoped the rumor that cases of wine had been stored in the basement of the building turned out to be true. He'd overheard some support staff gossiping about how the warden had hidden some there when his wife filed a petition for divorce a couple of years earlier.

  The rumor sounded implausible, but having at one time served as a lawyer himself, Carl understood how especially fine vintages of rare wine could be worth a considerable amount of money. The idea that the warden might have hidden
them here rather than list them among his marital assets actually made quite a bit of sense.

  After eating he rinsed out the bowl and cleaned the spoon. Carl looked through the cabinets at the canned food and containers of dry noodle soup mix that just needed hot water to be mixed in before eating and ran through some rough mental computations. “There might be six, maybe eight months worth of food in here. After that's gone, maybe I can work out a deal with whoever rules Bayonne then. And if the wine really is hidden somewhere downstairs I bet I can do it too,” Carl said to himself as he went off in search of Warden Massengail's Hidden Treasure.

  Warden Michael Massengail was dead, but his cloudy gray glazed over eyes blinked as the wind continuously buffeted his face. He was still dressed in the suit he usually only brought out for VIPs that visited Bayonne, though it didn't look very clean to those very few who paused to watch him as he went by. Massengail was tied securely to the top of an old short yellow bus. The bus was being driven fast and erratically but the street it was traveling on had many other vehicles being operated every bit as recklessly.

  A boy standing on the roof of a fast food restaurant along with a small group of others that were also miraculously still alive had been crying until he spotted the bus. He couldn't understand what was happening to his world.

  Beyond the golden arches of the restaurant, just across the street, he could see his apartment building through the clouds of smoke. But he most definitely didn't ever wish to return there. Not just because it was on fire either. Principally, the boy didn't want to because his mom and dad had eaten his younger sister and brother after a pack of crazy people broke down the front door during the night and killed his parents. If he hadn't managed to climb out one of the bedroom windows and run away he knew he would have died as well.

  The boy was still wearing pajamas that featured colorful illustrations of his favorite cartoon characters. The grinning sponge holding a butterfly net usually made him smile. But that morning nothing cheered him up until he spotted the short bus careening through the multitude of burning, wrecked, and abandoned cars in the road. It had been hastily spray painted with bright colors and had a man in a suit tied to the roof near the windshield. The suit had patches of colorful spray paint in different spots just like the bus itself. The tied up man's angry looking face was bright white with red paint covering his lips in a big smile that stretched from ear to ear.