Battle of the Network Zombies

by Mark Henry

  There was really little else to report.

  After they wrangled Wendy outside, Cameron went on to describe the various trials and tribulations the contestants would endure and the frequent “cuts” that sounded both threatening and, frankly, sub-par in the reality show world. I wasn’t feeling great about the future of the show, when so little work had been put into the premise. It’s like the producers had never seen Shrunken Heads or the even more famous Ichi Ni San, which despite some mishaps in the first series—I’m sure no one meant to eat the host—is undeniably the most cutthroat challenge-oriented reality show out there.

  At least in my opinion.

  I fully expected some Hollywood style afterparty to mingle with the contestants in some congenial and closely monitored way—replete with flattering lighting and security guards for us celebrity types. So you can imagine my surprise when the crew rudely darkened the room and skulked outside to their trailers to begin drinking beer around metal fire barrels and jerking off into sweat socks, or whatever it is they did on their free time.

  Wendy was busy being inconspicuous and attempting to tail Johnny from room to room as he chatted away on his cell phone. So I was left with no recourse but to swipe a bottle of 151 from behind the bar and let Wendy know I’d be drinking my way to a pink blush in our room—alcohol being the next best thing to a functioning circulatory system.

  Opposite the bed was a door to a small balcony with a cell of black wrought iron for a railing. I slumped into a cushy deck chair, tossed the cap and went to it, the warmth flooding through me like only the Bacardis know how—thank you, above average alcohol content. In a few minutes, I heard Wendy slam the door behind her and flop onto the bed, sighing discontentedly.

  “You okay, honey?”

  “Fine,” she huffed, clearly grumpy, but my bottle wasn’t going to drink itself so I opted for selfish and continued guzzling.

  A few moments later—I’d moved on to contemplating the ever-expansive nature of the universe, also picking out which stars were actually plane lights49—I heard a commotion below me in the garden, followed by voices.

  One of them, I’m pretty sure it was Johnny, was denying something vehemently and in hushed tones (always an indicator something’s eavesdrop-worthy).

  “I gave you nothing. Whatever it is you think you have, you got from somewhere else. I’m clean.”

  “It came from you, Johnny!” Another man’s voice, this one thick with what could have been a South African accent, itself a hodgepodge of so many nationalities, it was impossible to keep track of. “Where you got it is the question.”

  Is that how guys argue, I wondered? One super-vague question after the next? Poor things, it’s like their communications skills never quite developed past playground shoulder punches. If only Scott were so simple. But then again, if he were, would I have connected with him the way I did?

  I scrambled off the chair and onto my knees, mindful of my hip, and crawled to the edge of the balcony, hoping to get a look at Johnny’s accuser—of what, I had no clue—but all I could see was the wood nymph. The other man was beneath my line of sight, somewhere below

  “Well, here’s your answer.” Johnny raised his fist and lunged for the guy, landing an audible blow and grunting like the caveman he was. They scrambled through the overgrown bushes, rolling out beneath me into the arcade outside the bar. I could hear things breaking, glass shattering—ashtrays probably, and with that thought a fresh cigarette found its magical way into my mouth, no small feat lying there on my side, either—before the mysterious stranger broke away and stumbled through the darkened garden, tumbling over the rose bushes and yelping in the process.

  Birch didn’t give chase, so I imagined him battered and bruised below, hugging his legs to his chest and rocking to ease the physical and emotional trauma of the beating, a single tear trailing down his cheek.

  It made me smile.50

  CHANNEL 10

  Monday

  7:30–8: P.M.

  Thanks for the Dismemberments

  Along with his deadpan sidekick, Sunny, critic Abel Afterlife introduces viewers to the most hilariously embarrassing deaths ever caught on film and snarks the shit out of them as they happen.

  A scream tore through the calm veil of night, or rather, interrupted my reading. I’d been lounging in a silky chemise by Natori—I do love her shit—perusing my pristine copy of Evil under the Sun, my leg slung over the arm of my chair airing out the lady bits—like one does. Wendy had been terribly busy practicing her bored sighs and irritating me, so when the shriek filled the room, we perked up quicker than a couple of dry drunks at a wine tasting.51

  I tore the door open and skidded into the hall on pink dressing mules. Wendy blasted out of the gap behind me and collided with my sore hip, like I’d hesitate to beat her dead ass. A fresh ache spread through my torso.

  “Watch it!”

  “What?” Wendy shrugged innocently, but quickly gave way to a needling smirk that spread across her lips like a venereal disease. “It’s not my fault you’re into bestiality.”

  Before I could chastise, she looped her wrist around my elbow and pulled me behind her toward the ruckus at the far end of the hall. A clutch of yammering girls posed before the tangle of vines and branches concealing the darkened wing, home to Birch and Mama Montserrat’s quarters. We reached them at the same time as Tanesha Jones, Drag Wulf, who shuffled from her room in a darling pink terry robe, fluffy slippers and her massive weave held back from her face by a sleeping mask pushed up into a makeshift hair band.

  “Adorable,” I remarked, and gave her the old up and down.

  “You too, bitch. I’d kill for this little thing your wearin’.” She flipped her mane over her shoulder and reached a single airbrushed claw to flip up the hem of my kimono. “Of course, on me it’d be hiked up to my waist and show off my candy.” She winked lasciviously. “I’d still work that shit.”

  “Don’t I know it? I’ve seen you work.”

  Wendy stepped up and stood on her tiptoes trying to get a look through the deadlock and into the hall. “So what’s going on back there?”

  The rest of the contestants, and a couple of camera guys trying but not succeeding in blending into the background, turned around and stared dimly.

  “No one’s even looked, have they?” I asked, foot beginning to tap out my irritation.

  They all shook their heads.

  “Well, then which one of you screamed?” I looked from the twins, their matching raccoon eyes smeared with mascara and eyeliner, to Angie, who rubbed her neck, sneered and rubbed her neck, like a threat—the last thing I wanted to deal with was the manangal’s entrail tentacles painting everything they touched with gore52—to Absinthe, who true to her name was drinking something green from an etched juice glass (was it too much to hope that it was a household cleanser?). Nothing. Not a spark of knowledge on their sleepy, drunken faces. Maiko and Hairy Sue were nowhere to be seen.

  “Jesus. Get out of the way.” I pushed past, Wendy and Tanesha in my wake. The contestants parted like sides of beef on hooks, bumping into each other and stumbling. Fucking retards. How we’d possibly find a better candidate than Ms. Jones, I had no idea. Nor did I plan on looking very hard. Johnny was already smitten with the trannie’s “impressive thighs” anyway. That he didn’t know the carpet really didn’t match the drapes was his problem and his alone.

  A couple of shakes loosened the vines enough to make an opening, revealing a hall coated with the same greenery. Leaves rustled and the whole place stank of rich earth and old carpet. The walls swelled and receded like the heaving of a sore throat, the vines lacing the walls, a thick green sputum.

  The hall grew darker the deeper we stalked. Shadows stretched into inky black pools that flooded across the barely visible Orientals and washed up the walls in waves. There was no telling what lurked beneath the cords of vine and leafy clumps. Rats were my first thought. If I listened intently enough I could hear their maniacal scrabbli
ng—though I’d be forcing it. The ceiling was dark as midnight, no telling what might hang there—besides the cameras, of course, their red eyes blinking on lifelessly. To the left a door opened a crack, tugging against the web of ivy and tendrils drilling into the wood. I heard a garbled stream of curses, before the door gave a few inches more.

  A slice of Mama Montserrat’s face crept into view.

  “What’s going on? Who screamed?” Her voice shook.

  “It wasn’t you?” I pulled at the vines, enlisting the help of Wendy and Tanesha, until we’d freed the woman and created a pile of living debris, the broken vines snaked off and wove into the net covering the floor.

  “Fuck no, wadn’t me, child. Why’d I scream like a mad banshee?” Her head swiveled toward the far end of the hall, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Johnny?”

  I followed her gaze. “Johnny,” I agreed. Though, frankly, I was more than a little surprised that he’d dragged his ass back upstairs after the beating he took—though the one in my head could have been far more brutal than the reality. If he’d indeed even taken a beating. In my mind it was heinous violence. The guy probably socked him in the shoulder.

  Wendy’s hand curled around my upper arm as we progressed, tightening with each step until I’d had to reach up and swat at it. Tanesha urged me forward from the other side, nodding and pointing in the direction of Johnny’s suite with her chin. Mama trailed behind us, kicking at the tangles beneath us.

  A charred smell filtered down the hall, the remnants of a barbecue or a chimney fire—perhaps the crew pulled together an impromptu cookout after tonight’s soiree. Smoke and rotten meat tossed into a blender for the ultimate in odd perfumery. Next up from Chanel: Creosote #5, charbroil the fantasy. The image of Carole Bouquet lying seductively across a smoldering grill popped into my head, but only for a moment, long enough to solidify the idea that we were about to find a body and not a tasty burger.

  Johnny’s door wasn’t covered with ivy the way Mama’s had been. In fact, it was marvelously free of the creeping plants. The doorknob even glinted in the low light, daring me forward. I felt something slither across the top of my foot and stiffened. Wendy grabbed me from behind, attempting to lift herself out of the bramble.

  “Jesus, Wendy. Get off!”

  Tanesha prodded my arm, forcing my palm around the doorknob, a brass monkey paw. It didn’t budge.

  “Well?” Tanesha asked. “Are you gonna go in there or what?”

  “It’s locked.” I twisted the knob again, and was met with the same curt denial. “We’re going to have to bust in.”

  “Like kick it down?” Tanesha stepped back into some martial arts pose so twisted her robe began to open at the waist, revealing a blue satin demi-bra and a slick pair of bulging satin panties, ill-prepared for both the drag queen’s penis and his oddly hairless scrotum, which hung out the seam and clung to his inner thigh like sap running down a tree trunk.

  Wendy’s eyes bugged at the spectacle, her mouth gaped.

  “Yeah…no.” I stepped in between them. “And you might want to just tighten up the belt on that, before you get an admirer you don’t want.” I tilted my head in Wendy’s direction. “Like you didn’t know.”

  “Oh.” Tanesha inhaled sharply and wrapped herself tightly and stepped away from Wendy. “Sorry, hon. Thought I was done for the night so I took the tape off.”

  I quickly put my fingers up to the drag queen’s lips. “I don’t even want to hear anymore.”

  Tanesha shrugged, smiled at me and continued to edge away from Wendy, who continued to stare at the drag queen. She wore an expression halfway between a grin and a question.

  I tore the vines away from a nearby bureau, and opened the top drawer, candles, a few boxes of matches and a candle bell—its handle too thick to fit in the slim break—clattered inside. Nothing useful.

  “I’ve got a credit card in my purse,” Tanesha offered.

  “Does that even work?” Wendy asked.

  “It works on TV, so…”

  I nodded and Tanesha stumbled back down the hall, leaving Wendy and me staring at Mama Montserrat. Her saucer eyes darted back and forth between us, as sweat beaded on her brow in such an obvious fashion, I couldn’t help but elbow Wendy and point it out.

  “Mama looks nervous,” I said.

  “Of course, I’m nervous.” Her eyes edged back to the door. “Who knows what we’ll find inside? What if he’s been hurt? Or worse, what if he’s dead?”

  I shrugged. I wouldn’t be weeping, that’s for sure.

  Mama’s eyes narrowed in scrutiny, her palms moving naturally to a spot just above her hips. “If he’s dead, we don’t have a show.”

  And if we don’t have a show, I thought. I’m screwed. “Oh.” Scratch that earlier comment, I’d be bawlin’ like a fucking baby.

  “He’s not dead.” Wendy pressed herself against the door, clawing at the frame dramatically. “He can’t be.”

  “Jesus, Wendy. Dignity isn’t just a designer fragrance.”

  Tanesha plodded up behind me and pressed a Visa into my palm. I shoved the drama that is Wendy out of the way and went to work on the lock. It was old, so I figured it wouldn’t be any problem triggering the mechanism. Lucky for me, I had experience busting into places I shouldn’t. Thanks to Ethel’s insufferable need to hide her sweets.

  I maneuvered the card into place, got the perfect angle on it and the moment it connected with the latch, lost my grip and watched as it slipped away into the dark gap.

  “Dammit!” I spun around, daring the others to say a word. “I’m gonna need another one.”

  Tanesha’s claws descended into her open purse. Her long, thin claws. Snatching at her wrist, I pulled her hand close to the door

  “Just loosen up your fingers. Lemme work with ’em.”

  “All right. But you better not mess up my manicure. It took three hours to have Usher airbrushed in various states of undress. See.”

  She fanned out her nails, they lifted and fell in a gentle cascade and sure enough, from pinkie to pinkie, Usher went from full dress to nude and—clearly—aroused.

  “Nice work. I promise to take care of all of Usher’s parts.”

  Tanesha closed her eyes and relented.

  She followed directions well, and in a few moments, I managed to work one of her nails into position, scraping the back end of the latch and shimmying it into its space in the door. A quick push and the door opened into a motionless suite.

  “Nice work,” the werewolf said.

  “It’s a handy little skill I picked up in childhood.”

  “Sweet.” A knowing smile played on Wendy’s lips. “Amanda was the model for those Precious Moments knickknacks.”

  From the second the door opened, there was no question the burning smell emanated from within Birch’s darkened quarters. Smoke still curled in dissipating clouds in the corners of the room like dream snakes or migraine worms.

  I was hesitant to cross that particular threshold, probably even more so than if I’d known Birch were alive and in there doing God knows what.53 But I crept in anyway, watching my feet, lest I trip over a dead wood nymph.

  The room glowed a dim green from a glass banker’s lamp in the corner. The bulk of its light blossomed outward in a column, spotlighting a pile of steaming ash on the floor. The other side of the room flickered from the light of a silent television, a woman busy pleasuring two men at the same time; let’s just say she’d welcomed them through both doors. I grimaced as my mind conjured images of six-pack rings. I suppose I should have been impressed that it wasn’t some freaky Swedish scat show. I wouldn’t have put it past Johnny to be into some extreme kink.

  Mama spoke from the doorway, “It’s in Johnny’s talent rider.”

  “What? Porn?”

  “He says he’s like an athlete. When he’s not actually competin’ he still has to train that thing out.”

  My eyes spotted a stack of tissue boxes on the dresser. “Gross. Don’t touch any use
d tissues, ladies, this area is a biohazard.”

  As I stepped past a comfortable sitting area, I noticed the pile of ashes had a specific shape. Very specific.

  A human shape.

  “Johnny,” I whispered. The sound was more of a squeak than anything resembling a real word. Then, “That had to hurt.”

  As much as I didn’t like the guy, I certainly didn’t wish that kind of fate on him or anyone for that matter—except maybe Ethel, but she’s an evil of another sort entirely. Johnny had his faults but no more than any other sleazy horndog.

  Wendy stepped in behind me and gasped. “Shit. Is that Johnny?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, there goes that idea.” She shook her head, her interest already waning along with a prospective sugar daddy. “What the hell did that?”

  “Did what?” Cameron barged past Tanesha with a cameraman in tow. “What’s going on?”

  He looked at the pile of Johnny-shaped ashes, glanced briefly at the porn still flickering on the TV and put it together. “Ah, shit.”

  “Before being so rudely interrupted by little man’s disease, Wendy was asking what did that.” I pointed at the remains. “The answer is, of course, how the fuck should I know.” I glanced around the room looking for an answer, though I didn’t expect one to be forthcoming.

  On the desk, beside a tall bottle of scotch wrapped in gros-grain ribbon and beneath a gallery of stuffed animals lay two shipping envelopes, identical to the one Johnny showed me at the Hooch and Cooch. I turned the top one over. The same handwriting littered the paper, though this one was addressed to the Minions mansion. Sure enough, the one below that was the very same I’d seen before. Underneath them, glossy and black as an oil slick, another of the insect-like creatures lay paralyzed in a scream, this one a bit longer in the leg, its wings open, heavily veined and sheer as long dead leaves.

  “Johnny showed me this exact thing the first time we met.” I turned to Wendy and Mama shoving the carcass in their direction. They winced at the sight of the disfigured insect crucifixion. I pulled the second one from its envelope. “See?”