Zombie Pink

by Noel Merczel

  They were probably so worried about her!

  She didn't have her cell phone to call them. Besides, her cell phone might not even work. 9-1-1 wasn't working, after all.

  Gina thought her parents were the most annoying people on earth, but they were still her parents. She felt tears forming in her eyes. She remembered what the news announcer said about the mosquito bites. Luckily, there weren’t any mosquitoes in the shed.

  Her mom had a mosquito bite, though. A big huge whopping one!

  Could it really be true? Were all the news announcements for real, and this whole thing wasn't some big hoax or a movie promotion?

  Was that even possible?

  Gina felt like she was starring in a horror movie...a movie she didn't even want to be in. The kind of movie that makes her feel scared days after she's seen it. Her parents were unwilling actors in this same awful movie.

  If they were even still alive....

  "Of course they're alive!" Gina said out loud. “They got away!”

  This whole thing felt so....surreal.

  Usually, Gina liked that word "surreal." It reminded her of magical lands with glittery skies and pastel trees and cartoon fairies, like the pretty magical art she created on those free photo edit sites, like PicMonkey, Befunky, and Pizap.

  But this kind of surreal was the bad kind. It was the creepy kind you have in a spooky dream where a doll comes to life and tells you it's going to kill you and the whole thing seems so real and you’re so happy to wake up.

  There was a tiny window in the shed. Gina kept standing up and peeking out, making sure no one was coming to get her. Whatever that meant.

  Coming to get her and... what?

  Eat her alive?

  Gina shivered. She couldn’t imagine a worse fate than being eaten alive... by a shark or a tiger or....a pink zombie?

  What does it feel like when something bites into your skin with its teeth? She couldn't even imagine...

  Usually Gina liked the color pink. Actually, pink was her favorite color.

  I should change my favorite color, Gina decided. Maybe I can switch it to yellow. Yellow is a happy color!

  Gina couldn't believe she had felt so horny and had been playing that dumb game in her bedroom just a little while ago. That time in her bedroom seemed like a whole life time ago!

  She heard the ominous sound of the tornado siren going off.

  Was there a tornado on top of all this?

  Or was it a zombie siren now?

  Even though the thought of a tornado had always scared Gina so much in the past, a tornado seemed preferable to a zombie.

  Even Pit-bulls, which were way scarier than tornadoes, seemed preferable to zombies...

  Idly, Gina remembered that dumb movie, Sharknado, where the sharks were picked up out of the ocean by tornadoes and dropped in people's yards and houses...

  What if that happened with zombies?

  Zombinado...

  Maybe she could pitch that idea to some big head of a movie company and get rich...

  Gina shook her head to get rid of these silly thoughts.

  She needed to get serious here!

  People never took her seriously, and Gina knew there was a good reason for that. She had a reputation for acting sort of silly.

  But Gina also knew that underneath that layer of silliness resided a smart person, just waiting to come out...

  Was that woman really a dead person come back to life? Gina interrupted herself.

  "No, that's not possible," she said out loud to the dark shed. "Right?"

  No one answered, of course.

  It's not possible! It's not possible! Gina kept telling herself.

  But wait! The news claimed they were NOT dead! This was a virus like on that movie I Am Legend, with Will Smith. The creatures in that movie didn't die and come back to life. They just had a virus.

  But that didn't even matter, because they sure didn't seem human.

  Which was worse... a zombie or a vampire? Gina pondered.

  Depends, Gina answered herself. Vampires are usually much more slick. And much, much smarter.

  Zombies are just dumb...shuffling along looking for food. They can't really problem-solve or anything. Besides, a door can stop a zombie, but a door can't stop a vampire. Even if it's locked.

  But there are always so many more zombies than vampires, so the sheer number of them makes them more of a problem...besides, they just look more gross and probably smell really bad.....but vampires are truly evil. Zombies are just hungry, like they can't help it.....

  Gina hugged herself in the corner of the shed. She always had these little conversations with herself. If only they could stick a little TV camera into her head, it would probably make an interesting talk show. Gina’s Brain, they could call it.

  Gina's Brain On Ice.

  That title didn't even make sense. But it sounded good.

  Anyway, she felt so alone right now. She may be seventeen years old, but she still wished she had her favorite stuffed animal to comfort her.

  Gina's favorite stuffed animal was a giant stuffed cat named Sassy. The cat was a super fluffy tan and brown Siamese with big blue eyes. Right now, Gina felt like hugging Sassy and just giving in to more tears.

  She was allowed, right?

  She patted her own arms and rocked back and forth on the shed floor. She felt so scared and cold and alone.

  What happens after you die? she wondered.

  What if I become one of those pink zombies?

  Will my skin rot off while I'm walking around looking for people to eat?

  Well first, my skin will get that ugly rash all over it. Then maybe all my hair will fall out. I will be gross! Gina told herself.

  Gina couldn't stand the thought of being gross. Being young and cute and sexy - that was her whole identity.

  Gina didn't like to think about death either. And usually she didn't, except after her gerbil Nutella died. But even death had to be fun and happy and safe and pretty in Gina's fantasies.

  She pictured Nutella in this little portion of heaven that is fenced off just for gerbils... or maybe gerbils and hamsters and guinea pigs all together, for convenience sake, and it would contain lots of bright colorful wheels to run on and tasty things to chew on... and there would be endless piles of sunflower seeds....

  When Gina died, since she was being forced to think about death, she wanted to be a cartoon. A cute happy cartoon in a bright yellow dress that skipped around singing...

  No! She scolded herself. Stop being so silly!

  I know what I want to be, Gina amended her thoughts. I want to be a SIMS character. That's a lot more sophisticated than a cartoon! And I will live in one of those big beautiful SIMS houses that I decorate so beautifully...with a huge swimming pool out back and friends coming over for parties all the time, even those green alien friends they put in the game for some weird reason...

  And I will never change... I will never grow old...

  Will that be possible one day, that you can just load your brain up to the computer? Gina wondered. Kind of like they do in the movie Avatar....

  Gina felt the bottoms of her feet. They felt all gritty and gross. Gina hated feeling gross....

  Someone was looking in the window of the shed!

  Gina screamed.

  God, that was shocking!

  It was a bald headed guy.

  But was he one of ....them?

  No, he was just a regular guy with a bald head.

  But what did he want? Why was he here looking into the Mathewson's shed?

  Gina thought that maybe she'd seen him before, walking down Country Club Drive with a big camera around his neck.

  He waved at her. Gina just stared at the bald-headed guy She stared with big scared cornflower blue eyes.

  Was he someone to be feared, or could he be a friend?

  The guy waved at her again. Gina gave a little wave back. He
looked alright.

  Wait. He was gone.

  No, he was just trying to open the door. Gina stood up.

  She made her decision. She would trust him.

  She moved the wheelbarrow away from the shed door and allowed him to open it.

  "Hi!" he said. "What are you doing in here? Are you hiding from zombies? Wow. I can't believe I just said that. It's like a line right out of the show, Dead Heads! You ever watch that? Well, they never actually use the word "zombie" in that show. Probably because they don't want to sound too fake."

  "Besides, they're pink zombies!" Gina said. "I heard it on the news."

  "Pink zombies?" The guy said with a sneer. "What the hell does that mean?"

  Gina felt superior. She explained to the guy what she'd heard on the news.

  "They get this weird pink rash on their skin and then the virus attacks their brain and they start wanting to eat people!" she gushed.

  "Cool!" the guy said.

  Suddenly, Gina noticed that he was staring at her erect nipples that were poking out of the thin frilly nightie she was wearing. She wasn’t wearing any bra, after all. Gina hugged herself to cover up her breasts.

  This didn't seem an appropriate time to be flashy, and yet...Gina started to feel that same warm oozy feeling between her legs that she felt when Old Man Barnaby watched her weed the Hostas.

  Talk about bad timing!

  What the heck was wrong with her body?

  "So the people aren't really dead," Gina went on in an attempt to get her perverted mind off the warm oozy feeling between her legs.

  "What?" he asked, still staring at the girl's chest, even though he was really just staring at Gina’s arms now.

  "They're not real zombies!" Gina repeated, looking all around the Mathewson's dark yard. "I wonder if the Mathewsons are asleep. I wonder if they know what's going on?"

  "Who are the Mathewsons?" the guy asked.

  "They live in that house!" Gina said, pointing at the house. "I saw someone get eaten alive! A woman! But we have to watch out for mosquitoes."

  "Mosquitoes?" Nick asked, scratching his bald head and looking confused.

  "Yea! The virus is spread by mosquito bites!" Gina said, feeling a little exasperated.

  Geez! Doesn’t this guy know anything? Gina wondered. He looks a lot older than me. Like he’s at least thirty! He should know all this stuff. This is important stuff!

  "Mosquitoes. I've watched a lot of zombie shit and I never heard that one,” Nick said. “I just came to look for some more weapons. Lemme take a look. You're gonna need something."

  "I am?" Gina asked.

  She thought she saw a dark shadow moving on the far side of the Mathewson's yard, near the swing set.

  "Watch out, I see something!" she warned. "Over there, by the swing set!"

  "Don't worry," the guy said, marching on into the shed.

  Gina quickly shut the door behind her.

  "Now I can't see!" he informed her.

  "Yea, but something's in the yard," she repeated.

  He opened the shed door back up.

  "You're cute!" the guy suddenly said. "What's your name?"

  "Gina DeFazio," Gina said.

  Guys all seemed to find her cute. Probably because she was so short. People always thought she was younger than her age. Plus she had that perfect curly blonde hair and big blue eyes.

  "What's yours?" she asked him.

  "Nick," he said. "Nick...your savior!"

  Gina snorted.

  "That's silly!" she said.

  "Keep watch, Gina!" he told her.

  The bald headed guy, Nick, rooted around in the shed while Gina kept watch out in the yard. The shadowy figure was still there, but it seemed to have stopped moving.

  "So you really believe this zombie stuff is true?" she asked, feeling a little better since she wasn't alone anymore...even if the guy did seem like a bit of a pervert.

  Then again, she was a bit of a pervert, too.

  "Oh hell yea!" he answered, with gusto.

  "Where's the rest of your family?" Gina inquired.

  "My mom's at work and my dad split years ago, so who the hell knows?" he said picking up a trowel and then dropping it. "What about yours? How old are you anyway? Are you still in high school?"

  Now he was staring at Gina's flowered shorts, which made Gina remember that she had no underwear on underneath them. She felt like Nick could see right through the flowered material.

  Instantly, Gina experienced that warm oozy feeling between her legs, once again.

  Then they both heard a sort of gurgling sound out in the yard. Nick picked the trowel back up and handed it to Gina.

  "Stab them in the eyes if you have to!" he informed her, hustling Gina out of the shed when all she wanted was to go back in and shut the door behind her.

  They both saw it... the shadowy creature slowly lumbering towards them.

  A...zombie?

  Gina thought it was so strange... hearing crickets and other late summer bugs out in the Mathewson's back yard as though this was an ordinary peaceful summer night instead of the beginning of the end of the world.

  "Why are we just standing here?" Gina whispered.

  "Because we're warriors, you and I, Gina!" Nick said, putting his arm around here. "And warriors never back down!"

  Wanna bet? Gina thought.

  Although she did like the feel of Nick's strong arm around her.

  The shadowy figure... yes, it appeared to be a woman, or at least it used to be... came closer and Gina could see that it looked like....like.....oh, hell! What the.....it looked like the woman who had been out in her front yard eating the guy's wife!

  "Oh God! It's her!" Gina exclaimed. "She's the one I saw eating the other one! Oh God!"

  The woman was grinning a sickly looking grin. She had blood all over her teeth. There was so much blood, it was dripping out of the corners of her mouth making little rivers down her face.

  And her skin! Even in the dark, Gina could see it wasn’t right. It looked all pink and purple and gross looking! And the eyes...they definitely didn’t look right. They didn’t even look...human.

  "I have to bash her skull in," Nick announced. "It's the only way...."

  He held his hammer up, in position.

  "I can't watch!" Gina cried.

  She broke free of his grasp. Gina planned to run in the other direction, except that she saw more shadowy figures looming in the distance. Thunder boomed all around her.

  Panicked, she raced back into the Mathewson's shed and slammed the door shut behind her.

  Then Gina pushed the wheelbarrow up against the door and huddled in the dark corner with her hands over her ears.

  She never would have thought it possible, but the Mathewson’s shed was the only place in the whole entire world that she felt safe.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A cute girl and zombies all in one night? Nick thought. Hell, it doesn’t get much better than this!

  It was like he'd died and gone to heaven.

  "COME ON, SKANK!" he bellowed, as Daniella shuffled over to him. "Man, you're disgusting! You kiss your mama with that mouth? Ha-ha...."

  This was it! This was his chance! He, Nick Cooper, was going to be a star. A fucking hero! This would be his first kill. One of many.

  His adrenaline was up...up so high...even higher than when he spotted that doe that time one of his mom's boyfriends took him hunting.

  Man, he was so shaky with the gun, he couldn't do it. Couldn't kill the damn deer. That guy... Rob...he said it was okay. He said it happens all the time with beginners and that it was "no biggie." His words, not Nick's. To Nick it was a biggie. He had failed. He had failed at being a man.

  But he wouldn't fail this time. Nosiree!

  Nick would prove to that adorable little cutie with the button nipples that he wasn't just a man.....he was The Man! He was up for anything. And not just his dick
, either.

  However, the closer the diseased skank got, though, the more freaked out Nick felt. This wasn't some TV show. That wasn't make-up and fake blood.