I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  And then I spun my chair.

  Trinity slowly batted her eyes and bit her lip. Just as I was about to lose myself in the emerald green of her irises, the door to the studio opened and Dan walked through.

  “So?” asked Dan. “Are we worthy of the great and powerful DJ Coitus?”

  “You heard that?” I asked.

  Dan nodded. “I did. Everyone heard that beauty.” He folded his arms across his meaty chest. “So, what’s next?”

  “Fuck,” Trinity interrupted the moment. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

  A foreboding sense of oh shit flushed through my system. I turned to see Trinity staring out through the sole window in my studio. When she looked my way, her face was twisted with concern.

  I rushed to the window and pulled the curtain to the side.

  I wished I hadn’t.

  A mass of moaners converged on house.

  “Son of a bitch,” Dan’s voice broke through the fog of fear. “Did we do that?”

  “Your new fans,” Trinity whispered.

  “Holy shit,” Burny’s voice joined the chorus. “How in hot hell are we going to deal with that cluster fuck of death?”

  “We just keep quiet and they’ll go away,” replied Dan.

  “I wish it were that easy,” I added. “If those bastards sense we’re in here, they won’t stop until they either get what they want … or get what we want.”

  “I assume you mean kill them?” asked Trinity.

  I snaked my hand down Trinity’s arm and laced our fingers together. “You assume correctly.”

  “Tell me you’ve got some super-secret zombie defense weapon ready for action,” asked Dan.

  My silence was all the answer Dan needed.

  “Fuck me,” both Dan and Burny replied.

  “Do you have roof access?” asked Trinity.

  I turned to her. “Yeah, why?”

  Trinity raised an eyebrow at me before replying. “We get up on the roof and start picking them off, one by one?”

  It was Burny that took over the moment. “And when you run out of arrows and our guns attract even more of the bastards, what then? We just turn ourselves into a walking buffet and step out the front door?”

  The sound of the gathering horde began to seep through the walls of the house. The vibrations against the glass gave me an idea. I stepped away from the group and sat at my desk. Seated at the computer, I pulled up a sound clip of the Obliterator, and pressed play. The high pitched oscillating tone filled the room. I turned back to the group. “Dan, I need to pump this sound through your Marshall stacks. We’ll have to open up the windows and crank the bastards to eleven, but I think it’ll have the desired effect of sending that undead freak show packing for the circus.”

  “That noise will take care of every one of those fuck buddies?” asked Dan.

  I nodded.

  “Your computer have a line out?”

  “It does.”

  Dan turned to Burney. “Haul a patch cable from your head into here. We’ll send the noise through your amp and see if it has enough power by itself.”

  Burney nodded and disappeared into the adjacent studio.

  “What if this doesn’t work?” asked Trinity.

  “It will. Trust me, this particular zombie repellant was designed by none other than Bethany Nitshimi.”

  Burny returned with the end of a patch cable in his hand and the rest of the band following behind. I took the cable from him and plugged it into my Scarlett 4i4 output and addressed the room. “We need ear protection. This is going to be painfully loud and monstrously annoying.

  Without saying a word, Burny again retreated to the other room. When he returned, he held out a small cardboard box. Inside the box was a collection of various ear plugs. “These babies have a noise reduction rating of thirty-three. NASCAR licensed, NASCAR approved.”

  We each snagged a pair and pressed the soft foam plugs into our ear canals.

  “Are you ready?” I shouted, hardly able to hear myself.

  Sean shrugged and mouthed “What’d you say?”

  Again I shouted, “Are you ready?”

  Again, no one heard me.

  With a smile I nodded and clicked play. The sound immediately thumped us in the chest. My clothing bounced in time with the oscillations. I rushed to the window and glanced down at the street. Most of the horde struggled to race away before the kryptonic sound got the best of them. Those that remained, dropped to their knees and cracked their skulls against the pavement. One by one, they succeeded in spreading their gray matter across sidewalk and street.

  Jesus, Burny mouthed. It’s actually working.

  Dan grinned and punched both fists into the air.

  Sean pulled out his earplugs to get a listen. He instantly regretted the decision and covered his ears with cupped hands. The foam bits lay on the floor at his feet. I scooped them up and gestured for him move his right hand. I slipped the plug back into his ear. He secured the plug with his free hand and then held it out to grab the second. Once he had both ears protected everyone stared and mouthed dumb ass. Sean shrugged and then mouthed How long?

  I lifted my tablet from the desk, opened up a note app and wrote, We can’t shut it down until they’re gone, otherwise … they come back.

  “Fuck,” Sean mouthed. He then flipped off the undead stragglers and carried a certain level of angst with him to the band’s studio.

  seven | a call and a little head

  It took about an hour before the last dregs of undead humanity had finally vanished. Shutting down the Obliterator was a boon to my sanity. Even with the ears thoroughly plugged, the continuous oscillations punched a hole through reason and challenged my temper to a boxing match.

  “So, that’s it?” asked Trinity. “Will they come back?”

  “They always come back.” My answer didn’t go over well. Trinity lowered her head into her hands in a vain attempt to hide her tears. The moment I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, the weeping began in earnest.

  “Is this all that remains? Hiding and holding out for some miracle to occur?” Trinity asked through sobs.

  I dug deep into my soul to come up with some semblance of immediate comfort. There was none to find. Humanity was in this for the long kiss goodbye. This avalanche of pain had been going on for over a year and showed zero signs of slowing. I firmly believed, our only hope was in the brilliant hands of one very capable woman.

  Instead of dropping a soul-crushing bomb on Trinity, I did the right thing at the moment ─ I told the truth.

  “It’s all about weathering this shit storm until Bethany Nitshimi takes down the Zero Day Collective. Until then, we do everything possible to survive.”

  The timer over my console indicated the current playlist was about to drift into dreaded silence. I turned to Trinity. “As long as you’re with me, you’ll be okay. I promise.”

  Fuck. Why did I have to make a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep? The answer to that question lie in the melt away eyes of the woman before me.

  She smiled. That was all the confirmation I needed to send me flying over to my console, pick up my headphones, and lean into Lyndi.

  “You’re listening to WZMB, Zombie Radio, your personal soundtrack to the … say it with me nation … end of the world. That was nice. Thank you for playing along. Do you remember, back in the day, how easy it was to cuddle up on the couch with a drink and some popcorn and enjoy The Walking Dead? Seventy percent of the world swooned for an hour each week as Daryl Dixon graced the screen with his moppy hair, beady eyes, and cocky, redneck walk. Simpler times, my friends, simpler times. That was back when the undead were relegated to fiction and surviving was a question of getting your fix from season to season. Now? Now we wait. We hold our breath and toss the dogs of war a bone until the veil of darkness is lifted.”

  I stole a glance toward Trinity. She sighed and smiled. I winked and turned back to the mic. Before I could speak, a call came in. Without thinking, I
answered.

  “You’re talking to Zombie Radio. What’s your name and whatchoo got?”

  I was greeted by a pause ─ not my kind of pause, a pause that resonated with an ominous doom. The silence was broken with a digitally affected voice. “Well, my friend. It looks like we’ve found you once again.”

  Breath was sucked out of my lungs until my body shuddered. I’d heard that voice enough to know that I was dealing with one of the four horsemen. I had only one choice, deflect the hint of threat with the only weapon I had.

  Humor.

  “I have plenty of stalkers. So … which fangirl am I speaking to?”

  The reply threatened to permanently shrivel my manhood.

  “The one with the power to deliver much worse than death to you and every listener of your sad little distraction.”

  “The Zombie Radio Nation is mighty,” I said, proudly. “Why in the fuck are you calling?”

  “We are unsure how your signal has been scrambled, but when we get a trace on you, know that we will kill you.”

  I looked up to see Sean staring through the glass between the studios. The look on his face was a mixture of fear and wonder. He caught me staring and mouthed something that I couldn’t make out. I shook my head at him and he immediately left his outpost to stand by my side. He knelt near my desk and waited. I pointed to a second set of headphones, which he hurriedly slipped over his ears.

  I returned to my mic. “Kind of hard to kill a ghost, isn’t it?”

  “The Zero Day Collective has already proved it can kill anything. Taking you down will not be a challenge.”

  “Seems like it already has been. I slipped your grip once before, I’ll do it again.”

  “Unlikely.” The single word dropped into my being and snaked through my system like razor wire.

  Diffuse, diffuse, diffuse.

  “Be that as it may … would you like to recommend a song? What about something by Prince? How’s about “I Would Die 4 U”. Sounds apropos, wouldn’t you say?”

  Silence. Dreaded, unnerving silence.

  “So be it,” I broke the spell. “Prince it is. Thank you for calling Zombie Radio. I hope you and yours get sucked up into a jet turbine and your chum is sprayed across the Atlantic Ocean. Fuck you very much.”

  I dropped the little ditty by Prince into the play queue. After muting my mic, I pumped the song through the monitors and hoped every monkey in the studio would dance.

  Not one monkey came out to play.

  Sean stood, ripped off his headphones, and grinned down at me.

  “You look like you have something rather important to say,” I said.

  He nodded, but remained silent.

  “Well?”

  “So yeah, I was listening to that caller. If he’s part of the problem, I might have the solution.”

  I turned my chair to face the young man. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m kind of a nerdy ─ a tech junkie. I happen to know a bit about scrambling signals and …” Sean offered up a pause to rival one of my own. “I have just the equipment that could keep them from getting a lock onto your signal. It’s something I was working on a while back. We were having issues with people hacking into our wireless packs while we played. They’d piggyback on and start transmitting whatever the fuck they wanted. One time we had some douche send Taylor Swift’s voice into Dan’s mic pack.”

  I felt the whole of the world cringe.

  Sean continued. “It wasn’t pretty. So I came up with a method of scrambling the signals our packs used so no one could break in. I think I could do the same with your signal. It might take me a bit of work, but if you’re okay with me trying, I’m willing to give it a go.”

  How could I refuse such an offer? I nodded and said, “Have at it, my friend.”

  Sean nearly squealed with delight. “Awesome. I won’t let you down, man.” He raced off into the other room.

  Trinity took his place at my feet. When she looked up at me, her big, round eyes nearly melted my heart. She grabbed my hand and kissed the open palm. “That was really sweet of you.”

  “What? That?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, giving him something to focus on so he doesn’t freak out.”

  I bit my lip and said, “Yeah, about that,” I paused. “Scrambling instrument wireless packs is child’s play to what he’s proposing.”

  “So you were just …”

  “As much as I hate to admit it; humoring him.”

  Trinity blinked. When she opened her eyes, they were filled with concern. “So those people?” She pointed to the console.

  I stopped her short. “The Zero Day Collective. If you don’t know who they are, consider yourself lucky. They’re the ones that kicked this party off.”

  My words shoved Trinity back a few steps. “Why in the hell are they after you?”

  I held up a finger and winked. “Better that I show you why. Have a seat and a listen.”

  Trinity stood and kissed me full on the mouth. When she pulled out of the kiss she whispered in my ear, “Rock my world, Mr. DJ.”

  Without another word, Trinity turned and sauntered back to her seat. She sat and stared at me as if she held the key to my future.

  She might. She just … might.

  I donned my cans, turned back to Lyndi, and made with the buttery, aural sex. “You’re listening to WZMB, Zombie Radio, your personal ssssssssoundtrack, to the end of the world. That artist needs no introduction. If you’re unsure who Prince is, you must be from another planet. If you happen to be from another planet, I have a favor to ask of you. There’s a collective of arrogant, genocidal maniacs that call themselves the Zero Day Collective. Why don’t you locate them with your space radar, collect them in your spaceship, and boldly go where no douchebag has gone before. What say you, space friends? Care to do us a space favor? Am I overusing the space metaphor? Is it …”

  A sweet pause.

  “… annoying you? Tell me you feel my pain. My brothers and sisters, survivors one and all, raise your fists skyward and take this oath with me. I do solemnly swear I will do everything within my power to unmake that which has unravelled the fabric of mankind. I will use all means at my disposal to bend and break the will and lives of the cowards that unleashed the beast.”

  My heart throbbed against my chest. My cheeks burned with building rage. I dropped my voice to a whisper.

  “Do not underestimate the will of my listeners. We will beat you back into the hellish hole that birthed you. When we do, your ending will justify our means.” The last word oozed from my mouth, the sibilant “z” buzzed between my teeth and lips.

  I continued on. “In honor of our newfound strength and resilience, I offer up this song to anyone siding with the ZDC. The song is “Dead Man’s Party”, by Oingo Boingo. Zero Day Collective, I bid you a not so fond adieu.”

  As the introductory notes bounced out of the speakers, I turned back to Trinity and grinned. “That is why the Zero Day Collective is after me. They fear me, what I represent and do.”

  “Hell yeah, they do,” said Dan. He’d overheard the conversation from the doorway between the rooms. “This man is the town crier for the new world order. He calls the survivors to take up arms against the masters of destruction. He is the voice of righteous salvation.”

  I stood and stepped away from the console to stretch my legs. “You’re laying it on a bit thick, don’t ya think?”

  Before Dan could answer, a crashing sound rang out from below. Without skipping a beat, I raced out of the room and down the steps. I bounded into the living room to see the curtains billowing inward. On the floor, shards of glass were strewn about. It wasn’t the broken glass or the ghostly curtain that had me concerned.

  On the center cushion of the couch was a severed head. The dead, milky eyes of the damned stared up at me.

  “Holy what the fuck,” Dan shouted in my ear. “Why is there a zombie head on your couch? And what the hell does it say on the forehead?”

  I
hadn’t noticed. Scribbled on the flesh of the forehead was a message ─ written in black marker. Two words.

  Shut up!

  Dan and I stared at the head.

  “That’s damn creepy,” whispered Dan. “What do you think it means?”

  I continued to stare while scratching my head.

  “The Zero Day Collective?” Trinity’s voice surprised me from behind. She stepped in between Dan and me.

  I gave it a quick thought and replied. “No. That’s not their style. The ZDC doesn’t do subtle. If they knew where we were, they’d just drop bombs or a payload of zombies and wipe us out. My guess is this little care package came from someone nearby in response to the impromptu concert.”

  “Whoa,” Dan huffed. “You think someone hated our sound enough to lop the head off of a moaner and send it flying through your window? I’ve been given head before, but this is a bit much.”

  Trinity laughed. I would have joined her, but the fear of what lay before had its cold, deadly fingers snaked around my heart. I reached out and picked the head up by the hair. As it dangled before me, a dollop of drool launched from its mouth and just missed my Chuck Taylors.

  “Gross,” Trinity spat.

  “What should we do with our little friend?” I asked. Before anyone could speak a word, the idea hipster smacked me upside the humerus. “Follow me, kids.”

  I went to the garage and grabbed a five foot section of the rebar I’d been collecting for weapons. I returned to the living room to see eyes wide with curiosity.

  Trinity gasped. “Dare we ask?”

  “Ask away, my darling dear, ask away,” I replied. “But first, I need a sharpie.”

  I rushed into the kitchen, dug through my junk drawer, and retrieved the magic pen. I returned to the living room, snatched up the head, crossed out the original message, and wrote:

  Fuck You!

  With rebar and severed head in hand, I stepped up to the doorway. Trinity instantly caught on to my dilemma and opened the door. I checked the area, silently sneaked out into the darkness, and marched straight to the edge of my front yard. I slammed the rebar into the dirt and, with all of my weight, forced it downward until I was certain the thing wouldn’t tip over.