I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

The area was a deconstructionist’s dream come true. Buildings had fallen into disrepair; cars sat abandoned, stripped, and worthless; weeds broke through the cracks in the sidewalk and streets. In other words, business as usual for a world redrawn with sixty-four shades of apocalypse.

  Poking from a box was a measure of wire…thin enough to be dangerous. I knelt down and pulled the lid back to see a coil of the stuff, ready for some form of action.

  The idea hit me like a red rubber dodge ball to the crotch.

  I looked up at Mikko and whispered, “It’s time for a little dead rover, dead rover.”

  A puckish smile lit up her face. “One of my favorite games,” Mikko replied in kind, and dropped a kiss on my cheek.

  I gestured for all to gather ‘round. Everyone squatted and drew in close. I whispered the “rules” of the game and then set out to prepare the playing field.

  Mikko grabbed the spool of wire and handed me the end. I pulled it toward a light post and wrapped it tight, five feet from the ground. Once the end was secure, I raced to Mikko, grabbed the spool, and made my way to a similar pole across the street, wrapped it half-way around, pulled the wire tight, and wound it secure. I turned and gave the line a flick to test the tension. The metal wire sang out with a high enough pitch to prove it was ready to play rough.

  I pulled everyone to the side of the line opposite the Moaners. “On the count of three, follow my lead,” I whispered, and then turned my attention back to the Moaners.

  The gang of six continued swaying in the middle of the intersection. I took in a deep breath and called out, “Undead rover, undead rover, send…all you bastards over.”

  Mikko snickered and joined in on the chant.

  “Undead rover, undead rover, send all you bastards over.”

  The Moaners sniffed the air and canted their heads toward our joyful noise.

  “Undead rover, undead rover, please send all you bastards over,” the remaining crew joined in.

  “Here they come,” I called out. “Let’s hope this works.”

  “Wait,” Fay cried. “I thought you knew this would work.”

  “Fay, nothing is certain in the apocalypse.”

  As the Moaners drew in close, we backed away step by step.

  The first zombie hit the wire. The thin metal filament dug deep into the flesh of its neck until it hit bone. The head tilted back to ninety degrees and then snapped off.

  Another zombie fell prey to the trick.

  And another.

  “Frenzy,” I said over the sound of remaining moans, “whatever the wire doesn’t take out is all yours.”

  “Right,” Frenzy replied. “My steel is ready.”

  The wire managed to take down four of the Moaners. As soon as the fifth crossed the finish line, Frenzy took over.

  “Guard, turn, parry…thrust!” Frenzy shouted and ran the fifth zombie’s neck through with the katana. The Moaner fell limp to the pavement. Frenzy slid the sword from the sloppy mess and prepped to have at the final foe.

  As the sixth zombie approached, an all-too-familiar clack and roar rattled through the area.

  Everyone, save the final zombie, stopped and turned their attention on me.

  Adrenaline surged from deep within to flood my every muscle with a nervous energy. I wanted to sprint away, go fetal, and piss myself at the same time.

  “Boners,” Mikko whispered.

  No one snickered. It’s a bad situation when the word boner fails to rouse even a chuckle from a group of teens.

  Damned apocalypse.

  “Don’t they avoid the city?” Fay asked, her voice trembling with fear.

  “That’s a myth,” I answered. “We’ve run into them twice so far…I’d rather not chance a third meet-up. Those things are mad bastards.”

  “But what about the heads? We need them to win the game,” Mikko challenged.

  As Frenzy separated the final Moaner from his brain bin, I spun my girlfriend to face me. “Sweetheart, unless the Boners pick these dead bodies clean, we can always come back for the heads.”

  Frenzy cut in. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go back to Asylum empty-handed than empty-headed.”

  “Good point,” Mikko replied.

  Another quick scan of the area. The sound of clacking, bony armor grew louder with each second. Raging nervous energy made the task at hand nearly impossible.

  Almost by accident, I spotted a waving hand within the frame of a small window.

  “Follow me,” I demanded, and then raced off toward the hand. As we drew near, a door opened. I sped through the entryway and found myself in what could have only been a prime hipster hangout. The theme of the diner was retro chic, styled in the key of irony.

  Once we were all tucked away inside the building, the door slammed shut behind us. I turned to see the man responsible for saving our skins. He was a tall, scrawny man without a shirt and nary an ounce of fat on his body. His face and hair were caked thick with dirt and mud.

  When he finally spoke to us, his voice was as ratty as the hair on his head. He sounded like Harvey Fierstein impersonating Jim Gaffigan’s Hot Pocket bit.

  Dead pocket.

  Mr. Creepy Pants stared on, his eyes wide and his lips curled up into a dangerous smile. “They say the meat on the bones of the young is the most delicious of all,” Creeps chanted.

  “And on that note,” Fay said, and started for the door. Frenzy stood in her way and flashed his katana. “What are you gonna do, Fren? Slice and dice my heart from my chest? Believe me when I say, I’d rather die by your hand than suffer whatever fate that thing has in store for me.”

  “Don’t you worry about that slurpy prig,” Frenzy said with a grin. He pointed his sword toward the man and said, “Stranger danger.”

  “You could say I’m dangerous, that’s for sure. In the end, however, you’d most likely call me the space cowboy.”

  Everyone glanced my way, as if I were the key to solving the riddle that’d just spilled from the man’s spit-slick lips. I shrugged and returned my attention to the stranger. “What’s your game?”

  “Games are for children. As is Hell, or so I’d been told by a chanteuse from an era long since passed.” He blinked several times in succession. “You were delivered to me by the angel of take-out, weren’t you? Although I’m fairly certain I ordered cheesy bread with my teen wings. Please tell me you have my cheesy bread in one of those backpacks. Please, oh please.” The man shook his head so violently, I was certain his neck would snap.

  Frenzy took a step forward and leveled the blade of his sword until the tip rested delicately on the man’s chest. “Yeah, mate, we have yer cheesy bread. All ya gotta do is ask nicely.”

  The odd man wrapped his bare hand around the steel of the blade and gave it a white-knuckle grip. Drops of blood launched from the meat of his palm to crash land on the floor below. He then slid his hand up and down the blade as his eyes rolled into his head.

  “What the hell?” Kubrick shouted, right before nudging his cameraman.

  Nicco leaned toward the blade to get a closeup of the action. “Nice.”

  “No!” I nearly screamed. “This isn’t nice, this is beyond messed up. Dude, what’s your glitch?”

  The man looked up to me with wild eyes. He grinned wide to reveal chipped and stained teeth. “My glitch? Oh, my good boy, I have no glitch. I do have a stitch…or was that nine? I cannot recall, but I am fairly certain I did save nine. What I cannot remember, for the life of me, is what nine did I save?” He pointed at each of us, one at a time. “I don’t believe it was you I saved, though…unless I saved you for last, because we all know that teenagers taste the most like chicken.”

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  I’d heard rumors, whispers in the wind that small enclaves of cannibals had been forming. Each and every time someone would speak the word in hushed tones, I’d brush them aside as criminally stupid.

  I was wrong; very, very wrong.

  “What do we do, J
ingo?” Frenzy asked, the blade trembling in his hand. “I can’t run this guy through…he’s still alive. That’s just not my bag, mate.”

  There was panic at the disco in my chest. I was certain my heart would crash its way through my sternum, leap to the ground, and vanish into the shadows. It took every ounce of control I had to regain my smooth. I took in a deep breath and stepped in close and personal with the stranger. I pulled the pistol from the back of my pants and felt to make sure the safety was on. The last thing I needed was to accidentally fire a round into one of my team.

  “We do nothing, Frenzy.” I turned my focus to the strange man. “You, on the other hand, are going to walk out of here and never look back.”

  The man shook his head emphatically. “No can do, no can do. You see, out there is a world of chaos worse than the one within.” He tapped a bony finger to his head. “I’ve looked into that heart of darkness and would much rather play a less deadly game. Checkers? I have half a set. Or we could play Euchre…I hear tell it’s a rousing game played with cards and corn from Indiana.” The stranger tapped my chest. “Were you born in a small town, young man, where little pink houses built of paper to withstand the great American fire?”

  My tolerance for the man’s madness had long since faded. I grabbed his dirty finger and bent it backward. To my surprise, he grinned and leaned into the bend until a loud crack sounded from his hand. The sound of ecstasy poured from his mouth and tears from his eyes.

  He withdrew his hand, the finger clearly broken. “Sometimes you need a bit of pain to remind you that you’re still alive.” He shook his broken digit between us; it flopped about like a rubber chicken. He giggled wildly. “Look at it go. Look at it go!”

  Behind us, the door rattled against the roar of Boners. The half-naked man giggled with delight. “Here they come, ready to rip off your head and spit down your throat.”

  I pressed the barrel of the gun to man’s chest. “Into the room behind you. Now!”

  He presented no sign of refusal before he turned and vanished into the room. Without hesitation, I stumbled to the door and slammed it shut. Mikko snatched a chair from the end of the hall and propped it under the handle of the door. She gave the door a tug and, once she was satisfied the persecuted soul couldn’t escape the room, she returned to my side.

  I made to race up the stairwell across the hall, when Kubrick grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to a stop.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Kubrick asked.

  “About what?”

  “About staying here? Who knows how many more nut cases we’d have to deal with inside this nightmare factory.”

  An emphatic roar made a point I didn’t need to hit home. Without another word spoken between us, everyone followed me up the stairs.

  Three landings later, we were presented with a wide open space…a single room spread over the entire floor. Scattered around the area were large, sealed crates, each stamped with a logo I’d never before seen.

  “What is this place?” Kubrick asked.

  Nicco shot past me, camera on his shoulder and rolling. He eased up to one of the crates and walked a complete circle around the large box. “Nailed shut,” Nicco shouted.

  “Hey guys,” Mikko called out. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

  I rushed to her side and glanced through the window. “Son of a bitch,” I whispered. “They’re coming from everywhere.”

  “Who?” Frenzy asked.

  “Not who…what.” I replied.

  Everyone found a window and quickly wished they hadn’t.

  Kubrick leaned against the glass. “Holy crap. How in the hell are we supposed to get out of here?”

  Something was drawing them to us. Moaners…they converged on the building from every corner of the world, as if the streets vomited zombies.

  “Someone please tell me what’s going on,” Fay whispered. The sound of her fear was palpable, infectious.

  I had no answer. Mikko had no answer. Frenzy, Kubrick, and Nicco had no answer. There were only questions.

  The first wave of the undead splashed down on the building. The walls subtly shuddered.

  “I don’t understand,” I mumbled under my breath. “There has to be something we’re missing…something about this building that attracted the undead.”

  “Yeah,” Nicco interrupted, “us.”

  I turned to face Nicco; his attention was locked on the camera in his hands. I wasn’t sure what he was filming, but something was going on. I stepped in close to his window and peered out.

  “It’s just zombies,” was all I could muster.

  “Just zombies? Is that the best you’ve got?” Nicco spat. “It so happens that that pack of just zombies outnumbers us, like, a billion to one. We’d need a goddamn superhero to level this playing field.”

  Frenzy chimed in with a logic bomb. “The only question at the moment that really matters is what is drawing them to this building? Moaners don’t converge on something unless there’s a good enough reason. Said good enough reason is brain matter. Considering the number of undead coming for us, it makes no sense that…”

  I interrupted. “Maybe Mr. Creepy Pants knows something about this.”

  Everyone slow-turned my way, their faces knotted with disgust.

  I surrendered. “Fine, I’ll go.”

  No one bothered to stop me from leaving the room. I even hesitated at the door, on the off-chance someone decided I was too important to chance losing to a Handlebar the Hipster Cannibal.

  Nothing.

  I took the stairs slowly. With each step downward, the idea that someone would jerk me back into the room faded.

  “Crap,” I whispered as my feet landed on the bottom floor of the building. “No turning back now.”

  Beyond the walls of the building, the rumble of moans shook the floor. For whatever reason, the zombie horde was content with calling out from the street…which was odd. Collectively, they could have ripped the building from its foundation and tossed it aside to get to the sweet meats within. Instead, they swayed in place and moaned.

  With the stealth of a ninja, I removed the chair and opened the door holding Creepy Pants captive. The man was fetal on the floor, shivering and singing “Pop Goes The Zombie”.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked with gentle force.

  Creepy continued his song. I reached in and grabbed him by the arm to yank him from hiding. He jerked free and sang louder. I stepped into the tiny room and pulled the door closed behind me. The darkness added a layer of panic I had no desire to endure.

  “I’m going to give you thirty seconds before I pull that door back open and drag your ass out into the hallway.”

  Creepy mumbled again.

  “One.”

  Another mumble.

  “Two.”

  Before I could reach three, the door was flung open and an LED light shattered the darkness into a thousand splintered shadows.

  “What the hell?” I shouted.

  Nicco replied. “This has Oscar written all over it. Okay, maybe not Oscar, but this dude is straight out of a Rob Zombie film.”

  “No,” I insisted.

  Creepy Pants stood and pressed into me, transfixed by the light and the lens. “The third eye of the world is on me. The prophesy of the three is nigh.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, knowing full well Mr. Pants had absolutely no idea what he was saying.

  I made my way out of the closet. Creepy nervously approached Nicco. “Is the great one ready to translate the word of wisdom to the unwashed masses?”

  “He is,” Nicco replied in a hushed tone. “The great one is ready for you.”

  The camera zoomed in on Creepy’s face. The second the auto-zoom motor ceased spinning, Nicco pointed and said, “Whenever you’re ready to speak, the great one will translate.”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” Creepy whispered and nodded. “I am ready.”

  Creepy drew in a number of quick, shallow breaths and spok
e with an eerie calmness. “It was foretold in the book of Jacob that the dawn of new man would herald the coming of the antigod—a being so malicious humanity would never survive. Our only chance lay in the hands of the red-haired unicorn. Trapped within the single horn of this mythical creature made real is every piece of information necessary to stem the tide of death. The antigod will wage a war unlike any mankind has ever fought. And we shall lose mightily. A flood of death will drown us, and only those willing to ride the back of the great unicorn will survive.”

  Nicco stepped to the side to get a more artistic angle on Creepy Pants. Somehow, the madman continued facing forward, as if the camera never moved.

  “I am the knight who shall sit upon the back of the unicorn. With its mighty horn I will gore the antigod and save humanity.”

  Creepy panted hard; strings of saliva exploded from his lips.

  And then he dropped to his knees with a loud crack. The sound sent a wave of nausea through my system. Nicco followed him down with the lens and drew back a step. I was about to speak when Creepy seemed to shut off and dropped, face first, to the floor.

  “What just happened?” Nicco asked.

  “I have no idea,” I replied.

  “Oh, shit. Is that dude dead?”

  I knelt down beside the man. The stink of his body odor was almost too much to take. In the name of my soul, I persevered and cautiously touched two fingers to his neck.

  “Crap,” I whispered.

  “What is it, Jingo?”

  I glanced up at Nicco and slowly shook my head.

  “No way. That’s…no way. That shit only happens in the movies. He’s not…”

  “Dead. Yeah…he is.”

  To my shock, Nicco sent the camera lens zooming into the man’s face.

  “What the hell, Nicco? Have some respect.”

  Nicco stood and glared at me. “Don’t even.”

  “Don’t even what?” I demanded.

  “Respect? Seriously? It’s the apocalypse, Jingo. Respect became irrelevant the second the Mengele Virus stripped us of hope.”

  I drew into Nicco’s personal space and pressed the camera to the side. “Listen, moron. The minute we lose our respect for others is when we kiss our souls goodbye. You may be able to feel nothing behind that lens, but out here in reality, we live and die by respect. If you can’t get with that, then I suggest you get the hell out of here.”