That made him think of Ash, the cyborg. Or android. He wasn’t sure which. That made him think of Bruce Campbell, and he was back to zombies again.
“Fuck,” he said, cursing the darkness.
His chest began to glow red, and the hall lit up enough for him to see the doors.
“That’s weird,” he said.
He ignored the first, which he knew was the bathroom. If the zombie that grabbed Monny had brought her in there, he felt they deserved a little privacy. He swung open the bedroom door, and a zombie woman sat in a rocking chair facing him.
“I’m sorry, High-C, but your princess is in another castle,” it said.
“I don’t have anything clever to say,” High said, shooting it in the face.
There was no one else in the room that he could see. On a whim, he checked the closet, and saw a jagged hole cut through the sheetrock wall leading to the next apartment.
“Harrison Ford has a bad feeling about this,” he said, stepping through the portal.
¤ ¤ ¤
The teams massed in front of Router’s apartment, waiting for Myf. Captain Dan and Shinobi continued to patrol the perimeter with their crews of cutthroats and assassins.
“Beau, you’re bleeding!” Nursehella said.
“’Tis just a flesh wound,” he said, shrugging it off.
“What the fuck, Betty?” she asked. “You’re supposed to be the healer of your group.”
“Killing’s more fun,” Betty told her. “Something about shooting a machine gun makes my dick wet.”
Danielle thought about it. “Yeah, me, too,” she said.
“Besides, he’s a big boy.”
“You callin’ me fat?” Zealous asked her.
“Uh, yeah, a little,” Betty said.
“Here we go with the fat jokes,” Beefy said. “You’re about as original as High-C.”
“Fuck High-C,” Betty said.
“High-C’s a fruit drink,” Zealous added.
“To quote Tarantino,” Beefy said, “Nigga’s got a weight problem. Nigga’s Samoan.”
“Why don’t you drink you a Coke and boot up your Gamecube, you grammatically incorrect Whitesican version of Chunky A?”
“Are you going for cool points with an obscure Arsenio Hall reference? Really?” Beefy asked her.
Nursehella was wrapping Zealous1’s bandana around his still bleeding arm when Myf returned with his backpack.
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” he said, pulling out a grenade.
Chapter 14 – Peach Is The Word
In the next apartment, High caught a glimpse of a retreating figure moving down the hallway, but he didn’t shoot for fear of hitting Veeps.
“Can you smell the set-up?” he asked the empty room.
On the wall was a pentagram drawn in fresh blood.
“That’s kind of cool, I guess,” he said.
Instead of immediately following as they obviously expected him to do, he went to the refrigerator. Warm Budweiser. Perfect. He drank most of the can and poured the rest on his face.
“Time to get ill,” he said. “Lone Wolf McQuaalude.”
Whenever he told the story of the time he moved to Lemon Heights, California and Chuck Norris moved away, people thought he was kidding.
High looked in the cabinet and found a bear-shaped bottle of honey. Then he looked on a bookshelf until he found a Bible. He tore out a back page advertisement and crumbled the rest of his weed into it, rolling a huge cigar and sealing it with the honey.
“I’m not the Doc,” he said, “But I’m known to get savage.”
He lit the blunt, smoked it halfway down, and pushed on with the stub in his mouth, doing his best to look like George Peppard.
¤ ¤ ¤
“What’s the range of these things, I wonder?” Myf asked.
“The shrapnel goes twenty to thirty feet, easily, according to Jane’s,” Karl said. “But I wouldn’t get closer than fifty.”
“Let’s use two. I need someone to set one off with me.”
“Hey, where’s Monica?” Chozo asked.
“Uh, High-C took her to go get high,” Myf said, scrambling to cover for him, and making matters worse instead.
“That motherfucker!” Choz said. “I’m shooting him myself when they get back.”
“I’ll do it,” Inadequate said, and everyone looked at him.
“Oh. Pitch a grenade, not shoot High-C. I don’t have a problem with him, personally. Dude stuck up for me when no one else would.”
He paused.
“Come to think of it, the rest of you could say the same thing. Buncha assholes,” he said, smiling.
Myf handed Inadequizzy a grenade.
“Here, Devil’s Advocate. Everyone else around the corner.”
“On three?” Inadequate asked.
“Si.”
“Uno…”
“Dos…”
“Tres!” they both shouted and tossed the activated bombs, barely rounding the corner before they went off.
The grenades exploded within a half second of each other, resulting in a tremendous double bang, as the first softened the target for the second. When the smoke had cleared somewhat, the two groups returned to Router’s door and found the lower half of it missing, but the shield she’d erected intact.
¤ ¤ ¤
High opened the next door slightly and triggered his nine. As he entered the bedroom, he let off two shots without thinking, killing the zombies assigned to block his passage.
He stood in the room with two dead bodies and puffed his blunt as the sound of gunfire echoed in his ears. When he had the courage to open the closet door hiding the passageway into Router’s apartment, he found the way barred by the same green force field.
¤ ¤ ¤
The rest of the raiding party converged at Router’s front door. The once intermittent sounds of gunshots from the rooftop and the surrounding blocks increased in regularity.
“Well, now what?” Betty asked, exasperated.
“If it’s explosives you be needin’, Captain Dan be the man,” a voice said from behind her.
“Captain Dan!” she said, turning around to face him.
“Yar,” he said. In his hands was a small cask with a long wick sticking out of it.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Someone set us up the bomb,” he said, placing it in her hands.
“We tried two grenades. It won’t budge,” she said.
“This be a Davy Jones special. Enchanted.”
She looked at it skeptically.
“Well, I guess it won’t hurt to try.”
Everyone else ran back to the protection of the corners.
“Ready,” Zealous said.
Betty pulled out her red Bic and tested it.
“Lucky lighter, don’t fail me now,” she said, placing the bomb next to the wall.
Just as she was about to light it, shots began to ring out from the corner. She looked into the courtyard, and a horde of zombies was rushing in like a tidal wave.
“Light that thing!” YT yelled at her.
“Stop shooting,” she shouted back. “I have to run that way.”
The gunshots on his side ceased. Betty lit the fuse and ran.
The bomb burst just as she rounded the wall, with a sound as loud as ten grenades. The plaster, wood and glass erupted outward, showering the zombies below.
The force field winked out of existence.
Chapter 15 – Victorious Secret
High-C heard the explosion and checked the closet again.
“Access granted,” he said, stepping through the wall.
The hole led into Router’s closet, which was filled with lederhosen and Sailor Moon dresses.
“This must be the place,” he said. He opened the door ready to blast, and nearly shot Veeps in the face.
She sat on an unmade mattress with her hands and feet taped together, and a piece of duct tape across her mouth.
“Oh, Monny,
” he said. “It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again…”
He reached for her, and she cringed. High grabbed her face with his left hand and pulled the tape off with his right.
“What are you doing, you psycho? My boyfriend’s gonna kill you!”
“You’re in no position to make threats, Veeps. I need a knife,” he said, looking around.
Monny let loose with a blood-curdling scream. Several people entered the apartment, and Chozo burst into the bedroom, gun drawn.
“Motherfucker,” he said, leveling the weapon at High’s face.
“Chozo, he’s crazy! He was looking for a knife!” Monny said.
Chozo pulled back the hammer on the .38 he was holding.
“Choz, take it easy, guy,” High said. “I was going to cut her loose.”
Chozo looked at Monny.
“That’s plausible,” she admitted. “He didn’t tie me up, they did.”
“More zombies!” Betty yelled.
The gunfire outside sounded like popcorn. Microwave kettlecorn, to be exact.
“Let’s get Router and end this,” High said. “You can shoot me later.”
Chozo uncocked the pistol.
“Untie her,” he said.
“She’s your girlfriend,” High told him, leaving the room.
YT and Zealous stood in front of the other bedroom door.
“She’s in there,” YT said. “I can feel her.”
“Why no defenses?” Zealous asked.
“They were next door,” High said. “I shot ‘em.”
“Hurry up!” Betty yelled from the balcony. “They keep coming!”
Zealous swung the door open and they saw Router before them. She was standing upright, but her feet weren’t touching the floor. She slowly rotated in the air, eyes closed.
“She’s fucking huge,” YT said in awe.
Her head and feet were at best an inch from the ceiling and floor.
“Shit,” Beau said. “Now what?”
He had been expecting a fight, and was entirely unprepared for this scenario.
“Shottie,” High said, holding out his hand.
“Hurry up!” Betty shouted again, shrilly. They could hear the rising anxiety in her voice, and the guns going off like strings of firecrackers.
Zealous was reluctant to turn over the weapon, knowing what was to come, but placed the sawed-off in High’s hands nevertheless.
He held it over his head and waited for her to complete a rotation. When she came around again, her eyes were open. They glowed as red as the light on a defective X-Box.
“I’m sorry Kristen,” he said, pulling the trigger.
The barrel exploded in her face, and she fell back on the bed, shrinking to her normal size as she went, eyes closed but otherwise unharmed.
The gunshots outside tapered off, but not before several former zombies were shot in the face and chest.
“Zombie killas, muthafucka!” Betty yelled when she realized what had happened.
“I can’t believe you killed Router,” YT said. “That was my homegirl. Nerd love and shit, man.”
“Had to happen,” Beau said.
High-C said, “She’s not dead.”
Both turned to look at him.
“Look at her face. Not a scratch.”
“She’s not breathing,” YT said.
“Breathing’s overrated,” High said. He called out for the trio of magic nurses. “Healers!”
Nursehella, Betty Rebel and Veeps walked in unarmed.
“Bring her back,” High said.
The girls looked at him, and each other. None wanted to admit that they didn’t believe they could help her. High knelt by the bed, taking her hand in his own. The three joined hands and closed their eyes.
“That’s hot,” High said, and Veeps opened one eye to glare at him momentarily.
As they concentrated, black-bordered red hearts began to slowly fly from their chests and into Kristen’s.
“Whoa!” YT said.
Her body jerked and her breath began to come back to her. Right before High sensed that she was going to wake, he placed his mouth on hers.
Her eyes flew open.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said.
She punched him in the jaw and jumped up to a sitting position.
“What the fuck?” she yelled.
“Surprise!” the girls said, unable to think of anything else.
“Get this motherfucker out of my house!” Router told Zealous.
YT laughed. “She’s back,” he said.
They walked outside to the balcony, and looked down at the bodies below, which seemed to cover every available inch of ground, many piled two and three deep.
“WTF?” Router asked.
“Movie shoot,” High said. “Zombie Killa, remember? I can’t believe you slept through this scene.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said dazedly.
Dean and Soapy walked up, late to the festivities.
“What did we miss?” Soapy asked.
“Everything,” Veeps said.
“Let’s get out of here,” YT said, nervous about the federal presence that he knew was immanent. “Denny’s. Breakfast is on me.”
Everyone cheered.
“Thanks, Bryce,” High said. “But I really must be going. Myf’s got school and stuff.”
“Thanks, you crazy motherfucker,” Beau said, shaking his hand.
“Nursie?” High said. “Care to join us?”
“Sure,” she said. “If Karl can ride.”
High sighed. “Oh, I suppose.”
They walked to the jeep. Dora’s front end was smashed, but there was no radiator leak. Before he unlocked the doors, he said, “Shirt.”
Danielle rolled her eyes and peeled off her Chun-Li tee, her breasts catching and reflecting the morning’s first light.
“That’s better,” he said.
When everyone was loaded, High put on Zealous1’s Zombie Killa track and backed away from the wall. They set off down the road, and when he glanced in the rearview, his eyes glowed red…
The End?
Other books by Jason Z. Christie:
Pageburner
Perfect Me
Hurricane Regina
Radar Love
Six Stories Short and Sweet
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – The Odd Couple
Chapter 2 – Karyn Crisis In The Kremlin
Chapter 3 – Fear And Loathing In Cleveland
Chapter 4 – All My Texts Originate In Texas
Chapter 5 – Florida Sucks
Chapter 6 – Z.E.D.’s Not Dead
Chapter 7 – Federal Case, Jr.
Chapter 8 – Louisiana Sucks, But Not As Much As Florida
Chapter 9 – Bad Mother Truckers
Chapter 10 – Hack Attack
Chapter 11 – Balloonacy
Chapter 12 – Operation Europe
Chapter 13 – Locked Down
Chapter 14 – Peach Is The Word
Chapter 15 – Victorious Secret
Zombie Killa Page 6