Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger

by Goforth, Jim

  “Of course some of you are probably wondering, why Armada? Easy. Armada is a metal city; it is widely accepting of all kinds of metal genres, particularly those of the extreme variety, and most importantly for Undead Fleshcrave and Global Death, death metal is king in this metropolis. There is a very large population of death metal fanatics here, possibly due to so many of them moving here with the town's reputation preceding it, through word-of-mouth from bands, their friends, fans, whatever. In any case, it is fundamentally a very death metal town and trust me, Undead and Global definitely did their homework this time around, well and truly. They knew they were guaranteed a sell-out crowd, a packed house, the whole deal.”

  “Armada welcomed Undead Fleshcrave with wide open arms, stupid nodding grins, and goddamn metal horns, ready to mosh the night away in brutal oblivion, ready to eat it all up. So with the wheels in motion, the 'concert' couldn’t fail. The whole full house idea, the selling of as many tickets as possible, even to the point of packing a venue beyond capacity with some shifty sales and dodgy under-counter activities is not about making dollars. Not in the slightest. It's about making zombies."

  Black momentarily halted the flow of the tale as he took another drag on his smoke, glancing in his rear-view as he changed lanes in accordance with the white sedan travelling some distance ahead of them, deliberately keeping their two vehicles a fair way apart.

  "After the fuck up with Bloodchain, Global kept this on a tight leash. They had Undead under witness protection-style security, hidden to the point of being virtually undetectable, unrecognisable, anything like that. Even though the band members themselves posted on their own website and so forth to drum up the excitement, whip the public into a frenzy with teasers, videos and promises, the site is an untraceable one, leaving no chances or opportunities for a repeat of the Bloodchain fiasco.

  “With Armada, they knew they were onto a goldmine-rather an undeadmine: like I said, money has nothing to do with this, it just funds the operation to keep more Fleshcrave clones rolling off the production line.

  “With such a massive reaction, and so many tickets sold to the inaugural show on the tour, all they had to do was ensure they got the band inside the venue to play without any surprise hunters trying to anticipate their moves in advance.

  “I'm going to anticipate some of the questions you probably have in regards to a bunch of things, so just keep on keeping your traps shut for a while yet, and well, if I don't cover your concerns, just point it out to me when I'm done and we'll go from there. You," Here Black turned his penetrating stare to Julietta. "I'm assuming that your outburst in pegging us for knowing all along that this was going to happen was to be followed by a 'if you knew this, why didn't you stop it?' Simple. To be able to end something that thing first has to begin. And even if we did know something would happen we didn't entirely know when precisely, consequently it had to pan out as it did."

  Julietta couldn't bite her tongue anymore and she immediately shot back with a scathing interjection.

  "You mean to tell me that had to happen like that? People had to die, because...because..." She was momentarily at a loss for words, then found her vitriol again. "You let it happen then! You could have stopped it, you could have gone ahead and killed those horrendous excuses for musicians instead of having us in this predicament now, chasing your tail trying to catch up to kill them now. After the event."

  Black must have been expecting that all along; he didn't react adversely to her impassioned tirade at all.

  "No, we didn't let it happen. We had to let it happen as it was to happen. Envision these scenarios, if you will. Passive non-violent protest first. We kick up some kind of storm, a big scene about how something dreadful is going to happen here at the concert. Fuck, we start ranting it's going to be a zombie apocalypse and the show has to be canned. Do you see that working out a treat with a full house of hyped up, intoxicated, rowdy, ready to headbang 'til their necks cramp up for days death metal lunatics? And all the security? No, not at all, and Global know this for a fact. No amount of picketing, protesting, any of that shit is going to put the brakes on this concert, not in the graciously accepting extreme metal township of Armada, no fucking chance in hell, little lady. We get forcibly ejected from the venue and guess what? The show goes ahead, only nobody is left behind to save your asses from the inevitable. You all, being black metal heads and apparently not susceptible to the Zombie Trigger, are toast.

  “Got that? Okay, now for the aggressive violent offensive. We attempt to kill Undead Fleshcrave onstage, as they appear, which is the one and only shot we would get at it. We may get one or two of them, but guaranteed we are taken out by security, who are in Global Death's employ; nor are they regular security folk either, but we’ll get to that. Then, either we end up getting ourselves deep-sixed right out of the picture, or we all end up locked in cells. Again, useless to anybody, and guess what? Once more you are all toast. Because they sure as fuck won't stop the show, they'll milk it as all part of the stage show and they will proceed. With understudies who can simply step right into whatever band positions we managed to vacate with our ill-timed murder bid, slotting right into the line-up under cover of a sudden dousing of the room in total dark and nobody is the wiser regardless of how 'real' it comes across. Once again, guess what? You are all toast, the show goes on, with us dead, or in jail, utterly useless to prevent anything further, and this whole apocalyptic fuck up is going global. Best believe that shit."

  Black bit off the last line sharply, staring Julietta down in the rear view, his eyes malevolent. She looked taken aback by the rush of his words, as if they'd knocked the winds right out of her sails. It sounded twisted and wrong how he'd stated it; the fact that it had to happen like it did and such an abomination had been unleashed, but, perversely, his harsh bleak words rang with a horrible clarity.

  In either of the scenarios he presented, the end result for Seth and his buddies was far grimmer than the one they were in right now. At least in this one right here, they were all—or the majority of them―still alive to tell the tale.

  "Next point of interest." Black resumed speaking in short clipped tones, barely leaving much of a gap for his words to sink in. "The zombies themselves. How does it happen, what does it mean? Initially, it's done with 'The Zombie Trigger'. Don't get me wrong, Undead Fleshcrave are indeed an actual band. They’re all adept technical musicians and they genuinely perform all of their material, which, for the most part, is straightforward brutal death metal. Perfect for the death heads of Armada and, well, death heads universally. The Zombie Trigger, though, is something entirely different. It is a curse, a killswitch, a weapon specifically designed to create zombies and it has been perfected by Global Death to achieve the effect through extensive experimentation on human subjects."

  "How can that be?" Mark queried, also unable to sit quiet without pushing his question in. "I was under the general impression that a zombie plague would result from some kind of virus, or parasites, drugs, or shit like that. How does a song manage to possess that power?"

  "It's not a song. It is a collection of discordance, a congregation of sounds designed to penetrate and destroy living human brain capacity, cause synapses to misfire—basically it kills virtually all of the brain it is intended to, except for a tiny pocket which is then filled up with SamEdi's mantra, the alleged lyrics of the Zombie Trigger. On top of that, this same little sliver of brain is loaded up with inactive toxins that just lay dormant until every other part of the brain is gone. When that happens, they are released and contribute almost instantaneously to the zombie reaction; it is virtually immediate zombification. Pre-empting anybody's interjection on why this might not be more prevalent when people die or brains stop functioning, it is because it is extremely rare or perhaps nigh on impossible to completely shut down a brain except this one tiny section. It's more a case of killing the entire function or leaving more of it open to be able to trigger the immediate death and revival reaction. Global and Fleshc
rave have perfected the ability to utilise sounds to kill the brain bar this minute sliver: like I said before, they have done some fucking in-depth experimenting to attain this goal."

  "By that you mean they have been experimenting on people's brains?" Miranda broke in, horrified. "Playing with human lives? Illegal brain surgery?"

  "Human life means zero to these people," Black told her, a trail of smoke curling from his mouth. "You should already be painfully aware of that. They want the zombie apocalypse, they want to bring plague to humanity, and they revel in this. It's the ultimate goal to them and it's a means to an end―that end being total power. And global death. Bar a select few."

  For a brief second all was silent as Black's profound words floated around the car like some malignant essence itself, temporarily nullifying the prospect of a litany of questions coming. Ultimately, they did come, with Mark getting in first.

  "Is that possible? I mean, fuck, that's impossible, isn't it?"

  "You've seen it for yourself, you saw what happened. The Zombie Trigger has been created after much tinkering with human subjects: missing people, runaways, abductees, you name it, all to unveil a quicker more efficient zombie-maker than any drug. And worse, the toxins released from that little portion of brain then inflict the host with the ability to pass on the zombie curse."

  "I was about to ask something like that." Hearing his fears put into words by Black, Seth finally spoke up. "As we were leaving the...well, zombie hotspot, I saw ordinary people in business suits and shit like that, and they were zombies too. So they get infected then, if they get bitten? If they don't get mauled into little balls of meat that is?"

  "That is correct, Seth." Black nodded solemnly. "All of those initially turned by the Trigger become carriers of a contagion, courtesy of the toxins swimming around their undead bodies, and they will pass it on to all those they dine on, except, of course, like you said, anybody chewed up too comprehensively to do much. Mind you, it will still be passed on, but if the host body is only an arm or a leg, that isn't really going to prove too much of a threat. So know this: in effect, all of those patrons of the concert were innately already zombies, it was just a requirement to have the Zombie Trigger activate it. We too are all candidates to become zombies, it just means we probably will have to be bitten for that to happen."

  "Okay, so here's a valid question," Mark said and Seth observed that Black was either being more lenient in allowing these queries to be put forth or it had reached the point in the tale where people's concerns could legitimately be addressed. "How come it didn't affect us? I mean, I felt so sick I thought I was about to throw up my guts and die. I think we all did, but how is it that we didn't turn? And the others who didn't get...zombified..."

  "Like Andy...” Seth muttered.

  "Yeah, like Andy. How come the Zombie Trigger didn't do anything, but make certain people as ill as fuck?"

  "To be completely honest, I don't rightly know," Black admitted. "Not entirely. However, I'm pretty sure it relates to us just having our brains wired different to how the Zombie Trigger has been formulated to work. For example, I like death metal, you like death metal, we all like death metal, but do we live and breathe it? Is it our be-all and end-all when it comes to the music we want to listen to? No, it's not. And same with those other random people who were there who might have survived the original turning. I'm just assuming that may be the case; maybe we don't have that part of the brain that attracts us wholeheartedly to that type of music. Maybe that's the piece of brain that also contains the toxin. Who knows?

  “There's a few viable options, I guess, if one digs deep enough. The main point for Global Death is the target audience they created this abomination for were all susceptible to its insidious impact and ultimately it was a devastating success. I don't imagine they wanted it fine-tuned to eclipse every single person; they undoubtedly needed some human meat to be able to unleash the contagion as well. Zombifying everybody in the venue might have been counterproductive, again, who knows? Remember, SamEdi said it was intended for all true death heads, a surprise for them. So obviously it’s been patented to apply to specifics, and none of us fit that criteria."

  He then glanced at Mark in the rear-view mirror.

  "So harking back to your remark that you thought it would have to be a parasite or a virus that brought a zombie outbreak to life, well, essentially that is how it will spread to those who weren't originally turned, at least in Armada. However, if Undead Fleshcrave are allowed to play another show then they will pull the Zombie Trigger on another town. And another. Every single city, venue, bar, place they play all the way up the coast, all the way across the country. Each time they breed a new horde of death head zombies, those mutants will wreak bloody havoc on that town. Until, just as SamEdi predicted, it will be a universal plague. Global Death. Or rather, global undead. So if anybody disagrees with the notion of us hunting Undead Fleshcrave and their bands of Sentinels down and eradicating them speak up now and I'll let you out of the car. We're far enough out of the red-zone, but I don't fancy your chances of seeing Armada in the same state it was prior to tonight."

  Again, quiet swam into the interior of the Truck, hanging heavy, and Seth was fairly certain the last part of what Black said was distinctly meant for the girls. He wasn't exactly sure what he would do if they said yes, let us out here and we'll find our own way home. He was trapped in two minds about it. On one hand he felt as though there was nothing he would love more than to be out of the vehicle, free of the nightmare and away from this horror story, only he also realized that wouldn't be the case. He would only be removed from the upcoming situation Black and co. were driving into; the nightmare itself, which had formulated right in his hometown, still existed there and if the outlandish things stated by Black were to be believed, it would be an ever-escalating one that would forever change the whole face and being of the city.

  On the other hand, staying here in the company of these mysterious and decidedly dangerous folk, men and women alike, at least presented some veneer of safety, some sort of sanctuary or shield from the impending apocalyptic threats despite the plans the Subversion crew had to kill the band and prevent the threat from spreading any farther.

  For a long time nobody spoke at all and the silence grew uncomfortable, heavier with each passing moment until it hung like an almost tangible cloak, and Seth, who’d rolled up his passenger door window to be able to hear Black's story without having wind whistling in his ear, felt compelled to roll it back down and alleviate the stifling sensation.

  Julietta surprised Seth, both with her long-delayed response to Black’s ultimatum, and the fact that she was the first to break the discomforting silence.

  "No. We'll stay." Her tone was firm and resolute. "I believe you. I don't think you just made all of that up on the spur of the moment and if I hadn't seen things for myself I might not be willing to accept any of what you said. But I have. I have."

  "Julietta?" Miranda queried, her voice uncertain, as if she’d been expecting Julietta to request Black let them out, obviously ready to follow suit. That apparently wasn't to be the case.

  "I might not agree that more people have to die," Julietta said. "But I do agree that this has to stop, and if this is the only way to halt the spread...Besides, what is there to go back to in Armada right now? As Dax pointed out, it’s going to be swarming with police, everything there, it's going to be a nightmare getting in or out or anything. Staying away from there right now is imperative. I have no great desire to come face to face with any undead plague. Again."

  "Guess we're all in." Mark answered for everybody else since nobody was looking like dissenting. "One thing though, Sentinels?"

  "The security guards. That's what they are, they are Global Death Sentinels. Multi-skilled, multipurpose drones who act in many capacities to achieve the goals and objectives of Global Death and all affiliates. That means security, stand-in musicians, bodyguards, assassins, drivers―you name it, that's why they exist. To
get to Undead Fleshcrave we will first have to take them out."

  "Great,” Dax said. “So how many of them are there?"

  "Plenty," Black said. "Enough to fill those two black vans with maybe another few on the tour bus."

  "Wonderful. So this is going to be some kind of mass murder plot. Jesus, is there another way to take out these psychos? Won't the police be onto them about the whole zombie outbreak originating from the venue where they played their show?"

  "How many people inside the venue are going to prove to be reliable witnesses? Or, in fact, surviving witnesses? The first and most crucial thing for the police at this point in time will be stemming the tide of undead death metallers, and, indeed, all those they are turning in the process of running rampant over dear old Armada. A band exiting the scene isn't any cause for alarm or suspicion just yet because as far as they know the band were slated to play a show at a venue when all of a sudden the place and the streets outside are overrun with flesh-eating freaks. Perfectly logical to expect the band to want to pack up and haul ass the fuck out of there. So, no, right now, Undead Fleshcrave aren't even on the police radar, they've bigger fish to shoot at."

  "Surely the whole driving the vans and then the bus through the middle of a bunch of people, living or dead—or undead—is going to be enough to get them some unwanted attention from the police?" Mark said.

  "Not essentially, no." Black put a hole in that theory too. "Like I said, with the band wanting to bail, it stands to reason that people are going to panic and want to get the hell away from there as quickly as possible. For a bunch of police tossed headfirst into a truly fucked up situation of proportions they never would have dreamed of, it’s the last thing they are going to be concerned with. That's the reality of it. Undead Fleshcrave just slip away, or rather, batter their way to freedom and by the time anybody really has the time to connect them to anything overly sinister, they are miles and miles away, repeating the process. Unless we do what we have to do."