Not Everything Brainless is Dead

by Not Everything Brainless is Dead (mobi)

  Somehow, assuming nothing would obstruct their journey through the subway, everyone agreed. If they did their best to keep Captain Rescue away from the controls from this point forward, they should be able to get through this without a hitch. Charlie pulled the novice conductor from his seat and took his place. He pressed a series of buttons and then slid the lever forward. The train picked up speed, the giant blue bunny rabbit had apparently grasped the ins and outs of piloting one of these things rather easily.

  Captain Rescue stared out the window, entranced by the concrete tunnel as it whizzed past, the lights almost inducing another epileptic seizure. The train made it a few thousand feet and the hero had not looked away once. Just when the others had just begun to accept that this journey would be eventless, save a possible twitching Captain Rescue, the train turned a corner and its headlights illuminated a solo figure just ahead—an instantly recognizable figure—a zombie.

  The creature loitered upon the tracks, looking vacantly on as the train closed the gap. Its expression, or lack thereof, persisted as the giant metal wall struck it, spreading green goo across the front of the train. Stubbs thought back to the good old times he had with his golf cart. This, however, was much cooler. Charlie pushed the throttle to its maximum, and they watched, in part disgust and part interest, as the zombie’s remains simply crawled across the window and fell off. Already, they could see more zombies illuminated further down the tracks. By the end of this journey, they would be speckled across the train like bugs.

  After a few minutes of indiscriminately smearing zombie guts across the windshield, the shapes scattered through the subway lines were unexpectedly silhouetted by a pair of bright lights coming from the opposite direction. The possibilities rushed everyone’s mind but Captain Rescue’s, whose thoughts were of only gumdrops and sugar plumb fairies. Could it really be? Could someone else have been alive down here? Perhaps some other group of survivors had survived the oncoming apocalypse, or perhaps a ghost train would soon cause Captain Rescue to soil himself. Charlie slowed the throttle just as the other train slowed as well, and everyone approached the nearby windows enthusiastically.

  Much like Charlie, they could see someone sitting at the engineer’s seat, but it in no way appeared to be a bunny rabbit. It was a zombie—a zombie like the bouncer and Stubbs, but a zombie. Time came to a halt as the trains aligned. The undead engineer looked on with its dead eyes, and judging by his expression, he lacked the friendliness found in the Bouncer. In fact, he looked quite evil as he pulled on a lever, blasting the train’s horn in their ears.

  Furthermore, this engineer appeared to be wearing the traditional uniform, complete with striped hat and overalls, which only brought up more questions than it answered. Subway engineers have never worn such attire. So, how this zombie found such a uniform was a mystery of its own making. Before they could ponder on these and many other matters any further, the engineer whizzed past.

  He had been only a taste of what this midnight meat train had to offer. As their self-guided tour continued, the lights within the lead passenger car shone brightly and illuminated the travelers inside, who were just as dead as the engineer, albeit much happier. In fact, they seemed to be having a jolly good time, wearing coned hats upon their dead heads. Confetti swam through the air and many of the zombies had party horns protruding from their cracked and dry lips. The variables in this equation added up to one thing and one thing only: it was somebody’s birthday.

  The lucky birthday corpse sat in the center of the festivities, wearing one of the most ridiculous smirks imaginable and clapping exuberantly as it hovered over its cake. A crown sat haphazardly upon its head that hung down over the corpse’s right ear and jostled about as he shook with excitement. The chocolate cake before it could not have been too appetizing since it did not appear to have included human ingredients. Still, it is the thought that counts. Lastly, sitting in the center of the cake were a series of candles that indicated the zombie’s age at 0.01 years.

  Stuck to the outside of the train, just beneath the windows, a celebratory message formed with human intestines read, “Happy Birthday Ryan!” This, at first, appeared to be quite ghastly, but considering these zombies seemed of the most docile variety, it is quite likely they had gathered the intestines from their own bodies—they sure did not need them anymore. Stubbs’ waved to the partygoers, who greeted him and the living with waves in return. Then, as quickly as it came, the train left, taking it and its occupants with along for the ride.

  “Well, you don’t see that every day,” Dr. Malevolent said.

  “Birthday parties? They happen every day!” a confused Captain Rescue exclaimed.

  Dr. Malevolent glared at him, “I’m beginning to think you’re doing this on purpose and that you’re a lot smarter than you let on.”

  “People are born every day! Birthday parties are not uncommon,” the hero replied, unable to comprehend Dr. Malevolent’s near-compliment.

  She almost let loose another snarky remark when two more zombies collided with the front of the train, signaling that her efforts were better suited elsewhere. Dr. Malevolent turned her attention to the oncoming tunnels just as more lights appeared ahead. They were too dim and unfocused to be that of another train, and sure enough, they were not. A station deserted as the one they entered through blurred past and they soon returned to the darkness of the tunnels.

  Charlie pressed down on the throttle and the train picked up speed, and along the way, the train continued to catch plenty of zombies. Captain Rescue referred to a nearby map of subway lines to figure out how much longer they would be down here. He had actually never taken the subway before, and found the experience new and unusual. He would have never expected zombies to be part of the subway experience, not realizing that they normally were not.

  “Judging by my interpretation of this here map,” Captain Rescue began, the others were positive that whatever he was about to say would be of the utmost hoot, “we should arrive at our destination in about fifteen.”

  A wave of disappointment drowned everyone underneath its waters. He unexpectedly nailed it. They stood dumbfounded as more zombies spattered against the train car, making the window grow increasingly opaque. Charlie flipped on the wipers to clear the messy stew of zombie giblets so everyone could clearly see the darkness ahead. He wondered for a moment why an underground train would need windshield wipers (he doubted it rained down here regularly, if at all), but as a couple more zombies exploded against the front of the train, Charlie just chose to be thankful. The last leg of their trip through the subway was uneventful except for the continued bombardment of zombies that had decided the underground tracks were the perfect place to dawdle. They were gravely mistaken.

  Before the heroes knew it, their destination station appeared ahead, and of course, it had everything in common with the stations they had already passed by: dimly lit and vacant. Charlie pulled back the throttle, and the train screeched to an abrupt halt. Almost everyone grabbed hold of the grips hanging from the roof. Captain Rescue, instead, took the opportunity to practice the flying ability he noticeably did not have. Before he could do any real damage to himself or the train, the windshield broke his horizontal fall. He remained plastered to the glass for a few seconds before gravity caught up with him as he peeled away from the window and fell flat onto his back.

  As the hero picked himself up off the cold steel floor of the train, face imprinted with the metal grating below, the others simply ignored the man and his predicament, eager to make it through the deserted train station and meet with the surface once more. Captain Rescue rose back to his feet and darted off after them, stumbling briefly on the space between the train and its platform. The clamor echoed through the vacant space around him and he worried for a moment that the noise might alert anything hiding in the shadows, but luckily, most of those threats had already found their way to the front of the train during the journey. He should be able to catch back up with the others in relative safety
, assuming he did not slip and crack his skull open.

  They had actually waited for him, standing at the bottom of the narrow stairwell. It warmed the cockles of his heart, since he had been expecting to find the stairwell closed off, stuck down here to rot. And so, the reunited fellowship cautiously ascended the stairway, half expecting the zombies to have somehow set a trap and to find a few hundred of the smelly cadavers waiting on the surface to eat them, and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

  Faced with yet another impenetrable flood, Freight raced up the stairwell, ready to face them head on, but the more sensible Charlie grabbed his arm and yanked him back down the stairs and then the bunny shut and locked the gate, holding back the flood temporarily.

  Freight grabbed the bunny and lifted him from the ground, “WHY DID YOU DO THAT? I HAD THE SITUATION UNDER CONTROL, I OUGHTA KILL YOU.” Freight looked into the cheerful smile of the bunny rabbit and soon realized that he could not stay mad at it for any longer than a few seconds.

  He cooled off and dropped the rabbit, who replied, “I think even THIS SITUATION is not something we could make it through in one piece. Rule 1 of any zombie movie is never to let them surround you. It doesn’t end well.”

  With a shrug, Freight admitted that Charlie had a point. He could not be the zombie-blower-upper without a care in the world if he had been reduced to a few billion pieces spread across the stomachs of a few hundred zombies. They had to think of something quick, though, the zombies had smelled their lovely flesh and pressed against the gate to get at them. It would not hold for long.

  “How are we going to get out of this?” Dr. Malevolent asked as Captain Rescue approached the gate to get a better look at the zombies.

  Charlie thought for a moment and then spoke, “Well, I’m sure there’s a freight elevator somewhere nearby that leads up to the surface, we might be able to avoid the zombies all together.”

  Freight spent a moment chuckling at the use of his nickname, and then grew sad that he may not have the opportunity to kill any zombies during this scuffle.

  As Charlie went off in search of an elevator, Captain Rescue stared at the zombies, enthralled with their deadness. He reached forward to touch one of them as the creatures slid their fingers through the gaps in the gate.

  Dr. Malevolent slapped his hand away, “Are you an idiot? I mean really, what if one of them bit you.”

  “I’ve been bitten before. It’s not that bad,” he replied, stepping away from the gate.

  “By a zombie?! I think not.”

  “Well of course not, but teeth are teeth.”

  “I’m pretty sure that getting bitten by a zombie turns you into one of them, though I don’t want to test it out myself.”

  “What, how could you possibly know that?”

  “Firstly, it’s in every zombie movie ever made. Secondly, how else would there be so many of them so quickly.”

  Captain Rescue’s eyes narrowed as he thought if over, “Hmm, I guess I’ll have to remember that. Thanks.”

  “Yeah, don’t mention it. I’d hate to see you get yourself killed over something so stupid. I still plan to be the one to kill when the time comes.”

  Captain Rescue laughed, “Why don’t you just try and kill me right here right now.”

  “Here? Like this? That would be so wrong… like cheating. I have standards, you know. I can’t just kill you indiscriminately; it has to be at the right time and place.”

  Captain Rescue nodded that he understood. Super villains could only kill their super hero counterpart after an epic struggle between the two. No self-respecting villain would ever take a cheap shot at any hero at any time and Captain Rescue knew this. Their world was one of great honor and discipline or the entire dichotomy would never work.

  “Over here!” Charlie yelled from nearby, he had apparently found that elevator he so desperately sought, and not a second too soon. The gate gave in with a crash as the flood came pouring in.

  The heroes made a run for Charlie’s voice as Dr. Malevolent yelled to Freight, “Okay, big guy, do your thing.”

  The mountain of man whipped out his shotgun named Courtney and went to town, strategically taking out zombies that would best slow down the horde. Freight would shoot out a kneecap and a zombie would fall and trip the one behind it. It turned out to be a highly viable method of slowing down the flood, since many of the zombies ended up on their faces, forced to climb back to their feet while the heroes put more distance between them.

  They made it to Charlie, who held the door of a cargo elevator open and ushered them inside. Captain Rescue, Dr. Malevolent, and Stubbs leapt into the elevator, followed closely by her few remaining enigmatic lackeys, who were only really acknowledged when they needed to die. Freight rushed into the elevator, continuing to take out zombies while Charlie slammed the button that would lead them to the surface. The zombies continued to encroach as the gates slowly closed. The bunny slammed the button a few more times, hoping to expedite the process. The linked gate, much like the one they had used to hold back the flood in the stairwell, eventually closed with the horde visible through the openings.

  The first zombies made it to the elevator, grabbing hold of the floor and dangling as it ascended. The heroes pressed themselves to the back of the elevator. In delight, Freight stared at the sharply angled concrete ceiling and the arms and fingers clinging to the elevator for dear unlife. The elevator rose as the ceiling descended, soon the two halves met, chopping arms and fingers off like a butcher’s cleaver, leaving them twitching in the floor of the elevator, globs of congealed blood oozing from the clean wounds left behind.

  The elevator reached the surface and the gate lifted. The heroes poked their heads from inside and looked around for zombies, who seemed to have all made their way into the subway and only a few nonconformists lingered here on the surface. In a tight nit group, they left the elevator, steering clear of the severed limbs still twitching on grated floor, heading for the forest. Just before leaving, Dr. Malevolent instructed the elevator to descend, hoping to crush the zombies waiting below.

  As the heroes exited the cage, the lingering zombies immediately noticed their presence and started moaning for their friends still in the subway. Freight did his best to quell their screams by blowing their God damn heads off. They crossed the nearby street and without wasting any time, darted for the trees, hoping to lose the undead in the foliage. As the souls of their shoes clattered against the asphalt, more zombies closed in, but they had little chance of catching up before the group made it into the trees.

  Within the blink of an eye, they had crossed the street and thick foliage would soon engulf them, but one sole zombie stood camouflaged against the tree line, unknown to the heroes. As they reached the trees, this single zombie made itself known and lunged for Captain Rescue as he narrowly sidestepped it, and then darted into the trees behind the others. They kept running, but Captain Rescue stopped, distracted by this one zombie. He turned around and went to inspect it. As the two stood face to face, this one zombie refused to enter the forest and only stared back at the hero. The others came in behind him, who had stopped their retreat to backtrack and fetch Captain Rescue.

  “What are you doing, you idiot, get back here!” Dr. Malevolent barked.

  Captain Rescue said not a word as he waved at the snarling zombie. It continued to stand there, refusing to enter the forest and take a bite out of the hero. He just turned to the others and shrugged as they came out of tree cover and approached him. More zombies joined the single one, and they all just stood there at the tree line, growling back at the heroes.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Charlie said as he inspected the zombies, “It’s like an invisible wall is preventing them from coming any closer.”

  Dr. Malevolent looked to Stubbs, “Did you feel anything as you came into the forest.”

  “I was focusing hard on not letting my legs tear from their sockets to really notice, but there might have been a slight tingle.”
>
  Dr. Malevolent looked deeper into the forest, “Interesting.”

  Charlie crossed his bunny arms, “What are you thinking?”

  “Well,” Dr. Malevolent began, “if I were to create something as dangerous and unpredictable as a zombie epidemic. I would certainly want some kind of control over them. Even if it was just prohibiting them from coming anywhere near the forest I kept my stronghold in.”

  “So basically, you’re saying that whoever created this zombie bug somehow programmed them to stay out of the forest.”

  “It sure seems that way.”

  Chapter 15: They Do Exist

  Captain Rescue and the others turned their backs on the zombie-ridden city and headed into the bug-ridden forest. Stories surfaced regularly of the horrible dangers residing within these wooded walls, from the groups of campers that ventured into it and were never heard from again to the abduction of hikers by little green men. Even more outlandish stories had campers being terrorized by the likes of Bigfoot and The Jersey Devil (even though they were nowhere near Jersey), to more extreme tales of creatures such as The Loch Ness Monster. How it would have been able to survive in a place devoid of any significant bodies of water was of no consequence. One camper even claimed to have seen a Tyrannosaurus Rex. This beast, while more likely than Nessie, would have a difficult time concealing itself from prying eyes, unless it ducked beneath tree cover during the day only to rampage quietly at night.

  “Our destination is somewhere in there,” Charlie said to the others as he strained to look through the trees.

  Captain Rescue’s frightened words barely made the journey out of his mouth, “But… the forest… death… bad.”