Title: The Sunshine Dame of Doom
Author: Marcos Fizzotti
Cover by Cesar Santos
Published on May, 2016
ISBN: 978-85-918322-4-8
Edition: 1
(It’s a zombie book, so be careful!)
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or living dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Marcos Bevilacqua Fizzotti
All rights reserved.
It is forbidden to distribute or copy any part of this book without the written authorization of the author.
We shall not be held accountable if you turn into a zombie upon finishing this book.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
OVERTURE
ACT 1
ACT 2
ACT 3
ACT 4
ACT 5
ACT 6
ACT 7
ACT 8
ACT 9
ACT 10
ACT 11
ACT 12
ACT 13
ACT 14
ACT 15
ACT 16
ACT 17
ACT 18
ACT 19
ACT 20
ACT 21
ACT 22
ACT 23
ACT 24
ACT 25
ACT 26
ACT 27
ACT 28
ACT 29
ACT 30
ACT 31
ACT 32
ACT 33
ACT 34
ACT 35
ACT 36
ACT 37
ACT 38
ACT 39
FINAL ACT
Overture
“So, you’re not from around here, are you?”
“Right, I’m not.”
“And it’s a real bad time to be around these parts.”
“Trust me, mate. I got reasons to believe it’s the same everywhere.”
“Yep, with this epidemic and all, it seems the world as we know is coming to an end.”
“And we never knew it that well.”
“Speak for yourself, young lady. As you can see, I’ve lived enough.”
“What do you mean? There’s no such thing.”
“Just take a good look outside! Do you think life is worth living now, that this crap world is worth fighting for?”
“Well, it was kind of crappy before, but people fought for it just the same.”
“Yes, by coming in here and drinking themselves to death.”
“But that’s a good thing to you. Your business bloomed before and you still got a lot of customers now, at least those who are not eating each other. That’s a good reason for living.”
The bartender laughed.
“Wisdom from the young ones! What’s going to be, miss?”
“What do you got?”
“Beer, Brandy, Whisky, Vodka, Shirley Temple, Shirley Steeple, Shirley Church…”
“It sounds appealing. Let me see… Bring me lemonade, and not the kind that makes my gums bleed.”
“I’m afraid I’m out of lemons right now, but I got some good old moonshine. It’s the next best thing.”
“Fine mate, pour it in.”
Some strange distant noises roared outside the bar. The bartender kept staring at his customer across the counter.
“Somebody may think you like me, lad.” The woman said uncomfortably.
“I saw you before somewhere else.”
“Yes, ten minutes ago, when I entered your bar.”
“No. I’ve already seen you before, I’m sure of that.”
“It’s possible. I got a common face.”
The bartender did not take his eyes off her. She shifted position on the stool.
“You’re that girl!” He finally jumped.
“Right gender, only the pronoun is wrong. I’m just a girl. Make it with an article.”
“Oh no! You are that girl from the news! Papers, internet, YouTube, this pretty face of yours was everywhere not so long ago!”
“You’re mistaking me for Justin Bieber! Can I have that moonshine now?”
“And to you, it’s on the house!” He grabbed the bottle, opened it, filled a glass and slid it toward her.”
“This is really not necessary, sir.”
“Come on, why are you so embarrassed about? On the contrary, you should be proud. Such an amazing stunt you pulled! An elementary basic school in the busy hour is attacked, invaded and surrounded on all sides by those horrendous sick dead people that have been eating everybody lately. Teachers and lots of little children are cornered and scared. Local police is stunned and bewildered, they try to invade the school and shoot the monsters down, but nothing seems to work, they just keep on coming. Eventually, the cops run out of ammo and are the first to die. The ones outside call for help, but all other units are busy with similar problems. Those dammed deranged human beasts are everywhere. So, that’s it for the school. Nothing anybody can do anymore. Outside the isolation cord around the building, hundreds of parents cry in despair for their sons and daughters, poor innocent souls about to face the most horrible death.”
He drank a little from the glass meant to his customer and continued.
“But then, this woman comes. Somehow, she breaks into the cordoned off zone and into the school. And ten minutes later, oh yeah, ten minutes was all she took, teachers run out of the cursed school, followed by hundreds of children, all safe and sound, back to the warm and loving arms of their moms and dads, who cry in relief, thanking heavens for that incredible miracle.”
“Look mister, if this is a movie you’ve just told me, it’s a very corny and unoriginal one.”
“Oh yes, it would be if it was a movie. But it’s not, it’s real, it really happened. And that woman, the children’s savior, is you!”
“Hoy!” She scoffed. “No offense, my good man, but you’ve been taking some samples of this poison you sell every day. You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“No, I’m not. I never forget a face, especially not this face. When you left the school, carrying a little girl who couldn’t walk, the last one you saved, an army of reporters took your picture and sent it everywhere. What was left of the police force went into the school to assess situation, but all they could find was the dead monsters you left behind, all with cracked or sliced in half, or even missing heads, because that’s the only way to stop them, right, by busting their heads off?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I think you would. The press even gave you a nickname, Apocalily, because one reporter found out that your name is Lily.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, mate. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay. Then tell me your name. And make it with a passport.”
“I assure you I’m over twenty-one.”
“Not the point and you know what I mean. There’s surely no harm in telling me your name and proving your identity.”
“Why don’t you tell me your name?”
“It’s Brian. Now come on, missy! Or should I say Lily?”
She finally had a chance to drink the moonshine.
“You’re a loudmouth for a bartender.”
“People pay me for that too, honey.”
The distant noises from the outside all of a sudden exploded in a loud uproar on the inside.
Horridly deformed rotting skeletons broke into the bar, dilacerating three costumers by a booth close to the door, while others ate the guts of a couple sharing a table next to a shattered glass
window.
Screams of pain and fear blended with frightful snarls of crazy hungry beasts.
“JESUS!!!” The bartender screamed, leaning against the counter to reach for a shotgun.
The customers who survived the first strike ran scared to the center of the bar, in a desperate attempt to dodge the horde of zombies.
“Good thing you’re prepared for this contingency.” The woman commented. Then she drank all the content of her glass in a single gulp.
The man was a reasonably good shot and blew two zombies’ heads off.
“Keep it coming, lad!” The woman said.
“That’s it, only two shells! I’m out!”
“Do you have a pool table somewhere in this place?”
“Listen missy, this is definitely not a good time for a game!”
“Not a game. We can use the cues and balls as a weapon against these bastards!”
“Sorry, no pool table!”
“Then get down!”
Actually, the man was down behind the counter way before she finished that sentence.
All other living souls inside the bar jumped the counter as well, screaming and trying to hide from the impious zombies. Panic-stricken people also ran to the restrooms, but the living dead had already made their way into such area through some backdoors. The place was totally overrun.
The horde of beasts also closed on the woman. She reached for a hockey stick in a sheath strapped to her back and started to assemble it. But some parts got jammed at some point, delaying her actions. The zombies were slow, but steady, almost reaching her head, with dirty twisted teeth ready for the slaughter.
“Why do they make these things modular?” She complained to herself.
She finished mounting the stick. The first row of zombies was upon her, ready to take a bite.
The bartender and most customers were ducking and lying behind the counter, men and women with tearful eyes and dread in their souls, hands covering faces and ears, weeping and praying for their lives.
Loud noises of glasses shattering and wood breaking took the whole place by storm. Nobody knew what was going on. Some of them were too scared even to move. But five minutes later, everything quieted down all of a sudden.
Bartender and customers still waited awhile before having the nerves to stick their heads over the counter. When they finally did it, what they saw was utterly unbelievable. The zombies were scattered all over the floor, some with heads split in half, others even without any head.
But the important thing was they were all motionless, now rendered completely harmless, forming a rotten pool of organs stretching everywhere.
And in the middle of the gore stood the woman, her hands firmly gripping the hockey stick covered in slimy tar, still in a state of readiness, in case some zombie decided to move.
Very quick, she became the center of attention. Her eyes met the bartender’s. Like the others, he was gazing at her with open mouth and chin nearly touching his chest.
“It still doesn’t prove I’m that girl from the news!” She complained.
ACT 1
“Three black beers!” Vince screamed to the bartender.
“Black beer?” Hector queried.
“Do you have a better idea, bro?” Vince replied.
“What about getting out of here and take a walk around the neighborhood, clear the ideas, get a grip on reality for a change?”
“What neighborhood? What ideas? What reality?
“This is a three parts question. I’ll answer each and every one of them as soon as we are out of here.”
“Come on, you know what I’m talking about.”
“And I agree with your brother” said Phil across the table, addressing Hector. “There’s nothing out there.”
“There’ll be us when we get out of here.” Hector insisted. “Come on, when did this stop us before?” He said turning to Vince.
“This is different, Hec. There was a world before.”
“There’s still a world out there, a crappy one, but still a world” Hector retorted “One that’s not very different from good old Hell’s Kitchen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That is back to the streets for the both of us, bro, as in the good old days, remember?” Hector opened a big white smile, causing his nose to get even larger around the rotund face.
“We can’t.” Vince frowned. “You’re talking about a different life.”
“No I’m not! Have you forgotten everything mamma taught us? Let’s start over, build everything again from scratch, be the lords of networking!”
People around turned to them with stony expressions and a peculiar look on their faces.
“Keep your voice down!” Phil whispered, feeling all his vertebras contracting at once. “You can’t talk like this! People have been disappearing lately, folks who talked exactly like you just did, or so they say.”
“Yes, this is yet another thing I’m having real trouble accepting.” Hector spoke.
“Then you’d better get used to. Rumor says troublemakers are kicked out of Downtown, you know, for the lamebrains to feast on them.”
“Hey, you have some respect when you talk about those souls! They are sick human beings for crying out loud!”
“Not again, Hec!” Vince stepped in furiously. “Now, you’re the one failing to get a grip on reality! Those bastards are dead, you hear?! Dead and rotting and dilacerating and eating, Jesus, they’re not human, man! You saw what they do with your own eyes! They’re freaking monsters!”
Hector’s forehead wrinkled in anger and the dark cloud of seriousness that fell upon his face caused fear on the other two. He was about to lift a finger at them when the beers came. The bartender left three tall glasses in front of them and walked away, but not before giving them the evil eye.
“You’re going to get us all killed.” Phil complained.
They took a deep breath.
“Come on bro.” Vince said. “Just one for the road and them we walk, what do you say?”
“I drink to that.” Phil spoke. “Cheers!”
Hector did not answer. He simply took his tall glass of black beer and swallowed it all nearly in a single gulp.
ACT 2
Lily was driving her modified truck, so modified that the brand and model of such vehicle were long gone. It looked more like a metallic armored, slightly fortified walking peanut.
A sight caught the corner of her eye. In a not so distant prairie, a lonely human being seemed to be surrounded by dead beasts. She took a real harsh turn to the left, leaving a good amount of rubber painting the road.
By getting closer to the strange scene, she got a good picture of what was going on. A young man was trying to keep zombies away with a tennis racquet. Obviously, it wasn’t working. He desperately waved the racquet back and forth very near the zombies’ heads, but they did not seem to care and advanced to him with furious hunger. “Back off! Back off”, he screamed. He didn’t have much time.
“I’d better look into this matter.” Lily thought.
She left the vehicle and drew two small knives from improvised holsters attached to her belt. When she came to the dead creatures, she looked more like an octopus. In a matter of seconds, all attacking zombies were dirtying the floor with perforated heads.
“Are you all right?” She asked the young lad.
“Yeah” He said breathless and sweating a lot. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Two things though. One, this won’t do it.” She pointed at his racquet. “Those are modern racquets made of titanium, too light to inflict damage. You should try to get your hands on those heavy wooden racquets from days of old. They can really smash a head.”
“I can see you know your way around tennis.”
“Nope, but I know my way around material thickness. These days, it’s important to find good stuff to kill dead folks with.”
“Yes, no arguments there.”
“Second, dead people don’t usually
respond to verbal commands like back off and all. Sometimes, not even the living ones do. Believe me, I know.”
Some snarling and growling sounds were getting louder in the near distance.
“Their friends will be upon us soon.” Lily nodded at the corpses on the ground. “We’d better go. Do you want a ride?”
“If it’s not imposing...”
“Not at all, where you’re heading?”
“Well um… right now, to no particular place.”
“What a coincidence! I’m also going to no particular place. I take you there.”
“Great!” He smiled.
The man grabbed his bag and walked to the right of Lily’s truck.
“Wrong side” she corrected him.
“Oh, okay” and he walked to the left side.
Then, like Willie Nelson, they were on the road again.
Behind the wheel, Lily glanced at the man’s bag, which was open due to a broken zipper. She saw some racquets and lots of tennis ball cans inside.
“So, I gather you are a tennis player of some sort.” She observed.
“That’s very correct. I’m a tennis player of some sort. And I was doing pretty well before this whole mess started. I was number 417 in the world rank, but then I got to the second round of this ATP 250 tournament, that’s how we call them, and I jumped to rank 378! Then, I qualified to participate in this ATP 500 championship, more points in this one, with chances to become number 298 of the world if I made it to second round!”
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