The hardest part about the zombie apocalypse is pretending I’m not excited. But if there’s one thing I’ve been able to rely on in all my days as a Queller of Hell it’s my poker face. And my flame-thrower. A Queller of Hell’s best friend is first, and always, his flame-thrower. In this day and age of living death, never trust a friend who can’t spit thirty feet of flames out of his mouth. I call my flame-thrower “The Cleaning Lady”. It takes care of any mess.
The second hardest part about the zombie apocalypse is all the meetings I have to sit through as we quell the damn thing. I hate meetings.
Why do I hate meetings so much? You tell me. You’re surrounded by suckers babbling about the best way to decapitate a zombie, when you know the only way to deal with the goddamn thing is to stand back and fry the bastard. Decapitate a zombie? Might as well give it a fucking haircut. Zombies don’t need heads. They just shove the flesh they’re consuming down their exposed esophagi. You tell me why I hate meetings.
“Cam.”
“What?”
“Stop that.”
“What?”
“That.”
I realize my heel is bouncing on the floor, vibrating the entire room. Even the glasses of water on the table are shivering with my excitement. I stop shaking.
Who fucking knows what candy-ass nonsense they went on about next? I didn’t even bother paying attention.
“Cam.”
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
My leg again. Dar, Captain, is glaring at me. I glare back. Challenging numbskulls who manage to land positions in authority over me, numbskulls who think decapitating a zombie deserves discussion, numbskulls like Dar, Captain, is a reflex reaction. I’d roast him with The Cleaning Lady if I ran across him in the field.
He knows it, too.
“Cam.”
I glare another moment, then stop shaking my leg.
“Dar, Captain, why are we sitting around politely discussing quelling Hell over tea? When do I get to fry up some necrotic flesh?”
The glaring that passes between us is harsher than floodlights on chrome. My hands twitch, longing for The Cleaning Lady’s smooth curves. It almost ends right then. Right there. It almost ends.
And then it does.
I don’t know how I didn’t smell the death. The door behind me bursts open so suddenly I don’t have time to reach The Cleaning Lady, but my heart leaps -- time for some action! The Quellers to my right and left jerk around so quick their chairs tip, both of them falling into me as the scent of rotting flesh fills the room. God damn it. The panic a sudden onslaught of zombies inspires never ceases to annoy the shit out of me. We've all been trained in this. We all know a zombie’s only weapon, besides it's brute strength and insensitivity to pain, is it’s smell. But even if it does hit you like King Kong’s funky gorilla ass swallowing your head, a Queller of Hell should be damn well impervious.
Damn well.
The zombies lurch toward us, pouring through the open door in such a thick stream their arms are getting caught on the doorframe – and coming off. Zombies sure are fragile, for being such strong fucks. The Quellers who have fallen into my lap vomit on each other – and me. God damn it. Adrenaline is rushing my veins like a pack of greyhounds, I’m rarin’ to go, but I still can’t reach The Cleaning Lady, and now I'm slick with vomit. I put my hands in the useless puke-streaked faces of the Quellers in my lap and shove them away, sending them crashing to the floor. A zombie takes one of them right away.
I would help, but another zombie is on me. I rip off it’s remaining arm. I use it to fend off the bastard as I grab The Cleaning Lady.
“YEE-FUCKIN’-HAAAAA!” I screech, tossing the arm on the table and firing my lady up. “BACK TO HEEELLLL YOU FUCKEEERRRRS!”
Sending evil back to the pit is my meditation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Zombie Apocalypse 2050:
ReplyDeleteThis is something I've been working on in my spare time at work. I was going to do a little series of stories based on characters inspired by you all, then I thought it would be more fun to put it on the blog and invite you all to post installments.
The characters are as follows . . .
Todd - Cam Sparks, Queller of Hell
Aaron - Virgil Reed, aspiring priest and student of the occult
Morgen - Lady M, well-versed in the occult and sadistic arts herself, Lady M. has the power to stop the zombie apocalypse . . . but why would she want to?
Leslie - Lucy Tisdale, sole survivor of zombie attack on her high school, raped by zombies
Chris - Meg Tisdale, Lucy's mother, questing to find her daughter - could she be the Zombie Queen behind the whole thing?
Assignments of characters are still up for the rest of you. These, however, are set in stone, I'm afraid. King Friday has spoken.
Does this qualify as "objectionable content"?
ReplyDeleteHmm...this Virgil Reed character...does he kill Zombies? And why does Todd get to be Cam? Todd talks a big game but have you ever actually seen him kill a zombie? Well, have you? I didn't think so.
ReplyDeleteNow--for some constructive criticism:
Is Cam Virgil's sidekick? I think, for artistic purposes, that Cam should probably be Virgil's sidekick. I think he should also call Virgil "boss." And when Virgil wants tea, Cam should probably drop everything to go get Virgil tea. Yes. Imagine the scene, Cam and the Cleaning Lady are scorching the collective hordes. Virgil walks up, reading a book whose contents will help unlock the mysteries of the universe and save the world...scratch that...Virgil walks up, writing some notes that will, based on their sheer brilliance alone, save the world, and he says to Cam: "Cam, be a chap and fetch a fellow a cup of tea." And Cam says, "but, uh, like, Boss, I like need to kill the zombies and stuff." And Virgil sighs, for he knows how excitable his young attendant is. "Cam, Cam, Cam," Virgil clucks. "We've talked about priorities before. You can kill zombies any time. Right now, however, I would really enjoy a spot of tea." And so Cam apologizes profusely and goes to get the tea. Meanwhile, Virgil encourages the zombies to die en masse with a casually delivered riposte.
Riveting, no?
Now...to be realistic, you should probably have Lady M be madly in love with Virgil. She should probably spend a fair amount of time fawning over him and clutching his leg and looking up at him longingly in sort of a Princess Leia Star Wars poster kind of way.
Anyway, these are just a few things that would make the story a bit stronger, that's all.
Leslie - You kick ass! You could not have handed me a greater compliment than assigning me a character like Cam. I'm up to the challenge. Those fuckin' zombies will BURN!
ReplyDeleteAaron - We're going to have to do something about your Cam complex. Soon.
A few notes on the characters . . .
ReplyDeleteTodd and Aaron, you had better get to writing the chapters because whoever does the next one would seem to have a say in Cam's destiny. Try not to kill each other off too many times, though, okay?
Aaron, are you seeing Virgil as British? I guess he could be. He'd work that way. I was seeing him more as a young, sexy-nerdy spiritual occultist, the young rebel of the seminary with more knowledge of how to fight demons than how to socially communicate, and also tattoos under his robes. Just a thought.
Every character gets to kill zombies if they want to. That's the point of a big goddam zombie apocalypse. Everybody gets to be a badass. Each character will likely have their own way of going about this, though. For example, Virgil may use methods a la Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then again, he may not. We'll have to see.
I see Lucy as a hidden badass a la River in Firefly. I think that at some point, Cam should keep Lucy in a bottle. Maybe to protect her from all the zombies who want to rape her some more. Maybe for some other reason. Considering that zombie body parts come off so easily, I think she will have to go to Lady M for help getting all the necrotic zombie cock out of her . . . well, you know. What was I saying about objectionable material?
Those are my suggestions.
Can I be the bad guy? The Overpope of all zombies, Selig Retsuc?
ReplyDeleteTo add a little personal motivation to our five antagonists. I should also be the junior high school bully who used to dunk Cam's head into toilets five times a day. (toilets full of zombie poop, that is.) I was also Virgil's former best friend, we studied the a occult together (as research for our Dungeons and Dragons games) until I got bored of the limp little twerp and bound his mind and soul to me in a piteously simple ritual. (just in case I might need him later for a door stop or something.) I am also, of course, Lady M's one and only lover. I let her think she has the power to stop my little over-population reduction scheme because the poor waif has serious self-image issues that I only tolerate due to her extraordinary vaginal muscle development. Oh, and of course I was the one (well the first one) to expand whiny little Lucy's horizons. Whatever, moving on. (But I would like to take a peek at our undead love child once it is unborn. Just for curiosity's sake.) Then there is that Meg chick. (Banged her too, of course) But, damn, that one scares me. Can't let anyone know what she can do if she ever learned to do a back bend and then point her left toe at the full moon.
New character: Selig Retsuc, science and technology whiz with a vendetta against everyone (except Lady M, and who knows how she really feels?) and evil delusions of granduer, a la Jim Carey's Riddler in that Batman movie that was made when Batman movies still sucked.
ReplyDeleteOops, I forgot Selig Retsuc was a zombie. I didn't think the zombies would have personalities. Interesting development, Giles. Is there a curse on him that keeps his soul in his zombie body? That sounds like a Lady M or Virgil thing. Is he out for revenge? Does he relish his undead zombie nature yet desire to somehow escape it? Is he a complex character, like Piglet?
ReplyDeleteSelig Retsuc. You've now become the object of all Cam Sparks' zealous euphoria. If killing zombies gets him high, just wait until he kills the Overpope of Zombies.
ReplyDeleteAll hail Selig Retsuc. You're going to BURN!!!
Leslie - so here's a question. The resident zombie expert at the ADA says that you can't kill zombies with a flame thrower, that the only way to kill a zombie is with a gunshot to the head, or some other destruction of the brain.
ReplyDeleteSince we've obviously started the story flying in the face of this simple rule, I think you need to give a background explanation as to why these particular zombies are so vulnerable to flame.