Watching the Bombies burn whilst they writhed in spastic fits of pop abandon moved Virgil. First, it moved him about fifty yards away behind an outcrop of rocks where he wouldn't be completely covered in exploded Bombie goop. Then it moved him to a realization. The realization was that nothing--nothing in The Time Before or The Unfortunate Since was quite so beautiful as a hundred thousand dancing zombies bursting into flame on a desert wasteland in the first purple moments of sunrise. Virgil understood, in that moment, that he had found a new purpose in his life.
In seminary, in The Time Before, Virgil had been often perplexed by the assumed interchangeability of morality and religion--as though the two were not just of one fabric but of one thread--as though no person could be moral without religion and those with religion were innately moral. This, in Virgil's mind, constituted perhaps the greatest corruption in the thieves den of institutional religion.
Ironically, the truth of the corruption was aptly, if misleadingly, described in Genesis as the source of the Fall. When Eve ate from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she did not sin against God by violating His command (for how could a creature ignorant of good and evil be expected to understand that it was evil to violate a command of God's), but rather she sinned against her nature by taking upon herself the damning responsibility of morality. While Virgil disdained any literal interpretations of ancient scriptures and despised how insecure penis-bearers used such narrow understandings to deny the power and validity of the vaginaed, he relished this story of the Fall--for in it lay the very seeds of institutional religion's undoing.
He knew that most saw naught but virtue in judging good from evil, Right from Wrong, but to Virgil the entire enterprise was fraught with soul-killing peril. When is it wrong to steal? to kill? to commit adultery? For every single argument in one direction, there is an equal and opposite justification in another, both framed in absolute terms by starkly oppositional personal moralities. The institution of religion, meanwhile, mindful always of its own importance bends its endlessly limber interpretational weight not toward the noble but toward the nobility, toward those with the means to enrich and endow, thus further muddying the black and brackish waters of moral judgment.
In The Time Before, if someone dragged out the tired trope of the holocaust to argue the case for an objective moral compass, Virgil would always reply that the holocaust was only possible because of moral judgment. Hitler could never have persuaded his thousands to exterminate millions without the unholy power to define evil at his command. Morality does not prevent murder, it justifies it.
In the Time Before, Virgil was convinced that if he could only communicate this message sufficiently, if only he could teach people the danger of ascribing to themselves the poison power of judgment, he could free them. He longed to shout from rooftops, "spit out the fruit! Renounce morality! Judge not!"
Of course, Virgil's quest to unmake the institution of religion, destroying its power while saving its spirit, was a bit derailed when the zombies came along and ate religion along with everything else.
The sun rose fully over the desert plain, washing the land in light.
Resurrection. This must have been what Virgil's intuition was telling him. Watching the zombies burst beautifully into flames had reminded him of his quest and its true importance. It wasn't really that Virgil wanted to wreck religion. There were plenty of religious zombies doing that for him even before the actual zombies came along. Instead, Virgil wanted to suggest a replacement for morality--aesthetics. Ethical, informed aesthetics--by which he meant that instead of determining Right from Wrong, Good from Evil, people should instead seek after beauty and happiness. In a world dependent on human connection, happiness was only sustainable in the presence of kindness and honesty, art and truth and mindful being.
When the zombies came, Virgil forgot all his high-minded striving and instead surrendered to the tooth-and-claw imperative--the day-to-day fight for survival, but now his aesthetic sensibility had been reborn. He would kill all the zombies in the world not because they were evil and he was good, not because he sought life and they sought his edible parts, but because it would be beautiful to do so, and he wanted to share the sight with his friends. Cam, Meg, Lady M, Lucy if only Virgil hadn't let her die, perhaps even a redeemed Selig Retsuc.
Just as Virgil was racing off to tell his friends of his plans, that still small voice that had saved him earlier spoke to him again. He stopped, his pulse thundering in his ears, overwhelming the divine communication. While Virgil despised what the scribes and pretenders had made of holiness when they imprisoned prophets' truths in the marble and gold hem of institutional religion, he trusted the prophets nonetheless. He believed in, sought after, longed for a relationship with the mystery of that which lay beyond. And this still small voice was a force he could not--or rather, would not--ignore. But what was it saying now? He listened harder, straining his inner ear to pick out the exact pitch of truth...
"Kill the monkey."
Virgil shook his head. Surely, he'd misheard. Surely God hadn't just told him to kill one of Lady M's precious, hirsute companions. But there again, the command came, as clear as the Killers song that had saved him a few short hours before. "Kill the monkey."
Perhaps this was like God speaking to Abraham, urging him to prove his faith by placing on the sacrificial block that which was too dear, too essential to part with. After all, Virgil loved those monkeys. And by "loved," he meant he really, REALLY liked the monkeys and wanted them to ALWAYS be with Lady M in every scene...umm...moment. To kill one would be an offense of the greatest magnitude against that ineffable presence some might call The Divine, others of a more poetic bent--The Story. But no, the call was undeniable. Virgil had to kill the monkey. It was as clear as if it had been written.
So, Virgil went to find Lady M, which turned out to be much easier than it typically was since--at that very moment--Lady M was watching a resurrected Lucy Tisdale wading through mounds of smoking zombie flesh on the very plain Virgil had just been observing.
"Lucy!" Virgil cried, but Lady M hushed him, casting a spell of both invisibility and silence over his head. That and containment. Virgil could have sooner walked on his lips as gone to hug Lucy.
"Lucy's got work to do," Lady M said, her voice echoing in Virgil's head even though her mouth did not appear to move. "She has to clean up your mess."
"My mess?"
"Aren't you the one who half-killed all these zombies?"
"Well, technically, they half-killed themselves."
"Pish posh, Virgil. Stop gerrymandering reality and embrace the truth of your half-assedness."
"Yes, Mistress," Virgil said, bowing his head, because Virgil had learned that was the only way to deal with Lady M when she started saying things like "pish posh."
"I can tell that you want something, Virgil. Out with it."
"I want one of your monkeys."
"Why?"
"God told me to kill it. I'm hoping He'll change his mind, though, once He sees how faithful I am."
Lady M sighed--not visibly, but in his mind.
"First--Virgil--I'm sure you understand how you've just completely exposed your faithlessness and thus ruined all hope of heavenly pardon, thereby making you a fool as well as a half-ass. Second--though this makes you no less a fool or half-ass, just a lucky half-ass fool--that command was not from God."
"It wasn't?"
"Nope."
"But...it was still...and small...and a voice."
"Not God," Lady M said and he could almost see her shake her head with disdain.
"What was it then?"
"Cookie."
"Cookie?"
"Yes, Virgil, a goddamned macaroon."
"I'm not following."
"You've been minionized by that nasty, albeit clever, cookie witch, Meg Tisdale."
"What are you talking about? I'm nobody's minion!"
"You wouldn't be if you weren't such a sugar whore, but apparently that lovely brain of yours is no match for your sweet tooth."
"Can you fix it?"
"If you'd only eaten one cookie, maybe, but you had to go back for seconds. Cookie magic is pretty strong stuff."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying what I've already said, you've been minionized. Pretty soon, you're going to be massaging callouses and kissing asses."
"Don't forget, killing monkeys," Virgil said, trying to instill some urgency and indicate precisely why Lady M might want to step off the high horse for a moment and join Virgil down in the miniony mud.
"You touch one hair on even one of my monkeys and I'll reach up and pull your tongue out through your pee-hole."
"You don't understand, Lady M. It is written. I can't help but kill your monkey. You'd have to kill me to stop me."
Lady M's lower lip twitched--which, when you're as unflappable as the Lady, is like screeching at the top of your lungs and pulling all of your hair out.
"As tempting as that option is, Virgil," Lady M said, her voice cold as Kelvin's basement. "I can't kill you. While I prefer the monkey in just about every way to your sorry ass, there are three problems. #1: You're right--destiny's pull is damn near undeniable at this point. #2: You're also right that I can't stay mad at your perfect ass, and #3: I understand your vision even if you--despite your best efforts--do not. At least, you don't understand it yet. Apparently, Virgil, your continued place in the divine order--The Story if you will--seems assured, whereas my dear beloved Cyrus seems to be on his way out."
"But wait, maybe Cyrus doesn't have to die. Can't you just conjure up a substitute? Let's beat Meg at her own game."
"Cookie magic is too powerful, particularly when you go back for seconds. No. Meg has won this round, but my Cyrus won't die in vain. As the ancients knew, the one kind of magic that can, while not defeating cookie magic, at least subvert it, is sacrificial magic. When you return to Meg, you will indeed kill my beloved monkey, but you'll do so with a special knife I give you and you will chant the special words I tell you. This will free you from Meg's spell and--as a bonus--send a psychic signal through the ether like a distress beacon to your closest ally alerting him to your need."
"My closest ally?"
"A man whose depth has yet to be fully revealed, whose value goes far beyond the weapons he so artfully handles and the thoughts he so artlessly thinks. While no one can hope to kill Meg yet, he can at least cause her some pain."
Virgil took a moment to relish the thought of Meg looking down the cold steel pipe of the Cleaning Lady. Indeed, as soon as Virgil got to Meg, he would do everything in his power to make sure that when Cam bashed in the doors of the cookie bunker, Meg would be if not wholly vulnerable, at least highly flammable. And not because it was the right thing to do, but because it would be lovely to watch her burn.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
ZA 17: Immortalization, Deboobification, Brainwashed Minion Footrubs and Backstory
Meg flossed her straight, white teeth, getting the last of the meat from between them.
Mind-read this, Lady M: Monkey tastes good! A little like bacon.
Meg idly wondered if it was Billy Ray or Cyrus that was currently being digested by her stomach acid. Not that it mattered. The message had been sent either way. The war with Lady M was on. But Meg secretly hoped that she'd ingested Cyrus. He was M's favorite, whether Miss "I don't have favorites" M would admit it or not.
Damn do-gooder. And to think, they used to be best friends, back before M was a "Lady." Back before M's good-doing instincts had caused her to ruin Meg's plans to be the Queen of the Dead. Or the Un-dead, rather.
It had happened like this....
One rainy evening in the distant past, Meg had been wallowing in the gangrenous blubber of her one true love, Selig Retsuc. They were in the thralls of passionate consummation, at the peak of the ultimate act that would make her Selig's Queen forever. His lips formed a very large "O" around her very large, milky-white breast, and his pointy brown teeth were poised for de-boobification. As they neared climax, Meg was anticipating the glorious pain that would seal her regal fate. That's when Miss M had deigned to appear, purporting to "rescue" her best friend Meg.
M, hopped up on her studies of the ancients and self-inflicted hot-needle acupuncture to increase her spiritual awareness, had ripped Meg from Selig's embrace, nearly severing his calcified member--a deed which may prove Selig's undoing in the end. M spirited Meg away to the Vast Wasteland, thinking she'd receive Meg's undying (no pun intended) gratitude, and perhaps they'd enjoy a little girlfriend-bonding with a latte and some shoe shopping. (Though Meg knew that M actually preferred bondage to bonding, Meg didn't indulge her fantasies. Often.)
Instead Meg cursed her so-called friend for foiling her secret plan, interrupting the most incredible night of her life just before the best part, and nearly severing her man's glorious (though somewhat putrified, and according to Virgil, "minuscule") parcel of joy-flesh. Meg pinned M to the sand and pulled her head back with her long black braid exposing her slender neck. Meg whipped her favorite pearl-handled dagger from the sheath attached to her garter, and brought the razor-sharp tip to the pale, thin skin that Meg knew veiled M's carotid artery. (Meg had been in med school when the zombies invaded, and though her knowledge of human anatomy had come in handy on occasion--like this one--she was secretly gleeful that she was spared the drudgery of using her medical knowledge for good.) Just as the dagger pierced M's skin and the first drop of ruby red blood oozed from the puncture, M cried out in an unearthly language that sounded vaguely like the names of movie stars from before the zombie era--
"Uma oprah lohan cruise. Jolie swayze, klum pitt-rourke. Phoenix close knightly, keanu-keanu-keanu!"
Lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating the swirling cauldron of storm clouds in an amber glow. Thunder crashed, drowning out the obscenities flying forth from Meg's red lips. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten to muzzle the bitch. Now M had called down some kind of hell-fire--or was it heaven-fire?--on both of them.
Meg thrust the dagger hard and fast into M's throat, but it was as if M's neck had turned to stone. The point of the blade snapped off--oh no, not her favorite dagger! Now the voodoo princess was really going to pay. Meg tossed aside the useless weapon and wrapped her fingers around M's neck. But M just smiled at Meg, a sad smile full of pity. That really set Meg off. She squeezed M's throat and slammed her head into the ground--
But the ground was gone. They were ten feet above the sand. Levitating. The witch was even more powerful than Meg had given her credit for.
M did some hinky move with her forearms that broke Meg's grasp on her neck, then flipped around so she was on top. Without M below her, Meg dropped to the ground like a lead mannequin. M hovered above her looking like a goth-ninja doing water ballet, except in the air. She was laughing.
"This is rockin!" M said.
"This sucks nails!" Meg said.
"The power. The POWER!" M said, skyrocketing backward through the air as she shot laser-bolts from her fingertips. "Who knew?"
"You're ruining my life!" Meg shouted, trying futilely to dislodge an irritating sand wedgie.
"I wonder what else I can do?" M said pirouetting and somersaulting in the black sky as the laserbeams changed from red to green.
"You can mind your own goddamned bees wax, is what you can do. Do you have any idea what you interrupted between me and Selig Retsuc? ANY IDEA? I was about to be made Queen of the Zombies. Before long the whole world will be populated with zombies, so that would make me Queen of the World and All Who Live In It. Or All Who Are Undead In It. Or something like that. Whatever. You fucked it up."
"The powers of the ancients flow through me," M intoned in an unusually deep voice. "You should try it, Meg. It's like one great big orgasm that never ends!"
M squealed like a pig, which only made Meg madder. Who knew how long it would take to find Selig and re-bed him so she, too, could experience an unnatural orgasm and the power to rule the world.
"I'm outta here," Meg said, tromping across the sandy vastness toward what she hoped was the ruins of Denver.
"Hey, where are you going? Don't you want to try this flying thing? I could hook you up," M called.
"No, you enjoy your little ancient carpet ride. I'm going back for some hard Queen-making zombie flesh. And don't even think about interrupting again."
"What? Are you serious? That Selig action is nothing compared to this," M said, swooping down alongside Meg. "Come on, you've got to try it."
M grabbed Meg's hand and pulled her into the sky. The laserbeams from M's fingers were pink, now, and tickled as they skittered up Meg's arm and permeated her body.
They were about fifty feet in the air when M realized what she had done. "My Gods, what have I done?" she said, looking at her pink-glowing hand. Of course she'd had to let go of Meg's hand in order to do this, so Meg was now careening toward the desert floor.
M shot toward the ground like a rocket, but she wasn't fast enough.
Meg lay in a Meg-shaped crater in the desert floor.
"You bitch!" Meg said.
"You're alive!" M said.
"Do you know what this means? Do you know what you've done?"
"No, not really," M said, looking awfully confused for someone empowered with the knowledge of the ancients.
"That stupid pink laser has made it impossible for me to die," Meg said, rolling her sparkly blue eyes.
Now M looked really confused. "So what are you mad about? Isn't that a good thing?"
"No, you idiot. If I can't die, I can't become undead. If I can't become undead, I can't become a zombie. And if I can't become a zombie, it follows that I can't become the Zombie Queen. NOW do you see why I'm a little ticked off?"
And that's when the friendship ended between Meg and M.
That's also when the ancients took away M's ability to fly as punishment for her carelessness. The act of making Meg immortal, no matter how unintentional, had kinda fucked up the ancients' plans, too.
In order to compensate for this unforeseen and quite unfortunate circumstance, the ancients promoted M to "Lady" M, gave her the ability to read minds, and made her talk like a cryptic motivational speaker.
Which brings us back to the monkey flesh in Meg's teeth. Meg knew that her once-best-friend, M, loved her precious monkeys more than anything. More than body-modification, endless orgasm, or even organic red wine. Meg knew that the one sure-fire way to piss off the Lady was to eat her monkey. And no doubt about it, Meg wanted to do some pissing off. Heck, she wanted war. It was bad enough making your ex-best-friend immortal against her wishes. On top of that, everyone knows you don't just go resurrecting someone's daughter without parental permission. That crossed the line.
Oh yes, Meg knew what M was planning to do to Lucy in the Vast Wasteland even before M knew it. She knew M was going to re-flesh the little bitch, not just to piss Meg off, but to steal the Member of Power out of her hoochee. That's why Meg had magically summoned Lucy's twin sister Lizzie, who was somehow Australian and had been raised by wolf-dingo hybrids after having been kidnapped at birth unbeknownst to almost everyone. To think, Meg had been worried about how--and even IF--she'd be able to find Lizzie, when all along the power to summon her had been right there in her recipe for fresh, hot caramel chip devil's food cookies.
So summon Lizzie she had, right to the side of her dead twin, Lucy. With more than a little melancholy for what might have been, Meg pulled the paltry, petrified penis from her daughter's little hidy-hole and handed it to Lizzie.
"Now, don't try to use this on your own," Meg had warned. "Take it to Selig, unless you want to end up a charred mass like your sister." Here she laughed manically for some unknown reason.
After Lizzie nodded and scampered away, Meg had turned just in time to see Virgil sneak back into the cookie-making fortress. He thought he'd gotten away with spying on her, but this was exactly what Meg had hoped would happen.
She slunk back inside the cookie bunker and whipped up a batch of macaroons for Virgil. Magical macaroons that would make Virgil do her bidding, like a long-distance puppet. While they were baking, Meg taught Virgil to dance, playing that annoying song by the Killers "Are We Human or Are We Dancers?" over and over as they practiced.
When the oven timer chimed, Meg brought the steaming coconut cookies to the table, and let the sumptuous aroma waft into Virgil's aristocratic nose.
"Go on," she said. "No need to wait until they cool." She knew that just the scent of the magical mounds would make it impossible for Virgil to refuse her suggestion.
Virgil ate two in rapid succession.
"That burned my tongue," he said.
Meg smiled and nodded. The cookies were just as powerful cold as they were hot, but she had a sadistic itch that needed scratching, and watching Virgil burn his own tongue was just the ticket.
"Now go," she said. "Do what you need to do with Lucy's body--I'd rather not know any details--then put what I've taught you to good use in the Vast Wasteland. After that, lay in wait for Lady M. Stay hidden until she's done with her magical bullshit--you wouldn't be able to stop her if you tried, even with your powerful mantis arms. Then when she's basking in the afterglow of her ancient arts, steal one of those goddamned monkeys and bring it back to the cookie fortress. Do you understand?"
When he returned with the monkey--Billy Ray or Cyrus, he wasn't sure--Meg made Virgil skin and cook it himself. This neatly accomplished three things: she didn't have to get her nails bloody, it proved that she had complete control over Virgil (who was a vegetarian and absolutely squeamish when it came to any kind of non-zombie flesh), and it ensured that M would despise Virgil until her dying day. M really loved her monkeys.
And that REALLY brings us back to Meg removing the monkey flesh from her teeth in the cookie-baking fortress while Virgil rubbed her feet with oil humming "Are We Human or Are We Dancers," and the heavens outside churned with Lady's M's fury.
"Bring it on, my mind-reading sista," Meg said.
"Huh?" Virgil said, looking up.
"Nevermind, honey. Just keep rubbing."
"When can I have another cookie?" Virgil asked.
Meg patted his head. "Soon, dear. Soon."
Man, she loved a good footrub from a brainwashed minion as she anticipated an impeding war.
Mind-read this, Lady M: Monkey tastes good! A little like bacon.
Meg idly wondered if it was Billy Ray or Cyrus that was currently being digested by her stomach acid. Not that it mattered. The message had been sent either way. The war with Lady M was on. But Meg secretly hoped that she'd ingested Cyrus. He was M's favorite, whether Miss "I don't have favorites" M would admit it or not.
Damn do-gooder. And to think, they used to be best friends, back before M was a "Lady." Back before M's good-doing instincts had caused her to ruin Meg's plans to be the Queen of the Dead. Or the Un-dead, rather.
It had happened like this....
One rainy evening in the distant past, Meg had been wallowing in the gangrenous blubber of her one true love, Selig Retsuc. They were in the thralls of passionate consummation, at the peak of the ultimate act that would make her Selig's Queen forever. His lips formed a very large "O" around her very large, milky-white breast, and his pointy brown teeth were poised for de-boobification. As they neared climax, Meg was anticipating the glorious pain that would seal her regal fate. That's when Miss M had deigned to appear, purporting to "rescue" her best friend Meg.
M, hopped up on her studies of the ancients and self-inflicted hot-needle acupuncture to increase her spiritual awareness, had ripped Meg from Selig's embrace, nearly severing his calcified member--a deed which may prove Selig's undoing in the end. M spirited Meg away to the Vast Wasteland, thinking she'd receive Meg's undying (no pun intended) gratitude, and perhaps they'd enjoy a little girlfriend-bonding with a latte and some shoe shopping. (Though Meg knew that M actually preferred bondage to bonding, Meg didn't indulge her fantasies. Often.)
Instead Meg cursed her so-called friend for foiling her secret plan, interrupting the most incredible night of her life just before the best part, and nearly severing her man's glorious (though somewhat putrified, and according to Virgil, "minuscule") parcel of joy-flesh. Meg pinned M to the sand and pulled her head back with her long black braid exposing her slender neck. Meg whipped her favorite pearl-handled dagger from the sheath attached to her garter, and brought the razor-sharp tip to the pale, thin skin that Meg knew veiled M's carotid artery. (Meg had been in med school when the zombies invaded, and though her knowledge of human anatomy had come in handy on occasion--like this one--she was secretly gleeful that she was spared the drudgery of using her medical knowledge for good.) Just as the dagger pierced M's skin and the first drop of ruby red blood oozed from the puncture, M cried out in an unearthly language that sounded vaguely like the names of movie stars from before the zombie era--
"Uma oprah lohan cruise. Jolie swayze, klum pitt-rourke. Phoenix close knightly, keanu-keanu-keanu!"
Lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating the swirling cauldron of storm clouds in an amber glow. Thunder crashed, drowning out the obscenities flying forth from Meg's red lips. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten to muzzle the bitch. Now M had called down some kind of hell-fire--or was it heaven-fire?--on both of them.
Meg thrust the dagger hard and fast into M's throat, but it was as if M's neck had turned to stone. The point of the blade snapped off--oh no, not her favorite dagger! Now the voodoo princess was really going to pay. Meg tossed aside the useless weapon and wrapped her fingers around M's neck. But M just smiled at Meg, a sad smile full of pity. That really set Meg off. She squeezed M's throat and slammed her head into the ground--
But the ground was gone. They were ten feet above the sand. Levitating. The witch was even more powerful than Meg had given her credit for.
M did some hinky move with her forearms that broke Meg's grasp on her neck, then flipped around so she was on top. Without M below her, Meg dropped to the ground like a lead mannequin. M hovered above her looking like a goth-ninja doing water ballet, except in the air. She was laughing.
"This is rockin!" M said.
"This sucks nails!" Meg said.
"The power. The POWER!" M said, skyrocketing backward through the air as she shot laser-bolts from her fingertips. "Who knew?"
"You're ruining my life!" Meg shouted, trying futilely to dislodge an irritating sand wedgie.
"I wonder what else I can do?" M said pirouetting and somersaulting in the black sky as the laserbeams changed from red to green.
"You can mind your own goddamned bees wax, is what you can do. Do you have any idea what you interrupted between me and Selig Retsuc? ANY IDEA? I was about to be made Queen of the Zombies. Before long the whole world will be populated with zombies, so that would make me Queen of the World and All Who Live In It. Or All Who Are Undead In It. Or something like that. Whatever. You fucked it up."
"The powers of the ancients flow through me," M intoned in an unusually deep voice. "You should try it, Meg. It's like one great big orgasm that never ends!"
M squealed like a pig, which only made Meg madder. Who knew how long it would take to find Selig and re-bed him so she, too, could experience an unnatural orgasm and the power to rule the world.
"I'm outta here," Meg said, tromping across the sandy vastness toward what she hoped was the ruins of Denver.
"Hey, where are you going? Don't you want to try this flying thing? I could hook you up," M called.
"No, you enjoy your little ancient carpet ride. I'm going back for some hard Queen-making zombie flesh. And don't even think about interrupting again."
"What? Are you serious? That Selig action is nothing compared to this," M said, swooping down alongside Meg. "Come on, you've got to try it."
M grabbed Meg's hand and pulled her into the sky. The laserbeams from M's fingers were pink, now, and tickled as they skittered up Meg's arm and permeated her body.
They were about fifty feet in the air when M realized what she had done. "My Gods, what have I done?" she said, looking at her pink-glowing hand. Of course she'd had to let go of Meg's hand in order to do this, so Meg was now careening toward the desert floor.
M shot toward the ground like a rocket, but she wasn't fast enough.
Meg lay in a Meg-shaped crater in the desert floor.
"You bitch!" Meg said.
"You're alive!" M said.
"Do you know what this means? Do you know what you've done?"
"No, not really," M said, looking awfully confused for someone empowered with the knowledge of the ancients.
"That stupid pink laser has made it impossible for me to die," Meg said, rolling her sparkly blue eyes.
Now M looked really confused. "So what are you mad about? Isn't that a good thing?"
"No, you idiot. If I can't die, I can't become undead. If I can't become undead, I can't become a zombie. And if I can't become a zombie, it follows that I can't become the Zombie Queen. NOW do you see why I'm a little ticked off?"
And that's when the friendship ended between Meg and M.
That's also when the ancients took away M's ability to fly as punishment for her carelessness. The act of making Meg immortal, no matter how unintentional, had kinda fucked up the ancients' plans, too.
In order to compensate for this unforeseen and quite unfortunate circumstance, the ancients promoted M to "Lady" M, gave her the ability to read minds, and made her talk like a cryptic motivational speaker.
Which brings us back to the monkey flesh in Meg's teeth. Meg knew that her once-best-friend, M, loved her precious monkeys more than anything. More than body-modification, endless orgasm, or even organic red wine. Meg knew that the one sure-fire way to piss off the Lady was to eat her monkey. And no doubt about it, Meg wanted to do some pissing off. Heck, she wanted war. It was bad enough making your ex-best-friend immortal against her wishes. On top of that, everyone knows you don't just go resurrecting someone's daughter without parental permission. That crossed the line.
Oh yes, Meg knew what M was planning to do to Lucy in the Vast Wasteland even before M knew it. She knew M was going to re-flesh the little bitch, not just to piss Meg off, but to steal the Member of Power out of her hoochee. That's why Meg had magically summoned Lucy's twin sister Lizzie, who was somehow Australian and had been raised by wolf-dingo hybrids after having been kidnapped at birth unbeknownst to almost everyone. To think, Meg had been worried about how--and even IF--she'd be able to find Lizzie, when all along the power to summon her had been right there in her recipe for fresh, hot caramel chip devil's food cookies.
So summon Lizzie she had, right to the side of her dead twin, Lucy. With more than a little melancholy for what might have been, Meg pulled the paltry, petrified penis from her daughter's little hidy-hole and handed it to Lizzie.
"Now, don't try to use this on your own," Meg had warned. "Take it to Selig, unless you want to end up a charred mass like your sister." Here she laughed manically for some unknown reason.
After Lizzie nodded and scampered away, Meg had turned just in time to see Virgil sneak back into the cookie-making fortress. He thought he'd gotten away with spying on her, but this was exactly what Meg had hoped would happen.
She slunk back inside the cookie bunker and whipped up a batch of macaroons for Virgil. Magical macaroons that would make Virgil do her bidding, like a long-distance puppet. While they were baking, Meg taught Virgil to dance, playing that annoying song by the Killers "Are We Human or Are We Dancers?" over and over as they practiced.
When the oven timer chimed, Meg brought the steaming coconut cookies to the table, and let the sumptuous aroma waft into Virgil's aristocratic nose.
"Go on," she said. "No need to wait until they cool." She knew that just the scent of the magical mounds would make it impossible for Virgil to refuse her suggestion.
Virgil ate two in rapid succession.
"That burned my tongue," he said.
Meg smiled and nodded. The cookies were just as powerful cold as they were hot, but she had a sadistic itch that needed scratching, and watching Virgil burn his own tongue was just the ticket.
"Now go," she said. "Do what you need to do with Lucy's body--I'd rather not know any details--then put what I've taught you to good use in the Vast Wasteland. After that, lay in wait for Lady M. Stay hidden until she's done with her magical bullshit--you wouldn't be able to stop her if you tried, even with your powerful mantis arms. Then when she's basking in the afterglow of her ancient arts, steal one of those goddamned monkeys and bring it back to the cookie fortress. Do you understand?"
When he returned with the monkey--Billy Ray or Cyrus, he wasn't sure--Meg made Virgil skin and cook it himself. This neatly accomplished three things: she didn't have to get her nails bloody, it proved that she had complete control over Virgil (who was a vegetarian and absolutely squeamish when it came to any kind of non-zombie flesh), and it ensured that M would despise Virgil until her dying day. M really loved her monkeys.
And that REALLY brings us back to Meg removing the monkey flesh from her teeth in the cookie-baking fortress while Virgil rubbed her feet with oil humming "Are We Human or Are We Dancers," and the heavens outside churned with Lady's M's fury.
"Bring it on, my mind-reading sista," Meg said.
"Huh?" Virgil said, looking up.
"Nevermind, honey. Just keep rubbing."
"When can I have another cookie?" Virgil asked.
Meg patted his head. "Soon, dear. Soon."
Man, she loved a good footrub from a brainwashed minion as she anticipated an impeding war.
ZA16 - Shut the Fuck Up
Cam proceeded slowly through the deserted streets of Once-Denver, his knife held at the ready in a white-knuckled fist. The Cleaning Lady was strapped to his back, dry as a bone, beautiful as the husk of a scorched wedding bouquet. He had to admit, there were a few advantages to his knife. Well, one. It never needed reloading.
"So what happened to your squadron?" Lucy asked.
He ignored her.
"Did they all die or did you go off on your own?"
He ignored her.
"How many zombies do you think you've killed?"
He tried to remember, couldn't, then remembered to ignore her.
"Can you even remember?"
He gritted his teeth.
"Okay, so maybe you can't remember how many in your life, but what about how many this week?"
He TRIED to ignore her.
"How far ahead do you thnk the next gas station is?"
"Shut up!" Cam said, flecks of spit flying from his lips to land on her mary janes.
She made a face at him, which he did not see. He was too busy focusing on what might be around the corner of the building that had once been a bank, before the rising of demonic forces had ended ninety-nine percent of all life on earth and rendered capitalism obsolete. Lucy put her hand carefully on his bandaged bicep and peeked around the bulge. His muscle twitched under her touch, and he jerked her off.
"I don't see anything," she said.
"If you don't shut the fuck up I'm going to carve your larynx out of your throat," he told her.
"Pshah," she said. "Like the Five Romantic Chemical Lords would allow that!"
If the ministers of Hell had conjured a demon designed specifically to torment him with her tasty hot bod, minty-fresh breath, endless yapping, and possible affiliations with the underworld, she would be it. He felt like he was being herded. He was sure she would have zombies or some other goddamn Hell-borne thing waiting for him around every corner and with every step he was just playing into her hands.
What other Hell-borne thing? Who knew. This little bitch could have vampires, werewolves, or who knew what other goddamn necromantic scum hidden up that tease of a skirt.
"Want me to go first?" she asked.
He should just kill her.
He sighed. "No," he growled. "No, you do not get to go first. How many times have we been over this? You do not go first. I go first. You follow. Now shut the fuck up."
"I'm just saying, I mean, you seem a little keyed up, and we've only made it, like two blocks in the past half hour. So if you want me to go first-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Cam yelled. His voice bounced off the buildings, echoed in the empty alleys.
Lucy gaped at him, then a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "Geez, Cam, now that's what I'm talkin' about!" she said. Then she strode out into the middle of the street, her hips swinging and gum popping, heading north. Or south. Or . . . well, Cam wasn't really sure what direction she was going, but judging by the prime view of her barely-skirted ass he was getting, she was headed away from him.
"Hey! Dammit Doublemint! What did I tell you about going first?"
"I'm tired of waiting for you," she said, and kept on walking. She sang. Loudly. Just to piss him off. Cam's rippling bicep reached for The Cleaning Lady, only to jerk to a halt, remembering his real Lady was dead. For now. Leaving him with this gum-popping zombie-loving bimbo.
"Teenagers scare the living shit outta me!
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed!
So darken your clothes
And strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone
But not me!"
"You know what, Cam?" she called. Cam didn't even want to know, but she didn't wait for an answer. "I think it's good we came together." She giggled. He grimaced. "We should really join forces! With your fire and my power, we could make some real sparks!" She stopped. She turned. She put her hands on her hips and popped her gum. "Whatddaya think, Sparky?"
"I think . . . Shut the fuck up!" Cam said. Screw thinking.
"Uh-huh. By the way, there's a gas station right over there."
He hated it that she'd seen it before him. Being the keeper of The Cleaning Lady had always meant that Cam had petroleum radar. This little skank was messing with his petroleum radar. She had to be from Hell. He should quell her.
Fuck caution. It wasn't like he couldn't deal with any shit Doublemint could deal out, with or without his Lady. However, it would be hella sweet to let his real Lady devour this babysitter whole.
They went to the gas station. He went first. He didn't even look to see if she followed. She did though. Jesus fuckin' Christ this little bitch was like a dog yapping at his heels.
"What are your plans, Cam? Really, have you thought anything through at all?"
"I'm going to refuel the Lady," he said, as he began refuelling the Lady.
"And then?"
"I'm going to quell you."
"Hm. Could be fun. But how 'bout this? You come with me. I know Selig Retsuc's grand plan. We find him. We stop him from regaining access to the source of his power -- it may look tiny, but he knows how to use it, trust me. We save the fucking world."
Cam didn't even consider. Barbie here was full of shit. He closed the Lady, hefted her sweet, smooth curves lovingly in his calloused hands, and aimed for Barbie.
"Or, you could just torch me," she said. "If you think that's going to be new and fun for me, though, you've got another thing coming." She turned and began walking away, then tossed a look over her shoulder. "Your call, Sparky," she said, and continued going first.
"So what happened to your squadron?" Lucy asked.
He ignored her.
"Did they all die or did you go off on your own?"
He ignored her.
"How many zombies do you think you've killed?"
He tried to remember, couldn't, then remembered to ignore her.
"Can you even remember?"
He gritted his teeth.
"Okay, so maybe you can't remember how many in your life, but what about how many this week?"
He TRIED to ignore her.
"How far ahead do you thnk the next gas station is?"
"Shut up!" Cam said, flecks of spit flying from his lips to land on her mary janes.
She made a face at him, which he did not see. He was too busy focusing on what might be around the corner of the building that had once been a bank, before the rising of demonic forces had ended ninety-nine percent of all life on earth and rendered capitalism obsolete. Lucy put her hand carefully on his bandaged bicep and peeked around the bulge. His muscle twitched under her touch, and he jerked her off.
"I don't see anything," she said.
"If you don't shut the fuck up I'm going to carve your larynx out of your throat," he told her.
"Pshah," she said. "Like the Five Romantic Chemical Lords would allow that!"
If the ministers of Hell had conjured a demon designed specifically to torment him with her tasty hot bod, minty-fresh breath, endless yapping, and possible affiliations with the underworld, she would be it. He felt like he was being herded. He was sure she would have zombies or some other goddamn Hell-borne thing waiting for him around every corner and with every step he was just playing into her hands.
What other Hell-borne thing? Who knew. This little bitch could have vampires, werewolves, or who knew what other goddamn necromantic scum hidden up that tease of a skirt.
"Want me to go first?" she asked.
He should just kill her.
He sighed. "No," he growled. "No, you do not get to go first. How many times have we been over this? You do not go first. I go first. You follow. Now shut the fuck up."
"I'm just saying, I mean, you seem a little keyed up, and we've only made it, like two blocks in the past half hour. So if you want me to go first-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Cam yelled. His voice bounced off the buildings, echoed in the empty alleys.
Lucy gaped at him, then a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "Geez, Cam, now that's what I'm talkin' about!" she said. Then she strode out into the middle of the street, her hips swinging and gum popping, heading north. Or south. Or . . . well, Cam wasn't really sure what direction she was going, but judging by the prime view of her barely-skirted ass he was getting, she was headed away from him.
"Hey! Dammit Doublemint! What did I tell you about going first?"
"I'm tired of waiting for you," she said, and kept on walking. She sang. Loudly. Just to piss him off. Cam's rippling bicep reached for The Cleaning Lady, only to jerk to a halt, remembering his real Lady was dead. For now. Leaving him with this gum-popping zombie-loving bimbo.
"Teenagers scare the living shit outta me!
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed!
So darken your clothes
And strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone
But not me!"
"You know what, Cam?" she called. Cam didn't even want to know, but she didn't wait for an answer. "I think it's good we came together." She giggled. He grimaced. "We should really join forces! With your fire and my power, we could make some real sparks!" She stopped. She turned. She put her hands on her hips and popped her gum. "Whatddaya think, Sparky?"
"I think . . . Shut the fuck up!" Cam said. Screw thinking.
"Uh-huh. By the way, there's a gas station right over there."
He hated it that she'd seen it before him. Being the keeper of The Cleaning Lady had always meant that Cam had petroleum radar. This little skank was messing with his petroleum radar. She had to be from Hell. He should quell her.
Fuck caution. It wasn't like he couldn't deal with any shit Doublemint could deal out, with or without his Lady. However, it would be hella sweet to let his real Lady devour this babysitter whole.
They went to the gas station. He went first. He didn't even look to see if she followed. She did though. Jesus fuckin' Christ this little bitch was like a dog yapping at his heels.
"What are your plans, Cam? Really, have you thought anything through at all?"
"I'm going to refuel the Lady," he said, as he began refuelling the Lady.
"And then?"
"I'm going to quell you."
"Hm. Could be fun. But how 'bout this? You come with me. I know Selig Retsuc's grand plan. We find him. We stop him from regaining access to the source of his power -- it may look tiny, but he knows how to use it, trust me. We save the fucking world."
Cam didn't even consider. Barbie here was full of shit. He closed the Lady, hefted her sweet, smooth curves lovingly in his calloused hands, and aimed for Barbie.
"Or, you could just torch me," she said. "If you think that's going to be new and fun for me, though, you've got another thing coming." She turned and began walking away, then tossed a look over her shoulder. "Your call, Sparky," she said, and continued going first.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
ZA Chapter 15: All Squidgy
Cam leveled The Cleaning Lady at the hotty in the skirt. What the hell was the postergirl from Playboy’s College Coeds doing walking zombietown? Well scratch all o’ that shit, anyway. That wasn’t the first question that jumped to mind. There was so much wrong with this goddamned scene that it made his ears hum. If Cam wasn’t hallucinating, that was the gum girl from the zombie school.
“Ya better fuckin’ answer my question, Doublemint!”
She raised her slender, tanned arms high over her head. “You didn’t ask a question.”
Cam’s lust for undead death was twitching something terrible. If she was a zombie, he was aching to kill her, aching so much that his arm hair vibrated and his muscles palpitated. If she wasn’t, he wanted to roll his eyes and walk away. But his kill switch was caught on toggle somewhere in-between.
Cam Sparks got a boner.
“I did so ask you a question!” he blurted, not liking the feeling. His zombie bacon should be itching, not-.
“Please repeat it,” she said, her voice far too calm for someone who was a half-second away from becoming a bubbling, greasy stain on the floor.
“You got a twin or something?” he yelled.
She cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“You’re the gum girl, aren’t you? From the school?”
“You rescued me,” she confirmed nicely for him.
“Fuckin’ right on,” he muttered, his switch clicking firmly into place. Whatever the hell she was, she wasn’t human. He thumbed on The Cleaning Lady and pulled the trigger.
She yelled, “Apatosaur of Colombe! Stop the spume!”
The Cleaning Lady sputtered and died.
Cam stared at her. He knew he should be intimately concerned with the fact that his beloved weapon had just run out of fuel, but…
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“Something about a dinosaur, I think. I don’t know. Ever since Lady M did her thing, these weird phrases just pop out. It worked, though, right?”
“I have to kill you,” Cam said, frowning and throwing down The Cleaning Lady. He pulled out his knife and strode toward her. “I’m pretty damned sure I do.”
She held her arms out in front of her and backed away. “You don’t sound sure-”
He jumped forward, knocking her to the ground and straddling her belly. He quickly pinned each of her arms under his knees and put the knife at her throat.
“Cam. Cam! CAM!” she said quickly.
He paused. “What?” His boner came back. Goddammit!
“I’m not a zombie,” she said in that soft voice.
The girl had a point. A zombie wouldn’t say "I'm not a zombie". A zombie would say “Rrrrggghrflrf.” Cam's switch clicked back to indecision. Fuck it all.
“What the hell are you then?” he asked.
“I’m Lucy Tisdale.”
“I remember your goddamned name. I asked what you are. Virgil said you fried.”
“I-”
“And how the hell did you get so clean?” he asked.
“I washed myself.”
“Well that don’t make no goddamned sense.”
She shrugged, and it felt good. Cam snarled.
“Do you kill people, Cam?”
“Zombies.”
“Am I a zombie?”
He growled. “No.”
“Would you mind letting me up, then?”
He stood up, frowned at her, then reluctantly held out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. He couldn’t help but look at her long legs and where they disappeared into that tight skirt. He looked away with a twitch of his head.
“You make me feel all squidgy,” he said. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Could be a normal feeling,” she said, winking.
“I think I hate you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It goes like that sometimes.” She ran a finger up his arm, the one with the zombie bacon.
A chair fell over behind Cam, and there was a groan that sounded a lot like “Rrrrggghrflrf.” He spun around to find a half-dozen zombies shuffling toward them. The Cleaning Lady was on the ground, too far away. And the bitch was out of gas, anyway.
“Damn,” Lucy Tisdale sighed with true regret. “I’m afraid that’s probably my fault.” She let her hand fall from his arm.
“You’re a weird bitch,” Cam said.
“You have no idea.”
Cam launched himself at the zombies, knife bared. It was sharp enough to slice clean through the neck of the first and the second. The third and fourth grabbed him, but he head-locked one and popped it’s fuckin’ skull right off. The other one bit him on the shoulder. Twisting, Cam threw it off the building. The last one shuffled toward Lucy Tisdale, who watched it with resigned distaste.
Cam grabbed a chunk of broken concrete, leapt up and brought it down on the zombie’s head. It exploded, and green-black gunk spewed everywhere, including one precise line across Lucy’s white blouse.
She didn’t seem to notice. “That was hot,” she said.
“Fuck you,” he said.
"Yeah," she said, smiling. "Something like that."
“Ya better fuckin’ answer my question, Doublemint!”
She raised her slender, tanned arms high over her head. “You didn’t ask a question.”
Cam’s lust for undead death was twitching something terrible. If she was a zombie, he was aching to kill her, aching so much that his arm hair vibrated and his muscles palpitated. If she wasn’t, he wanted to roll his eyes and walk away. But his kill switch was caught on toggle somewhere in-between.
Cam Sparks got a boner.
“I did so ask you a question!” he blurted, not liking the feeling. His zombie bacon should be itching, not-.
“Please repeat it,” she said, her voice far too calm for someone who was a half-second away from becoming a bubbling, greasy stain on the floor.
“You got a twin or something?” he yelled.
She cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“You’re the gum girl, aren’t you? From the school?”
“You rescued me,” she confirmed nicely for him.
“Fuckin’ right on,” he muttered, his switch clicking firmly into place. Whatever the hell she was, she wasn’t human. He thumbed on The Cleaning Lady and pulled the trigger.
She yelled, “Apatosaur of Colombe! Stop the spume!”
The Cleaning Lady sputtered and died.
Cam stared at her. He knew he should be intimately concerned with the fact that his beloved weapon had just run out of fuel, but…
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“Something about a dinosaur, I think. I don’t know. Ever since Lady M did her thing, these weird phrases just pop out. It worked, though, right?”
“I have to kill you,” Cam said, frowning and throwing down The Cleaning Lady. He pulled out his knife and strode toward her. “I’m pretty damned sure I do.”
She held her arms out in front of her and backed away. “You don’t sound sure-”
He jumped forward, knocking her to the ground and straddling her belly. He quickly pinned each of her arms under his knees and put the knife at her throat.
“Cam. Cam! CAM!” she said quickly.
He paused. “What?” His boner came back. Goddammit!
“I’m not a zombie,” she said in that soft voice.
The girl had a point. A zombie wouldn’t say "I'm not a zombie". A zombie would say “Rrrrggghrflrf.” Cam's switch clicked back to indecision. Fuck it all.
“What the hell are you then?” he asked.
“I’m Lucy Tisdale.”
“I remember your goddamned name. I asked what you are. Virgil said you fried.”
“I-”
“And how the hell did you get so clean?” he asked.
“I washed myself.”
“Well that don’t make no goddamned sense.”
She shrugged, and it felt good. Cam snarled.
“Do you kill people, Cam?”
“Zombies.”
“Am I a zombie?”
He growled. “No.”
“Would you mind letting me up, then?”
He stood up, frowned at her, then reluctantly held out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. He couldn’t help but look at her long legs and where they disappeared into that tight skirt. He looked away with a twitch of his head.
“You make me feel all squidgy,” he said. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Could be a normal feeling,” she said, winking.
“I think I hate you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It goes like that sometimes.” She ran a finger up his arm, the one with the zombie bacon.
A chair fell over behind Cam, and there was a groan that sounded a lot like “Rrrrggghrflrf.” He spun around to find a half-dozen zombies shuffling toward them. The Cleaning Lady was on the ground, too far away. And the bitch was out of gas, anyway.
“Damn,” Lucy Tisdale sighed with true regret. “I’m afraid that’s probably my fault.” She let her hand fall from his arm.
“You’re a weird bitch,” Cam said.
“You have no idea.”
Cam launched himself at the zombies, knife bared. It was sharp enough to slice clean through the neck of the first and the second. The third and fourth grabbed him, but he head-locked one and popped it’s fuckin’ skull right off. The other one bit him on the shoulder. Twisting, Cam threw it off the building. The last one shuffled toward Lucy Tisdale, who watched it with resigned distaste.
Cam grabbed a chunk of broken concrete, leapt up and brought it down on the zombie’s head. It exploded, and green-black gunk spewed everywhere, including one precise line across Lucy’s white blouse.
She didn’t seem to notice. “That was hot,” she said.
“Fuck you,” he said.
"Yeah," she said, smiling. "Something like that."
ZA - Chapter 14 - Lucy - Into the Lion's Den
I stared at the zombie slowly dragging himself toward me down the deserted main street of the city. It used to be Denver. Now it was a graveyard. The cold wind blew against my naked skin, but I ignored it.
Like, seriously, I had the legacies of the fucking ancients on my side, really, what was this slimeball going to do? Ooze on me? Whatever. I stood in the center of the street, still naked, watching his dead-pace swagger. I wished he would just hurry the hell up already and try to consume me. I needed to get into the department store on my left.
“Tick tock, tick tock, Lurch,” I called. “I can wait all night.”
Maybe I should just go get him.
Nah. I could wait. I picked grime out from under my nails until he got close.
"Oh, good, you're here." I said. Slime oozed out of the thing's mouth. "Ready to go?" I said. Then, calling on Lord Beckhamilroy, ancient master of ball-related sports, I hooked my fingers in the zombie’s eye and nose sockets like a bowling ball and ripped his head off his shoulders. So much for getting the grime out of my nails. I hurled the mess through the big Macy’s display window, the hair flying like moldy, sick spaghetti. Ew. The arms were still grabbing for me. “Oh, no,” I said. “I am not even trying to hear that shit,” I said. “She-Ra, ancient lady of power!” I called and ripped both his arms off. He fell on me, trying against all odds to somehow coax my firm, vibrant, taut, naked flesh that Virgil would now never touch, down his exposed esophagus.
“Sorry, Lurch,” I said, stepping out of the way. He fell over, peddling his feet in the street. “Loser,” I said, making the “L” symbol with my thumb and finger on my forehead. Then I stepped through the broken window of the department store, calling on The Nine Gatekeepers of the West to protect my bare feet from the glass. I didn’t even feel a thing.
Kudos to Lady Miraculous, this legacies of the ancients thing was turning out to be pretty freakin awesome.
It was also giving me some insights into my erstwhile "Mother". She was being real loud about how much she missed me. Yeah. Snort. As if. There was someone else with her, but I couldn't get a line on this one. Whatever, they didn't matter. If they were with "Mom" they had to be bad news.
I made my way to the juniors department and picked out something like the uniform I used to wear. A short skirt, knee high socks. I paused before grabbing a white button-up blouse. That would be hard to keep clean. But oh well. Maybe the ancients could help me with that, too.
The ancients rock.
I finished it off with some oh-so-innocent mary janes, then took myself to the beauty department. Time to really get this grime off my nails. And brush my hair. Gah, that took forever, I don't even want to talk about it, I almost just chopped the rat's nest off.
But no. Selig liked it long.
Too bad Macy's didn't have any gum.
After I was pretty like a fairy princess on Sunday, I sat down in the shoe department and centered. "Verizonella! Mistress of the Call! Bring my quarry to me! Let his army bear me on their shoulders to his side!"
Then I just waited.
I didn't have to wait long. In about a half hour, I heard them.
I wasn't too impressed, there were only, like ten of them. Looked like Verizonella didn't have such a great network. But I guessed it would do. These didn't try to eat me. Instead, they clumped around me so that I couldn't get out -- not that they could have stopped me, if I'd really wanted to. But I didn't. I let myself be carried with them like the nucleus of an atom, knowing they'd take me to Selig Retsuc. I hadn't been able to find the source of his power. It was too small, and had somehow gone really, really missing. So the minions would have to take me there.
I was sure we were on the way. They were holding course at a steady, lurching pace, but then, they got a little antsy and changed direction. "What?" I said. "No, where are you going? He can't be that way! What the fuck would Selig be doing in the freakin' Ace in the Hole Motel?" Yeah, right, look at me -- legacies of the ancients and all that; still trying to TALK to zombies. Duh.
Then it hit me. They probably smelled blood. Blood meant someone alive. Someone alive meant . . . well, I wasn't sure what it meant, but during a big goddamn zombie apocalypse, it basically holds true that the living kinda want to stick together. I let them take me along for the ride.
They scaled the side of the building, not bothering with the door. Zombies aren't really planners. They take the most direct route. I climbed with them. The old, crumbling bricks were easy to get a grip on. I wasn't afraid of falling, I had Lord Pandelta on my side. At about the sixth floor, the zombies began trying to shove their way through a window. I heard the person inside yelling, "C'mon you big damn undead bastards! Wooo-hooo!!!"
Right on.
Tongues of fire leapt out of the open window, sending charred zombie falling past me. Great. Now I'd need another entourage. Oh well, dead zombies are never a bad thing.
I clung to the side of the wall, waiting for the zombies to all go in to face the flame thrower. "Meet the Cleaning Lady you fucks!" the person was screaming.
Hey . . . did I know that guy?
After the fire stopped, I put my hands on the sill myself.
"Oh, a straggler, huh, come on, bitch, bring it! Whoo-HOOOOO!!! YEAH!!!! I LOVE this zombie fucking shit!"
"Stop!" I said, as I somersaulted through the window to crouch on the floor. "I'm alive! Stop!"
"What the fuck . . . ?"
I got to my feet and dusted myself off, looking prim. "Don't roast me, okay?"
Cam stood there like a slack-jawed fire-breathing viking. Then understanding dawned in his face -- actually it was more like understanding kicked him in the head and flicked a "go crazy" switch in his mind.
"Holy fucking shit, you ARE one of 'em!"
Like, seriously, I had the legacies of the fucking ancients on my side, really, what was this slimeball going to do? Ooze on me? Whatever. I stood in the center of the street, still naked, watching his dead-pace swagger. I wished he would just hurry the hell up already and try to consume me. I needed to get into the department store on my left.
“Tick tock, tick tock, Lurch,” I called. “I can wait all night.”
Maybe I should just go get him.
Nah. I could wait. I picked grime out from under my nails until he got close.
"Oh, good, you're here." I said. Slime oozed out of the thing's mouth. "Ready to go?" I said. Then, calling on Lord Beckhamilroy, ancient master of ball-related sports, I hooked my fingers in the zombie’s eye and nose sockets like a bowling ball and ripped his head off his shoulders. So much for getting the grime out of my nails. I hurled the mess through the big Macy’s display window, the hair flying like moldy, sick spaghetti. Ew. The arms were still grabbing for me. “Oh, no,” I said. “I am not even trying to hear that shit,” I said. “She-Ra, ancient lady of power!” I called and ripped both his arms off. He fell on me, trying against all odds to somehow coax my firm, vibrant, taut, naked flesh that Virgil would now never touch, down his exposed esophagus.
“Sorry, Lurch,” I said, stepping out of the way. He fell over, peddling his feet in the street. “Loser,” I said, making the “L” symbol with my thumb and finger on my forehead. Then I stepped through the broken window of the department store, calling on The Nine Gatekeepers of the West to protect my bare feet from the glass. I didn’t even feel a thing.
Kudos to Lady Miraculous, this legacies of the ancients thing was turning out to be pretty freakin awesome.
It was also giving me some insights into my erstwhile "Mother". She was being real loud about how much she missed me. Yeah. Snort. As if. There was someone else with her, but I couldn't get a line on this one. Whatever, they didn't matter. If they were with "Mom" they had to be bad news.
I made my way to the juniors department and picked out something like the uniform I used to wear. A short skirt, knee high socks. I paused before grabbing a white button-up blouse. That would be hard to keep clean. But oh well. Maybe the ancients could help me with that, too.
The ancients rock.
I finished it off with some oh-so-innocent mary janes, then took myself to the beauty department. Time to really get this grime off my nails. And brush my hair. Gah, that took forever, I don't even want to talk about it, I almost just chopped the rat's nest off.
But no. Selig liked it long.
Too bad Macy's didn't have any gum.
After I was pretty like a fairy princess on Sunday, I sat down in the shoe department and centered. "Verizonella! Mistress of the Call! Bring my quarry to me! Let his army bear me on their shoulders to his side!"
Then I just waited.
I didn't have to wait long. In about a half hour, I heard them.
I wasn't too impressed, there were only, like ten of them. Looked like Verizonella didn't have such a great network. But I guessed it would do. These didn't try to eat me. Instead, they clumped around me so that I couldn't get out -- not that they could have stopped me, if I'd really wanted to. But I didn't. I let myself be carried with them like the nucleus of an atom, knowing they'd take me to Selig Retsuc. I hadn't been able to find the source of his power. It was too small, and had somehow gone really, really missing. So the minions would have to take me there.
I was sure we were on the way. They were holding course at a steady, lurching pace, but then, they got a little antsy and changed direction. "What?" I said. "No, where are you going? He can't be that way! What the fuck would Selig be doing in the freakin' Ace in the Hole Motel?" Yeah, right, look at me -- legacies of the ancients and all that; still trying to TALK to zombies. Duh.
Then it hit me. They probably smelled blood. Blood meant someone alive. Someone alive meant . . . well, I wasn't sure what it meant, but during a big goddamn zombie apocalypse, it basically holds true that the living kinda want to stick together. I let them take me along for the ride.
They scaled the side of the building, not bothering with the door. Zombies aren't really planners. They take the most direct route. I climbed with them. The old, crumbling bricks were easy to get a grip on. I wasn't afraid of falling, I had Lord Pandelta on my side. At about the sixth floor, the zombies began trying to shove their way through a window. I heard the person inside yelling, "C'mon you big damn undead bastards! Wooo-hooo!!!"
Right on.
Tongues of fire leapt out of the open window, sending charred zombie falling past me. Great. Now I'd need another entourage. Oh well, dead zombies are never a bad thing.
I clung to the side of the wall, waiting for the zombies to all go in to face the flame thrower. "Meet the Cleaning Lady you fucks!" the person was screaming.
Hey . . . did I know that guy?
After the fire stopped, I put my hands on the sill myself.
"Oh, a straggler, huh, come on, bitch, bring it! Whoo-HOOOOO!!! YEAH!!!! I LOVE this zombie fucking shit!"
"Stop!" I said, as I somersaulted through the window to crouch on the floor. "I'm alive! Stop!"
"What the fuck . . . ?"
I got to my feet and dusted myself off, looking prim. "Don't roast me, okay?"
Cam stood there like a slack-jawed fire-breathing viking. Then understanding dawned in his face -- actually it was more like understanding kicked him in the head and flicked a "go crazy" switch in his mind.
"Holy fucking shit, you ARE one of 'em!"
Monday, February 16, 2009
ZA13--Let me explain...
It was while eating one of Meg Tisdale's fresh, hot caramel chip devil's food cookies and listening to that annoying song by the Killers "Are we human or are we dancers?"--an hour after Meg lost her daughter and yet seemed to stage a near complete recovery within seconds--50 minutes after Meg took Virgil to her special cookie-making hideout (yes, she had an impenetrable bunker built entirely for the purpose of making cookies--and listening to old Top 40 tunes from The Time Before)--40 minutes after Meg "stepped out" of the bunker to run back for "something" she "forgot"--25 minutes after Virgil tracked Meg to the house she'd once shared with her daughter Lucy and watched as Meg took something small but impossibly disgusting-looking from her burned daughter's charred crotch and handed it to another girl, a girl who looked vaguely like the kind of Australian who's been raised by dingoes but also kind of like a Tisdale only with frizzier hair and a smell of peppermint--10 minutes after Virgil returned to the cookie bunker, running as fast as his tired legs could carry him to get ahead of Meg, who'd laughed maniacally after handing off the short, tiny, (and did I mention "small") cylindrical package--5 minutes after Meg returned and 30 seconds after first sinking his teeth into the still-steaming caramel/chocolate gooey awesomeness that was a Meg Tisdale Original--that Virgil found God. Again.
In The Time Before, Virgil had been a minister-in-training, an aspirant to a faith that would soon be swept from the face of the earth by the broom of pandemic zombification. In that time he had believed, at the very core of his being, that God was a force of love in the universe--not an omnipotent overseer as some faiths would have it, but a shared interior spark of common good, binding all together and bending the long moral arc of humanity toward justice. When people started eating each other, this became harder to believe. Thus, for the many months that had dragged into years as the zombie wars raged on, Virgil had grown less and less convinced of that meek but omnipresent grace he called God--that still small voice.
And yet, as he bit into the cookie, enjoying its rich notes of chocolate, caramel, and blind, bewildered terror, he heard the voice again. It spoke two words, a cosmic whisper in the uncharted neuron galaxy of his left temporal lobe: arrogance, yummy. While the last word probably had more to do with the cookie than anything else, the first cut to the root of Virgil's being like a steel blade flashing the smile of his dear friend Cam.
Arrogance. For months now, Virgil had held his arrogance like a shield against those he both longed to embrace yet had to keep away, friends who encouraged in him something he could not bear in a world gone zombie. Faith. His friends, rough-and-tumble (and-then-scorch-twice-over-for-good-measure) Cam, bake-and-plot-Meg, seduce-and-distance Lady M, even whacked out Lucy Tisdale (maybe especially whacked out Lucy Tisdale)--they all called forth in him an unwilling recognition of divinity he longed to ignore. They were proof--cranky and bitter, but throbbing with life nonetheless--that beauty and truth, love and kindness, nobility and goodness could still survive in the long dark winter of a zombie apocalypse. They bore in them the wounded but inconquerable essence of God.
After finishing his cookie (and another, for good measure), Virgil set out on a mission. He would perform an act of common humanity long neglected in these unfortunate times. He would bury Lucy Tisdale. After thanking Meg (careful not to show his hand since he was now well aware that she was neck-deep in secret plots and dingo-raised Australian daughters bearing strange, comically-miniscule cylindrical packages taken from charcoaled hoochies) Virgil took his leave. He then sprinted to the old Tisdale house, lifted up Lucy's body and set out for the Plains--an empty wasteland Virgil had long sensed bore the promise of some form of resurrection--perhaps a resurrection of the human spirit, or maybe a resurrection of hope--it was fuzzy to his inner eye, but it definitely seemed resurrectiony whatever it was.
By the time he found a proper spot, the sun was on its way down. Zombie time. Virgil dug hurriedly, wishing he had more than just a spoon and those darn mantis arms of his to work with. After making a hole of about two feet by two feet, Virgil looked up and wondered if this whole burial thing really needed to be that formal. Maybe Virgil could just fold Lucy up, stuff her in the hole, put some dirt on top, and then say a prayer. The prayer was what mattered, right? Unfortunately, in looking up at Lucy's body, Virgil saw beyond it zombies, shuffling, mewling zombies lumbering toward him in the near distance.
Virgil stood. There weren't just a handful. There was an army. Not just an army. Legions. Selig Retsuc had sent his hordes. What could be so important? Surely not Virgil. Selig had had plenty of opportunities to kill Virgil and would have plenty more. No need to send this many to accomplish that simple end. Was it the girl? Was there something about her that Selig wanted? Something in her? Perhaps he had fallen for Lucy and wanted to make her his zombie queen. Suddenly, Virgil remembered one sultry afternoon with Lady M. She had been running her finger along his bare back, sighing over his Keanu-Reeves-like features (because, if you didn't know this already and you were perhaps interested in casting the movie-version of Zombie Apocalypse, and were a big-time Hollywood director, (because really, who has the time these days for B-Listers, this project is big) Virgil looked a lot like Keanu Reeves (only smarter))--anyway--Lady M was sighing over Virgil, telling him that even if she ever got mad at Virgil she would never be able to stay mad at Virgil when suddenly her eyes rolled back in her head, she shuddered epileptically and her voice dropped three registers. "I see," Lady M had said, "the One. A broken girl, pierced by an awful (if a bit shrimp-like) power, who must be shattered before she can be healed. She will turn the air into light and the light into hope for us all. She is the One." And then Lady M had spasmed twice and snapped out of it. And then they made love, because that's what people did when they weren't killing zombies. And because, even if she didn't want to admit it, Lady M totally had a thing for Virgil.
"Could Lucy be The One?" Virgil asked, speaking to no one in particular unless you counted the slavering legions of undead mutants jerking spastically toward him across the Plains. "But that would mean...that would mean, I let her die! It's my fault!" Virgil then spent a while feeling really bad in a way that was both meaningful and moving, but also strong and masculine, and handsome--but not arrogant. It was definitely not arrogant, since--as should be obvious to all you mouth-breathers, nose-pickers, and knuckle-draggers reading this entry, Virgil is NOT arrogant anymore.
After this very moving scene in which all of you gained an endless amount of sympathy for Virgil, Virgil looked back up at the hordes, who even though they'd been advancing at a threatening pace, had still not arrived and wondered how and indeed if he would survive. If he were Cam, there were even odds Virgil could have just lit up a stogie, slapped on a hero's smile and smashed his way through the legions by brute force. If he were Lady M, he could have simply gathered a monkey on either arm, snapped his fingers and disappeared. Meg, meanwhile, could have baked her way out of it, and Lucy--bless her departed soul--could have cussed her way through. Virgil, however, didn't think he could use his special talent. While sure, if he'd started talking, he would have bored at least the first wave to death, but eventually the horrible moans of the dying would have drowned out Virgil's voice and the next wave would soon enough be dining on his larynx. No, what Virgil needed was a miracle.
He waited.
No miracle. Just zombies. Goddamn, fucking zombies.
But wait, a voice--a still, small voice rose from the depths of Virgil's cortex. Maybe it would carry with it some profound truth, some secret wisdom to elevate Virgil above his circumstance, free him from his plight. He listened, even as he smelled the foul, rotting stench of the first zombies closing upon him. It was... it was... For Christ's sake, it wasn't truth, it was that frackin' pop song, that song which in 2009 made Virgil wonder if the entire radio-listening public weren't all brainless zombies. "Are we human or are we dancers?" I mean, seriously, how stupid were people back then that lyrics so profoundly moronic could perpetrate themselves not on a single listener but on an entire nation?
Of course...the song did have a good beat. He found his shoulder twitching, and then his right big toe, and then his left leg. What was this? Virgil, faced with the end of his being, with the prospect of being eaten alive by a thousand thousand foul-breathed, slime-toothed zombies, wanted to dance? Hmm. What the hey? He started dancing, dancing and singing in his high-pitched, nasal, stepped-on-baby-bird whine of a voice..."Are we human, or are we dancers?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold, and I'm on my knees looking for the answer, are we human or are we dancers?"
Little did Virgil know, but the precise pitch of his unfortunate voice was at the same precise pitch Selig Rutsec had programmed the zombie hordes to receive his commands, such that as he sang, they too began to dance. Now, if you've seen a zombie walk, you can probably imagine how badly they dance--such that as they danced they bumped into each other, turning the Plains into a giant zombie mosh pit. Strike that. A giant Bombie mosh pit. And...well...you can probably guess what happened next.
In The Time Before, Virgil had been a minister-in-training, an aspirant to a faith that would soon be swept from the face of the earth by the broom of pandemic zombification. In that time he had believed, at the very core of his being, that God was a force of love in the universe--not an omnipotent overseer as some faiths would have it, but a shared interior spark of common good, binding all together and bending the long moral arc of humanity toward justice. When people started eating each other, this became harder to believe. Thus, for the many months that had dragged into years as the zombie wars raged on, Virgil had grown less and less convinced of that meek but omnipresent grace he called God--that still small voice.
And yet, as he bit into the cookie, enjoying its rich notes of chocolate, caramel, and blind, bewildered terror, he heard the voice again. It spoke two words, a cosmic whisper in the uncharted neuron galaxy of his left temporal lobe: arrogance, yummy. While the last word probably had more to do with the cookie than anything else, the first cut to the root of Virgil's being like a steel blade flashing the smile of his dear friend Cam.
Arrogance. For months now, Virgil had held his arrogance like a shield against those he both longed to embrace yet had to keep away, friends who encouraged in him something he could not bear in a world gone zombie. Faith. His friends, rough-and-tumble (and-then-scorch-twice-over-for-good-measure) Cam, bake-and-plot-Meg, seduce-and-distance Lady M, even whacked out Lucy Tisdale (maybe especially whacked out Lucy Tisdale)--they all called forth in him an unwilling recognition of divinity he longed to ignore. They were proof--cranky and bitter, but throbbing with life nonetheless--that beauty and truth, love and kindness, nobility and goodness could still survive in the long dark winter of a zombie apocalypse. They bore in them the wounded but inconquerable essence of God.
After finishing his cookie (and another, for good measure), Virgil set out on a mission. He would perform an act of common humanity long neglected in these unfortunate times. He would bury Lucy Tisdale. After thanking Meg (careful not to show his hand since he was now well aware that she was neck-deep in secret plots and dingo-raised Australian daughters bearing strange, comically-miniscule cylindrical packages taken from charcoaled hoochies) Virgil took his leave. He then sprinted to the old Tisdale house, lifted up Lucy's body and set out for the Plains--an empty wasteland Virgil had long sensed bore the promise of some form of resurrection--perhaps a resurrection of the human spirit, or maybe a resurrection of hope--it was fuzzy to his inner eye, but it definitely seemed resurrectiony whatever it was.
By the time he found a proper spot, the sun was on its way down. Zombie time. Virgil dug hurriedly, wishing he had more than just a spoon and those darn mantis arms of his to work with. After making a hole of about two feet by two feet, Virgil looked up and wondered if this whole burial thing really needed to be that formal. Maybe Virgil could just fold Lucy up, stuff her in the hole, put some dirt on top, and then say a prayer. The prayer was what mattered, right? Unfortunately, in looking up at Lucy's body, Virgil saw beyond it zombies, shuffling, mewling zombies lumbering toward him in the near distance.
Virgil stood. There weren't just a handful. There was an army. Not just an army. Legions. Selig Retsuc had sent his hordes. What could be so important? Surely not Virgil. Selig had had plenty of opportunities to kill Virgil and would have plenty more. No need to send this many to accomplish that simple end. Was it the girl? Was there something about her that Selig wanted? Something in her? Perhaps he had fallen for Lucy and wanted to make her his zombie queen. Suddenly, Virgil remembered one sultry afternoon with Lady M. She had been running her finger along his bare back, sighing over his Keanu-Reeves-like features (because, if you didn't know this already and you were perhaps interested in casting the movie-version of Zombie Apocalypse, and were a big-time Hollywood director, (because really, who has the time these days for B-Listers, this project is big) Virgil looked a lot like Keanu Reeves (only smarter))--anyway--Lady M was sighing over Virgil, telling him that even if she ever got mad at Virgil she would never be able to stay mad at Virgil when suddenly her eyes rolled back in her head, she shuddered epileptically and her voice dropped three registers. "I see," Lady M had said, "the One. A broken girl, pierced by an awful (if a bit shrimp-like) power, who must be shattered before she can be healed. She will turn the air into light and the light into hope for us all. She is the One." And then Lady M had spasmed twice and snapped out of it. And then they made love, because that's what people did when they weren't killing zombies. And because, even if she didn't want to admit it, Lady M totally had a thing for Virgil.
"Could Lucy be The One?" Virgil asked, speaking to no one in particular unless you counted the slavering legions of undead mutants jerking spastically toward him across the Plains. "But that would mean...that would mean, I let her die! It's my fault!" Virgil then spent a while feeling really bad in a way that was both meaningful and moving, but also strong and masculine, and handsome--but not arrogant. It was definitely not arrogant, since--as should be obvious to all you mouth-breathers, nose-pickers, and knuckle-draggers reading this entry, Virgil is NOT arrogant anymore.
After this very moving scene in which all of you gained an endless amount of sympathy for Virgil, Virgil looked back up at the hordes, who even though they'd been advancing at a threatening pace, had still not arrived and wondered how and indeed if he would survive. If he were Cam, there were even odds Virgil could have just lit up a stogie, slapped on a hero's smile and smashed his way through the legions by brute force. If he were Lady M, he could have simply gathered a monkey on either arm, snapped his fingers and disappeared. Meg, meanwhile, could have baked her way out of it, and Lucy--bless her departed soul--could have cussed her way through. Virgil, however, didn't think he could use his special talent. While sure, if he'd started talking, he would have bored at least the first wave to death, but eventually the horrible moans of the dying would have drowned out Virgil's voice and the next wave would soon enough be dining on his larynx. No, what Virgil needed was a miracle.
He waited.
No miracle. Just zombies. Goddamn, fucking zombies.
But wait, a voice--a still, small voice rose from the depths of Virgil's cortex. Maybe it would carry with it some profound truth, some secret wisdom to elevate Virgil above his circumstance, free him from his plight. He listened, even as he smelled the foul, rotting stench of the first zombies closing upon him. It was... it was... For Christ's sake, it wasn't truth, it was that frackin' pop song, that song which in 2009 made Virgil wonder if the entire radio-listening public weren't all brainless zombies. "Are we human or are we dancers?" I mean, seriously, how stupid were people back then that lyrics so profoundly moronic could perpetrate themselves not on a single listener but on an entire nation?
Of course...the song did have a good beat. He found his shoulder twitching, and then his right big toe, and then his left leg. What was this? Virgil, faced with the end of his being, with the prospect of being eaten alive by a thousand thousand foul-breathed, slime-toothed zombies, wanted to dance? Hmm. What the hey? He started dancing, dancing and singing in his high-pitched, nasal, stepped-on-baby-bird whine of a voice..."Are we human, or are we dancers?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold, and I'm on my knees looking for the answer, are we human or are we dancers?"
Little did Virgil know, but the precise pitch of his unfortunate voice was at the same precise pitch Selig Rutsec had programmed the zombie hordes to receive his commands, such that as he sang, they too began to dance. Now, if you've seen a zombie walk, you can probably imagine how badly they dance--such that as they danced they bumped into each other, turning the Plains into a giant zombie mosh pit. Strike that. A giant Bombie mosh pit. And...well...you can probably guess what happened next.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
ZA Chapter 12: Zombie Bacon
Cam Sparks finished shaving in the cracked mirror and washed the gleaming edge of his combat knife. He checked his teeth in it, not because he cared at all about his dental hygiene, but because he liked to see himself grinning along the edge of a knife.
Spinning the blade, he shoved it into its sheath like he was stabbing a zombie. V said he was going to impale his leg someday, but V was a thinker. Cam couldn’t hurt himself. That would be silly. His body knew what to do and he didn’t let little things like thinking get in the way of that. Cam only had one thought: See zombie. Kill zombie.
Or was that two thoughts?
He frowned and moved away from the mirror. Falling onto the bed, he slouched against the wall and looked up at the single window above him. It was shattered, of course, from the first zombies that fuckin’ broke in and got fried. He’d kicked out the rest of it and shoved another window into the sill, one he’d gotten from a Home Depot demo, but it didn’t fit very well. Every time the wind blew it sounded like that creepy M lady sucking in a breath through her teeth.
On either side of the window was a thick, sharpened steel sheet. Inset on greased runners, the sheets were held in place by a thin latch that, if pulled, would cause them to slam shut like the legs of a female power-lifter.
Cam grinned at it. He’d built it himself, and it made him happy. Of course, he didn’t have any illusions about his own safety. The zombies would get in. The zombies always got in. But it sure would be a gas to watch the first head pop off like a beach ball.
Cam shrugged his shoulder, raking it against the blackened concrete wall. The itch was back, and he hated it. He’d have to go soon, find some zombies, and torch them. And hey, he thought with a small kindle of excitement, maybe he’d stop by Meg’s house. She always had cookies, and Cam liked cookies almost as much as he liked The Cleaning Lady.
But first things first. He stripped off his olive green T-shirt, exposing the bandage that covered his upper arm from from collarbone to the top of his bicep. The bandage wasn’t white anymore. It had darkened to a greenish black. Pulling his knife from its sheath, he cut that shit away to reveal the mottled black crust of his skin.
Cam grabbed the metal garbage can from the floor and set it on the bed next to him. With meticulous care, he shaved off the layers of black rot. It was like scraping the scum off the bottom of a pan after frying chicken, and he made sure that every crispy flake went into the trash can. At first, there was no blood. As he got deeper, that black-green shit oozed out, but he kept at it, carving one thin strip at a time until the blood ran red onto his blade. That was the trick, the blood. The fuckin’ thing had only been the size of a quarter when he’d first noticed it. But it had stopped growing when he cut down far enough to bleed real blood.
With a grunt, he levered himself to his feet, went to the sink, washed and dressed the wound again. He pulled his shirt on, sat back on the bed and set the trash can on the ground at his feet. The blackened curls of flesh twisted like the little undead worms they were. Cam pulled a bottle of Everclear from the charred dresser poured some into the trash can, then took a swig himself.
He took his lighter, Delilah, from his cargo pants, clicked open the cap and flicked the flame on. He took another swig of everclear.
“Die, zombie bacon.”
He spit a thin stream of Everclear at the trashcan. It turned into flame as it passed over Delilah and engulfed the squirming skin. Cam stared at it unblinkingly as it burned. After a time, he shook his head. He was definitely too pensive today.
It’s like I’m goddamned Virgil all-of-a-sudden, he thought.
Jumping to his feet, he threw on his utility vest and shouldered The Cleaning Lady. He was hungry. He needed him some cookies. Yeah, and then some Zombie BBQ. That's the ticket.
He left his cell and went looking for Meg.
Spinning the blade, he shoved it into its sheath like he was stabbing a zombie. V said he was going to impale his leg someday, but V was a thinker. Cam couldn’t hurt himself. That would be silly. His body knew what to do and he didn’t let little things like thinking get in the way of that. Cam only had one thought: See zombie. Kill zombie.
Or was that two thoughts?
He frowned and moved away from the mirror. Falling onto the bed, he slouched against the wall and looked up at the single window above him. It was shattered, of course, from the first zombies that fuckin’ broke in and got fried. He’d kicked out the rest of it and shoved another window into the sill, one he’d gotten from a Home Depot demo, but it didn’t fit very well. Every time the wind blew it sounded like that creepy M lady sucking in a breath through her teeth.
On either side of the window was a thick, sharpened steel sheet. Inset on greased runners, the sheets were held in place by a thin latch that, if pulled, would cause them to slam shut like the legs of a female power-lifter.
Cam grinned at it. He’d built it himself, and it made him happy. Of course, he didn’t have any illusions about his own safety. The zombies would get in. The zombies always got in. But it sure would be a gas to watch the first head pop off like a beach ball.
Cam shrugged his shoulder, raking it against the blackened concrete wall. The itch was back, and he hated it. He’d have to go soon, find some zombies, and torch them. And hey, he thought with a small kindle of excitement, maybe he’d stop by Meg’s house. She always had cookies, and Cam liked cookies almost as much as he liked The Cleaning Lady.
But first things first. He stripped off his olive green T-shirt, exposing the bandage that covered his upper arm from from collarbone to the top of his bicep. The bandage wasn’t white anymore. It had darkened to a greenish black. Pulling his knife from its sheath, he cut that shit away to reveal the mottled black crust of his skin.
Cam grabbed the metal garbage can from the floor and set it on the bed next to him. With meticulous care, he shaved off the layers of black rot. It was like scraping the scum off the bottom of a pan after frying chicken, and he made sure that every crispy flake went into the trash can. At first, there was no blood. As he got deeper, that black-green shit oozed out, but he kept at it, carving one thin strip at a time until the blood ran red onto his blade. That was the trick, the blood. The fuckin’ thing had only been the size of a quarter when he’d first noticed it. But it had stopped growing when he cut down far enough to bleed real blood.
With a grunt, he levered himself to his feet, went to the sink, washed and dressed the wound again. He pulled his shirt on, sat back on the bed and set the trash can on the ground at his feet. The blackened curls of flesh twisted like the little undead worms they were. Cam pulled a bottle of Everclear from the charred dresser poured some into the trash can, then took a swig himself.
He took his lighter, Delilah, from his cargo pants, clicked open the cap and flicked the flame on. He took another swig of everclear.
“Die, zombie bacon.”
He spit a thin stream of Everclear at the trashcan. It turned into flame as it passed over Delilah and engulfed the squirming skin. Cam stared at it unblinkingly as it burned. After a time, he shook his head. He was definitely too pensive today.
It’s like I’m goddamned Virgil all-of-a-sudden, he thought.
Jumping to his feet, he threw on his utility vest and shouldered The Cleaning Lady. He was hungry. He needed him some cookies. Yeah, and then some Zombie BBQ. That's the ticket.
He left his cell and went looking for Meg.
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