by Nathan Allen
It was mid afternoon, and all the staff were sitting around and wasting time as they waited for something to happen. A year ago Dead Rite were responding to dozens of zombie sightings every day, but due to the work drying up, as well as Z-Pro’s market dominance, two or three days would sometimes sail by without a single job being called in. On days like this, the staff on duty whittled the hours away by reading the newspaper, watching TV or, in Erin’s case, texting on her phone.
“Sure,” Miles said, tossing the paper aside. “What’s up?”
Erin held up her phone for Miles to view. “Would you call that big?”
Miles quickly shielded his eyes from the screen. “Erin, you really should warn someone before you show them a photo of an erect penis.”
He also thought about explaining what was and what wasn’t an appropriate topic of conversation for the workplace, but he then remembered overhearing Steve and Adam discussing amyl nitrate and glory holes a few days earlier, so he figured there wasn’t too much in this place that was off-limits.
“This guy sent it to me?” Erin said. Like so many young women of her generation, Erin had the irksome habit of ending many of her sentences in an upward inflection, making her statements sound like questions. “He seems pretty pleased with it? I just want to know if I should be impressed?”
Miles squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “I’d really rather not–”
“Come on, help me out here? Is that considered big?” Erin held the phone a few inches from Miles’ face, forcing him to look.
“Well it’s hard to tell just by looking at that,” he finally said. “How tall is he?”
“He says he’s six one, but we literally haven’t met in person yet?”
The surprise registered on Miles’ face upon hearing this. Some random guy was sending intimate pictures to a girl he’d never met? Miles lamented the sheltered life he must have led. Here was a whole world of courtship and dating that he was missing out on.
“I can’t say one way or the other,” he said. “It looks kinda big, but maybe he just zoomed in close. There needs to be some sort of reference point.”
Erin looked at Miles like he was trying to communicate with her in Klingon. “What do you mean?”
“You know, like in nature photography when they take a picture of a tiny tree frog. They place it next to a five cent piece to give you some idea of the scale.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea,” Erin said, tapping at her keypad to churn out a quick reply. “I’ll ask him for another one, but this time with five cent coins lined up next to it?”
Miles was about to explain that that wasn’t quite what he had in mind, but Erin seemed satisfied so he let it go.
He went to the kitchen to make himself a coffee.
Miles and Erin went back a few years. They had attended the same high school, and had many classes together. Erin was one of the pretty popular girls, and Miles was one of the boys that the pretty popular girls routinely made fun of.
He couldn’t stand her back then. He hated the way she and her friends would torment him, the way they mercilessly teased anyone with the slightest physical imperfection, and their over-inflated opinions of themselves. So when Erin came to work for Dead Rite last year, Miles expected there to be a certain degree of hostility between them. This quickly proved not to be the case when it became apparent that Erin had no memory of Miles whatsoever. As far as she was concerned, he was a complete stranger. Miles had occasionally thought about reminding her of their past association but ultimately, like the misspelled tattoo on Erin’s wrist, he decided it would be best not to draw any attention to it.
Since they’d been working together, Miles’ opinion of Erin had softened a little. All those years of trauma she inflicted on him was nothing personal. Someone in a position of power victimising a weaker person was simply human nature.
There was also the fact that Erin had grown a lot since he last saw her and become a completely different person – specifically, her body mass had increased by about fifty percent.
While some may consider Erin’s significant weight gain to be poetic justice for all the fat kids she ridiculed as a teen, Miles couldn’t help but feel just a tiny bit sorry for her. Erin was the opposite of an ugly duckling; instead of being a plain child who had blossomed into an attractive adult whilst remaining a kind and decent person, she was an extroverted, overconfident narcissist who hadn’t yet caught on to the fact that she could no longer use her looks to manipulate people the way she used to.
Miles was filling his coffee cup when he became distracted by the TV in the adjoining room. The volume increased suddenly, and all office chatter immediately ceased.
He stuck his head in the door to see everyone crowded around the TV.
“What’s going–”
He was immediately shushed by Marcus, normally one of Dead Rite’s more rambunctious coworkers. Like the rest of the staff, Marcus had his eyes fixated on the screen.
It was a breaking news report. The headline read “Toronto Rave Massacre”.
Miles had come in halfway through, but the facts and figures flashing up on screen soon brought him up to speed.
The single worst undead-related incident since the initial outbreak three years earlier.
Of the twelve thousand ravers in attendance, approximately eight thousand were believed to be undead.
The Canadian army deployed to bring the situation under control.
Authorities at a loss to explain how so many casualties could have occurred in such a short space of time.
The accompanying footage resembled something out of an apocalyptic sci-fi film. Thousands upon thousands of day-glo attired zombies were crammed into a fenced off area, while hundreds of armed guards clad head-to-toe in black protective gear patrolled nearby. Helicopters winched survivors to safety, and distraught family members waited desperately to learn the fate of loved ones.
“Man,” Elliott said, shaking his head with disbelief. “So many zombies.”
The first thought that drifted into Miles’ mind was how much money a job like that would net them. He felt a little guilty for thinking this during such a tragic event, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t alone. Sooner or later, every UMC worker came to view zombies as bipedal beings with invisible dollar signs floating above their heads.
“What is this, like, the third zombie-rave tragedy in the past year?” Erin said.
“This is the fourth, actually,” Marcus replied. There had already been similar incidents at raves in Paris, Johannesburg and Dusseldorf, although they were all relatively minor compared to this latest one.
“I wonder what causes it,” Elliott said. “Why does this happen at raves and not at, I don’t know, sporting events?”
“It’s caused by the drugs,” Felix said. “They deplete the subject’s survival instincts. Instead of running away from a zombie, the ravers feel a compulsion to hug it. The infection spreads incredibly rapidly. By the time anyone notices there’s something wrong, it’s too late.”
The latest update then flashed up on the screen.
Superstar Belgian DJ and SlamCore pioneer KoreKayeShyn believed to be among the victims.
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, as they learned that one of the world’s biggest pop stars was no more. Other than the sound of a few shocked gasps, the room lapsed into a deathly silence.
Marcus took the news the hardest. He was visibly distraught, burying his head in his hands.
“Oh man, that’s so messed up,” he said, his voice cracking. “I had tickets to see him next month.”
Miles gently patted Marcus on the shoulder. “His music will live on,” he said.
He wasn’t sure if this was what Marcus wanted to hear right now, but it was better than the trite, “At least he died doing what he loved” cliché. That was the emptiest and most meaningless of all platitudes. Stuntmen frequently died doing what they loved. So did heroin addicts.
Marcus was another relative newcomer to D
ead Rite. He was also something of a minor celebrity, having appeared in a popular soap opera during his early teens. Acting work had dried up in recent years, due largely to Marcus favouring nightclubs and illicit substances over learning his lines and turning up to auditions on time. His party-hearty lifestyle had superseded his interest in performing, and left him with a defective memory and a miniscule attention span. The Dead Rite job was the latest in a long line of menial, dead-end occupations he’d held over the past few years.
Adam then strode into the room with purpose and flicked the TV off, just as Bernard Marlowe appeared via satellite link-up to capitalise on the tragedy and inform the public there was nothing to prevent this kind of massacre from happening here.
“We’ve just had a call come in,” Adam said. “And it looks like it’s a big one. We’re going to need every single one of you.”
The staff quickly snapped out of their languor and sprung into action, collecting their equipment and piling into the minibus.
Adam jumped behind the wheel. He revved the engine and, after stalling a couple of times, screeched out of the parking lot.
Shortly before they were due to arrive at their destination, Erin’s phone chimed with a text message. She flipped it open to read it.
“Hey Miles?” she said. “It’s seven?”
Miles looked across to where Erin was seated. “Seven what?”
“You know, seven coins?” Erin looped a strand of stringy peroxide-blonde hair around her index finger as she spoke. “Um, thirty-five cents?”
It took Miles a few seconds to realise what Erin was getting at, and that her Prince Charming had come through with his reply. “That’s a bit bigger than average, isn’t it?” she said.
Miles lied and assured her that it was, although sooner or later Erin would discover she’d been short-changed.
Chapter 10
Adam opened the door leading down to the basement and was instantly struck with a barrage of pounding music. He and the rest of the team instinctively clasped their hands over their ears. That was the moment Miles realised just how effective soundproof walls and doors actually were. There was near-silence when they entered these premises a moment ago. Now they were forced to scream at each other in order to be heard over the thumping racket.
“Can we get that music shut off?” Adam shouted into Miles’ ear.
Miles ran back upstairs and had the owner switch the music off. He hurried back to the basement, just as the lights flickered on.
Once everyone’s eyes adjusted to the light they could see just what sort of establishment this was. It looked something like a dungeon crossed with a grimy dive bar. It had a kind of futuristic-gothic décor, with chains hanging from the ceiling, medieval torture devices strategically placed throughout the room, and mirrored glass covering almost every surface. This was not the kind of nightspot any of the staff had ever frequented, with the possible exception of Adam.
But the real eye-opener was the bar’s clientele.
The room was filled with kinky freaks in spiked dog collars and chain mail vests, leather chaps and body piercings, PVC bodysuits and gimp masks. Every one of them was kitted out in extreme BDSM getup, and every one of them was now undead.
One young female zombie was chained to the wall, halfheartedly struggling to free herself. Another zombie, a middle-aged man, had his head and hands in stocks, the kind of punishment used in colonial times – although in those days, it’s unlikely he would have also had his nipples clamped.
Adam did a quick head count. There were maybe fifty zombies in total, although the hall-of-mirrors effect made it seem like there were thousands. He was almost giddy with excitement, but refrained from showing any emotion; it was unprofessional, not to mention in poor taste, to derive pleasure from such large-scale loss of life. But he couldn’t deny the sheer relief he felt upon laying eyes on so many zombies in the one location. Dead Rite desperately needed a job like this to help stay afloat.
The rest of the crew viewed the club from above, barely able to believe what they were seeing. Many had walked past this place hundreds of times before with absolutely no idea of what lurked underneath.
“What do you suppose could have happened here?” Felix said, sweating even more profusely than usual.
“Who knows, guy?” Adam replied. “Maybe someone was infected when they came down here, then it spread to the others and they weren’t able to get out in time. It would have been pretty dark, and there’s only one exit.”
“Could be a conversion party that got out of hand,” Marcus hypothesised.
“Oh, come on,” Miles said. “Those are just urban legends. Aren’t they?”
Conversion parties were unsubstantiated reports of people coming together to deliberately infect themselves to become zombies. There had been isolated reports of this happening involving suicidal people, the terminally ill and extreme body modification enthusiasts, but the existence of large-scale gatherings that Marcus was describing had never been proven, and all evidence regarding them was purely anecdotal. But that didn’t stop the rumours from spreading, helped in no small part by sensationalised reports in the tabloid media. Some claimed it was done as the ultimate act of rebellion and defiance towards straight society. Others were said to believe that becoming a zombie was a form of immortality; a way of cheating death.
The Dead Rite crew set to work, carefully and methodically subduing each zombie and taking them up to the minibus. They were all relatively easy to restrain – made easier due to the fact that many were already handcuffed or in shackles, and some even had ball gags stuffed in their mouths – but the job still took over five hours to complete. They had to make four separate trips to the processing centre, but no one minded working the extra hours. This was the most lucrative job they’d had for some time.
For some of the more experienced workers it brought to mind another job they had undertaken a couple of years back, inside a sprawling mansion in the wealthiest part of town. That one netted them a staggering seventy-eight zombies. It was beyond belief – every room they entered uncovered more and more undead beings, many with little or no clothing. It was rumoured that the owners rented the place out as some sort of zombie whorehouse, although these allegations were just speculation.
“Oh. My. God.”
Erin’s mouth was agape as she stared at the elderly zombie before her, clad only in leather hot pants and a blindfold. His hands were tied above his head, and fresh whip marks crisscrossed his back. “I know this guy!” she screamed. “He was literally my high school principal!”
Miles came in for a closer look and saw that it was in fact Mr. Gordon, the principal from his and Erin’s high school days.
“Just when I thought this job couldn’t get any weirder,” he said.
“Oh my God, you don’t even know what this guy was like?” Erin squealed. “He was the squarest guy you could ever imagine? It was like he literally arrived in a time machine from the nineteenth century or something?”
The words were tumbling out of Erin now, unaware that Miles already knew all of this. He too was having trouble reconciling the fact that the nearly-naked undead pervert spreadeagled before him was the same man who frequently gave him detention for school uniform violations.
Miles recalled that Mr. Gordon often showed up to school sporting bruises and black eyes. He claimed these were sustained during squash games, but now he knew what was really going on. It seemed that quite often the more normal someone appeared on the outside, the more depraved they were on the inside.
A terribly inappropriate thought suddenly materialised inside Miles’ head. He knew it was so very wrong, but he couldn’t help himself.
At least Mr. Gordon died doing what he loved.
“You okay there, Miles?”
Miles looked up to find Elliott standing beside him. “Huh?”
“You’re staring into space with a weird goofy grin on your face.”
“Oh, it’s just ... nothing.”
/> The two of them untied Zombie Mr. Gordon and led him upstairs.
It was dark by the time they finally finished. Most of the staff were exhausted and just wanted to go home, but the job had put Miles in a buoyant mood. With the overtime rates and bonuses he was about to receive for today’s work, he would have made over nine hundred dollars. Now he felt like celebrating.
It was just his luck that the first pub Miles wandered into was filled with Z-Pro workers. If he’d known that, he wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the place. But he was here now and they had all seen him, and he didn’t want to look like he was trying to hide from them. He knew a few of them, since many were former Dead Rite employees. Dwayne Marks was there, along with a couple of others whose names he’d quickly forgotten once they’d jumped ship. They offered a friendly wave, and he waved back, but neither gave any indication that they should catch up on old times. That suited Miles just fine.
He went to the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey.
The Z-Pro guys (and they were exclusively male) dominated the pub, chugging beers, talking at the top of their voices and hitting on anything in a skirt. All were former high school jocks yet to realise that their school days were over. Aggressive alpha-males oozing hyper-confidence, but with little to back it up. They all looked identical, too – every one of them had tattoos covering both arms and a triangular patch of facial hair on their lower lip, and they all wore brightly-coloured polo shirts with the collar popped. To an observer this was a slightly unsettling image. It was as if scientists had taken the biggest douchebag they could find and cloned him fifteen times. Even Dwayne Marks now had a small cluster of tattoos on his forearm, displaying the early symptoms of the Z-Pro virus that would slowly but surely take over the rest of his body.
Z-Pro were the polar opposite of Dead Rite, who were a mélange of misfits, geeks, outcasts and losers; the ones always picked last. Z-Pro had successfully stripped Dead Rite of all their talent by poaching the best and leaving the rejects. Many of the defectors couldn’t wait to get away from Dead Rite – not only was the money a lot better at Z-Pro, but they didn’t have to live with the stigma of working for “a couple of homos”.
