Forty-five minutes after I turn my back on everyone at the mall, I get to the Graves’ house. I knock on the door. Barry answers the door. “Hey, Barry. Is Chi here?”
“Hey, Buck. Yeah, sure. Just a minute. I’ll get her.” He starts stumbling away but then he stops. “You want to come in? Have something to eat?” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “We got a fat lady in the yard.”
“No, thanks. I just want to talk to Chi.”
“Sure. I’ll get her.”
A minute later, Chi staggers to the door. “What do you want?” She’s wearing a skin-tight, dark blue pant suit and dark blue stilettos. She’s covered in bits of human flesh. It clings to her suit. It sticks under her nails. I wonder if the fat lady is still in the yard or if she’s already sang her final scream. There’s fresh blood between Chi’s teeth, dripping from Chi’s lips and chin, and smeared on Chi’s cheeks.
How can I have a positive self-image? I’m a zombie but I don’t act like a zombie. I’m a bad zombie. I don’t want to eat human flesh anymore. I don’t want to amble around, mindlessly doing this, automatically doing that, just because I’m supposed to. I’m not a machine! I’m undead flesh and blood!
“We need to talk,” I tell Chi, telepathically.
“About what?”
Something happens to me. All of a sudden I’m filled with an urge to tell her we can work it out. I feel compelled to tell her there’s still hope for us. My unfeeling body and mindless mind are crammed, jammed, and stuffed with an overwhelming need to stay with Chi forever! What’s happening to me? Is this how I really feel? Did I just need to see Chi to realize it?
“Chi, I think, maybe, we should . . .” I interrupt myself. I almost told her we should go back to counselling. I almost told her we should take a little vacation: go to some third-world shantytown and really live it down. I almost told her we should keep trying and trying and trying, no matter how trying it is. I try again.
“Chi, I love you . . .”
With her blind eyes, she stares at me, suspiciously.
Chi, I love you? That’s not what I wanted to say. It’s the albinos! The albinos are controlling me! They’re scripting my telepathic words! They probably even brought me here. I should have called instead. The albinos probably tricked me into believing showing up in zombie was the noble thing to do. I have to fight them! I can’t let them win! I have to take charge of my thoughtless thoughts. I have to write my own telepathic speech. I have to perform my own part.
I turn my back to her. “I’m leaving you, Chi. And I’m not coming back.” I stumble away from the house. Suddenly my empty head is filled with devastating heat. It staggers me! Fortunately, I always stagger when I walk so it doesn’t really matter. But I don’t know if I can take it. The devastating heat wants me to stop. It wants me to turn back.
No! I won’t! I keep ambling forward.
“You’re leaving me?” Chi shrieks, telepathically. “You’re leaving me?” She stumbles after me, slamming the door behind her. “You can’t leave me! I left you!”
The devastating heat crashes into me. I have to turn back. I have to be with Chi. I have to stay with her forever! If I don’t, I’ll be destroyed!
“I left you!” yells Chi, telepathically. “And I’m not coming back!”
I have to choose. Either stay with Chi and un-live on, miserably, for the unrest of my dark days, or be obliterated by the devastating heat.
Fine.
Obliterate me.
I’d rather not be than be this miserable.
With my arms outstretched, I lurch into the devastating heat.
Chi starts saying things. Things I don’t understand. They sound like a groan. All of a sudden I’m cold. The heat is gone. Now normal seems cold. Behind me, Chi groans. It’s a horrible noise. Desperate. Angry. Lonely. Pathetic. Something has happened to me. Something important. I’ve changed. I’ve lost an ability or I’ve gained an ability and now when Chi speaks, I can’t hear the words telepathically; I just receive a vague menacing threat implied in a furious moaning frequency; the same frequency to which living people are attuned.
I don’t know what’s going on. Why can’t I understand Chi? What’s happened to me? Have the albinos done something? Have I done something to myself?
I hurry away as well as I can with my severely limited mobility. Francis Bacon and the others rush up. They take up protective positions around me. Francis Bacon doesn’t look at his mother. Chi notices him and groans softly but Francis Bacon ignores her. It must be so hard on him. It must be so hard on her. I have a hard enough time feeling my own emotions. Francis Bacon, his friends, the two elves, Centaur111, and Guy Boy Man accompany me a few streets away where I stop after leaving Chi. Overhead, Fairy_26 keeps a lookout, ensuring no danger approaches. “Something happened,” I say, forgetting nobody can understand me, that everything I say sounds like a groan to them.
“Did you just say, ‘Something happened’?” asks Francis Bacon.
“Yes. Did you . . . ? Can you . . . ?”
“I can hear what you’re saying,” says Francis Bacon. He looks at the others. They nod in agreement. “We can hear what you’re saying now. What happened?”
“I don’t know. All of a sudden I couldn’t understand what your mother was saying. And now, I guess, you can understand what I’m saying. What’s going on?”
Overhearing, Fairy_26 swoops down and lands, lightly, in front of me. She wraps her arms around me, hugging me, happily. “It sounds like you just had a non-life changing experience!”
“I can talk,” I say, excitedly. “I can talk,” I say it again. “Fairy_26, in case something happens and I can’t talk anymore . . .”
“Nothing is going to happen, Buck,” she says, putting her hands on the sides of my face and smiling at me, happily.
“There’s something I want you to know. For a long time now, ever since I became a zombie and maybe even before that, I’ve felt like there’s a force pushing me toward ruin but I can’t feel that when I’m with you. When I’m with you, I don’t feel like a zombie. I feel alive, optimistic, and eager to see what happens next.”
“Buck Burger,” she says, tears welling up in her blue eyes, “you are the sweetest zombie I’ve ever met. If your son wasn’t here right now, making this incredibly awkward, I’d tell you just how much you mean to me and how I want to be with you for as long as you’ll have me.”
“Sorry,” says Francis Bacon, shrugging.
Fairy_26 and I embrace.
“Hi, guys!” says Melvin, The Cheerful Elf. “This is a wonderful moment! And I’m so glad I’m able to share it with you!”
“What he’s trying to say,” explains Ralph, The Pessimistic Elf, “is that we’re all going to die.” He points at the zombies staggering out of their houses and apartment buildings. He points at the zombies stumbling out of their cars and offices. He points at all the zombies, unmistakeably, heading in our direction.
Just when things were turning in my favour! Just when I had a chance! Now all the zombies in the world are suddenly out to get me. Dozens and dozens, no, hundreds of zombies are ambling toward us.
“Albinos are doing this,” I say, panicky. “I don’t know how I know that but I know albinos are doing this. Maybe they lost their connection with me. Maybe they want to destroy me so a revolutionary group intent on overthrowing zombies, like you, with ties to Guy Boy Man, like you have, can’t use me as a zombie on the inside, a zombie that can go places and get information that living people and supernatural creatures can’t. Or maybe they just want to make it look like they want to destroy me so you’ll think they lost their connection with me, when, in fact, they haven’t and when I learn your plans, I’ll, unintentionally convey that information to the albinos who may or may not still be in my head.”
Everybody just stares at me for a while.
Guy Boy Man says, “Either way, we still have to kill all these
zombies.” He pulls a grenade launcher from Centaur111’s saddle packs.
I don’t know what to make of all this. I’m not really an action / adventure type of guy anymore; I’m more drama; I used to be an action / adventure type of guy before I became a zombie. When I knew the truth and avoided it, I used to bash out zombie brains all the time. Could I still bash out a zombie’s brains? To protect Francis Bacon? To protect Fairy_26? To protect Guy Boy Man, who’s probably the saviour of the human race, and who just tried to take a drink of whiskey when he had a cigarette stuck between his lips? I guess I’m going to find out. I look around for a weapon. Ralph, The Pessimistic Elf, strings an arrow on his bow and takes aim. “I’m going to miss.” He lets the arrow go. It strikes a zombie in the forehead, dropping the zombie instantly. Ralph, The Pessimistic Elf, sighs. He pulls another arrow from his quiver and strings it. “I’m going to run out of arrows.”
Melvin, The Cheerful Elf, walks up to the advancing zombies. “Hi, guys! I’m really excited you’re here! I love destroying zombies!” He swings his wooden staff, breaking one zombie’s knees. The zombie crumbles to the ground, whereupon Melvin, The Cheerful Elf, crashes his wooden staff down onto the zombie’s skull, crushing it. “That makes a great sound!” He repeats the process with zombie after zombie.
Fairy_26 twirls up into the sky, stops her wings suddenly and, holding the front of her skirt against her shapely legs, falls, sticking zombies in the skull with her stiletto heels when she lands on them. She does two zombies at a time.
Centaur111 kills zombies in front of him with his bow and arrow; he kills zombies behind him by backwards-kicking them in the forehead.
Francis Bacon and the other young ones stay together, clutching their weapons: baseball bats, crowbars, golf clubs, and hockey sticks. They destroy a couple of zombies that make it past Fairy_26, the two elves, and Centaur111.
Guy Boy Man frowns, bites his lower lip, and reads the instructions on how to operate the grenade launcher.
I finally manage to pirate a handgun from one of Centaur111’s saddle bags. Clumsily, I chamber a round and click off the safety. Then, with both arms outstretched, I aim at an approaching male zombie’s head and fire, dropping him.
Guy Boy Man gets the grenade launcher going. Zombies explode in the bright and loud distance. “Awesome,” he declares.
We’ve been destroying zombies for a while now. Hundreds of undead bodies litter the street in which abandoned cars mysteriously burn and full garbage cans have been tipped over. We’ve hardly moved since this started. We’re in the middle of the street and zombies keep coming from all directions. They stagger over the lawns. They amble over the pavement. They shuffle toward us. They meet their mindless maker. A few sneak between the houses but it’s by accident so, even when they surprise us, it’s not especially good strategy. The albinos don’t need strategy here. Not now. With us. We’re too few. They’re just throwing numbers at the small problem.
“We’re never going to make it,” I decide, out loud.
“Nobody likes a pessimist,” says Ralph, The Pessimistic Elf, still dropping a zombie with every shot from his bow. “You’re absolutely right but that doesn’t make any difference.”
“We have to do something,” I say.
“I have an idea,” says Guy Boy Man. He drops the grenade launcher. Then he looks at the grenade launcher for a while like he’s not so sure dropping it was a good idea.
When nothing happens, he reaches into his ceremonial robe and pulls out a cell phone. He dials a number and holds the phone to his ear. “Hi, this is Guy Boy Man. I need an air-strike on this location. Right away. Thanks.” He hangs up the phone and nods at me like, “There you go.”
“But we’re in this location,” I say.
“What’s your point?” asks Guy Boy Man, frowning.
“The air-strike will kill us, too.”
“I never thought of that,” admits Guy Boy Man. “I was just so excited to call in an air-strike. I’ve never done it before.”
“Call them back,” I urge. “Cancel it.”
Guy Boy Man thinks about it for a minute. Then he says, “I can’t. I don’t want to give them the impression I’m indecisive. Sometimes, even when you’re wrong, you have to push on, otherwise people won’t trust you when you’re right.”
I look for Fairy_26. I see her in the sky, holding two zombies, one in each hand; she holds them by the hair. Then she drops them. Holding her skirt against her legs again, Fairy_26’s wings stop fluttering and she falls. At the same time the zombies she dropped crash onto the heads of zombies in the street, she sticks her stiletto heels into two more zombie skulls. “Fairy_26!” I yell.
When she hears me call, she pulls her shoes from brainless zombie brains and flies over. I explain the impending air-strike as quickly as I can. “It’s okay,” she says, breathlessly, smiling at me. “I had to do this anyway.” She twirls up into the sky, reaches into her pockets, pulls out handfuls of butterflies, and throws them. They find themselves and flitter away.
Everything happens quickly.
Suddenly the whole street beneath us jumps. It jumps and jumps and keeps jumping. It breaks to pieces. Except for Fairy_26 who’s airborne and hovering, we’re all on the ground, trying to hold onto something. Even the rigid zombies are rolling around. Is it an earthquake? It must be. In the distance, I watch office buildings topple. Around us, poorly constructed houses collapse. Car alarms sound. Broken fire hydrants geyser. Then I see it. It’s a giant! He’s running straight toward us!
Like I said, I’ve never seen a giant before. They used to be more common in Biblical times. Goliath, for example. It must’ve been some time after, that giants started keeping to themselves. Regardless, it’s an amazing sight! I’m not really good at guessing heights but this giant is probably hundreds of feet tall! He doesn’t even notice when he steps on houses! They’re just another place to put his feet. He runs toward Fairy_26 with something between concern and fury in his eyes. He wears white. It’s pristine. It stays that way. The debris he creates doesn’t stick to him. “Another member of our little revolutionary group,” explains Fairy_26, above the noise of everything falling apart and everything else being broken. A shadow falls over us. The giant crouches down. He crashes the back of his hand on the ground nearby, flattening a group of zombies who’d regained their feet and who were moving towards us with their arms outstretched. The side of the giant’s hand is too high for us to climb so Fairy_26 shuttles us up. Once we’re on, the giant lifts us up. When he’s standing at his full astonishing height, he looks down at us and smiles. It’s breathtaking. To be so close to something so huge. So powerful. To realize how vulnerable you are. How small. I feel safe now. Safer at least. There’s still an air-strike on its way but I’m in the hand of a giant and I feel safe now.
“He’s going to drop us,” says Ralph, The Pessimistic Elf. “I can tell he’s going to drop us. I don’t know why the rest of you can’t see that.”
I’m wobbling around in troughs that are fine lines in the giant’s palm. I’m insignificant. My existence isn’t worth noticing. How can I find this comforting? Isn’t this what I always felt miserable about? I always hated being a tiny powerless being. I always lamented others having control over me. How can I be glad this giant has taken control? How can I be happy to relinquish my well-being to someone else? I couldn’t do it with the albinos. Why can I do it with this giant? It doesn’t make sense! Is it merely because I can see him? Is it because he’s a friend of a friend? Is it because I finally admitted to myself I have no hope of doing this on my own and I need some sort of supernatural creature, a giant, to help me?
Okay, yeah. That’s probably it.
As soon as the giant scoops us up, Fairy_26 flies up to his ear. While she’s gone, I find a way to look down. Tiny zombies surround us. They clamour around the giant’s feet. They fill the streets as far as I can see. That’s me. I’m one of those ant-sized expend
able undead monsters. But I have a new perspective now.
I’m positive the albinos are behind this. Zombies would never be this organized, this intent on a single goal, if it weren’t for mind-controlling albinos. When I look back up, I see white traces streaking across the grey clouds. The white traces keep multiplying.
Before explosions bloom and blossom like orange and red flowers all around us, and before the noise of their growth smashes into our ears, the giant bundles us up in his fist and starts running. We’re probably heading for Guy Boy Man’s aircraft carrier. I don’t know if the giant is going to swim us out or if he’ll just take us somewhere helicopters can retrieve us but I’m confident that’s where we’re going and we’ll be safe there. I doubt we’ll stay there long.
Light and heat and debris crash into us and smash into us and I wonder, “Is this creation or destruction?”
In the dark of the giant’s fist, rolling over mountains of flesh and down into valleys of flesh, I remember Fairy_26 telling me she wants to be with me. In this shaking, breaking, blowing up, and falling apart world, it’s something for me to hold onto and I hold onto it like I’m a giant and it’s a handful of revolutionaries and I’m running somewhere safe.
TO BE CONTINUED IN
PIRATE VERSUS VAMPIRES
FEATURING DRAGONS
To learn more, please visit www.howtoendhumansuffering.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to thank his agent, Liza Dawson, and her husband, Havis Dawson, of Liza Dawson Associates Literary Agency, New York, for their insight, guidance, support, and friendship; Judith Engracia and everyone else at Liza Dawson Associates Literary Agency; Fernanda Viveiros for recommending ChiZine Publications; Samantha Beiko for her hard work and help editing Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos; Danny Evarts for the layout; Erik Mohr for its amazing cover image; Kelsi Morris and Zara Ramaniah for proofreading it; Kelsi Morris and Beverly Bambury for marketing it; Ashley McCallan, Klaudia Bednarczyk, and everyone else at ChiZine Publications, especially co-publishers Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi for pouring their hard work, time, and resources into the novel, thereby helping the author realize a dream: seeing it published. The author also wishes to express his gratitude to his friends and family.
Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos Page 15
