I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]
Page 188
Pride, meet my stomach.
Audience, meet dead air.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Moan.
Look, I liked a good moan as much as the next guy — but this was just wrong. I didn’t get it. I wasn’t making a sound. Perfectly. Silent. So what caused Mr. Friendly to remain at my doorstep? Again my brain scanned through the memory banks of zombie films. Something … there was something, something tucked in some file labeled George A. Romero that made me think the fucker on the other side of the door could smell me, could smell living flesh.
That had to be it.
Without second thought, I did the Exorcist spider walk to the top of the stairs. Shortly after arriving on the landing, the pounding stopped. Sweet, blissful, blood-cooling silence. My racing heart slowed to a livable pulse. I dared peek out a window. The undead solicitor was slowly making his way across the street.
Dead air. Fuck.
Chapter 6
You’re listening to WZMB, Zombie Radio. Your personal soundtrack to the end of the world. That short blast of silence was brought to you by the walking dead. No, I’m not talking about the zombie-tastic series that ran on AMC for a few short years. I’m talking about the real deal, ‘cause one of those fuckers came knocking at my door.
The pounding was relentless. The moaning, the stuff of nightmares. But in the hellish horror of the instant, I learned something. It’s not just sound that attracts them. No. Somehow those bastards can smell living flesh. They can smell us. And just what does life smell like? I would imagine some would smell like patchouli, some would smell like moth balls, some like pizza sauce. Oh who am I kidding? These fuckbags can’t discern between sweet and sour, they just know underneath the skin of the living rests the holiest of holy snacks.
But somehow they can smell it. So if you’re faced with one of the rock stars of the damned, being silent as a nun post-orgasm might not be enough. Your safest bet — don’t get close enough that they can smell you. And that, my lovelies, is your zombie survival tip of the day.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
And thusly, the phone rings.
You’re talking to Zombie Radio. What’s your name and what ya got?
“We are the Zero Day Collective. We are the purveyors of the doomsday you see before you.”
Okay, nice try. Which piece of software are you using to create the creepy voice effect there?
“The human race, in its current incarnation, will not survive this cataclysm. That is our wish. We have forced evolution’s hand and we will corral and contain the human race.”
Well now — so you say you’re the cause of the rising of the dead?
“We are. And we have such sights to show you.”
And now you quote Hellrasier? Nice try, but my listeners and I are smarter than that.
“Are you? How are you going to survive? Barricading yourself inside a fragile home that will never withstand the coming army of the undead. You are one. You are weak. You will fall. The voice you use to spread lies and fear will be silenced. Our power is endless. The human race will be reborn and you will not be part of the plan.”
Okay … yeah … I think we’ve had enough of you. Isn’t it amazing how catastrophe brings out the inner freak in everyone? I’m scared. Some nut job with a cell phone and a voice effects app calls in to threaten Zombie Radio. Everyone, say it with me — impressive. Just gets you all a tingle doesn’t it? Makes you want to track down that fun-loving menace and dry hump him as the apocalypse passes by. Makes me horny. Makes me long for the days when the earth was filled with stupid. At least now the planet’s majority has an excuse for its ridiculously low IQ.
Okay, my lovelies, we need something to make us laugh. Zombie Radio Nation, send me your humor. Make me laugh. I want jokes. I want puns. I want all of you merry pranksters out there to hit me with your best shot.
And they begin to roll in. Let’s take a read.
Zombie Radio, a haiku for you: Zombies came calling. They refused tea and crumpets. I’m losing my mind! Thank you for everything, Sandy from Brighton, UK.
Well, Sandy from Brighton, UK, you know I love a good haiku and that one was just tops.
And we have another phone call. The masses have spoken and Zombie Radio is a hit of epic proportions! You’re talking to Zombie Radio. What’s your name and what ya got?
“We are the Zero Day Collective — .”
Okay, you didn’t get it the first time around did you? I’m not playing along.
“This is not a game.”
That’s right, it’s not. Why? Because I’m ending it right here and now. I’m angry. The last thing the Zombie Radio Nation needs is an angry DJ. Who knows, I might start spinning hours of nothing but speed and death metal. Although it seems the sub-genres are the single most fitting styles of music to be played now. Bands like A Different Breed of Killer, Abaddon Incarnate, Abscess, Abysmal Torment, Acid Bath, Edge of Sanity, The Faceless, Good Macabre, Hate Eternal, and Impaled. Wouldn’t that just shit the bed for you? It’s a zombie attack outside and an aural assault inside. You’d never escape the pain and suffering of the ultimate torture.
My lovely listeners, I speak to you from the past, present, and future. My voice rains down upon you like a thread of order in a whirlwind of chaos. You have not gone to sleep and you are not having a horrible nightmare. What you see outside your windows is real. The sound of flesh tearing and bone breaking is the new world order. We are no longer at the top of the food chain. We are the hunted. Will we survive?
I found a rather interesting passage in Jacob Plummer’s ‘I Zombie I’. Let me read it to you.
“I woke up in the middle of the night. Well, I assumed it was night; I really had no idea. I was covered in sweat and had been jolted awake by possibly the most disturbing dream I had ever had. I was walking down some street—I had no idea where the street was—when there was a flash of light. A naked woman came up to me as if to kiss me, which is exactly what she did. However, as she was kissing me, she bit me hard enough to draw blood. The woman then vanished.
I started walking again, and as I did, pieces of me started falling off. As each piece fell off, I picked it up and ate it. As I swallowed each piece of myself, they each regenerated. I did this until my lower jaw fell off. Of course, I couldn’t eat my jaw because, well, I no longer had a jaw to chew with. At that point, I was overcome with shocking pain. I couldn’t even scream. The only sound I could produce was a horrific moan.
That was when I woke up. Fortunately, my jaw was still intact. I was soaked with my own drool, but at least I could chew.”
That, my dear listeners, is what we’re all in for. Just makes you proud to be a part of the race that wrought this plague of hate. What is really surprising is how little we know. What exactly do we know? We have a book that is supposedly the handbook for surviving the apocalypse. We have a group, the Zero Day Collective, claiming responsibility for the Mengele Virus. That’s pretty much it. We have no idea why gray ash is falling from the sky. We have no idea why the dead are rising. We have no idea how to stop the dead from rising. And we have no idea why this has happened. Regardless of who, what would anyone have to gain by destroying mankind? Money? Power? Well, if the race of man is destroyed, what are power and money going to do for you?
Answer me, Zero Day Collective. If you really are the Purveyors of Doom, then what good can come of wiping us out? Did you stop to think about that before you threatened the Zombie Radio Nation with your Darth Vader Voice Activator sound effects machine? I didn’t think so. And for you, I have the perfect song to play. The song is ‘Thunder Underground’ by Ozzie Osbourne.
I actually cued up a couple of other songs behind the madman, to afford me a bit of extra time. Otherwise there was no way I was going to get those windows boarded up before the horde made their way to my cranium. The daylight was waning and I didn’t want to have to spend my nights in the dark to avoid attracting the beasts.
> It was really kind of sad to not be able to crank Ozzy up to eleven. The man’s voice just begged to be loud, pleaded to make your ears bleed. But with the shambling horde within earshot, the Ozman would have to settle for a paltry five on the Richter scale.
As for me? Time for me to go all Christ the Carpenter on my house and nail some boards. Once the windows were taken care of, I’d have to figure out what to do with the front door. I wasn’t concerned that zombies were all of a sudden going to figure out how to pick locks or even that an undead locksmith was going to come along and whip out some undead master key. But it wouldn’t hurt to cover up the glass on the door and re-enforce the door jamb.
Before I reached the bottom of the stairwell, the screeching of tires threatened to knock me on my ass and yank my heart from my chest. I was fairly confident the undead did not drive. But that sound was certainly going to drive the undead right to my door step.
Dare I say “Fuck”?
Before I could get back upright, another screeching sliced through the air and brought the hair on my arms to attention. This new screeching was not that of tires or of the living dead. This scream was living female; and from the sounds of it, she was out of her mind. Bat shit crazy, as it were.
Somehow, by some stretch of imagination or luck, the woman was immediately drawn to my house. No sooner was I ready to peek out the window in the door than was she practically pounding through the wood with her bare fists. I peeked anyway.
“Let me in! Oh God, let me in! Please, you have to help me! Please!” The desperate screams crossed the threshold.
Dilemma. Dare I open the door and risk allowing an unknown entity into the sanctity of safety? My last Bastian of security and hope for life could be threatened.
“Help me! Please!” A level of insanity cracked through the woman’s voice.
She knew I was here. How? The only thing I could think of was the music. Ozzie gave me away.
Somehow, humanity managed to sneak attack my heart, causing my brain to send my hand to the door knob. There was still some hesitation being sent from somewhere deep in my subconscious. I wanted to survive this shit storm and survival meant traveling in packs of me.
“Fuck! Let me in!”
But there was a woman on the other side of the door. And, if I may add a bit of shallow man-tasm here — she was smokin’ hot.
With caution duly tossed out the window, I turned the lock on the door knob and gave it a twist. As soon as the door was released from the shackles of dead-bolt-dom, the door crashed open and in flew the hottie.
As quickly as the door slammed open, I had it slammed shut and both the handle and deadbolt locking out the apocalypse. Note to self: mention deadbolts and the apocalypse on air. Funny stuff.
The woman remained sprawled on my floor, spasms of hysteria causing her body to do a sort of horizontal wacky pop dance. I wanted to bend down and see if she was okay, but the last time I got that close to a hysterical woman, I nearly lost a hand.
She screamed and reached out her hand to me, as if she wanted me to take hold. After she screamed again it was clear I had no choice but to comply.
I knelt down and grabbed her hand. “Are you okay?”
Upon hearing my question, the screaming abated, only to be replaced by body wracking sobs. Her breasts heaved.
Breasts.
It’s been a while.
Did I mention she was hot? And a red head?
Ozzy stopped screeching.
INXS took over with ‘Beautiful Girl’.
Good God was there no end to the irony?
“You’re not hurt are you?” I inched closer to place a hand on her shoulder.
“No. But … but … ” Before she could finish her sentence, the gut wrenching sobs began again.
As much as I hated to think about it, I had to try to quickly calculate how much time I had before dead air threatened to make mockery of me and my craft. I was fairly certain I was safe.
“It’s okay. If you don’t want to talk you can just sit until you’re ready. Would you like some water or something to eat?” I was always taught to offer a beverage to a guest.
“Yes. Please.” My guest had manners. Even in the midst of the apocalypse, graciousness could survive.
Christ, I was turning into Martha fucking Stewart. Maybe I should get back on the air and teach the Zombie Radio Nation how to knit cozies and fold napkins into fun shapes. Bwahaha!
I helped the woman to her feet. Gravity decided to make a travesty of her mascara. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips cracked. She looked at me with the most stunning green eyes. The emerald of her irises yanked the breath from my lungs.
“My name is Alexa. I drove in from Portland to find my sister. She’s gone. I went to her apartment and … and … ”
She didn’t have to tell me what came next. There was loss behind her eyes. Pain drove the emerald green into wells of hopelessness. All I could think of was wrapping my arms around the woman to give her some human comfort.
“They came at me. One of them got its cold hands in my hair. I don’t know how I managed to get away, but I got in my car and took off. I had no idea where I was going, I just drove. A few blocks down the street I crashed into a group of them. I thought I killed them.” Alexa’s voice was breaking up again. “But they chased after me. The crash must have done something to my car, because it stalled. That’s when … ”
Gravity forced the woman back down to her knees. This was not going to be easy. I was so not prepared or trained to drag humanity from the muck and mire of insanity. I was put on this planet to make people laugh and listen to music, make them rethink their personal points of view.
Plus INXS had already transitioned into ‘All I Wanted’ by Paramore. My last song before dead air would strike again.
“Alexa, let me help you up. We’ll go into the kitchen, fix you something to eat and drink, and you tell me everything you want … or nothing at all. Can you do that for me?”
The lovely woman nodded. We were getting somewhere. Again she reached her hand up to me and I helped her to her feet. When she looked at me, snot was pouring from her nose and her eyes blinked like the wings of a hummingbird.
“Could I take a shower or something first?” Her innocent question broke my heart a bit.
Without even asking, I pulled Alexa to me and gave her a hug. I had no idea if she would freak out and shank me, but it seemed the right thing to do. I hit pay dirt when her arms returned the favor and squeezed hard.
“Thank you,” was all she said.
“The shower is down the hall behind you and to the right. Take as much time as you need. When you’re done I’ll be upstairs.” I pulled out of the hug to see Alexa almost smile. “I have to warn you, I’m a DJ. I run a radio station from upstairs. If you come upstairs and hear me talking, I’m not crazy. Just wait until you hear music before you speak. ‘K?”
Alexa nodded, turned, and padded off to the shower. I couldn’t help but watch her walk away. I’m sure she was used to it. After all, the view from …
I couldn’t even say it. Somehow humanity had a grip on my libido and was strong-arming me into behaving.
Fuck my overstuffed heart!
The bridge for ‘All I Wanted’ was about to finish. Time to get back to my lair.
At my desk my email client was silently screaming at me that I had messages. The content of those messages was about as depressing as a funeral dirge played at a divorce hearing. Reports of the destruction of entire city populations. These had to be read on air. Shit. It seemed I was going to be the perpetual bearer of bad news. The world was going to grow to really hate my ass.
Annnnnnd …
Chapter 7
You’re listening to WZMB, Zombie Radio. Your personal soundtrack to the end of the world. That was one of my favorite little punk-princess fronted bands, Paramore singing ‘All I Wanted’. And what I want is for Hayley Williams to stop by for some scones and tea and chat about what it is she really wants.
The following cities across the United States are now uninhabitable: Tulsa Oklahoma; Tallahassee, Tennessee; Glendale California; Gary, Indiana; and Richmond Virginia. Those cities have had their entire populations either eaten or infected and are to be avoided.
Entire fucking cities are gone. Let’s do this math. If I take the time to Google the populations of these cities and then add them together, I come up with one million ninety-eight thousand three hundred and fifty people. I know not every one of those men, women, and children were turned into the walking dead, but even if only half of them were infected, that’s … well, I’ll let you do that math.
Zombie Radio Nation, do we really know what we’re up against? Are we survivors prepared to go up against the might of the walking damned?
What am I saying? Of course we are! There’s no way in hell we’re going to let a group of aimless monsters take down the race of man. And as for this Zero Day Collective laying claim to the creation of Man 2 dot 0, I have something to say directly to you. If you truly exist, then you are just another incarnation of ‘The Man’ and you will never win. The shirt-tucking, blue and khaki army will never take down the Zombie Radio Nation. We are a band of misfits with one goal — to rise up against you and your fucking kind. We hate you. We live to bring you down, strip you of your power, and take back the souls you stole.
The human race has overcome more than this: Nazi Germany, Rwanda, terrorism, tsunamis, The Black Plague, Wall Street scandals, the Republican National Convention. Do you really think an army of mindless moaners stand a chance against a resolve as strong as ours?