I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  The scene on the screen shifted once again—this time to an outdoor shot of the Kitty Mobile racing through the desert. Kitty stood on top of the moving vehicle, singing her heart out and raising her arms to the sky.

  “Midnight Thrill Ride.”

  The audience sang along.

  Todd glanced over to Kitty and spotted tears making the journey down her cheeks. She offered up a warm smile to let him know all was good. He returned a slanted grin and winked.

  He knew what was coming next.

  The thrill ride faded and was replaced by a close up of Todd and Tom. Like unmatched twins, they waved at the camera.

  Video Todd broke the silence.

  “I’m not really that good at this…it’s why I hide behind a guitar most of the time. But Tom and I wanted to take a quick moment to say how much we love being a part of the Kitty In A Casket family.”

  Tom took over the narrative.

  “Since the Mengele Virus robbed humanity of hope, the only way I’ve managed to keep my sanity is to remind myself that I’m part of something special.”

  Focus shifted back to Todd.

  “Even before the zombies took over, you guys gave our lives meaning…made us feel like we were part of something greater than its constituent pieces. This video highlights only the beginning of our new world order. We have so much more story to tell, so much life to live…”

  Tom interrupted with a shout. “And so much rock to roll!”

  Todd shot a sidelong glance at Tom. “That was lame, dude.”

  Tom hissed, “Fuck off, man. You’re gonna ruin the message.”

  Both men turned back to the camera and stared with blank faces. Ever so slowly, smiles crept back across their lips and they said in unison, their voices filled with a genuine and honest pride…

  “We are Kitty In A Casket!”

  The band’s logo took over the screen and the audience began chanting the call to bring them to the stage.

  “We are Kitty In A Casket!”

  “We are Kitty In A Casket!”

  “We are Kitty In A Casket!”

  The band exchanged glances and smiles. Kitty wrapped her arms around Todd and then Tom before rushing the stage. She grabbed her trusty mic and belted back to the crowd, “We are Kitty In A Casket.”

  The audience roared their approval, and Max kicked the band into their latest song, “Gone”. Kitty sang.

  Standing at the cemetery

  Dark clouds feeling cold and weary

  But I finally seem to see clearly again

  A lonely tear hits the ground

  I know it’s time to turn around and

  Let your heart rest in pieces

  I’m sure you’ve been hurting too

  But this is all just on you

  I tried and tried

  But you never made it right

  You’re

  Kitty raised her hands to invite the audience to sing along. As she glanced over the crowd, she spotted Gracie. They locked eyes and Kitty blew the woman a quick kiss. Everyone alive in the Casket sang the first chorus together.

  Long gone goodbye

  At least I tried

  These ups and downs

  Will never make me cry no more

  Kitty sang the next set of versus solo.

  I don’t even know who you are

  You’re so close but yet so far away

  Never meant to stay, no

  I wanted you to want me there

  But you rather were anywhere

  Else than be part of my life

  No matter how hard I tried

  I wanted to hold on and on

  All these years for so long

  Never realizing

  You’re

  Again, the crowd joined in for the chorus.

  Long gone goodbye

  At least I tried

  These ups and downs

  Will never make me cry no more

  Long gone goodbye

  Don’t ask me why

  I tried to make you love me all this time

  The whole band sang the final refrain as one.

  I’m your blood and your soul

  Can anyone be so cold?

  Leave me out in the storm

  My heart is torn

  I am torn

  epilogue | betty

  Mud’s eyes cracked open. Dim light filtered between his lids, sending a starburst of light beams dancing across his vision.

  In a shock of pain, the pre-blackout memory came flooding back. His body convulsed and he sat up…

  …in a bed.

  “What the fuck?” Mud whispered.

  “There he is.” An unfamiliar female voice spoke softly; the lilt of her tone was gentle and easy.

  Mud turned his head toward the voice. A woman stood in a corner of the room, staring with wild eyes. She wore a fifties-era dress, with a modern punk flare and patent black Mary Jane heels. Her face was smeared and caked with dirt and blood, her hair a disfigured rat’s nest.

  “Who the fuck are you? And where the hell am I?” Mud asked.

  “Well, well…where are your manners, Mr. Mud?”

  Mud placed his feet on the floor. Even before he could stand, his head swam against a raging current of hurt. “I’ll only ask you one more time. Who the fuck are you?”

  The woman took a single step forward. “The one who saved your life…that’s who the fuck I am.”

  “Sorry, bitch. You saved the wrong man. I hope you don’t think I’ll all of a sudden feel like I owe you a debt of gratitude. I’ve lived my life with one very important rule…never fall for favors. So you saved me…big fucking deal. Don’t expect the gesture to be returned.”

  “Fine.” The woman turned and marched toward the exit of the room. “Reject the one woman who can help you take down the punks that did this to you.”

  Mud stood on wobbly legs, a rough-shod splint fashioned over his ruined knee. “Wait.” He swung his right leg forward, only to have it jerked back with the rattle and clang of a heavy chain. Mud glanced downward to see his ankle wrapped in iron. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Mud shouted.

  “Sorry, sweetie.” The woman offered a gloriously toothy grin. “I don’t know you enough to trust you.”

  “Unchain me,” Mud demanded.

  “Sounds like a song…and a damn good one at that. But no…fuck off.” The woman grabbed the handle of the door.

  “Wait. At least tell me your name.”

  She remained with her back to Touque and spoke softly. “My name is Betty Driver.”

  A brief silence overtook the room before Mud whispered, “Stiletto Overdrive?”

  Betty remained facing the door. “That’s me. Betty fucking Crocker with a mic and an attitude. My band should be the one playing the Casket. I plan on taking out Kitty and her cadre of punks, if it’s the last thing I do.” She shot a glance over her shoulder. “With your help or not.”

  Without another word, Betty opened the door, swished her crinoline-stuffed skirt through, and slammed the door behind her. The sound echoed on as Mud’s gaze remained transfixed on Betty’s image, burned into the retina of his mind’s eye.

  “Exquisite,” Mud whispered, and punched a pair of devil horns in the air. He dropped back onto the bed and sang a Stiletto Overdrive song at the top of his lungs.

  As the night falls

  And the wind calls

  He rises from the dead

  His bone thin arms

  And deadly charms

  Will fill your soul with dread

  His hand you take

  For the devil’s sake

  To dance the night away

  With rockin’ moves

  And undead grooves

  You’ll devil horn and say…

  Hail, hail, the Zombie King

  Drink his life and taste his dreams

  If it’s death you want, he’s got the thing

  To twist and bleed you dry

  Hell, Hell, the Zombie King
>
  His blackened gaze will make you scream

  You crave his touch, a deadly thing

  To weep and fear the lies

  Hail.

  Hell.

  The Zombie King.

  All hail

  To Hell

  The Zombie King.

  In your face

  With his slappin’ bass

  He’s dressed to the nines

  He tweaks a chord

  To an undead lord

  With a pompadour divine

  His dead white eyes

  And lovely lies

  Will steal your breath away

  A single kiss

  To make you wish

  The King was here to stay

  Hail, hail, the Zombie King

  Drink his life and taste his dreams

  If it’s death you want, he’s got the thing

  To twist and bleed you dry

  Hell, Hell, the Zombie King

  His blackened gaze will make you scream

  You crave his touch, a deadly thing

  To weep and fear the lies

  Hail.

  Hell.

  The Zombie King.

  All hail

  To Hell

  The Zombie King.

  The End.

  For now.

  Hell yeah.

  Teenage Wasteland

  By Jack Wallen

  Based on the I Zombie series

  The short story “Seven Minutes In Hell” originally appeared in ATZ: The Gathering Horde

  Copyright © 2015

  Published by Autumnal Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise noted, names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously (unless otherwise noted). Any resemblance to actual locales, events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without express permission from the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Edited by

  Sara Marian

  Beta Readers

  Pheebz Petenstine

  Katie Wooten

  Alina Maria Ionescu

  Proof Readers

  Karen Dziegiel

  Pheebz Petenstein

  Giles Batchelor

  Britta Victoria

  Tim Feely

  This first book in the Teenage Wasteland series is dedicated to every kid out there (young and old alike) who has had to survive. There may be times when the struggle seems too great, but in the end your efforts will pay off. Stay strong, stay honest, and stay true.

  one | seven minutes in hell

  The world came to a stop. Cowardly masses huddled in the darkness of their homes, hoping beyond hope that the tide of death wouldn’t wash over them. They all wanted their sad, pathetic lives back. Jobs, drinks, mid-life crisis sex…the blue and khaki army of middle class business drones lost their lunch, their stocks, and their hope as they wished to reclaim the glory days they never really had.

  That was them–the tired, hungry, huddled masses that comprised the majority of the survivors hiding away in their basements or attics.

  And then…there’s us; the other side of the coin. We are the future of the human animal, and we get bored. Even in the midst of the apocalypse, the tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings fear boredom more than the undead. The very idea of a life benign was counter to the soul of youth. We were the only hope of humanity. Our spirit, our energy, our joie de bieber would be that which would lift us above the cast-off trash of mankind.

  So we were and so we are. So say we all, and fuck the rest. We lived. We grabbed life by the balls and never let go.

  “Spin it, asshole,” Takki shouted, pulling me out of my philosopher’s high.

  I smacked Takki, hard. “Douche wrapper. Didn’t you see me just take a hit from the Thinker’s Bong? Dude, I had it going hard.”

  “I don’t give a shit if you were about to cure MV, it’s your turn to spin the bottle.” Takki pointed to the center of the circle of doom.

  Instead of letting the apocalypse take us down, the youth of the city opted to make a game out of survival. What can I say…we were that bored. When you have nothing at all to lose, boredom is little more than an invitation to play a rousing game of chicken with death.

  The game was simple…spin a bottle and wait for it to stop and point to your fate. No backing out, no do-overs. You didn’t survive, no one cared. We were all disposable now. So long as you remembered to empty your pockets before you took off after glory, all was good. Your shit was left alone until death was confirmed. You came back…it was all yours. Fail to survive, and your goods were up for grabs. My pockets overflowed with what remained of previous players. Knives, drugs, phones, money, a gun…I only snatched what I thought would truly help me remain alive. All else was left to doomkins, the newbies to the game, the ones who spun with the look of terror in their eyes.

  I grabbed the bottle and held it out to Mikko. She was my good luck charm, the only thing left on this godforsaken mess I held onto with even the slightest desire. It helped that she was smokin’ hot in that Japanese Sukeban way—like she’d been yanked from any given anime and dropped into my waiting arms. She was as badass as anyone playing the game…and she was all mine. Mikko kissed the bottle and grinned. I carefully placed the green glass on the wood floor and gave it a twist of the wrist. All other sound seemed to fade into the shadows to give way to the song of the glass against the stained and dirty floor. As it spun, Mikko chanted softly, “Ike, ike, ike.” She looked up at me with her evil smile.

  Somewhere my insides melted a bit.

  When the bottle stopped, everyone went crazy—everyone but me and Mikko. While all the other kids shouted and mocked me, I could feel rage boiling up my esophagus and punch through the roof of my mouth. When I could no longer hold it in, I shot my fists in the air and offered a primal scream prayer to whatever god du jour was most certainly not listening.

  One rule of the game was that once a challenge was accepted, it was removed from play. There was a single entry the bottle had, for whatever reason, never landed on—until now. The bottle clearly pointed to Seven Minutes in Hell. I looked across the circle to Mikko. A lone tear trailed down a cheek I’d kissed so many times. I wanted to join her in sorrow, but my reputation didn’t allow tears. I stared deep into Mikko’s desperate eyes. She subtly tilted her head toward the exit of the building. I shook my head.

  I wasn’t a coward. The edge was my life, and I lived on it with passion. Ever since Mikko and I had taken our leave from Asylum—even though it had only been three days—we knew life was a fragile beast and was to be lived to its fullest at all costs. We had been in search of what we’d assumed to be the mythical Wasteland. Thanks to a map we’d pilfered from Crowbar, the leader of Asylum, we’d found it. The place turned out to be less fantasy and more Mad Maxian Hell on Earth.

  We never pierced that veil. The second we saw the wall of dust and heard the unnerving sounds of death from within, we knew where the boundaries of sanity lay. Even though life was a game…I wasn’t about to make it my personal Kobiashi Maru.

  When I stood, everyone went crazy. Chants of my name rose to shake the rafters and peel the plaster from the walls. With a bow and a flourish, I spun and made my way to the doors of Hell. There were two—one marked Male and one Female. Beyond each door was a bed. Chained to the bed was either a male or a female Moaner. Zombies: the newest evolution of man, brought to us in stereophonic 3D-O-Rama by the Zero Day Collective. I stood before the doors, knowing full well which I would pass through.

  Takki rushed to my side. “Jingo, this is awesome! I knew you’d be the first.” He released a howl of a laugh and then turned to the crowd to recite the rules of Seven Minutes in Hell. “Beyond one of these do
ors is your fate. You must choose your path, and then you have seven minutes to find your inner awkward teen. That’s right, Jingo, you must dig deep, get awkward, and make out with the sweet, undead honey of your dreams. You have seven minutes to accomplish the task before the chains holding your undead lover are released and the door locked, sealing you within Hell. Kiss or be killed, baby.”

  The crowd chanted, “Mack, mack, mack.” I wanted to crush each and every one of their faces for enjoying that moment so much. Mikko stood in the front of the crowd, weeping. She couldn’t stop me; nothing could. I had stood up to every challenge the bottle gave me. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, turn tail and run now. This goddamn game had yet to best me.

  I grabbed the handle of the door marked Female and pulled it open. The first thing that hit me was the smell of rot. My mouth shut tight against an oncoming flood of bile. The zombie caught wind of fresh meat and raised her voice in an undead symphony of pleas. She and I both wanted but one thing…

  The door slammed behind me.

  …release.

  One of us would get their wish in seven minutes.

  Above the bed was a large, round clock. It read 9:37.

  “Okay, bitch. How do you like it? Fast, slow? You want to lick my teeth or just shove your tongue down my throat? I hope you don’t mind, I forgot to brush.”

  She writhed on the bed and moaned. There was no sexuality to the movement…only raw, unfettered, single-minded need. Another moan escaped her lips, this time accompanied by a frothy green drool.

  “I’m gonna hurl,” I whispered. The thought of getting anywhere near her mouth was enough to induce epic-level shrinkage. “Maybe the priesthood wouldn’t be so bad,” I joked. She didn’t laugh. “What’s your name, sexy?” A nervous, stuttering chuckle escaped my lips. The undead corpse turned her head my way and gnashed a set of blackened, broken teeth. Behind me, through the door, I heard chants of “Jingo, Jingo, Jingo,” rising and falling. I shot a glance at the window. The thought of crashing through the glass and disappearing into the night careened through my brain.