by Eirik Gumeny
In the course of re-inventing the internet, Japan accidentally found a way to raise the dead. While most countries would have stopped what they were doing, prayed to various deities—as religion was still valid at this point—and then shit their pants, this was Japan.
The internet had been powered by ghosts ever since.
“Good god,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “These steaks are delicious.”
Due to the increasing frequencies of apocalypses, the various heavens had been forced to add cover charges and dress codes, as well as patrol their respective borders more thoroughly than before. As a result, a large number of atheists and other “undesirables”—not exactly evil enough for Hell, but not quite qualifying for this new, more stringent definition of good, either—were denied their eternal rewards and, instead, found themselves tethered to their decaying mortal frames for all time.
Luckily for them, Japan’s complete disregard for the established policies of the universe freed those spirits from that never-ending boredom. As a result, there were a large number of vacant corpses.
With ethics no longer an issue—seeing as how souls were now not only confirmed, but, most assuredly, otherwise occupied—these empty corpses were brought to life by a rejuvenated USSR. The Soviets almost immediately lost control of the experiment. This swiftly led to the Zombie Holocaust and ended the world for the sixth time.
Amidst the widespread death, the ensuing chaos, and the newfound efficiency of the internet, the idea of coupling free-ranging, mercenary spirits with the marauding hordes of zombies managed to escape the collective thinking of the world’s remaining populace.
“Yes,” said the reanimated, rotting cadaver of a police officer, held together by duct tape and staples and currently being possessed by the ghost of Jesse James, “they sure are.”
At least until Chester A. Arthur XVII realized there was good money to be made in it.
Twenty-Five: Expletives Ahoy
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”
“Oh my god, why won’t it die? Why won’t it die?!”
Dr. Meola and Dr. Ramos ran through the hallways of the research facility, desperate for an exit and, hopefully, an extension on their lives.
“The door’s locked. The door’s locked!”
Things were not going well.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”
The roar of the atomic werewolf echoed throughout the building. Dr. Meola wet his pants.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”
“Alright, OK, alright,” said Dr. Ramos, his back against the locked door and his pants still dry, “we’re scientists, damn it, we can figure a way out of this.”
The wolfman roared again.
“No, no, we are going to die. We are absolutely going to die.”
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”
The beast’s roar was momentarily interrupted by the sound of a shotgun firing.
The shotgun went off again. And again. This was followed by a short silence and then another, significantly louder roar. Windows rattled. The shotgun fired one more time, and was quickly followed by a large number of high-volume obscenities.
George Saint, the facility’s janitor and appointed executioner, appeared at the end of the hall opposite the doctors.
Well, parts of him anyway.
Dr. Ramos’ pants ceased to be dry.
“I don’t want to die. Oh god, I don’t want to die.”
The escaped werewolf appeared at the end of the hallway, holding various pieces of George Saint. The beast reared up on its hind legs, its shoulders brushing against the ceiling.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”
The atomic wolfman growled and charged at the doctors.
“Ohgodohgodohgodohfuckohgodfuckshitfuck”
The doctors closed their eyes and clutched each other in a damp and terrified embrace.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck”
They could hear the beast racing towards them. There may have been defecating.
“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK”
There was a loud crash, wood cracking and glass shattering, and then silence. As near as the doctors could diagnose, there had been no further dismemberment. They were also pretty certain they were still breathing, albeit rapidly.
“What the hell?”
The doctors looked around. The door that had been impeding their flight was no longer in existence. There was a large hole and some splinters in its place. Beyond that, nothing but the vast, swampy expanse of the New Jersey Meadowlands.
“You know,” said Dr. Ramos, still clutching Dr. Meola and more than slightly confused as to why he wasn’t in little, itty-bitty chunks, “I really can’t imagine this ending well.”
Interlude: Thor, God of Chronological Narratives
“Been a pretty boring couple of days, hasn’t it?” asked Thor.
“Sure has,” replied Catrina.
The two of them sat atop the concierge desk of the Secaucus Holiday Inn, looking out across the empty hotel lobby.
“You think everyone’s week has been this uneventful?”
“You mean, like, ‘everyone everywhere’ everyone?”
“Yeah. You think maybe the whole planet’s just been sitting around on their asses going, ‘Man, what the balls. This has been one boring-ass week.’”
“Not the entire planet, no way,” replied Catrina. “There’s bound to be someone doing something somewhere. Most people are far more enterprising and adventurous than us.”
“I guess that’s true,” said Thor.
A grizzly bear wearing a shirt and tie and carrying a skateboard stepped off the elevator into the lobby and walked to the concierge desk.
“I’d like to check out, please,” said the grizzly bear, putting his keycard on the counter.
“Sure thing,” said Catrina, swinging her legs around, hopping off the desk, taking the keycard, and logging into the computer. “And how was your stay, sir?”
“Pretty uneventful,” said the grizzly bear, shrugging.
“Tell me about it, man,” said Thor to the grizzly bear. “I think it’s an epidemic.”
Twenty-Six: Meanwhile, Back at the Compound…
“The matter,” said Phil, “is entirely on our shoulders. It is our… responsibility to rise up, to take the reigns.”
Quetzalcoatl had been staying with the cabal of philosophers for nearly a week. They had been kind enough to give him his own corner of the basement and a Sunday newspaper, to be used however he saw fit.
He spent the majority of his time squatting against the wall and wearing the Business section as a blanket, observing the endless parade of stoners and liberal arts majors and listening to the various theories being thrown about. He also spent a good deal of time trying to identify the free-wheeling odors they shared the building with.
“But we cannot simply… impose our goals,” countered Bill, “without at least… offering the populace the opportunity to dissent.”
Quetzalcoatl had tried to be a gracious guest, but it had proved to be astoundingly taxing. The philosophers continually asked him questions that had no answer. They answered questions that weren’t asked. Quetzalcoatl spent one night outside and discovered that the cigarette and gum adorned sidewalk was more comfortable than his corner. There were beards everywhere.
“Allowing dissent,” said Syl, “is no different than conceding our argument… preemptively.”
Quetzalcoatl couldn’t pronounce or identify most of the food they offered. He had, instead, been subsisting entirely on Spaghetti-Os. Most of them thought he was doing it ironically.
“Yet,” replied Will, “we have no choice. To quell an uprising… that hasn’t even risen…”
Between the absinthe, the flavored tobacco, everyone continually pronouncing Proust correctly, and all the god damned tweed, Quetzalcoatl was about ready to clobber someone.
“Jesus fuck, guys,” said Quetzalcoatl, “don’t you stop? Like, ever?”
A basement full of heavy-lidded eyes turned to Quetzalcoatl.
“I’m sorry, Quinn,” said Syl. “I… we don’t understand.”
“You guys honestly believe you can change the world? Just by sitting on your asses and thinking about it. Don’t you?”
“I understand,” said Phil. “He’s testing us, trying to… gauge our answer to the… inevitable questions that will be asked of us.”
“I… buddy, I don’t even remember which one you are.”
“Quinn,” said Will, “it is not about changing the world… not about turning views to match our own.”
“Rather,” said Bill, “we are trying to suss out the extraneous distractions… to pare down that viewpoint.”
“We do not need to change the world,” said Phil, “merely discover it.”
“But all you’re doing is throwing around the same bullshit ideas. Over and over and over.”
“Only if you believe that they are bullshit, Quinn. It’s all about… perception, about how one chooses to view things and his belief in that conviction.”
“Ideally,” said Will, “if you’ll pardon the pun, we are aiming to discern the hidden meaning behind life, a perspective that cannot be… disputed, at which point everyone and everything will surely fall in line.”
“OK, OK,” said Quetzalcoatl, “I think I get it now.” He stood up. “You guys are just dumb as fuck.”
Quetzalcoatl hadn’t stood in a day or so. He was having issues remaining vertical.
“Are you… all right, Quinn?”
“Just peachy, thanks. That ill-advised drop-ceiling on your stairs seems to have cleared a few cobwebs.”
“Are you sure your brain isn’t just hemorrhaging?”
“Not even a little.”
“Well,” said Bill, “if Quinn’s little charade is over… I suggest we get back to the matter at hand.”
“Christ,” said Quetzalcoatl, “you’ve got all the vision of a toaster with one setting.”
Phil, Will, Syl, Bill, and all the others in the room paused to reflect on the statement, taking in all the possible connotations.
“Guys, no. Stop that,” said Quetzalcoatl. “I was insulting you.”
Twenty-Seven: Probably Really Itchy
Doctors Meola, Ramos, and Lalas stood in a darkened lab room, crowding together around the glow of a computer monitor.
“You’re sure we can track it?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Dr. Alexi Lalas. “In fact, we’re doing that now. We’ve been doing that for the last twenty minutes. That blinking light? On the map? The one we’ve been following around with our finger? That’s 37-E.”
“Oh,” said Dr. Meola, “right, yeah. I knew that.”
“Christ. You fucking girl,” said Dr. Lalas, “I can’t believe you’re still rattled. You weren’t even mauled!”
“It was a psychological mauling. There was, you know, trauma… and stuff.”
Dr. Lalas held up his shiny new cybernetic forearm.
“You’re a fucking pansy.”
“Yes, it certainly appears so.”
The surviving interns entered the room, pushing a hand-truck laden with various weapons and the coordinating ammunition. The interns were equal parts robotic implants and bandages, both terrified and terrifying. Judy, the one with half a face, was wearing a burlap sack with eyeholes cut out over her head. There was a crude smiling mouth drawn on it with marker.
“Judy,” said Dr. Ramos, “that seems a little…”
“No,” she said. “It’s not.”
“OK, maybe, but why a burlap…”
“That was all I could find.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw…”
“I’m fine.”
“Why would we even have a burlap sack in a state-of-the-art gene research facility in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
“You look ridiculous.”
“I am well aware, thanks. Fucktard.”
“That’s Dr. Fucktard to you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Judy sheepishly.
“Enough!” barked Dr. Lalas. “We started this… and we’re the only ones who can end it.”
He pumped his shotgun, the sound resonating dramatically throughout the lab.
“It’s hunting season.”
The interns were barely able to stifle their laughter.
“Seriously?” asked Dr. Ramos, raising an eyebrow. “’Hunting season?’”
“Well, yeah, I was, uh, I was just trying to, you know, fire us up…”
“Yeah, don’t…”
“I got a little caught up…”
“Yeah…”
“I thought…”
“Don’t do that again.”
“OK.”
“Thanks.”
Twenty-Eight: Bad Pun! Bad Pun!
“You know,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “Munchkins really don’t respect anyone.”
“Can you blame them?” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Even in death they were pigeonholed by the limited perspectives of the so-called ‘normal’ population.”
“No kidding,” said William H. Taft XLII. “I had no idea there were that many Ewok fansites out there.”
“You’re telling me, man. The internet’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “but no part of that really addresses the fact that the entirety of the cast of the Wizard of Oz is currently thrashing our apartment.”
“Well, actually, Vicky, it does,” countered Chester A. Arthur XVII. “The munchkins were constantly treated as second-class citizens during their lives. And, as we mentioned, even during their afterlives. It’s only natural then that, freed of their previous physical limitations and given a second chance, they’d see themselves as a kind of superman, and either act on this newfound power or simply lash out, losing all regard for their previously held inhibitions and what they had considered right and wrong.”
“You do realize that it’s Judy Garland inside the corpse that’s humping the couch, right? Not a midget and, in fact, one of the more treasured actresses of her time?”
“I was actually not aware of that,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“Yeah… Don’t have a speech for that one, do ya?”
“I do not.”
“Didn’t think so,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “Now, back to the matter at hand… Does this deeper understanding you have of the midget oppression allow you any kind of, I don’t know, insight into how we un-hostage ourselves from the Lollipop Guild?”
“I’m working on it.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII looked at the trio of undead construction workers surrounding the trio of regenerated politicians.
“We represent the Lollipop Guild,” growled the fellow in overalls holding a knife.
“The Lollipop Guild,” parroted the one with the crowbar.
“The Lollipop Guild,” echoed the one wielding a toaster with a fork in it.
“And in the name of the Lollipop Guild,” continued the first.
“We wish to welcome you… TO HELL,” concluded the third undead gentlemen, brandishing the toaster in what could only be assumed to be a hostile manner.
Chester A. Arthur XVII sighed and tried to hang his head in disgrace, only to remember that it was duct-taped to the wall behind him.
“How the fuck did we let them capture us anyway?”
“You know,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “I have no idea.”
“It just seems really unlikely.”
“I know, right?”
“Oh, man. Guys, guys,” said William H. Taft XLII, “I totally just realized the irony of this whole thing.”
“Huh?” inquired Queen Victoria XXX.
“’Cause they’re all blue-collar guys and we’re all politicians and royalty or whatever.”
“Yeah, that’s… that’s great, Billy,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“They’re rising up! Taking their vengeance against the aristocracy!”<
br />
“I’m pretty sure they’re not thinking of it like that,” replied Queen Victoria XXX.
“A couple of them are playing hackysack with a cat,” added Chester A. Arthur XVII, futilely attempting to point his head in their direction.
“Where the hell did they get a cat?”
“Oh, come on,” continued William H. Taft XLII. “You don’t think accidentally inciting a Communist revolution is funny?"
"Not really, no,” answered Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“You think they’re related?”
“What?”
“You know,” explained William H. Taft XLII, “like the Marx brothers.”
“Dude.”
“You’re the reason some animals eat their young, Billy,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
Twenty-Nine: Torsos-a-Go-Go
“Look, I’m telling you,” said Thor, sitting atop the Holiday Inn’s concierge desk, “Steve McQueen would win in a fight.”
“And I’m telling you,” said Catrina, sitting in a chair behind the desk, “Burt Reynolds’ mustache is more of a man than Steve McQueen ever was.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Oh, come on, admit it. McQueen was just a spoiled pretty boy. Burt Reynolds was the embodiment of badassedness in the seventies.”
“That owed as much to the Trans Am as it did to him.”
“Burt Reynolds’ mustache would kick Steve McQueen’s ass.”
“How, Catrina? It’s hair!”
“That’s just how fucking awesome it is.”
“That’s absurd,” argued Thor. “You know what, we’re gonna settle this right now.”
“Yeah?”
“Might even be able to make some money off of it, too,” continued Thor. “I read about some dude somewhere who’s renting out zombies to ghosts. Apparently ghosts’re getting tired of being the internet’s bitches and actually dumb enough to pay to be corporeal again.”
“Dumb enough? You saying you’re too cool to drop a couple dollars to live again?”
“Hell yeah, I am. Ethereal immortality is the way to be. I have had nothing but issues with this meat suit since I got it.”
