Undead Praise for The Zombie-Wilson Diaries
One of the best zombie novels of the year!
-- Paul “Goat” Allen, Barnes and Noble
Long, a prolific horror author, writes with graphic glee - repulsive details and way off-color jokes abound. If this were a movie, it would be rated R for revolting but it's revolting in a cheerful kind of way.
-- Barbara McMichael, Tacoma News Tribune
Zombie Wilson is the most fun you'll ever have with a corpse in a coconut bra ... and that's saying something.
-- Trish Martin - horrornews.net, Horror News
On the whole, I'd call this one a triumph. It's quirky, fast paced, and good to the last withered drop.
-- Scott A. Johnson, dreadcentral.com
“Something different for lovers of zombie fiction. A fast-paced, darkly comic tale with a hint—maybe more than a hint—of madness.”
-- David Dunwoody, author of EMPIRE
“A dog-rough zomedy that’ll have you laughing your (undead) ass off from start to finish. Daniel Defoe fans beware!”
--Wayne Simmons, author of Drop Dead Gorgeous
“Timothy Long’s Zombie Wilson Diaries is an addictive, engaging, funny, gross, no-holds-barred story of a castaway and the zombie girl he can’t live without. Don’t even hesitate to buy this one!”
-- Stephen A. North, author of Dead Tide
“After reading it cover to cover I fell in love with the story, so the five stars were well earned. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for something a little bit different to add to their zombie repertoire.”
-- Tonia Brown, author of Lucky Stiff
The Zombie Wilson Diaries
The Re-dead Version
Timothy W. Long
“Zombie-Wilson Diaries” By Timothy W. Long
Copyright 2011. Timothy W. Long
All Rights Reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
Editor – Stephanie Kincaid
Cover Art – Matt Edginton
Awesome volleyball pic – Lee ‘Goatboy’ Hartnup
Illustrator - Victoria Long
Dedication
For Victoria and Nicholas, the ones who make me laugh.
Day 3
Screw You, Paradise
Hi, Diary! I should have started this when I got to the resort, but I was too busy working and drinking margaritas. They went down like heaven in the heat. Not just heat but humidity. The minute I stepped off the plane, I was soaked to the bone. I have been in showers that didn’t leave me this wet.
So let me recap. Day 1. Arrived in paradise. Day 2. Crashed into paradise.
Christ. Every muscle in my body hurts. I woke up soaked and in pain. The sun was a blast of hell that ripped the skin right off my body. I can’t believe what has happened to me the last few days. I mean, this was supposed to be a simple job in a vacation wonderland. All I had to do was look over a resort and make sure they weren’t skimming money.
Instead my plane crashed and the ocean puked me up on a deserted island.
My old Casio watch died in the water, so I pried the bottom off and inspected it. No water in there, but it was still dead as a doornail. I tied it to a branch and walked away. No sense in keeping the stupid thing, so I used it as a Christmas ornament for some lucky savage.
The trees grew tall and had big old palm-looking leaves on them like you see in pictures of the islands. The islands ... where the hell did I think I was? Freaking Disneyland? Of course I had washed up on an island.
About twenty feet away sat a beautiful white beach. I found my cushion from the crash and carried it to an area that looked like a good place to sleep. The trees closed in like a little room and then opened into a space about ten feet square. There was a lot of dead vegetation, but I pulled some of it aside and found sand underneath.
I thought about collecting some palm leaves to make a bed.
I wandered along the beach and marveled at the beautiful location. The crystal-clear water, the warm sand, the tolerable humidity, and the fact that I was still alive. I had to sit down and take a few breaths. Said a brief prayer to God, if he was listening to me way out in the middle of nowhere. I lay back on the warm sand, closed my eyes for a minute and inhaled the humidity.
It was exhausting. I felt like I was in a sauna. I sure hope I can find help, assuming there are others around. This can’t be a deserted island. Is there really such a thing?
I got up, walked to the water, stared at it and stared at it some more. I studied the horizon for a while, watched the waves roll in from far away. They crashed onto the beach, then the water rolled back out. Repeat. It was so natural that I almost expected to see a surfer riding a wave. Hang loose, dude, and bring back some help when you surf to Hawaii.
Where did I come up on the shore last night? The waves had washed away all signs of my tracks.
Hunger gnawed at my stomach again, and I realized for the first time that I had nothing to eat. I knew from watching documentaries that I had to find water before anything else. If I didn’t have water, I would die. A body can supposedly go a long time without food, but not the wet stuff. I didn’t want to put that to the test. No thank you.
I studied the palm trees but didn’t see any fruit or cups of soup hanging from them. Walked along the edge of the woods until I saw a small stream of water, and tasted it with a cautious tongue. It was warm but clear, so I took a few more sips. The flow was just a tiny trickle, and I kept getting silty stuff in my mouth, so I followed it to a pool.
A sheet of water flowed down from the side of a mountain, forming a small waterfall before hitting a curved cliff about ten feet high. Then it filled the pool before extending in four or five directions.
I drank my fill and decided it was time to find some food. A little on-the-job training was in order if I was going to become a survivalist. I had no idea how to hunt down chow, but how hard could it be? People have been doing it for thousands of years.
I set out for the beach and scanned the area for some small animals or something else to eat. I looked for crabs but didn’t come across any. I then searched for wild animals in the bushes. Nothing. Probably wild boar in the woods. Not sure how to catch them, but I thought a spear might work.
I wandered along the shore and found a stick that was relatively straight. I was lucky enough to have a Swiss army knife on me. It had a blade, scissors and a file. I started cutting at the tip, but the wood was soft from being in the water. I strolled along the shoreline and looked for a drier stick.
That’s when I saw a shape on the ground.
I rushed to the body with a gasp. Another survivor. I hoped it was a survivor and not a corpse. When I reached the form, I saw that it was a woman. She was lying curled up in a ball next to some kind of flower. It had little blue berries hanging near a brightly colored center. Its long leaves curled upward and had serrated edges. It was pretty in a vicious way, like a tulip made for killing small animals.
I turned her over with a thump. Her mouth was full of the little berries AND foam AND blood AND, I think, seawater. It was so gross! She gagged around the mess, so I flipped her back over like my own personal flap
jack and hit her back a few times. Figured the berries were just stuck in her throat. She choked them out in a ball of goo that was none too pleasant. But then she turned her head and tried to bite me! What the hell? Why was this chick trying to eat me when all I wanted to do was help?
I jerked back quickly and shot her my best “Seriously?” look.
“You okay?” I asked her over and over, but she didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t move.
I grabbed her around the waist from behind and lifted her up off the ground, then gave her the Heimlich maneuver. I tried to be polite and not feel her boobs through the silky shirt she was wearing, but they were kind of in the way. Another wad of goo flew out of her mouth.
I let go, and she stayed on her feet with her head bowed down. The weirdest thing? She was ice cold! Now how in the world did she get that way in this tropical wonderland? It had to be in the high nineties. I felt like the sun was going to beat me into the ground if I stayed out in it much longer. If she had a stash of ice, I wanted some of it.
I backed away, and she slowly turned toward me. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, and she snarled. I took her wrist, felt for a pulse but didn’t find one. She staggered toward me, so I sidestepped and moved around her. Then I touched her neck and managed to leave my finger there for a couple of seconds before her head turned and she tried to bite me again.
What the hell was wrong with this chick?
“Hold on. Jeez, I’m not going to feel you up!”
She didn’t seem to hear me. She kept snapping her teeth like she hadn’t had a bite to eat in days. I was starving, too, but I didn’t try to take a bite out of her!
I held her back, my hand on her chest, and tried not to touch her breasts, but hey, things happen, right, Diary? In all honesty, I wasn’t looking to cop a feel, I just wanted to stop her from trying to bite me. That’s when I noticed something scary.
She had no heartbeat.
We did a weird dance as she tried to bite me and I tried to see if she was alive. I backed off and rubbed my hands on my shirt. She came toward me one slow step at a time, but I kept backing up. I almost fell down as my heels struck a rock in the sand.
Then it hit me. I remembered this girl from the plane. She was with some big guy, and she was wearing a tiny skirt that flashed her legs and a shirt that showed off her boobs. I looked at her matted blond hair and blue eyes—make that “blue eye,” since the other was white and oversized like a sponge trapped in water.
Her skin should have been pink, or maybe white from being in the water and perhaps catching a chill. But it wasn’t. It was gray. Putrid gray, like the gray of something that isn’t fucking alive. Oh Jesus, Diary, I was about ready to freak the hell out. I wanted to run away from her and find some help or a gun or something.
She staggered toward me like she was drunk, and for half a second I thought maybe that was the whole problem. She got boozed up on the plane, and now she was recovering from spending all night in the ocean. Sure, that explained the lack of a pulse, dead puffy eyes and gray skin.
She had the worst hangover ever.
I couldn’t really process what was happening, so I waked away in a daze to find the closest thing I have to a home. My half-deflated cushion from the plane. Hello, home sweet home. You certainly are pathetic.
A few minutes later, she staggered past my hiding spot and kept on walking.
I started building a barricade later that night.
Day 4
My Girlfriend Has Crabs
I might kill her today.
The barricades are holding up okay. I dragged some deadwood up last night and crafted a tiny fence. She walked into it, fell back and then walked into it again. This dislodged some of the wood, but I shoved it back into place. I sat in the shade of a tiny tree, and she walked away as if I’d pulled a disappearing act.
Not too bright, that one. Sometimes when she walked away, I would call out to her. “Hey, hey, come back,” and she came right back like she had a hot date. It was pretty funny the first five or six times.
I don’t know her name. No idea. I thought of making one up, but none really came to mind. Maybe Helga. Sure, a nice thick name to match her intelligence. I saw this movie once where Tom Hanks was stuck on a deserted island and all he had was a stupid volleyball for a companion. This dead chick is my Wilson.
She is dead, quite dead. No pulse, no warmth, and no blood flow. She has a couple of cuts and scrapes, but they are just little furrows in the skin. They are gray and puckered like weird lips. I wonder if they’re infected or something.
I’ve been thinking about making a rope out of old palm leaves and tying her to something. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just kill her, but then who am I going to talk to? I don’t have a volleyball with a cute smiley face drawn on. And if I kill her, how will I explain it when I get rescued? How will I tell them that some zombie chick tried to eat me and I had to take her down a notch by bashing in her head? I could show them the weird plant and berries, and maybe they could do something with it like find a cure for … I don ‘t know, being dead.
So with no one to talk to, I decided to keep her around. I don’t have a Friday like Robinson Crusoe. Instead, I have a slack gray face to tell my problems to. She was hot when she was alive. Those clothes cover some of her, but I can see her shape under them. I wonder if the rest of her skin is gray as well. Maybe under that tiny skirt, she is still as white as a virgin.
I should stop writing things like that. When I get off this cursed island, the book companies won’t want to hear about me lusting after some dead chick, no matter how horny I get. That would never make a good movie. Maybe a bad sitcom.
Jesus. Four days and I am already going insane.
Four days since I got here? Four days?! It seems like a lifetime.
How in the world did I end up here? I was pretty disoriented after I woke up on the beach, but I will try to recount the accident. If I wait much longer, I might have sunstroke and they’ll find my bones with this barely filled-out journal.
It all started when Cliff had emergency gallbladder surgery.
That they ended up sending me was shockingly poor management. I have about as much pull as a neutered puppy, and I’m about as scary as a wet paper bag.
But they needed a guy to go out there and look at the budgets for the resort, so that’s what I would do. Go in with my calculator, check out the accounting, act important, then leave and get a vacation out of the deal. I wanted Ally to go with me, but the company made it plain that I would have to pay her way. A grand just to get the plane ticket? If I had money like that, I wouldn’t blow it on a plane ticket. A new paint job for my car, maybe, but not a ticket.
They put me up at a spectacular hotel. It sat so close to the beach that I only had to walk ten or fifteen feet to reach the bar. Then it was a quick dash for the water, which was just as blue as blue cold be. There were palm trees everywhere, and I even saw a guy climbing up one to get some coconuts.
I was offered a massage after I got settled in. Asked if it was a man, because that would make me feel weird, but I was assured it was a woman. A beautiful woman, no less. Ally is a beautiful woman, in her way. I mean, she is a little taller than me and really doesn’t care about her hair like some of the model-looking girls I work with, but that’s cool. She laughs at my dumb jokes, and what else can you ask for? I also love the freckles that cover her face, neck and just about every inch of her body.
The lady at the counter told me to bring extra money for a tip. She sort of winked at me, so I winked back. I could spare five bucks if it was a good massage. I had one at the mall once, but it was by this big guy who pressed on my shoulders so hard I thought I was going to have his fingers indented into my skin for the rest of the week.
I didn’t care for the flight much. We flew into Port Jolito on a regular airliner, but getting to the island in a small plane that shook the whole time it wasn’t swooping up and down scared me to death. I drank a couple of beers and almo
st fell asleep a few times. Then we’d bang around and I would pop my eyes back open, afraid we were going to crash.
I think the pilot swooped down to the water a few times just to scare me. I could actually see things on the surface, like dolphins. Or sharks. Had to make a couple of bathroom trips since the plane was so tiny. It shook and shook. I swear I thought the thing was going to come apart.
The next day was a little bit better.
I hopped on a little puddle jumper (I heard one of the people in the tiny airport call it that), and we set out for the other island. I was all alone and sat toward the front.
The pilot kept his door open and sang the whole time. Bawdy songs about girls that I couldn’t imagine were true. He said his name was Mooney, but he said to call him by his nickname, Looney Mooney.
I told him I preferred not to.
He talked whenever he wasn’t singing, and he told me to head to the bar later so I could buy him a drink. I agreed but decided to hide out after my work was done. Probably safer that way.
The books weren’t as bad as I thought. I looked through them and broke out my laptop. I compiled a big spreadsheet in half a day and found out that the company was doing pretty well. Not much funny business that I could find. I dropped my results in an email and sent it off to my boss. He would be happy, and I still had a couple of days to enjoy the sun.
Tried to call Ally, but I guess she was out and about. I left her a message telling her how much I missed her. Then I ordered room service and had some rum while I watched the local channels, which were in the native language. There was some sort of variety show that had men chasing each other around on bicycles through a city that looked like a quiet place—except for these yahoos. I could see myself retiring here, maybe opening a bar and offering maps and advice to tourists.
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