But never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect to receive a call from the IRS.
What a silly oversight on my part. Of course this is how it would go down. Of course it would be the IRS who showed up at my door. In order to hide my activities, I used strong encryption on my communications and Bart’s identity when a real name was required. I used an educational foundation I’d set up many years ago to launder the money I spent.
But clearly, somewhere I’d goofed, and the government bean counters were all over it. They could care less that I perfectly fit the profile of a madman who wanted to end the world. What they cared about was getting their money. They didn’t see me as a mysterious, reclusive genius who had already invented the most frightening technology on earth. They saw me as a billionaire, and wanted to make sure they got every last penny they could.
These agents expected me to resist them. There was a smug look on their faces, not too dissimilar to the way Bart and Johnny used to look before they grabbed me for a lunchtime swirly. These guys got a kick out of their role as the bully, and wanted me to fear them.
I’d play along.
“Now isn’t the best time, Agent Stamps,” I said. “I’m in the middle of some important work.”
“Dr. Frye, we have a warrant to search your premises for any and all financial records for the last ten years. It would be better for you if you cooperated,” said Agent Martin. As he spoke, he twisted his torso ever so slightly, giving me a clear glimpse of the sidearm that was strapped underneath his jacket.
What a dork.
Ten years of records. That’s what the armored truck was for. These gentlemen were here to load up that truck with whatever paperwork they could find on my property. Skinny Agent Stamps was probably the accountant who knew what to look for. Burly Agent Martin was the one who would move all the boxes.
“Well then,” I said. “I don’t want any trouble, gentlemen. I’ll open the gate and we all can go inside.”
“That sounds good, Dr. Frye,” said Agent Stamps.
A moment later, I was leading a black armored truck with two IRS agents into my compound. I drove them right past the main home, right past the house where Bart and Erica lived, and into the driveway of the casita. As the three of us walked up to the front door, I could almost hear Snick, Plick, Whick, and Quee in the basement, licking their lips at the smell of all this fresh meat.
Bart
I opened the armrest compartment to see if there was any music to listen to—the radio goes dead for long stretches once you get north of Cruces. I didn’t find any CDs, but I did find a baggie with a tiny, tiny amount of crumbly, stale weed inside. Sweet Jesus, I’d stolen a ride with a bag of pot. Naturally, I had to pull off to the side of the road and search the whole car. I didn’t find any more than was in that one baggie, and I didn’t find any papers to roll it with, but I did find a wad of cash in the cup holder. I peeled a one dollar bill off the wad and used it as a smoking paper.
It was the most pathetic joint I’ve ever put in my mouth. Did nothing at all for me except piss me off even more, and when it was done, I was more stoked than ever to go home and kill Timothy.
After I got a green chile cheeseburger.
I was driving through San Antonio, NM, after all. Have you ever been there? You’ve got the Owl Café on one side of the street, and Manny’s Buckhorn Tavern on the other. Fucking sweet, both of them, especially after a good smoke.
I certainly hadn’t had a good smoke, but I did have twenty-two dollars left from that cash in the cupholder, and that was more than enough to get me a green chile cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke at Manny’s.
Yum.
Timothy
“Excuse me for asking, Dr. Frye,” said Agent Stamps, “but why are we coming to this little house? Who lives in the big one?”
“I live in all the houses,” I said as I opened the front door and ushered the IRS agents inside. “We can go to the big house next if you’d like. But I thought we should start here if you want to see my records. I keep them in the basement.”
Agents Stamps and Martin stood in place, looking over the front room of the guest house with suspicion. The ground floor of Casita de Zombie was an observation deck where I watched the behavior of my seven little pets using a bank of TV monitors on the far wall (all of which were turned off at the moment). There were three bookcases of my notes, a computer desk, and six industrial refrigerators in which I stored the biohazardous material that made my zombies who they were.
I reached into one of those refrigerators and retrieved two bottles of water.
“Gentlemen?” I said, pushing both bottles their way.
“No thank you, Dr. Frye,” said Agent Martin. “We’d just like to see your tax records.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “I get the feeling you might be here for awhile.”
“Dr. Frye, your records, please.”
I sighed, and put the water bottles back in the fridge.
“Of course,” I said. “Please follow me.”
I led them down the near hall and into the stairwell to the basement. I walked slowly, making sure neither of them was too far behind. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, and they saw the sliding steel doors, controlled by keypad, Agent Stamps said, “This is an awful lot of security for document storage, don’t you think, Dr. Frye?”
I hung my head as if shamed, and said quietly, “I really think I should have my lawyer here. Do you think--”
“Your lawyer will help you after we’ve left, Doctor,” said Agent Stamps. “Remember, we have a warrant.”
“Yes, but, you’d never be able to get into this room unless I keyed in the code for you,” I said. “Maybe now is the time to start talking about a plea bargain.”
“Now is the time to open the door,” said Agent Martin. “You can open the door for us, or we can call in a wrecking crew to tear down this house so we can get into the basement.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” I said. “I just want it to be noted that I’m cooperating.”
“It is noted,” said Agent Stamps. “Now let us in so we can get started.”
Shaking my head like a man full of regret, I went to the keypad and punched in one of the prime numbers of the Zeeman series. The first set of steel doors opened. I led my guests inside. Agent Martin chuckled as the doors closed behind us.
“Dr. Frye, I’ve seen some people go to great lengths to hide things, but this…”
He never got to finish the sentence. With the first set of doors fully closed behind us, the second set opened, and the three of us were staring at a room full of zombies.
The IRS Agents were slow to react—I can only imagine what they thought they might be looking at. On first glance, maybe they thought I had slaves in here working the records room. Or maybe right away they realized these weren’t records at all, that I had taken them someplace heinous and foul.
Whatever they thought, they did nothing, and getting behind them was easy. As six of my seven ghouls came barreling at us (Blick never did develop a taste for flesh, or anything else), I slipped behind Agent Stamps and gave him a gentle push. Snick was all too happy to catch him, and took a big bite of the man’s throat, tearing out his Adam’s apple in a single bite.
“Jesus,” said Agent Martin, who pulled out his gun and began firing like a maniac.
Here’s a quick tip for you in case you end up being a survivor. Don’t use a pistol in a close range fight with a zombie until you’ve become acclimated to the world of the undead. Even experienced marksmen can’t shoot for shit when they’re terrified. As evidence, I present to you: Agent Martin. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The guy was like a clown with a seltzer bottle—he was spraying shit everywhere, and I could hear the sound of the ricochet as some of his shots hit the walls and the obstacle course equipment. Whick took a bullet to the head, and collapsed to the ground. Quee took a blistering of shots to his chest, but they only seemed to piss him off. Blick came tumbling over to see what all the fuss was abou
t, and I seized the opportunity to get behind him so he could serve as a (formerly) human shield.
I have such a fondness for Blick, the old worn down drunk who became Zombie Numero Uno. He stood there looking at me with his sour milk eyes and then he moaned, as if to say, “Hi Daddy.” He took a bullet in the back and stumbled into me. For a brief second, we were hugging, me and Blick. It was kind of special (but DEAR GAWD he smelled awful).
The gunfire came to a stop, replaced with a frantic clicking sound. Agent Martin was out of ammo. From there it didn’t take long, and when the zombies came for big, burly Agent Martin, he screamed like a little girl.
Gently, I pushed Blick off of me. “Thatta boy,” I said. “Good, Blick. Good.”
Blick grunted in approval. I looked over his shoulder to watch as Quee descended on Agent Martin. Quee, that stinky little hippie, who probably was a full-on vegan when I found him in Victorville, pressed Agent Martin to the ground and bit his face off.
Snick was still snacking on Agent Stamps. Plick and Glick, were who slow to this party, both joined Quee in the Agent Martin feast. I snuck across the obstacle course and keyed in my access code on the other side, opening the airlock to the garage. By the time I left, Pick and Glick had broken open Agent Martin’s shirt, and had turned his guts into a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.
Timothy
“There you are,” said Erica. “What happened to you? You look…”
“I’m taking a shower,” I said. “When I get out, I want you naked in the bed and Yor cued up on the television.”
“Oh, okay,” Erica said.
“And break out the hydrocodone,” I said. “I’ve had a stressful day.”
“Would you like me to come shower with you?” Erica said. “Maybe I could start making you feel better right away.”
“No, I’m all gross,” I said. “Hydrocodone. Yor. That’s what I want right now.”
“Right away, Dear.”
I showered for so long the hot water ran out. I love Blick and all, but man, that dude is disgusting. It was like I couldn’t scrub enough to get the stench off me.
But eventually I relented and stepped out. As requested, Erica had arranged for us to retire to my bedroom to watch Yor: Hunter From the Future while tripping out on my stash of pain pills.
That’s one thing I’m going to miss about civilization. Hydrocodone. What a nice little bugger that medicine is. Gets you all nice and smooth. I could make it myself…Lord knows it would be simple to reverse engineer it in the lab and then buy raw materials in bulk, but that kind of defeats the point of all this. On the Frye Compound, there will be no recreational drugs after the apocalypse. Ceremonial drugs, yes. We will grow weed and peyote to smoke at religious ceremonies that celebrate my sexual prowess. But no recreational drugs. It doesn’t make any sense to hole up in the perfect hideaway after the world ends only to get addicted to narcotics.
Yor is one of many low budget Conan the Barbarian imitations from the early eighties. What makes it stand out from the rest is that half-way through the movie, we ditch the sorcerers and giant lizards, and somehow find ourselves in a weird Star Wars knockoff. The first laser blasts always make me horny, so when the sci-fi shit started, I had Erica climb on top of me. The hydrocodone was slowing me down, so Erica was able to ride me from the first blasts of enemy starships all the way to Yor’s dramatic escape in a starship, complete with the “Yor’s World” song in the background (Listen for the line, “He’s gonna make all them white bees look tame tonight.”) I was literally seconds from finishing when Bart burst into the bedroom with a crazed but familiar look in his eyes. It was the same look he had right before he picked me up in the locker room so he could dunk my head in a toilet full of shit.
Bart
“You stupid, sick mother fucker I’m going to kill you!” I shouted.
“Bart, Honey, what are you doing back?” my mother said.
I ignored her. As disturbing as it was to see my mother naked and mounted on somebody, I charged ahead, steady of purpose. For the first time in years, my head was totally clear, and I felt a long dormant version of myself coming to life. Fucking headaches. I was never meant to be a lazy pothead. I’m the kid who cracks heads at recess. I’m the white boy who’s tough enough to hang with the Eastside Locos. I’m the twelve-year-old who’s so mean my mother’s grown-up boyfriends fear me.
I pushed my mother off Timothy and jumped on top of him, arms swinging. He was a squirmy little bastard, a hell of a lot stronger and faster than I remembered. We struggled for a few seconds, then he pulled himself up and landed a solid punch to my cheek.
My head reeling from the blow, I gave Timothy a shot to the groin with the full force of my knee, and the guy crumpled in pain. It hurts bad enough to get a knee to the nuts. Get one when you’re standing at full attention down there—yeah, I bet that totally fucked him up.
Curling up in pain, Timothy became an easy target. I got right on top of him, straddling his chest, holding his arms down with my knees, and got ready to destroy him. But the naked fucker lifted both his legs up and somehow wrapped them around my neck. Again surprising me with his strength, he used his legs to throw me off of him, and we rolled in a heap off the bed and onto the floor. I got him with a right hook as we landed, but then he got a good jab right to my cheek. We both tried to get up and fell back down again. I got up on my haunches to lunge across the floor, thinking I’d land on top of him and get to work.
Man, I’ve put on a lotta weight. My lunge was more of a flop, and my head landed at Timothy’s thighs. He lifted his knee and caught me in the chin with it. My mouth snapped shut and I broke a tooth.
Now Timothy was backing away. I couldn’t let him. I wrapped both my arms around his legs and tried to reel him back. He started squirming like a Hollywood gerbil. Bastard was stronger than me. Fucking pot. Had I really gotten so flabby and weak, or had Tiny Tim been working out? This wasn’t the same kid I bullied in school.
I doubled down my grip on his legs. No way in hell this little prick was getting away from me. He’d been fucking my mother all this time, right under my nose!
I heaved and stretched, trying to climb up his legs. I managed to gain a few inches on him, and all of a sudden my head was inches from his schlong. Don’t judge me, motherfucker. What would you do if the kid you bullied in high school was banging your mom? I opened my mouth like a fucking great white and reached for it. I was gonna bite that dude’s wiener clean off.
I almost got it, but Timothy managed to turn us both off to the side just in time to save himself. He slipped right out of my grip and hopped up from the floor. Then he rushed at me, intending to stomp at my face, but one of the bedsheets was wrapped around his ankle, and it tripped him. He fell over right beside me, his face near my foot, and I kicked him in the forehead. That sent him rolling away, dizzy. I stumbled up and fell on top of him, again with my knees holding his arms down. This time, I wasn’t so high up on his chest. There was no way he could lift his legs up and get me again.
“You sick son of a bitch,” I said. “I’m gonna kill you now.”
I punched him hard in the face. It was a sick sound. I hit him so hard one of my knuckles cracked. Timothy moaned in response. Another punch like that and he’d be out cold. A third, and he’d be dead.
I was raising my arm for the second blow when an explosion from behind me made me duck. It was an instinctive thing—the bang was so loud, so frightening….there was shit raining down on me. I think a vase on the nightstand had exploded or something.
Now I heard the distinctive click-click of a shotgun shell being expelled. I turned my head to look behind me.
And found the barrel of a rifle in my face.
“I’m sorry, Bart. But I can’t let you do this.”
The last thing I ever heard was the sound of my own mother pulling the trigger.
Timothy
In The Stand (the complete and uncut version), the virus that destroys the world gets out becaus
e a computer program at a military lab malfunctioned. The computer alarm turns red, meaning the doors are supposed to lock everyone inside the lab to contain the virus. But for some reason the doors stay open, and one guy gets out.
I like that scene. That scene allows a simple accident to kick off the whole story. It’s like that fly at the beginning of the movie Brazil that gets smushed in the typewriter and accidentally sends the bureaucracy after Jonathan Pryce. It’s like when R2D2 sneaks away into the desert at night. Had Luke remembered to put the restraining bolt on that pesky little droid, the Storm Troopers would have found him the next morning and killed him, and Darth Vader would still be ruling the galaxy as we speak.
Mold on Alexander Fleming’s lab culture leads to penicillin. Charles Goodyear drops some rubber in his kitchen grill and accidentally invents vulcanization. Stephen King allows his deaf character to get it on in the department store and inspires me to end the world.
The world is a series of simple accidents with far-reaching consequences. My plan to create the ultimate zombie apocalypse almost got undone by one such accident. Bart’s seatmate on the bus stole his pot, setting in motion a chain of events that almost saved billions of lives.
Almost.
In the first third of The Stand, the characters are watching as the world crumbles all around them. It’s a story that’s been told a thousand times, and could have been boring as shit. What makes it work so well is the dramatic irony. You, the reader, know that the world is going to end, but the characters don’t. King puts you in their heads as they clutch onto their old lives for as long as they can, hoping to high heaven that all of this will pass and normality will return. It’s fun to imagine yourself in the same situation. It’s fun to think about what you would do, about how much smarter you’d be than the schmoes on the page.
Zombie Apocalypse Serial #1 Page 5
