GRANDMA? Part 1 (YA Zombie Serial Novel)

by Konrath, J. A.

  "Don't you have rug runners?"

  "Of course. But the rascal managed to get under the plastic. The rascal."

  "Sounds like a real rascal."

  "He is. The rascal."

  As I listened to the inane ramblings of the geriatric undead, and watched bonehead Josh try to drag the whole pier into the lake with zero success, I realized that I wasn't ready to die yet. Not with all of these morons around me.

  I pulled hard, ripping out a nice chunk of my hair, but getting free. Then I headed for the pier, starting to sprint. Screw the foot pain.

  I was just ready to hop into the boat when the mooring line pulled free. I must have done a bad job winding it around the tie-down cleat on the pier. My bad.

  The boat took off just as I jumped. I missed it and landed in the shallow water, my flip-flops coming off and my bad foot landing right on a sharp rock.

  "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

  Hurt like hell.

  I must have screamed loud enough for Josh to hear me, because he slowed the boat and began to turn around.

  I couldn't believe it. I was actually going to live though this nightmare.

  That's when Grandma yelled, "CANNONBALL!" and jumped onto my head.

  For a little old lady, she hit like linebacker. I went under, pinned to the bottom of the lake, my face in the sand and very little air in my lungs.

  I wondered if drowning was better than being eaten alive. They both sounded bad. But then, there weren't many ways to die that were appealing. Smothered by swimsuit models? Getting hit in the head by a home run ball when the Cubs win the World series?

  That wouldn't be too bad. But knowing the Cubs, I had a much better chance of being smothered by swimsuit models.

  As my lungs burned and my brain screamed for oxygen, I heard a roar in the water. It grew louder and louder, until it blotted out all thoughts about girls in bikinis.

  Well, all girls but Jaclyn Swedberg. It was hard to stop thinking about her. My Dad had a Playboy with her pictures in it, and she was maybe the hottest babe ever.

  In fact, as far as last thoughts went, thinking about Jaclyn Swedberg wasn't a bad last thought to have.

  Then the roaring sound was practically on top of me, and when I realized what it was I became even more panicked.

  No, Josh! Don't…!

  Then there was a THUNK! as the boat hit Grandma. But any momentary relief I felt from being free was countered by the 40 hp motor spinning a propeller inches away from my face. It missed my nose by less than an inch. Blowing water in my face.

  I swam away from it, almost getting scalped, and then popped to the surface alongside the boat, gasping for air.

  "Randall!"

  Josh killed the engine, and the boat coasted into the shore—

  —right next to Phil the zombie.

  I swam to the ladder next to the motor and pulled myself onto the boat, just as the Phil was climbing onto the bow.

  "Josh! Reverse!"

  Josh pulled the throttle back and gunned it. I fell forward, onto my hands. But so did Phil, falling right off the boat, and into the lake next to Grandma.

  "Slow down, brother," I said between breaths as we reached the middle of the lake. "You did good."

  "Grandma got run over by a bass boat," he said, singing it like the reindeer song.

  I laughed, enjoying the moment of not being chased, and shut my eyes. My breathing slowed down and the sun warmed me up. My foot was throbbing, but it felt really good to be alive.

  "Uh, Randall?"

  "What?" I said peeking open one of my eyes.

  "Do you think they know how to swim?"

  "Who?"

  I stared at the shore line and I saw zombies. Elderly zombies, standing there, watching us. Dozens of them. Maybe even a hundred.

  Then they all jumped in the lake and began to swim towards our boat.

  Northern Wisconsin

  FIVE HOURS EARLIER

  The most stereotypical redneck you could imagine held a lightning rod in the palm of his three fingered hand. How this came to occur is an interesting story (to the parties involved.)

  Each of the fingers was actually a thumb that he'd gotten fresh from a buddy who worked at the local funeral home.

  "They already dead, they don’t need 'em no more," Einsten reasoned, and paid the mortician thirty bucks each, even though the skin on one was slightly darker than his, so people always thought that finger was dirty.

  Einstein would've been happy with his original set of fingers, but he'd used the chainsaw wrong when he tried to make an automatic beer launcher swimming pool and decided if he had more thumbs he could get a better grip on that chainsaw or any other thing that looked like it needed more thumbs on it.

  Since all of his thumbs worked, he considered himself a scientist—after all, he'd sewn them on himself and used steel screws to secure them to the bone. A damn fine job considering he'd done it all under the influence of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. Then he'd used fishing leeches to get the blood flowing to his new appendages, a trick he learned from the TV show E.R. He went through two bottles of penicillin to fight off infections that damn near killed him, but the end result was something to be proud of.

  "Look, Debra!" he bragged to his wife when the last fever broke. "If man's only advantage against other animals is a thumb, well I am triply advanced!"

  "If you're so smart, how'd you cut off all your fingers in the first place?" she countered.

  He told her to shut up. That showed her.

  He called himself Einstein, only because that was the only person he knew that was a genius like himself. His real name was Rupert.

  Einstein would perform his experiments in a barn located on the far left of his wooded acre. His wife wanted no part of his "genius experiments". Whenever she used those words, she made air quotes with her fingers and rolled her eyes.

  Einstein sometimes wondered why he married her.

  Oh, yeah. The big boobies.

  Ralph, his bestest buddy who'd been with him since they was fetuses, always supported Einstein's experiments. Ralph thought Einstein was brilliant, called himself his assistant, and would often volunteer as a guinea pig. Though most of Einstein's genius experiments ended up as enormous epic fails, he always had the will to try another.

  When his automatic beer launcher swimming pool failed, Einstein got back to his genius experiments as soon as his hand healed. Ralph always complained that he needed to get on the roof of his barn, but he didn't have a ladder long enough to reach.

  Einstein went to work.

  "Why doesn't he just buy a bigger ladder?" Debra asked.

  He told her to shut up. That showed her.

  The inside of Einstein's barn looked like a redneck Frankenstein's laboratory. Striped-down wires, and cords knotted all over the walls and ceiling. Tables full of mechanical and laboratory stuff. Lots of tools, Tractor parts. An aquarium full of leeches, which fed off of a very unhappy looking carp. Occasionally electricity would zap in the background just like the movie Frankenstein, but it was always due to something shorting out or a wire frying.

  "That barn is a fire hazard," Debra would nag.

  He didn't bother to tell her to shut up that time. Because he was looking at her big boobies.

  Einstein also had posters of guns on the walls, and had a 12 gauge shotgun hidden always at the ready in case a bear wandered in. Or a duck.

  Ducks were tasty.

  His other guns were in the house.

  Einstein had been working all night for Ralph and even missed his favorite dinner, pork and beans, which Debra said she made from scratch but really came straight from the can.

  A loud knock made Einstein crease his eyebrows, and turn off his blow torch.

  "Who is it?" he blurted.

  "Ralph! Are ya almost done?"

  The sound of Ralph's voice made him smile.

  "Just about. Come on in."

  The large barn door creaked. Ralph pattered over and hovered near Eins
tein's shoulder.

  "It's like four in the morning, Ralph. Aren’t ya supposed to be sleepin?"

  "Yeah, but I'm just too darn excited! Can't wait to see what you invented for me. I need to clean all the rocks off my barn roof."

  "How'd you get rocks on your barn roof?"

  "I threw 'em up there," Ralph said.

  Made sense.

  "Alright, Ralph, you ready?"

  Ralph jumped up and down and yelped like a little girl.

  "Just a bit more… and… done!"

  Einstein stood back to take in the fruits of his genius.

  It was a parachute connected to a flamethrower connected to a lawn chair. When the flame thrower was on, the heat would fill the parachute and lift up the passenger.

  It was sort of like a hot air balloon, just not as bulky. Those things were big. Einstein's flying chair could fit in the back of any SUV.

  Einstein smiled with his chin up and nodded at his project. Ralph gave Einstein a bear hug.

  "Thanks partner! It's… it's a beauty."

  "Well, come try it out!"

  They dragged the contraption outside, into a clearing. Ralph got into the chair, smiling wide.

  We all know what happened next. The flying chair flew up about three feet, caught on fire, and Ralph burned to death.

  But even Ralph's screaming demise didn't stop Einstein.

  When the flames died down, Einstein set Ralph's corpse on his working bench. Ralph's body looked like a giant piece of burnt bacon. Smelled like it, too. Which made Einstein's stomach rumble because he missed supper.

  "Such a tragedy," he said.

  But then he realized there would be leftovers.

  Ralph's death was also a tragedy. At least, it would have been for an ordinary man. But for a genius, it was a challenge.

  Einstein had a good think about how to bring Ralph back to life, and was considering something with leeches and tractor parts, when he heard the sound of thunder.

  A storm was a'comin'. And with it, a light went off in his genius brain.

  "Perfect."

  Einstein opened up the roof of his barn with a complicated pulley and lever system that only he knew how to use. The sky was dark and gray, the clouds already popping with lightning. A rain drop fell on the tip of Einstein's nose, and thunder rattled the walls again.

  He ran to his work bench, picked up a lightning rod and stuck it in the middle of Ralph's chest, which looked and felt a lot like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Einstein wrapped Ralph up with wire, and attached it to the pulley. Then, in a bit of extra inspiration, he covered Ralph with leeches.

  Then up went Ralph on the pulley, the lightning rod sticking out of his chest like, well, a lightning rod.

  As Einstein waited for Ralph's life to restart, he spent time with yesterday's newspaper, doing the Junior Jumble. It was a hard one, and he devoted a good twenty minutes tying to unscramble GNEUIS to no avail, when the thunder roared like an elephant and lightning zapped the rod, making Ralph's body shake and light up even brighter than when he was on fire.

  Einstein lowered his best friend down, eager to welcome him back to the land of the living.

  A sizzling sound came from Ralph and he didn't seem any different, other than the bacon smell getting stronger. Einstein pressed his fingers against Ralph's neck and waited.

  Five seconds passed.

  Then ten.

  Each passing second mocked Einstein.

  He readjusted his fingers, pressing harder, and his fingers broke through Ralph's throat.

  This lead Einstein to have what he called his self-defeatin' thoughts.

  You're not a scientist or a genius, Einstein. You didn't even finish fourth grade. You're just a dumb redneck who thinks he's a genius, because you're too stupid to know what a real genius is. You can't even spell genius.

  He was right on that last one.

  Twenty seconds passed.

  Why are you still checking his pulse? He's not going to come back to life. And not only that, you wasted a good six dollars' worth of leeches.

  Einstein wondered if he should pick the leeches off, but they were all feeding pretty good (the ones that didn’t get electrocuted by lightning), and when they had ahold of something tasty they hung on pretty tight.

  Thirty seconds passed. Einstein made a feeble attempt at CPR, but when he blew in Ralph's mouth, the air came out the hole in his neck.

  Fail. Epic fail with a side dish of stupid.

  Einstein slowly pulled away, the tears building up. He stared down at the floor, his heart thumping in pain.

  "I'm… I'm so sorry, friend. I won't be a scientist anymore. After I cover up your death to avoid responsibility, I'm going to quit my genius experimentin'. Instead I'm going to devote my life to something else. Something worthwhile. Like a bowling league. Or watching more TV."

  He threw a towel over Ralph's body and began to turn off lights in the barn. The clouds cleared up and the moon showed its face. He closed the closed up the hatch in the roof and walked, defeated, to the door.

  Einstein also realized he needed to stop calling himself Einstein. Instead, he'd adopt a new, stupid name. Who was the stupidest of The Three Stooges? Shemp. From now on he'd be Shemp.

  "Einstein…"

  Shemp stopped. Had it been his imagination? Sometimes he heard voices, but he never told anyone about it because he didn't want anyone thinking he was crazy.

  "Einstein."

  "Ralph? Ralph! Son of a gun! I did it!" The genius formerly known as Shemp hurried to Ralph's table and yanked off the towel.

  Ralph snatched Einstein's collar and stared him dead in the face, his eyes as white as egg shells.

  "Ralph! You're alive! But your eyes…"

  "Something ain't right," Ralph said." He held up his hand, staring at the burned flesh.

  "You had an accident, buddy. I can… um… get you some aloe vera for that."

  "It don't hurt," Ralph said.

  "It don't?"

  "No. I feel… heck, I feel pretty gosh darn good."

  Einstein smiled. "That's great, Ralph. Lemme tell you, I was really worried there for a minute."

  "I… damn! Why am I covered with leeches?" Ralph began to slap them off his body. "I hate these damn things! Oh, in my pants too! One got ahold of my giblets! Get off my manly bits, you bloodsucker! Lord, the humanity! How'd this happen, Einstein?"

  "Sorry 'bout that, friend. I used the leeches when I brought you back to life."

  Ralph stopped plucking leeches off of hisself long enough to give Einstein a penetrating look. "You did?"

  "You were dead as a rump roast, but my genius brought you back."

  "I was… dead? Wait, did the flying chair work?"

  "Sorta. The design needs some tweakin'."

  "What's that smell?"

  Einstein cleared his throat. "That's, um… that's you. You best stay away from stray dogs 'till you've had a shower."

  "No, not me. It smells like fresh baked bread, apple dumplings, mashed taters with gravy—all my favorite foods rolled all up into one delicious stink."

  Einstein sniffed. All he smelt was Ralph's burned flesh.

  Ralph sat up suddenly.

  "You should rest, Ralph." Einstein tried to push his friend back into a supine position. "You been through a lot."

  But Ralph, a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound old fella who'd just been recently dead, was incredibly strong and didn't budge.

  "It's you."

  "Huh?"

  "It's you who smells so good."

  Ralph licked what was left of his lips. Einstein took a step back.

  "Look, buddy, you smell good, too. But I don't like the look in your scary eyes. What you thinkin', Ralph?"

  Ralph swung his legs off the table. "We're best friends, right, Einstein?"

  "Best friends," Einstein agreed.

  "For a long time, right?"

  "Since we were kids. You're, how old now? Sixty-five. I'm sixty-four. So more than sixty yea
rs."

  "And longtime friends do things for each other, right?"

  "Of course. I just let you try out my flying chair, didn't I?"

  "I need you to do something for me, old pal."

  "Name it."

  Ralph smiled. "Then let me chew on your leg for a bit."

  Einstein continued to back away. "That's sorta testing the bounds of friendship, Ralph."

  "Please. Just one bite."

  "Ralph, you know you're my oldest, bestest friend," Einstein said. "But if you try to bite me, I'm gonna shoot you right between your mullet."

  "Fair enough. Debra home?"

  "You can't snack on my wife none, neither. What's got into you, Ralph?"

  "Hunger, Einstein. Turble, turble hunger."

  That's when Ralph jumped at Einstein and pinned him onto the floor, trying to bite him in the face. Ralph was strong, but Einstein had the power of genius on his side, and thinking quickly he yelled, "Look! It's Elsa Lanchester!"

  Ralph had a big crush on Elsa Lanchester back in 1955.

  When Ralph turned to see Elsa, smoothing down his hair to look presentable, Einstein shoved him off and crawled for his 12 gauge. He wasn't planning on killing Ralph again. Just shooting his leg off to slow him down, so he could tie him up and figure out what was wrong with his buddy.

  But before Einstein could get off a shot, Ralph ran away, down the path in the woods.

  The path that lead to

  The Mud Lake Nursing Home.

  END OF PART ONE

  Afterword by Jeff Strand

  I suspect that Joe's foreword was inaccurate.

  I wasn't there for the origin of GRANDMA?, thanks to our mutual restraining orders, but I'm sure it involved Joe bursting into Talon's bedroom, with a tearstained face, crazy eyes, and large patches of hair missing.

  "It's all over!" Joe wailed. "I've got no ideas left! The well is dry, dry, dry! Oh, why did I burn bridges with all of my collaborators? I should never have had F. Paul Wilson killed!"

  "Dad, calm down. We'll be fine."

  "I spent millions of dollars on a Picasso painting, and then I peed on it, just so I could tell people that I was rich enough to pee on a Picasso!" (The YouTube video has not helped Talon get more dates.) "Now the museum won't buy it back! What are we going to do?"