“I’ll come with you,” Van said, straightening up.
Van followed Britta out. Kofi watched Van head toward the door and caught up with him.
“Where you goin’ man? We just got here.”
“I’ll be right back. I have to talk to this girl for a second.”
Kofi allowed the two to walk off and then turned to the rest of crowd. From where he stood it looked like a sea of people. But in that sea were eyes that continuously popped up to look at him. Kofi liked it and agreed to let himself find out where the night would take him.
Outside, Britta lit up a cigarette.
“You smoke now?” Van asked.
“I always smoked, you putz.”
Van watched Britta take a drag on her cigarette. She crossed one arm over her waist and let her cigarette elbow rest on her wrist. The wisps of smoke lifted up from her cigarette and weaved in and out of her curly black hair. Britta took another drag before Van could speak.
“So do you think I was a good lay?” Van blurted, not really considering what she would say.
Britta paused and stared at Van. Her mouth dropped open and she searched his face for signs of a joke. When none came, she looked away to think.
“Do I think you were a good lay? Hmmm… Well, you didn’t do foreplay, you didn’t cuddle afterwards, and, oh yeah, you ate my brains.”
Britta took another inhale on her cigarette and stared at Van.
In most cases, this would have ignited a fire within Van. But for some reason Van could barely respond.
“That’s not true,” he said with desperation in his voice.
“Isn’t it? Do you remember that night?”
Van thought back. And although he could remember everything leading up to them doing the deed, anything they had actually done together was a blank. His next memory was of him sneaking out but not wanting to look back at her for some reason.
“That’s not true,” Van said, in full denial.
“Do you want to see what you did?” she asked reaching up to part her hair.
When Van leaned in to take a look, he had a flash of memory - he’d been that close to her skull before. And the last time he’d been that close, blood had followed. Van backed away in fear.
“That wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t? It sure looked like you. It sure looked like Van, the famous zombie hunter.”
“I’m not a zombie,” Van said, unable to muster up a defense.
Britta stepped closer to Van to keep the conversation between them. “Oh great. Then that must mean that I’m not a zombie now either. That must mean that I don’t stalk alleyways waiting to feed. I was worried for a second there. I thought you had killed me in a way that forced me to kill a lot more people before I died.”
Van felt a headache come on that made him woozy. ‘I’m sorry Charles,’ Van heard rush through his mind. Van paused and tried to figure out where that thought came from. Before he could, another flash came from his night with Britta, this one violent and bloody; and another – Britta was frozen with fear. Her betrayed eyes stared at Van and like a lump she fell back onto the bed. He remembered her looking dead.
“No!” Van objected. “That didn’t happen.”
“You killed me Van. Now I’m just the walking dead. You may as well take your sword and cut off my head because I’ve already died inside. Do you see what you did to me Van? I’m already dead inside.”
Van couldn’t take anymore. His head was swimming. He had to get away. So, without another word, he turned and walked down the sidewalk.
‘No,’ Van shouted in his mind every time a painful memory tried to seep up. ‘No, no!’
Van looked around the streets at all of the people walking by. They all seemed so normal, but he knew they weren’t. There were zombies amongst them. ‘If only I had my sword,’ Van thought. ‘If I did I would rid the world of everyone of these sick zombies.’
Van turned onto Hollywood Boulevard. The street was crowded. And for the first time, all of the people smelled sickly sweet. ‘I got it,’ Van thought. ‘They all smell like brains. Wait, how would I know what brains smells like?’
Van breathed harder as he felt a rush of desire flow through him. ‘I don’t need my sword,’ he thought. ‘I could kill these pigs with my bare hands.’
Van cut down a side street and looked for an alley that fed a parking lot. All of this felt familiar to him and the familiarity made him scared. He looked around for open windows and cameras. There were none. Finding an accessible space behind a grey BMW, he waited.
‘What am I doing?’ he thought. ‘Why am I here? You’re supposed to protect them,’ Van thought next. ‘You need to protect them.’
Footsteps broke Van’s concentration. The steps came from a man. He wasn’t a small man at six feet tall, and he looked fit.
Van felt a rush come over him. Whatever he did next he knew that he couldn’t control himself. There was someone else taking over and he had to admit that he liked it.
Van waited to see where the man was going. And when his destination became obvious, Van stood up and walked toward the same car. The man slowed when he noticed Van but didn’t stop. And when they were about fifteen feet apart, Van felt tightness in his pants that he couldn’t explain.
Ten feet away, Van knew the man could never escape so he looked into his victim’s eyes. What he saw was a scared rat. The little creature was too proud to turn around and run but too scared to do anything that could save his life. And when the smile crept across Van’s face, both men knew what was about to happen.
Van crouched down, leaned forward and closed the space between him and his victim. The man didn’t struggle – he knew there was no use. He had heard Van’s zombie breath and he knew there was nothing he could do to prevent what would follow.
When Van grabbed the man by the hair he crumpled onto the ground like a rag doll. With an inhuman strength Van lifted the man from the asphalt, dangling him. Hanging above the ground, the man did his best to push away, but it was closer to a child pushing on Van’s chest.
Unfazed, Van put his second hand on the man’s petrified face and pulled it towards his. The man’s skull cracked open with a crunch. The prey let out a squeal like a rat in a trap and the squealing didn’t stop until Van’s bite short circuited his brain.
The taste of brain was ecstasy to Van. It was a release that screamed freedom. What followed was the unfamiliar feeling of normal. Van had come to accept without question the ever-present feeling of burning skin. For the first time in a long time, it was gone.
Van reached up to wipe away the blood that drained down his chin. When his wrist met his face a memory returned – the memory of watching Charles make love to his woman. Van remembered how watching the two go at it created a feeling in him that he couldn’t escape. Van remembered walking from behind the glass and staring at Charles as he looked back in fear.
It wasn’t Charles that Van was after though. It was the woman. And unsure how to respond, the woman’s screaming boiled Van’s blood even more.
After Van brushed the much smaller Charles aside, he put his hand over the woman’s mouth and twisted her head. When he bit in, his body became awash with ecstasy. And as the macaroni-like texture swirled around his tongue Van was sure his soul had gently left his body. It was heaven.
As the brain lust subsided, Van found himself still in the parking lot with the man’s body limp in his arms. His long forgotten human normality was returning to him. But this time normality was different because it didn’t come with the mercy of ignorance. This time, Van remembered what he had just done. And this time, with the unconscious bloody man still in his arms, he looked up to a new world.
‘I’m a fuckin’ zombie,’ Van admitted. ‘I’m a fuckin’ zombie and I’ve been killing my own kind!’ he thought before wrapping his arms around the man and crying into his chest. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’
Van held onto the unconscious man a little while longer. Collecting
himself he let the body fall to the ground as he walked away. He knew that he wasn’t ready for everything that would happen next. But in this moment of complete resignation, he was willing to allow his new life to begin.
*****
Chapter 9
C.R.A.H.
The ‘Coalition for the Rights of Ascended People’ was an organization that not even the President and his aides understood. The President’s chief political strategist had warned the President that if he didn’t make swift political moves, the leader of C.R.A.H. would be swept into the White House in a wave of populism. The President’s response was to make himself more visible to the American people by crossing the country promoting his economic and human rights philosophies. But all of the President’s men had gotten C.R.A.H. wrong.
To understand C.R.A.H., one first had to understand its founder, Robert Tailgate. Robert grew up in Southern Louisiana on the outskirts of New Orleans. His parents were not Bible-thumping folk, but they were churchgoers and did their best to raise Robert in a moral way.
Robert heard his parents’ call for morality and interpreted it in his young mind in a different way. Robert saw the infamously corrupt city of New Orleans as the antithesis of all that was moral. And he knew in his heart that the God he believed in would someday wipe the city clean. Because of this, it became his moral duty to bring as many souls to God as he could. His first mission was to remove sin from the city of New Orleans. His next was to purge sin from the entire earth.
Even as a teenager Robert was charismatic. His unwavering confidence about the Will of God and what was waiting for his morally bankrupt city made people listen. After high school Robert attended Peter Thomas University. Peter Thomas was the head of seven mega churches throughout the south, and his university was a Christian alternative to the more hedonistic state schools.
Tailgate graduated near the top of his class, but that wasn’t what brought him distinction. What brought Robert recognition was his performance in an invite-only public speaking class that the university offered once every two years. His rhetorical ability was beyond compare and made him, with his charisma, positively magnetic. The Christian community viewed this semi-annual class as a recruitment tool, and so Robert Tailgate won his first real job upon graduation. He took his new diploma and became junior pastor in a mega church in Fort-Worth Texas.
The position of junior pastor was a mentorship. Robert’s responsibilities included running a few of the church’s weekday youth activities like the rock climbing wall, air hockey tournaments and Bible study. If the junior pastor showed promise after a year, he would be allowed to give the Wednesday sermon. If that went well, he would add the Saturday sermon. And if attendance and donations met certain criteria, he would be given the late night Sunday sermon in evaluation for the big leagues; Sunday morning.
Robert had made it to Sunday mornings by the age of 27. It was considered fast by anyone’s definition. And although Robert’s oratorical skills were well prepared, his mental state was not.
He loved getting in front of the people every Sunday morning and he quickly learned how to move the Sunday morning crowd. The burden, however, of being the ‘golden boy’ was too much for him. And because Robert focused more on saving souls than soothing his own, he never met the woman with whom he could share that burden. So each night, when he went home, it was only to a nicely decorated two-story and an assortment of fish.
Robert felt that a buddy would give him times that he didn’t have to think of the massive responsibilities that his position entailed. And his first attempt at friendship came when he invited Drew, one of his Sunday parishioners, out for lunch.
Drew was shorter than the 6’2” Robert. And whereas Robert was a freckly white, Drew was more tanned and manly. But the reason Robert had chosen Drew over all of the other men in his church was the way that Drew seemed to hang on Robert’s every word during service. Drew seemed to have an admiration for Robert that was beyond compare.
During their first lunch, Drew showed no signs of being intimidated. What he seemed was loyal. And what capped the friendship was what Drew said at the end of their lunch. In his warm smooth voice, Drew said, “I know that you carry a large burden on your shoulders. You are destined for greater things than this. And I want you to know that I am here for you. If you ever need anything from me you don’t even have to ask. All you have to do is take it.” Drew then placed his strong hand on Robert’s wrist and looked into his eyes. Staring back, Robert was clear that this was the friend he was looking for.
Robert couldn’t be sure how things progressed from there. Robert did know that what followed stemmed from a conversation he had had with Drew a few weeks later. During that conversation, Robert had wished aloud that he could somehow hand off some of his burden. It was becoming clear to more people than just himself that he was beginning to wilt under the pressure. And for a friend as close to him as Drew was, it was disconcerting.
If he were ever called to testify, Robert could say with confidence that it wasn’t his idea for both men to take off their clothes. He could also securely say that it wasn’t his idea for Drew to turn around. In his heart though, Robert knew that he had to take at least some of the responsibility for everything that happened next.
By the end of that first intimate night together, Drew knew that his idea had worked. Robert gained strength from the connection that he had made with his friend. And that release was what allowed Robert to continue on.
But like a dying battery it wasn’t long before Robert needed a recharge. When that happened, Drew was only too happy to oblige. Unfortunately, when Robert’s needs became almost daily instead of monthly or weekly, the leaders of the church began to take notice.
Robert was relieved of his position at the church with a generous severance package. With the pressure off his shoulders, he no longer had a need for Drew’s special acts of loyalty.
During one of their last lunches after Robert’s firing, Drew reminded Robert that he’d always believed that Robert’s destiny would take him much further than any church could allow. And although Drew knew that Robert’s journey would be without him, Drew let him know that nothing had changed. If ever Robert needed anything from Drew, Robert didn’t even have to think about it. All he had to do was take it.
Robert spent the next few years repenting for his immoral actions with Drew and vowed to never engage in those acts again. In time though, he did have to admit that as immoral as the acts were, it too was a part of God’s plan. And although he couldn’t see it when it first happened, it became clear to Robert that God needed him free from the church so that he could discover his true calling.
That calling came when the President demanded the arrest of those that did their part to preserve the human species. In that moment, Robert knew what he was put on earth to do. It had nothing to do with a church.
In a way, God wanted Robert to be his new messiah. And that messiah’s destiny wasn’t necessarily to sit behind a big desk in the White House. If that’s what God wanted him to do, then Robert was willing to do it. But if it existed, Robert saw himself sitting behind an even bigger desk where he was tasked with something even more important. Robert saw his task as saving the world.
When Robert’s destiny became clear to him, his first call was to Drew, who was not surprised to get the call. He had an unwavering faith in Robert and the role that he would play in Robert’s destiny. Drew saw himself as a loyal servant. He saw Robert as the unquestionable voice of God.
Drew, like Robert, had never married. So when Robert’s call came, Drew was on the first flight that would reunite the two in Washington D.C. And when the two men spotted each other in the D.C. airport, both had the same thought: that together, they were unstoppable.
Drew organized a few church-styled assemblies where, under a blue and white striped tent, Robert could preach his new message. After the first month, it became clear to both that the money would come rolling in. Robert and Drew began to understand tha
t they had tapped into a need that ran deeper than the need for God. What they found was the need to survive; there was no amount of money that people wouldn’t give to ensure survival.
It was from these assemblies that Robert had the money to successfully sway the Supreme Court to rule with C.R.A.H. against the President. And it was with this money that they were able to build the organization that had satellite groups in the ten major American cities.
After a lot of prayer, it became clear to Robert that their organization needed to enter a new phase of development. C.R.A.H. needed a division that carried out in deed what the organization preached. And when he ran the idea by Drew, both men agreed.
The only problem with this plan was that both Robert and Drew were peaceful men. They had never personally killed a zombie. So never having been in the trenches, Robert had no idea where to find a person to head his new division.
“God’s gifts are eternal,” Robert would often say. This was proven once again one night at Robert’s North Bethesda home. That night Drew was watching news on the kitchen TV while he made dinner for the two. The story, supplied by a Los Angeles affiliate, was about two men who had started a business called ‘Samurai Zombie Hunters.’
“Robert, come in here,” Drew yelled.
Robert strolled in wearing his after-shower robe and Drew directed his attention toward the TV.
“I think we’ve found our men,” Drew concluded.
Robert and Drew watched the footage to the end and then rewound the DVR and played the story again. They were less impressed with the short, thick Greek one who did most of the talking; but the tall, good looking one dressed like a modern day samurai seemed to have all of the qualities necessary to become the face of their new division.
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