“Brains…” it says, then approaches the building.
When the prostitute’s eyes meet with the zombie’s, she covers her mouth and backs away. The zombie shuffles forward like bags of garbage spilling from a dump truck.
“It’s a fucking zombie!” says the yellow mohawk punk, almost excitedly.
Everyone runs to the window to see it for themselves, but once they get a glimpse of it they all back off.
Charlie looks back at his wife, sitting on the floor, curled around
her knees, shaking her head. He goes to her. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asks.
She looks up at him with tears in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry…” she says.
He holds her close to him, her tears tickling his cheeks.
A voice comes over the intercom system. The building has long been without electricity, so Charlie is confused by how it is functional.
The voice says: “Welcome, contestants!” It’s the voice of an overly excited young woman with a Japanese accent. “I hope you slept well! I’m sure you’re all wondering what has happened to you and why you have come to be in the middle of the Red Zone. But, for you, I have super great news! All twenty of you have been randomly selected to participate in the hit television series, Zombie Survival! The Platinum Quadrant’s favorite reality game show, number one!”
“I knew it,” says the Asian woman.
The voice continues: “Most of you are probably unaware of this show, because citizens of the Copper Quadrant such as yourselves do not have the luxury of television. But it is the most electrifying entertainment on TV, guaranteed! If you do a good job and win the game, first prize will be citizenship in the Silver Quadrant, with certified passports to the Gold and Platinum Quadrants. However, there can be only one winner. Losers will be left for dead in the Red Zone.”
“This can’t be,” says an obese man of Italian descent. “I’m not a citizen of the goddamned Copper Quadrant. I’m from Silver. I was just visiting my dumbshit nephew!”
The Asian woman hushes him.
The voice continues: “If you will all make your way up to Room 222, you will find your supplies. Each of you have been left a backpack including survival gear and a unique weapon personalized to your estimated fighting capabilities! The backpacks are electronically locked and will not unlock until you have left the safety of the barricaded hotel. I recommend you go upstairs and claim your pack immediately. If you stay in the lobby for too long you are likely to gain some unwanted attention.”
The punks rush up the stairs and go for room 222. Everyone follows. Charlie is the last one upstairs, waiting for Rainbow to stop crying and get to her feet.
“Braaains!” the zombie yells through the glass.
Looking behind him on the way up the stairs, Charlie examines the zombie banging on the boarded window trying to get in. It rips at the boards with its claws, a cracking sound splits through the wood but the plank remains in its place… for now. Charlie gets a good look at the sunflowers growing out of its empty eye socket and out the top of its hollow skull. Its mulched brain must have acted like fertilizer for the flowers, its head like a pot. He wonders how the thing can think without a mind in its head.
It’s been seventeen years since Charlie has seen a zombie. Back when he was a kid, he lived in one of the many fortified cities along the coasts of the mainland. Back then, he saw zombies every day, through the barrier, in the wasteland. The dead were constantly trying to get into the city and the living were always reinforcing their perimeters to keep them out. Every capable human was responsible for guarding the perimeter. Charlie’s father was no exception.
“There are so many of them out there, like an ocean,” his father used to say when they would stare at the zombie wasteland from the top of the guard tower.
His father was fascinated with the walking dead. He thought of them as almost beautiful, like works of art.
He handed Charlie his machine gun and had him look through the scope. While zooming in, Charlie saw a black sludge-covered skeleton creeping down a street. Its eyes bulged out of the sockets, its skeletal teeth in a wide smile. Its black flesh melted from its body. The thing looked comical in its bumbling state. It made Charlie laugh.
“What is it?” his father asked.
“It’s funny,” young Charlie said. “The zombie looks funny.”
Then he looked again at its bulging googly eyes and laughed harder.
His father patted him on the back. “Yeah, perhaps they are a bit funny. From a distance.”
Eventually, civilization moved off of the mainland completely. They built protected cities on islands, on oil rigs, on aircraft carriers. Most of Charlie’s generation have it pretty good compared to those who had to survive the zombie apocalypse that began over fifty years ago. Very few people have to fight for their lives on a day to day basis anymore, especially those in the upper-class Platinum Quadrant of Neo New York.
The twenty contestants squeezed into the small hotel room on the second floor. Lying along the wall were twenty bags. They weren’t all backpacks. Some were duffel bags, some were purse-sized packs, some were large mountaineer packs. Charlie guessed the size had something to do with the weapon included within. A good weapon would be a huge advantage, but lugging around a large pack would not.
The voice came over the intercom: “Your packs will also include a map of the area with the pickup point marked by an X. You have three days to arrive at the designated pickup zone, but remember brave contestants: the remote control helicopter only has room for one passenger. If more than one person tries to board the craft, it will not take off. If all of you fail to arrive by 3pm on the third day, all of you will be left behind. If you want to win you will not only have to fight the zombies, you will also have to fight each other.”
Rainbow hugs Charlie, her dreadlocks wrapping around his body like itchy tentacles. His eyes widen at the thought of only one of them getting out of there alive.
“There is only one rule: do not break the cameras,” the voice says.
Then, outside the window, a floating spherical device about the size of a coconut rises to eyelevel. The lens on its front films the contestants, broadcasting their alarmed expressions to all the fat wealthy families watching at home in the Platinum Quadrant.
“The cameras are equipped to defend themselves against contestants as well as the walking dead. If you do happen to break one of them it will cause an explosion capable of killing all contestants within a 50 yard radius. This is the only rule we enforce. So, whatever you do, don’t mess with the cameras.”
“You mean like this?” The yellow mohawked punk kicks the glass right in front of the floating camera ball.
The device flies backward at the movement. The other punks burst into laughter. He flips off the camera and then shows it his bare ass. A couple of the other punks join in, flipping off the camera, hollering at it. A scantily dressed green-haired punk slut flashes her boobs at the camera and then spits.
The voice continues, unaware of the vulgar display happening before the camera, “So, good luck brave contestants! You can work as a team for a while if you like, or go solo right from the start. But remember, there can only be one survivor. I also recommend getting a move on as soon as you have your packs. The barricade around the hotel was only designed to last for a few hours, max.”
When the voice is finished, the obese Italian man steps forward and speaks at the camera through the window. “My name is Alonzo Fisichella. I am a citizen of the Silver Quadrant, not the Copper Quadrant. I do not belong here. I have connections to people in both the Gold and Platinum Quadrants. I am not a scumbag lowlife like the rest of these people. Just look up my credentials. I should be exempt from this. You have to come pick me up!”
The camera hovered. It did not speak back to him.
“Answer me, you bitch!” Alonzo says to the intercom system.
The Asian woman says, “It’s just an automated message. You’re
not going to get a response.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Alonzo asks.
The Asian woman takes a breath. “Because I was the one who recorded it.”
All eyes lock on her.
Charlie and the other contestants listen to the Asian woman’s story. She introduces herself as Junko. It was five years ago when Junko recorded the message, back when she was a younger, more naïve girl, who was viewed as a typical empty-headed large-breasted sex object hired on to be the spokesperson for the Zombie Survival reality television series. That is, until she quit and led a protest against the show last year. After that, she had been deemed unemployable in the Platinum, Gold, and Silver Quadrants. She had to move to Copper with the hard laborers and the vagrant scum of the island. She knew it was only a matter of time before she was chosen as a contestant for the show herself.
“I know how this game works,” she says. “It’s all about sticking together and working as a team, not dividing apart. The people who go solo, no matter how tough they are, never make it to the end.”
“But there can only be one winner?” asks the muscle-bound punk guy with the flattop and pink half-shirt.
“Very few people ever actually make it as far as the helicopter,” she says. “Most games don’t have winners at all. Don’t think of this as a competition. Think of it as survival.”
“How many winners have there been?” Charlie asks.
“Out of the ten games that have been played so far?” Junko blinks. “Only two, and one of those was infected and had to be eliminated by the time she got back to the island.”
“So there’s no hope?” Rainbow Cat asks. “We’re done for?”
The large bearded vagrant steps forward and pulls the hood from his head to reveal a short black mohawk.
“There’s always hope,” he says, “if we stick together.”
Then he gives a thumbs up and smiles a big dumb smile, his bright white teeth contrasting with his unwashed skin.
Each of the bags has a name tag on it. The big black vagrant, Laurence, calls out the names written on the bag and hands it to the appropriate contestant. This is also how the contestants are introduced to each other.
There is already one team that has formed: the seven punks. They either know each other from before the contest, or already made fast friends. There’s Scavy, the punk with the yellow mohawk, Brick, the large muscular punk with a platinum blond flattop and pink half-shirt, Gogo, the busty green-haired punk slut, Popcorn, the short punk girl with the spiky pink hair, Xiu, a Chilean punk girl with a black mohawk, Zippo, a skinny punk guy with an aviator helmet and goggles, Vine, a quiet punk guy with black hair, a black surgical mask, and a black spiked-leather outfit.
Bosco, a skinny redneck with a comb-over and facial features that can only be described as goblin-like, tries to team up with the punks, but they won’t have him. They don’t trust anyone who isn’t a punk.
“This is going to kick ass and shit!” Scavy says, and his punk army raises their fists with him.
To these guys, this is nothing but a game, even if their lives are at stake.
“Shouldn’t we all stick together?” Charlie asks Junko.
Junko is busy trying to pick the lock on her duffel bag.
Charlie leans into her field of vision. “You said we needed to work as a team in order to survive.”
She turns to him, “Large teams draw too much attention. Splitting up into three or four smaller teams is preferable. I wouldn’t want any of those punks on my team, anyway. They’re unpredictable.”
“Who’s on our team then?” Charlie asks.
Junko looks at Charlie with an annoyed expression. “Who said I wanted you on my team?”
Charlie steps back. “I just thought…”
“Actually,” Junko says, “if you get rid of your bitch I’ll take you along.”
“What?” Rainbow cries.
“You’re Charles Hudson, aren’t you?” Junko asks. “The writer?”
Charlie smiles. No matter how accomplished of a writer he is, he always appreciates being recognized.
“Yeah, or at least I was,” he says. “Until the Platinum Quadrant decided fiction wasn’t worthwhile anymore. I’ve been a poor nobody in the Copper Quadrant ever since.”
“I’ve read some of your books,” she says. “You have a clever mind. I could use clever.”
“But what about my wife?” he asks, hugging Rainbow to his waist.
“For starters,” she says, “she’ll slow us down. She’s dead weight. Secondly, couples never make it very far in this game. They always get themselves killed by risking their necks to save each other. Thirdly, trust is the most important thing I need from a teammate. If I can’t trust you then I don’t want you.”
“But why can’t you trust us?” Charlie asks.
“I can probably trust you,” Junko says. “I just don’t trust her.”
Charlie looks at Rainbow with her confused puppydog face, then back at Junko. “Why don’t you trust my wife?”
Junko glares at the hippy girl. “Because she’s the reason you’ve been chosen as a contestant for this show.”
Rainbow bursts into tears when Charlie looks back at her. He doesn’t know what the Asian woman is talking about, but based on Rainbow’s reaction whatever she is saying is likely the truth.
“What do you mean?” Charlie asks.
Junko tells him about how the producers of Zombie Survival pay a reward to any citizen who recommends a good candidate for the show. She can tell that Rainbow recommended her own husband for the show, expecting to retire from the reward money. Charlie’s celebrity status would make him an interesting contestant to the people watching back home.
“But you had no idea the producers never intended to pay, did you?” Junko tells his wife. “You might have heard rumors about the show and the reward, but you didn’t know that your only payment would be to share the fate of your husband. That’s what they always do.”
Charlie notices a floating camera ball above Junko’s shoulder, filming their conversation. Rainbow looks at Charlie with red watery eyes.
“Is this true?” he asks.
Rainbow nods her head and looks away.
“You didn’t have a job and we needed the money,” she says, her back to him. “I was sick of being the one who pays for everything all the time. I was sick of taking care of you.”
“You did it just for money? On our five year anniversary?”
“You owed it to me,” she says. “I work so hard to buy your food, pay your rent, support your alcohol addiction.”
“I hardly drink anymore!”
“This was the only way I could get that money back.”
“But, it’s just money,” Charlie says. “I’ve only been unemployed for the past ten months. When I was a novelist and we lived in the Gold Quadrant, you didn’t have to work for over three years!”
“I know!” she says, her eyes no longer tearing with sadness but with anger. “That’s why you owe it to me! You took that life away from me and I want it back!”
“I loved you…” Charlie says.
Her anger subsides.
“Loved?” she says. “You don’t love me anymore?”
“What the hell do you think?” he says to her, the camera zooming in on his face. “You sentenced me to death just because you were tired of paying the bills yourself. How the hell do you expect me to feel?”
“But they sent me here, too,” she cries. “We’re in this together now.”
He shakes his head. “You’re in this alone.”
Her lips quiver and then open as if to argue back, but she can’t find the right words. She turns and runs down the hall, to another room, collapsing on a mattress that crumbles to dust beneath her.
Adriana, the young prostitute, looks out of the window at the urban wasteland below. The zombie with the sunflowers in its skull is attracting the attention of other zombies. There are three more of them now, and five more headed in
the direction of the hotel from down the street. Their soggy green and black flesh drips from their limbs. Some of them have debris melded into their flesh, as if they had been lying in the rubble of the wasteland for over a decade, waiting for humans to return. Like the sunflower zombie, some of them grow weeds, moss, or vines from their rotten flesh.
“Braaaaiiins…”
The girl steps away from the window, just in case the zombies look up. She wouldn’t want to excite them too much.
“So what the fuck are we going to do?” Bosco says. “The bitch said we only have three hours max before this place becomes unsafe.”
Junko scowls at him for calling her a bitch, even if she does agree that she was a bitch in that past life.
“And the sooner we get out the better our chances,” Laurence says.
Adriana looks out of the window again and sees a dozen more zombies approaching. And beyond them, in the distance, there is at least a dozen more.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Adriana says, her voice quivering as she scrunches her puffy short skirt.
They look at her.
“You can’t just stay here,” Junko says.
Alonzo steps forward. “I’m staying, too. I wouldn’t last ten minutes out there in my condition.” He jiggles fifty pounds of belly fat to prove his point.
“I agree,” another man says from the back of the room. He steps forward, a blond man wearing a black suit and leather overcoat. Charlie and Junko hadn’t noticed him before. They only know his name from the tag on his enormous mountaineer pack that reads: Heinz.
“I think staying back might be a worthwhile strategy,” says Heinz. His voice has a snobbish upper class tone to it, as if he thinks he is speaking to a group of inferior peasants. “If we lure all of the dead in the vicinity to one place, such as this building, they would be much easier to kill.”
“Don’t you understand what it takes to kill just one of those things?” Junko says.
“Of course,” says Heinz. “It will not be too difficult of a task.”
Zombies and Shit Page 2
