Junko shakes her head. “You’re crazy.”
“I think he could be right,” another man says. Haroon, a young man of Indian descent, who is wearing perhaps the nicest clothing in the room.
Junko says, “You all have to know that staying here is suicide. I’ve seen it happen every time. Every season, there’s always somebody too afraid to leave the starting point. They never last long.”
“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you pussies?” Scavy says.
“That’s not what I mean,” Haroon says. “I think we should forget about the helicopter. Only one of us can survive that way. If we work together I think we can all survive.”
“How’s that?” Bosco asks.
“I’ve been studying the map,” Haroon says. “In order to get to the helicopter, we’d have to go through the most dangerous parts of the city. But what if we were to skip the helicopter and go for a boat?”
“Is it possible?” Alonzo asks.
Haroon holds up his map and points to a blue line along the bottom. “There’s a harbor along the river here. It’s farther than the helicopter but we’d travel through less dangerous territory. If we find a boat we can sail it downstream to the ocean. Then we’d be home free.”
“That’s never going to work,” Junko says. “It seems close on the
map but it is nearly three times the distance of the helicopter. There’s no way anyone could survive out there for that long. And even if you happened to survive the trip and find a boat it would be over fifty years old. It’s not going to be sail-worthy after rotting in disrepair for so long.”
“Maybe we can find a plane at an airport to get us home?” Adriana says.
“Or find an armored vehicle that could take us out of the Red Zone,” Alonzo says.
Junko groans and shakes her head at all of them.
“We’re talking fifty years!” Junko says, knocking on her head. “Do you know what happens to machinery, boats, and buildings after fifty years?”
Nobody answers.
“They become useless,” Charlie says. “She’s right. Our only option is to go for the helicopter.”
“But then only one of us will survive,” Haroon says.
“You don’t understand,” Junko says. “We’ll be lucky if even one of us survives. Last season not a single person lasted beyond the first day.”
“Then why bother?” Adriana says. “We might as well kill ourselves now.”
Junko shrugs. She doesn’t really have a good answer for her. But Laurence steps forward and answers for her. “Because if we’re gonna die, we’re not gonna die like chumps.”
Then he punches his large fist into his palm.
The punks cheer him.
Junko goes to Charlie.
“So, are you going to join me,” she asks, “and leave the bitch behind?”
“Yeah,” he says, without making eye contact. “I’m with you.”
Junko smiles at him. “Good. Forget all about her and you might actually last awhile.”
Charlie wipes his tears away, tries to toughen up.
“So who else should we team up with?” he asks.
Junko looks around the room. She points at the black man with the mohawk and the guy he is talking to, an ex-soldier turned vagrant named Lee. “Them.”
“They can be trusted?”
She nods. “I’m a good judge of character.”
“Who else?”
“I think I can trust that Haroon guy,” Junko says. “But he’s an idiot if he thinks he can actually get out of the wasteland by anything other than helicopter.”
“He seems okay. That all?”
Junko looks around the room, then nods.
“Yeah, the rest are either worthless or scumbags or both.”
Charlie says, “Then let’s talk to the three that are worthwhile.”
As Junko introduces herself to Laurence and Lee, Charlie grinds his fist at the thought of Rainbow betraying him like that. He knew she was on the selfish side, he knew she hated the idea of living in the Copper Quadrant, and he knew money was important to her. But what he didn’t know was how little of importance he was to her.
Rainbow was a hippy from the Gold Quadrant. She lived in relative luxury since as long as she could remember. As a rich spoiled girl whose parents paid for everything, she was able to spend her time reading, smoking pot, protesting, painting, promoting peace and happiness, smoking pot, dancing, sun-bathing, and smoking pot. There were a lot of hippies in the Gold Quadrant. There were very few in the Silver and Copper Quadrants, because people were too busy working their asses off for just the bare essentials of survival.
When Charlie and Rainbow first met, it was at the university.
“What are you reading?” Charlie asked her.
Rainbow looked up from her picnic blanket to see the strange man staring down on her, blocking the sunlight.
“Charles Hudson,” she said, folding her legs, her wet grassy toes resting on top of a cucumber sandwich.
“What are you reading that crap for?” he said. “There were much better books written before Z-Day.”
“But I like his books,” she said. “I relate to them. He’s the only good writer since the apocalypse.”
Charlie smiled and stretched his back at her. “I don’t know, I think he’s kind of a douchebag. Just look at his author photo. Total douche.”
Then he walked away.
“Asshole,” Rainbow said.
She hated when people said crap about her favorite author. Just because he was a popular contemporary writer, that didn’t make him terrible. Most of the classics were originally bestsellers, written by the popular contemporary writers of their time. Just because Charles Hudson wasn’t dead yet and had yet to withstand the test of time, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to.
She muttered to herself, “You look more like a douchebag than Charles Hudson.”
Then she turned to the bio page and looked at his author photo. Then she looked back at Charlie, who was walking casually through the park with his hands in his pockets. Charlie was wearing the same green antique army coat as the author in the photo.
She chased Charlie down and walked beside him, looking at his face and holding his book up as reference. Although he was younger in the photo, had less meat on his bones, and was clean shaven, she could see they were the same person.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” she asked. “Charles Hudson.”
Charlie smiled. “I was wondering if you’d notice.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!” she said. “You’re my favorite author!”
“If I’m your favorite author,” he said, “you’re not reading the right books.”
“I’ve read a lot,” Rainbow said, then licked her upper lip. “You’re the only author that really speaks to me.”
“But there’s a whole library full of books by masters of the craft,” he said, pointing at the university library on the other side of the park. “Those are the all-time greatest works of literature, written by geniuses. I’m no a master. I’m no genius. I’m not even smart, really. I’ve just been writing stories my whole life, since I was a kid, as a way to escape our shitty reality.”
“But I can relate to that,” she said, swinging her dreads over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t blocking her cleavage. “I can’t relate to some masterful genius from a completely different era telling stories about a world I never knew. You write about our lives now, in Neo New York.”
“But those other books are brilliant works of art.”
“I don’t care if they are brilliant. I care about emotion. You make me smile, laugh, cry, fear, fall in love. That’s what is important.”
Charlie smiled at her. She smiled at him. He noticed she was sucking in her stomach, arching her back, pushing out her breasts so that they wouldn’t look so small.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Cathy,” she said. Then she leaned in, pressed her cheek against
> his, and said in a gentle voice, “But you can call me Rainbow Cat.” Her lips so close they tickled his earlobe when she spoke.
He was used to the flirtatious advances of his female readers. His past six girlfriends were all young pretty fans. They were the only girls he was interested in, because even though he liked to make light of his writing talents all he really wanted was to have his ego stroked as much as possible. Compliments meant so much more when they were coming out of the lips of a beautiful woman.
By the next morning, they had already had sex three times. Rainbow was aggressive with her sexuality, gluttonous with it. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted it all right then and there. Charlie liked that about her. The more she wanted him, the better he felt about himself as a writer. She didn’t know him, personally. She only knew his work. So for him to see her crave him sexually so bad meant that it was his art that she wanted to fuck. She wanted to lick his art, press her body against his art, feel his art inside of her. As an artist, it was like an ego blowjob, and he loved every second of it.
But she didn’t just want to make love to him, she wanted to possess him. It wasn’t long before she dropped out of college and moved in with him. It wasn’t long before she convinced him to marry her.
They were happy together. Rainbow was happy that her favorite author now belonged to her, both physically and mentally, and he was happy to be with this pretty young girl who loved his work so much that she was willing to dedicate her life to him because of it. For each of them, it was a perfect arrangement. But it didn’t last.
When the last fiction publishing company in Neo New York went out of business, Charlie was no longer an author. With no college education, neither Charlie nor Rainbow could get jobs in the Gold Quadrant. They were downgraded to the Silver Quadrant and eventually ended up in the ghetto of Copper.
Rainbow still believed in her husband. At least she did when they first moved into the Copper Quadrant. She told him that she would take care of them from then on. All he had to worry about was his writing.
“Your work is what is important,” she said. “Someday a new publishing company will go into business. When that happens, you’ll have several manuscripts ready to go. Then we’ll be rich again.”
Charlie agreed, but he wasn’t as optimistic as she was. It was difficult for him to get back into writing. He became more interested in drinking, sulking around the house. He started taking pills, getting high on Waste, and sleeping around with prostitutes. But Rainbow helped him out of his despair. She told him that she would leave him if he didn’t quit taking drugs or ease up on the drinking.
To get back at him for sleeping with prostitutes, she told him he had to write ten pages a day, every single day. If he was short a single page, a single paragraph, she would go out and fuck a random guy that night. Sometimes he met his goal, sometimes he didn’t. She always made good on her promise, even if she wasn’t in the mood that night. If he didn’t write a single sentence, even if he happened to be sick, she wouldn’t even come home that night. She would let some strange guy pick her up, then sleep in his bed with him, snuggle him, kiss the back of his neck as he slept, until it was time for her to go to work the next day.
Even though he wasn’t making any money, Rainbow Cat made him a better, more responsible writer for doing this to him. He thought she was a total bitch for it, but because she was a bitch she had helped him through a hard time. He believed she was a bitch to him because she loved him.
He still can’t believe she would sell him out to this television show, just for the sake of money. And on their anniversary, of all days, which wasn’t just to celebrate five years of marriage but also to celebrate the completion of his newest novel. It wasn’t only his newest, but also the greatest book he had ever written. His masterpiece. The book that he would be remembered for more than anything else he’s ever written.
The last thing he remembers from their anniversary dinner, before the drugs in their drinks took effect, was telling her who the book was dedicated to.
The inscription on the manuscript page read:
To my Rainbow Cat, for always believing in me.
The number of zombies outside of the hotel is rising. The undead are breaking the wooden barrier into splinters. Some are puking green radioactive vomit across the walls, others are dripping black oily fluids on the sun-burnt pavement.
“We need to get going pretty soon,” Junko says to Charlie.
They have separated from the others and are now in a private hotel room, trying to plan their escape. Haroon and Lee are in the room, leaning against a dresser. Laurence is also there, pointing at the path.
“I say we head straight through there,” Laurence says, while pointing at the widest street in sight. “It might be the most wide-open but it has the least amount of obstacles. We’ll be able to run faster.”
“No,” Junko says. “You want to put obstacles between you and them. They can run pretty fast, but they are terrible climbers. We should go over the wall. They won’t be able to follow us over and it’ll take them a good hour to figure out how to get around. I’ve seen it before.”
“How far away do we have to get before our packs open?” Lee asks through his scruffy gray beard. By his tipsy posture, Charlie assumes that the old man is drunk even though he couldn’t possibly have any alcohol on him.
“Don’t bother with them until we get over the wall and find safety,” Junko says. “Focus on running. Trying to fight them will only slow us down.”
“When should we leave?” Charlie asks.
“Right now,” Junko says.
Once the five of them arrive in the lobby, they notice that the seven punks have the same idea. The punks are ready to go, their eyes lit with excitement. The other people in the room don’t seem to be as organized. Charlie can’t tell if they are all one group, several small groups, or if they all plan to go solo. Rainbow is the only person who isn’t in the lobby. She must still be hiding up in a room somewhere.
The zombies are ripping boards from the windows and scratching against the glass. One of them is missing flesh from the tips of its fingers, causing a screeching noise as its finger bones scrape across the glass.
Scavy looks closely at one of the zombies. It is a female corpse who looks like she had been an exotic dancer in her past life, wearing fishnet stockings and a withered black corset. Her breasts are hanging out of her ripped open shirt. Scavy can see the saline implants through holes in her breast meat, where chunks of flesh had been bitten away.
The female zombie locks eyes with Scavy and says, “Braains!”
Then she thrashes harder against the boards. It’s as if looking him in the eyes made her more hungry, as if she could see his brains through his pupils.
“Hey, this one’s kind of hot!” Scavy says to his friends, pointing at the ex-stripper zombie.
His friend, Brick, laughs and wiggles his tongue at her through the glass.
“Braains,” she says, staring Scavy in the eyes. “Let me eat your brains!”
Charlie notices that she is salivating.
“Brains!” she cries.
Brick and Scavy pretend to squeeze her breasts through the glass. This only works up the zombie even more.
“Need!” she cries. “Need your brains! Now!”
Junko pushes the punks away from the window. “Don’t tease them. You’ll only make them hungrier.”
The punks don’t seem to care.
“Are they intelligent?” Charlie asks Junko. “I’ve never heard them say anything but brains before… even when I was a kid and saw them all the time.”
“It depends on how much of their minds are still intact,” Junko says. “Most of their minds have been destroyed. Some of them, especially the freshly turned ones, can have entire conversations with you.”
“So you can reason with them? Convince them to let us go? They must understand what it’s like to be human.”
Junko laughs and shakes her head. “Even the most
intelligent zombies are like junkies going through a massive withdrawal. All they need to get their fix is to feed on the electrical impulses in your nervous system. If you want to convince junkies not to shoot up anymore, it’s not going to happen while you’re waving a bunch of free Waste in front of their faces.”
“But what if you tried to reason with them from a distance, over an intercom?” Charlie asks. “Maybe if you take the Waste out of their faces it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Clever,” Junko says. “But a useless idea.”
“I wonder if the more intelligent ones have conversations with each other,” Charlie says, “when humans aren’t around to drive them brain-crazy.”
“Brain-crazy?” Junko asks.
“It’s a term I use in my novels to explain zombie behavior around living beings.”
“Hmmm…” She scrunches her eyes at him. “No wonder why people don’t take your books seriously.”
He shrugs. “I was never trying to be taken seriously.”
“Are you ready to do this?” Junko asks.
Charlie looks behind him to check with Lee, Haroon, and Laurence. They nod their heads. Laurence smiles and gives him a thumbs up through his black leather glove.
“Let’s do it,” Charlie says.
The punks crowd the front entrance, wanting to be the first ones out. As they pry the boards from the front door, all of the zombies in the yard become attracted to the sound and gather on the other side.
“How are we gonna get through them?” Bosco says.
“We should leave through another entrance,” Haroon says, inching away.
Before the punks get the boards down, the door splinters apart and a hole opens up on the top half.
“Braains!” a zombie’s face says through the hole.
All the punks back away except for Brick and the pink-haired girl, Popcorn. They try to hold the door in place as it is ripped apart.
“Help us!” Popcorn yells.
The group scatters. Some of them run to the east side of the building, some run to the west. All of the punks leave their two friends, except for Scavy.
Zombies and Shit Page 3
