Also by Scott Kenemore
Novels
The Grand Hotel
Zombie, Indiana
Zombie, Illinois
Zombie, Ohio
Zen of Zombie Series
Zen of Zombie
Z.E.O.
The Code of the Zombie Pirate
Zombies vs. Nazis
The Art of Zombie Warfare
Copyright © 2017 by Scott Kenemore
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Anthony Morais
Print ISBN: 978-1-945863-21-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-945863-22-6
Printed in the United States of America
THE TYCOON
He was, really, not so bad.
If only they could see this. If only they could put down their signs and quiet their clever chants for a moment and actually talk to him. Speak with him one-on-one, like real people. Then they would doubtless see him the way his friends did. The way his business associates and employees did. The way the rich and famous all over the globe had come to see him.
He would look into their irascible, protest-mad eyes, shake their unwashed hands, and then the remarkable, magical force that had carried him this far—that had made him a billionaire, and television star, and placed him at the helm of one of the most-respected brands on earth—would surely cast its spell over them.
Surely.
But for whatever reason, such simple solutions were never possible.
Instead, this. Always this.
As the Tycoon sat in the $5,000 leather office chair at the top of the tower that bore his name, he could look straight down into the public circle below where the thousands of demonstrators had gathered.
Their protest chants and signs were rather nonspecific. They said that the Tycoon “had to go,” that he didn’t care about America, and that he was a fraud. But what were these declamations, really? What were these claims? They were not action-items you could check off once they had been completed. Rather, they were abstractions.
Though his familiarity with “using computers” remained cursory at best, the Tycoon managed to launch an internet browser on his laptop and scroll through the day’s news headlines. So many were about him. But, again, these stories also seemed to have been written by people who just did not understand. People who—if he could only meet personally—would surely come around. But who, as it stood, misunderstood him utterly.
The Tycoon’s friends and advisors had told him that the primaries would be the difficult part. That securing his party’s own nomination was the true test. It had to be, they said. The party needed to examine him with a fine-toothed comb. Needed to review his performance under every condition. It was not personal, he was assured. Yet the process was necessary because anything they might find, the opposition party would undoubtedly locate. If he went in to the general election untested, there was no telling what might happen.
And so, though it made him cringe and itch all over, the Tycoon had allowed it. The muckrakers had gone to work, and they had found muck aplenty. In his business dealings. In his personal life. In his memberships and associations. It had been a feast for the carrion crows. They’d found things he’d forgotten about entirely! Things from his distant past—he was now reckoned to be about seventy years old—that had not even been transgressions at the time. They had simply been how things had been done back then!
So much had been found.
And none of it had hurt him.
If anything, this unearthed litany of failings and foibles had made the Tycoon a stronger candidate. To the voters, he now appeared more real. More authentic. A straight-shooter who didn’t pussyfoot around when it came to what he thought, or said, or did. To the astonishment of his primary opponents, the American electorate seemed positively starved for a man of his temperament. The things they had been told they “could not do” anymore? Well, he did them. He had done them for years—sometimes on camera, in front of audiences of thousands. He had dismissed the “rules” with a wave of his hand. He called the other side agents of “political correctness,” and, with those magic words, had made them disappear.
And it wasn’t just talk. He showed, through his bold acts and actions, that it was all—all of it—the emperor’s new clothes. That in fact you could impersonate a handicapped reporter. You could enforce all immigration laws. You could ignore the petitions and concerns of groups you found annoying. You could do all these things!
The Tycoon showed his party that perhaps they had forgotten this simple fact. You could do it! Here—he seemed to say in his speeches and rallies—hold my beer. (This was a figure of speech, of course. The tycoon did not drink. Alcohol.) Watch, now. I’m going to do it. I’m going to say it. I’m going to show you that the magic spells the other side has used to control your thought and speech and behavior were never really magic to begin with. And we can dispel them simply by not believing in them anymore.
And so he had. And so they did. And they loved him for it.
This had demonstrated to his party that he—above all others—was the man for the job. And so he had swept the primaries almost entirely. Now he would be coronated at his party’s convention, and then there would be only one obstacle left.
Her.
The former first lady and secretary of state. The Tycoon’s advisors told him not to underestimate her. He had learned to give as good as he got during the primaries, but her attacks would be different, they told him. She came from a dynasty known for dirty tricks. He could expect them to come fast and thick.
Her opening move had been to announce that her party was thankful—yes, thankful—that the Tycoon had been nominated to face her. His party was in such disarray, she said in a press release, that it had nominated the weakest possible candidate. It had nominated the man with the least experience and the most scandals. The man who put his foot in his mouth every time he spoke.
Thinking on this, the Tycoon pushed his chair back from his gilded desk and laughed a deep belly laugh. As she was in so many things, his opponent was so close … yet so far off at the same time.
It was not his own foot he put into his mouth. It was other people’s.
Feet, yes. Feet were a fine place to start. An acceptable appetizer, definitely. But there was so much more. So many other wonderful parts to enjoy. So many different courses to the meal. Arms and legs. Fingers and faces. And of course brains. Brains. Braaaaaaaaains.
The word reverberated inside the Tycoon’s mind like the last strains of a symphony.
Brains.
Than which, there was nothing higher or better. Why did one get up in the morning? Why did one go to bed at night? Why did one do all of the horrible, degrading, frustrating things that the world required?
Brains.
Brains, and brains again. Always brains. Ever brains.
The Tycoon was not the only one with this predilection, of course. He
was not the only person of prominence whose tastes ran to the flesh of the living. But the others—in his opinion—had thought small, so far. That was their problem. They had been content to haunt abandoned hospitals and derelict shopping malls. To emerge from misty bogs at midnight to feed on unlucky villagers. To abscond with the mourner who dawdled a tad too long after the funeral, and then to retreat once again beneath the cemetery landscaping.
These were not bad souls, necessarily. But they lacked a fundamental ambition. They failed to think in matters of scale. To have brains occasionally was one thing, but to have them with great regularity? To install systems that would allow you to get them again and again, whenever you wanted? That was true success. As a celebrity billionaire, the Tycoon thought bigly upon these things. He had considered the path toward such a goal for many years. And eventually, he had determined there was no better way of achieving it than securing the presidency.
At his rallies, the Tycoon’s supporters held aloft homemade signs praising him for foregoing a life of ease, for risking his name and his fortune, and for subjecting himself to the slings and arrows of national politics—all because he so loved his country.
And they were half-right.
He was taking a gamble. But it was not out of patriotic love for his country (or any other country in the world—despite what they liked to imply regarding his relationship with Russia). Neither was it out of anything so crude and commonplace as selflessness or compassion. Instead, it was out of the simple need for more. Not more power or recognition. (Goodness knew, he had enough of those already.) But the need for brains. More brains.
The two syllables pounded inside his head, day in and day out, like the heartbeat he did not have.
More brains!
More brains!
More brains!
And not just for him, but for all members of the walking dead. For all zombies everywhere! Whether they sauntered through the corridors of power in starched shirts, or lurched aimlessly and half-naked in forgotten misty burying grounds, they were all his people. He needed more. They needed more. And they would have it. Despite what the scruffy protestors outside his office said. Despite what his elitist political opponent said. Despite, even, what the prognosticators within his own party said—who looked at predictions and poll numbers and always shook their balding, flabby heads dejectedly. The men (and a few women, too) who wheezed: “But even with the bump we’ll get at the convention, it’s going to be a real challenge to catch up to her …” The ones who suggested that the best outcome possible—the true victory—might be to use the notoriety arising from his presidential run to start a TV network. And besides, they assured him, the system was rigged. He shouldn’t take it personally. Someone like him had never had a serious chance. Someone like him …
If only they knew the half of it.
Who he really was. What he really wanted.
But soon they would. Soon all of them would.
As the Tycoon stared down into the mass of protestors gathered outside his skyscraper, this was the one thing in the world he felt he knew for sure.
THE REPORTER
“At this point, there’s no way he can win.”
Jessica Smith nodded thoughtfully and seriously at the prognostications of her boss, a veteran reporter some twenty years her senior. He smiled a world-weary smile and held the door for her as they strode into the largely-empty arena.
Preparation for the convention was behind schedule and more disorganized than anyone wanted to admit. The contractors in tool belts and hard hats—when they realized that the first convention reporters were actually arriving—rolled their eyes and thanked their lucky stars that they were not the project managers who would ultimately be blamed for the disorganization and delay.
Despite the ongoing challenges and holdups, some of the trappings of a political convention had been achieved in a sort of rudimentary way. American flag bunting hung from windows and walls. The stage in the center of the arena was still under construction, but columns and platforms were beginning to come into existence. Hurried carpenters rushed to and fro. Instead of the Muzak so typical in these venues, patriotic music was being piped into the parking garages, stairwells, and elevators. All in all, it rather gave Jessica the feeling of something constructed by a foreign (or possibly alien) culture that had never before seen an American political convention, but had been asked to give it a go anyhow.
Jessica had landed her position with this elite, East Coast news outlet directly after graduating from journalism school. She had beat out literally thousands of applicants for it, and knew how lucky she was. In a time when newspapers across the country were dying, or merging, or merging and then dying, her employer was one of the last powerful papers that had—kind-of, sort-of—remained profitable.
Jessica had been interested in American politics since before she could remember, and journalists had always been her idols. So far in her brief career, she had covered regional politics and written about city council and mayoral races in New York City. But she had only seen national political conventions on TV. They had always looked extravagant and exciting. (And like they had been produced and built by people who actually gave a damn about what they were doing.)
As the senior reporter who supervised her—George Cutler was his name—paused to regard a crude, stock image of a bald eagle that had been tacked to the door of a press lounge, he smiled sympathetically at Jessica, like a father whose child has just met the deflated, alcoholic mall version of Santa Claus.
George shook his head and moved down the hallway, trudging deeper and deeper into the half-built convention space. Jessica followed. They passed arena staff vacuuming floors and cleaning bathrooms. Several away teams from special-interest groups and civic organizations were also present, hurrying to set up displays and erect banners.
George spoke confidentially and quietly, as though he and Jessica were educators discussing a student who would have to be held back a year.
“As you know, I’ve been to a few of these—and this is your first one, so maybe you can’t tell—but this is not typical.”
Jessica nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing.
“In American elections, the candidate who spends the most money wins about ninety-five percent of the time,” George continued. “Just look around. What does that tell you about what’s happening here?”
“He says he’s still putting his fundraising team together,” Jessica tried, as they passed a large papier-mâché elephant so crude it could have been created by a child. “After he gets the convention bump, that might get more potential donors excited. Could be that’s when they plan to start the real push for cash.”
George smiled as he shook his head, as if to say Jessica had found a solution that was technically plausible, while still managing to still be very unlikely.
“Even the regular donors know he’s not going to win,” George said. “Sure, they’ll make some contributions in the days ahead, but they’ll be token gestures. Favors to a friend. There’s no way, Jessica. He is going to lose the general election by a landslide. Have you heard the old Louisiana political axiom: ‘To lose, he’d either have to be caught with a live boy or a dead girl’? Well at this point, I think they could catch her with both of those … and she’d still beat this guy. And his party knows it. Think about it. It’s the week of the convention, and they haven’t even announced who is going to be speaking. Why? That’s because they still can’t find anybody who wants to get on board this sinking ship. It’s embarrassing for everybody. They’re embarrassed to be doing this, and we’re embarrassed for them. But we all still have to do our jobs. That’s the way the world works.”
“So then …” Jessica struggled. “So then …”
“So then why are we even here?” George asked with a grin.
Jessica nodded timidly.
“For one, we’re getting a paycheck,” George said. “Whatever else may be true, that certainly is. The real news won’t be what happens on
the stage. It’ll be out in the streets. This week, I want you to think human interest stories, Jessica. That’s the best we’re going to get. Why do people want to vote for this clown? How did a sick joke powered by misogyny and internet memes ever make it so far? That’s what we’ve been sent here to ponder.”
They passed down another carpeted hallway and into a section of the arena that contained very small media conference rooms. George and Jessica would be walking past these; they were reserved for the lowest of the low when it came to news organizations. They housed bloggers, agenda-driven publications, and nonprofits with newsletters. The tables in these rooms were small and crowded closely together. The reporters—such as they were—would be cramped. The lighting was grim and institutional.
Glancing inside these rooms, Jessica felt thankful all over again to have secured a position at a top-tier newspaper. Jessica looked over this competition, such as it was. And that was when she saw him.
Jessica slowed her gait and eventually stopped walking entirely. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand. Was she really seeing this?
She was.
“Tim Fife?” she called incredulously.
He looked up from his laptop. He did not see her immediately, but he smiled at the sound of her voice. He looked like a man tasting a familiar flavor or smelling a favorite scent. Jessica lingered in the doorway to the small side conference room.
Eventually he saw her and stood, revealing blue jeans that had seen better days and a black t-shirt that read “Humpty Dumpty was pushed!” Somewhat alarmingly, he also wore a white plastic brace around his neck, as though he had recently suffered an injury. There was a mustard stain—a fresh one—starting at the edge of his mouth and making its way down over the brace, and onto the shirt. He had not shaved in two or three days.
“Jessica!” he said, pushing back his chair.
Jessica smiled and hastily glanced back up the hallway for a moment toward her colleague.
“George,” she called. “I’ll catch up with you!”
George nodded and continued on his way. Jessica warily entered the dingy conference room. Tim bounded over, lunging step after lunging step, and Jessica gave him a hug.
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