Year of the Zombie [Anthology]

by David Moody

  ‘I think it’s obvious what would’ve happened if Jules hadn’t taken the shot,’ Holly says.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘That’s the million dollar question, kid.’

  Holly goes on to theorize that we only seem to see her in the presence of deadfucks, like she somehow uses them to travel around. Sounds kinda cool if it wasn’t so goddamn unsettling.

  I take a long swig and grunt away the burning aftertaste. Afterward I whip my head toward an imaginary camera somewhere between Holly and Gramps and go into my best Clint Eastwood. ‘Looks like we got some cleaning up to do,’ I say.

  Nobody laughs.

  Tough crowd.

  Video

  Spring Cleaning

  Weapons room

  Antiseptic lighting. Several long weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, rpgs) mounted vertically on the wall. Another wall for handguns. Another for miscellaneous gear (holsters, slings, vests, shell bags). A cabinet full of ammo.

  Quick cuts of Graeme and Hollister reaching into the frame and snatching weapons from the walls.

  Garage roof (Floodlight Cam)

  A six car-garage the size of a modest house. A wide driveway down in front extends to the edge of the frame and beyond. An overgrown field borders the other sides of the garage. A wooden deck on top. Expensive patio furniture shoved aside. Jules standing in the middle of the deck dowsed in sunlight. A guitar strapped to his chest. A wire snakes from the butt down to a mid-sized amp on the deck. A large speaker in the corner. Chirping chords waft from the guitar as Jules tunes the strings. A loose contingent of undead stumble into the frame from all sides and make their way toward the noise, the slow-lurch parade seemingly in accord with the fragmented rhythm.

  Jules (V.O.): I hurt my knee in the tussle with Gramps, so the boys thought I should hang back while they cleaned up. Holly came up with what you see here when I pitched a fit about Plan A. The speaker and amp were compliments of Zamora’s rock star pipe dream. The idea was that I act as a decoy to lure the deadfucks out into the open and help round ‘em up into one location. Then Gramps and Holly would come in and cut ‘em down. It gave me the opportunity to shred, which I had been complaining about not having had in a while.

  Weapons room

  Graeme and Hollister clad in tactical gear. They strap weapons across their torsos. Slide handguns into their holsters.

  Garage roof (Floodlight Cam)

  The chirping chords become more succinct as Jules finds his perfect pitch. His fingers dance translating kinetic energy into sound. Slow, seductive chords like foreplay for some monumental sexual event. Jules sinks in the groove. The chords manifest in swaying movement and a rhythmic head nod, scraggy red hair hanging in front of his face. A crowd forms at the foot of the raised stage, growing exponentially through a series of scene dissolves...

  Soon the garage is surrounded by a pulsating, undulating skirt of undead, their intent splayed across their rotten faces as they reach upward and claw and bite at air, laying hands on the garage walls as if to find purchase and climb up.

  Jules is locked in a symbiotic link with his guitar, seemingly unconcerned with the crowd beneath him. His eyes squeezed shut. Head nodding. Hips grinding air. Fingers doing a dexterous dance on the strings while the bridge squeals to his slow-hand caress.

  Shots ring out off-frame. A shift in the undead crowd as bodies begin to drop. The phenomenon spreads out from the rear of the garage, around to the sides…

  Graeme and Hollister enter the frame from rear-left and right. They are nearly unrecognizable wrapped in battle gear and brandishing machine guns—an AR 15 and an MK 17 respectively. Several more guns on their person. A designer golf-club (a driver) dangles upside-down from Graeme’s belt. The wrapped handle of an aluminum tee-ball bat protrudes from a long carrying case strapped to Hollister’s back. Bandanas around their necks. Goggles.

  The two men press forward, their torsos on pivot like an automatic sprinkler, spraying the crowd with bullets. It becomes evident that they are targeting the lower extremities. A follow up headshot as the bodies drop—if possible. Graeme moves left, Hollister right. They travel at an arc, around the sides, to the front of the garage, and come together in the middle of the driveway.

  Jules continues to play as the bodies fall and lie splayed out, writhing like dying petals on some giant, fleshy flower. Down below Graeme and Hollister have stopped firing to inspect the damage. A few dozen undead remain among the moist, slushy carrion moat at the base of the garage, unable to stand, yet still determined to nab the nearest bite of warm flesh.

  Graeme and Hollister strap their primary weapons across their torsos. Graeme yanks the driver from his waist and flips it right-side up. Hollister slides the bat from the carrying case against his back. They pull the bandanas up over their mouths and noses and communicate via nods before wading into the moat. They swing their weapons like bludgeons at the heads of any surviving undead, high-stepping so as not to slip on the soft, squishy chunks that moved strangely underfoot or to become entangled in the intestinal lattice.

  End Video

  Interior of van/scenery outside windows.

  Jules (V.O.): Gramps and Holly both reported seeing our fan during the bitch of a clean-up. Some random deadfuck Holly was dragging to the pile to burn. One of the few that had managed to survive the bullet spray and the blunt object beatdown.

  ‘This one appeared to be paralyzed from the neck down,’ Holly goes. ‘Just some average-looking fuck dressed like he was dead long before he was walking around jonesing for live meat. I was holding him by the legs. His arms were up over his head, which was turned to the side facing Gramps who was dragging a body next to me.’

  Then Gramps chimes in.

  ‘I look over and there she was staring at me while Holly dragged her,’ he goes.

  I glance at Holly who nods, goes, ‘Same shirt. Same ripped jeans. Same boots. All soaking wet. Hair clinging to her face. The whole shebang. It was seriously fucked. I dropped the bitch like a hot potato. Had to ask myself if I had somehow mistaken the average fuck for this chick back at the garage, but I knew there was no way. Meanwhile Gramps goes apeshit and starts stomping the chick’s face and head until there’s nothing left. I had to pull him offa her. When we looked again it was the average fuck laying there with his face bashed in. Seriously fucked, man.’

  That was the last we saw of our fan for a long time. We settled on a plan-of-action should we see her again, which was essentially the same set of guidelines for dealing with deadfucks.

  Keep your distance.

  Aim for the head.

  Avoid eye contact

  Within a week, she had fallen to the bottom of the list of daily concerns. Within two weeks, she was a haunted memory. We had settled into a routine. Morning stretch/workout. Breakfast with the Stone Show. Jam sessions. Movie night. Long discussions about the meaning of life and lack thereof—we each did time as Debbie Downer and Captain Optimism. We had become the poster children for the Post-9/6 American Family: Rockstar Edition.

  Gramps got on this filmmaking kick and starting filming everything. He would spend hours in the editing suite learning how to use the equipment. The ‘Spring Cleaning’ clip is the result of his editorial tinkering. The rest of the time he’d walk around with a camera stuck to his eye. Gramps had an addictive personality. So when he was into something – or someone – he was all in. His face would light up in a way that made his enthusiasm infectious. Like when he would really connect with lyrics I wrote. So you were instantly drawn into whatever he was into at the moment. And his latest addiction was filmmaking.

  Within a month we had an album’s worth of new music. I’m talkin’ the best shit we’d ever written. We didn’t even realize what we had until we watched the footage from the jam sessions. Rock ‘n’ Roll was our therapy. It allowed us to work through all the bullshit.

  The new stuff was a culmination of everything we had gone through since the world turned upside down put to music. We avoided u
sing our number one fan as inspiration out of fear that we might somehow conjure her up. I wrote a little something for her in secret, though. Just a few lines. My intention was to explore the person she was in life, but I was working with very little info.

  We were listening to the Stone Show the morning the Brand Compound came under attack. We grieved when the show went dark. I would equate the feeling with withdrawal. We tuned in to the wannabees and the whack jobs to ease the pain. The general consensus was that the Brand was an inside job. How else could a fortress like that have been overrun so quickly? The dead ain’t exactly known for their organizational skills.

  We rejoiced when the Stone Show returned and laughed at the irony that it was now being broadcast from the Government’s official bunker. If you know anything about the Stone Show’s history with the FCC, you’d understand how that was like Superman and Lex Luthor moving in together. Martin’s absence from the show was hard to ignore, but we at least held out hope that he was still alive somewhere.

  Then, one morning, we’re listening over breakfast. They were running a segment on people’s daily routines. Some guy named Caleb Kaiser calls in from Upper Marlboro. Says he starts every morning by listening to our song ‘Ride the Serpentine’ in honor of his wife Thana, our ‘number one fan,’ who died 6-months-ago. He goes into their story. They met at a concert during our Ride the Serpentine Tour. Love at first sight. Married for 17 years. One child; a son, Liam. Nine-years-old. Dead. The caller choked up at that point. Deadfucks, I assumed.

  ‘My Thana,’ he goes. ‘She was never the same after the death of our son. It broke her. She regressed to a happier time in her life to cope with it. Started dressing like she did when we first met. She was a groupie for Serpentine at the time. Real diehard. Followed them all over the country. She would go around calling the lead singer Graeme Gunz her husband. She never even met the guy. That was actually a point of contention during the first few years of our marriage.’

  The caller stopped, blew out some air. You could hear the emotion in his breath. I wanted to yell at him to continue, but my head was spinning from his story, mainly the description of his wife, Thana. I suddenly felt cold. Goosebumps. I look over at Gramps. He was white as a ghost – no pun intended.

  ‘What I wouldn’t give to have her back,’ the caller continued. ‘She had gotten this idea in her head that there was this concert in Baltimore she was supposed to attend. She would take one of the cars and run. We had to start restraining her. It was awful. She begged me to loosen her restraints. She said they hurt her wrists. I didn’t want to, but she begged me. You see. She was in such pain. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. So I did what she asked…’

  He paused. No exhale this time. Just dead air.

  ‘She got out that night,’ he could hardly say the words. ‘We found her car two days later. It was on its roof, half-submerged on the bank of Palmer Lake.’

  The caller descends into full-on weeping. And that becomes the background noise for the biggest ‘Holy Shit’ moment this side of finding out that the deadfucks weren’t just part of some elaborate Hollywood promotion.

  Gramps blew chunks all over the table. Holly blew chunks at the sight and smell of Gramps’ half-digested breakfast. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so fucking shell-shocked. We went through the rest of the day on auto pilot, avoiding eye contact and moving around the Grotto like strangers who shared a dark secret. I finally had enough and suggested the one thing that I knew would get our minds off this shit.

  ‘Let’s jam.’

  It took a little coaxing, but we got a good session in. I let the guys in on the lyrics I wrote about our number one fan. Now I had a title, Thana, and a story to reference from. It didn’t take long for a song to materialize. I approached it from the angle of unrequited love and how far we’ll go to obtain the object of our undying affection. I wrote a version where she got what she wanted. Gramps wasn’t the biggest fan, but he understood the process.

  The next day on the Stone Show, a woman named Janice calls in with a few words of support for ‘that poor man from yesterday’s show who lost his wife and son.’ She goes on to describe how ‘Ride the Serpentine’ has special meaning to her as well. She credits the song with giving her strength when she’s feeling overwhelmed and ready to throw in the towel.

  Imagine that. I never saw Ride as an inspirational tune. To me it’s just the manifestation of the wave of ‘Fuck Yeah!’ I was riding when I wrote the damn thing. It was ’87, I think. Right around the time when we graduated from famous to God-like status. Back when my head was the size of a frickin’ bowling ball. I defy anyone to live through that shit without it going to your head a little.

  On the show, co-host Raven and Janice share legendary rock anecdotes. They name-drop Serpentine in the same breath as the Stones, Zeppelin, Guns n’ Roses, Metallica, Nirvana, as groups that changed the game. They call Gramps the slithery personification of Rock ‘n’ Roll and they call me a bonafide guitar God. I can live with that. They even throw Holly a bone when one of the behind the scenes guys goes into this rant about how it must suck to be the drummer in a successful rock group. ‘You’re like window dressing,’ he goes. ‘…an afterthought...’ They debate the subject for a while.

  The Stone Show opens with the song the next day. Somehow it just fits. They open the show with it from then on. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more proud of one of my babies.

  Raven jokes about a lawsuit since they hadn’t officially gotten permission to use the song.

  Me and the guys decide to prank the show. What better way to let everyone know that we’re still here. Holly calls in as our former attorney Ira Levinthal. Good old Ira. Always wondered what happened to him. He was such a pussy that it couldn’t have been good.

  ‘It’s my intention to serve you with a Cease and Desist order unless my clients are paid for the use of their song,’ Holly – as Ira – says to Raven on the air. She catches him off-guard when she plays along with the joke. Holly runs out of legal mumbo-jumbo and let’s the cat out of the bag.

  Raven seems genuinely happy to hear from us. We spend the next hour and seventeen minutes telling our story post 9/6, affectionately remembering Martin Stone, and waxing philosophical about the power of music in light of recent developments.

  We thank the callers and fans and the show for giving them a voice. We end the call with an acoustic rendition of Ride.

  A week later, we’re on our way to the Weather to take part in the telethon and to discuss possibly staying on as the Stone Show house band. Gramps’ got this idea about turning this documentary thing into a series. Real World: Mount Weather Edition. Ha!

  Stranger things have happened.

  Stay tuned…

  SCRATCH

  David Moody

  The body of the early morning swimmer had been facedown in the sand long enough for any footprints to have been washed away. He lay on the beach like a washed-up jellyfish. Flabby and unnaturally pale, wearing unflattering speedos and not a lot else. Lank hair splayed like seaweed.

  Colin walked the dog here every morning, whatever the weather. He liked to see what the surf had dredged up. He’d found plenty before now, but never anything like this. Even from this distance he could tell that the man on the sand was dead. It was the way he was lying there with his right arm unnaturally buckled, folded under his bulk, and how he failed to react when the ice-cold waves scampered up the beach and tickled the wrinkled soles of his feet.

  Arnold, Colin’s dog, couldn’t contain his excitement. He bolted. ‘Come back here, you little shit,’ Colin yelled after him, but Arnold wasn’t having any of it. He sprinted over to the corpse and sniffed around the dead man’s face, burying his muzzle under his chin and pushing upwards.

  Colin finally caught up and grabbed his dog by the scruff and reattached his lead.

  He stood a little way back from the cadaver, uncertain. He glanced over his shoulder to check if anyone else was around, keen to find someone else to sh
are the burden of his grim early morning discovery, but there was no one. The beach was deserted; the early hour and heavy clouds confining holiday-makers to their caravans and tents. He thought about just walking away, but when he looked down and saw his heavy footprints in the sand leading up to this point, he knew it would be impossible to disappear and pretend he’d never been here. He really could have done without this. He came down to the beach each morning to clear his head and de-stress. Finding a washed-up stiff was the very last thing he needed.

  Wait. Was the man actually dead? The fact he hadn’t moved and wasn’t reacting either to the cold or his badly injured arm indicated he most likely was, but Colin thought he should do his civic duty and check. He fished his phone from his pocket and crouched down. He dialled 999, and as he waited for someone to answer he gingerly shook the body and checked for signs of breathing. He noticed three vicious-looking marks on the man’s exposed right shoulder. Bloody gouges. Deep, raking scratches.

  Still no answer, just ringing in his ear. He checked the display then cancelled the call and dialled 999 again.

  Arnold was acting up, keen to keep moving. He made a dash for the water and Colin pulled him back, almost losing his balance. He cursed his dog who then ran the other way, jumping the corpse. The second change of direction caught Colin off-guard and he fell back, landing on his backside in the damp sand almost on top of the dead man. He swore again and let go of the dog, then tried the phone a third time. Still no answer. Bugger.

  There was something moving in the scratches on the man’s back. Colin thought it was his eyes playing tricks at first, but when he looked a little closer he could see teeming movement. Hundreds of tiny, writhing things. They looked like minute, translucent maggots; almost amoeba-like in their simplicity. A visible infection.

  He knew it was a stupid thing to do, but he did it just the same. Phone gripped tight in one hand, with the outstretched fingers of the other he prodded dead flesh. He jumped out of his skin and scrambled back to his feet when the corpse reacted. The longest of the three scratches appeared to move in response to his touch. It briefly closed up then pulled apart and widened again like a grotesque and impossible sneer.