Teenage Wasteland (I Zombie)

by Wallen, Jack

  My tolerance for the man’s madness had long since faded. I grabbed his dirty finger and bent it backward. To my surprise, he grinned and leaned into the bend until a loud crack sounded from his hand. The sound of ecstasy poured from his mouth and tears from his eyes.

  He withdrew his hand, the finger clearly broken. “Sometimes you need a bit of pain to remind you that you’re still alive.” He shook his broken digit between us; it flopped about like a rubber chicken. He giggled wildly. “Look at it go. Look at it go!”

  Behind us, the door rattled against the roar of Boners. The half-naked man giggled with delight. “Here they come, ready to rip off your head and spit down your throat.”

  I pressed the barrel of the gun to man’s chest. “Into the room behind you. Now!”

  He presented no sign of refusal before he turned and vanished into the room. Without hesitation, I stumbled to the door and slammed it shut. Mikko snatched a chair from the end of the hall and propped it under the handle of the door. She gave the door a tug and, once she was satisfied the persecuted soul couldn’t escape the room, she returned to my side.

  I made to race up the stairwell across the hall, when Kubrick grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to a stop.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Kubrick asked.

  “About what?”

  “About staying here? Who knows how many more nut cases we’d have to deal with inside this nightmare factory.”

  An emphatic roar made a point I didn’t need to hit home. Without another word spoken between us, everyone followed me up the stairs.

  Three landings later, we were presented with a wide open space…a single room spread over the entire floor. Scattered around the area were large, sealed crates, each stamped with a logo I’d never before seen.

  “What is this place?” Kubrick asked.

  Nicco shot past me, camera on his shoulder and rolling. He eased up to one of the crates and walked a complete circle around the large box. “Nailed shut,” Nicco shouted.

  “Hey guys,” Mikko called out. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

  I rushed to her side and glanced through the window. “Son of a bitch,” I whispered. “They’re coming from everywhere.”

  “Who?” Frenzy asked.

  “Not who…what.” I replied.

  Everyone found a window and quickly wished they hadn’t.

  Kubrick leaned against the glass. “Holy crap. How in the hell are we supposed to get out of here?”

  Something was drawing them to us. Moaners…they converged on the building from every corner of the world, as if the streets vomited zombies.

  “Someone please tell me what’s going on,” Fay whispered. The sound of her fear was palpable, infectious.

  I had no answer. Mikko had no answer. Frenzy, Kubrick, and Nicco had no answer. There were only questions.

  The first wave of the undead splashed down on the building. The walls subtly shuddered.

  “I don’t understand,” I mumbled under my breath. “There has to be something we’re missing…something about this building that attracted the undead.”

  “Yeah,” Nicco interrupted, “us.”

  I turned to face Nicco; his attention was locked on the camera in his hands. I wasn’t sure what he was filming, but something was going on. I stepped in close to his window and peered out.

  “It’s just zombies,” was all I could muster.

  “Just zombies? Is that the best you’ve got?” Nicco spat. “It so happens that that pack of just zombies outnumbers us, like, a billion to one. We’d need a goddamn superhero to level this playing field.”

  Frenzy chimed in with a logic bomb. “The only question at the moment that really matters is what is drawing them to this building? Moaners don’t converge on something unless there’s a good enough reason. Said good enough reason is brain matter. Considering the number of undead coming for us, it makes no sense that…”

  I interrupted. “Maybe Mr. Creepy Pants knows something about this.”

  Everyone slow-turned my way, their faces knotted with disgust.

  I surrendered. “Fine, I’ll go.”

  No one bothered to stop me from leaving the room. I even hesitated at the door, on the off-chance someone decided I was too important to chance losing to a Handlebar the Hipster Cannibal.

  Nothing.

  I took the stairs slowly. With each step downward, the idea that someone would jerk me back into the room faded.

  “Crap,” I whispered as my feet landed on the bottom floor of the building. “No turning back now.”

  Beyond the walls of the building, the rumble of moans shook the floor. For whatever reason, the zombie horde was content with calling out from the street…which was odd. Collectively, they could have ripped the building from its foundation and tossed it aside to get to the sweet meats within. Instead, they swayed in place and moaned.

  With the stealth of a ninja, I removed the chair and opened the door holding Creepy Pants captive. The man was fetal on the floor, shivering and singing “Pop Goes The Zombie”.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked with gentle force.

  Creepy continued his song. I reached in and grabbed him by the arm to yank him from hiding. He jerked free and sang louder. I stepped into the tiny room and pulled the door closed behind me. The darkness added a layer of panic I had no desire to endure.

  “I’m going to give you thirty seconds before I pull that door back open and drag your ass out into the hallway.”

  Creepy mumbled again.

  “One.”

  Another mumble.

  “Two.”

  Before I could reach three, the door was flung open and an LED light shattered the darkness into a thousand splintered shadows.

  “What the hell?” I shouted.

  Nicco replied. “This has Oscar written all over it. Okay, maybe not Oscar, but this dude is straight out of a Rob Zombie film.”

  “No,” I insisted.

  Creepy Pants stood and pressed into me, transfixed by the light and the lens. “The third eye of the world is on me. The prophesy of the three is nigh.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, knowing full well Mr. Pants had absolutely no idea what he was saying.

  I made my way out of the closet. Creepy nervously approached Nicco. “Is the great one ready to translate the word of wisdom to the unwashed masses?”

  “He is,” Nicco replied in a hushed tone. “The great one is ready for you.”

  The camera zoomed in on Creepy’s face. The second the auto-zoom motor ceased spinning, Nicco pointed and said, “Whenever you’re ready to speak, the great one will translate.”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” Creepy whispered and nodded. “I am ready.”

  Creepy drew in a number of quick, shallow breaths and spoke with an eerie calmness. “It was foretold in the book of Jacob that the dawn of new man would herald the coming of the antigod—a being so malicious humanity would never survive. Our only chance lay in the hands of the red-haired unicorn. Trapped within the single horn of this mythical creature made real is every piece of information necessary to stem the tide of death. The antigod will wage a war unlike any mankind has ever fought. And we shall lose mightily. A flood of death will drown us, and only those willing to ride the back of the great unicorn will survive.”

  Nicco stepped to the side to get a more artistic angle on Creepy Pants. Somehow, the madman continued facing forward, as if the camera never moved.

  “I am the knight who shall sit upon the back of the unicorn. With its mighty horn I will gore the antigod and save humanity.”

  Creepy panted hard; strings of saliva exploded from his lips.

  And then he dropped to his knees with a loud crack. The sound sent a wave of nausea through my system. Nicco followed him down with the lens and drew back a step. I was about to speak when Creepy seemed to shut off and dropped, face first, to the floor.

  “What just happened?” Nicco asked.

  “I have no idea,” I repl
ied.

  “Oh, shit. Is that dude dead?”

  I knelt down beside the man. The stink of his body odor was almost too much to take. In the name of my soul, I persevered and cautiously touched two fingers to his neck.

  “Crap,” I whispered.

  “What is it, Jingo?”

  I glanced up at Nicco and slowly shook my head.

  “No way. That’s…no way. That shit only happens in the movies. He’s not…”

  “Dead. Yeah…he is.”

  To my shock, Nicco sent the camera lens zooming into the man’s face.

  “What the hell, Nicco? Have some respect.”

  Nicco stood and glared at me. “Don’t even.”

  “Don’t even what?” I demanded.

  “Respect? Seriously? It’s the apocalypse, Jingo. Respect became irrelevant the second the Mengele Virus stripped us of hope.”

  I drew into Nicco’s personal space and pressed the camera to the side. “Listen, moron. The minute we lose our respect for others is when we kiss our souls goodbye. You may be able to feel nothing behind that lens, but out here in reality, we live and die by respect. If you can’t get with that, then I suggest you get the hell out of here.”

  Nicco blinked his eyes against my hot breath. Tears welled and splashed down on his cheeks. Neither of us spoke a word—it wasn’t necessary. The moment was shared and the moment passed.

  “What do we do with the body?”

  The second Nicco asked the question, a monstrous pounding rattled the door in its frame.

  “We can’t dump it outside,” I responded.

  Nicco carefully set his camera down and walked to the head of dead Creepy. He grabbed the man’s arms and hauled him back into the closet. Nicco stepped over Creepy and exited the closet, pulling the door shut behind him. He steepled his fingers in front of his face and blinked. “We tell no one about what happened. I don’t want to be labeled a killer. Period. As far as we know, Creepy Pants made his way into the horde so they could return him to the mother ship.”

  Nervous laughter spilled from our lips.

  “Dude was one crazy mother.” Nicco nodded as he spoke.

  The pounding on the door returned. The sound jarred both of us from our Creepshow reverie.

  Nicco asked, “What should we do now?”

  “What are our choices?” I responded.

  Nicco said, “We have to return to Asylum. It’s the only way we’re going to expose Crowbar.”

  A body slammed into the door. “Only one problem…” I pointed out the obvious.

  “Minor details,” Nicco added.

  “We should get back upstairs before anyone starts to worry.”

  “Starts?” Nicco voiced my own innermost fear of the moment.

  “What do we tell them?” I asked.

  Nicco shook his head. “I vote nothing.”

  “I’d happily second that, but Mikko won’t buy our silence. She’s too intuitive.”

  “Damn girls.”

  “Yeah…what’s a guy to do?”

  “Are we not men?” I quoted one of my dad’s favorite bands. Nicco tilted his head as if to stand clueless against the greatest pop reference of all time.

  “I don’t get it,” Nicco said.

  “And you never will. Come on.” I took the stairs at a sprint, all the while wondering what, exactly, I would tell everyone. What I really wanted to do was forget what just happened and return to what was supposed to be the best years of my life. Happiness. It’d been so long since I’d experienced life without tragedy and death. Yes, death was rampant in the new world order, and was usually preceded by a moan or a scream…like the sex I was supposed to be having after the prom I never got to attend.

  Damn apocalypse.

  I hit the landing and stopped to catch my breath. Rushing into the group breathing like I’d just run a marathon would do me no good.

  Nicco caught up and stopped beside me. “What’s the plan?”

  I considered, weighed, and chewed on every idea my exhausted brain could conjure. As the possibilities shot through the fleshy folds of my gray matter, something floated to the surface.

  I turned and glanced out the nearest window. The undead flash mob was still growing. “We have to figure out what’s drawing those bastards to this building.”

  Nicco joined me at the window and then had a physical reaction to an apparent ah ha moment. “I need to get to the roof.”

  “If you tell me it’s to film…”

  “Why else would I go to the roof? You think I’m going to miss out on the chance to get some seriously golden stock footage? I could use this scene for…”

  I sighed. It was the only logical reaction I could muster. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m going with you.”

  “Hell, the damn Pope can go with, for all I care. Come on. We have to find an access point.”

  At the end of the hall was a door. Behind the door was a ladder that led to a crawl space. Navigating the tight space was tough…and hot.

  “Holy crap, Jingo, what’s the smell?”

  The stink of rot permeated the too-warm attic room. The foul stench was overpowering. I pulled the neck of my shirt over my mouth before I started tasting hate.

  “I’m gonna barf,” Nicco said, just before he spewed a rainbow onto the wood planks at his feet. I expected to smell bile, but whatever Nicco’s stomach chucked held no sway over the festering aroma wafting into my nose.

  “There.” I pointed with every ounce of hope I had.

  A window stood before us. I rushed past Nicco, carefully avoiding the spillage, and made my way to the dirty glass. I rubbed my palm across the thick layer of dust and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  It was my turn to hurl. The splash-down spattered everything within a five foot radius.

  “Son of a…” Nicco started before I silenced him with an open palm.

  I swallowed the hot and sour human soup, took in a deep gulp of air, and spoke with a vomit-ragged voice. “I know what’s attracting the zombies.”

  Nicco attempted to stretch around me to get a look out the window. I stopped him. “You don’t want to see what’s out there. No matter what you do, that cannot be unseen.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m not a wuss like…”

  The second Nicco’s gaze fell on the roof, he popped again. After wiping the sick from his lips, he said, “It’s covered in…”

  “Death. I know.”

  “That’s what’s…”

  “Attracting the Moaners. I know.”

  “What the hell are we gonna do, Jingo?”

  I paused. It was a pause I hated with every fiber of my being because it clearly meant I had no idea what to do.

  Nicco answered the question on his own. “We have to burn it all.”

  I waved my hands between us. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can’t do that. The roof is covered in bodies. You burn that much flesh and the building will catch fire. With all those zombies surrounding us, we’d never escape that inferno.”

  “You have a better idea?” Nicco huffed.

  “Yeah, not dying.”

  Nicco glanced through the window and back to me. “And how do you suggest we manage that?”

  I turned back to the window and did something completely unexpected.

  “Why are you opening that damn thing? You’ll let the…”

  Before he could complete the proclamation, the window slammed open and the wave of rot washed over us. Thankfully, I was fresh out of bile. I drew in a deep breath, held it, and stuck my head out the window. A quick glance was all I needed. I pulled back into the room, dropped the window, and exhaled. “The far side of the roof is near enough to the next building that we can either jump or find something to use as a bridge. We get to the other building, sneak out a back door, and run for our lives.”

  Nicco laughed. Not the reaction I had expected.

  “You’re kidding, right? You want us to walk through that cesspool of rotting human meat to the other side of the roof, and then jump
onto another roof?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell me, Jingo, which part of your plan sucks the most?”

  “Okay, I admit it’s not the most ideal…”

  “Ideal? Are you crazy? It’s insane.”

  “Fine, Nicco. If you want to stay in this death trap and wait for the Grim Reaper to knock down the door, you’re welcome to it. I, on the other hand, am going to get Mikko and save our asses. One way or another, I’m getting out of this alive. Feel free to film our exit.”

  >^<

  “There’s got to be a better way,” Fay said, her voice filled with desperation.

  I shook my head.

  “Oi, grow some bollocks. It’s all part of the bloody game,” Frenzy interjected.

  Mikko nodded and wriggled under my arm. She stood as close to me as she possibly could without slicing open my torso and crawling in like I was so much Tauntaun. “I’m game.”

  “The whole roof?” Kubrick asked.

  Nicco turned his camera around and played back the short piece of footage he had taken while peering out the window. Kubrick nearly lost what little he’d put into his stomach.

  “Oh, great Christ,” Kubrick moaned. “I don’t know if…”

  “I’m going. I can’t stay here and listen to the chorus of the damned wailing for us to come out and play for one second more. I’d rather fall to my death than stay here much longer.”

  Nicco threw up his arms. “I can’t believe you. It’s a suicide mission.”

  Frenzy stepped to my side. “All part of the game, mate. You know I’m in.”

  I stared long and hard at Nicco before speaking. “There are a lot of really young kids at Asylum who depend upon us. We don’t have a choice.”

  Nicco shook his head against my words. I decided to take a shot at his ego.

  “Consider this. You want to be remembered for your work behind the camera?”

  Nicco nodded slightly. I had him.

  “Imagine you getting on film, for all to see, the salvation of a hundred or so innocent children.”

  Nicco’s face lit up. “Son of a bitch. That’s Oscar material there. You should have led with that.” He clapped his hands together and smiled. “I’m in.”