Alice's Zombie Adventures in Under City: Downward Spiral

by Richard Schwarz

silent drop cascaded down one cheek and then the other. However, after a moment when she became frustrated over her predicament, the torrents welled up behind her eyes and plummeted freely. Alice lowered her head and cried while hugging her knees.

  “Woe is me; I don’t think they shall ever find me. I was simply trying to follow good consumermanship and I have landed here.”

  Alice intended to cry until she was exhausted but suddenly she found her balling quite unbecoming and although she kept crying she declared, “I must buck up and try my best as anyone with good consumermanship would!”

  “Did you say Second City?” I startling familiar voice asked. Alice looked up in mild panic and gave a light yip, as she thought she was bereaving alone, but couldn’t find the voice.

  “To whom am I speaking?” she asked politely after recovering her senses.

  “To whom? To me!” the voice responded incredulously, “We were just talking.”

  Alice looked left and right and stood up without seeing anyone then said, “You sound familiar like the bun… the person I was speaking to before” she corrected herself, “but when I look left or right I can’t see you.”

  “Have you tried looking down or more importantly in this case, up?” he asked.

  Alice glanced downward furtively as she wanted to ensure she was thorough then upwards and saw the person who resembled a rabbit on a tree limb. It wasn’t that he was on the limb of a tree, rather, it was the manner to which he was attached to the tree limb that caused Alice to utter, “Curiouser and curiouser!”

  For, he was quite a height above her and seemed to be attached to the tree by his feet instead of using his legs in a proper Second City manner to anchor the back of his knees to the branch from above. This did not seem to bother him in any way whatsoever and he simply seemed to grow frustrated that she found his position to be so awkward and at some point decided he didn’t look quite authoritative enough and abandoning his crouch with his hands and feet on the bottom of the branch, decided to stand. Now that he was standing in a most expectant manner on the underside of a tree branch, Alice waited patiently as she wasn’t sure exactly what it was that he wanted and could recall little else except to be amazed at his ability to stand wherever he wished.

  “I really need to know if you’re from Second City,” he demanded rather bluntly shaking Alice to her senses.

  “Why yes, yes I am.” She reluctantly answered, “But what concern is it to you seeing how mere moments ago you were prepared to abandon me.”

  Alice had taken note of his eyes on this occasion which, when not furled in defense, seemed warm and gentle and quite pleasant to look at.

  “You didn’t say you were from Second City, you simply called me a jungle bunny. You were rude and offensive.” He, as he was the only he that was about, answered as he walked down the trunk of the tree. Alice wasn’t as surprised as his first reappearance now. She thought to herself that if he could crouch on the underneath of a tree limb, stand on the underneath of a tree limb, then he should be able to walk down easily and this seemed to follow some substantial reason in her mind.

  “I apologize for my earlier affront,” Alice answered sincerely as she truly was sorry and had never intended to insult him.

  “Whatever, you don’t know no better bein’ from Second and all.” He answered affluently despite his improper use of grammar.

  “Oh, well, I suppose I hadn’t considered it that way,” Alice answered feeling rather confused.

  “What’s your name? That’s how it’s done for future reference,” He asked and Alice shook her head trying to understand exactly how he, being from where he was, could correct her, being from Second City, on how to introduce oneself to another. She felt herself growing angry but calmed herself as he could, with all truthfulness, simply walk away once more.

  “My name is Alice,” she answered and forgiving him in her mind she asked, “May I ask your name?”

  “Yes,” he answered with a shrug.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “Your name,” She answered with some consternation.

  “Well you didn’t ask, you said may you ask to which I said yeah then you never asked,” He rolled his eyes and looked back at Alice as if she were on the border of insanity.

  Alice sighed deeply and composed herself, “May I…” then she thought better of her phrasing and asked in a different manner, “Tell me your name please.”

  “My name is March,” March answered ostensibly with a large smile and cordial disposition.

  “March,” Alice asked quizzically as if she wasn’t sure that could be someone’s first name.

  “Yes, March Hare, nice to meet you.” He answered.

  “March Hare?” she asked glad of the fact she hadn’t voiced her second opinion that he was a rabbit instead of a bunny but amused none the less.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, it’s just that your last name is Hare and I said bunny which isn’t a far cry away from rabbit or Hare,” Alice answered explaining herself.

  “Did you know that prior to asking my name?” March asked questioningly.

  “Why no of course not,” Alice replied still amused.

  “And that’s why you’re rude. Jungle Bunny is an offensive term and Jangala, the Sanskrit origin of the word Jungle, means woods or forest. Hence you’re presumptions were incorrect and could be misconstrued as a slight which they were.”

  “Oh,” Alice was taken aback by her ignorance.

  “See, you seconds don’t know nuthin,” March repeated then strolled to where she was previously sitting and sat down himself. He stretched and twisted, and then settled and looked at her with a dreadful sternness that caused her to feel she were under scrutiny.

  “Well, I suppose there’s no other recourse to the matter but to switch my directives and consider you my priority of responsibility.” He concluded with finality and threw up his hands. March had been trying to discern whether or not Alice was speaking honestly and upon considering her dress, manner of speech, and accessories had decided she must have been telling the truth. March wiggled his nose in a most rabbit like manner, sniffed, waved his hands in the air, and then brought his elbows to his sides.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked in a pleasantly excited tone, “It’s time to eat.”

  Alice was not altogether excited about participating in a meal as she recalled that hitherto meeting March Hair, she’d been chased by zombies and voiced her concern.

  “I was being chased by zombies just a moment ago, are you sure it’s safe to eat here?” she asked as she craned her head behind her and listened for any abstract zombie wanderings.

  “Of course it is! The things you call ears are antennae and if there was a zombie nearby, I’d kill it as that was my previous directive.”

  “Directive?” Alice asked perplexed at his constant mentioning of the subject.

  “Yes, my directive.”

  “Are you in the military or the police?”

  “No and most assuredly no!” March replied seemingly offended once more to her latter inquiry.

  “Oh, then how is it that you will be able to help me?” she requested in earnest.

  “You know you ask a lot of questions without answering the ones that matter,” March frankly objected then sighed deeply to which Alice blushed and looked down at the ground while tracing her foot in the dirt.

  “Do you see any military or police looking for you? This isn’t Second City you know.” He explained as he pointed out the obvious.

  “No, this isn’t Second City and things don’t seem normal around here at all.” Alice replied mystified by her surroundings.

  “What makes things so perfect in Second City? Things down here were fine before Second City started experimenting with people trying to create super soldiers and ended up creating a zombie army instead.”

  Alice was aghast at March’s unequivocally untrue, at least to her knowledge, revelation. Things we
re fantastic in Second City and she aspired daily to be the best consumer she possibly could. In fact this was so much so, that had she not been interrupted by the zombies she would have been well on her way to her goals after having received her first kiss. However, the fact that the neither the police nor the military had come searching for her did seem odd to Alice.

  “Well, I’m sure someone will come looking for me.” She replied sorrowfully.

  “You’re looking at him,” March answered.

  “Why, whatever do you mean?”

  “You’re looking at the person who is looking for you,” March answered pointing a thumb at himself.

  Beyond feeling passably ashamed of herself, Alice took note of March’s attire. He had on a brown leather vest with tassels over his chest, a black t-shirt, blue jeans, a pair of relatively odd looking boots, and his hair was indeed finely braided as she had noticed before. Aside from this, a medallion swung loosely over his t-shirt and a braided headband adorned his head. Alice was certain he wasn’t from Second City at all.

  “Why you don’t look like you’re from Second City at all,” she quipped.

  “Second City people don’t come down here since they screwed up their super solider program. That happened about twenty or so years ago.”

  “That seems like a rather large gap in time,” Alice replied enthralled with March’s regale.

  “I don’t personally keep track of Second City mess ups. Now do you want something to eat or not?”

  Alice was certainly juxtaposed about accepting March’s offer due to his revelation. Second