The Journey Begins

by Cat Crafter

  I chewed down my last bits of black bird for energy. I walked up the hill, slowly. Not that I was being extra careful, it’s just it’s a lot harder walking up a hill than rolling down a hill. I reached the top and looked down on the other side. Yep, there were a lot of skeleton bones all around. I had really clobbered them.

  For a second I thought about rolling down the hill again as that is fun and fast. But Pete was missing, this wasn’t the time for fun. I might accidently roll past him. I turned sideways and eased myself down the hilly hill.

  Reaching the bottom, I used one of my sticks to bat away old skeleton bones. I kept my eyes locked to the ground, scanning, scanning. I focused on one square at a time, hit with stick, look, then move forward. I repeated this a few times, hit with stick, look, move forward. After I don’t know how many times (less than a million, more than three) I knocked a bone to the right. There! There was Pete, just lying there face down in the dirt. I bent down and picked him up.

  I dusted him off!

  “Pete, don’t scare me like that again!” I said. I gave him a nice zombie hug.

  Yep, things were looking up. I was in a new biosphere. I had Pete and a full stomach. Life was good. It was then I heard a kind of hissing sound.

  Turning to that hissing sound I saw a moving closer to me. “Oh poo….” I groaned.

  I don’t really know a lot about creepers. I heard they were some mad scientist’s crazed epic failed experiment. I guess this dude wanted to make a better pig or something. But he failed big time! Creepers are green but in a gross way, not a nice pleasant Zombie green. They don’t look anything like pigs I might add. Oh and worse than that, they charge at other creatures and BLOW up! Who the heck thought this would be a good idea? On the bright side, Creepers aren’t fast. Sadly though, I’m not fast either.

  I turned and started back up the hill as fast as my zombie legs would carry me. My only hope was to get far enough away from the creeper so I could survive the blast when it blew. I had a bit of a head start.

  I raced towards the hill. That had to be my best chance. Maybe the creeper wouldn’t go up the hill. I peeked over my shoulder. Nope, no such luck, the creeper was creeping behind me. Ah, at least now I knew why they were called creepers…because they creep! They’re creepy and they creep. Wow, that made perfect sense now. Good to know that and if I survived the blast, I’d have to tell people that. It’s always nice to share knowledge.

  Forcing my brain back to what was happening now, I pushed myself to move faster.

  “Come on Zee, you can move those legs quicker!” I coached myself. I knew Pete was also cheering me on.

  I kept moving. I could hear the creeper behind me, its hissing sound getting closer and closer. That couldn’t be a good thing.

  I made it to the top of the hill. The hissing was really really really close and it was getting faster. It was going to blow. I dropped to my side and threw myself down the hill. Not only was it fun, but the fastest way to get down.

  As I rolled I heard a gigantic…BOOM BANG!

  Tumbling to the bottom of the hill I felt the heat from the boom. I rolled a bit more until I came to a stop. I think I was still alive. A little burnt maybe, but alive.

  I looked up at the top of the hill. I saw smoke from an exploded creeper. I popped Pete out of my pocket. I not only wanted him to see this, but I wanted to make sure he was still with me. He was.

  I showed Pete the smoke. I think he was impressed.

  “Wow Pete, I have rolled down a hill to save myself…twice in one day! Too bad I can’t take that hill with me wherever I go!” I laughed.

  Pigging Out

  Off in the distance I noticed some smoke in the sky. Smoke can be a bad thing, but it can also be something that attracts heroes. Since I wanted to meet and team up with a hero, I figured why not head towards the smoke. Pete the Potato gave me a weird look, but I’m pretty sure he agreed with me.

  After lumbering around, I found the source of the smoke. It was bellowing from the red chimney of a little white house in the middle of pretty much nothing else. I liked the look of this house. It had a nice grassy front yard but best of all there on the side of the house there was a muddy pen with three pigs in it. I like pigs. They are always cool. I guess hanging out in mud does that to you.

  Approaching the house… the only thing that looked kind of off was that the house had no windows. Just one big black metal door. Kind of weird, I thought, but hey any house the has pigs can’t be too bad. Who knows, maybe this house belongs to a hero? Now wouldn’t that be just grand? Of course my life doesn’t usually work out that well. Most things don’t come easy to me. Easy peasy is not something I hear often, or at all. But hey, I was due for a stroke of good luck.

  I decided the best way to approach the house was to check out the pigs first. As far as I’m concerned you can always trust an animal that loves mud. Mud is great fun. You can throw it. You can use it to patch things. You can hide things with it. You can make sculptures with it. Did I say you can throw it? You can eat it, but trust me, it tastes like it looks. But it does turn your tongue into a cool black color. The effect is extra special when you are a greenish zombie. But I’m getting off the point. I guess even though I have a brain and I’m smarter than most zombies, I’m still not all that smart.

  I walked and leaned over the pigs’ fence. “Hey pigs!” I said. “Nice pigs, oink oink oink!” I laughed.

  One of the pigs rolled its eyes. “Sir, we do not say oink oink oink.”

  The pig next to it said, “Actually you just said oink oink oink.”

  “I only said oink oink oink because the talking zombie said it!” the first pig complained.

  “See now you said oink oink oink again!” the third pig noted.

  The first pig rolled its eyes. “Surely you understand I only said it again because of our conversation!”

  “Hey, don’t call me Shirley!” the third pig said.

  The second and third pigs started nudging each other and laughing. One of them farted causes the mud behind their butts to pop bubbles. They both laughed harder.

  “How gross!” the first pig said. “You are embarrassing us in front of the zombie!”

  “I’ve never seen talking pigs,” I said.

  They all looked at me. “And we’ve never seen a talking zombie. Most of them just grunt and groan,” the first pig said.

  “I bet the master scientist would love to meet this zombie!” the third pig said.

  The three not so little pigs bobbed their heads in agreement. That’s when believe it or not this got freakier. The three pigs stood up on two legs. They walked out of the pen towards me.

  “Yes, I’m sure the master scientist would love to meet you and make you better!” the first pig said, drawing closer to me.

  I took a step back. “I don’t want to be better. I want to be me.”

  The first pig shook his head. “Nonsense everybody should want to be better. You can be so much better!”

  The three pigs had creepy weird looks on their faces and their eyes looked strange. In a way, they reminded me of normal zombies when they were on a hunt. Didn’t like that look. I turned and started to run (well lumber) away as fast as I could.

  “Hey come back!” one of the pigs shouted.

  I kept running.

  “We better get him!” another said.

  I heard the pigs running and grunting after me. Looking over my shoulder I saw the pigs coming but being pigs they weren’t any faster on two legs than I was. In fact, I might have been faster than them. After all, I had been on two legs all my life and my undead life. This was natural to me.

  I kept moving confident these three not so little pigs couldn’t catch me. I heard them say, “Hey you know we don’t have to run on two feet. We’d much more likely be faster on four!”

  “Great point!” the other two said.

  I turned to see them drop to four legs. They took off after me. I turned and started moving as fast as I could. But the sad
truth was that zombies are way slower than pigs on all fours. I felt them getting closer. I could feel the air of their breath on my butt. That was it! My butt! My butt could get me out of this. I fired off a great big fart.

  “PPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!”

  It shook the ground. But it didn’t shake the pigs.

  “Dude, we spend our lives living in mud and farting!” one of the pigs said, a split second before he tackled me.

  The other two pigs piled on top of me. I may not be all that smart but I’m smart enough to now when I’m beat. I gave up and let them drag me back to the little house. My hope now was that the Master Scientist was a nice guy. Maybe he could make me smarter? Maybe he could help me find an adventurer? Heck maybe he would be my friend?

  Master Scientist in the House

  Two of the pigmen dragged me and the other pushed me up towards the little white house with the big black door. I didn’t fight them too much as I actually wanted to see what was inside. Since they had to walk on two feet to control me on the way there, it wasn’t a fast trip.

  This gave me time to collect my thoughts. I wanted to meet the Master Scientist. He sounded smart. I thought maybe he could help me. I just needed to make a good first impression. Let him know I wasn’t your everyday zombie. I had a brain, a brain I actually used.

  As we got closer I noticed the roof of the building has a spinning grey dish shaped thingy on top. I didn’t have any idea what that was, but I thought it looked cool. Yep, this Master Scientist fellow would be able to help me. I knew it.

  The pigs brought me up to the door. I noticed the door didn’t have a knob or a handle. No, this couldn’t be a design flaw, nope not with a Master Scientist. This had to be on purpose so nobody could get in unless the Master Scientist wanted them in.

  The lead pig banged on the door: knock knock – pause - knock knock knock - pause - knock knock knock knock.

  Silence for a few seconds. I heard footsteps coming towards the door. (For a zombie I have greet hearing.) Then from the other side of the door came: knock knock knock knock.

  The pigman knocked again: knock knock.

  An eye slit on door slid open. Two eyes appeared in the slit.

  “We got you a present!” the pigman told the eyes.

  “Proper English please,” the eyes responded. (Well probably the mouth below the eyes responded.)

  “We brought a present!” the pigman said, head lowered.

  “We’re sure you’ll love it!” the second pigman said.

  “It’s a zombie!” the third said.

  The first pigman turned to him. “The Master Scientist can see that!”

  “It’s a really smart zombie!” the third pigman said, glaring at the first pig.

  “Ex cell ent!” a weird high pitched voice said from behind the door.

  The door swung open. The pigman led me into a house. The house had to be the craziest place I’d ever seen. The tables were covered with test tubes and parts and long sticks with fire shooting out of them. The walls were wall to wall books. At first I actually thought that the place had been painted in books. Oh there were also cauldrons here and there around the floor. Some of cauldrons bubbled, some boiled, some hissed. And a couple of the walls had cages on them. I didn’t like the looks of the cages.

  The person who opened the door was a little old square shaped lady with a white hair doo that looked like a bee hive. In fact, I swore I saw a couple of bees buzzing around it.

  “So, what brings you here?” the little old lady asked me.

  “We did!” one of the pigman said.

  The lady rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m talking to the zombie. He can talk right?”

  “Yes, I can!” I said proudly. “I consider myself this world’s smartest zombie. In fact, I may be the smartest zombie in the world!”

  The lady took a step back. She pulled a magnifying glass out of somewhere and looked at me through it. “Yes, you are different. So I repeat, what brings you here, Mr. Zombie?”

  “My name is, Zee!” I said even more proudly, tossing out my chest some.

  She groaned. “What brings you here, Zee?” she asked.

  “I want to meet the Master Scientist!” I said anxiously. “Do you know when he’ll get here?”

  The three pigs started to ooh and ah and giggle. I didn’t have to be really smart to know they were laughing at me.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Oh you will see!” one the pigs said, grinning ear to ear.

  “Yes!” said the other.

  The third just pointed at me and laughed.

  I looked at the little old lady with a beehive on her head. Her pale face had turned red.

  “Okay, I said something wrong,” I said slowly. “Can you give me a hint?” I asked.

  The little old lady shook her head. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line….”

  I looked at her. “Sorry, going to need another hint.”

  “What goes up, must come down, because of gravity!” she said.

  I gave her a blank look. “Sorry, that makes sense but I still don’t get it.”

  The three pigs laid on the ground rolling around in laughter. “Ha! And he’s the world’s smartest zombie!” one of them laughed.

  “Guess it’s like being the world’s strongest wimp!” another said with a giggle.

  I looked at the little old lady, staring into her eyes. “Still sorry, but I need another clue….”

  The little old looked at the ceiling. “Oh missed a cobweb up there,” she said. She pulled a stick out of another pocket. She pushed a button on the stick and the stick popped out farther, a broom end uncoiled from the stick. The woman cleaned the cobweb with the fancy broom. “You know Master Scientists don’t have to be men,” she told me.

  My mouth popped open. “You’re the master scientist!” I shouted.

  She nodded and touched her nose. “Bingo. And you could use a breath mint!”

  “Oops. Sorry,” I said popping both my hands over my mouth.

  She grinned. “No problem. I live with pigs….”

  “Hey we have feelings too you know!” one of the pigs said.

  “Yeah!” the other two said.

  The Master Scientist lady glared at them. She ran her finger under her throat. “Quiet or it’s pork chops and ham for dinner and bacon for breakfast tomorrow!” she ordered.

  Two of the pigs zipped their mouths shut. The other smiled and said, “It really is amazing how many kinds of meat you can get out of us!”

  The other two looked at him.

  “It’s true!” he said shrugging.

  The other two pigs itched their heads and then nodded in agreement.

  “So, back to the main story here, Mr. Zee the Zombie what brings you here?”

  “I’m smart,” I said. “Well I mean not as smart as Master Scientist or apparently as smart as your three pigs, but I’m still way smarter than other zombies.”

  The Master Scientist nodded. “I can surmise that! Still doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Zee what do you want from me?”

  I pointed at her. “Hey that rhymes!” I smiled.

  She returned my smile. “Yes, you are smart.”

  “Hey we knew it rhymed too!” one the pigs said.

  The other two nodded in agreement.

  “Not a contest boys,” the scientist told them. She turned back to me. “Please be specific. I’m quite busy inventing things, blowing things up, making pigs smart. You know, doing science stuff!”

  “Hey can you make pigs fly?” one of pigs asked. “We’d look cool with wings!”

  “So cool!” the other two agreed.

  The scientist shook her head. “Nope, not a good idea. We don’t need flying pigs floating around pooping all over the place!”

  The three sighed. “Oh that would be so cool!” one of them said. The other two nodded in agreement.

  The Master Scientist looked at me again. “
Please tell me what you want?”

  I put my hands behind my back. I looked away. “I’ve been looking for an adventurer to team up with. Zombies are so boring and dumb! I want to find a brave adventurer to go on adventures with. Do you have an adventurer finding device?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Ah, no. Never saw much need in that.”

  “Bummer,” I moaned.