Not Everything Brainless is Dead

by Not Everything Brainless is Dead (mobi)

Stubbs gunned the vehicle just as Captain Rescue swung his head around, seconds too late to notice the subtle ridge where two slabs of sidewalk had ended their close relationship, leaving one heartbroken and sticking into the air. His toe crashed into this hunk of concrete and he went flying through the air, staring down at the sidewalk that had betrayed his trust—to make matters even worse, now it had come back to smack him in the face.

  The golf cart rolled past Captain Rescue as he picked himself up from the ground. He limped for a moment, took a deep breath, and then burst into sprint, in almost unbearable agony. He opened his mouth and just started screaming, hoping to expunge the pain from his body and to unintentionally bring every zombie in a two block radius to their doorstep. Proof that the mind had a powerful effect on the body, Captain Rescue felt the pain drain from his body through his mouth.

  He began to gain on the golf cart, but as he passed the entrance to a store, a zombie lumbered into the open. Captain Rescue screeched and jumped to his side as Stubbs slammed on the breaks and then backed the golf cart up, pushing the zombie over and popping its head underneath one of the wheels. Captain Rescue stood over to the side, catching his breath.

  “Wow,” he said, panting, “you might have just saved my life.”

  Stubbs stepped out from the golf cart, “I really just wanted to run something over.”

  “And with a golf cart, that takes class,” Captain Rescue laughed as Charlie, Freight, and Dr. Malevolent ran up to the pair. They had been enjoying the show from down the street, out of harm’s way.

  “WOW,” Freight said, kneeling down and admiring Stubbs’s handiwork, “VERY NICE. VERY NICE INDEED.”

  Charlie grumbled, “If you two are done wasting time, let’s get a move on. I don’t really want to draw any additional attention to ourselves.”

  Captain Rescue, still catching his breath, looked at Stubbs, “We never got to finish the race!”

  “I don’t mind declaring you winner, I got what I wanted,” the zombie replied as he climbed back into the vehicle.

  The group pushed forth with Stubbs piloting the golf cart just like he always wanted. The zombie even created a game where he would run down other zombies, assign them points, and tally them up in his head. He rather enjoyed murdering his brethren, and did not shed a tear as he mowed the hordes down, chuckling as they looked blankly towards the oncoming golf cart right before it plowed into them.

  As for big blue Charlie, the moment any zombie caught a glimpse of him, they would start moaning and shuffling off in random directions or simply short circuit and fall over dead again. Since a zombie’s intelligence rivaled that of say—cardboard, they did not react well to being startled, and their panicked shuffling commonly resulted in plummets down open manholes or repeatedly bumping into walls. One could surmise then that, much like a lemming, a zombie would walk off a cliff to its doom without hesitation. Any zombie that did not meet with any of the aforementioned fates met it with Stubbs and his golf cart.

  Because of their reaction to him, Charlie began to doubt that the undead had any sort of consciousness in the first place, but in order to come to a proper conclusion, some brave zombologist would need to experiment further to discover what was really going on inside a zombie’s noggin. A possible experiment would be to tie a harness to an armless zombie and hang a brain in front of it just to see how long it would walk before it managed to find a way to dispose of itself.

  The survivors made it to the end of a block and Charlie stopped them all. “There’s an awful lot of ruckus coming from around that corner,” he said suspiciously.

  Captain Rescue thrust his chest into the air, “I’ll check it out.” He strolled to the building’s corner and peered over the edge. “Yes, that is a lot of zombies.”

  “Well, big guy,” Dr. Malevolent said to Charlie, “this is your queue.”

  The bunny shook its head, “I don’t think so. I don’t want to push our luck by startling that many zombies at once. Things might get crazy and they could end up eating us anyway.”

  “I suppose you bring up a good point.”

  Charlie glanced around, trying to determine a good detour to take. Soon, he pointed to a nearby alley. “Let’s go that way.”

  “An alleyway?” Captain Rescue asked, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Traversing the alleyway, under normal societal circumstances, would certainly be ill advised. While zombies seem to enjoy streets and places that previously held a lot of human traffic, much scarier things lurked down dark alleyways. However, considering the state of things most of those dark figures you would never want to run into would have been long since zombified and posed little threat. Furthermore, zombie threat or not, alleys held much more enjoyable and adventurous prospects. Why rob yourself of those wonderful urban spelunking opportunities just because of a few zombies?

  Charlie went on to say, “Can’t really be any worse than what’s out here.”

  “Your funeral!” Captain Rescue said with an emphasized shrugging.

  “You do realize,” Dr. Malevolent added, “that if there’s anything in that ally that could possibly kill us, you’d probably die too.”

  “No… impossible, super heroes are immortal. In fact,” he said, looking at her, “so are most super villains.” Captain Rescue laughed and looked at looked at the others, “You guys though…”

  “We’re going to have to put this theory of yours to a test someday.”

  “Fine by me, I’ve done my research.”

  “Yes, I’m sure those comic books of yours are a fool proof learning tool.”

  Captain Rescue made childish faces of condemnation at her as they headed towards their detour. If a stereotypical alley existed, the kind pictured when someone imagined running into a dark figure, this would be it. Naturally lit, it would have been quite eerie. However, since the city’s lights were on the fritz, darkness consumed much of the alleyway with only the moon and their flashlights to illuminate it.

  As the group digested the alley, Stubbs gunned the golf cart and headed straight for a brick wall while everyone else looked on curiously. At the last second, the zombie dove from the driver’s seat and rolled across the pavement. He casually got to his feet and headed towards the alleyway as the golf cart inched towards the brick wall. The vehicle finally tapped it, scuffing the paintjob, but nothing else happened. A few seconds later, it exploded wondrously into a miniature mushroom cloud. Stubbs paid no attention to the inferno and strolled into the alleyway, his bewildered friends following shortly thereafter.

  “Do I even want to ask?” Dr. Malevolent finally said.

  “Ask what?” Captain Rescue inquired.

  “The golf cart?”

  “Yes?” he questioned her.

  “How it exploded?”

  “They don’t normally do that?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Interesting.”

  A little known fact about zombies was that they loved explosions, so Stubbs had actually done them a favor. The undead were drawn to the smoldering golf cart and away from the heroes, who slipped into the alleyway without so much as a stray glance from one of the festering corpses.

  At first, it appeared as though condensation coated the entire passage. This seemed unlikely since it had not rained here in weeks. However, upon closure investigation, the source of the wetness turned out to be merely blood, which somehow set their minds at ease. If the alleyway had somehow been the source of some kind of random torrential downpour they would have been quite shocked. The chances of a bloodbath were much higher, considering the state of affairs in this fair city.

  As Charlie stared down at the gallons of blood used to paint this alleyway, he could not help but to imagine how difficult removing the stains from his costume would be. No amount of club soda would magically exorcise the blood that now soaked its way into the plush. He had half a mind to take the costume off, but carrying it around seemed troublesome. Not to mention, the man buried within the blue suit could not
to kick this much ass without the guise.

  The group pressed forth down the alleyway, and soon ran into a zombie with its head buried under the lid of a dumpster; no doubt, this zombie had been homeless prior to its reanimation. A little known fact about zombies was that if left to their own devices for long enough, the mangy beasts will start to take on aspects of their former selves. Firefighter zombies are attracted to fires—a habit that leads to their incineration more often than not. Stripper zombies have an unhealthy fixation with poles. Zombies that drove for a living find their way to the driver’s seat of a vehicle and just sit there with their hands on the wheel. Obese zombies like to wander in the vicinity of fast food restaurants. Children zombies are often seen at playgrounds scrambling up slides and then falling back down. The list goes on.

  Charlie motioned for everyone to stop as he discreetly approached the homeless zombie, chuckling quietly under his breath. The creature just continued digging through the trashcan, unaware of the malicious rabbit closing in fast. Charlie crept up behind the zombie and then shoved its shoulders, taking a leap backwards. The creature reeled around, raised its arms into the air, and snarled. Just before lunging forward, it realized what had disturbed it: a giant blue bunny rabbit.

  The zombie froze there for a few moments, then turned around and shuffled as fast as it could down the alleyway. It paid no heed to anything in its path, especially not the fire escape or its ladder. The zombie crashed into the rungs, lodging its head between a pair of them. The rest of its body, unaware of this fact, continued shuffling in place, arms flailing about randomly. As the group passed by, laughing, the zombie tried its best to bite them through the ladder’s rungs, but was unsuccessful.

  Leaving this hapless undead soul behind, they pressed forth, and any zombies lingering were easily scared off, save one. This zombie apparently assumed that it was Easter, because it reacted to Charlie with undeterred rage. The meaning behind this escaped them all. Perhaps this zombie was some weird fluke, or perhaps zombies in general were growing out of their fear of giant blue bunny rabbits, something all the undead had to do if they wanted to survive in this messed up and crazy world.

  Who knew how many zombies it would take for them to overcome their collective fear, but chances are—not many. Unbeknownst to the heroes, zombies all over found the commotion in the alleyway quite alluring. They closed in fast and it would not be long before they found a way around the otherwise insurmountable wall of buildings that engulfed the heroes.

  Chapter 10: Dinner and a Show

  After finally coming to the end of the long narrow alleyway that had accompanied them for quite some time, everyone kicked the ground in frustration when they realized what awaited them just around the corner—another alleyway of course, albeit significantly less bloody, which only begged the question of what made the other one so ghastly. Simply put, that alleyway just so happened to be the utmost lowest point in the city. All the blood spilled since these zombies took over flowed straight there, and since many of the storm drains throughout the city had—stuff—clogging them, the blood had pooled to a ridiculous degree.

  Aside from the significant lack of gore, one major difference separated this alleyway from the last. A building had collapsed and its rubble now blocked their path completely. Unless zombies somehow found a way to overcome entire buildings, then something more sinister must have been afoot. The most obvious culprit was God, who, from the heavens, smote this one building for some unseen purpose, as if The Almighty had orchestrated this entire ordeal for His or Her own benefit. God does work in mysterious ways.

  The divine roadblock forced the troupe of zombie slayers to detour into a building nestled amongst the forest of brick that encompassed the alleyway. Once inside, they were astonished to see a quaint home unaffected by zombie carnage. Judging by the smell that wafted up from the furnishings, an old woman had lived here. Now, only the smell remained. At the start of the zombie outbreak, the elderly woman that lived here must have gone wandering without her spectacles. When she met with her first corpse, she probably tried to invite it in for tea and scones. The zombie, no doubt, had little stomach for such things and instead opted for finely aged human flesh.

  “Anyone else hungry?” Captain Rescue asked.

  The thought of a half-digested corpse brought attention to that ache in their tummies. Why not take the time to satisfy it while in humble surroundings such as these? Therefore, the picnic basket that Charlie had hidden who knows where found its way atop a blanket with equally enigmatic origins. Even more mysterious—this inexplicable picnic basket somehow held sandwiches, drinks, chips, and those small individually wrapped wipes for the ten or so people sitting Indian-style around it.

  For some reason, their feasting had much in common with the way zombies feast on human flesh. Apparently manners resided near the bottom of their respective priority lists. Except for Stubbs, who, despite an inability to digest food, was an utmost gentleman and sat with a napkin between his legs to catch the crumbs as they fell from his mouth and the many other holes throughout his body. The group made quick work of the meal, and before long all that remained were the crumbs coating their clothes.

  With their newly sated bellies, everyone rose and stood in a tight circle to plan their next course of action—a choice that if chosen poorly would lead to dire circumstances and their inevitable doom. In fact, any choice—good or bad—could easily lead to inevitable doom. They would have to proceed from this point with meticulous planning if they wished to survive the night. The next words spoken would have to be carefully chosen and their meaning clear as glass or lives could be lost.

  “LET’S GO KICK SOME ZOMBIE ASS!” Freight bellowed; his carefully chosen and meticulous words sunk their way into everyone’s soul.

  They all replied together, “Hurrah!”

  Overexcited from his own motivation speech, Freight went into fit of rage and rushed through the door of the quaint little home, ready to mutilate anything waiting on the other side, zombie or not. In his current state, he could have easily tried to pummel the first thing to cross his path, be it a fire hydrant, or a telephone pole. Maybe even a small dog with a scorched tail that somehow survived this long without becoming the condiment to a zombie’s main dish.

  Everyone dashed through the Freight shaped hole just in time to see him yelling in gibberish at the moon. From his body language and the tone of his yelling, they surmised that the moon had slept with his sister and then added insult to injury by stealing his record collection. The moon’s transgressions forced Freight into a crusade to yank it from the sky and brutally bludgeon it to death. Anyone could question the validity of this goal, but what there was no question of, however, was the attention drawn by bellowing at the moon. A clamor of footsteps and moans approached from every angle, and the source of which might have certainly been moon-huggers who had come to put an end to Freight’s campaign against their lord and savior—if these moon-huggers had developed a hunger for something other than moon-justice.

  Without his knowledge, a mess of smelly zombies had encircled Freight, the anger he felt towards the two-timing, sister abducting, record-stealing moon had blinded him from the undead’s dastardly ways. Before this, the moon had been a trustworthy friend; that trust had evaporated quickly, for not only had it left a cheese shaped impression on his sister’s bottom, it now distracted him from his impending doom. Just when Freight had begun to accept that the moon would not be directly facing these accusations and would rather cruelly ignore him from its seat in the sky, he realized he had bigger fish to fry. He worried, however, that no frying pan existed large enough for this cook off. Freight clenched his fists in rage. Who should he blame for this travesty and where could he find them? They need a brutal bludgeoning.

  Oh well, at least he had a shotgun, which was arguably more useful than an oversized frying pan. What followed in the wake of his shotgun was nothing short of art. At the same moment Freight realized the zombies were encroaching, his trus
ty weapon was already blasting their heads off. All round, one by one, the undead exploded and rained gore. As many know, the act of zombification left the human body more susceptible to spontaneous exploding. Not only when met with sizzling deer slug, but also more exciting objects like shovels, rakes, or the weighted backpack of a college student. As this rhythm of blasts and exploding zombies found its niche, the scene shifted from a slaughter to an elegant dance of zombie gore. Corpse after corpse fell in rhythm, like synchronized swimmers who had swum their last swim.

  After the dust and corpses had settled, (which happened in perfect harmony, its own special form of beauty) Freight just stood there, shotgun resting on his shoulder, smirking widely at the art he had just created. He was a badass, and judging by that smirk, he knew it quite well. As the man reeled around to face the other heroes, his shotgun slipped and tumbled from his hands. Freight went into a scramble, diving for his beloved as it tumbled towards the pavement. At the last second, his hands slipped beneath it, rescuing it from the fall.

  Freight cradled his shotgun close to his chest, like a mother and her newborn baby, “WHOA COURTNEY, YOU ALMOST WENT FOR A TUMBLE. IT’S OKAY, I’VE GOT YOU NOW.”

  The man took the awkwardness of this moment a step further and caressed the red ribbon around the barrel of the shotgun.

  Charlie cautiously approached Freight and inquired, “Did I just see what I think I saw?”

  “SHE’S REAL AND SHE LOVES ME!”

  Charlie did not want to be on the receiving end of Courtney, so he left well enough alone. Dr. Malevolent, also ignoring what had just transpired, surveyed the zombies torn to shreds around her, and then turned to Freight with a warm look in her eyes. “I have a feeling you’re going to have a rough time acclimating back into society once this is all said and done. I guess we’ll have to put you in a plastic baggie filled with dead zombies until you have a chance to acclimate once more with the outside world.”

  “I’M NOT A FISH, DAMMIT”