Not Everything Brainless is Dead

by Not Everything Brainless is Dead (mobi)

  She patted him on the back.

  Charlie laughed, “You’ve been saving that for a while haven’t you?”

  “You shut up. I was just about to say it, and then the lunatic went all crazy with his shotgun, although I can appreciate a person’s affection or their objects,” she said, caressing her rod in its holster. “Anyway, damage done, I just figured I’d say it anyway.”

  A streetlamp flickered above. Its eerie light illuminated the street briefly, reminding everyone of where they were: the middle of a deserted street in the dead of night. A deserted street littered with maimed corpses, however artfully placed. After a few seconds of staring blankly into the darkness, everyone silently decided to loiter elsewhere. In a feat of sheer brilliance, they took a moment and back peddled onto the sidewalk, safe from any road raging corpses during this most frightening of nights.

  “We need to make it to that bank, who remembers where it is?” inquired Captain Rescue.

  Dr. Malevolent spun around to face him, and then spouted, “You live in this city. You work in this city. You were just there earlier today, and you don’t know where the bank is?” poking his shoulder in rhythm with each emphasized word.

  “You know how it goes, you ride along for years, but when you actually have to navigate somewhere everything is so foreign.”

  “What do you mean ‘ride along’?

  “The Rescue Machine has one of those… those…auto-drive things.”

  “No it doesn’t.”

  “Yes it does, and besides—how would you know?”

  “Nobody’s marketed one yet. And even if they had, I doubt you’d be able to get your grubby mitts on it.”

  “Then what about all those times my trusty steed has come to my aid in fierce battle?”

  “I don’t know—maybe it’s possessed?”

  “Possessed?” Captain Rescue’s face went pale and he started to shiver uncontrollably, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Suit yourself, we better things to do, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Charlie slipped into the conversation, “Would you two ninnies pull yourselves together, we are in the middle of a very serious epidemic. The fate of humanity rest could rest solely in our incapable hands.”

  Dr. Malevolent laughed heartedly, “Or, the military could have already quarantined us off and are currently sitting somewhere in a tent, with popcorn, giggling.” She waved in random directions and the possible locations for camera drones.

  “Now,” Charlie continued, bunny tail wagging away, “as Captain Rescue had inquired: the bank is actually just down the road a little ways. Let’s get there and figure out where to we need to head to put an end to this.”

  Captain Rescue rolled his eyes, “lead the way, Bugs.”

  “Don’t mock me,” the rabbit started, “if you think you’re man enough, I’ll follow in your lead.”

  “I do believe I am.”

  Captain Rescue pushed Charlie the Bright Blue Bunny Rabbit aside and marched out in front of him, ready to lead everyone to victory and salvation. This lasted for three harrowing steps before he came to a halt and raised a fist. His head jerked to the left then to the right and then to the left again and then to the right again. This continued for another fifteen or so seconds until someone kicked him in the back.

  The hero inched forward; he knew danger lurked just ahead. He could feel it. Either that or the hotdogs he sodomized earlier were not of the best stock. Just then, a corpse shuffled from the shadows. It waddled past Captain Rescue, ignoring him completely. This, understandably, agitated the noble hero. What made him so special? Why should countless innocents get eaten alive by these lifeless masses of flesh while this one just waltzed right past him like he did not even exist? As he gazed at the bleeding and grotesque creature, the anger in his gut burned. For some demented reason, he wanted this zombie to turn and lunge for him—a notion that if pondered on for enough time would prove itself to be quite misled.

  The furious passion rising deep within Captain Rescue propelled him forward. He shoved the zombie as a bully would on the playground during recess. The cadaver stumbled backwards, not immediately taking notice of its aggressor. After it came to a stop and righted itself, the zombie slowly fixed its gaze on Captain Rescue. Step by unsteady step the zombie shuffled towards him, eventually coming face to face with the hero. If it had breath to breathe, Captain Rescue would be able to feel it gliding down his neck.

  The zombie snarled fiercely and then, in some random subconscious impulse, proceeded to shove the hero back. The force, however, tore what few ligaments remained in the zombie’s arms and caused them to rip from the elbows. The stunned cadaver waved its stumps around curiously, but did not attempt to bite anyone, which would have easily been its best course of action. The poor corpse’s arms twitched uncomfortably down there on the cold pavement. Captain Rescue took a disgusted step backwards, shaking his hands like a teenage girl (or elephant) that had just seen a mouse.

  “Just shove the thing aside so we can keep movin’,” Charlie said, interrupting the tender moment Captain Rescue was having with the zombie. The hero, cautious of diseases the thing might have been carrying, pulled a hankie from his utility belt and lightly pushed the zombie aside with utmost care. Charlie had the opposite approach as he shoved Captain Rescue from behind, forcing him to stumble down the sidewalk.

  Stubbs gave a sad nod and a smile to the armless corpse, who did not seem to care about his fellow zombie or the big blue bunny rabbit that had just strolled past it. Perhaps he had other things on his mind, such as the cyclist he had eaten a while ago and the bicycle it was excited to ride but now could not because it lacked arms. Perhaps, the reason its mind appeared to have wandered was that it had literally done so a short time ago, leaving a vacant cranium as it went off in search of greener pastures. The drooling zombie turned and watched the heroes as they headed deeper into the city.

  Chapter 11: Bank Where We Started

  Death and destruction surrounded the heroes. Obviously, they stood out, but Charlie, more than any of the others, stuck out like a giant blue bunny during a zombie outbreak should. As he and his comrades strolled down city sidewalks, buildings engulfed them on both sides; their opened windows carried ominous zombie winds that blew out from the depths of God-knows-where. The whole scene exemplified the current situation quite well—from the corpse lined streets to the car alarms going off to the group of ridiculously dressed madmen strolling through it all.

  The Bank lay just ahead, and somehow it made their dire task seem somehow less dire, a refuge of sorts. In actuality, they doubted the bank where this mysterious outbreak originated would offer much refuge at all. At least it would be an exciting pit stop on their adventure. With any luck, this step would lead to another step and that step would lead to yet another step. These steps, when combined together as one, would create some kind of crazy contraption that would lead them upwards to their salvation. Then, ascension complete, they could watch the denizens of the dead below and mock them for trying to extinguish the human flame. This, of course, was in the most metaphorical of senses.

  As their destination appeared at the end of the block, they realized just who had found refuge there—certainly not the living. Apparently, zombies realized the important of this place in the creation of their race, which surprised them all, since zombie’s IQ was somewhere between one celled organisms and cardboard. Still, they must have cracked it somehow. Perhaps, an unforeseen force directed them to The Bank, and directed they were, considering the sea of corpses between the heroes and their destination.

  “Okay, so we need to get into that bank, but it seems it’s already occupied,” Charlie began, “so here’s the plan. I’m going to run up there, startle them, and then we’ll pick them off as they scatter. Keep your distance, don’t get bit, and stay alert. You’ve seen the movies. They always seem to sneak up on you when you least expect it.”

  “GOOD SPEECH,” Freight said.

 
Charlie couldn’t really tell if the man was being sarcastic or not, so he just said, “Thank you.”

  Without missing a beat, Charlie sprinted towards group of zombies, ears flailing about while screaming at the top of his lungs. The miniscule zombie reflection within his plastic eyes grew ever larger. Then, systematically, the zombies turned to face him. What they did not do, however, was flee in terror. In fact, the entire presentation only seemed to irritate. Apparently, the zombies had discovered, and with much haste, that they had nothing to fear at all from giant blue bunny rabbits, a fact many humans still struggle with to this day.

  The kink in the plan caught everyone off guard and now a horde of zombies with outstretched arms shuffled in their general direction. The heroes may have disagreed, but the time for panic had not yet come. It would be at least another couple minutes before any of these cadavers came within gnawing distance. A zombie had many defining qualities: its insatiable thirst for brains, their putrid smell, decaying from a fresh corpse to a rotten corpse in mere moments. Nowhere, in any list, would zombies be defined by their speed, unless they were of the infected variety and had not yet died—but then they wouldn’t be zombies in the first place.

  Faced with an impenetrable horde, Captain Rescue’s self-perseverance kicked in, he had to find a hiding spot. While everyone else fought for their lives and for the survival of the human race, Captain Rescue scampered off. Little did they know, just as Dr. Malevolent suspected, the human race had just abandoned this little corner of the world and neglected to send in the armed forces, or any force at all. Now, humanity sat underneath a tent watching the heroes, popcorn at the ready.

  They paid special attention to Captain Rescue, who had found the perfect disguise to conceal himself—an empty trashcan. As he pulled the lid over his head, he immediately felt much safer, not to mention the sudden craving for cookies. He sat there for a few moments in utter darkness with his eyes shut, picturing chocolate chip cookies in his head. As his mind’s eye wolfed the treats down, the sound of gunfire and exploding zombies begged him to peek outside.

  Hesitantly, he lifted the lid; just as expected, the world had come alive with zombie carnage. Delight filled the hero’s eyes. The relative safety of everyone outside the trashcan thrilled Captain Rescue so much that he felt compelled to leap from his hiding spot so he could join in on the action. He launched himself upwards, sending the lid rocketing into the air. In horror, the hero found himself trapped inside, unable to lift his leg high enough to get out.

  After thrashing about for a few seconds, the trashcan tipped over and sent him rolling down the street, smashing his face against the pavement along the way. As it careened towards the horde of zombies, he ducked inside, curled into a ball, and prepared to go bowling. Captain Rescue clenched his teeth and squinted as the trashcan slammed into the zombies. Inside, he saw only legs forcefully removed from their torsos. He shook off the impact, crawled out, jumped to his feet, and yelled “Strike!”

  The zombies did not take the besting of them at anything (even bowling) lightly. Their reduction to that of bowling pins made matters even worse. Soon they crowded around the hero to even the score, bite by bite. As zombie revenge was not his preferred method of demise (he had that planned out: skydiving without a parachute), Captain Rescue screeched and slipped out from the mess of zombies as they grabbed and bit for him.

  When presented with a gift as scrumptious Captain Rescue, zombies would be expected to instantly sink their teeth into him. This is simply a misnomer. Whenever a zombie sinks its teeth into anything, that zombie has spent at least a minute in preparation. Their rotten brains really do work at that speed. Since Captain Rescue popped into their world out of nowhere, the zombies were not given the time necessary time to plan an attack. Therefore, he had the chance to slip away unscathed.

  Captain Rescue placed an ample amount of distance between him and the zombies, and then grabbed the pistol he had slipped underneath his utility belt and fired gleefully into the cluster of corpses without a care in the world. Normally, Captain Rescue’s patented way of flinging bullets would have certainly been quite hazardous. However, since the amount of people still living within the city could be counted on one hand, the chances of a bullet finding anything other than a zombie were infinitesimal.

  Everyone started to enjoy themselves as their relative safety set in. Freight, most of all, never grew tired of exploding zombies with his beloved Courtney. At one point he even stopped shooting. Instead, he used the butt of his shotgun like a hammer, and just went to town, whooping and hollering like a redneck at the stock car races. With his help, the zombie slayers littered the street and adjoining parking lot with countless corpses. Silence overtook the area, except for the blanket of corpses that squirted bodily fluids like a series of fountains, and Freight, who refused to settle down.

  In celebration of his victory, Captain Rescue kissed the barrel his handgun. Considering it still smoldered from pumping out hot lead, he shortly regretted the decision. After vigorously rubbing his lips with his wrist, he surveyed the battlefield—not a pretty sight. Considering zombies were rather putrid and disgusting no matter their condition, that should not have been surprising.

  As Captain Rescue surveyed the battlefield, he soon realized that the life had not completely drained from the corpses. Some still crawled around on their hands or hopped around with their tongues, refusing to just give up and die. Zombies clung to their love of human flesh as long as allowed, so the heroes dealt with the remains in the most humane way possible: by vehemently stomping on their heads until they stopped twitching.

  Undead menace nullified, the heroes turned their attention towards The Bank, which seemed to be in roughly the same shape they left it in, give or take a few zombie droppings (all that human flesh had to go somewhere). Around the side, the sole super hero of a doorway still stood forever upright amongst the sea of rubble that surrounded it. After all humanity falls to ruin, this sole door will be one of the few remnants remaining of the once great civilization. How great was certain to be debated by whatever grey-skinned aliens happened to discover it.

  “Hoorah!” Captain Rescue yelled as he burst through the front doors of The Bank, waving his gun around, ready to unleash a world of hurt on any zombies lying in wait. Luckily, for the living and the dead, the lobby appeared devoid, as the gun Captain Rescue was holding upside down and backwards would have done him little good. After giving the okay, everyone else spilled into the lobby. However, since Captain Rescue’s okay was less than—okay, they were ready for a fight anyway. Despite this, the lobby did, in fact, seem okay.

  The heroes needed to discover the origins of the mysterious vial of zombie juice, but worried the secrets they sought would be buried underneath mountains of encrypted computer data they would need a super hacker to crack. Thus, with great trepidation, Captain Rescue approached the nearest computer. He picked it up and began talking into it. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Malevolent informed him that a telephone was not a computer. A cliché “I knew that” followed and he placed the telephone down and approached the real computer. After realizing he could bypass the cryptic curtain of pictures that covered the screen by wiggling the mouse, Captain Rescue threw his hands up in anger at the computer’s request for a password.

  Down the hall, a zombie found itself drawn to the hubbub. With its alignment off, the reanimated corpse bumped into a nearby wall as it and headed in their direction. No one seemed to notice as it emerged from the darkened hallway, they all found modern technology and its infinite glories too enthralling. The creature wrapped its arms around the nearest lackey, who assumed Dr. Malevolent had finally reciprocated his lifelong crush. He turned around only to find a zombie biting his lips off. His scream spread from person to person as they all erupted. Except Stubbs, if he tried to open his mouth to scream his tongue would fall out and his jaw would likely unhinge.

  The zombie, confused by the whole ordeal, took another bite of the henchman and then joined in on the
screaming. Its tongue soon fell out. After a few seconds spent staring vacantly at the others, the zombie realized this charade could not persist for much longer and began to slink away. Without looking, Freight lifted his shotgun and blew the monster’s head off. Then, he aimed his weapon at the twitching henchman on the floor and blew his head off as well. Then, like the director of the worst high school choir in history, Freight brought an end to it all.

  Their attention fell back to the computer, which still requested a password. Captain Rescue hoped that during the screaming the computer would have realized the severity of the situation and decided to help them anyway. He slammed his fist against the desk, angry that anything (even a computer) would be so selfish at a time like this. The hero then had the most amazing occurrence: an epiphany on display for all to see in the form of a candle hovering a few inches over his head. His higher power had not felt him worthy of a full-fledged light bulb. Then, like a chicken pecking for sweet kernels left on the keyboard, Captain Rescue typed out the number forty-two and hit enter. Amazingly, the computer allowed them access.

  “How on earth did you know that was the password,” Dr. Malevolent asked as she slapped him upside the head.

  “I heard somewhere that forty-two was the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.”

  “Splendid…”

  Thus, they hovered over the computer in search of the data that would bring them back from the brink of destruction. One of the folders on the desktop would surely lead the way to the people responsible. Amongst the array of folders, some of which would have been enticing had civilization remained intact, one named “Records” caught their eyes. Contained inside this folder, a simple notepad file entitled “click me” beckoned their attention. They did as told, and inside a single sentence read, “All records kept on clipboard near computer”. Sure enough, a relatively thick keyboard sat next to the computer.

  “Well, someone’s organizational skills were left wanting,” Dr. Malevolent said as she picked up the clipboard and began thumbing through its pages, “this thing is going to take hours to sift through. No wait…”