by Grivante
“Judas, what’s the matter?”
Judas looked up at the two of them. Long gooey strands littered with black chunks of tobacco hung from his open mouth. He repositioned himself, putting the shotgun across his knees and groaned.
“Um,” JJ said, looking a little worried, “Do you guys have plans to abduct Sasha the Supermodel? What’s with the shotgun?”
Judas spat. “We’re exterminators.”
She laughed. “What do you exterminate with a shotgun?”
“What can’t we?” answered Judas.
“It just doesn’t seem like it would be very effective against ants or even cockroaches, though I’ve seen some big enough to warrant the heavy artillery.”
“We don’t do bugs ma’am,” Jonah answered. “We deal with larger problems.” He handed her a card.
“No shit? Zombie Exterminators?”
Judas had some stability in his stomach and stood taller, nodding. “Yes, that’s us. We’re the Zee Brothers. Judas and Jonah.”
“And wait, that’s why you have a shotgun? You thought I was a zombie?”
Judas stumbled over his words. “Well, no, er, yes. Jonah started screaming and I couldn’t see what was going on, then I swallowed my chew trying to get out of the truck.”
The woman laughed, jutting her chin forward. Her hair fell off her shoulder and down over her face, she flung her head the other way and sent it back in an arc. The street light caught her face and set it aglow.
The brothers both wore identical expressions, mouths open slightly, Judas’s with bits of black in his teeth, their eyes transfixed on opposite corners of her smile. She looked from one face to the next and her own smile widened, followed by both of theirs until the three of them had wide toothy grins.
Their trio of reverie was interrupted by the persistent yelping of her dog. She broke their gaze and bent down to pet him. “Quiet boy.” The muscles in her slender legs flexed and both brothers admired her tight shorts and the roundness of her behind.
The brother’s eyes drifted up to one another, Judas pointed at her and mouthed “Dibs.”
Jonah shook his head, “No way!” he mouthed back.
Judas opened his mouth to say more, but stopped as she stood back up, her dog now calmed.
“So what are you two doing here?” she asked.
“We have a client,” Jonah said, “A Mr. Pembleton.”
“Don’t know him,” she said, “but I’m only here visiting my aunt and uncle for the week. Does he, um, have zombies?”
Judas jumped into the conversation, “An omelet full of them.”
The woman tilted her head and looked at Judas. “He has a zombie omelet?”
“No,” Jonah said.
“It’s what you said he said.”
Jonah glared at his brother.
“I said, I didn’t know what he said, it sounded like omelet.”
“Why would he say he had a zombie omelet if he didn’t have none, Jonah?”
“I don’t know Judas.” He looked at the woman shrugging, “We got disconnected before we could get more details.”
“Oh no,” the woman said. “Do you think he’s been eaten?”
“I don’t know, we were trying to figure out how to get in there,” he nodded toward the gate, “so we could check.”
“Oh! Let me put the code in for you.” She ran over to the box and pushed buttons until there was a click and a whir and the gate parted in the middle.
“Thank you,” the brothers said in unison.
“No problem. Just get in there and make sure he’s alright. Better hurry though, the gate doesn’t wait long.”
Jonah started toward the truck, when Judas spoke up, causing him to cringe and stop.
“Miss?”
“Yes, cutie?” She smiled at him.
“He-he,” Judas laughed and looked down, kicking his boots together. “Um, be careful in there, if he does have zombies, others may too. We thought we saw one walking in that yard over there.”
They all turned and looked, but no one was there now.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said reaching up and pulling down the zipper of her leather jacket. It opened, revealing a tight black tank top with a pair of pointy nipples sticking through it. Both brothers’ mouths fell open. She opened the left side of her coat further, revealing the butt of a pink revolver. “I’ve got The Pink Lady.”
With a clack the gate began to rumble back the way it had come, startling them back to reality.
“Shit, c’mon Judas, get in the truck!” Jonah opened his door and hopped in, then leaned out the window. “Sorry about knocking you over and thanks for all your help.” Next to him Judas slammed his door shut and Jonah grabbed the big 8-ball shifter and rammed it into first gear.
“Get her name, Jonah!”
“What? Oh, yeah.” Jonah leaned his head back out as they began to rumble forward, “What’s your name, miss?”
“You boys can call me JJ and my dog is Xanadu!”
Part IV - Zombie Omelet
“But she called me cute!”
“I don’t care Judas, you can’t call dibs on her. I saw her first!”
“No. She just came up to that side cause it’s the driver’s side and you never let me drive, so it’s not fair.”
“You don’t have your, oh forget it, we’re here.”
Sasha stopped with a screech outside the small brick rancher at 547 Westerly Dr., home of Mr. Larry Pembleton.
“Get the box,” Jonah said as he opened his door, reaching down and patting the butt of his holstered Luger 380 semi-auto. Whatever they were walking into, having Brutus along would likely be a necessity.
Judas carried the large tool chest from the bed of the truck and met Jonah at the foot of the brick path leading to Mr. Pembleton’s front door. “You really think we’re gonna need all of this?”
“When haven’t we?” Jonah walked past his brother and up the well maintained path. It wound through an assortment of red-brown pottery and small cactuses.
“Well, there was that time up in Flagstaff,” Judas said from behind him.
“Which time?” Jonah asked over his shoulder. “The time with Biohazard Bob and his zombie midget sex slaves or the Bigfoot Convention?”
“Not the midgets, the Sasquatches.”
“They weren’t zombies, they were Yetis.”
“You said they were Sasquatches.”
“No, Sasquatches are brown, they had white fur, that makes ‘em Yetis.”
“But they were dead, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that makes them Zombie Yetis and we didn’t need it.” Judas smiled.
“There were only two of them.”
“Yeah, but they were fast ones, right out of the bowels of hell. Remember you had to run real quick and dive into Sasha? I remember you were so mad, because their blood ruined your favorite bumper stickers.”
“Stop it,” Jonah shouted. “Take a deep breath and calm down. We need to be paying attention.”
A few lights were on inside the house and all seemed quiet and normal. It was already dark, even though it was only seven-thirty.
Jonah knocked on the door.
“What are you knocking for, Jonah? He’s dead, ain’t he?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Well, yeah, but he didn’t answer his phone or call us back.”
“We knock first and wait.”
“Ok, Jonah. I’m just saying if he is a zombie, he’s gonna be waiting for us on the other side of that door now that you’ve let him know we’re here...” he hefted the box a little to emphasize his point, “and my hands are full.”
Jonah looked at him and glared through the silence until a scratching sounded on the other side of the door, then he glared harder. Don’t say it, he thought.
Judas’s eyes kept widening and Jonah could tell he was biting his tongue. He reached down and put his hand on the door and felt the vibrations. “Get the catch pole.”
/>
Judas set the box down on a bench next to the door, muttering under his breath. He rummaged around in it until he pulled out a segmented aluminum pole with a wire loop sticking out of one end. Commonly used in zoos and by animal control, they made for a great tool to keep a zombie out of biting range while you removed them from someone’s home for extermination. Nothing worse than an upset homeowner because there’s brain splattered all over the wall.
“Got it.” Judas moved the handle up and down, cinching and un-cinching the noose at the end.
“Ok,” Jonah reached down and tried the nob, it turned. He pulled Brutus out with his left hand. “I’m gonna swing the door open hard and knock whatever’s there back, then if there’s only one you slip the noose around its neck and drag it out, got it?”
“Got it.” Judas grinned from ear to ear. “I’m green, let’s do this.”
Jonah pounded his fist on the door. “Stand back if that’s you Mr. Pembleton. Zombie Exterminators coming in!”
He turned the knob and swung the door in hard and fast. It made it about a foot before it slammed into something or someone. Jonah shoved the door inward and a dark shape stumbled backward. The stench as they stepped in confirmed things. Zombies - and old ones at that.
Dead red eyes glared from the rotting corpse before them. It was clothed in old animal skins and raised its arms up as it lumbered forward. Its skeletal jaw hung open and it moaned at them. “Ommmmlet.”
Judas slung the noose around its neck and pulled it tight.
“Ommml... grahhhh.”
“Did it really say Omelet?” Judas asked. “I thought they always said ‘braiiinnns’.”
“Seriously Judas, brains? How many zombies have we encountered that said ‘brains’? That’s only in movies and you know it.”
“Well yeah, but how many have we met that said ‘Omelet’?” He pushed the skeletal zombie back against a closet door. “Do you think these are smart zombies? Or maybe they don’t hunger for flesh?”
“No, they hunger for flesh alright. See the fresh blood on his face? I’m afraid that’s probably from our client. Loosen up the noose a bit, let’s see if we can understand any of what it’s saying.”
Judas loosened the handle allowing the grip around the zombie to slacken.
“lll...grrrr.” The zombie let out a growl and pushed forward, reaching for Judas.
“Wow,” Judas pushed back. “He’s a strong one for such a bag of bones.”
“He must want something really bad.”
“Ommmlett,” the zombie groaned, its hands clawing at the air, as its feet shuffled in place.
“Should we take it in the kitchen and see if Mr. Pembleton has some eggs?”
“No,” Jonah said, pointing at the remains of tanned animal skins that hung from its body.
“I think he’s been buried for a while; he looks native and doesn’t have much of a stomach left.”
“What would an ancient Indian want with an omelet?”
“I don’t know. Let’s be careful, there’s got to be something supernatural about this to reanimate something so ol— Ahhhh!” Jonah cried out as a form lunged from the shadows of the hallway behind him.
“Oh shit!” Judas shouted, watching as the zombie smacking Jonah forward into him, causing him to lose his grip on the catch pole and the first zombie they had encountered.
The brothers scrambled as the pole swung wildly between them. A roar of groans and growls erupted as the zombie rushed for them. The pole struck the gun in Jonah’s hand, knocking it from his grip. He cried out in pain and pushed against the form on his back. An old man with glowing red eyes, in a tan cardigan sweater and old worn slippers, stumbled backward, then surged forward, hands grasping. “Ammlett.”
Jonah swung his fist in a back handed arc and struck Mr. Pembleton in the jaw. A spray of blood, spit and dentures flew from the newly turned zombie’s mouth.
“Fuck,” Jonah said and turned back to the first zombie, who was lunging for Judas as he to get the fallen revolver.
“Hey!” Jonah shouted at the zombie, “I’ve got your omelet right here!”
The zombie swung around, the aluminum pole coming with it. Smack! It clocked Jonah across the temple, leaving him with stars in his eyes and bringing him to his knees. “Ahh, fuck. Get that gun, Judas.”
The zombie lunged on top of him, the momentum causing Jonah to sprawl flat onto the floor. He rolled over, shoving his right hand out to grab the creature and ended up with his fingers in the zombie’s open mouth. Zombie Mr. Pembleton promptly clamped down and started chewing.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
The thunder of Brutus filled the small entryway and a splattering of ancient brains and rotted flesh exploded onto the wall. Judas turned the gun toward Jonah and Mr. Pembleton. Seeing his brother’s hand in the zombie’s mouth he screamed.
“Not again!” He couldn’t shoot him in the head with his brother’s hand in his mouth, but if he didn’t, his brother would surely die.
“Nom, nom, grrrowl.” The zombie mashed on Jonah’s hand.
“Ahhhhh!” Jonah screamed.
“What do I do? What do I do?” Judas cried.
“Nom, nom, nom,” the zombie chewed.
“Ahhhhh!” Jonah continued screaming, then abruptly stopped.
“Nom,” the zombie chewed.
“Grab the catch pole,” Jonah shouted at his brother.
“But your hand?”
“Just grab it.”
“Nom, nom.”
Judas grabbed the catch pole from the ground next to the body of the first zombie and swung the noose around the head of zombie Mr. Pembleton.
“Nom, nom.”
Jonah took his left hand and wrapped his two fingers and thumb around the zombie’s neck, then pushed back and pulled his right hand free with a splosh.
“Nom, Ammle..gugg.”
The noose slipped around Mr. Pembleton’s neck and pulled tight. “How many fingers you got left, Jonah? How many fingers?” Judas yanked Mr. Pembleton back and away from his brother.
Jonah’s hand throbbed. He looked at it; it was red and a little swollen, but all of his fingers were there and the skin wasn’t broken. “All of them!”
“What?” Judas turned and looked at his brother’s hand. “How’s that possible?”
Jonah pointed to where a pair of broken dentures lay on the entryway floor. “He has no teeth. He was trying to gum me to death.”
Judas looked at the dentures. “Huh, haven’t seen that before. What do we do with him? Should I take him out in the yard and shoot him?”
Jonah got to his feet and took Brutus from his brother and stuffed it in its holster. “No, I think he might be pretty harmless and we’re gonna need some help figuring out what’s going on here.”
“Yeah, I heard Mr. Pembleton saying omelet too.”
“No,” Jonah reached into the pants pocket of zombie Mr. Pembleton and pulled out a thick and worn wallet. Flipping through it, he found the ID. “Larry here didn’t say ‘omelet’. He said ‘Ammlett’. The bag of bones over there with only half a mouth said ‘Ommlett’. Let’s check the rest of the house.”
Part V - Spleen Soup
Jonah hopped up from the crawl space. “Three holes, all empty. Which means there are two more around here somewhere.”
“Grggle,” Larry the zombie said.
“Should I loosen that, you think?”
“No, not right now. Let’s move into the kitchen and see if we can find some rope, I want to bind his hands. He may not have any teeth, but he’s got fingernails that could break the skin.”
“Oh! Should we cut his arms off, like Michonne in The Walking Dead?”
Jonah sighed and shook his head. “No, Judas. Just push him forward into the kitchen and use him as a shield in case we encounter any others.”
Somewhere nearby in a small stand of trees near the water pump building for Winter Oaks, two ancient forms shambled to a stop, fell to their knees and began to chant as the
moon rose above the desert landscape.
The kitchen lay dark and empty. Jonah flipped on the light. A small table sat near a window, across from a counter which ran the length of the kitchen. The table was covered with newspapers, bills and junk mail. At the end of the kitchen was a small laundry room.
“Nothing in here. Wanna go check the upstairs?” Judas asked.
“Not yet,” Jonah said, opening drawers. “Let me see if I can find some rope.”
“Don’t we have some in the box?”
“Yes, but it’s on the porch, we’re here.”
“What do you thinks going on here, Jonah?”
He tried the final drawer and turned from it after a moment of rummaging through Mr. Pembleton’s junk to no avail. “Well, everything points to something supernatural at play. Ancient magic. Native magic. This is all old Pakatini tribal lands and I think toothless Larry here may have dug up and disturbed one of their artifacts, a chieftain’s amulet probably and that unleashed a zombie curse. We’ll have to check the house and see if it’s here.”
“Amulet!” Judas nodded, “of course!”
“Gurgle,” said Larry.
Jonah went into the laundry room. “Shit.”
“What is it Jonah?”
“There’s a door off the laundry room to the outside... and it’s open.” He spied a roll of clothesline on a shelf, grabbed it and walked back into the kitchen. “It looks like our friends have left. Hopefully they found it and are returning it to its sacred location, which should bring this all to a quick close.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Well, then they’re probably out there performing a ritual to call forth the rest of their fellow tribesmen to help them find it. Which means this little gated community will be a zombie death trap very soon. Look out in the backyard and see if you see them stumbling around. I’ll get Larry here tied up and then we’ll figure it out.”
“Um, Jonah?”
“Yes Judas?”
