Zombie Apocalypse
On a quiet enough, suburban street, there is almost a surreal kind of silence. It's a warm day out, which would be reason enough to explain the people standing around outside. Several children make moaning sounds as they examine a dead bird. Two boys and a girl. From their front yard, a pair of parents watch, almost in a trance-like state. A nearby dog is sleeping on a lawn. Here's where I come in. I am driving my 1989 Toyota Camray, roaring down the street at a ridiculous speed. I turn the corner way too fucking fast, thrust the car up and over a curb and onto my lawn. Wasting no time, I hop out and pull my sawed-off shotgun from my passenger seat and start blowing the heads off the children. I'm afraid of the parents, but I've seen children run. Much faster than parents. Fear the children.
Maybe I should start off my story at the beginning. It would help to explain my actions. But I must warn you- some of the story is just what I think happened. I don't think anybody can completely explain what happened, with the exception of the almighty power in the universe and his arch-nemesis. But I will tell you what I witnessed, what I experienced, and explain what I can, with my theories.
I am a grille operator. A burger flipper. The meat cooker, at the local Jimmy D's. I cook the burgers, I turn them over, I press them, I serve them. Simple enough tasks. I drive to work at five in the afternoon; I leave at one in the morning. I still live with my parents and my sister, in suburbia. I earn enough money to keep up my smoking habits, plus pay my way in rent. We all live, reasonably happy, in the small, pious town of Goodington.
Working gives me a lot of time to think. Think about how fucked up life is, how fucked up I am. I think about how smoking is just a subconscious urge to suck on a women's teat. I think about how burgers are fried up in their own 'juices', which is just a pussy way of saying the cow's cooked in their own blood. Sometimes I think I'm a reincarnation of somebody dead and famous, such as Hitler or Jesus Christ, or even somebody not at all famous. I contemplate good vs. evil a lot too, trying to determine which one I am leaning towards. I do a lot of thinking. Sometimes I think so much that I forget what work I'm doing.
Did I mention that I live in a very bible-orientated town? Most of the people are what you'd call 'good' people. Roman Catholics, true-believers, church-goers, that sort. They, for the most part, believe in some sort of higher power and worship it. I, on the other hand, am a mostly agnostic Buddhist-wannabe. I doubt God, but wouldn't be shocked to meet him, while my faith in Buddhism slips in and out. But my actions are basically those of an atheist.
On this particular night, right before I went on break, I was creeped out by a customer. This particular customer, a man dressed in a fine black suit, red dress shirt, black tie. After his triple-ultimate burger wrapped in tin-foiled paper had been placed in his hand, he started making somewhat of a scene. "You there- at the grille. You're going to start the apocalypse. And there's going to be nothing you can do to stop it. Start the end for me. You're going to do it by accident- every small choice can have even great consequences." And that was that- he was gone. I shivered. I'd met tons of crazy people before, but they usually didn't wear suits. I recalled one particular hobo who came in bi-weekly to be racially offensive to one of my managers. He was nuts. But a suit who was nuts? And a psychotic loser who actually ordered food, who spent cash, while causing a scene? Very uncommon.
I scan the schedule. Tonight, being a Thursday in the second week of may, meant the next time I came into work would be five the following afternoon. I took a canister of white out and wrote a V on my left hand, before taking a pen and writing five on my palm, for good measure. I pull the card through the reader as I head off on my break. "Day 13.13 Week 35.24" The hours I'd worked that day and week, so far. It was 11.31.
I head outside, to a nearby bush, where I roll up several cigarettes and smoke them. Interesting fact: the Zig-Zag slowburning Kutcorner cigarette papers that I usually use to roll are made in Thonon-Les-Bains Cédex, France, way across the big ocean in Europe. Another interesting fact: when I headed back into work, it would be ten minutes to midnight. After the clock struck twelve, it would be Friday the thirteenth of may. Aka- the start of the apocalypse.
I was in the freezer with my co-worker, Maria, at 11.59. "You should really sweep under all of this shelves, eh? Look at all the dirt and crap under them." "Don't tell me how to do my job, Maria. I know what I have to do- I always know exactly what I have to do." "I was just saying-" She cut herself off in mid-sentence. Very, very faintly, almost muffled, I heard something that sounded like a trumpet being played, very far away.
I was all of a sudden in a dark room, all by myself. I was naked, but more concerned about the darkness. "Hmm.." a loud booming voice came from the blackness. "What shall I do with you, my son?" I looked around, then shrugged. "Are you ready to come to heaven, boy?" Slightly scared, I also tried a booming voice. "Fuck no. I've still got life left in me." A chuckle resonated throughout the dark room. "If you say so. That's actually what I was hoping for. I've got a mission for you to run, for me. Return to your body."
As far as I could tell, at that particular moment, I just met God. Now I might be exaggerating this next fact, I've never got a chance to thoroughly compare notes with a lot of people. But I believe God froze time, stole every single soul off of earth from their bodies, into his darkroom, where he had similar one-on-one conferences with all these souls. Those who he deemed fit to enter heaven, or maybe those who accepted him, or some shit, went to heaven. That's a lot of people. To quote The Simpsons, "the virtuous have gone to heaven, and the rest of us have been left below. Since we rejected God, tacitly, accepting Satan, we must suffer through the apocalypse." I certainly didn't reject God- this actually left me with faith in God, and his almighty plans. But I was sent back to earth, to face the coming darkness that was quickly spreading across the planet.
In my eighteen years of life, I have sometimes been very near to death. I've had a few close calls. But before this incident, I've never been talking to a person when she suddenly converted from human into a zombie. I returned to my body, clothes and all, without any apparent lapse of time. She gasped, her head fell forwards, and her entire body instantly decomposed into a zombie-like state. You know what the zombies in the movies look like. Instant-that. She lurched at me, wrapped her hands around my shoulder and my neck, and bared her teeth towards my neck. I screamed, pushed her off of me with all my force and kicked her in the knee. She fell back against the wall of the freezer. I grabbed a heavy box full of sealed fries and pushed it hard into her chest, before rushing out of the freezer.
"What the fuck!?" I managed. One of my managers had also turned zombie and was ripping the other manager's flesh from his body with her mouth. He screamed. I screamed. I tried to run out the back door, but was blocked off by Billy. Billy had become one of the living dead, his eyes as dead as a corpse. Drool spilled from his mouth as he stared at my ample, fresh meat*. I jumped towards the grille, grabbed the flipper, reconsidered this weapon, than ran and jumped over the front counter. The dining area of Jimmy D's had turned into a carnivorous flesh-eating massacre. Completely different than on a normal night. A pair of twins wailed on poor grandma, whose only goal that evening had been to treat her grand-kids to a nice burger. I watched in disgust and shock as a husband sat eating his wife's arm, while she returned the favour. And again, I saw the man in the black suit.
*I'm not sorry for this joke- hahahha..
"Good job, boy. All goes according to plan. 'And the second coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ will serve the devil his dinner. Then he shall mark his hand twice, with the sign of the apocalypse. And he shall see the sign of the apocalypse twice, and that shall signal the start of the end. And the righteous shall be spared in heaven, while the dead roam the earth. And this shall only be the beginning.' Guess who that makes me, boy? Hey, guess who you are then?" "What fucking crack have you been smoking buddy? Fuck, what have I been smoking- there's god-damn zombies!" Flipping off the psycho, I rush out of Jimmy D's while all the zombies were still distracted. Outside wasn't much better. Several cars had piled up on the road and undead creatures crawled from the wreckage. The cars in the drive thru were either under attack or being abandoned by flesh-eating monsters. I ran to my car and started to drive as fast as I could.
"It's Friday the thirteenth, of May. Cummon, God, why spring the apocalypse today of all days? Why not when I'm old and don't care? I don't want to suffer through plagues, zombies. I don't want to watch the planet as it dies." Shaking uncontrollably, I pulled a cigarette out of my emergency box, located in my pocket, and sparked it up. I say emergency box, for I usually take the time to roll. It's cheaper and gives my fingers exercise, as opposed to chain smoking an entire cartoon. I barely noticed as I drove over a zombie as I was lighting up the smoke. Or maybe it was just some guy, I can't remember. Desperate times.
"What would a guy in a movie do in this sort of situation?" I asked myself. "Zombies everywhere, one would want to .. fight them off. With weapons. Guns. Bullets and lots and lots of bullets." I contemplated some more, as I drove speedily around street carnage. Given the circumstances, I could only arrive at one course of action.
After a hastened drive, I arrived at my uncle's house. Most of his neighbourhood looked like martial law of a cannibalistic nature had been declared, but his house lay untouched. I glanced in horror as a pair of children ran after a terrified dog, which was missing a chunk of his leg. I noted with some fear how fast zombie children run. I smashed through the front window of my uncle's home and headed for his rather convenient gun collection. Conveniently enough, a large box of assorted ammo lay next to his assorted guns. I quickly loaded a great number of guns into the backseat of my car with the box of ammo, before pocketing the loaded handgun and grabbing the unloaded shotgun. If you asked me now what kind of guns, how many, calibre, vintage or any sort of details about these guns, I would shrug. I know only a bit about guns, and this I will tell you as I go along. My knowledge of guns was limited to how to load ammo in, and this training was being learnt first-hand on this, the first night of the apocalypse.
I dragged the shotgun into his garage, moving as fast as I could, lest zombies smell me. Zombies can smell living flesh, right? Grabbing a saw, I sawed off a decent portion of the end. That was a fact that was definitive in my mind- always a sawed-off shotgun. Unfortunately, by the time I was done, zombies had begun attacking my uncle's garage. Moaning and groaning, they smashed through windows and started pouring into the garage. I wrenched the handgun from my pocket and started blowing head after head after head. "Die, fucking zombies!" I yelled, unnecessarily. I nailed down six, enough to vacate myself at much haste from the garage and return into my car. As I drove off, one zombie attached himself to the outside door handle. I smacked the lock button, locking him out.
I drove for quite a distance before losing my hitch-hiker. I parked ruggedly at a gas station and filled my car up to brimming, before driving once again into the night. I had to think, I had to figure out what was going on, why, and whether or not I had caused it. Apparently, and this was only my opinion, God had called a great number of people up to heaven. And instead of them just disappearing, or a massive holocaust of only the righteous, he had decided to turn them all into zombies. Zombies, being soulless creatures to begin with, didn't require the soul that now resided in.. Heaven..?
"The guy at the diner claimed to be the devil. Then again, he claimed I was Jesus two, which doesn't exactly.. Wait, maybe, yeah, okay, I believe that." I needed some sort of facts, to clarify the madness that had struck my life. Unbelievable as it may be, I was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, who had unwittingly set in motion the apocalypse by feeding the devil a triple-ultimate burger. "Would that make me the anti-Christ?" I wondered to myself. A bell chimed in my head at the mention of Jesus’ name, and I knew what I needed. But I'd have to wait until the day to pick it up. Driving all night, afraid to stop, lest I be molested by zombies, I decided to tune the radio into the news.
"I repeat, mass-cannibalism. Some sort of cult-frenzy has taken the world by storm, even worse than boy-bands*. Children attacking their parents, adults attacking their pets, entire churches filled with a psychotic lust to eat their neighbour. I ask you, what kind of world are we living in? Is it magic? Is it Lex Luthor's latest scheme to foil Superman? Have we just reached that point in evolution where the strong prey upon the weak, and the weak are left at the curb side, next to long-since forgotten Trolls and Tomigotchi? I ask you this- should we start killing these 'zombies', in the way only movies have taught us, such as fractured skulls, guns, and fire? Or should we be the more sportsman-like species, and courteously step aside, leaving the world in their decomposing hands? I say, the latter. We've had a good run as a civilization; let's see what the 'zombies' can do for us, as a whole. I mean, cummon people. This is a call-in show, so please, if you aren't so busy 'running for your lives', give us a shout, eh? What's this- we've got our first call of the night. Hello, you're on the air with Cooper, what's your view of this cannibalistic attitude some of our friends have taken up?" "Fuck off, you wanker." I then hung up the phone and switched the radio off.
*Fact: While mass-cannibalism in this story is more cult-like than boy bands, Boy-bands are still much worse, both morally and musically, than zombies. They are the invention of the devil himself.
I drove all night, occasionally running over the rabid dog or rabid man. Whatever.
Eventually, I pieced the devil's riddle together. '..he shall mark his hand twice, with the sign of the apocalypse. And he shall see the sign of the apocalypse twice, and that shall signal the start of the end..' It was May thirteenth, aka, five-thirteen. I had marked a five on both sides of my hand, and my hours worked that day had been thirteen thirteen. Unwittingly, I had fulfilled a dark prophecy. I mentally noted that I needed to pick a bible up when I got a chance, to figure out exactly what this small, blue planet was in store for.
Unfortunately, the sky was falling, the sky was falling. Stars whipped around the sky, like they'd been put inside a blender. Every once in a while, two would collide, causing a blinding flash in the sky. Now I realize, scientists tell us that it takes years upon years for starlight to reach earth. Despite this fact, on this particular eve, the rules were different. I wonder why that would be.
I was quite thankful, the sun rose early. It made it much easier to see a herd of zombies charging at my car or any other sort of peril. But the sunrise was way too early. It was about six in the morning when the sun hit its normal lunchtime position. It was also glowing an unfortunate shade of red. There seemed to be something wrong with everything.
"Hello?" I answered my cell phone, hoping that either my parents or my sister was calling. I'd know that they weren't zombies and I wouldn't need to deal with something horrible. "Hey. Fuck. Uh, hey. Can you come rescue me? I'm trapped in my house, and there's a bunch of -" "Zombies?" "Yeah. I'm safe, I'm in the panic room*, but I can't get out." "No problem- I gotta make two stops first, so just stay tight. I'll give you a call when to open the locks, eh?" "Sure."
*Watch the movie panic room- Lilah's is just like that one.
That was Lilah Morgan*, my girlfriend. A very hot blonde, armed with a pair of reading glasses, she has similar television interests as me. We used to watch the new Angel episodes every week, before it got canned. She lived about ten minutes from my house. But I knew I had to make two stops before going to be the brave knight in armour for her, for she would just end up slowing me down.
*Not to be confused with the other Lilah Morgan.
Again, the phone rang. "Good day, boy. I hope you haven't run too far away. I need to talk to you." It, bizarrely enough, was the 'devil' from the restaurant, with the black suit. I thought it odd that a man I'd met the previous night knew my telephone number. "I haven't run anywhere, I'm still in Goodington. But why the hell would I want to talk to a nut job like yourself, per say? You started the apocalypse, somehow." "Wrong, buckaroo. You started it. You fulfilled a prophecy, even after I warned you. You are the reincarnation of a man who lived over two thousand years ago, and died for their sins. You are more than a mortal. A demi-god, maybe is the right term. And right now there are only two sentient demi-gods on earth. Don't you think they should discuss the current state of the world?" Fuck, I swore mentally. "Fine. It's what, six thirty now? You're stop number four on my list of shit I need to do today. I'll meet you at eight in front of the No Frilles. But I'm going to be armed to the teeth." I hung up.
Stop one: Using my newfound handgun, I broke into the LCBO. I loaded up the back of my car with Vodka, Fireball, Crown Royal, more vodka, Captain Morgan, Absinthe*, Revs for Lilah, and a shitload of wine. I gunned down a fat zombie while I cracked open a bottle of vanilla vodka and began to chug.
*When faced with an apocalypse, and robbing a liquor store, one must always steal the most expensive alcohol available.
Stop two*: I wipe the two boys and a girl off the face of the earth before the parents and the dog even notice me. The dog got pretty close to me before I sent a bullet deep into his skull, sending him flying backwards. The parents, slow-movers, are no problem. Not bothering to use my keys to the front door of my house, I leap through the den's window. At this point, I am very intoxicated. I'd consumed an entire bottle of wine and vodka on my way over. My house is empty, leaving me to wonder what fate has beheld my sister and parents. I quickly run up the stairs, grab my black and yellow backpack, and load the family bible into it. I grab a paper sack, throw a single bagel into it, and then head back to the den. I lay my eyes onto the item which I knew I needed. I was drawn to it, ever since I'd met up with God. Carefully, I removed it from the wall, wrapped it in a beech towel, and head back to my car. Several zombies got in my way, and now their assorted brains decorate my lawn.
*This is the start of the story, in case you were wondering.
Stop three: I drive rapidly through the streets, while I reload my gun and choke back the bagel. I curb my car again, this time in front of Lilah's house. Her entire neighbourhood is oddly deserted. Her door is open, and I run upstairs to her panic room. "You can come out now." The door air-locks open, and she is in my arms. She kisses me passionately, with tongue. "Jesus Christ, am I glad to see you." I laugh hastily as I drag her out of her house and into my car.
I tell her the entire story. About the devil in a suit, and my one-on-one conference with God, the prophecy which I fulfilled, about zombie-Maria attacking me, about the guns, and Cooper on the radio. I mention the falling stars, the early rising red sun, about the LCBO, how I have to go meet up with the devil, and finally I tell her about all the booze I've drank in less than an hour. I show her the bottles, just to prove it. And of course, I do not neglect to mention the fact that I'm the second coming of our lord Jesus Christ. She nods the whole time. "God told me I was unworthy, so I guess that's why I'm still here." "You're not unworthy babe. Give daddy some sugar." We kiss again, then drive speedily enough to the No Frilles.
Stop Four: Lilah stays in the car while I patrol the perimeter of the car. Soon enough, the devil arrives. On a motorbike*, no less. His motorbike, the color of palest, pale grey.
*You can interpret that any way you want to.
"Your majesty," he pronounces, as he bows to me. "Is this about my family? Where are they?" "Lord, no. Your family does not interest me. You do. Side note, you reek of booze. What the hell are you doing, drinking before eight in the morning." He cleared his throat. "Have you ever considered joining my army of darkness?" "No." "Don't be so hasty to decide. I can offer you a very high position. In the top thirteen. Still below me, of course, but very prestigious." "You're wasting my time. I have to go clean up this mess. Good day, Beelzebub." I start to walk away and he grabs my arm. I pull back and aim my sawed-off shotgun in his face. "I need to know what your father's plans are." "Tough shit. I know less than you do, Satan." With a look of confusion, he nods and returns to his bike. "Nice chick by the way. Let's hope no harm comes to her." In a cloud of dust, the devil was gone.
I continued my random drive through Goodington, as Lilah read the entire chapter of Revelations to me. I also ate another bagel. "'..I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.' Well, there you go. God started the game, he wants to end it before the devil can. End it on his own terms." I shrug at this statement and light up another smoke. "This town's really gone to shit. And I don't feel like driving around until the end finally comes. Where can we go?" Lilah flips the radio on.
"The official word on the street is that the zombies population is now under a certain amount of control. I report to you now, not from my normal broadcasting centre in Goodington, but from Badsville. The zombie manifestation seems to have hit the more righteous towns of earth harder than the stinking armpits, the piss-stained hellholes, or the scumbag cities. Let's take Badsville for example, human listeners. For every one hundred citizens, one tenth of a person turned into a zombie. One tenth of a person- who wrote this shit? For every thousand humans, one zombie. That's right. So the zombies were all outnumbered and killed, no problem, in Badsville. In contrast, Goodington had .. we don't have official numbers, but a lot more zombies. They attacked the humans, thus the numbers slipped in their favour, and no there are almost no humans left in that particular nook. Some sort of reverse karma is going on. The bad are being rewarded and the good are being.. zombified. Oh, but I must warn humans fleeing bad-ol' Goodington, that to enter Badsville, they must perform the alphabet song, just to prove your human. As we all know, from the movies, zombies cannot speak, thus, cannot sing any songs. It's an ingenious test, if you want my opinion. But I would like to hear yours, for our phone lines have been dead for quite some time, no pun intended. Wait, we've got a call. You're on the air with Cooper, and what's your view?" "I just wanted to thank you for telling us about Badsville and, as you just have, warn people about Goodington. It's a real shithole here." "Thanks for your call." Lilah hung up, and opened her window up. It was getting pretty hot out.
"We should head there. Sounds safe, if Cooper's to be trusted, which he is." "Bitch please, Cooper should be hung. Hey, you want a bagel?" "Sure. Not to alarm you, but there's a horse running beside us." Indeed there was, I noted with much alarm. An enormous, black horse was riding neck and neck with us, easily going at ninety kilometres an hour. On top of the horse was a knight in blackest of black armour. I was so stunned I passed Lilah the bagel before ploughing the breaks on.
The horse and rider drove past us, in our stopped Toyota Camray, giving me enough time to fire the sawed-off shotgun at them over Lilah and through her window. Several shots landed dead on, but both man and beast seemed unharmed as they turned around and returned to my car. I shot one last time, directly in his face, but to no avail. After dropping a black scale to the ground, he drew a black sword and jumped off the horse.
"Uh," said Lilah, as I jumped out of the car and rummaged through the trunk. I found what I was looking for, and quickly unwrapped it from the beach towel.
"See this, boy?" asked my father to me, a long time ago, when I was very young. "This was blessed by the strongest man who ever lived. Jesus Christ. Son of God. He blessed this, made it holy from tip to tip. I know this, because one of our ancestors used to follow Jesus. Jesus gave it to him as a gift, or so I've been told. It's been cared for and passed on generation to generation. Eventually, somebody in our bloodline may need it. And it's going to be there for them when they need it."
I pull out Jesus’ sword and watch the red-tinted sun as it glints down the magnificent blade. "Would you be one of the four horseman of the apocalypse?" The knight nodded at me, as evil literally pulsed from him. "We should do battle." I swung my sword towards the figure, he returned the favour. We fought, sword to sword. Sparks flew. The noise of metal hitting metal. The ground under our feet was stepped on. I began to sweat. Under his armour, perhaps he did too. We circled each other. I caught Lilah's eye as she sat in the car. She looked scared.
I knew nothing about fighting with swords. I had no previous experience, in this life. But it came very naturally to me. It was almost as though I had learnt, in another time. The black horseman was a very experienced fighter.
But his sword melted. After about an hour of fighting, something holy happened. My blessed blade cut right through his sword, and I swung downwards onto his chest. Taking advantage of this weapons malfunction, I swung my sword from right to left, removing his head. With an unholy gasp, his body melted into a black shadow that quickly shrank, and disappeared.
"You killed him!" Lilah yelled, jumping out of the car and hugging me around the waist. I raised up Jesus' sword, towards the red sun, towards heaven. "Knock on wood, Lilah, but I think we might have a chance against this apocalypse." Unfortunately, we had been stationary for far too long. The zombies of Goodington had massed, and formed a circle around us and the car. I carelessly tossed the sword, for some reason steaming hot, into the car and pick up my sawed-off shotgun. Lilah grabs a magnum. "Are you ready to die, Lilah?" "Yes, my Lord. Are you ready to die?" "Yes, my love." We pull together for one last, inappropriately long kiss, before we start massacring the dead. Before they, as one collective group, charge at us.
Do you want to read The Seed of The Apocalypse?
Or head straight to the disclaimer?
the end is always nigh..