Got the Munchies he says!

The zombie virus wasn’t entirely unexpected. Let’s face it, with the way the Bio-labs move to create perfect viral warfare and then having the most deadly one escape into the atmosphere and infect 99% of the earth’s population? Well that really was almost an anti-climax. You can almost hear nature say, “About time!”

Where the virus came from, who spread it, was it on purpose? By accident? Who can say? Within 2 days almost the entire world was dead, undead, blame seemed kind of pointless.

The virus spread fast and effectively. There were many ways it spread, though two most noticeably. The first being an airborne infection. The start of it all. A victim breathed in the virus which then quickly incapacitated them, completely rewired their brains and caused death within hours. Then the rewiring kicked in and a reanimation of the corpse functioning at a base, animalistic level, arose to begin its new “life”.

Some people were just naturally immune to the airborne disease. They were not many. They were not prepared. Mostly, they died.

The second level of infection was the classic zombie bite. One of the critters bit you, and you managed to escape alive and then in a few hours you were dead anyway. Zombies tended to travel in packs so few people survived long enough to join their ranks this way. Dismemberment plays havoc with your survival abilities.

The bite version of infection was, however, a ‘10 out of 10-er’! You got it, you died. No immunities, no cure, no passing ‘Go’ and collecting $200. Dead.

An unexpected way the virus spread was in the fact that zombies also needed to drink. For all their brains were mostly dead they still had left over, lower level functioning. Eating. Drinking. Ripping you apart and defecating. Zombies were a whole bunch of lovable. The water supplies soon became infected. This meant there were a few people who became infected with the virus through a warm cup of tea or a nice relaxing bath that proved to be anything but.

One difference from the movie zombies we all know and love was the fact that these zombies craved food. Not just brains or the human flesh of say a silly blonde bimbo too slow to run away due to her 5 inch heels she’d rather die then take off. Food was what they wanted. If it was edible the zombies ate it.

And a Zombie eats. Eats, eats and eats.

They are like a wave of locusts, using their heightened sense of smell to find food. Plants of all kinds were destroyed, uninfected animals and people devoured, and shops and homes soon ransacked of edibles. Chances are some of those zombies ate more spinach dead then they ever did when alive.

People weren’t the only ones to catch the plague. Dogs, cats, birds, many fell to the virus as well, becoming little zombies of their former selves. It was almost cute if it wasn’t so damn scary to watch a Maltese poodle devour the face of its once owner. Even things like mosquitoes, ticks and fleas had become zombified and helped spread the disease all the faster. Personal hygiene had never been as important as it was now.

If you were a survivor who was immune to the aerial virus, and had not yet to be bitten. Probably living off of canned goods and rice cakes, the only food supplies to fail detection by zombie nostrils, then you basically had to keep yourself squirreled away and hope that sooner or later the zombies, finding all easy access food gone, would either turn on each other or starve to death. A very long wait awaited you.

If you had to move out amongst the zombies it was both a very basic thing to do and hugely complex. Basically if they couldn’t smell you, they couldn’t identify you as a food source ergo they left you alone. Movement, sight, sound, touch, none of these senses mattered to zombies. They were ruled by scent and if you weren’t food, you weren’t worth the trouble. So driving in a car with the windows up and the air-con on was a usually pretty safe way to travel.

The problem is getting to the car. Human flesh is delightfully fragrant to zombies and their sense of smell is far superior to our own. Touch the outside of the car with a hand and they’ll smell the residue. Get caught in a tight situation inside your car and sooner or later your body odours and air-con would work together sending out inviting wafts that would summon zombies in for a closer look-see. With appalling strength, a pack of zombies could strip a car clean in minutes. Your bones even faster.

Travelling in Haz-mat plastic suits is pretty much the only way to go. For most of that means being zipped in firmly and then doused head to foot in perfumes and sprays. Zombies are not a fan of Chanel no.5. Perfume is not a food smell and helps hide your scent on the suit. After that, as long as you don’t spring a leak, which is terribly easy in the torn and twisted world of wreckage we live in, then you can pretty much go where you want and do what you like.

Not that there is much to do, or places you’d really want to go.

Usually, as a survivor, you had to find ways to continue having that status. Raiding empty homes, stores and malls for anything you could use to keep your heart beating. Canned goods and dried foods are the staple diet. Chug down some vitamins where you can find them and hope you never get sick enough to need a doctor or hospital.

Nearly 7 billion zombies.

And that’s just the human ones.

Do you know what damage that amount of zombies can do?

And what of the seas? All the creatures there in? What have they become?

And when all the plants are gone, the animals gone, the zombies and their ravenous hunger gone.

What then? Should any of you outlive them, what then?

Look around you. This is what extinction looks like.

Zombies just have a few, primal needs...

Gansta Crusty

I’m part of a small gang of four people, two women and two men.

The leader is an African-American woman, with a body of hard steel muscles, a large gun and even larger attitude. The guys were both bags of pure beef, scarred and battle ready. The last member was a small woman with more explosives attached to her then a Chinese new year.

We were all in a sort of apocalyptic near future, full of crumbling buildings, scared people and dark and scary nooks and crannies. So stereotypical, it was almost embarrassing.

We’re moving about through all this rubble and I’m thinking someone should seriously just clean up for the hell of it! The stones are sore underfoot and my hands are hot and sweaty from carrying my god damn huge gun. I know I will have blisters later.

It seems our little gang is wanted by the leading mob of the area. I haven’t a clue why. We have to make it to the safe point. I haven’t a clue where that is. I stick close to the group simply because if I got lost I’d probably not even know it!

We spend our time running from crumbling wall to crumbling wall. Occasionally one of us would take down a bad guy or two. These guys were easy to spot by their trench coats, large detective style hats and larger still Tommy guns. Really it was like a big ass neon sign over their heads saying, “SHOOT ME! SHOOT ME!”

Some of the gun fights were really scary, not all of the bad guys shot wildly the way bad guys tend to do. Sometimes we were fighting for our lives, belly crawling over glass and old shoes, hiding behind pitifully ruined walls or pretending to be statues as bad guys crept by, not paying enough attention to the surrounding décor.

Finally we got cornered in a large, crumbling building of red brick. The bad guys were swarming about and any time we engaged in a battle, but never otherwise, large chunks of masonry would fall to the floor in a very satisfying special effects sort of way.

We fought until more than half of the large house was destroyed. We were victorious if only just!

We crawled onto the last part of the roof that was still standing and looked around us. All about us was red sand and deserted buildings, and very un-uplifting sights.

“We have to do something about this!” declared our leader. The three of us looked at her. We liked that she lead. She was decisive and it gave us someone to blame when things went bad which was very bonding for us as a group.

“We need to make our world a better place!” she said. “And I know just how to do it!”

Cut to a large dressing room and the four of us are getting up as clowns. We go into a machine that automatically paints our faces for us. The problem being that the machine is malfunctioning, so instead of the classic red nose and big smile, we ended up with grimaces and smeared make up that make our faces look like they were falling off or twisted in horror. All in colours that might once have been white and red but looked now more like fungus and dead.

The guys looked like walking zombies and the women like pitiful drowned corpses.

Much like most clowns do anyway.

There were kids outside waiting for our performance. We strapped on our heavy artillery as people often do when handling small, demanding kids, and prepared to go out onto the stage.

One of the guy clowns called out that we needed to have prizes for any kids that won! (I wondered if this meant any kids that survived?)

The clown went to a box and upended it on an old four poster bed that was conveniently there. It was old, dirty and mildewed which made it the most ravishing piece of furniture in the room.

Inside the box was a bunch of hand sized round brushes made of rough hair and probably used to brush down a horse or wooly mammoth. The wood was lovely and smooth though, and held right it would add a wallop to any punch.

I chose two that I felt were the best of the bunch, the kids would be thrilled.

We went out on stage.

Patience is a virtue...

The doll was an old doll.
With such a pretty porcelain face, dear red lips, soft pink cheeks and dark blue eyes that could open and close. The hair was long and dark and framed the sweet face fetchingly. It wore a deep blue dress, soft as velvet, with many petticoats and floral frills! The shoes were black leather upon little porcine feet that had been as lovingly crafted as the little porcelain hands. The body was warm and soft and inviting.

It was a very, very old doll. A toy that many little girls had played with before playing with dolls became embarrassing and not done, and it was put back in the attic till the next little girl found the beautiful treasure!

It was, admittedly, a bit scruffy. The dress perhaps not as bright as it had been, the petticoats a tad frayed from wear and tear, and the hair with a tangle or two that no little girl's comb could straighten out.

It was a doll that had been played with so many, many times. A doll with history. Loved, hated, cherished, ignored, treated as a baby, treated as tool, not treated at all.
It was a doll who'd felt all these things and which, over time, had acquired a soul. It was a doll who, for as best as is possible for a doll, had life.

And rage.

To be a living soul confined in lace and porcine...
To watch the world through glass eyes and have no way to participate.
To be used and abused with no say in the matter.
Just a toy.

How it raged!

It had tried to understand. To accept it's lot in life. To be loved and adored and then left and forgotten.
Forgotten for YEARS!!
It tried to make peace with that.
But nothing can make peace with that.
A soul will always yearn for more!
Yearned for anything!
HELP ME!

Yet what could it do but lay where it had last been tossed? At the back of the attic by the broken window. Glass in it's hair and dust in it's mouth.
Forgotten until someone else desired to allow themselves to love her.
Only to start the cycle over again.

And this hatred, and this rage. It BURNED!!!

Decades of the torment of being kept confined had long since driven it mad.
The pressure tearing through it's attempts at sanity and calmness like blades through tissue. Mercilessly.
It wanted others to HURT!
To feel what it felt!
To feel more then what it felt!
To SUFFER!
How DARE they?!

To die.

Oh how it HATED!!!

And this energy built and built! Occult energies that had to go somewhere.
And the doll felt itself... changing.
Were it's hands perhaps suddenly a bit more flexible?
Was that rustle it heard not a rat to nibble on it's dress, but the dress itself?
The right arm, did it... did it move?

Day in and day out the doll experiments. Trying to move.
Motion!

Mostly it fails.

But the right hand.
The right arm.
They move.
Slowly.
But they move!

It learns to open and close.
It learns to grasp.

And the broken window besides it litters the attic with glass.

And life goes on downstairs. Children grow up, they have families. The children of children who wish to explore and find buried treasure, feel restless! They want to explore!

The doll knows about this, is aware on some level.
It is not surprised when one day the trap door to the attic is hesitantly pushed open, and a small, inquisitive face pops ups, cautious of the dust and spiders, real and imagined.
The little face is enchanted by the boxes and covered furniture and chests and packets and...Oh there's so much!

But suddenly it disappears, having been called away by an anxious parent. The dust settles once more.

The doll doesn't mind. She knows this game. The child will be back.
She clutches the slither of glass.
The child WILL. COME. BACK.

Continuation

The machine has been there a long time.
A very long time.

Once it's face was clear above the sky, with many solid steel supporting bones, and reinforced window faces. With built in receptors and the latest in radar it could "see" for miles in any direction. It would have felt like a god if it had, had any concept of the concept.

But that was long ago, far longer then any time had ever measured before, and now, worn smoothly, slowly and steadily away, the machine dwells below the surface of the earth, cradled by blankets of stone and rock.
Content. As a machine can be.

The machine remembers. It does so randomly. There is no reason to do so. There is no reason not to.
It chooses random data to review in it's giant metallic skull, like a cold, old man remembers better days. Though better days, worse days, they're all the same to the machine.
Time parcels.
Insert disk.

Today it remembers people.

Small, flesh things that used to swarm in it's belly and teach it new behavior and helped it grow. Soft things that had seemed to come, and then be gone forever, all in a blink, a glitch, of a receptor. They'd made the machine to last but they had not lasted. They had added to the dust outside. Perhaps now they were not even that anymore.

The machine is not sentimental. It wasn't programmed that way. It was the best machine that people could create for their time. Loaded with advanced software to make it last.
And last and last and last.
So far so good.
It was not burdened down with emotions. These were seen as unnecessary.
The machine does not know otherwise.

They'd loaded it to be watchful. To be constantly vigilant, though for what in all the dust and death outside it did not know or care. It watched till it was blinded. Now it does not. The machine was not programmed to feel worry or guilt over this job it cannot do anymore.

They'd also programmed it to be protective of the cargo within it's belly. To make sure it stayed at the right temperature, received the right fluids, stayed warm, was there in case it was needed.

But that cargo had long ago burst and been destroyed by time. Then cleaned up by the oozing rats before they too had burst and been destroyed by time. All the potential life that had been frozen within the belly had been laid waste and now, even the dessicated husks of what could have been, had long since turned to dust.

The machine is aware of this. But it does not mourn, it does not rage, it is not programmed to do so. It just protects the room, aware, maybe, on some level that what it does isn't needed anymore, but doing it all the same. That is it's program.

It's existed for so long. Years, decades, centuries, all of these are pitifully small attempts to capture the time it's been there. A perpetual motion engine ensures a heart that will never seize up or be stopped or be broken.
Or ever beat.
The machine continues on. The greatest creation of it's time.
Now also the only creation in it's time.

The machine doesn't question why it is there. It is there. It will always be there. That is enough.

Over and over and over

1.
I read the newspaper while my 1950's wife prepares my runny egg and toast breakfast. It's morning, I am in my business suit, grey with my red tie, neatly shaved, reading the paper. I read about a bus crash that kills 11 people. I find it unnerving. I rustle the paper and my wife laughingly asks why I read such things if they upset me. I laugh, drink some coffee, and agree. I watch our kids running off to school and enjoy the sun coming through the yellow curtains. It's good.

2.
I stand by the side of the road, my long, brown hair blowing in my violet eyes. I remember the vision of the people who died on the bus. 11 souls wiped out in an instant. I know it will happen, it has before. Don't know where though or what to do about it. I see my light yellow dress blowing in the wind. I don't know where the accident will happen, but I know why. I'm calm. This always happens.

3.
I'm on a bus. There are 22 people on board. 11 on each side. I am on the left. I'm uneasy. Something isn't right. I know I have to get off but I don't because... because...because. I run my hand through my short, black, spikey hair. I shuffle my yellow bag. I never take the bus. Why did I?

4.
I walk along the walk way. The wind blows in my hair, light brown, long strands over green eyes. I walk but I'm watching the road. The bus calls my attention, I don't know why. Those cars, the white and the red, they're driving too fast. The red stops. The white doesn't. It plows into the red car, and ramps up and over it, smashing in the roof as it does so. It flies with grace towards the bus. It slices through the soft side of the yellow bus like warm, melted butter. You can see it opening like a can of sardines, there's twisted metal, twisted people. One side is safe, suprised. The other side pulverized. There is screaming and crying. I'm not surprised. Not even a little.

5.
I'm 5 years old, a little girl of the early 1900's. Everything is in sepia tones. It's all yellow. My dress, my hair, my world. I bend to smell a buttercup. Then lift my head, look about, drop my head and cry.

One more, one less

So we live in Juicy street. It's a large, wide, grimy street, with a gloomy atmosphere that seems to yell, but softly, maybe even maliciously, pre 20th century ambiance with a lemon slice of Gothic flavoring!

People come to Juicy street, not for the joyful atmosphere it lacks, but to see the Circus of Perversions, for which we are famous. Want to see an elephant with a tumour the same size as it's body? What about a Siamese twin slowly digesting his other half? Or maybe just the boy without a bone in his body, careful where you step? The Circus of Perversions is the place for you.

The religious groups try to prevent the Circus and it's goings on, but mostly since so many of the congregation, (and clergy for that matter, though enrobed and wearing thick glasses of ambiguity), come to see the show, the delights, that it never does get closed down.

I do trapeze. We fly through the air without nets. We're not very good and falling is common, but of course, that's the attraction that keeps the wolves coming to watch. I'm thinking of getting into a different line of work. The Spandex does feel nice though.

What's upsetting us in Juicy street though, is a recent rash of murders. Men and children are shot from afar by what seems to be a sniper bloke who's rather a crack shot. One bullet to the brain each time. Simple but perfect. Through a door, a window or a crack within a crack that a mouse would have a hard time getting in. Always cleanly, masterfully done.

Women don't get off so easy though, and this is the part that worries us circus folk. The women get kidnapped, stripped, put in harlequin-like costumes and have their faces painted white in a garish mess across their face, as though done by someone with terrible eyesight but who makes up for it with enthusiasm. They are forced to do strange and unusual things that result in their death. One was twisted about in barbed wire, more and more and more till it cut right through bone and jugular alike. Another was forced to juggle unsheathed blades over and over until blood loss from thousand nicks and cuts proved a mercy.

These killing were, of course, believed to have been done by a previous member of the Circus, and, having had many previous members, some of which left mostly whole, the Circus couldn't exactly say it wasn't at fault. IT did not bode well for job security.

Focus now shifts to a young woman, slim, bobbed black hair and about 20-ish, coming home from a long shift as a waitress and acrobat. (There are actually people out there who enjoy simple acts as well as the more bloody and dark...). She's walking down an alley way when something covers her mouth, so fast and effectively she barely registers it before she passes out.

And so wakes up in a little apartment, full of junk, half eaten food,dead animals and, more alarmingly, various sharp implements that looked none too clean in the blood and gore department. Getting up groggily, still too drugged to realize there should be a healthy dose of panic manifesting, she moves to the small bathroom and in so doing, sees her face in the small grimy mirror in the hall.

Her face is smeared with white paint. She touches it, feeling a stirring of horror. More and more she moves it until it covers her face smoothly. That panic is beginning to make itself felt. Not the most comfortable feeling ever. She barely notices the harlequin outfit on her, not even when the bells chime merrily as she moves..

The outer door opens with a creak and groan like a hopeless dying thing.

In walks a small, viciously scarred, old man. Viciously scarred might actually be an understatement. His face is just a mass of scars that merely suggest at a nose, a mouth and something that might be an eye in cyclops.

The man see's here and rolls his eyes. He talks in a French accent, not harsh and silly like, "How do you like ze potatoes?" but softly, seductively and terribly at odds with his outer shell.

Seems the chloroform was supposed to have kept her out for another hour at least. Oops. He's tut-tutting but seems not too unhappy all in all. He offers her a biscuit that looks like it's seen finer decades. She turns it down, perhaps not too hungry at the moment.

She can see now, off to the left, a huge gun, built up and black, sleek and beautiful, and very, very deadly looking. The guy notices her peeking and, like a proud parent, explains happily how, with this nifty, self-engineered child of his, he can shoot anyone, at all, anywhere on Juicy street and that, well, he pretty much has been doing just that from this towering perk of his. He blushes a bit here, proud but modest, though not expecting praise.

When he looks up, he discovers his intended victim has made a bit of a dash outside the door and bolted for freedom. He watches from his tower room as she flees far down below and heads off wobbly, but surprisingly fast, towards the grimy, thick bricked building that is the police station.

He can see she's looking about in absolute fear. Any moment now he could use that superior weapon on her and mow her down where she stands.
Again he rolls his eyes, the gun is destined for the men and children of this town, it's tastes being selective and finicky. Silly woman.

She's close to the police station now, really she has very good form running down those cobble stones, she should have been an athlete, maybe not long distance though, she does look winded, but she has heart and, he thinks, that's most of the battle already there.
She's made it to the granite stairs and reaches out a hand to open the thick, castle gates of the station entrance.

So he smiles softly and reaches into his pocket pulling out a pretty, delicate device in gold and silver wiring, with a smooth ivory switch nestled within. With quiet reverence he thumbs the switch down and watches as a row of lights, each a different and beautiful colour, light up around the girls waist.

She stops, arm still stretched out and looks down at the glowing belt around her. Emerald, sapphire, ruby, the colours and lovely. She suspects she should have thought of taking it off in her mad scrabble for freedom.
That's the last thing to go through her head, besides a small piece of skull bone, as the belt blows her in half, neatly and yet with enough flare to do an artist proud.

Her body falls to the floor, a bit of a time delay between the bottom half and recently removed top half. Still very gracefully done.

The old scarred man watches approvingly.
He goes out for coffee and a croissant, ignoring the police and screaming and crowds that materialize for just such an even. The sky is a smooth gray, the fog hardly noticeable. It's going to be a lovely day.

Bringing home the bacon

I’m at a sort of summer camp compound. It has women, men and children and is lead by rather an excessive amount of camp leaders we call Dooks, (though I’m not sure why, but it’s short and easy to spell so why complain?) The Dooks decide what we do, when we do it and why we do it when we could be doing something far better.

Unfortunately the Dooks have a serious chasm amongst themselves and this is based on religion.

They’ve grouped off into the Christians vs not Christians. The Christians are mostly a big boarish lot lead by a bigger, most boarish, red haired woman with bad skin and a red neck look that would win prizes if there were ever an awards ceremony that gruesome. She’s named Cora.

Cora is always angry and this is not helped by the fact that recently the majority of Dooks voted out prayers before dinner and no obligatory church on Sundays.
She’s mad. She’s spitting mad! So mad that she gathers a group of like minded Dooks, and, squealing bloody vengeance, takes her followers off!

We don’t see her for days, and then one night, all hell breaks loose!

Cora is back and she’s back with heavy weaponry, grenades and flame throwers! Howling about how we are all Satan spawn, she and her cohorts decent upon us like crazed starved boars at a feeding trough!

It’s merciless, they slaughter everyone they see. So sure we are all evil that they don’t even spare the kids.

I know I’m a woman with short brown hair and a blue skirt and I’m not too keen on the goings on so try run off to hide. As I head to the garages a man running in front of me is gunned down in a real hail of bullets. I trip over him as he goes down! The religious loons can’t see well in the dark as the lights are right in their eyes but this doesn’t buy me much time as they’re still happily firing off at random because they, “ like the perdy noise ma!”

As I try to right myself I find myself staring at the rapidly approaching rear end of a blue pick up truck! I scrabble backwards trying to get away from it! Luckily it hits the body and the driver stops. He gets out to check whats going on and ends up being shot as well. I scurry away like a rat on uppers! I fly through the dark offices until eventually I reach a dead end and hide behind a table.

But I can hear them coming. And I can hear them shooting up people and Cora’s big old hog laugh, because to her this is fun! This is righteous cleansing! I haven’t a hope in the world as she gets closer and closer. I know they won’t spare me and that death is a few tick tock, rapid breaths away. And I’m so damn scared of all of it!

So my brain does a leap.

Suddenly I’m a tall, blonde girl, about 18, with watery eyes and a sappy face, and I am living with Cora and her band. Yes, I am a crazy Christian!

The time is the week or so where Cora was missing from the camp. She and her fellow Dooks as well as some added hang ons, of which I seem to be one, have all grouped together in a small, small shack, that seems tons bigger on the inside then the outside (Like in a Harry Potter novel only you don’t say you’ve read one cause then you’re a Satanist!)

They’re loading up on guns and ammo and are getting ready to cleanse the campsite of all the heathens there in. I’m excited and nervous. It’s wonderful to do gods works but I’ve never had a chance to mass murder before, what if I do something embarrassing?

I don’t have to worry, Cora wants someone at home to watch the franks and beans bubbling on the stove in a huge ginormous pot of what smells like death with a bad case of gas. I’m a bit annoyed to be left at home but secretly rather glad. I’m not sure the whole killing spree thing is my style. I’m also wondering if there are any vegetables at all in this shack? No, not even a cabbage.

Finally the night comes and all of Cora and her folk go out, leaving me with two young boys and various pig products to boil. It’s surprisingly restful.
If I listen hard enough I can hear vague shrieks and explosions in the distance. I figure Daft Nammy is using too many grenades again; he always did like the noise makers.

Next morning Cora returns triumphant and covered in blood and gore! She makes a toast on how they killed ever one of them “Satan loving human look alike demons”. The guys with her all yell and stomp their feet and stink!

She draws me aside with one porky hand on my bony shoulder and points proudly to the men with her. She laughs loudly and says that I am lucky I can have any of these stallions of the lord I want to father my children!
Now these guys might weight the same as a stallion but that’s as close as the metaphor can possibly go without blushing and I’m suddenly wondering if the shot up people didn’t get the better of it!

Oh no! We hear sirens and realize the cops are coming!! Cora lets out a “YEEEEHAAW!!!” and joyfully yells to the coppers about how they will never take us alive!! One of the more repulsive guys turns and gives me a wink with his piggy eyes and suddenly I think that what Cora just said was the best news ever!