Zombies and Shit (3 page)

A voice comes over the intercom system. The building has long been without electricity, so Charlie is confused by how it is functional.

The voice says: “Welcome, contestants!” It’s the voice of an overly excited young woman with a Japanese accent. “I hope you slept well! I’m sure you’re all wondering what has happened to you and why you have come to be in the middle of the Red Zone. But, for you, I have super great news! All twenty of you have been randomly selected to participate in the hit television series,
Zombie Survival!
The Platinum Quadrant’s favorite reality game show, number one!”

“I knew it,” says the Asian woman.

The voice continues: “Most of you are probably unaware of this show, because citizens of the Copper Quadrant such as yourselves do not have the luxury of television. But it is the most electrifying entertainment on TV, guaranteed! If you do a good job and win the game, first prize will be citizenship in the Silver Quadrant, with certified passports to the Gold and Platinum Quadrants. However, there can be only one winner. Losers will be left for dead in the Red Zone.”

“This can’t be,” says an obese man of Italian descent. “I’m not a citizen of the goddamned Copper Quadrant. I’m from Silver. I was just visiting my dumbshit nephew!”

The Asian woman hushes him.

The voice continues: “If you will all make your way up to Room 222, you will find your supplies. Each of you have been left a backpack including survival gear and a unique weapon personalized to your estimated fighting capabilities! The backpacks are electronically locked and will not unlock until you have left the safety of the barricaded hotel. I recommend you go upstairs and claim your pack immediately. If you stay in the lobby for too long you are likely to gain some unwanted attention.”

The punks rush up the stairs and go for room 222. Everyone follows. Charlie is the last one upstairs, waiting for Rainbow to stop crying and get to her feet.

“Braaains!” the zombie yells through the glass.

Looking behind him on the way up the stairs, Charlie examines the zombie banging on the boarded window trying to get in. It rips at the boards with its claws, a cracking sound splits through the wood but the plank remains in its place… for now. Charlie gets a good look at the sunflowers growing out of its empty eye socket and out the top of its hollow skull. Its mulched brain must have acted like fertilizer for the flowers, its head like a pot. He wonders how the thing can think without a mind in its head.

It’s been seventeen years since Charlie has seen a zombie. Back when he was a kid, he lived in one of the many fortified cities along the coasts of the mainland. Back then, he saw zombies every day, through the barrier, in the wasteland. The dead were constantly trying to get into the city and the living were always reinforcing their perimeters to keep them out. Every capable human was responsible for guarding the perimeter. Charlie’s father was no exception.

“There are so many of them out there, like an ocean,” his father used to say when they would stare at the zombie wasteland from the top of the guard tower.

His father was fascinated with the walking dead. He thought of them as almost beautiful, like works of art.

He handed Charlie his machine gun and had him look through the scope. While zooming in, Charlie saw a black sludge-covered skeleton creeping down a street. Its eyes bulged out of the sockets, its skeletal teeth in a wide smile. Its black flesh melted from its body. The thing looked comical in its bumbling state. It made Charlie laugh.

“What is it?” his father asked.

“It’s funny,” young Charlie said. “The zombie looks funny.”

Then he looked again at its bulging googly eyes and laughed harder.

His father patted him on the back. “Yeah, perhaps they are a bit funny. From a distance.”

Eventually, civilization moved off of the mainland completely. They built protected cities on islands, on oil rigs, on aircraft carriers. Most of Charlie’s generation have it pretty good compared to those who had to survive the zombie apocalypse that began over fifty years ago. Very few people have to fight for their lives on a day to day basis anymore, especially those in the upper-class Platinum Quadrant of Neo New York.

The twenty contestants squeezed into the small hotel room on the second floor. Lying along the wall were twenty bags. They weren’t all backpacks. Some were duffel bags, some were purse-sized packs, some were large mountaineer packs. Charlie guessed the size had something to do with the weapon included within. A good weapon would be a huge advantage, but lugging around a large pack would not.

The voice came over the intercom: “Your packs will also include a map of the area with the pickup point marked by an X. You have three days to arrive at the designated pickup zone, but remember brave contestants: the remote control helicopter only has room for one passenger. If more than one person tries to board the craft, it will not take off. If all of you fail to arrive by 3pm on the third day, all of you will be left behind. If you want to win you will not only have to fight the zombies, you will also have to fight each other.”

Rainbow hugs Charlie, her dreadlocks wrapping around his body like itchy tentacles. His eyes widen at the thought of only one of them getting out of there alive.

“There is only one rule: do not break the cameras,” the voice says.

Then, outside the window, a floating spherical device about the size of a coconut rises to eyelevel. The lens on its front films the contestants, broadcasting their alarmed expressions to all the fat wealthy families watching at home in the Platinum Quadrant.

“The cameras are equipped to defend themselves against contestants as well as the walking dead. If you do happen to break one of them it will cause an explosion capable of killing all contestants within a 50 yard radius. This is the only rule we enforce. So, whatever you do, don’t mess with the cameras.”

“You mean like this?” The yellow mohawked punk kicks the glass right in front of the floating camera ball.

The device flies backward at the movement. The other punks burst into laughter. He flips off the camera and then shows it his bare ass. A couple of the other punks join in, flipping off the camera, hollering at it. A scantily dressed green-haired punk slut flashes her boobs at the camera and then spits.

The voice continues, unaware of the vulgar display happening before the camera, “So, good luck brave contestants! You can work as a team for a while if you like, or go solo right from the start. But remember, there can only be one survivor. I also recommend getting a move on as soon as you have your packs. The barricade around the hotel was only designed to last for a few hours, max.”

When the voice is finished, the obese Italian man steps forward and speaks at the camera through the window. “My name is Alonzo Fisichella. I am a citizen of the Silver Quadrant, not the Copper Quadrant. I do not belong here. I have connections to people in both the Gold and Platinum Quadrants. I am not a scumbag lowlife like the rest of these people. Just look up my credentials. I should be exempt from this. You have to come pick me up!”

The camera hovered. It did not speak back to him.

“Answer me, you bitch!” Alonzo says to the intercom system.

The Asian woman says, “It’s just an automated message. You’re not going to get a response.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Alonzo asks.

The Asian woman takes a breath. “Because I was the one who recorded it.”

All eyes lock on her.

Charlie and the other contestants listen to the Asian woman’s story. She introduces herself as Junko. It was five years ago when Junko recorded the message, back when she was a younger, more naïve girl, who was viewed as a typical empty-headed large-breasted sex object hired on to be the spokesperson for the Zombie Survival reality television series. That is, until she quit and led a protest against the show last year. After that, she had been deemed unemployable in the Platinum, Gold, and Silver Quadrants. She had to move to Copper with the hard laborers and the vagrant scum of the island. She knew it was only a matter of time before she was chosen as a contestant for the show herself.

“I know how this game works,” she says. “It’s all about sticking together and working as a team, not dividing apart. The people who go solo, no matter how tough they are, never make it to the end.”

“But there can only be one winner?” asks the muscle-bound punk guy with the flattop and pink half-shirt.

“Very few people ever actually make it as far as the helicopter,” she says. “Most games don’t have winners at all. Don’t think of this as a competition. Think of it as survival.”

“How many winners have there been?” Charlie asks.

“Out of the ten games that have been played so far?” Junko blinks. “Only two, and one of those was infected and had to be eliminated by the time she got back to the island.”

“So there’s no hope?” Rainbow Cat asks. “We’re done for?”

The large bearded vagrant steps forward and pulls the hood from his head to reveal a short black mohawk.

“There’s always hope,” he says, “if we stick together.”

Then he gives a thumbs up and smiles a big dumb smile, his bright white teeth contrasting with his unwashed skin.