I wake up and smell death. Used to it, by now.
I'm on the Keith and McDougall Financial Savings Building rooftop. The sunsets are beautiful here. You couldn't see the sunsets from the city, but now that there's no electricity, you can see light from stars that probably died thousands of years ago in big explosions. You see beautiful sunsets, red going down into the earth. I admire it.
I make my bunk, turn on my favourite "Aqua" CD, grab my Steyr, and fire randomly into the crowd below.
"We Are The Cartoon Heroes"- Snapbang Snapbang snapbang.
The boys would call me fag if I listened to it, but I hold no secrets now. I run outta ammo as soon as the song goes, "What we do is you just can't do."
They never say anything, not even an "ugh," like you'd expect. A few headshots, but everyone just lies down.
Cleaning up with bullets, leaving behind shells. When I went to the barber, the hair that she cut off my head in little bunches, I used to put it into a little pile. I didn't talk to her. God, she was attractive.
I'm alone, quiet, and happy.
This used to be a large city. No culture, just suburbs, so nobody missed it when everything went to fuck. It's something nobody talks about now, except for rappers or other guys trying to start shit. It's a litmus test. It used to be, Hitler ended debate. Now, this city ends everything. If you mention it, it starts up controversy.
The country's moved on. They leave me alone. From my radio, I'm connected to the bullshit continuum. Thousands of years of scientific developments, economic progress, new technology, just to hear that two good-looking people broke up.
You can lead a horse to water. But fuck you, you fascist. What if the horse wanted to fuck? What if the horse wanted to sleep, and dream? What if he wanted to die?
Maybe this is why people check their cell phones when they have watches. Because trees only take 5 seconds to fall when someone's looking.
Same old culture, new Marilyn Monroes, re-incarnated, or is that devolved, into Britney or Christina. I know who they are - how sad is that? My mind's wandering. Time to get to business. Remember the city. Remember the Clean Up.
Oh, I should finish that thought, for posterity. They can't bomb it. Neutron bombs just leave irradiated zombies. That's all zombies are - just brains working alone. Just me working alone.
I meet people, I get shore leave. They let me do that. I try and meet women, before I go to the whores I know I'll go to, justifying on my way to Smooth B or Big Money or whatever the fuck name it is. So inevitably it comes to my profession. What I do.
I tell him I'm a farmer. I show them my scythe tattoo to prove it. But I stop talking and so do they. Then I say something nice, and go to the sweaty whores, trying to be nice too, to get a tip. I always envied those who got hit by the disease right when they were fucking.
That's the one thing that was wrong with zombie movies. What disease, whatever, strikes at once? There's large outbreaks, but Rome wasn't destroyed in a day. The largest outbreak happened here.
Life had to go on, so we had to build a dump for our refuse. Toilets are more important than people think. So are janitors. Life was always disposable, now after the Dead Outbreak of 2005, just more so. I remember I called my friend a piece of shit.
So now they have a whole legion of helicopters, only they deliver zombies. They drop them anywhere in the city.
For those that don't get cremation in 24 hours, they become zombies. Most acquiesce, but a few freaks resist. And, of course, the crematorium business makes mistakes, some guys don't want to work overtime to get all the work done.
A mortuary businessman was fired for saying that the deadbreak was great for business.
With 100 undeaths among 100 000 workers, it's Top 10 for dangerous workers. Crab fishery is pretty dangerous. Have you ever eaten crab?
So of course the city will overflow. I'm doing my best to kill them all.
I'm a military wet dream. I get whatever guns I want. No civilians, just target practise, no guilt, no shakes, no vomitting, no idiots up top. I've shot more people in the head than any human being in history.
I've scratched my itchy trigger finger so much it bleeds.
I wasn't alone - the superiors wanted it to be over and done with. They wanted it to be done with, over 5 years. I came with a whole regiment.
Half of 'em left when we had to clear out the old folks home.
Half of what was left left when we got the orders for the grade school that got hit.
Ten were left when we came on the maternity ward.
Three went crazy.
One went naked into the zombie crowd, walking with his hands out, one hand holding his pecker and balls, the other holding the knife he used so many of them to kill them with, both straight out, like a T. He went out, and the zombies, who FINALLY got something to eat, went after him. He was crying as he went out, then he screamed when teeth went into his stomach, to avoid the ribs.
He had a nice body. No secrets. It was oddly illuminated in the light of dawn before the zombies got to him. I saw it through my scope. I tried to mercy him, but all my bullets missed him.
After about an hour of killing, I decide to go out shopping. I rappel down the building.
I land on top of the walkway between the building. I see the Three Tanks. It's a guide post.
A long time ago, some general wanted to finally get rid of the zombies. So he got himself some tanks, and just drove some tanks, telling them to run over all the zombies. They fleshed out the zombies by tying a cow to the tanks.
The flesh wasn't a problem. But the bones stopped the tanks something fierce. So then they went as far as they could to where we were. They got a bunch of helicopters to airlift those boys out, while we kept the other zombies out with guns. So now there's a bunch of tanks with dead cows.
They're a landmark. It used to be, since I'm the only source of living flesh in the city, they surrounded the building until the tanks four blocks away. Now they go as far as the horizon.
One of the tanks had "I Am Legend" spray painted on it. As my friend said, it was a short story where a guy was fighting alone against all these other vampires. At the end, he's all alone, he wonders whether or not he's the monster.
At least I eat because I'm hungry.
Which I am right now, so let's see if any of the restaurants have any food left. But first I grenade the zombies. I wrap a piece of old steak around the grenade to bring them around. They usually eat the grenade too. They're starving. They aren't thinking.
I heard some eggheads worrying what would happen if the zombies ever got smart and got around the barricades. But they're starving here. They haven't cannibalized in years. When you're hungry for something, you don't think.
Like my friend Petey. Petey was horny. Which we found out in this very mall.
He was probably the worst guy ever for this mission. He was the big joke, back when I wasn't the only one around. Couldn't shoot straight. Couldn't make the headshots. But he wasn't a newbie; he was fucked up.
Which we found out when we found him pants down, fucking a spread-eagle zombie, carrying her three feet in the air, her zombie feet dangling. She wasn't struggling, just trying to bite him. He had her wrists hand cuffed to those doors they used to close down the malls. He duct-taped her mouth, so that he wouldn't bite his head off.
Still, as he said, it cured his priapism. That's when you got a boner that just won't quit. When you need anti-Viagra. Too much of a good thing.
He said the problem was that they agreed to it. He said, "I think for me to be emotionally whole, non-consensual sex was the answer."
Plus, he said, because she couldn't control her muscles down there, it was tighter than a vice sometimes, looser than jello, or some crazy variation thereof. All of which he tried, one drunken night.
We beat the shit out of him and then the superiors picked him up for extensive medical examination.
So I check out HMV, for some CDs. All old CDs at HMV, but they're free.
I wish I had television. Radio's okay, but television's better. Nowadays, prisoners have televisions. But I think they get raped more.
After we found out about Petey, this mish was completely volunteer. But no one did.
They upped the pay. No one came. They all complained about the moans of the dead, like it was sleeping in a graveyard. I say they're just pussies.
They promised an immediate upgrade. No one came.
They made the term shorter than anything else in the army. No one came.
They gave me a medal after all that, finally.
Which makes me wonder about the concentration camp commandmants. I mean, did those guys get picked for that mission? Were they picked for how much they hated Jews? Was there a sign up sheet in the Nazi army compounds? A sign up sheet to be a monster?
Could they just say, "I quit?"
I could, obviously, but fuck it. I never lived until I was surrounded by the dead. I was just another grunt, staying at home watching television and doing military shit all day. I was quiet and alone. Now, I get to kill pretty much everyone, snapbang snapbang snapbang until I die. No limits, no secrets, just alone. I'll probably get eaten some time later.
I'll die among the dead. Or, if they find a cure for being a zombie, and I do end up killing everyone, I'll probably kill myself. I'll have less of a chance to escape than these stupid zombies, who're congregrating, banging on the glass doors into the mall that we re-enforced a long, long time ago.
I'm pretty fucked up in the head now, so I figure, what the fuck, and I kiss the door. Then I go up to the second level, where the food court is. We threw out a table through the glass door. We set up an M-60 and a boombox there. I plug in some CD, turn it way up to the top so that I can hear it, and start firing.
