ZombieTube

Interlude Number Two

2011-11-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

Walking down the driveway everything seemed normal. Except for the fact that I was carrying an axe that I had found in my garage, the world seemed completely at peace. Concrete crunched under our feet as we made our way down the driveway, which was badly in need of repair. The grass, green with the recent spring rains, grew lush and out of control. My father, always concerned with the lawn’s appearance, would freak out if he saw it this long. Good thing he was in Hawaii.

The fresh air felt good on my face. The temperature was pleasant, around 75 degrees. The sun was warm on my arms, and even the flies buzzing around seemed normal. I wanted to stay outside forever.

Then I saw it.

Something was in the street. It looked out of place, a black lump about four feet long against the gray of the concrete. What could be sitting there? I hoped it wasn't a bomb. I have no idea why a terrorist would put a bomb on my street, but since 9/11, I have learned to fear any unattended packages.

As it turned out, my thinking was far too last week. There were no terrorists, especially not in Lemont, IL. Not anymore. Approaching the dark lump cautiously, lest it explode, I saw to my horror that it was a body.

It also wasn't exactly black. The cloud of flies buzzing around the rotting corpse reminded me of Tie Fighters buzzing around the Death Star in Return of the Jedi; there were so many of them on and around the body, they appeared solid from far away.

The body gave off a pungent sickly sweet smell. When I was about 14 I came upon a half eaten deer carcass while hiking in the woods. It gave off an odor similar to the one I smelled now. Only this was worse. This was a human, not a deer. Deer are supposed to die in the woods- a person is not supposed to be lying in the street.

Waving his hand in front of his nose, Ackmed said," And I thought he smelled bad on the outside."

Kevin chuckled a bit, but I didn't pay attention. I was looking at the body. It was clearly rotting, as if the smell didn’t give that away. Through the buzzing cloud of flies, blue intestines were visible. The top half of the head was missing, torn free just above the hollow eye sockets that now contained buzzing flies. The lack of forehead explained why the corpse had not reanimated. Zombies must like the taste of brains after all.

I guess all stereotypes have a shade of truth, which kind of makes me sad.

The body’s arms and legs were tucked under him in the fetal position. His last instinct, the last thoughts going through his brain, had been to protect his himself from attackers. I pictured him laying there on the asphalt, four or five animated corpses biting and clawing at him. He had just stopped fighting and given up. What must go through a man’s head at a time like that? What kind of pain could cause someone to just quit like that?

"On the outside, Malcolm," Ackmed chucked, slapping me on the arm. "Like from Empire," he added.

“Sure,” I replied, but I was distracted, wondering what my body would look like laying on in the street.

Having a great imagination is helpful for most of the time; it helps me write realistic characters and describe life like scenes. It gives me something to pay attention to during boring lectures, and (theoretically) allows me to woo women with an awesome sense of humor. After all, girls like funny guys better than good looking guys. (Again, theoretically.)

At times like this, however, my active imagination is a burden. I couldn’t enjoy a reference to my favorite trilogy because at that point I wasn’t me. I was the thing in the street being digested by flies.

Ackmed and Kevin began to cross the street. I followed, curiosity about what we would find in the house overcoming the thoughts of being eaten. Walking up the six wooden stairs leading to a small porch and hideous yellow front door, none of us spoke. Each stair creaked loudly as we stepped on it.

It’s another stereotype, and I know that I am a better writer than that, but that's what happened. The stairs creaked. My life was a bad horror movie. I needed to write a better story.

They must have heard those fucking unoriginal wooden creaks, because just as we reached the porch, a female zombie staggered around the side of the house. Moving to the bottom of the stairs, she stretched her arms toward us.

Apparently, she was too stupid to work stairs. Judging by her bleach blond hair and baby-T that had a picture of Snookie from The Jersey Shore, she probably hadn't been too intelligent in life. To my immense surprise, it appeared that Jersey Shore fans could get stupider.

They just had to die first.

I hate The Jersey Shore. I saw a cartoon once with a picture of a book jumping off a cliff, and the tagline read ‘every time someone watches The Jersey Shore, a book commits suicide.’ Based on the commercials, that joke seems like an understatement. I wish that I could base that opinion on more than just the commercial, but my time is too valuable to waste on that crap.

Especially since Netflix put Tekwar on streaming.

So I don't like The Jersey Shore, with its terrible writing and unlikable characters. Seeing that zombie's t-shirt, something in me snapped. Screaming, "You mean this situation," I went down to the third stair from the bottom. Standing about 3 feet away and above Jersey Shore, I noticed oddly that I could see down her shirt. (She had perky, if graying, tits). Ignoring the boobs, I swung the heavy axe in a wide arc over my head, burying it in the zombie’s skull.

Several things happened all at once. Ackmed laughed while Kevin taped me on his digital camera. Attracted by my scream, or perhaps just those cliché sounding stairs, several other zombies began to approach the house. Jersey Shore fell to the ground without a sound, and I learned something very important about reality and fiction.

If this were fiction, I would have buried my axe into Jersey's skull and pulled it back to my shoulder quickly. In a bad movie or horror novel, I would have been ready to split the next zombie in half. Maybe I would have said something like, “She must have a splitting headache.”

In reality, the axe got stuck in Jersey's head and I was not strong enough to pull it free. What's more, by the time I realized this, the axe had already slipped away from me and I was falling backwards onto the wooden stair.

Which broke right under my ass. At least it didn't creak.

I fell about 2 feet onto hard, pointy stones. It wasn’t far enough to seriously hurt me, but it was enough to surprise me. Catching my breath, I assessed myself. My ass hurt, but I think that I was more embarrassed than in pain.

"Malcolm, get up here," Kevin shouted to me.

Ackmed descended the stairs, jumping over the broken one and standing on the ground in front of the downed Snookie fan. "I'll cover you," he screamed, brandishing the baseball bat that he carried.

It was the only other weapon we had. I had the axe; Ackmed had the bat, while all Kevin carried was a camera. In the house, it sounded so good. Ackmed could daze the zombies with the bat, I could finish them off with the axe, and Kevin could tape us being awesome. In the house the plan worked but in the real world I was suddenly sure that the bat wouldn’t do shit.

"C’mon you mother fuckers," Ackmed screamed, waving the bat at the zombies. "This one is for my parents."

Getting to my feet, I said, "Ackmed, I'm fine, let’s go."

Staring at the approaching zombies, Ackmed replied, "No, you got one. I want mine."

Ackmed hadn't been quite right since his parents became zombies. Believing I was witnessing some kind of meltdown I said, “Ackmed, you have a fucking baseball bat. It’s not going to do shit. Let’s go get a real weapon and then you can kill as many as you like.”

“A bat took care of zombies in Dead Rising, and I am in way better shape than that reporter dude, “Ackmed said, flexing his arm, which bulged inside his T-Shirt. What he said was true; Ackmed was in great shape, looking like a darker version of Naveen Andrews from Lost.

“Ackmed, that’s a video game. This is real.”

“Really, this is real?” Ackmed’s eyes blazed with anger and he now looked more like a crazed terrorist than an actor. “I didn’t realize that this wasn’t a game when my parents became zombies and tried to kill me. Just because you couldn’t handle the axe like a man doesn’t mean that I can’t use this bat. Get the fuck up the stairs if you have to, but I’m staying. I’m killing my zombie.”

The closest zombie, an old woman with gray hair and a crooked spine, approached us. As if responding to Ackmed’s challenge, she growled at us. Another zombie followed about four feet behind, also moaning.

“I don’t want to get into a dick measuring contest with you; I just want to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

“Just one, Malcolm,” Ackmed turned to face me, his face pleading. “I just want to get one.”

Ackmed wasn’t broken; he just needed to vent his anger at his parent’s death. Feeling relieved that I wasn’t witnessing my friend’s mental breakdown, I nodded.

“Okay. Cover me while I get the axe.”

Bending over the corpse of the zombie I had killed, I pulled on the axe handle. It didn’t move.

Ackmed ran to the end of the driveway screaming. Laughing like a hyena, he swung the bat, which hit the woman in the side of the head. She fell down but kept snarling.

Ackmed smiled as she lay struggling.

I pulled on the axe handle, harder this time, but nothing happened.

Ackmed appeared to be experiencing an orgasm of revenge. Moaning with apparent ecstasy, he hit the woman again, causing her to twitch as her head popped open like a melon. Blood oozed out. Through the gore, white skull and grey brain matter was visible.

The smile never left Ackmed’s face.

As he raised the bat a third time, I noticed how close the second zombie was. Dropping the axe, which apparently would not come loose because I was the true king of England, I ran to Ackmed. The zombie, a balding man with one eye and a pot belly, was reaching for Ackmed’s long black hair. With no other option, I ran full steam into the man, knocking both of us to the ground.

You know when a cop tackles a bad guy on TV? How right afterwards he jumps up and slaps on the cuffs? It’s not really like that. When I hit the man, my shoulder made a grating noise. It didn’t hurt right away, but it didn’t feel exactly right either. Pushing the growling zombie to the ground, I tripped and fell face first onto the street. That hurt right away.

Laying face down in the street, in pain and fighting to catch my breath, I thought that the zombie apocalypse couldn't get any worse. Then I heard groaning beside me. Rolling over, I saw that the balding man was reaching towards me. He was also lying on his side, but couldn't seem to get up.

Apparently, Jersey shore wasn't the only dumb zombie.

I rolled away from the reaching hand just as the baseball bat slammed into the balding head. Ackmed stood above me, an action hero. He swung the bat again, and the man's head seemed to collapse.

"Guess I got two," Ackmed smiled, "one more than you. And with a bat too."

Getting to my feet, I saw zombies. Lots of zombies. There were at least 10 or 15 of them, stumbling towards us. "Ackmed," I began, but was interrupted before I could continue.

"No its fine, you don't have to tell me how right I was or how wrong you were.” Ackmed shook his head modestly.

“There are like 10 more of them out there, get the fuck back up here now," Kevin screamed, his voice rising in fear.

I took a step back, towards the porch and away from the zombies. For a moment I thought that Ackmed would ignore Kevin, but he turned and we both ran up the stairs.

Zombies gathered around the house, looking up at us and moaning with hunger and perhaps frustration.

"What now,” Kevin asked as he stared down the milling herd in front of us.

Looking around, I searched for an answer. Maybe we could jump over them and run back to the house, but there were so many we would probably end up just jumping to our deaths.

Ackmed stood holding his bat upright, as if he wanted to fight. There were so many that even with his new found bat skills, he couldn’t kill them all. Without weapons, Kevin and I wouldn't stand a chance.

Without weapons, we wouldn't be able to fight, but with weapons, we could do more than fight- we could win. The answer had been in front of us the whole time, in the form of that stupid yellow door.

"Let's go inside."

Ackmed and Kevin looked at me as if I were crazy, but followed me into the dark house.

Interlude Number One

2011-10-15T18:18:00.001-07:00

We hadn't been outside since the dead rose. For the last week, we had been breathing the same recycled air, eating the same leftovers out of my refrigerator, and sharing the same house. Opening the door for the first time in a week, I peered outside. It looked like a normal early summer morning. Birds sang happy songs, and tree limbs danced slowly back and forth as a light wind blew. Even the weather was perfect. The sky was a clear blue, and the temperature hovered around 70 degrees.

It was time to leave. I had been half hoping that it would be raining or cold and we could postpone this for another day, but with it being so nice outside, there could be no excuses. Not the zombies, not the thought of being eaten or bitten, could stop me. Even if all I wanted to do was close the door and climb back into bed. Even if I was shaking and my balls felt like they were trying to crawl up inside of me.

The flip side of that fear was the simple fact that we needed to do something to get out of the house. As much as I hated the writing on reality TV shows, the one thing that they get right is that a group of people staying in the same house will eventually drive each other crazy. If Kevin and I had one more debate about which Star Wars character had the best chance of survival against a horde of zombies, I was going to go insane. (The answer is obviously Han Solo. Anakin Skywalker can go suck a dick.)

As the writer of the group (currently unpublished) I noticed that our plot had become somewhat stagnant. Every day consisted of the same thing: Xbox, TV, and news, sprinkled here and there with debates about things like whether or not a Stormtrooper in a firefight could actually see the laser bolt flash by his head. (He can’t by the way. It’s moving too fast.)

In addition to being the group’s writer, I am kind of our leader as well. So I took it upon myself to find a task for us. The problem was that we were doing great. The few zombies that we saw limping down the street did not appear all that threatening. They ambled by the front of the house without noticing us stealing glances at them from behind the front room curtains. Even though I was 25, my parents insisted on stocking the fridge full of food before they left on their trip to Hawaii two weeks ago. I considered taking our car up to the GameStop on 75^th street to get some new XBOX 360 games, but the 20 minute drive seemed like too much for a first outing.

It was ultimately my father that gave me the inspiration needed to create our next chapter. His last email had been filled with the normal parental concern stuff, information about how the government was paying for him and mom to stay in Hawaii as displaced persons, and a reminder to feed the fish. One sentence stood out: “Son, I now regret not ever keeping a gun in the house. Even though I think that it was the best decision to keep you safe when you were younger, I wish you had some protection now.”

That sentence made me think about Bill. Bill, who had two thin strands of mustache hanging down over fat, puffy red cheeks. Bill, who insisted that everyone call him, “Wild Bill,” even though the only thing he ever did was drink beer and mope around. I don’t care about Bill. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t really thought about him in years, except to make fun of his mustache.

No, I don’t care about Bill. I care about Bill’s gun. It is a little silver revolver that he showed me one day when I was 8. "Kid," he slurred, stumbling up to me and sinking to the ground next to me where I was playing with Tonka trucks, "the only one you can trust in life is yourself. Remember that, and you won’t end up like me.”

Staring at the shiny metal pistol in his hands as if it would give him an answer, Bill said, "You know who my best friend is? This gun right here. Not my bitch of an ex wife or my supposed best friend that she ran away with. Someday, this little guy is gonna take away all of my troubles. "

I didn’t understand how a gun could take away Bill’s troubles, but I was determined to find out. When he fell asleep sitting next to me on the grass, I was just reaching for out to touch the shiny metal handle metal when my father came home. He yelled at Bill, and after that day, I wasn’t allowed to play alone in the front yard anymore.

Despite this, Bill was a constant figure, always sitting alone on his front porch, often drinking a beer. He never spoke to me after my father yelled at him, and I never tried to speak to him. It was almost as if he were a piece of the scenery itself, like a tree or a fence. Something that you could count on to see every day, but never really notice. A week ago, on the day the attacks started, we had seen him sitting in his front yard, drinking a beer whose drops trickled down the corners of his mouth and onto his ludicrous mustache. It was as if his world had already collapsed into chaos, so that when the rest of the world decided to join him, he didn’t even notice.

So there I was, standing behind my screen door listening to birds sing and trees blowing. My hands shook, and my arms felt like jelly. I had to pee really badly, even though I had gone several times already that morning. I kept searching for some sort of sign that would ensure my survival. If I could count to ten before the next bird call, I would live. If the tree limb moved back and forth exactly three times before the wind paused, my friends and I would surely not become members of the walking dead.

I guess that I am just superstitious. Ackmed cleared his throat behind me, and I opened the porch door and stepped outside.

Into the zombie apocalypse.

Book overview

2011-10-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

Malcolm Tushton works at Big Choice computers. He lives with his parents and spends most of his free time playing video games and sleeping. At 25, most people would call Malcolm and his best friends, Ackmed Sharma and Kevin Jones, losers.

When an outbreak of zombies occurs in the Midwest, Malcolm and his friends view it as an opportunity. Rather than just surviving, the three record zombie attacks, and upload the videos to their website, ZombieTube.

Just when fame, or at least internet fame, is within their grasp, the three are recruited on a mission to enter the city of Chicago and rescue the president’s wife, who is trapped behind a horde of the undead. Faced with zombies, crazed white supremacists, and former gang members, Malcolm, Ackmed, and Kevin wisecrack their way through an eerie post-apocalyptic Chicago, recording and uploading their every move.

First post

2011-10-13T15:17:00.001-07:00

Ok everyone, here I am, promoting my book, ZombieTube. It is about three nerds who survive the zombie apocalypse by becoming famous.

Check back soon for more updates!