Not Everything Brainless is Dead (5 page)

Chapter 7: Like a Freight Train

Still unconscious from her blow to the head, Dr. Malevolent found herself awoken by Boris’s vigorous shaking. She opened one eye and looked up to her second in command, who had a worried look upon his face. Her first inclination was to go straight for her rod and bash him upside the head, but she soon realized that someone confiscated it. Therefore, she just used her palm.

“What is it?” she asked with a clear sign of annoyance.

“What is it?!” Boris repeated hurriedly. “Don’t you hear that?”

She sat up and placed her hand behind her ear sarcastically, accentuating her attempt at listening. A gunshot rang out. The patronizing face she had been adorning disappeared entirely, and her hand dropped.

“See, boss?” Boris asked.

“Yeah, I hear it. I’m sure it’s nothing. They’re just training or something.”

A few more shots rang out, followed by a voice nearby yelling, “Kill it! Kill it! Oh God, it bit me! It bit me!”

Dr. Malevolent sat up from the bench and walked over to the bars. “Okay, so maybe it’s not a training exercise—at least we’re safe behind these bars.”

Before the super villain could sit back down, a blood-curdling scream echoed through the war-torn halls of the police station like that of a little girl who unwittingly wandered into the wrong neighborhood and then viciously devoured the souls of everyone around her. The ever-approaching scream commandeered the attention of those cramped inside the small cell. Dr. Malevolent felt strangely overcome by the wails. Deep within the woman’s body, possibly somewhere to the right of her spleen, or maybe hiding behind her liver, a small switch flipped into the on position. It caused the only hurdle that could possibly dissuade her lust for world domination to kick in—motherly instinct. Yes, baby fever had grabbed her by the gonads, or not really, since she did not have any. Rather, it grabbed at the spot where her gonads would be, but found only air and disappointment. Baby fever did not have a thorough understanding of human anatomy.

The criminal mastermind began to worry about whatever little girl was out there within the hail of gunfire and screams. What mother had abandoned their poor little daughter in a place like this? What kind of world were we living in where the safety of a child was so audaciously pushed aside? The super villain clenched her fists in rage. The scream continued its journey down the hall until just outside the room. Dr. Malevolent’s jaw dropped as the source of the scream burst into the room and ran around in circles, crying at the top of his lungs.

Yes, Captain Rescue had arrived. Blood speckled his skin and suit, and his eyes were as open as can be. The horrors he had just borne witness to regressed the poor hero. Mentally, he was now that little diva he always pretended to be as a young child, the one that used to sneak into his mother’s room late at night and steal her oversized clothes. With them, Captain Rescue danced around with a wooden spoon while singing Aretha Franklin songs.

With his lungs unperturbed by the continuous screaming, Captain Rescue frantically stumbled for the ring of keys that hung from a nail on the wall. The living scream unlocked the cell door and scrambled into the cage without taking a moment to breathe. He turned his back to the criminals, locked the cell door, and then turned around only to find Boris’s fist connecting with his face. The hero dropped like a rock. Luckily, the jolt ceased his incorrigible shriek. Boris had actually done the Captain a favor; who knew how much longer he would have been able to cling to consciousness. He had not breathed in well over five minutes.

Captain Rescue sat straight up. “Zombies! They’re everywhere! They’re going to kill us all! We’re going to be eaten alive! Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

Boris sighed and punched him again.

Captain Rescue’s head whipped backwards and then straightened immediately. “I’ll keep us safe, though, don’t worry!” the hero said ecstatically as he tossed the keys through the cage. They slid across the floor and stopped just inside the hallway.

Boris sighed and punched him yet again.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

Boris raised his fist to the hero. “’Cause you keep doing stupid things, and from my experience, this is the cure.” His fist connected with Captain Rescue’s face once more.

“Did I really hear you say that there were
zombies
out there?” Dr. Malevolent asked. She spoke slowly to Captain Rescue. As a mother would to a child that had consumed too much sugar, and had started to run around frantically like a decapitated chicken. This child, however, was just bat-shit crazy.

“Well, uh, they’re trying to eat the ones that aren’t doing the eating,” Captain Rescue said as he traced his words with his hands, trying to assure himself that he understood the definition of zombie.

A look of utmost horror and confusion appeared on Dr. Malevolent’s face, and then she punched the hero, inciting a round of applause from Boris.

By the time the clapping ended, an eerie silence had blanketed the police station. The cacophony of screeches, groans, and gunfire that turned the building into the party of the century had finally died down. Either the police officers put an end to the zombie uprising, or they were all eaten. Knowing zombies, they were eaten. Thus, with Captain Rescue’s mental handicap more than confirmed, the rag-tag group of survivors sat in silence and waited for some sign from the outside world that everything was okay.

After a few minutes, a squeaking, sloshing sound broke the silence as heavy footsteps traveled towards them from down the hallway. The sound was reminiscent of a wet grizzly that had been synchronized swimming and now wandered about in search of salmon. However, considering they were nowhere near grizzly or salmon territory, chances were the bear in question was actually a ravenous zombie, and the salmon it wanted so badly was human flesh. The sound grew steadily closer, and no one within the jail cell knew whether to ready their anti-bear weapons or their anti-zombie weapons, and then they froze in terror at the realization they had neither.

Freight, the large police officer from earlier, stepped through the door. The man was a remarkable sight; a delicious stew of blood and various bits of zombies covered him from head to toe. Judging by the visual evidence, the zombies had simply started to think he was one of them. He certainly looked like the part. His unblinking eyes were wide open and he did not notice the blood flowing over them. Freight’s hands clutched a smoking shotgun with a red ribbon around the barrel.

He was trembling. Not from fear, but from the sheer excitement of having free reign to blast the heads from zombies. He loved guns, and he loved to shoot them, so this zombie apocalypse was the perfect environment for him to strut his stuff. His bloodshot eyes made it apparent that the plethora of drugs he pumped into himself to form his chiseled physique sent him into overdrive and rendered him practically insane. The steroids, his hardcore mental disposition, and the ramped up testosterone found their way into a blender, and this was the outcome. His keyboard of life had its caps-lock key pressed and then torn to pieces.

Captain Rescue stepped towards the twitching mass of flesh that just barged through the door, appointing himself the leader of this rag-tag group of survivors. “Is it safe out there?!”

“NOT IN THE LEAST, A LOT OF THEM GOT OUT!” the twitching mass of flesh replied.

His words were like a tidal force, and after recovering, Captain Rescue asked, “Why aren’t you dead?”

“FREIGHT DOESN’T LET A FEW LITTLE ZOMBIES GET IN HIS WAY!”

“Oh jeez,” he said, taking a step back, “you’re going to be fun to listen to.”

Dr. Malevolent stepped toward Freight with her arms crossed and inquired, “How come you’re not one of
them
… you’re covered in blood.” 

Freight shrugged. “I DIDN’T GET BIT.”

Truth be told, Freight was infected. The next time there was a zombie outbreak, he should probably refrain from tearing out their throats using only his teeth. Despite this minor fact, deep inside his body, his immune system was doing to the virus what he just did to a few dozen of the mangy flesh eaters. Right now, that well-oiled machine could have fended off every major disease known to man, and a few hundred that were not. In fact, Freight was the closest thing in this world to a real superhero with super powers. He grabbed the keys to the cell and released everyone inside. The time had come for Freight to blow this joint, and they were coming with—mostly as fodder.

Before Freight had even opened the jail cell, Dr. Malevolent was tearing the room apart in search of her inanimate carbon rod. Before she could turn to dismay, she found her sidekick sitting alone on a nearby table. She held it in her hands, like a mother reunited with a long lost child, inciting awkward looks from everyone around her. Dr. Malevolent snarled at these naysayers, slid the rod into her holster, and latched it in tight; the thought of ever losing it again sent chills down her spine.

They left the cell room and ventured forth into the police station. Freight led the way, followed closely by Captain Rescue, who was simply using the giant man as a meat shield in case anything leapt from the shadows to eat them. Boris and Malevolent continued to bicker, and the hero listened in.

Her right hand man sighed. “We have to go back to the bank and see where that stuff came from, I’m sure they have a cure.”

Dr. Malevolent chuckled. “Why should I bother saving the world?”

“Have to save it to take it over,” Captain Rescue butted in.

Dr. Malevolent thought about the statement for a moment and then nodded—these were probably the cleverest words he has spoken in years.

They treaded lightly to avoid any unwanted attention. Attention that, if given the chance, would tear them limb from limb and then eat those limbs. Not plain, however, zombies garnished their dismembered bits with an assortment of spices—a little chipotle for that nice spicy zing, or maybe some oregano for whatever it was oregano did. Zombies liked to experiment and create new and exciting ways to eat people. The undead had quite the culinary flare if given the opportunity to show it, but the last thing any of the survivors wanted was to be first prize on a zombie cooking show.

Disarray had taken the small world contained within the police station by storm. Out back, a poor confused zombie looking for something to munch on mistook a power cable for a juicy human intestine and then was quite shocked when it tried to chomp down on it. This left the hallways shifting in and out of utter darkness, the perfect atmosphere for a horror movie. The one where you barely catch a glimpse of something before everything goes black. Only to find that when the lights came back on, whatever you just caught a glimpse of was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, the zombies that weren’t blown to smithereens by Freight had already left the police station behind. Regardless, they proceeded with caution—unaware of what horrors awaited them around each corner.

In record zombie apocalypse time of about an hour, the police station had turned into some kind of grotesque birthday part. The dismembered cadavers of police officers littered the hallways. Intestine streamers draped the walls; confetti in the form of eyeballs, organs, and other unidentifiable parts was all over. A foot rested on the blade of a ceiling fan that spun just slowly enough to keep it from falling off. How it wound up there in the first place, we may never know.

Freight came to a sudden halt and pointed the barrel of his shotgun down the hall. His spider sense had detected a shuffle in the darkness. This time, their eyes were not playing tricks on them. The group of misfits were about to have their first run in with a zombie. Freight lifted his flashlight and shined it into the darkness. He took a few steps forward, searching for whatever he had seen. He found it. The following revelation surprised them all: it was a zombie, a zombie unlike any Freight had run across thus far, and he would have blown its head off at that moment if not for his police training.

The creature stood with its arms high above its head in surrender. The zombie’s decaying body was in shambles, and it looked like it had literally been through hell. Guts dangled from its stomach like a cat toy. A giant gash sliced into the top of the zombie’s head gave it quite the hair part. Its nose and one of its ears were missing. Somehow, despite all it had been through, the zombie’s sparkling white teeth shined brightly under the flashlight. It started to speak, but the only thing to part from its lips just happened to be its tongue. The zombie reached down, picked its flopping tongue from the floor, and put it back into its mouth. It wiggled its cheeks and pursed its lips as it maneuvered the hunk of flesh back into position. The creature opened its mouth to speak once more; this time everything worked properly.

“Don’t kill me! I’m not like the rest of those things!” the zombie said. Its voice sounded as if it had been beaten with a blunt object many times over. The undead creature’s hands, still raised high over its head, trembled as if it was actually scared to die—again.

“You can… talk?” He turned to look at Freight. “Can any of them talk?”

“I DIDN’T REALLY STOP TO CHAT BEFORE I BLEW THEIR HEADS OF, BUT I DON’T THINK SO.”

Captain Rescue took a moment to regain his composure after being bombarded by his words and said, “Then we’ll just assume that he’s special.” He tilted his head back and motioned towards the zombie behind him, as if everyone needed to be reminded of the topic of conversation. “So, what’s your story?” he asked it.