‘braindead’ by sean douglas
It’s not like you see in movies.
The walking dead aren’t all slow and
shambly and half-rotten and hungry for flesh.
It’s more of a braindead thing.
Like the dysfunctional robots of Westworld.
Not that I mind. I’ve seen a lot of movies and from what I
can tell from watching movies a real zombie apocalypse would suck. Hordes of festering gore-spattered corpses
with their entrails hanging down like coat-tails or dress-trains. Fast zombies, slow zombies, who cares when
there are hundreds of them sniffing you out.
Chasing you down. Keeping you up
at night with their insistent moaning and shambling and clawing and banging on
the walls.
Maybe I’m skipping ahead here.
It all came from drinking the water. But I wasn’t drinking the water. You see, I was on this energy drink
kick. I was playing a lot of video
games and I wanted to stay up all the time so I started buying energy drinks
when I’d go to the convenience store for cigarettes. I figured I’d get all jazzed up on caffeine
and taurine and guanine and I’d lose weight while playing video games. So I tried out different brands and
flavors. My favorite is Sobe Gold which
is kind of citrusy. Nos is also kind of
citrusy but not as good. Rockstar
Punched tastes like spiked fruit punch.
Full Throttle Fury tastes like orange soda. Most everything else tastes like
dogpiss. Not that I’ve done the Pepsi
challenge, blindfolded, a cup of warm dogpiss for comparison, but you get the
point.
So I was playing a lot of video games, so
I wasn’t watching the news. We were on
alert level orange or whatever, but I didn’t give a fuck, because what are they
going to do? There’s no way that those
pissed-off middle-eastern countries have the capability to lob
inter-continental-ballistic-missiles at our asses. With the way we’ve got the world wired? No fucking way? We’d know about those bitches the second
they left the ground. We’d know about
them before they even got made. We were
watching the air, but no one was watching the water.
Some asshole figured out how to make a
nerve agent with shit you can buy at the supermarket and terrorist cells all
across America mixed up batches in their basements and dumped them into all of
the reservoirs at the same time then went home and hugged the Koran and shot
themselves in the mouths without leaving notes.
At least that’s what I figured. I’m still around and I wasn’t drinking the
water and I’m not going to. All of the
fish went belly up but no one noticed until it was too late. Which meant that no one noticed at all
because everyone woke up and made their morning coffee or brushed their teeth
or had a nice cold glass of water or whatever and, bang, there it was. This shit was like acid, it was so strong
that a millionth of a part of it would do the job. I didn’t get hit because I was too busy
smoking and drinking energy drinks and playing video games to brush my teeth or
drink a nice cold glass of water.
The next time I go out to the convenience
store at the end of my street to get more cigarettes and energy drinks and
Hostess cherry fruit pies the place is wide open and there’s no one there. I get my drinks and stand there and wait
for, like, five minutes. I yell,
“Hello!”, and look around and when no one comes out I go around the counter to
see if the guy’s sleeping behind the counter or lying on the floor with his
head half off from being shot in the face during a robbery. But there’s no one fucking there and when I
look around there aren’t any cameras so I shrug and figure, “Fuck it.”, I
grabbed a couple packs of smokes and stuffed them in a bag and backed out of
the store. I felt a little guilty, like
I was being watched, but it wasn’t like I never stole anything before, and if I
got caught I figured I’d just say that I fully intended on paying for what I
took and talk my way out of it.
On the walk back home there were some old
folks standing around in their yard but I didn’t pay them any attention because
there are always old folks standing around in their yards looking up into the
sky or down at their lawns or whatever.
So I go back to the video gaming and
smoking and drinking of energy drinks and all was well with the world.
The next time I go out for more smokes and
energy drinks there are some more people out and about and I figure something’s
up. I think maybe I stayed up for too
long or I spent too many hours playing Dead Rising or whatever but there are
people sort of all over the place. And
it’s not like they’re all fucked up and moaning and shambling and staggering
towards me, arms outstretched with a hungry look in their eyes. They’re just sort of slack-jawed and
half-dressed and taking baby steps in no particular direction. Just sort of drifting in whatever direction
the wind blows them with a blank unfocused look in their eyes. It’s not like they’re bumping into shit or
causing havoc. It’s like the whole
world has become an Alzheimer’s unit.
There in the streets and in the yards and on the sidewalks. And it’s not like they’re all mobbed
up. But every half a block or so you’ll
see someone staring up into the sun or down at the ground or off into the
distance. And I’m no idiot. I know what happened. It’s the zombie apocalypse and I figure that
pretty soon they’re going to figure out that I’m not dead and it’ll be running
buffet time. But like I said, they’re
not all fucked up and dead and staggering towards me with outstretched
arms. It’s more of a braindead
thing. At first it was a little
disconcerting and I gave them a wide berth when I passed. But after passing two or three I figured
they didn’t want to eat my brains and I just made my merry way to the
convenience store and got a bag full of energy drinks and a bag full of cartons
of cigarettes and went back home figuring I’d hole up and play video games and
wait until the proper authorities came around canvassing the neighborhood for
survivors.
Then it occurs to me.
Maybe I’d better flip the TV on and see
what the news has to say about the matter.
Maybe there are some important advisories or whatever. Flip the cable box on. Nothing.
Not that the cable’s out.
There’s just nothing on. Well,
not nothing. The TV GUIDE channel keeps
scrolling upwards into infinity, but half the channels are black or color bars
or static. There are no grim-faced
reporters reading off of teleprompters.
That’s when I realized there was something
seriously fucked going on. But what am
I gonna do, save the world? I barely
got out of high school and I’m supposed to come up with some big fucking plan?
I instantly give up and crash down in bed
and fire up the X-Box and get ready to kill some zombies and I have a
revelation. Maybe the best and biggest
idea I’ve ever had.
I go out the back door into the bright
sunshine and look over the backyard fence into the yard next door. The old cunt next door is out there in her
housedress staring at the wind chimes hanging from her back door awning. I hated those wind chimes and I hated
her. This old bitch was always peeking
out the blinds and spying on the neighborhood like it was her job and she’d always
call the cops whenever I had a few people over and we had a few beers and someone
ended up passed out in the backyard. Or
when I played my bass through my kick-ass half cab after 9:00 p.m. Like it was any of her business. And those wind chimes and the birds chirping
always kept me up when I was trying to sleep during the day. Not like I could do anything about the birds
chirping.
I walk around and undo the gate and walk
over to her and say, “Hey, you old bitch!” and her head sort of lolls around in
my direction but there’s no real recognition.
She’s still all slack-jawed and dead-eyed and whatever.
I yell into her left ear, “Fuck you! You desiccated old bag of horse shit!” and
still nothing. I smile, satisfied at my
experiment and walk over to her backyard garden shed. The shovel has a nice long wooden handle and
I swing it like a baseball bat.
“WHANG!” Right into her fucking
face. Her face makes a squishy cracking
sound and she falls over. She lays
there for a second making squishy breathy sounds and then rolls over onto her
hands and knees like she’s trying to get up.
I haul back and kick her in her ribs with all I’ve got and she goes down
again. She tries to get back up and I
use the shovel to pound her head into pudding.
If it was anyone I cared about I’d feel sick, but I hated this bitch and
doing what I did just felt right. Now
that’s justice!
I stabbed the head of the shovel into the
earth and reached into my pocket and took out my cigarettes and took out a
cigarette and lit it and that first pull felt better than most. I exhaled into the sunlit air and realized I
had some work to do.
I made a list. You know how most people say, “You made my
shit list.”? Well now I actually had
one. I went online. Facebook was still working. So was YellowPages.com. I looked up the names of everyone I could
ever think of that ever pissed me off or did me wrong. It took the better part of a day. Maybe I’ve got a longer list than most
people, but fuck it.
Then I made another list.
-Guns
-Bullets
-Shotguns
-Shells
-Booze
-Cigarettes
I went out and got into my car. Driving was kind of a pain in the ass in the
suburbs and the city. What with people
wandering around all braindead and whatnot.
It’s not as awesome as you might think.
You might think it would be cool to run people over all day long but I’m
a little smarter than that. I hit a
deer with a friend’s car I was driving once and it fucked up his front end, so
I figured if I wanted to keep moving I’d have to not hit anyone. At least not hard. All I had to do was drive at a moderate
speed and drive around the human obstacles.
At least the highways were pretty clear because no one had enough time
to get into their cars and onto the highways before the shit hit the fan.
Stopped at the gun store. Stopped at the liquor store. Followed the navigator’s directions to the
first house on the list. Kicking in the
front door was kind of a pain in the ass, but it was so worth it. Shooting the kid used to be my friend but
ended up stealing my girlfriend in high school right in the side of the head
was incredibly cathartic. It was all up
close and there was the smell of burnt hair and skin in the air and he dropped
like a duffel bag full of bowling balls.
Satisfying. She was the first
girl I ever loved and I never forgave either of them for that. I mean, she was just as guilty, but I blamed
him. Took out my black Sharpie marker
and crossed him off the list. It was
relaxing to have that weight off of my shoulders.
Got back into the car and sipped off the
fifth of whiskey I stole from the liquor store on the ride. Actually the case of Johnny Walker Gold
Label. It was free. Why cheat myself? Made a detour to the big box store and got a
twenty-five pound sledgehammer and a crossbow and a sickle and an aluminum
baseball bat and a golf club.
Everything in the aisles took on a different light when I was trying to
gather up some cool shit to kill people with.
Went to the next address on the list. Hit the door near the latch with the sledge
and it popped open. Fat fuck was still
at the kitchen table in his pajama pants.
Who even fucking wears pajama pants?
Hauled back and nailed him in the back of the head with the
sledgehammer. “Whammo!” Then I kicked him over and shattered every
last bone in his body to splinters with the aluminum baseball bat.
So on and so on.
Ex-roomate who ripped me off and sold my
stuff to buy heroin? Shot two crossbow
bolts into his head. One into each eye. Then cut his hands off at the wrists with a
machete and watched him spurt blood from the stumps until he fell over and
stopped moving, then pissed on him.
I’ve always believed that variety was the
spice of life so I tried to keep things original.
High school bully that was now a cop? Filled his bathtub with him in it and
dropped a television in with him.
Skinny smart-ass who got me fired because
he ratted me out to the boss? Dragged
him out into his own backyard and poured gasoline all over him, flipped a match
and burned him alive.
That guy who I thought was my friend, but
I later found out that he used to talk shit about me when I wasn’t around? Stabbed him in the throat and watched him
choke on his own blood. It was
glorious.
That
bitch that fired me for no apparent reason?
And then my girlfriend broke up with me because she thought I was
useless? Knocked her over and put a
shotgun in her crotch and pulled the trigger and watched the blood pour out
from the hole where her precious little cunt used to be and watched the color
drain from her face and the lights in her eyes go out.
That high school teacher that used to yell
in my face with the whole class watching and made me feel stupid and told me
that reading comic books and playing video games was no way to live my
life? Disemboweled him with the sickle
and watched him die writhing around in his own entrails on his kitchen floor.
My step-father who always told me I was
worthless and I’d never amount to anything?
My shoulders were sore the nest day from stabbing him in the face and
torso about a hundred times.
I’d like to say it was a busy day. But really it was a busy week.
Well maybe a couple of weeks. It’s not like I really had to keep track of
what day it was and I have to admit that I was pretty fucking wasted for most
of those couple of weeks. Driving
around drunk and just killing the fuck out of people then crossing them off the
list.
Believe it or not eventually I ran out of
people. I didn’t want to kill random
strangers. They hadn’t done anything to
me and it’s not like I was some kill crazy asshole. I just had some axes to grind and bones to
pick and it was the end of the world and the final judgment was at hand and I
was judge, jury, and executioner.
When I crossed off the last name on my
shit list I got to thinking about all of those girls that I never got to
fuck. High school. Co-workers.
That hot girl at the video store.
That hot girl at the video game store.
I made another list.
Going through that list was a little bit
different. It took a little
longer. It was really fascinating to
find out about each and every one.
Check out their CD and DVD collections.
Try to figure out what their lives were like by the stuff they had
around their homes. It’s not like we
could really have a conversation and catch up or get to know each other. After a while it almost got boring. The women weren’t exactly responsive. Kind of gives new meaning to the expression
“dead fuck”. And once you got their
clothes off it was a pain in the ass to get them into anything else, so it’s
not like I got to play fancy lingerie dress-up party or whatever. And with a lot of them, finally getting what
I’d always wanted was sort of sad and disappointing. I could do whatever I wanted to them but
this serving of revenge was definitely not better served cold. I hadn’t made a habit of taking advantage of
chicks when they got drunk and passed out and this felt a lot like that but I
went ahead anyway and spent about a half a day with each of them kind of
hanging out and getting it out of my system.
After a while people started dying from
dehydration and exposure and whatnot.
Like the senile, these folks weren’t feeding or watering themselves and
eventually they just fell over and died.
Nobody got back up and shambled around and to be honest it was a little
disappointing. I guess I had seen too
many movies. But now I’ve got all the
time in the world to watch all of the movies I always wanted to watch and play
all of the video games I wanted to play and drink and smoke as much as I
want. The whole world is mine or at
least that’s how it feels. It’s a
little boring sometimes and a little lonely and it’s kind of freaky watching
the crows peck at the eyes of the people all dead in the streets and in their
yards and on the sidewalks but it’s not like I have to go out much. I’ve got everything I need right here.
And if you happen to be reading this, then
chances are I’m already dead. Maybe
from old age and maybe from boredom.
Maybe some astronauts or an exploratory
expedition from Canada or whatever.
I don’t know how to work those big fancy
international radios. Hell, I probably
wouldn’t even know one if I saw one.
And my cell phone doesn’t have international calling and I don’t know
how to go about setting that up either.
And I don’t know that if I did if I’d even want to try to get ahold of
anyone because I’m doing just fine.
So if you’re reading this, fuck you, I
apologize for nothing.
About the author:
Sean Douglas does
not want to get to know you and isn’t interested if you want to get to know
him. He’s not interested in coming to
your town and making small talk with you or meeting your unattractive
girlfriend. Sean Douglas is interested
in not sleeping, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.
Sean Douglas does
not have any distinguishing scars or marks and where he lives is none of your
fucking business, thank you.
