‘braindead’ by sean douglas

‘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.