Zed: Zombie Hunter

Allow me to intro­duce myself, my name is Zif­fer Elroy Drumkins. And yes, I believe my par­ents hated me. Most peo­ple just call me Zed.

I'm 17, from Boston, MA and I'm a Zom­bie Hunter.

Trust me, it's not as glam­orous as it sounds. In fact it's kind of messy, but I do get to travel to remote and exotic places and met excit­ing peo­ple. Not.

I've learned a few things about Zom­bies over the years.

They main­tain full func­tion of any­thing not destroyed when they die. That includes the brain. For exam­ple, if your brain is dam­aged but your arms are fine you could hit a base­ball. Assum­ing you know what a base­ball is. Or what a bat is even for.

They can speak. Sorry to say it but George Romero got it wrong. Maybe he knew and left that part out in his movies because it's too ter­ri­fy­ing. It may not seem like much, but trust me, when a hor­ri­bly dis­fig­ured crea­ture sham­bling about is call­ing your name, it's not pleas­ant. Espe­cially when said per­son is your mother. Of course you're prob­a­bly use to her sham­bling about call­ing your name or maybe that's just me.

They have an hier­ar­chy of sorts. There is a mas­ter zom­bie all the way down to slaves and drones. Drones are usu­ally the ones that have had a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of their head (and sub­se­quently their brain) dam­aged and are basi­cally stu­pid. Mas­ters are strong phys­i­cally, very strong. They have to be to make it up the food chain.

They aren't all that com­mon. There is prob­a­bly 1 zom­bie for every 100,000 peo­ple on the planet, give or take. They tend to gather in groups (clans, covens, flocks, gag­gles???) and hold up some­where away from people.

They don't actu­ally 'hunt' peo­ple. True, they love the taste of human flesh (eww!) but they are actu­ally attracted to move­ment. Stands to rea­son when your eyes are glazed over that you can't see very well. So if you were to stand stock still they'd walk right by you. Not that many peo­ple will stand still while a pack of flesh eat­ing mon­sters are strolling by.

There are actu­ally 2 types of zom­bies: Dead and Infected. The names are mis­lead­ing, but then again they didn't ask me my opin­ion when they named them. Dead zom­bies are peo­ple that died and then con­tracted the virus and were rean­i­mated. These are usu­ally the ones you see bum­bling around. Infected con­tracted the virus and died as a result (mean­ing they are un-​​injured) or were bit­ten. Kind of like Werewolves.

Finally, there is a cure. If you can get to it within the first 12 hours after infec­tion it can stop the virus. And yes, I real­ize how much that sounds like vampirism.

I've also learned that none of these rules mean a damn thing when your stuck on the roof of a park­ing garage in the mid­dle of the night, your only weapon being a sand pail of not-​​quite-​​ripe peaches that you just (ille­gally) picked and your best friend, Sixx, is stand­ing next to you in a fuzzy pink hos­pi­tal gown with rab­bits on it, all the while sur­rounded by a band of rea­son­ably intel­li­gent zom­bies who were actu­ally out look­ing for you specifically.

Trust me, pink is not his color.

Oh, and Sixx is a zom­bie as well.

"Explain to me again how you ended up wear­ing a ping hos­pi­tal gown."

"Really? You think now is the best time to bring that up again?"

"Well yea. It gets fun­nier every time you tell it."

"Oh hardy-​​de-​​har-​​har. What are we going to do Z?"

"I called Stephanie, she and Mike are on their way over now. They only live a few blocks from her."

Stephanie and Mike are the other half of our team. Steph is actu­ally my ex but we've remained friends. She's 5' 7", very much a tomboy and can kick the ass of just about any­one I know, includ­ing me. I've seen her take on 3 strong Infected at once and not even break a sweat.

Mike, her part­ner, puts Steph to shame. She is very fem­i­nine but is a bet­ter fighter than any of us. The belts in Judo, Aikido and Capoeira help. Don't let the blond hair fool you though, she doesn't take crap from any­one and doesn't suf­fer fools period. Imag­ine Char­l­ize Theron with a ninja sword and an atti­tude. And the fact that Mike and I get along bet­ter than Steph and I has noth­ing at all to do with my praise. Honestly.

"Get­ting into trou­ble again I see?" Steph says through a giant grin on her face.

"You know me," I reply as Mike tosses me my sword.

We wade through the first wave of grunts, slic­ing and hack­ing and the occa­sional thwack when I heave a peach at a zom­bie. I take the heads of a cou­ple of twins, Mike takes out three local busi­ness men. Sev­er­ing the head is the only sure way to guar­an­tee that a zom­bie is dead. Romero got that much right. Then again it works for just about every other crea­ture on the planet as well. There are a cou­ple excep­tions but that's another story.

I glance over and see Sixx beat­ing another zom­bie into sub­mis­sion with their own arms, hoop­ing and hol­ler­ing the entire time. At least he enjoys his work.

He takes a break from the beat­ing to look up at me just as I cut off the left arm of a zom­bie still hold­ing a broom.

"Any one else notice they aren't really putting up a fight?" he asks.

It's then that I notice the leader stand­ing off in the dis­tance. He real­izes I've seen him and steps forward.

"I come with a message."

"And what might that be?"

"The Matri­arch would like to speak with you."

With that the remain­ing zom­bies turn and leave. Some­thing I've never seen hap­pen before. Not exactly a good sign to be honest.

We all stand and stare at each other for a few min­utes, Steph is the one to finally break the silence.

"What do we do Zed?"

I pause for dra­matic effect, "Let's go find out what my mother wants."

© 2010 - 2012, anthony. All rights reserved.

September 16, 2010

Posted in Fiction and tagged #fridayflash, Fiction, zed, zombie.