DISNEY ZOMBIES

I am having a hard time writing a zombie short today.  In case I don't get around to it, I remind you (yet again) to go read DISNEY ZOMBIES, which is on chapter 23 and has finished part 1 and started on part 2.

In related news, in a couple of weeks I will have run out of reposts of End of the World stories I wrote for Twang of the Void (which I normally post on Mondays).  After they are done, I'm going to start posting my first novel which just happens to be about the end of the world.

ILL SUITED FOR TRAVEL

They had arrived late. Too late.

All of them had been slow to leave when word first came. They dawdled and balked and argued. By the time they'd started to go, clouds were already gathering.

They had not left together of course. They did not live near each other. But they had met along the way, just as it was beginning to sprinkle. At that point there has been six of them, each of them and a mate. Except the apstroplopoid. It bred asexual, chewing its own body in half, both halves then re-growing the parts it was missing. But the message said “two,” so two came along. (All of them were unsure about the “clean” vs. “unclean part.” Should they send seven? All had decided it was arrogant to assume one was considered clean.)

They didn't see many others. Occasionally birds would pass over head. They could afford to wait until the last minute. Two cheetahs streaked past at one point. Their small group were not build for speed or travel. The bubuolumps were spherical and fat, moving on four tiny stubby legs. As the rain grew heavier, their low-slung heads dragged through puddles. The qu'luktrixes dragged themselves forward, each one of their five arms in turn stretching out and grabbing onto the ground with its sharp hooks and pull the flat star-shaped body further along. Its shaggy long hair became wetter and heavier, becoming thick with mud. The two apstroplopoids normally spent their entire lives in small communal pits, a hundred to a hole in just a pile of eating and rubbing against each other. Their tubular bodies rolled in a lopsided zig-zag more than anything else.

One of the apstroplopoids was the first to give up. “I'm not needed. You carry on. We've been moving up hill the entire way so I am going to just roll back. Hopefully I will make it back to my pit before... well, you guys know.” And with that it curled up and let gravity take it backward.

A mud and rock slide killed the female bubuolump, crushing her with a pop under a runway bounder. They rest waiting while the male cried for its dead mate (bubuolumps normally mated for life). They waited in the rain while he grieved and sobbed and snarkufffled. Eventually he slunk back to them.

“Do you want to continue?” asked the female qu'luktrix. “I mean, not to be insensitive or anything, but you are just one no. Is there really a point? I am sure they'd understand.”

He thought for a second. “I want to continue and see this through. I'd hate to be remembered for just giving up. Besides, she'd have wanted me to continue on.”

They kept moving towards their destination, through the mud. But they had a long way to travel and all were meat eaters but each only hunted slow, easy prey. On their travel they came across little and grew hungrier and hungrier. Eventually they were all too tired to move any farther.

“Look,” declared the male qu'luktrix, trying to wash his fur in a dirty puddle. “We have a choice. We can all just stay here and see if we starve or drown first. Or you three can eat and still have a shot of making it. It's not that far now.”

“But, love, what shall we eat?” asked the female qu'luktrix.

“Me, my dear. Eat me.”

An argument followed. The rest decried the very thought, how it was better to just die together than do such a thing. But he was steadfast on that course and his rational argument eventually won them over. The female qu'luktrix only ate one of his arms, unable to think about chewing down anymore. The other two guiltily ate two each. All of them politely declare that he was delicious and filling even though he was mostly gristle and fur.

They kept moving but the waters were rising and none of them could swim. At first the tried to stay on high ground but the waters kept getting higher and higher. They finally discovered the the bubuolump could float and the other two could hold on to him. He almost drowned a couple of time as his round body kept rolling over, plunging his head beneath the water. But through trial and failure they discovered a way to keep balanced. It then took them a while to find a method of moving through the water. It was slow, cold going.

The rain was falling in thick sheets when they arrived at their destination, making seeing farther than ten feet difficult. They were all very tired but the water covered the ground. They swam (if you could call it that) to a bit of a tree that still extended above the water. They climbed onto the branches, stripped bare by the rain, and huddled together for warmth.

After an hour the rain let just enough so that they could see some distance. Far away on the growing waves was a boat. A massive wooden boat. On the deck they could just make out elephants and giraffes and other large animals. It was too far for the three of them to hear any noise (especially over the rain) so they did not bother yelling out.

“How long do you think we missed them by?” mused the apstroplopoid.

“Well, we've been here about and hour,” figured the qu'luktrix. “At the rate it is floating away... I'd guess thirty, forty minutes.”

The bubuolump sighed. “Kind of anti-climatic. But I suppose there is some honor in the trying.”

“I'd much rather have survived,” snapped the apstroplopoid.

“You would have thought they would have planned better,” murmured the qu'luktrix. “Given more warning to use that traveled slower. Or at least left a dingy or some such behind. Wouldn't have had to been much.”

“Well,” said the bubuolump, “life is full of disappointments.”

The apstroplopoid and the qu'luktrix nodded in agreement. And they watched as the rain began to fall heavy again, obscuring the retreating boat behind sheets of water.

HOURGLASS

“Time is not linear.”

The instructor stood at the archaic chalkboard and drew a long horizontal line. This was the very first orientation and each of us knew all that would be covered. We wouldn't be here if we didn't.

“Time is also not a circle or a sphere or a torus. Time is not a thing. It is a perception, a perspective, a measurement. Time is not tangible and it is not changeable. Get that through your thick skulls. I repeat: Time is not changeable.” He stared at the lecture hall, scowling. The instructor was the definition of grizzled. Old, bent, crotchety. Scared and burned. His whole physicality said I've seen stuff and done stuff that you will never understand.

“But,” he continued, “if that was purely the case, then we wouldn't be here And if you are going to survive and understand, truly understand, what it is we do, you do need to have a concept in your head.” Without turning from us, he reached back and tap tap tapped the board with the chalk in his hand. Bits of yellow shrapnel broke into the air. “Any series of events in time can be seen as a line. At one end, we have the start of it all, the big bang. At the other end, well, the end. The collapse of the Universe into nothing. That line is a history. One history.”

“First, just think about the future.” With two swipes of the eraser, he removed the line and then, in the center of the chalkboard made a sharp X. “This is a point in a history, a now. One series of events creates one future history.” He drew out a line from the X, extending to the right. “But if events are different from this one starting point, we get a different future history.” He drew another line from the X, this one moving at a slight upward angle. Then he drew several more, all to the right but at different angles, creating a fan of lines. “All different histories. And of course at any given point along any of these histories, a different history can form.” He drew branches of a few of the other lines. “Simple. Easy to understand.

“But what about the past? Time is just a perception. You can only ever be in your own present. You can only know and witness what is in front of you. And even then it is filtered through light and particles and then through our organs and then through our own brains. And then, an instant, later it is just memory and we all know how slippery memory is. Keep that in mind.”

He drew new line from the X, horizontal but moving to the left. “This is a past history. A series of events that led to the now.” Then he drew another line extending to the left but at a shallow up angle. “And this is a different past history: a series of events that lead to this now,” he said, tap tap tapping the X. “The same now that the first history led to.” He paused, either for affect or to take a survey of the faces in the lecture hall.

“What we think of as history is just a collection of individual recollects. Highly unreliable. If this first past history starts at a big bang and has series of events (formation of the planets, evolution of life, growth of civilization) that arrive at this now, this second history starts at a great turtle god creating the universe and pooping out the planets and peeing the rivers until we get to the now.”

A few laughed in the room. “Don't. It is not funny. It is possible. That is the thing: Any series of events that could, in anyway, lead to your own personal Now, does exist. Just as any series of events that can lead into the future from your personal now also exist.” He turned back to the chalk board and drew new lines off the X and to the left, a mirror fan, creating a bow tie or hourglass.

“I am way over simplifying here. While the histories in either directions are infinite, there are more options in the future. And as we get closer to the Now from the past, the options become more and more limited. The farther in the past you extend, the more our perceptions of what has happened become clouded. There are only so many pasts from five minutes ago that could lead you to a now where you remembering me standing here. But more options of ones where history books include our view of the Battle of Waterloo. This creates a past history set the resembles a concave cone and a future history of a convex cone.

“But this is all hogwash. Just a way to look at things. Because all of this also means that all Nows are Personal Nows and relies on your own perspective. You can have a history where all of us in this room are just what you think we are: a too old instructor and a room a new recruits, just like yourself. But you can also have a history where the rest of us are all robots, playing a part. Or that we are all manifest ghosts. Or that you are viewing this all in a computer generated simulation. So none of it actually matters.” The instructor erased the board quickly, smearing the lines more than erasing them.

He turned back to the hall and frowned at them all.

“Over the next two years you will learn to move from history to history, from Now to Now, up and down the hourglass. We are searching for a history with the best possible future. A history with the least suffering. One where the world doesn't keep falling into destruction. You'll explore and chart the infinite choices in the past and future to get to the the most blissful existence.”

The instructor paused again, this time a slight grin upon his face. “You'll lead us to Heaven and to God.”

BAD RISK

"Thank you for your patience. Your communication is important to us and a service representative with be with you in a mo–"

Zeeefthhhhh. Zeeefthhhhh. Click.

"This call may be monitored by a supervisor to enforce continued excellent service."

"Hello. You have reached Stellar Home Insurance. My name is Glu't'xvee'tak'chugoo'ch. And how can I help you today?"

"Yeah. I, um, am lookin' to get my, um, planet insured."

"Okay. I am sure we can help you... sir? You are a male of your species, correct?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Great. To be honest, I kind of pride myself on being able to tell right off what the break reproduction break down of species is and just from a voice what of the standard six patterns they fall into. I know. It's silly."

"No no. That's good. No one guess right the first time."

"I bet you're oxygen breathing."

"Yep."

"And... quadruped?"

"Well, no. Bipedal actually."

"I always mess those up. Well, two out of three is pretty good, am I right?"

"Uh, yeah. Pretty good."

"Well, thanks! So, you are the designated representative of your planet?"

"Yes."

"And are you the dominate species?"

"Um, yeah."

"And your specie is certified as such?"

"Yes."

"Great! Can I get your Galactic registration code, please?"

"Sure. Um, I have it right here. Just a minute. Here it is. Ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Six Six Seven Two Alpha Three point One Four One Eight Delta Beta Gamma Nine Zelquid Shaftupe Two Timplblot and, um, it looks like a squiggly line with a circle and a sort of squished triangle thingy?"

"Th'vp'sh't?"

"Yeah yeah. That. And dash zero."

"Okay, let me wait for that to come up. To confirm, I have you here as the representative of the Solarians? Is that correct?"

"Well, we prefer Earthling..."

"No problem. I'll make a note of it in your file. And what is the name of the planet you wish to insure?"

"Um, Venus."

"And in what system is that in"

"Sol. The Sol System."

"I have that as a terrestrial planet with an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with a dense sulfuric acid cloud cover. Is that correct?"

"Well, we've been terraforming it for a bit now."

"How neat! Well, I am just going to leave it like this in the file but you will need a re-inspection within 90 cycles after your first payment."

"Yeah, no problem."

"Oh. Sir, I see that your file has been flagged."

"Really?"

"Yes. I see that you have had two previous planets insured with us that both had to be totaled."

"Well, yeah. I guess..."

"I see the first one was the planet Terra..."

"Earth. We called it Earth."

"I am sure. It says in our records that your race polluted it, over populated it, stripped it of all resources, managed to cause mass extinction of 99% of the native species, and finally initiated a global wide nuclear crisis event across the entire surface."

"Well, yeah. But that was years ago. We were a young species. Isolated from the rest of civilization. Didn't have the guidance of the rest of the galaxy and all. I mean, we were told that would be taken into account."

"Well, sir, there is a notation to that affect in our files. But–"

"And we've been working real hard at getting it back in shape. We have all sort of species in storage that we'll brig back when we have it up and running again."

"Yes, sir, but–"

"And when we first filed for insurance on the planet we didn't really know how bad it was. Most of our claim was put through. There wasn't any fraud. We went though litigation about this!"

"Yes, sir. I have all that, more or less in my file."

"Well, good."

"And the second planet was Mars of the Sol System?"

"Yeah, but–"

"It says here, sir, that Mars was destroyed... is this right? It crashed into another planet?"

"It's kind of complicated."

"Well, it appears that we had to pay out not only on the total destruction of Mars but on major repairs to the planet Saturn, its rings, and three of Saturn's moons."

"I know it looks bad."

"How does one drive a planet over a trillion kilometers up system and crash it into a ringed gas giant?"

"Well, Saturn was a big planet. We tried to swerve but.... And we were going through some stuff. We'd just lost Earth and all."

"I have a notation that your entire species was suspected of being under the influence—"

"Never proven, Ms. Glootzeeveetackchewgoochy! Never proven! I demand you take that off our record right now!"

"Please calm down, sir. First, the name is Glu't'xvee'tak'chugoo'ch, I understand it is difficult for oxygen breathers to pronounce it and I do appreciate the effort. And my species do not have females. The correct title would be Jft. Jft. Glu't'xvee'tak'chugoo'ch. I will make a notation of your request to have your record changed and pass it to my supervisor."

"Good."

"Now, I just want to make sure that you knew why your record had been flagged. We can proceed now had getting... Venus, was it? Getting Venus some sort of insurance for the time being or you can wait for a full inspection and investigation to be done."

"Um, well, we better get something before then. You know. Just in case."

"I thought as much. In cases like these, we need you to put something up for collateral."

"Collateral? Like what?"

"Well, most species opt to put up a diverse unique genetic record."

"Well, all of that was on Earth... and, well, you know...."

"Yes. Right. Well, do you have any technologies that the rest of civilization find valuable?"

"Well, we perfected the fast food industry...."

"Wait. You are those Solarians? The ones behind McDonald's and Starbucks and the rest?"

"Yeah!"

"Right. Um, no. I'm afraid that won't be worth very much. Anything else."

"Not that I can think of."

"Do you have any other planets to put up?"

"Sure! Yeah! Um, let me see. How about Pluto?"

"Is that a planet, sir?"

"Uh, sure.... Yeah, it's a planet."

"Great. Tentatively that should be fine. I'm computing your rates now. We will only be able to insure Mars for the lowest level until we get all this cleared up and confirm the status of Pluto and all the rest."

"Fine. Fine. Let's just get this done."

"Okay. I will need Venus and Pluto registration and ownership numbers."

"Shit. I had those some where. Just a moment."

"No problem, sir. We're here to serve you. So... how's is the Sol System? Sounds cozy."

SANDWICH BOARD

“The end is near! The end is near!”

Every day he walked the streets, sandwich board slung on his shoulders, yelling his warning at all who came near. His hair oily and matted with dirt. He smelled of body oder and urine and spoiled milk. He wore all the clothes he own, layered and torn a smudged with life.

“The end is coming! The time is at hand!”

Everyone who came across him knew he was obviously crazy.

The sandwich board was made of cardboard and held together with twine. On the front get had written in black marker “THE END IS NEAR” on the back the back “REPENT.” It was ripped and stained. It was not the first sadwich board he'd made. Not by a long way.

His eyes were always wide open and wild, rarely blinking. He was always trying to make eye contact and most people had the instinctual awareness to turn away. When he did catch someone's eyes, he would zero in and raise is voice even louder.

“You! You are going to die! You and your friends and your family! Take account! Take! A! Count!”

People rarely engaged him. No one wanted to talk to someone crazy, especially not a dirt stranger. Where was upside? He was so clearly gone. What could one person do on the street? He clearly needed professional help.

And, of course, the average person couldn't be bothered. They had enough of their own problems. Life was to short to worry about a mad man yelling about the end of the world.

“You have been warned! Don't say I didn't warn you!”

Some people are of course cruel. Or just angry.

Sometimes they yelled back at him, called him names. Sometimes they yelled threats. Often a group of youths would point and laugh. Sometimes hey would follow him for blocks, mocking him loudly. When people are unsure of their own lives, hurting inside and feeling lonely, or just looking to not feel bad about themselves, they will strike out at others. The strange becomes the target of their own doubts and fears. If this man was forcing himself into their lives with his yelling, his judgement, then they felt that mad him an open target to their wrath.

He never cared. It never effected him because he only cared about delivering his message.

“You have brought it about yourselves! Because you forget! You forget!”

There had been many times people had thrown garbage at him. Or stones. He had been punched and kicked. Sometimes, when it got dark, they would fall upon him in a pack and beat him until he could not move.

There had been a time, long ago, when madness was viewed as having insight in to the unseen world. Seers and oracles, able to talk to powers beyond the veil, their words cryptic wisdoms from the past or future. They were thought to be touched by the divine. Some times they were more than just touched. Sometimes they were the divine. But that was long ago.

“The end is near! Perhaps tonight! Or tomorrow! But it is close!

Every night, when his legs were too tired to carry him and his throat too sore to yell, he would return to where he lived. He had lived in shacks and castles. In forests and deserts. Currently, he lived under the overpass to the highway. It was near the river, which meant rats like to live there too. He ignored them because they'd never understand his message. And other homeless avoided the place due to the rats and the man.

He'd remove his sandwich board and lay it carefully down against the concrete. He's remove the scraps of food he'd gathered during the day. He did not require much food, not much at all. More out of habit. He pretended they were offerings like he had once received. Fatted calfs and bowls of honey. He would dream of those days so far gone as he slowly chewed stale pizza crusts and potato chip crumbs.

When he was finished eating, he'd crawl under the small shelter of cardboard and tin and wood he'd built. Just enough space for his body and a few blankets. Once he'd slept one beds of fire and flesh, of sky and passion. That was when he was a feared god. A god of destruction and pain. He's been worshipped by millions, whole civilizations. Now there were only a handful that knew he'd once existed and even fewer that knew his true name. But it was enough.

He pull out the sphere from beneath the blankets. Pieces of clay and twigs and leaves and garbage and bone and fur. He had been crafting it for millennium, pouring each whisper of worship he received in it. He wasted none of the belief in him on worldly or other worldly pleasures. It all when into this sphere that, over the years, had begun to look more and more like the globe.

From his pockets he'd pull a penny or scrap of paper he'd found or been given. Even a flyer for a suit sale had a wisp of worship in it. He's stick it in his mouth and chew (yes, even a penny) and mix it with his saliva. And then he'd carefully place it into the sphere, bring it that much closer to completion.

He had been a god of death and destruction. Once there had been a people on the earth that believed he would bring about the end. Once he'd finished his tiny Earth, he would prove them right. Just a bit more. Just a bit more.

In his dark shelter, amongst the rats and the rumble of the cars over his head, he would whisper to himself.

“The end is near. The end is near.”

Image: Zombie Disposal

Movie: Book of Eli

Watch here.

Mostly Denzel just kickin' butt.