Holy crap this is long. Sorry about that, but you know- dick jokes.
In the sake of time I’ll just give everyone who hasn’t read an Awesomesquad! Assemble post before this one some background info:
I made a crime fighting team called Awesomesquad! We’re badass. I found most of the members from either the Internet or T.V.
I am the leader I usually wear a white cloak that for some reason can hold my pole arm, which I call my Justice Stick.
My second in command is my good friend Jibbles aka the Knifemaster
Damien Walters is our parkour and hand to hand combat trainer
Everett Bradford is our weapons tech
Criss Angel is our token wizard
Mr. Expendable is a friend of mine who we’ve given the ability to regenerate lost tissue. This means that he is largely our guinea pig for experiments
Steve is an Asian guy who is our stealth and covert ops expert
Jessie James (From Monster Garage) is our driver and the builder of the Awesomeplane!, our main form of transportation
Danica Mckellar (aka Winnie from The Wonder Years) is a mathematician who uses math to figure everything out
I’ve got some serious quadratic expansion going on in my pants right now.
Phlegm is our team psychiatrist. She is also The Knifemaster’s brother
GMZ is our hacker
Derren Brown is our mentalist who mainly interrogates our suspects.
That’s all the important information. Enjoy this batch of crazy:
*****
“Fuck. Call Jibbles!” I screamed into my phone.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean by, ‘Fuck call Jibbles'” Siri replied.
“Don’t fuck around, Siri, this is important.”
She didn’t answer.
“You’re a cunt, Siri.”
“Was it something I said?” she then asked.
I rolled my eyes and searched for Jibbles’ number the old fashioned way. Ugh, what a hassle. After a few tedious minutes of searching through my contacts, I had found and called Jibbles.
“Knifemaster!,” I exclaimed before he has a chance to finish saying hello, ” You need to assemble The Awesomesquad!. It’s important.
“Sure thing, Minigan, when do you want us to meet?”
“FUCKING NOW!!!”
“But Minigan,” Jibbles said in an uncharacteristically whiny manner, “you always give us some kind of advanced warning, and I really have a lot of studying to do for my finals.”
“You can study when you’re dead,” I retorted, “Right now, there’s evil to fight.”
“You know that that makes no sense, right?” he pointed out to me.
Even though he was probably right, there was no time to argue. “Just assemble the team.”
I heard a sigh come from the other end of the line, which I took as him seceding to my request, so I hung up.
After a few quiet seconds, a distant voice called out from somewhere outside my window,” Awesomesquad Assemble!”
“Man, Jibbles is getting good at that,” I said to myself, “It echoed and everything.”
My trip to my entrance, as well as my passage into the Awesomebase! was uneventful, and once inside I found Jibbles and Everett hanging out in the dining lounge.
“Quick!” I shout as I walked into the lounge, making them both jump out of their seats, “We need to think of a way to destroy a corpse but leave a living body unharmed.”
“What?!” they both cried in unison.
“A weapon.” I stated, ” We need some kind of weapon that will destroy a corpse, but leave a living body unharmed.”
“Why?” Jibbles asked.
“Because we need it to fight zombies, but still protect civilians.” I answer.
“What?!” they both cry in unison once again.
“JUST BUILD SOMETHING THAT DOES WHAT I’M ASKING FOR!!!”
Everett, looking confused by my demand, even though I made it pretty damn clear, said, “Minigan, you’re not making any sense. A corpse and a living body are made of the exact same things. You can’t build something that will destroy one and not the other.”
“Well, we need to figure out a way soon, because we’re going to fight zombies today.”
“What?!” They cried in unison for a third time, which I think means I win a free Coke or something.
“That’s right,” I said, “Now we really need to figure out what kind of weapon will kill a zombie and not a living person, and Everett needs to build it.
There was no use arguing with me, and they knew it, so we sat down at a table and began to brainstorm.
After several minutes of failed weapon concepts like, “Brain cannon” and “beheading bus,” Jibbles got up and began to rummage through the cabinets.
“What are you doing, Knifemaster?” I ask.
“Look,” he replied in a flat tone, “You called me here so suddenly that I didn’t have time to eat.” He then added after opening the refrigerator and finding only half empty condiment bottles and a really old sandwich, “Minigan, isn’t it your job as team leader to supply us with food? How about instead of fighting zombies, we fight off starvation with a trip to the grocery store?”
“Hey,” I snapped, “I go to the store regularly, you bastards just eat everything to fast. It’s not my fault we have a budget. Our Mystery Benefactor tells me how much I can spend on food.”
Without looking up from out list of awful weapon ideas, Everett mentioned how he saw some beef jerky in the cabinet above the stove. Sure enough, there was a plastic bag of homemade beef jerky. Satisfied with the choice of food, Jibbles sat back down and helped us brainstorm some more. After another ten minutes of deliberating, the best idea we had was what we called, “The Zombie Grinder.” Basically, it was a giant pyramid of steps that led up to a pit with some sort of meat griding device. A fresh human brain would be suspended over the opening, just out of reach for the zombies. The idea is that they would climb the pyramid and fall into the grinder when they try to reach for the brain. We all loved the idea, but I had some issues with how to transport the giant murder pyramid, and how to dispose of the remains. Everett assured me that he could work those out as he builds it.
“OK,” I seceded, “I like that one. But I still think we need something that you aim at a zombie. The grinder is only a trap.”
Jibbles and Everett groaned.
“This is important, you bastards!” I screamed, “We need to prepare for a zombie attack!”
Jibbles grumbled and then bit into a piece of beef jerky. After a second of chewing, he looked down at the food in his hand and then at us and cried, “Watteff wuh dehidrat vem?”
Everett and I just stared at him. Jibbles swallowed and repeated, “What if we dehydrate them? You know, with something that heats up and dries the air around them. If that doesn’t turn them into dust, then that might just kill the virus that turned them into zombies. They’d still be dead, just not eating other people.”
“Knifemaster,” I replied, “That is… not a bad idea, actually.”
“I disagree,” said Everett, the difficult bastard, “We don’t know why these theoretical people are turning into zombies, so drying them won’t be doing us any favors that way. Plus, dehydrating zombies will only turn them into mummies. So we’d still have an undead problem.”
Jibbles answered, “But that’s the thing, they will be like mummies, which means they will be totally stiff.” “Have you ever seen a mummy?” he continued, “Those things are so dehydrated that their limbs snap off when you try to move one. Now try to see an army of them walking at you. With their first step will break off their toes.”
“Fine,” Everett said impatiently, “I’ll build that too. But it won’t look pretty, not with the amount of time you’ve given me.”
“That’s fine, just have the thing built by later this afternoon.” I replied, ignoring his impatient tone, “Also, test it out on one of our test cadavers and Mr. Expendable and see how he fares against it.”
“Fares against what?” Mr. Expendable asked as he walked into the room. He was wearing a worn out t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, which is even more disheveled than his normal appearance. “I just woke up,” he claimed when he noticed us taking in his attire. With an exasperated voice, he then asked, “What do I need to test this time?”
“A dehydrating ray,” Everett answered, “C’mon, let’s get this over with.”
Over the next few hours, the other members started to trickle in: first was Phlegm, then Damien Walters followed by Criss Angel. Danica McKellar and Jessie James showed up together, followed by the rest (GMZ, Derren Brown, That Asian guy who I call Steve). Some sat down in one of the couches that surrounded the table that Jibbles and I were sitting at, while a few others looked through the cabinets for any scrap of food.
“Oy, Minigan, where’s all the food?” Damien asked in what I always assume is a Cockney accent, because- you know- British.
“That’s not important right now,” I answered. “Right now, I need all of you to listen to me. We have an emergency on our hands.”
Jibbles snorted, so I slapped him and then glared at everyone who was standing up, warning them that they might be next. They understood me, and took their seat around the table.
“As I was saying, we have a serious threat on our hands. Has anyone been watching the news lately?” Confused looks passed from one member of my team to the other. “CANNIBALISM!” I shouted impatiently, “LOTS AND LOTS OF CANNIBALISM!!! And that’s not the worst of it. There are rumors of zombies in Miami, Florida.”
The group must have misunderstood me because every single one of them groaned. Phlegm asked, “Minigan, this isn’t about that man who ate a homeless man’s face is it?”
“Yes, this is exactly what this is about!” I snapped.
“C’mon, man. Haven’t you heard that that guy was high on bath salts or something?” Jibbles chimed in.
“Yes, I know that! I don’t mean that he’s the reason there’s a zombie apocalypse going in southern Florida, I mean that story is what made me discover the truth!” Everyone looked confused. Good. That means they’ll listen. “Criss, put the holographic map of Miami up.”
“What?” he replied.
“The holographic map of Miami. Make it appear.” I repeated through my clenched teeth. I was not getting any respect today, and I would be damned if I would let this fucking magician lie to me about what he can or cannot do.”
“Why do you guys think I can just make anything appear? I’m an Illusionist, not a wizard,” he claimed, rather foolishly, to be honest, because I know pretty goddamn well that he can just make anything appear. Grumbling to myself about how much of an idiot Criss is, I leaned over the table, grabbed his right hand and balled it into a fist. I then set his elbow on the table so that his forearm was standing straight up. I instructed him to open his hand, and when he did, a giant, three dimensional, greenish grey map of Miami sprang into existence and began to rotate slowly. “What the fuck?” Criss exclaimed.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I pointed to a spot on the map and said, “This is where the homeless man was attacked.” A red dot formed on the spot that I touched. “And these,” I touched the holographic map several more times, revealing several more red dots, “are sightings of shambling, almost dead looking people. As you can tell, these dots form a perimeter of several blocks. I believe that these sightings are actually of zombies.”
“Minigan,” Danica asked as sweetly as she could, “Do you know how retarded this sounds to all of us? Zombies are a fictional creature. They will never exist.”
I stood up and shouted, “Really, zombies are a retarded concept? Sure, Pauly D can shoot lasers out of his mouth, Lady Gaga can actually be an alien, we can get into regular fights with Donald Trump’s hairpiece, and Kim Kardashian can have an evil twin that is trying to take over the world with her hypnotic ass, but as soon as I mention zombies, you all jump on the bullshit wagon. Fuck, Criss is projecting a 3D model of fucking Miami In front of all of you right now, but zombies are too damn unrealistic for you cynical bastards.”
A look of shame passed around the group, and for a few minutes, everyone was quiet. The silence was only broken when Mr. Expendable, looking so wrinkly and grey that it looked like he had aged 80 years, stumbled in. As he moved, his dry skin rubbed against itself and sounded like two sheets of sand paper being rubbed together. Several members of the group, including myself, groaned in disgust. Mr. Expendable ignored our groans, and instead stuck his head under the sink faucet and turned it on. As he drank the water, his skin returned to its normal shade and texture.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Criss asked, which was followed by murmurs from the rest of us, who were wondering the same thing.
“He was being a little bitch,” Everett answered as he walked through the door, wiping oil off of his hands with a dirty cloth. Once he sat down, he continued, “Mr. Expendable here lost his shit and we needed to stop. He started yelling all of our secrets out like he was being tortured.”
“That was torture!” Mr. Expendable said with an unusually raspy voice, even after just drinking what must’ve been a half gallon of water, “You chained me to the wall!”
“You kept jumping out of the way! What was I supposed to do? I needed to test the dehydration ray!”
“Dehydration ray?” Damien asked, “What in the bloody hell is a dehydration ray?”
In order to watch what could possibly become a very entertaining confrontation between a man who can regenerate lost tissue and a man with flame throwers attached to his arms, I quickly explained to the group how I asked for a weapon that would only harm zombies and not living humans.
Still glaring at Mr. Expendable, Everett shouted, “But thanks to this whiny little bitch, living people will also be harmed if they are in the path of the ray.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that they won’t!” Mr. Expendable shouted back, his voice back to normal, “All I wanted to do get out of the way. People who get hit by the beam will feel the same way. And unlike me, they won’t be chained up and be able to move out of the way.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Damn sure,” he answered.
“Good!” I exclaimed, “That means we can leave a soon as Jessie gets the Awesomeplane! ready.” I nodded to Jessie that he could start now. “Everett,” I continued, “Go with him and get the zombie grinder into the Awesomeplane!.” Once Everett left with Jessie, I addressed the rest of the group, “OK folks, We’ll be leaving as soon as they get the Awesomeplane! ready. Until then, we need to assign tasks for this mission. Team Pugnastics, instead of our normal massive array of weapons, our Benefactor bought each of us a Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit, and I took the liberty of making a vest for the knives. Also, Phlegm, do to your bizarre and sudden blood lust, you’ll be joining Team Pugnastics on this one. Jibbles, you cannot bring your chainsaw whips with you, what with the splattering of zombie juices and all, and no one needs a flame thrower. That will only make the zombies more dangerous. We can only use blades, guns, and clubs. We will also all be wearing our riot gear, as that will protect us the most against zombie bites.” “Team Prevention,” I announced, turning to Danica, Derren, and GMZ, “You’re job will be to monitor the streets of Miami for anything similar to eyewitness accounts. GMZ, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to hack into Miami’s street and security cameras, so that will be that will be how you monitor the streets. Once any of you see some a crowd of slow, shambling people, let us know, and we’ll take those fuckers out. Does anybody have any questions?”
Everyone raised their hand. I sighed; they weren’t going to fucking let this go until they actually saw some zombies.
“Does anybody have any questions about the details of this mission, not if I am in my right state of mind or if I’m on any drugs?”
Every single one of their bastard hands went down. However, instead of chastising them more, I decided to save all of our time and dismiss everyone. Team Prevention walked their path to The Eye, which is our code name for the surveillance room (Yes that is a V for Vendetta reference), while Phlegm, myself and the rest of team Pugnastics made our way down to the armory. I got Phlegm her riot gear and her Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit and then went to check on the Awesomeplane!. In the hangar, Everett and Jessie were pushing the individual pieces of the Zombie Grinder into the Awesomeplane! while our teammates watched.
“Hey,” I shouted to the rest of the team, “Don’t just stand there, help them load it. The faster the grinder is on the plane, the sooner we can leave and get back here. Isn’t that what you lazy shit heads want?”
And with that, the rest of my team started to hurry the fuck up. Back in the armory, I loaded up my weapons onto my riot vest, put in my earpiece that had a direct link to Team Prevention, and grabbed my wrist mounted GPS, my Justice Stick, and my riot helmet. I opted to not wear my white cloak, since zombies have a tendency to grab onto anything they can (They’re just like fucking children) and they are not intimidated by theatrics (Just like… I don’t know, jaded children?), and instead went for my tight fitting riot/ war uniform.
Once everyone and Awesomeplane! were ready, we all took out normal seats and prepared for take off. Right as the underground runway lit up and the engines rocketed the vehicle foreward, The Knifemaster said putting a pair of sunglasses on, “We’re headed to Miami to fight some zombies…”
“Don’t say it.” I begged.
“… I guess that means we’re going to be the Brains of their existence. YEEEEAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”
How about, “We’re going to knock ’em dead… Again!!!”
“Knifemaster,” I warned, “If you make any of those jokes for the duration of this trip, I will throw you out of this plane.”
There several nods and grumbles of agreement, some of them even coming from his sister. The Knifemaster looked disappointed, but kept his lousy CSI: Miami puns to himself.
Within no time we had reached the end of the tunnel, and the earth spat us out into the clear afternoon sky. Once he had set us on the right course, Jessie turned to all of us and asked if he could play his Miami mix CD. We all agreed, figuring that it would mostly be rap or Latin American music, but once the CD was in the player, the speakers emitted a high pitched wailing sound which had guttural sounding grunts layered on top. 500,000 hours later, we landed in an empty parking lot in Miami. Everyone except for Jessie clawed their way out of the plane, and as far away as their weakened legs could carry them. Many of us threw up.
“Jessie, you horrible bastard,” I shouted in between gasps for air, “Why would you make us listen to a whale being raped for a trip to Miami?”
“That wasn’t a whale getting raped,” he stated with a confused look on his face, “That was Will Smith’s song, ‘Miami.’”
The rest of gasped in unison. “That’s even worse that listening to a whale getting raped!” I shouted, “At least the whale doing the raping is getting some pleasure out of the experience.”
“Listen the fuck up, you bloody Yankee wanker,” Damien said to Jessie through clenched teeth, “If you ever try to play that song again, I will spit right into your bloody mouth. Got that, chum?”
The rest of the group shouted in agreement with Damien, each of us with a look of contempt for Jessie etched onto our faces. He threw his hands up defensively and said, “Fine! I won’t play that song again. Sorry. I thought I’d try to contribute to the music list.”
I growled at him, and then turned away, pressing a button on my ear piece. “Danica, do you copy?”
“I can hear you loud and clear, Minigan,” she answered back, “Things have been quiet in the area you pointed out so far, but we’ll keep looking and update you as soon as we see something.”
“OK, good. Team Pugnastics and I will scout the area, and interview the locals to see if they’ve seen anything unusual. Over and out.” I clicked the button again, ending the connection.
I looked out from the parking lot, getting the first good bearings of our location since we arrived. The town smelled exactly as you would expect it to smell: overpriced cologne, beans and rice, and urine. The sun must have some kind of blood vendetta against the people of Miami, because it seemed as though all it did was spit out a peculiarly viscious amount of Hell fire at this town. Through the waving , almost hypnotic, undulating waves of heat rising from the asphalt, I noticed something odd. There was no one but us around.
I touched my earpiece again, and asked, “Danica, do you see anyone in our vicinity?”
She replied back with a, “No. And not for a two block radius. No one is even driving on the expressway behind you.”
I turned around, and sure enough, the towering expressway stood silently behind us. I turned to the group and said, “Be on high alert, everybody. Something weird is going on.” “in what direction was the most recent sighting,” I asked into my earpiece, “That is probably the best place to start.”
She agreed, and then gave me directions to the location of the last sighting, about three blocks to the south. I directed my team to follow me to the location, and had Steve, Jessie, and Everett set up The Zombie Grinder. I chose not to ask where Everett got the fresh brain from. Leaving Steve, Everett and Jessie to their task, Damien, Phlegm, Criss, Mr. Expendable, The Knifemaster, and myself made our way to the location. We got there to once again find the place deserted, and no trace of any human (living or undead) around. I could tell that this was pretty much what everyone expected, so I continued to repeat the phrase, “It’s quiet- too quiet.” Usually in the movies, a monster would pop out of some unseen corner, but nothing happened whenever I said it. What a jip. Anyway, once we collected all the information that seemed relevant to our mission, Danica directed us to the next sighting.
This went on for several hours, each with the same result. I could tell that my team was getting irrated with me, what with their constant glares, and occasional, “There better be some fucking zombies, Minigan.”
“There will be,” I snapped back. Then under my breath I continue, “There’s got to be.”
After another hour of this, we had gotten about three quarters of the way through the listed sightings. My team was even more irritated at this point; even The Knifemaster was threatening to go back to the Awesomeplane!. The particular location we were at had a several restaurants around, so I suggested that we take a hour break to get food and relax. This seemed to quell their rage towards me, and also gave me some time to look at my GPS. Holy shit. I traced our routes by connecting the dots of sightings and realized that we had walked a good 10 miles in the few short hours we had been in Miami. Despite the distance we walked, we were only five miles away from the Awesomeplane!. The path we took spiraled inward from the latest sighting. That means that the sightings were spiraling outward. And worse still, since we didn’t see a living person in all that time, it means that a section of Miami with a five mile radius, a section of Miami that we’re in the buttfucking middle of, is completely devoid of human life.
I Tapped the button on my earpiece and said, ” Team Prevention, do you copy?”
Nothing.
“I repeat, Team Prevention, do you copy?”
Silence on their end.
“Shit. Fuckity, Fuckity, shit, shit, fuck.” I muttered to my self. Tapping the earpiece once again, I said, “Jessie, do you copy?”
Nothing. Triple fucks.
I looked to the members of my team. They had gathered around an obviously (and for me, unsurprisingly) closed deli, knocking and scratching at the glass doors.
I ran over to them, an said, “I know I promised an hour break, but we are in the middle of a serious situation right now. I cannot get ahold of either Team Prevention nor Everett and Jessie. We need to get back to the Awesomeplane! now. I promise I’ll make it up to everyone when we get back to the base.”
“No.” The Knifemaster replied definitively, “We’re hungry now. I’m sure you’re just overreacting again, Minigan. Everything’s fine.”
“Everything isn’t fine!” I shouted, “I think we’ve been lured into a trap. We need to get the fuck out of here!”
“Oh, come the fuck on!” The Knifemaster cried, now turning to face me, his wall of a body leaning over me, “You’re just saying that because there wasn’t any zombies! This is just you trying to save face in front of us. Let it go, Minigan. You were wrong.”
“Fine. I was wrong about the zombies,” I admit, even though I’m still pretty sure I wasn’t, ” But I know I’m right about this. I can feel it. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m sorry Minigan, but you’ve lost a lot of influence over us the past few hours. You claimed there were zombies, but we haven’t seen any, and now you’re claiming that it’s a trap because you cannot contact the rest of the team? I’m not buying it.”
“We haven’t seen any zombies because we haven’t seen a single bloody person in this city so far,” Damien yelled to everyone else’s surprise, “And check your damned mobiles. I for one don’t have any service, which is odd since we’re in the middle of a blasted city. Minigan’s right. We need to get out of here now.”
“Why the fuck are you siding with Minigan on this one of all times, Damien?” The Knifemaster asked, rightly so too, since Damien has a notorious habit of disagreeing with me.
“Yes I am,” Damien snapped back, ” Because I’m the only one besides Minigan who’s been paying any bloody attention to our surroundings. Seriously, your damn culture is destroying all of your attention spans! So, are you guys coming or do we have to drag you back?”
The Knifemaster was fuming. His lips were so pursed that they barely moved when he said, “Not until we get some food.”
“Fucking fine already!” I screamed. I pushed through them and shattered the window with a swing of my elbow. My forearm was bleeding pretty bad, but I ignored it and ushered my teammates in. I left a hastily written note along with $500 on the counter and then forced everyone out of the deli once they grabbed some food.I grabbed a couple bottles of water and a roll of gauze for myself before I ran out and pulled the security gate down. I loaded the water into my vest, and dressed my wounds as fast as I could.
“Team Pugnastics, do you copy?” I voice in my ear said so suddenly that it made me jump.
“Holy shit, Danica! What the fuck happened?” I replied, feeling a little relieved.
“There was a blackout on our end. No time to explain.” she answered, “You guys need to get out of there now. You were right, there are zombies, and they’re headed your way. You need to get back to the Awesomeplane! And help Jessie, Everett, and Steve. The zombies reached them first and trapped them inside the plane.”
“Why don’t they just come and pick us up if they’re already in the plane?” Criss asked. Everyone was now listening in on the conversation, each of them with a grave look on their faces.
“Because the Zombie grinder is attached to the plane and them taking off would mean that they would be spraying zombie chum all over Miami. You guys need to hurry though, you’re already surrounded. Minigan, we’ve updated your gps with the coordinates of the zombie hoards. You will see that they’re closing in on you from all sides. We don’t know where in the hell they’re coming from. Just get out of there!”
“Done and done. Over and out.” I said into the earpiece. I then looked at my crew and said, “Well, you heard te sexy mathmatician, let’s get out of here. We should take the rooftops; that would be the safest route. Let’s just hope these zombies are the pre-2000 zombies.”
As we all sprinted across the plaza in order to get to the building closest to the Awesomeplane!, Phlegm asked, “what do you mean by, ‘pre-2000 zombie?”
“it’s simple,” I replied, slightly out of breath, “In the zombie movies before the year 2000, all the zombies did when they moved was shamble. Then, in 28 Days Later, the zombies could run. And in Zombieland, they could climb. For some reason, at the dawn of a new millennium, zombies gained new abilities.”
“So what you’re saying is that you want the zombies with poor motor skills,” she replied.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Well, I’ve got some good news for you then, Minigan,” Mr. Expendable chimed in, ” that looks like the zombies we’re gonna be up against.” he pointed to the other end of the Plaza where a lone zombie shuffled in, groaning slightly. After a few moments of doing this, it spotted us. It then pointed directly at us, wailed a horrible, head splitting wail, and began to sprint at us along with four more that had just turned the corner.
“Fuck nuggets.” The Knifemaster said.
“Everyone,” I yelled, “climb up to the roof! Damien, you lead. I’ll hold these five off. GO!”
With Damien’s expert Parkour skills leading the way, most of my team scaled the façade with ease; this was never was the Knifemaster’s strong suit. I began to charge at the zombies, my machete and axe drawn, and from behind me I heard Mr. Expendable yell to me, “I hope they are the members of that awful band One Direction!”
In a perfect world, they would be the zombies I’m about to kill.
Once I was close enough, I threw my axe at the leading zombie’s head. The axe made its mark, and the zombie toppled to the ground. One down. With a vicious slash with my machete, I was able to behead the second zombie. The third zombie lunged at me, but it had crouched low enough that I was able to leap over it and stab the crown of it’s head. With a swift yank once I landed, I was able to remove the skull from the vertebrae and send the skull flying at the fourth. The flying skull hit the other zombie’s face so hard that both skulls shattered, and the fourth zombie dropped to the ground. I was close enough to the first zombie that I could pull the axe from its skull and swing it at the final zombie’s head. With a loud crunch, the axe connected with the zombie’s temple, instantly killing it.
With one swift pull, I removed the axe from its skull, hastily poured a bottle of water over it and my machete’s blades and returned them to their sheathes, and ran off to the building my team had scaled. As I ran, I looked at my GPS for the first time since Danica updated it. Jesus undead Christ. Other than the grey rectangles that represented the buildings and the large green square of the plaza, the entire screen was red. There had to be at least 10,000 zombies surrounding us. Needless to say, I climbed my fucking ass off. I had almost reached the top when the first group of zombies entered the far end of the Plaza. I heard one scream (They spotted me. Shit.), and then their heavy, rapid footsteps as they ran towards the building I was scaling. I reached the top and rolled over the ledge to safety, but when I looked back over, I saw the most confusing and terrifying sight ever. The zombies were scaling the building in the exact same fashion that my team and I had done. Their movements weren’t stiff and uncoordinated like a zombie, but fluid and quick like someone who was experienced with-
“Sweet virgin mother of dirty fucks, the zombies can parkour!” I screamed at my team, who had just begun to relax a little.
“What?!” they cried in unison.
“You heard me, let’s get a move- DAMIEN WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!!!!”
A zombie just appeared from the ledge right behind him. With one fluid motion, Damien Walters round-house kicked the head right of the zombie, and into another zombie that had breached the rooftop, sending it back over the edge. (And that, my friends, is the most badass sentence I will ever write.)
Before any of us really knew what we were doing, we had run to and climbed onto the ledge of a taller adjoining building. This one was much longer too, giving us some much needed space between us and the zombies. However, it wasn’t long enough. If it had just extended about 20 more feet out, we could possibly jump to the roof across the street. Sure we’d be going in the wrong direction, but it was better than staying where we were.
Phlegm then pointed to a water tower across the street, and said, “If I can hit that with my grappling gun, we could zipline across!”
I could have kissed the woman. “Where did you get the grappling gun?” I asked instead.
“Everett gave it to me before we separated. He thought we could use it.”
“Awesome,” I replied, “All the more reason we need to get to him, Jessie, and Steve and save them.”
She handed off the grappling gun Criss (He has the best aim. You know, magic aim) and he fired it right into the center of the water tower. We tied the other end of the cable to a sturdy looking antennae near the ledge. One at a time, but as quickly as possible, my crew made it across until only The Knifemaster and I were left. That was when a zombie jumped up to the far end of the roof we’re on. Once it saw us, it sprinted as us, hurdling over air conditioning units and generators like he had years of practice.
“Well, I just soiled myself,” The Knifemaster said rather casually given our situation.
“No time to regroup,” I hurridly explain, locking his zipline trolley into place and kicking him over the edge. He screamed briefly as he zipped across the street.
Now it was my turn. The zombie had closed in fast. I pulled my Desert Eagle out of its holster and fired a single shot into the forhead of the zombie. It stumbled, fell forward and slid a foot or two before coming to a complete stop. The relief was short lived. More zombies had climbed up at the far end of the room and were now barreling down on me. I quickly set myself up on the line and jumped off the roof. I had almost made it to the other side before the antennae bent forward, because fuck me. Since it had bent, the end attached to the antennae was now lower than the water tower end, so I began to drift backwards. With my hands, I pulled myself back towards my team. And that was when the antennae gave out completely. With a loud crack, I felt myself swinging towards the red brick of the building I was trying to get to. I hit the wall hard, its hot, rough surface scraping my cheek. There were several screeches from below, meaning they had spotted me. Seriously, fuck me. I climbed up the wall as quickly as I could, But the zombies could climb so much faster, and within no time, I could feel them grabbing at my boots. Once I was close enough to the top, I felt the hands of Criss and Damien lift me to safety. They then jumped with me to the left, and the giant water tower toppled over, spilling its contents over the edge and onto the climbing zombies. I looked up to see that The Knifemaster, Mr. Expendable, and Phlegm had knocked out two of the water tower’s supports and then tipped the thing over.
We had finally caught a break when we realized that we would mostly have to cross alleys to get back to Everett, Jessie, and Steve. We didn’t waste any time being thankful, but instead immediately took to jumping from one rooftop, and landing with a somersault on the next. Several zombies had made their way up to the rooftops and were now running after us, mathing our parkour moves with their own. Periodically, I would turn around and fire one or two bullets at them, and The Knifemaster would throw a throwing knife or two at them before we would continue on our way.
At one such point, The Knifemaster throws a knife at a zombie, which hits it directly in its eye socket, and then says to me as we start running again, “Don’t even fucking say it, Minigan”
“What?” I ask between breaths.
“You goddamn know what,” he replies too, also out of breath.
In an offended tone, I stated, “This really isn’t the time to be having this conversation, Jibbles, what with zombies chasing us and all. You know, the Zombies that I said existed.”
“You know, Minigan, even in situations like these you still manage to be a total asshole.”
We laughed a little bit, and then jumped up a wall to a higher roof. Once we were on top, we saw the rest of our team sprinting across a long, narrow catwalk that should take us from the current rooftop to the final rooftop before our parking lot and the Awesomeplane!. The Knifemaster and I joined in on their dash right as a dozen or so more zombies crested the ledge and started after us.
The Catwalk was shaky and took us right above the hoard of undead on the street. Keeping my eyes away from the crawling ground below, and instead on the backs of my team’s heads, I made it across without any incident. When I looked back, 50 to 60 zombies were fighting their way across the catwalk.
“Bloody violent fucks all around,” Damien shouted.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“We’re fucking trapped, that’s what’s the matter! I just looked over the ledge facing the parking lot, and there’s nothing between the plane and us but zombies.And now we have a line of zombies headed down our only exit. How the fuck are zombies able to parkour anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I frantically shouted back, “How were the zombies in Zombieland able to climb amusement park rides? How were the zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake able to run? How were the zombie strippers in the movie Zombie Strippers able to fucking work the pole? It’s just how the zombies of the new millennium work.” Then it hit me. “Holy shit! All of those movies were from 2000-2009! We’re in a new decade, which means the zombies can do do more than what they could three years ago! God seriously fucked us this decade!”
I ran to the ledge facing the parking lot, and to my dismay, the zombie hoard was so thick that you couldn’t see the pavement. A football field away was the Awesomeplane, hovering right out of reach from the zombies, but also tethered to the ground by the Zombie Grinder. On the Brightside, that seemed to be working perfectly. A constant flow of zombies were climbing the stairs, reaching for the brains, and falling right into the grinding pit. We should have built more of those.
“Minigan,” Phlegm asked with terror in her voice, “What are we going to do?”
Everyone was looking to me. I theorized, “Maybe we can destroy the catwalk before they get to us.” I looked at the structural componants of the catwalk. Fuck. Despite it being shaky, the damn thing was structurally sound. “If only we had a bomb or something, we could blow it up.”
“I have bombs,” Mr. Expendable said. We all turned to him, shocked. “Well,” he said, “I know we’re not supposed to have them in urban areas, because we could hurt civilians, but I thought just bringing some along if we needed them couldn’t hurt.”
“Very good point.” I said quickly, “If we get out of this, we’ll all be required to carry bombs and grappling guns with us on urban missions. Now, hand me one of those bombs.”
He rummaged through the sack on his back, pulled out a black sphere about the size of a coconut, and handed it to me. Although it was the size of a coconut, it weighed at least three times as much. It was perfectly smooth except for a thin groove that ran the full way around the center. Irregularly scattered along the groove was a series of short white lines, that, when lined up, armed the bomb. This was one of Everett’s bombs. I lined up the lines and then rolled the bomb onto the catwalk. It rolled to a stop about 15 yards away from our roof and maybe 20 feet away from the zombie out in front. In a crazed frenzy, the zombies ran and jumped and scrambled at the bomb. When the zombie in the lead bent over to gram it, the bomb exploded , sending zombie limbs and pieces of metal off in every direction. The remaining catwalk groaned, and after several loud cracking noises, the catwalk swayed, ripped off of the other building, and crashed to the ground, crushing and impaling countless zombies.
“Well, that’s one problem solved,” The Knifemaster said, “But how do we get to the others?”
“I have an idea,” I said to him. I then turned to Mr. Expendable and asked, “How many more bombs do you have?”
“5”
“Good.” I reply, “Criss, do you think you can levitate over to the Awesomeplane?”
“Think?” he asked incredulously , “Pfsh, I’ve levitated across much longer distances than that.”
“Do you think you could drop the bombs as you levitated across the parking lot?”
“That I can’t do,” he replied, “All of my concentration needs to be on levitating otherwise I’ll just fall to the ground.”
“Then do you think you could carry someone across?” I asked.
“Hmm, I’ve never tried it, but I guess I could give it a shot.”
“Awesome,” I said back. “Phlegm,” I said turning to her, “You’re the lightest out of all of us. You’ll need to hold on to Criss and drop the bombs into the zombie crowd. Make sure you space it out enough so that we can get the entire way to the Awesomeplane!, Got it?”
“Got it.” She answered. She took the bag of bombs from Mr. Expendable, and then wrapped her arms tightly around Criss’s torso. After about a second of both of them being still, they lifted off the ground and drifted towards the Awesomeplane!. She dropped the first bomb about ten feet away from the building. When it exploded, it left a zombie free crater, big enough for the remaining four of us to stand in, plus some extra room for each of us. Following my lead, we jumped down from the roof onto a streetlight, and then swung ourselves into the crater. In a flash, I had assembled my Justice stick and was ready to kick some mother fucking undead ass. Once Damien, Mr. Expendable, and The Knifemaster hand landed in the crater, they had their weapons drawn and were fighting our way out of the crater. The next few minutes were a blur of growling zombies, the clang of our weapons, and zombie gore. All around us, zombie body parts were flying . The damn zombies couldn’t even touch us. We were way too efficient in killing. Another bomb went off somewhere ahead of us. We watched as the firey plume sent several smaller black balls into the air. For each of those balls was another explosion, and from those firey plumes came dozens more, even smaller balls.
“Cluster bombs,” I said, to the other three, “that will make it easier on us. What all kinds of bombs did you get, Mr. Expendable?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered between beheading a particularly rotten zombie that appeared to be an old woman and chopping a zombie missing most of its face with an axe, “I just grabbed a bunch of different ones.
The zombie crowd got thinner once we got to where Phlegm dropped the cluster bomb, so we were able to move a little faster. However, the sound of another bomb exploding much farther away told us that we weren’t moving fast enough. We tried to pick up our pace, but it was no use; the third bomb dropped and sounded even further away.
I tapped my earpiece, and said, “Phlegm, tell Criss to slow down, we cannot keep up with you guys.”
“I’ve been trying to,” she replied, “But he’s so far in the zone that I don’t even think he can hear me.”
“Fuck,” the four of us cried in unison.
After a few more minutes the fourth bomb went off and Phlegm’s voice came back on the earpiece, “We’ve reached the plane. How far along are you guys?”
“Not Far,” I answered grimly. “Everett, are you guys ok?”
“We’re fine, and I discovered that the zombie remains are highly combustible,” he said, “Which is good, because the plane’s waste tank is full and the zombie grinder is overflowing.”
“Good.” I said, “We’ll save that for once we’re all on the plane. Right now you need to use the dehydration ray.”
“Got it, Boss” he said, “Over and out.”
“We need to fucking hurry,” I said to the rest of my team, which was pointless, because they already knew. There was an open space ahead of me, and at the other end, a particularly muscular and ugly looking zombie. I sprinted at him, and he at me. At the last second, I jabbed the end of my Justice Stick into the ground, and pole vaulted over the zombie. While in the air, I flipped my Justice Stick around, and impaled the zombie from the head down. When I landed, I whipped my Justice stick, it still impaling the zombie, over my head, and smashed it into another zombie. I then swung it around and hit every zombie in my path until the first zombie finally slid off. The other three caught up with me when we heard a loud hum begin.
“The Dehydration ray!” Mr. Expendable exclaimed, “Everyone, drop to the ground!”
Right as we did, a wave of intense heat washed over us. Suddenly, the zombies didn’t matter, my teammates didn’t matter, the fact that I was crouching in some weird gloop didn’t matter, al that mattered was that I get out of this heat. The feeling consumed my being. It became so intense that I swear time stood still. Within what felt like an eternity, the heat disappeared, and I suddenly found myself in the middle of a petrified forest made entirely of zombies.
The four of us were running towards the Awesomeplane! before I fully understood what had happened. And despite Everett blasting a large section of the zombies with the dehydration ray, there were still thousands more waiting for us. We bolted past the dried zombies, knocking over whichever ones were in our way and letting them fall to the ground and shatter like vases.
We made it to the Awesomeplane! while Jessie was pulling the hose out of the waste tank and closing it up. We all made it on board before Everett threw the final bomb, a “firebomb” he said with a smile, into the gloop that I remember not caring about just thirty seconds ago. The plane lifted off right as the bomb ingnited and torched the entire parking lot, killing the all of the zombies.
“We made it!” Phlegm exclaimed, “We’re alive!”
“Not so fast,” an unfamiliar voice said from one of the speakers.
“Who is this?” I asked in my firmest voice, which sounded more like a growl.
“Oh, I will not be giving that away so easily, Awesomesquad!.” The voice said in a sinister tone.I immediately guessed that normally this guy sounded like a whiny prick. “I just wanted to thank you.”
“Thank us for what?” The Knifemaster asked.
“I wanted to thank you for all the valuable information you gave me today. You see, This little zombie apocalypse was just to get you guys distracted enough so that I could hack into your mainframe and steal all of your vital information. This information will come in handy for me later on when I need to kill all of you. Goodbye!” The mysterious man laughed manically before the connection was cut.
We all sat in our seats quietly for a second or two before I finally said, “Well, shit.”
Ramblings of a Madman 