Teenage Wasteland (I Zombie) (2 page)

“Back off, bitch,” I shouted as my foot came down to crush and shatter the bones in her hand and wrist. The broken limb didn’t faze the monster. She swung out with her other arm and hooked my leg. With an inhuman yank, she dropped me. My head slammed into the hardwood floor with enough
thud
to send stars into a Bob Fosse tribute over my field of vision.

The zombie pulled on my leg. Slowly, she was dragging me to her clacking, drooling mouth. “So you want me now?” I screamed as I kicked out. My foot just missed her head. Before I could attempt a second assault, the door to the room crashed open.

“Jingo!” Mikko’s voice rose above the din. I looked up to see her training my Glock on the head of the zombie. I rolled away just in time for the bullet to pass through the Moaner’s head and into the space I’d just occupied.

“
Ike, ike
,” she shouted.

She didn’t have to say “go” a third time. I was up and rushing out the door. I ran to the circle of dead kids and scooped up my belongings.

“Who did this?” I asked, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

“I don’t know his name. He went aggro, snatched up someone’s weapon, unloaded the mag, and left. I ducked under the couch before he had a chance to send a slug through my skull.”

We sped out of the building and into the cold, dark night. The game was over. Mikko and I would have to take our special brand of
thrill
elsewhere.

Our shouts and laughter echoed off the walls of the city to challenge the undead to a new game…another Seven Minutes in Hell.

two | death, death everywhere

We turned a corner and shot down the barrel of a trash-lined alley. I lifted both arms and brought our forward progress to a halt. We stood in absolute silence, waiting for the sounds of the Wasteland to cry foul.

The city spoke a different language now—one of fear and hopelessness. The majority of survivors listened, but only on the surface; they failed to hear the music beneath the chaos. For whatever reason, youth got it. We managed to face and embrace the new truth. No matter what fate tossed our way, we went with it. Maybe it was an ever-expanding sense of apathy. Maybe it was our love of change and the fact that my generation’s chi was grounded in leveling up to face the next boss.

I game, therefore I am.

“This way,” I whispered.

Mikko and I dashed to the end of the alley and through a door that sang a monstrous metallic song to the undead.
Come all ye faithless, joyless, and triumvirate.

Beyond the door was darkness. Mikko slipped her Mag Lite out and slashed its brilliant LED beam across the great unknown.

A kitchen.

My stomach growled. How long had it been since I’d eaten?

The second our eyes adjusted, the smell rose to greet us.

“Oh, my God,” Mikko hissed. “It smells like a steaming deuce straight out of the ass of Jabba the Hut.”

“I love it when you talk Star Wars.”

Mikko jabbed me in the back with her light. “I could talk about knitting, and it would turn you on.”

She was right; of that there was no doubt.

“We can’t stay here, Jingo. The stench is too much.”

Mikko’s radiant beam danced across the far wall. It landed on a door. “Over there.”

“Where?”

I grabbed her wrist and guided the light back to the doorway. In the center, at head height, a small glass window beckoned. In the middle of the window was a smear of a hand print.

“I don’t like the looks of that, Jingo.”

“Don’t go epic on me now, Mikko. It’s either forward or backward, and you know how I feel about backward.”

Mikko huffed. “Whatever.”

“Say it.” I demanded.

“Forward is life. Backward is death,” Mikko spoke with a robot’s apathy. “I still don’t get it, Jingo.”

I cautiously moved toward the door. Mikko immediately fell into step behind me. As we slowly drew near, the circle of light on the door grew larger.

Crash
.

A brief symphony of chaos rang out from the other side of the door. I could feel Mikko tense behind me. I reached around and placed a calming arm on her lower back.

Neither of us dared speak. This dance of danger had become second nature. Sound was our cue to disappear into the shadows and wait out whatever storm was about to strike. No matter how in love with making a game of the apocalypse we were, logic often dictated we shy away from certain doom.

Mikko switched off the light. Darkness collapsed in on us. She wrapped an arm around my waist…the pressure was comforting. I was trapped in a sandwich of life and death. Before me a deadly unknown; behind me, complete and utter joy.

Such was the new world order.

We waited.

Another sound—this time a
thump
.

“Give me the gun,” I whispered.

“Are you out of your mind, Jingo?”

“Yes, I am. Now give me the gun, before whatever that is catches wind of your sexy self and pierces the veil of that door.”

“Fine,” Mikko huffed, and handed me the weapon.

“Shine the light on the floor in front of me.”

The soft click of the Mag Lite brought to life the bluish LED beam and spilled it over the stained tile. There was nothing in the way between my feet and the door. Even so, I stepped with the caution of a mine walker. A single sound could summon the dead and dying. We’d come too far to make such a rookie move. Collectively, we were Player One, and we were beyond ready.

I placed one Chuck Taylor in front of the other. I glanced down to my feet to see the two words of inspiration scrawled on the white toes of my shoes:

Teenage Wasteland
.

Every oldie we came across assumed I was a classic rock fan. The last time someone shouted “Baba O’Riley” at me, I did my best Pete Townsend, ending with two flipped fingers flying high in the air. The resultant chase was glorious. Anyone near my age got it…knew we were a cast-off generation, wasting precious resources, and had next to nothing to offer society.
We
were the Wasteland, and society never hesitated to remind us of that.

Millennials.

We knew,
knew,
in the end, we’d be the survivors. Why? We were used to adaptation, accustomed to living an agile life. Technology was our one true God, and we lived by its never-ending mantra of “evolve or die”.

When I reached the door, I turned my head to the side and placed an ear to the cold metal that stood between us and whatever lurked on the other side.

Nothing.

I waited.

Surely whatever it was would sound off again; either that or it would smell the fresh meat and step up to the barbecue, bib in place.

A muffled female voice rose from the darkness. “Did you find anything?”

“No,” another female answered.

The two voices continued on, muttering and mumbling.

Relief flooded my system and my breathing returned to some semblance of normal. I gestured for Mikko to follow and pressed the door open just enough to allow me to see into the room beyond. Mikko focused the beam of light into the crack. On the other side of the door was a restaurant. My hopes immediately shot through the roof, but were quickly dashed back to Earth when the smell of rot forced itself into my nose.

“Holy crap, Jingo,” Mikko whispered under her breath. The second her voice ventured through the crack in the door, the ghostly voices on the other side fell to silence.

I turned to Mikko and nodded toward the restaurant. She took in a deep breath and responded in the affirmative. Without hesitation, I opened the door and we stepped through.

“Hello?” I called out softly.

My question was answered with laughter—giggles, actually—from opposite ends of the room. When all the funny died, a girl’s voice whispered eerily, “Death, death everywhere; I see, I smell, I taste. When I reach out and touch your soul, we both begin the chase.”

The second voice, from the other side of the room, repeated the chant. Before I had a chance to solve whatever mystery the Scooby Doos had tossed out, a pair of ear-piercing screeches shocked my heart into death metal mode. Next thing I knew, a slip of a shadow passed before me and a hand smacked into my chest.

“Death,” the pre-pubescent voice sang out as she darted back into the darkness.

“Jingo,” Mikko warned.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking. Son of a snitch. I’m not in the mood for games.”

“Them’s the rules, boyfriend o’ mine.”

I loved it when she called me her boyfriend…even when the words surrounding the title brought nothing but frustration.

She was right, though. The rules of the Wasteland were simple—you play the game, no matter what said game may be. Half the time, we’d get caught trying to figure out the rules of whatever the hell we were playing mid-flight.

This was one such instance.

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed, and raced off. Mikko quickly fell in step beside me. The beam of the flashlight punched its way through the darkness to peel back whatever lurked within the shadows.

“What’s the endgame here, Jingo? Catch ‘em and call ‘em death?”

We turned a corner and sped down a hallway.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “What was the chant?”

Mikko repeated the macabre little ditty.

I pondered the words. “These are little girls we’re dealing with. Most likely it’s as simple as repeating the tagging gesture they used. That’ll be all on you, Mikko. I’m not about to go uncle creepy with those two.”

Mikko unleashed a nervous laugh. We’d actually had an uncle creepy in our last gang. The man was impossible to be near without feeling the need to wash, repent, repeat. It came as no surprise that the only way to get rid of the man was to leave the group ourselves. Since then, Mikko and I had a very strict uncle creepy policy.

No mas
.

“Understood,” Mikko replied.

We reached the end of the hall and froze. The building was eerily quiet, so hearing two young girls shouldn’t be an issue.

Unless the moment was complicated and exacerbated by a damning chorus of Moaners.

“Oh, hell no,” Mikko huffed. “This just isn’t our day, Jingo.”

“It’s always my day when I’m with you.”

Mikko slugged my shoulder. “Keep your cheese to yourself. I’m out of crackers anyway.”

I could feel the smile radiating from her mouth. It was fleeting, but there.

“We can’t stay here,” I said with finality.

“Obvious much?” Mikko replied with full-on snark.

Again the moans came.

“Damn Moaners,” I said, disdain and bile in a race to meet the entryway of my mouth.

“What do we do, Jingo?” Mikko asked, her fear a bit too obvious.

“Can you pinpoint the location of the Moaners? I heard a rumor that there’s a guy who has this trick…”

“No, Jingo, I have no tricks. It’s just me.”

The moans called out, this time louder and more threatening. The undead battle cries were quickly followed by the giggling sound of girls.

“What the hell? Why are those two still here?” I said–too loudly.

Mikko gave me a wicked look that screamed
shut up
and pointed. “That way!”

“You sure?” I asked politely.

“As sure as I can be in a dilapidated building filled with haunted kids and the undead. So, what do we do?”

“Follow the Wasteland rules, Mikko.”

“Rules were made to be broken, Jingo.”

“Touché, Mikko.”

Together, we crept back to the mouth of the hallway and stopped. Mikko cast the Mag Lite beam out of the narrow space and into the room. A small figure darted past…flowing long hair and giggles trailed behind her.

“Death, death everywhere; I see, I smell, I taste. When I reach out and touch your soul, we both begin the chase,” the girls sang out in unison.

From behind, the sounding bell of the undead rang out.

I turned to Mikko. “It’s time to break some rules.”

Her eyes grew wide…too wide, in fact.

“What?” As soon as I asked the question, the answer made itself known.

Mikko shook her head.

“You can’t be serious, Mikko.”

“If we leave, those two girls are meat.”

I grabbed Mikko by the shoulders. “And if we don’t,
we’re
meat.”

“Sorry, Jingo, I can’t just leave them. Game or no, I won’t become
that
person.”

She had me there. We’d so often complained about society spiraling into an abyss of
selfie
-righteousness, where the only mantra to apply was
me me me me me.
I hated that, in this moment of post-apocalyptic danger, she was right.

“Fine,” I huffed. “I think our best bet is to ignore the girls and take out the Moaners.”

Mikko nodded.

The moaning sounded.

I reached to my lower back and grabbed my pistol. Under normal circumstances, there’d have been a level of comfort in wrapping my fingers around the carbon grip. This time, a cold chill snaked up my arm, past my shoulder, and into my chest.

Be still, my heart.

Mikko spotted me pulling the weapon out. She shook her head and placed a finger over her lips.

Again…Mikko was right. The second I unleashed the bang bang, an undead flashmob would break out, and we’d be the after-party snacks. I slowly tucked the gun back into my pants, making sure the safety was very much on.

“We need to find…”

Before I could finish the sentence, Mikko turned back to me. “The kitchen.”

Together we whispered, “Knives.”

Without the briefest pause, we backtracked down the hall and made our way to the eye-watering stench. Mikko cut the darkness with her beam of glory until it landed on a rack of knives that screamed ‘malice’. Mikko grabbed a nine-inch carving knife and I a cleaver. Before she had a chance to question my choice of cutlery, I dashed out of the kitchen and raced back to the war zone.

There are times I wonder if the undead horde knows just how underprepared it is for battle. The inability to comprehend stealth would certainly be their undoing at some point…or so one might think. Or maybe having sheer numbers worked in their favor enough that silence was irrelevant.