Bonus Story – Zombie A Go-Go

From the Misadventures of Butch Quick I've believed a lot of dumb shit in my life, people just love to fool themselves, but some shit is too dumb even for me to swallow. Vampires, werewolves, Santa Claus, and honest politicians. Topping the list of things too outrageous for even me to buy … zombies.

I do not believe in zombies.

* * *

The western sky was red fading to black, the Paradise Valley light pollution just a distant lighter haze to the north, and below me, in The Pit, the party was still pretty much under control. As under control as X raves ever were anyway. There was a lot of heavy petting and ass-grabbing masquerading as dancing, but that’s X for you. At least it doesn’t make you eat people’s faces, like some of the new shit out there on the streets.

The Pit is one of those out of the way places that attracts partiers from time to time, an abandoned rock quarry in the hills south of the city. A stone dimple at the ass-crack end of a shit gravel road. The Pit was half a city block around and thirty feet deep, accessible by a single steep and rusting iron staircase. A few old sheds and ancient rock crushers loomed nearby to lend atmosphere, and did a nice job I thought. Part of an old conveyer gantry still jutted out over the edge of The Pit. The rest lay dismantled and scattered at the bottom.

It’s not used as often these days. There’s no cell reception at The Pit, and the current generation of creampuffs go to pieces without their cell phones.

I’d considered trying to keep a lookout from one of the old catwalks that seemed to hold the decaying mess together but decided against it. Just because everyone down there was stoned didn’t make them blind. The guy standing at the top of the steps handing out goodie bags to the new arrivals would see me for sure, and I didn’t want anyone to see me until I was ready to act. I didn’t want her to spot me until it was too late to run away.

I’m Butch Quick, or as I’m sometimes known on the streets of Paradise Valley, that big, fuck-ugly, sasquatch-looking guy. It’s an unfair comparison, since Native American’s don’t have that much body hair. If you’re looking for the missing link, there are plenty of rednecks in Eastern Washington who fit that bill better than I do.

I don’t spend all of my time sneaking around abandoned quarries to spy on ravers. I don’t think I could handle it, that techno crap they play makes me want to hurt people. Mostly I repo cars and collect bail jumpers for my Uncle Higheagle, owner of Higheagle Classic Cars and Eagle Eye Bailbonds. This wasn’t a normal night though. It wasn’t even a normal rave.

There were lights set up around the perimeter of The Pit, one pointing down from the catwalk above the rock crushers, another pointed down from a crumbling outcrop on the far side, probably a few more I couldn’t see from where I sat with the binoculars. The lights were still dark, the only light came from a bonfire down in The Pit.

The partiers below me, the ones who hadn’t already stripped naked – that X just seems to bring out the naked in some people – were dressed up as zombies.

A zombie themed rave in an old-school horror movie setting.

I was in the right place, now it was just a matter of waiting for the right time and keeping my eyes peeled for The Director and his fresh young starlet.

Vikki Greene.

They arrived just when I was beginning to second-guess myself.

A small U-Haul rolled up and parked alongside the clusterfuck of rust bucket vans, pickups, and cars. The girl who hopped down from the passenger side was a slightly older and punkier version of the girl from my photo. She wore tight black pants and a muscle shirt. Bright red hair stuck up in sporty spikes around a pale, pixyish face. She was smiling, bouncing with each step. Excited.

The Director came around the other side and joined her a moment later.

He was an older guy, stocky, blocky, his gray hair buzz-cut and his face clean-shaven. Dressed in a crisp black suit. Not exactly what I’d expected, more than a bit out of place. He looked like a banker or lawyer, except for the cane he carried, black with a skull for a handle. It looked ornamental rather than functional. He rolled the U-Haul’s back door up and motioned toward the leaning shacks at the pit’s edge.

Three guys rushed from the darkness inside the nearest shack, next to the edge of The Pit, and scrambled inside. They came out a minute later packing a camera, a big one on a tall tripod, and what looked like a lot of antique studio recording equipment.

They carried their load of shit back into the shed, and a few minutes later I heard the distant rumble of a generator. The spotlights joined the bonfire at the center of the pit, stuttering and flashing like strobes, and the ravers cheered when the lights fell on them. It gave the whole event the texture of an LSD nightmare, techno music and raving zombies in a Stone Age discotheque.

The men collected short stacks of bills from The Director and bags of party supplies from Mr. Goodie Bags, high-fived each other and joined the fun below.

Vikki waited by the U-Haul, bouncing with anticipation. Ready to get the show started. The Director took her by the arm, and she settled to listen to him. He pointed down into The Pit with the point of his cane and made lots of very directorial hand gestures.

Maybe they were discussing motivation and subtext.

She was on her way, Mr. Goodie Bags didn’t offer her any of his chemical music enjoyment enhancers as she passed him by, and a minute later she was lost in the crowd.

The Director disappeared around the far side of the old shacks and appeared again a few seconds later climbing a dangerous looking spiral staircase that led up the catwalks.

There was no call of Action, but I thought the show had started. Maybe not a porn movie after all, which would be a relief to Vikki’s old man. Still, she was sixteen, and The Director had encouraged her to run away from home to star in this cheap-ass movie of his.

He was damn lucky Vikki’s old man hadn’t wanted to get the law involved.

Which was why I was there.

I decided to sit back and wait it out, give The Director a chance to shoot his zombie flick, then follow them after the party broke up. Grab the girl when there weren’t fifty or so ravers standing between us.

A few minutes later the screaming started down in The Pit, and my plan was shot to hell.

* * *

Thad Greene was an old acquaintance, not quite a friend, whose company I was too often forced to endure out of obligation to my then girlfriend and future wife, Beth Trout. Thad’s younger sister was one of Beth’s best friends, and Thad was an unrepentant tag along. I never cared for the guy much, but I don’t care for most people.

Thad Greene was a pompous and upwardly mobile kiss-ass who majored in business management and had a five-year plan to marry rich so he’d never have to apply his education in the real world. Like him or not, you have to give him some credit. His five-year plan had worked, and he’d managed it in only three years. By graduation he was engaged to a cute little-miss-moneybags who smoked a lot of dope, dressed like a ‘60s hippy, and drove her daddy’s hand-me-down Beamer. She was the youngest sister of Paradise Valley’s currently reigning District Attorney, the spoiled baby-girl of the well monied Reynold’s family.

I didn’t see him much after college until Paradise Valley’s very own serial killer, Redwolf, killed my wife and daughter. Thad’s brother-in-law tried his hardest to hang the crime on me, and Thad got his own fifteen minutes of fame when he appeared on the news. He screamed for my blood and pumped out the tears in an academy award-worthy performance that the local press ate up. They still play those clips from time to time, whenever Redwolf makes the news again.

So, when he called me at just after nine that Saturday morning, I quite naturally suggested he fuck off and die. I may have even offered to help him before I hung up. He called back, and I hung up again. On his third callback I realized it would be easier to just let him talk, and that was when he laid his sob story on me.

Sucker that I am, I swallowed it.

We met face to face for the first time in years an hour later, and you should be proud of me, I didn’t even try to hit him.

* * *

I was between cars at the time and using my Uncle Higheagle’s favorite showroom eye candy, a restored 1927 Indian Ace, to get around. It was a beautiful machine, scarlet red with gold striping. A bit on the small side for a large guy like me, the poor machine seemed almost to cringe away every time I hoisted my seven foot, three-hundred-pound frame onto it, but it was damn fun to drive.

Uncle Higheagle had reluctantly allowed me to borrow it, and his threat of a slow and painful death if I did anything bad to it sounded only half serious.

I had most of Main Street to myself, a slow Saturday morning downtown, and saw Thad before he saw me. I found a handy spot a few feet from where he sat and parked.

“Butch,” he said. He put out his hand, then seemed to think better of it and dropped it to his side. “You’re looking … uh, good.”

He took in my face, the new scars and marks on it since the last time he’d seen it up close, and cringed back a step.

I indicated my disinterest in continued small talk.

“Cut the shit, Greene. What have you got for me?”

He blushed and took his seat.

We’d decided to meet on neutral ground. He suggested Starbucks. I vetoed it and told him to meet me at Greasy’s Grill, a little place on Main Street in the east valley. Good food but a cramped dining room. I preferred to sit at the table outside on the sidewalk, which was where Thad was waiting.

It was a favorite of Beth’s.

Not sure why I picked the place, I’m not normally given to nostalgia.

I took the seat across from him at the outside table and eyed his cup of coffee with a pang of jealousy.

He wasted no more time on small talk, slapped a sheath of folded pages down on the table between us.

“Butch, please help me. I know that I’ve …,” and there he seemed to lose his guts again.

I decided to help out.

“You said I was a monster and called for my blood on national television,” I said. “I remember. The clips are on YouTube.”

“Butch, please. It’s my daughter.”

I reached across the table and he flinched back again. I took his cup of coffee and finished it off in a gulp, then took the stack of printed pages and unfolded them. Figured if I was going to accept this ridiculous chore I might as well get started.

I ordered another coffee and read what he’d given me. Some social media chatter and private messages between Thad’s daughter, sixteen-year-old wild child Vikki, and a guy who called himself The Director. Then emails.

“Have you tried having his email address traced?” Simple stuff, and not one of my skills.

“Yes,” he said. “The address is rerouted through random nodes, scrambled. Completely anonymous.”

Whatever the hell that means, I thought.

I went back to the emails and spent the next several minutes being a semiprofessional snoop.

In a nutshell, bored, over-privileged teenage girl meets creepy, and apparently anonymous independent film director online. Cue the slightly inappropriate relationship. Girl flirts a little and director compliments her on her obvious star quality. Things continue in that vein for a few months, then The Director tells her he’s coming to Paradise Valley to shoot a new movie, a zombie flick he expects to be the next big breakaway.

Like The Blair Witch Project with raving zombies, he said, and I’d like you to play the lead, if you’re up to it.

Her reply: Fuck me ‘till I cry … hell yeah!

The last email from The Director the previous Wednesday: On my way now. Will call you when I’m in town. Can’t wait to meet you, Vikki. You’re gonna be a star!

I refolded the sheets and set them down.

Next he handed me a photograph, a year or so out of date, but unless she’d done something drastic to her colorful appearance it would be good enough. I’d have no trouble recognizing the real-life Vikki if I spotted her.

“And what makes you think I can find her?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it. I felt for him a little, I knew what it was like to lose a child. But he was a still an asshole.

He squirmed a little, blushed again.

“Because you know … people. You have connections.” He was unexpectedly tactful. Then he said something that actually surprised me. “And you’re smart about stuff like this. I’ve heard stories.”

“From your good old brother-in-law?” The fact that DA Reynolds had once tried to have me locked up for life hadn’t stopped him from getting mixed up in one of my more memorable misadventures.

Thad regarded his hands sitting on the table with apparent interest and nodded.

Having a reputation sucks. People always expect you to live up to it.

“Listen, Butch, she’s only sixteen.” His blush went a shade deeper, anger trumping embarrassment. “I don’t know what this guy has in mind for her, but it can’t be good!”

I had a pretty good idea. I’m sure he did too. There may or may not be zombies involved, but creepy anonymous director plus rebellious sixteen-year-old girl says porn to me.

I pushed the folded sheets and photograph back to him.

“Call the cops. Sic your brother-in-law on him. This is their job, not mine.”

“I can’t.” He spoke quietly and seemed to shrink a few inches on his seat. “She’s been in too much trouble already, and …”

“And what?” My irritation was growing. My self-improving resolution not to hit the guy was getting harder to keep.

“If this gets out to the press … shit, I have to keep this quiet. We can’t have another scandal in the family now.”

I took a few moments to absorb this, to try to rationalize around the obvious subtext. I couldn’t.

“You don’t want to embarrass the rich relatives,” I said. “You’re afraid your little girl will make them look bad and they’ll punish you for it. Pull you off the cash cow’s tit?”

Thad said nothing.

“You’re a real piece of work,” I said.

“What do you want,” Thad asked. “How much for you to find Vikki and bring her back to me?”

“I can’t guarantee …,” I started, and Thad cut me off.

“I know, goddamnit! I know!” Heads inside Greasy’s turned toward us. A professorial looking fellow, lots of tweed and gray hair, a pipe dangling from the corner of his mouth and a pair of spectacles perched on the end of his nose, gave us a very disapproving look as he passed. “Just do what you can!”

He didn’t believe a word he was saying. In his mind it was a done deal. He cuts a check and I bring his girl back. A simple transaction that I was fucking up with semantics.

I named my price, a pretty outrageous one I thought.

He cut the check without a second’s hesitation.

Well shit, now I was freelancing as a private investigator.

Thad Greene was right about one thing. I did know people.

I also knew a walking modern art exhibit named Boswell.

* * *

“Quick! The fuck you doin’ Chief!” Boswell seemed happy to hear from me, which is not always the case with people. Our first encounter brought a bit of extra excitement, not to mention a pack of armed lunatics, into one of his nightly raves, and apparently he had enjoyed it quite a bit.

Boswell was a local dealer and lunatic who hosted nightly raves in an unused warehouse basement. He favored chain mail and leather clothing. Every available inch of flesh was inked or pierced, and he wore his hair in foot-long spikes. Boswell sold a shitload of X to his ravers, but he kept them off the streets, and that was something.

“Still breathing.” I caught myself smiling. Boswell was a scumbag dealer and a bit freaky for my taste, but he was a likable freaky scumbag dealer. “You still in business?”

“Hell yeah, I’m still in business!” Talking to Boswell was an adventure. You had to brace yourself for every reply. “You gonna grace us with your presence again? I didn’t think that was your scene.”

“You guys are too wild for me,” I said. “But you keep your ear to the ground, right? You’d know if there’s another party going on?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely, Chief! “Whatchu lookin’ for?”

“Zombies,” I said, and managed not to laugh at myself.

Boswell did laugh. “That sounds wild, Chief! Maybe I’ll do that for Halloween!”

“Nothing like that going down any time soon then?”

“News to me if there is,” he said, settling back into normal conversation.

I was about to thank him and hang up when he said, “If you’re not stuck on the whole zombie thing there is something big going down tonight at The Pit, and that place hasn’t seen heavy action in years.”

“There is?” It wasn’t exactly gold, but maybe I’d struck something.

“Zero shit my man. You know The Pit, right?”

I knew The Pit.

* * *

The screaming started, a single hysterical high-pitched voice ringing out impressively over the rotten tooth throb of bad techno music. I snapped out of the semi-doze I'd been drifting into and scanned the jumble of bouncing bodies, a few more naked now and more stripping down even as I watched. A second scream sounded and I found the screamer, a bald chick in black bra, panties, and combat boots was doing a really excellent job pretending to be bitten by a naked man in zombie makeup, splattered with fake blood.

I zoomed in on them and was impressed by the man's ferocity and the spray of fake arterial blood as he ripped a chunk of flesh free from her neck. The spray fanned out and drenched the ravers closest to them. More screams, as if that had been their mark.

I'm not a big fan of the zombie genre, but I could give credit where it was due. Even with a stoned all amateur cast and the shoestring budget the setup suggested, The Director made it convincing.

Too convincing maybe, because the panic that spread out from the pair, zombie and victim in a blood drenched death struggle, was real.

When the raver in the zombie makeup went for the bald girl again and tore most of her right cheek off with his teeth, I realized that was real too.

While I was trying to work out just what the fuck was happening below, more screams sounded around The Pit. More attacks, more blood, and now there were a half-dozen zombie ravers bearing down on a half-dozen victims.

Vikki stood in the middle of it all, scared but keeping her cool, then began forcing herself through any gap she could make, fighting her way slowly back toward the steps.

I pointed my binoculars at the top of the steps, at the man with the goodie bags, saw him intercept the first panicky young man to reach the top. Mr. Goodie Bags pulled a small pistol from the waistband of his pants and popped the guy in the face.

The man flew off his feet and slammed into the people packed in behind him. The forward surge up the steps became a domino tumble back to the bottom. One of the tumbling bodies, a pretty Latino girl dressed in the height of zombie fashion, convulsed when she hit the bottom. When one of her friends tried to help her up, she raked with her fingers and snapped at the helping hand with bared teeth.

More wildly dancing figures tumbled to the dirt. Eyes rolled, foam frothed from grinning lips.

Down in The Pit, shit was getting real.

More gunfire.

From high above on the old catwalks, The Director watched, hands on hips.

Behind me, hidden off-road, was the old Indian Ace and the glow of Paradise Valley. Ahead was The Pit, a whole lot of crazy, and one gullible sixteen-year-old girl I'd agreed to return to her family.

I had to pick a direction, and damn quick.

I do not believe in zombies.

What I did believe in was good old fashioned human fuckery. That I'd seen proven time and again.

I picked a direction and ran.

Guess which direction I picked.

* * *

As I’ve said, the old Indian was a favorite of My Uncle's, another old Indian, and the young Indian riding it was going to get his ass kicked if he cracked it up. I tried to put that out of my mind as I rode full throttle toward the sound of techno and screaming.

This is usually the point at which I'll cobble together some god-awful Rube Goldberg style exit strategy. This time I gave it a pass and decided to play it by ear.

I do not believe in zombies.

Mr. Goodie Bags was my immediate problem. He was the one with the gun.

The old rock crushers loomed into view, backlit by the glow of the flashing lights and the bonfire blazing in The Pit. I could see a speck up in the catwalks, The Director overseeing his current masterpiece no doubt, and then I was weaving through the jumble of cars and trucks. A second later Mr. Goodie Bags turned my way, the grin on his face withering when he registered the giant Indian zooming toward him.

He raised his gun and fired. The wind from his first slug tugged at my shirtsleeve, the second pinged off the front wheel guard. My uncle was going to skin me for that. The third didn't even come close.

He screamed as I plowed into him and sent him flying up and over the jumble of bodies on the steps. He hit the chaos below and disappeared in a mass of bodies, some still dancing, oblivious to the deadly dance going on around them, some attempting to climb over the bodies piled in front of them.

The flashing lights and screaming made the scene feel even more like a bad acid trip than ever, unreal but still dangerous.

Was I really about to throw myself down into that mess?

I spotted Vikki again, near the center and working her way toward the steps.

A few more zombies, or whatever the hell they were, pounced and tore at wide-eyed, Xed out ravers. More bodies hit the ground convulsing, either from the strobe lights or the shit Mr. Goodie Bags gave them.

One of the chompers, a big gruesome fucker in threadbare cutoffs and metal mixing bowl helmet was bearing down on Vikki. He looked like an undead Viking, a lot of long, dirty blonde hair, a long, braided beard that wagged energetically with each stride he took, thick mustache and face dripping with blood.

A red-faced fat guy dripped with sweat and tore at his T-shirt. His scream was silent in the overall racket. When the shirt was gone, he tore at the skin of his bulging belly.

Young people these days, with their raves and techno music and drug-induced zombie rampages … they make my generation look almost sane and respectable.

I twisted the old Indian's throttle and went over the edge with a slight whimper of anticipation. The ride down those rusted metal steps was quick and bumpy, like a jackhammer to the nuts. I consoled myself by causing even more havoc as I rode down toward the bottleneck at the bottom.

Most scattered. A few who'd made it through the bottleneck bailed over the handrails. The ones still in my path were either bleeding out or foaming. One ran up to meet me with a gurgle of rage, and I amused myself further by running him down. There was a moment when I thought I was going to end up on my head, this was not an off-road bike and I was about as off-road as I could get, but I kept it upright and hit the bottom of The Pit with great relief and a burst of speed.

So far so good, and no one else was trying to shoot me yet.

The path ahead of me emptied rapidly, those still mostly in their right minds giving me plenty of room. Those who didn't...well, I was here to rescue one girl, not save every brain-blasted fuckwit who'd turned up as an extra in The Director's movie, a zombie themed snuff film made on a shoestring budget and some really mean street pharmaceuticals.

Most were getting away now, leaving the foamers and chompers behind to focus their attention on the biggest and noisiest distraction in The Pit.

Me.

I spotted Vikki in the thinning crowd. She was on the ground, pushing herself away from the Viking.

He loomed over her, shaking and shambling, his face splitting in a bloody grin.

I do not believe in zombies.

And to prove it to myself, I aimed the Indian at him and twisted the throttle.

We hit with a crunch, and he flew backward and landed in a sprawl.

The Indian reared up and threw me in a sprawl next to him.

Before I could shake off the tumble and rise, the chompers were surrounding me.

I do not believe in zombies, but these guys were going to have a try at changing my mind. The first one bent, lunged, and I kicked his feet out from under him. The second and third went for me, a stubby little guy in skid-marked briefs and a pretty little thing with a blue mohawk and a nose ring the size of a door knocker. I knocked most of the guy’s teeth out, but hesitated when the girl came at me. My uncle had raised me not to hit girls. No exceptions.

This one bit though, and really fucking hard.

I shook her off as the next one went for me, a scrawny guy in baggy black pants, a torn net shirt, and a lot of bad jailhouse ink.

He grinned and leaned down toward me as two others grabbed hold of my arms and bit. I brought their heads together with a satisfying smack and they hit the dirt twitching.

Almost on my feet, The Pit nearly empty now, the ravers split and the chompers scattering in search of easier pickings, when the dickweed in the net shirt grabbed me by the throat and went for my face with his broken and bloodied teeth.

There was a clang, blood trickled from his greasy mop of hair, and he tipped over sideways.

Vikki stood there, holding the long handle of a flat edged shovel in her hands like a baseball bat. She looked pleased with herself.

"An Indian riding an Indian," she said. "Gotta love the irony."

* * *

I did a quick dust off while she crouched in a menacing manner with her shovel. Another chomper charged us, and she whacked him in the face with the flat of the shovel's head.

A hurried moment later, I mounted Uncle Higheagle's old Indian and Vikki jumped onto the seat behind me. I spun a quick circle, almost mandatory when making a desperate escape on a cool motorbike, and threw a rooster tail of gravel at a fat, lurching chomper. He cried out, threw his hands over his face, stumbled off in another direction.

Vikki whooped, clearly enjoying herself.

I found the steep steps to the slightly saner world outside The Pit and went for it.

Vikki shouted something unintelligible at me. Between the echoing roar of the Indian and the warbling syntho-screeching of the music, normal communication was out, but when I turned my head to her, I found a finger pointing at two o'clock near The Pit's far wall. Two lady chompers advanced on a skinny little guy who looked like Justin Bieber in cargo pants, suspenders, and not much else. His back was to the granite, and he raised his arms over his face to block the approaching menace.

I got the idea and turned toward them. It was against my deeply ingrained personal code to hit women, even the ones who bit from time to time, but Vikki was free to wallop whoever the hell she wanted. She did so with obvious relish, hanging onto the back of my shirt with one hand, gripping the shovel's handle high up with the other.

Her swing was short, but momentum was on her side. She knocked the closest lady chomper off her feet, and when the other turned our way with a snarl, the Justin Bieber look-alike made a run for it.

“More!” Vikki screamed, and I obliged. I drove twice around The Pit, veering close enough to the menacing chompers to give Vikki a swing, and she swatted them like flies. One fell backward against a rusted oil drum where a battery powered boom-box blasted that shitty techno. It fell to the dirt, ejected the CD and switched to a local FM station. The Ramones belted out I Wanna Be Sedated and improved my mood considerably. She knocked another into the bonfire, where he flailed and screamed and sent sparks up in a cyclone.

I decided to get the fuck out while we were still capable of getting and turned the Indian back toward the steps.

I wasn't exactly happy with the night's work, there were too many bodies in the dirt to call my intervention a success, too many crazed chompers still nibbling on them, but I'd earned my paycheck. Vikki was safe and apparently enjoying herself, and most of the hapless fuck-nuts who'd shown up for this fun little get-together were running or driving away.

I saw Goodie Bags crouched under the steps.

Goodie Bags saw us coming and stepped out to greet us. He'd found his gun and pointed it at us.

I jigged left and avoided his first shot, right and avoided the second. I was close enough when he aimed again that he couldn’t have missed, but he’d fired his big revolver dry. I buzzed by close on his left and Vikki swung her shovel like a pro.

He went down flat on his back and a few lonely chompers jumped on the chance to get some face time with him.

"More!" Vikki screamed. "This is fucking fun!"

I'd had enough fun for one night though and gunned it up the steps.

This second helping of the jackhammer to the nuts experience was muted slightly by the collection of bites and bruises I'd picked up, and Vikki had to drop her chomper club to hold on with both hands.

A wild half minute later we were on flat ground again, and I was about to let myself experience a bit of relief, when The Ramones ended and The Director shouted down at me from his high place in the catwalk above the old rock crushers. I wanted to get down the road, back to town and relieve myself of my teenage passenger, but I was curious to hear what he had to say. I stopped and searched the catwalks above until I found him.

He stood behind one of the flashing lights. He was too far away for me to see the smile on his face, but I could hear it in his voice.

“Holy shit! What’a show!” The Director seemed ecstatic, overjoyed at the unexpected turn of events. “Excellent improvising … and what a face! You were made to be in horror movies!”

“You’re a fucking asshole!” Vikki jumped off the back of the bike and started toward the crusher. “You tried to kill me!”

“Yes,” The Director said. “And I’m going to be a rich asshole! This is going to sell a million copies!”

He laughed and danced in place.

Regretting my curiosity now. “Vikki, get back here.”

She ignored me and I reluctantly dismounted to follow her.

“I’m going to call it …,” The Director spread his arms wide and stared up into the night sky. “Zombie A-Go-Go: Dancing With The Dead!”

“Fuck your movie,” Vikki shouted back up at him, and ran toward the nearest shack. The makeshift studio.

“No!” The Director screamed. “Don’t go in there!”

She ignored him and sprinted toward the gaping hole in the side of the shack that used to be a door.

The Director screamed and jumped up and down like a toddler having a tantrum, then ran down the catwalk, toward the spiraling steps that led back to the ground, waving his prop cane over his head.

A quick check around showed a mostly deserted parking lot: a half-dozen rust buckets of varying make and model, The Director’s U-Haul, and my Indian. The groans and screams from inside The Pit were tapering off. The Director’s chompers seemed to have run out of juice. Now there was only The Director, Vikki, and me.

And whatever new surprises The Director might have up his sleeves.

I decided not to give him the chance to surprise us again.

I ran past the shack, where Vikki was energetically smashing equipment, and found the dizzying twist of steps.

I got a good look down into The Pit as I climbed, saw the dead and injured, the wound-down chompers looking almost as pathetic as their victims. A familiar slow burn started in my guts, a mostly unwelcome sensation that meant I was about to lose my temper and do something very antisocial. I usually try to squash the rage before it blooms, but this time I let it come. I welcomed it back like the old and troublesome friend it was. I decided to close down The Director’s little operation for good.

I heard a final smash below followed by Vikki’s laughter, The Director’s hurried footfalls from above and my own heavy breathing as I stomped up the stairs. I reached the top and found The Director waiting for me in the stuttering discotheque lights.

He lurched forward, his cane raised over his head, and I dodged his first swing, almost falling over the rickety railing. He hit the handrail instead of my noggin, and I looked up in time to see him raise the cane again. The strobing lights made him look like a figure from an old film, a gaudy black and white silent movie psycho.

He scowled, screamed, swung the skull-topped cane down at me. I caught it on the downswing with one hand. It hurt, but not as much as what I did to him next.

“You big dumb oaf!” He shrieked at me. “I have to stop her! She’s ruining my movie!”

I considered informing him that I didn’t have to do shit and decided to let my actions speak for me. Letting go of his cane, I stepped forward, reached down, grabbed a handful of his crotch with my right hand and his throat with my left. He squealed in pain as I gently heaved him up and over the catwalk’s old rusty railing.

The Director’s descent into The Pit was mostly silent. There was a lot of useless arm flapping and kicking, quite comical, but only a brief squawk just before he hit, as if he had only just realized it wasn’t a part of his script, that it was for real. There would be no second takes.

A few of the livelier chompers scuttled over to him and began to do what they did best.

The flush of anger began to drain from my face, and I started to feel ashamed of myself. I always went too far when I lost my temper. Shit like this was the reason I had my unwanted reputation.

Screw ‘im, I thought. He had that coming.

I took the downward steps slowly, and by the time I reached dirt I mostly felt okay about it. He wouldn’t be making more of his shitty movies now.

I found Vikki standing beside the Indian Ace, The Director’s laptop closed under one arm, a satisfied grin on her face.

“That was fucking awesome,” she said. “You should have told me you were doing that! I could have filmed it!”

“I can drag him back up and throw him over again,” I said.

Vikki, clearly immune to my sarcasm, almost bobbed with excitement. “Would you?”

A scream broke the tense silence and Vikki spun at the sound. I turned in time to see the Viking coming at me but not quickly enough to do anything about it. He hit me like a sweaty side of beef, still screaming, and drove me into the ground. I had an easy fifty pounds on the guy, but he was insane with whatever crazy shit Goodie Bags had set them up with for the party. Sure as shit not X.

He pressed his face up against mine and for a crazy moment I thought he was trying to kiss me. That might have been preferable. He snapped at my nose and I snapped my head to the side in time to avoid losing it. We grappled for a moment. I smashed his nose and he bit my hand. I head-butted him and got another bite on the brow. He forced his face down toward my neck, teeth snapping, and I kneed him in the crotch.

A handy FYI for everyone reading this, a zombie-viking’s nuts are just as vulnerable and sensitive as the next guy’s. Remember that. Might come in handy someday.

The Viking groaned and seemed to lose interest in the fight, so I took the opportunity to put a few feet between us. Vikki finished it for me with a nicely placed crack to the cranium that would have caved his skull in if not for his mixing bowl helmet. He hit the ground and began to snore.

Vikki stood, regarding him with the discarded shovel back in her hands and the first hint of boredom on her face. “You know, I’m kind of bored with this shit. I don’t even like zombies.”

It was as good a time as any to scram, so we did.

I drove the old Indian Ace back toward town with Vikki seated behind, The Director’s laptop pressed between us.

“Who are you anyway?” She yelled in my ear.

“Your father sent me looking for you.” I wasn’t sure how she’d greet that bit of info, but I was reasonably confident that she wasn’t going to bail at 45 miles per hour however much she hated him.

There was a long moment of silence, then, “so you’re a friend of the old dickhead’s?”

“I wouldn’t call the old dickhead a friend,” I shouted back.

“Then why did you come for me?”

Because I’m an idiot, while factual, was too hard to admit aloud, so I lied.

“Because I’m nice!”

* * *

The Paradise Valley PD, with a few exceptions, would have been happy to toss me back into The Pit with the remaining chompers, or a cozy holding cell at the very least. It’s not an attitude I like, but I’m used to it by now. They’d seen too much of me over the years, and you know what they say about familiarity. But after interviewing Vikki and reviewing the evidence on The Director’s laptop they had to let me go.

Of course a nice cozy holding cell might have been my best short-term option considering the state I’d brought Uncle Higheagle’s bike back in. It was still running, but I’d knocked a lot of the pretty off of it.

“I think it looks more … rugged this way,” I offered as my uncle stood next to me in the Higheagle Classic Cars lot.

He didn’t say anything for a long time.

I was about to start backing slowly away when he grabbed hold of my arm and examined one of the freshly bandaged bite marks. “Are you sure those weren’t real zombies?”

“Uncle, there’s no such thing as zombies.” The zombie outbreak had been limited to a few dozen who The Director and Goodie Bags had dosed with a new street drug they called Rave. The initial effects were indistinguishable from X, the euphoria, the urge to get naked and rub up against anyone who strayed too close. Then nausea, confusion, a rapid rise in body temperature, and severe paranoia. The bloodlust that followed was a purely chemical reaction, a kind of misfiring of synapses in the prefrontal cortex. Nothing supernatural, just a bunch of drugged up degenerates dancing to bad music. A typical Saturday night in Paradise Valley in other words.

“Too bad,” Uncle Higheagle said, and dropped my arm. “It would have been a good excuse to shoot you.”