The Adventures of Holly Weird,
Zombie Slayer
By Nick Pawluk, Creator of the iPhone App Hollyweird Zombies and Rusty Fischer, author of Zombies Don’t Cry
Copyright © 2011 by Nick Pawluk and Rusty Fischer
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Cover credit: ©Phase4Photography – Fotolia
Authors’ Note:
The following is a FREE living dead short story written in conjunction with the iPhone App, Hollyweird Zombies.
Any errors, typos, grammar or spelling issues are completely the fault of the living dead.
(They’re not very patient with the editorial process!)
Anyway, we hope you can overlook any minor errors you may find; enjoy!
The Adventures of Holly Weird, Zombie Slayer
I open Bliss in the dark; I don’t need to see her anymore to know which is her business end.
She’s all I have against the two of them.
Luckily, she’s all I need.
They are big and let’s face it, I’m far from it, but with zombies it’s not how big they are, but how fast they are.
These two are faster than most, but they eat too many human brains to be human themselves.
As for me, well, I’m a strict carnivore; it’s only animal brains for me, and from the UCLA medical lab at that – no wild animals were harmed in my dinner, that’s for sure.
It keeps me more human than most; and out here on the street, I need all the edge I can get.
There is an empty cigarette pack on the edge of the playground; I step on it purposefully, just to see if these Zannibals (zombies + cannibals = Zannibals; try to keep up, huh?) are paying attention.
The bigger one is; he turns around, dead eyes black and full of rage as he nudges the other one with a giant, blunt shoulder.
“Run, Percy,” I say to the tall, bony teen clinging desperately to the jungle gym.
The Zannibals hesitate, not sure whether to focus on dinner or… dessert.
Lucky me; they choose dessert.
“Fancy meeting you here, Holly,” grunts the big one familiarly.
I’ve heard the others call him “Grinder”; from the looks of his headstone size, traffic light yellow chompers, the nickname fits.
“Where’d you think I’d be, fellas? Having tea with the queen?”
The smaller one, though he’s far from small, croaks, “It’s not fair of you to interrupt meal time, Holly.”
I rack my brain and finally come up with a name for this one, too: Stain.
It fits as well, thanks to the garish black spot that covers half his left shoulder and creeps nearly to his chin.
“Fair?” I blurt, keeping the switchblade I call “Bliss” slid into my back belt loop so they can see I have nothing in my hands. “That what you call ganging up on some homeless Sapien in the middle of the night?”
“You know the rules, Holly,” says Grinder, advancing an inch without really looking like he’s moving. “If no one’ll miss ‘em, then they’re fair game.”
“Yeah, I know that’s how you Zannibals rationalize murdering innocent human beings, but any rule that calls living people ‘fair game’ is made to be broken.”
“You know what else is made to be broken, Holly?” asks Grinder, being sssssoooooooo obvious.
I tense and inch forward.
“Both your fugly faces,” I snark, hands still on my bony hips.
The Zannibals look at each other and I take the moment to spring forward, liberating Bliss from the small of my back and grabbing her fiercely in my left hand.
Stain lifts his hand up instinctively; it’s big and blotchy and gray and all kinds of huge.
Huge enough for me to slice off the first three fingers the blade touches; it doesn’t stop there – his ear goes next.
Stain growls; that’s what Zannibals do.
The minute they’re faced with a foe, or even something they like, such as eating some random homeless kid’s brain, for instance – they growl; pure animal behavior.
Not sure why I’m still surprised at this point.
I tumble just beyond them, right hand gripping the jungle gym and swinging up to the top.
That’s the good thing about being a small zombie; you can go where the big zombies can’t.
It’s just out of reach for the Zannibals, and doubly so for poor Stain who can only point at me with his two remaining fingers.
Grinder’s face is a mask of anger and rage; the two primary Zannibal emotions.
I walk above them, stepping carefully from rusty metal bar to bar in my ratty black hi-tops and keeping Bliss handy.
Grinder steps on the far side, Stain the left; God, they’re so stupid!
The minute they’re halfway up I slip down between the middle bars, landing safely on the tarmac and rushing Grinder’s legs as he quickly begins to descend.
Before he can hit the ground I slide Bliss through both his Achilles tendons; slice, slice, like a warm knife through butter.
Sure, my life might be more fun if I didn’t spend two nights a week sharpening Bliss for hours on end, but then I couldn’t do things like that now, could I?
He doesn’t groan, but he drops like a lead balloon and can’t stand up; even though it doesn’t hurt him, it cripples him.
Stain growls, howls is more like it, and rushes me with all the force of a marble pale freight train.
I stand just out of Grinder’s swiping, massive paws and crouch, waiting for just the right moment.
As Stain approaches, faster and faster now, building up steam and momentum, I juke just slow enough to the left for him to readjust his course; then I zag to the right and, when he’s turning his head to find me, slice through his neck with the razor sharp blade.
His head falls with a dry “thump,” and nothing more.
There is no blood to avoid or stain my smoky gray hoodie; only the soft, sad sighing of trapped air escaping a lidless white neck.
Grinder looks up at me, giant fingers clawing in the pavement as he crawls my way.
I’m tempted to leave him like that; just… walk away and never look back.
But I’ve tried that before; the big, dramatic movie moment that feels so good but always, always backfires.
Some Zannibal you spare for whatever reason – because you think they’re useless, because you think they’re done – always comes back to haunt you when it’s too late to discover that they’re not so useless or done after all.
“You don’t have to do this,” Grinder croaks, not quite begging but as dead as he is, still desperate to live. “What can I do to you now?”
“It’s not what you can do to me,” I grunt, stepping on each hand and taking his greasy, straw blonde hair in my fingers. “It’s what you did to my mother.”
He chuckles, knowing the end is near.
“You fool,” he croaks as I touch the pointed blade under his ear. “How long are you going to carry this grudge, Holly? Especially when she’s still—”
Bliss stops his tongue from moving the minute it severs his head from his neck.
I hold it aloft, staring into his deep black eyes.
“What did you just say?” I ask his lifeless lips, wishing I hadn’t been so impulsive with the blade.
He was probably only talking trash anyway, I figure, sliding one arm out of my backpack and unzipping it.
Inside is one of those fold-up shovels like the Army uses; I unfold it and start digging a grave big enough, and deep enough, to hold these two without attracting every stray dog in the neighborhood.
At least not for another few weeks, anyway.
Percy shuffles over about halfway through the dirty, dirty job and I smirk, handing him the shovel and stepping out of the three-foot by five foot hold.
“Tag,” I chuckle, rubbing his curly blond hair and watching him smirk. “You’re it!”
“I would have stayed away longer if I’d known you weren’t through yet,” he groans, making quick work of another two feet of ground with his long, muscular arms.
I stop him when it’s deep enough and sit on the edge of a nearby merry-go-round, patting the space next to me.
He lopes over on his long, gangly legs and does what he’s told.
He’s a good kid, Percy is; just a little… lost.
“How long’s it been since you’ve eaten?” I ask as I unzip my backpack and slide out two candy bars.
“This morning?” he asks/answers as I offer him the second bar.
He pauses before taking it shyly.
“You sure?” he asks even as he unwraps.
I wink and say, “You’re going to need your energy, Percy; our job’s only half done.”
Still, the night is young and I’m in no hurry.
From the looks of it, neither is Percy.
“What were you doing out here anyway, Percy? You know it’s past curfew at the shelter.”
He shrugs and looks down at his own battered sneakers, the candy bar already halfway gone.
“I’m not staying there tonight,” he admits.
He avoids my eyes as I ask, “Somebody harassing you?”
“Not somebody,” he grunts, kicking at dirt with the toe of his shoe. “Somebod-ies.”
I flick open my switchblade, making a big show of clacking the butterfly ends together and flashing them under the moonlight, just to make him feel better.
“You want me to sick Bliss on ‘em, Percy?”
He
snorts and says, “Why do you call it that, anyway?”
I shrug,
flip her closed again and slide her back in my pocket. “Because
that’s how it makes me feel to kill those guys, Percy; blissful.
Now, come on; finish up your Zonker bar and let’s get back to
work.”
* * * * *
“You decent?” asks Percy as he pads out of the shower stall on bare feet, a dingy gray towel wrapped around his concave waist.
“As decent as I’m getting for you,” I snark, boiling two packets of Ramen noodles over my hot plate.
He slips into a clean wife beater and a pair of baggy boxers from my Lost and Found box and slinks over to me in his flapping purple flip-flops, also from the L & F.
“Yumm,”
he says, sitting on a barstool and draining half the soda I’d
poured for him while he was in the shower. “Is that the spicy
kind?”
“Would I serve you anything less?”
He yawns and puts his sharp chin on one rosy palm.
“Hey,” he says as I dish the noodles and water into the giant black bowl in front of him. “Can you stand in front of me? I like to read while I eat?”
He’s referring, of course, to the tableau of tattoos that cover 85% of my body.
Half of them are visible now, even with my black yoga pants and matching sports bra on.
I sigh and stand there while he eats, giant green eyes exploring the colorful ink splashed across my pale skin.
“What’s this one, here?” he asks, pointing a plastic chopstick at my left shoulder blade.
I don’t have to try and look over my shoulder to know which one he’s referring to.
“My boyfriend at the time liked classic literature. That’s Moby Dick.”
“And this one?” he asks while slurping up another mound of steamy white noodles and pointing to my right bicep.
“That’s Edgar Allen Poe’s headstone.”
He
shakes his head and says, “I know you’re a zombie, Holly, but…
just how old ARE you?”
“A woman never tells,” I sigh,
cracking a can of generic soda and drinking half of it down in a
slug.
I pace the warehouse loft as he eats, wired from the run-in with those creepy Zannibals.
“You’ll have to be extra careful from now on, Percy,” I say as he washes his plate in the kitchenette sink. “They’ll want retribution.”
“Well, can’t I stay here Holly? You’ll protect me.”
“You can stay tonight, Percy,” I say apologetically, patting the single cot in the middle of the vast warehouse space. “I wish you could stay longer but… in case those Zannibals ever track me down one day, I don’t want them to find you here along with me.”
He shrugs, but doesn’t look too broken up about it.
Then again, he’s used to disappointment.
He slides under the covers, all 6’ 3” and 150-pounds of him, his borrowed boxer shorts practically sliding down his pale legs.
“Why do you have such a bug up your butt about those guys anyway, Holly?” he yawns, fluffing the starchy white pillow beneath his curly blond hair as if he’s waiting for a bedtime mint.
“Besides the fact that they prey on the homeless kids of Hollywood, you mean?”
He nods, yanking the covers up to his bony, pimply chin.
“Did I ever tell you how I became a zombie?”
He shakes his head and I say, for about the 100th time to the 100th homeless kid on the streets of Hollywood, “My mom took me to a casting agent’s office, high in the Hollywood Hills. His name was Frost, just one word; like Madonna or Cher. At the time, we thought it was charming. ‘Frost.’ It sounded so cool, you know? We were new in town, this was ages ago, and we didn’t know any better. We never told my Dad about it; he would have warned us against it. Anyway, the address was this grand old mansion. It was terribly derelict, no water in the fountain, weeds overgrown, but that only added to the charm.
“Frost said I was beautiful, but too young for the role he was looking to fill. He asked Mom to read for the part instead, but insisted she do it… in private. That was okay; sure, I was disappointed but also… I was so excited for her. And she was beautiful, too. Anyway, I stayed behind. There were all these creepy bodyguards around, dressed in black…”
“Like tonight,” Percy croaks, eyes half-lidded with a fully belly and a warm bed. “With those creepy Zannibals who were going to suck on my brain if you hadn’t showed up when you did.”
“Just like tonight,” I nod. “Anyway, we stayed outside Frost’s den, the bodyguards and me, and he took my mom inside. I was bored, started walking around the grand ballroom a while. The bodyguards followed. I hadn’t strayed too far when I heard screaming; I ran for my mom, but the bodyguards caught me. They… they…”
“They weren’t bodyguards, were they Holly?” Percy asks, eyes closed but brain wide open.
I shake my head but he doesn’t see so I say, “No, Percy, they most certainly were not.”
He hears the tone in my voice, the fear still fresh after all these years, and opens his big green eyes wide. “They were… zombies?”
“They were Zannibals, Percy. I’m a zombie, and you don’t need me to tell you the difference after all this time on the streets.”
He nods and the stiff white pillowcase rustles against his curly blond hair.
After a pregnant pause he says, “What happened to your Mom?”
“I passed out, after they bit me; that happens, for a few minutes or so after they turn you. It’s kind of like your body’s switching over from manual to auto-pilot, you know?”
He smiles, softly, revealing crooked, yellow teeth. “Or like when your computer has to shut down to reboot itself.”
“Exactly,” I beam, as if he’s my star student and just earned another A++. “Anyway, when I came to again, they were dragging Mom off; in pieces. I never saw her again, but I saw the Zannibals again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once I figured out who I was, or what I was, I haunted that old mansion. Turns out it was the Zannibals’ hideout. They’d place ads in the trade papers, and stupid young girls like me would step right off the bus and head into the Hills for their ‘big shot’ at fame and fortune.
“The Zannibals either ate them, like my Mom, or turned them, like me. Anyway, I followed Frost and the bodyguards for weeks; there were no movies, no producers, no introductions. One night I went up into the Hollywood Hills, carrying two cans of gasoline. I started one fire in the four-car garage and, while the Zannibals were fighting that, another in Frost’s office; the mansion went up in flames. It was on the news and everything since it was right near the Hollywood sign!”
“Really?” Percy asks, like this is the best part of the story for him!
“Yeah, really; the Zannibals have been after me ever since.”
Percy snorts, no doubt recalling the run-in with Grinder and Stain from earlier that night.
“So now you have it, Percy, my whole sordid…”
But Percy isn’t snorting; he’s snoring.
I rise from the hard back chair next to his cot and begin pacing the perimeter of the warehouse, watching over him as he sleeps.
* * * * *
I feed Percy some generic Pop Tarts when he gets up the next morning, hand him a few crumpled bills and one of the individually wrapped toothbrushes I keep by the warehouse door.
“Check in with me tonight,” I say, following him out into the harsh LA sunlight.
“Same place as usual?”
“Chairman Chow’s on Sunset,” I wink, watching him disappear into the heavy brush that surrounds the abandoned warehouse.
I listen carefully in his wake, eager for the sounds of footsteps other than his.
Like me, Zannibals don’t need sleep; but that doesn’t mean they like to come out in the daylight, either.
Of course, it’s harder for them to blend in; they look like zombies.
Me?
Well, with the ink and the makeup and the Goth wear, I pretty much look like just another Hollywood Boulevard tramp, trolling the boulevard for her next hot meal.
Instead I hit up the usual spots, checking on “my kids” as I like to call them.
I find a few at Franco’s Deli, sharing a plate of pancakes ‘cause they can’t afford more than that or, if they can, they’re saving up their money for smokes and beer later on.
They’re a ragtag bunch, one boy and three girls, all ripe with street sweat and nicotine fumes, all in clothes either way too big, or way too small for them.
“What’s up, Holly Weird?” says one of them, the tallest, a towering street girl with chipmunk cheeks and legs for miles.
I wrinkle my nose and slug her playfully on the shoulder.
“Why do you call me that, Chipmunk?”
“Same reason you call my Chipmunk, Holly Weird,” she explains. “Because it fits.”
“Yeah,” says another, a short, plump kid called Raver. “You’re cool, but there’s something… off… about you, too. Like, cool off, but still… off. So Holly Weird just fits.”
I snort; it kind of makes sense, if you think about it.
Besides, better to be thought of as weird than, you know, an actual zombie.
Only Percy knows my real secret; and the less these kids know, the better!
The better for them, that is.
I make sure they’re okay, ask them if they’ve seen any weirdoes dressed in black lately and, when they’re all smiles and shaking their heads ‘no,’ order them another round of pancakes – chocolate chip this time – and move on.
They bang their appreciation with greasy hands on the big window by their booth as I pass.
Even through the glass I can hear them shouting, “Thanks, Holly Weird” in unison.
There are more stops on the way as noon switches to afternoon, and afternoon to evening.
Next up is the liquor store, where I catch a few of my regular kids hustling bums to buy them booze.
Then there’s the crowded, hustling bodega on Vine Street, where I buy them all Slim Jims and Red Bulls just to make sure they’ve eaten something today.
I find my last few gaggle of homeless kids in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater, hustling the tourists while pretending to be pirates from the latest Johnny Depp movie.
Only thing is, they’re not dressing up; they just generally look like little scamps 24/7/365.
They look to be doing okay, despite their rowdy appearance, so I don’t buy them anything; just ask if they’ve seen anything that’s strange – you know, even for them.
When they smile and shake their heads, running after a Japanese couple before any of the other comically-clad “superheroes” can get to them, I turn and walk away.
I have one last stop before nightfall.
“Stained” is the grubbiest tattoo parlor on Hollywood Boulevard, and that’s really saying something!
A blinking neon sign spells out S-T-A-I-N-E-D one letter after the other, night or day.
I walk inside, hearing the blare of heavy metal music on the cheap radio over the cash register as I marvel, once more, at the thousands of snapshots of satisfied customers – and their artful tattoos – covering the walls.
An old man, 79 if he’s a day, sits over a series of half-empty ink pots, refilling them with trembling hands in anticipation of the long, busy night ahead.
“You never came home last night,” I tell him, grabbing a soda from the dorm fridge in the back.
I grab something for him, too; he looks a little… shaky… if you know what I mean.
He gives me that lurid wink of his and says, “What can I say, darlin’? When the last customer of the night insists on making you breakfast the next morning, what are you gonna do?”
“Dad,” I sigh, handing him a tall can of cheap, domestic beer to steady his nerves. “How am I supposed to protect you if I don’t know where you are?”
“Protect me from what?” he croaks, opening the can as foam sprays one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts.
It’s unbuttoned over a stained wife beater tank top, bulging at the middle over his sizable beer gut.
Dad came back from Vietnam, but it was like he never left.
Mom says between the Army surplus hand grenades, flame throwers and rifles he kept in the shed out behind our humble Hollywood apartment, she was always afraid of getting blown up every time she reached for the potting soil!
“The Zannibals have beef with you, Holly, not me.”
His skin is leathery from the sun, a salt and pepper beard scratchy over his wattled neck and his own string of tattoos, stretching from his neck to his toes.
His thinning hair is greasy and short, but his skin – like mine – tells the sad, storied tale of his long, miserable life.
For whatever reason, the ladies find him irresistible.
Me?
I’ll never be able to figure it out.
He’d remained faithful for as long as he could after Mom “left.”
Held a steady job inking cells for some downtown movie studio that specialized in “adult cartoons,” whatever those are.
Then, one day, he just started drinking and never stopped.
I called it his “delayed reaction” to Mom’s death.
He called it “moving on.”
Either way, he “moved on” in a big way.
He quit his job, sold the house and opened Stained.
He was an artist, he said; time to start showing his art.
I was his first customer; and his second… and his third.
Since then, he’s never looked back and I’ve pretty much been on my own.
I sigh and sit down in his chair, waiting for him to fill his ink pots.
“Another one?” he asks, hands still trembling but less so now.
“Two,” I say, giving him time to finish his beer so he doesn’t flub up my latest tats.
I roll up my black yoga pants, revealing a long, white leg filled with names; cursive names, all of them inked by Dad, all of them commemorating one less Zannibal in the world.
He sighs, crumples up his empty beer can and tosses it in the trash by his cluttered work station; it falls on top of several other empties.
“Names,” he grunts, just as he’s done a hundred times before.
“Grinder. Stain.”
And, just like that, he gets to work.
I don’t feel the pain of the needle, only its vibrations in my very bones.
In a way, getting a tattoo – that piercing, buzzing, trembling feeling – is the only time I really “feel” anything at all.
As he tackles one leg, I look at the other, covered in faces, in pictures, in names that resonate through my long, desolate life.
The hidden meanings of this rose or that quote, of this face or that butterfly, are nearly lost to me now.
They meant so much at one point; enough to permanently etch into my thick zombie hide.
Now they mean only that I look like half of Hollywood; dark and twisted, sleek and a little bit sexy.
Whoever thought my own obsession with recording my zombie existence would make me look as human as anyone else in town?
“That’s still my favorite,” Dad croaks, and only then do I realize his needle has been silent; perhaps even for some time.
His thick finger is surprisingly gentle as it traces the deep, dark tribal ring that surrounds my wrist; only he could spot it, so entwined is it with the skulls and barbed wire and bright red rose tattoos that litter my forearm and the upper part of my hand.
“And to think,” he admires, voice surprisingly gentle as the sun gently sets outside his open shop door. “It’s a birthmark, not a tattoo.”
I smirk. “Mom always said she’d tell me what it meant when I got older.”
His eyes get moist, if not exactly watery as he looks away, suddenly. “Who knew she’d be the one to never grow old, Holly?”
He stumbles away from his table, limping slightly as he crosses the cramped and acrid tattoo parlor to get to his precious fridge.
It hides another steel gate, this one sealed tight with a lock all day, all night, long.
Inside is his weapons stash; some sawed off shotguns, boxes of bullets, the odd flame thrower or machine gun.
Most of them are relics, all of them necessary in this part of town.
(Okay, so maybe not the flame thrower, but… Waddya gonna do, right?)
Dad says all Vietnam vets have a stash; Mom said they all had a footlocker, only Dad had a stash.
He brings back a beer for him; a soda for me.
Just as I go to pop the top the door fills with a tall, thin shadow; Percy.
“Holly,” he wheezes, asthma acting up again as his chest heaves and I notice the ring of dark sweat around his faded collar. “Come quick! The Zannibals are at the playground again.”
“What?” I stammer, standing up as Dad shifts slightly to avoid spilling his beer. “I thought I told you to stay away from there, Percy.”
“I was going to,” he says, standing in the doorway, antsy to leave. “But I stashed my backpack there before the Zannibals cornered me last night and I wanted to get it back. There’s, like, 30 dollars in there!”
I look back at Dad and he waves me off, a wry smile on his face as I follow Percy out onto the Hollywood Boulevard and the ebb and flow of human traffic.
Dad knows what I’m up to; he’s happy someone’s there to look out for the kids, but not so happy I’m still chasing the Zannibals all these years after what they did to Mom.
“What are they doing?” I ask, hot-footing it after Percy, which is no small feat seeing as his legs are about twice as long as mine and, you know, actually have blood and adrenaline pumping through them.
“It was just a few of them,” he says, expertly passing through the short cuts and dark alleys behind the façade of Hollywood Boulevard’s scenic hot spots. “They were digging up their pals, you know, Grinder and Stain, but then they went away to bring back some reinforcements.”
“How many Zannibals does it take to dig up a few body parts?” I ask.
We’re almost there and I pause when he says, “I don’t think the reinforcements were just for a few zombie heads, Holly. I think… I think… they were worried you might come back.”
The playground is sad and angry at the same time; dead trees and rusty swing sets, a place no good mother would ever take her child.
That’s why it’s so popular with homeless kids like Percy and, of course, Zannibals looking for a quick and easy midnight snack no good mother would ever miss.
“Here,” I grunt, stopping him by the water fountain near the restrooms. “This looks like a good spot.”
“Good spot for what?” he asks, resisting only barely when I drag him into the ladies room.
“A good spot to wait them out.”
* * * * *
“Go already,” I hiss, standing on top of a sink and staring out a thin, grimy window at the still deserted gravesite of Grinder and Stain. “It’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before.”
“Yeah but…” Percy wavers, one foot in the nearest stall, one foot out. “It’s the ladies room.”
I roll my eyes and turn back away as he finally relieves his bladder in a symphony of disgusting male noises that don’t end until he flushes some two minutes later.
(God, how I so do NOT miss dating!)
When he’s through, and I’m thoroughly grossed out, he joins me, feet in the other sink.
He opens his mouth to say something when I shush him.
I hear crinkling, in the woods surrounding the perviest playground on earth.
Suddenly Percy hears it, too, and leans in close to his own grimy window for a better look.
From the brush emerge five Zannibals, two on lookout, three with shovels hoisted over their bony shoulders.
“Told you,” Percy whispers, but then says no more.
We watch as the Zannibals spread out, looking high and low for me, or Percy, or perhaps just some random homeless kid too strung out or hungry to run.
When they’ve sniffed around long enough – thank god this bathroom smells like the bowels of hell to begin with and they can’t get a good whiff of Percy’s pumping blood – the three Zannibals begin digging up their long lost friends.
“How can we not have killed this witch by now?” asks one of the lookouts, pacing restlessly in his black cargo pants and matching hoodie.
Several of them grunt, and if I still had hackles they’d be raised by now.
“She still blames us for killing her stupid mother,” cackles another, tossing a spade full of dirt over his black-clad shoulder.
“One of us should tell Frost,” grunts one more, shovel resting in the dark, loamy soil. “He’s gonna be ticked when he hears what happened to Grinder and Stain.”
“You tell him if you’re so brave. You want him to think some chick’s been wiping us out one by one all year?”
Percy snickers quietly, shifting his big green eyes my way. “That’s you they’re talking about,” he says so quietly even I can barely hear him.
At last the Zannibals have dug up their friends, bagged them in giant canvas sacks and begin carting them away.
I tap Percy on the shoulder and have him follow me back down onto the tiled bathroom floor.
“You go back to Stained and spend the night with my Dad if you’re not feeling great about the shelter,” I say urgently, inching toward the door.
“What about you?” he asks, face concerned and gaunt.
“I want to see where they’re going. See what my old friend Frost is up to. Now; go, I don’t have time to argue.”
He scuffs his feet on the damp bathroom floor but I’m already off and away, clutching Bliss in my left hand and grateful I’d worn my sneakers for my “rounds” visiting the Orphans today.
The Zannibals make a lot of noise disappearing through the underbrush, and are slow enough for me to catch up without much trouble.
I hang back far enough to make sure that all five are clustered together, weighed down by their canvas bags, and that none have slipped behind me for a tidy ambush.
They tramp through the brush, the sound of traffic on distant Hollywood Boulevard a steady and constant rush below us.
They emerge in a dusty culvert with no trees for cover, but cross it quickly and inch into the Hollywood Hills, disappearing into another tree line that begins to ascend even more steeply.
I dart across the dry scrub land and follow them once more as they skirt some of the finest houses in Hollywood.
I inch forward, careful to avoid potholes or rocks to give myself away.
Bliss is eager and ready but it’s not the Zannibals I’m after this time; it’s Frost himself.
I follow them to another abandoned mansion, this one in slightly better repair than the first but still clearly on the downswing.
I wonder how long they’ve been at this one and, more importantly, how long before they move on again.
It is cavernous and crawling with Zannibals, at least two dozen of them, with no Frost in sight.
They are large and hulking, dressed all in black, making their pale, deadly faces stand out all the more as they cluster, slack-jawed.
They gather in the courtyard, sliding a decrepit fountain to one side and digging beneath it to reinter their fallen comrades.
I roll my eyes and lean against a crooked tree trunk, glowering as at last the man himself strides from two French doors that open onto the main courtyard.
The entire affair is walled for privacy, but the hills around afford me an eagle’s eye view as I peer down past the nearest wall and into the tiled courtyard.
Frost is tall and angular, old but not elderly; his silver mane is long and flowing, as if he has it done at a beauty parlor twice a day.
It was short when he killed my mother; short and neat, and he didn’t look quite so… eccentric.
Of course, back then, neither did I.
He wears all black, natch, save for a midnight blue silk shirt under his flowing black top coat.
In his hand is a long, black cane with a silver tip; beneath his hand is more silver, this in the shape of a large, round snowflake.
Seeing him would make my heart race, if it still could.
Instead I fondle Bliss’s handle and prepare for the moment I can slice his hamstrings and watch him beg for forgiveness.
Not yet, though; right now, I am hungry for more than vengeance.
I feel drained and slightly weak from another long week of watching over the homeless kids of Hollywood.
But after scrounging for sugar in my backpack I find only breath mints and gum.
I down them all quickly and then sniff out the nearest squirrel.
I sit quietly, two gumballs in the crook of a branch and wait until it’s within striking distance; Bliss severs its head cleanly, quickly, so the poor bugger feels no pain.
Like an egg cracked in half, I suck its brain through the base of its skull.
It’s not much, but the night is young and the forest is full of squirrels.
I feel bad; I usually don’t eat brains on the half skull like this, but when you’re stuck and need some power to save a human life, better to off a few squirrels – or whatever little forest animal is around – in order to do so.
I’ve had four squirrel brains and two blue jay’s cerebellums by the time most of the Zannibals have left for their nightly rounds of picking on the weak and powerless of LA.
Usually I would follow a group of them and try to stop them, or warn their victims, but tonight I force myself to stay behind and keep my eyes on the bigger prize.
Frost paces as several of his remaining goons return the fountain over their now buried comrades, and I’m about to reach for a fifth squirrel and continue fueling up when movement in a distant window catches my eye.
There is no electricity at the mansion, but dozens of candelabras flicker inside the vast room into which I peer.
There is something recognizable about the shadow limping to and fro just behind frilly white curtains that billow in the evening breeze.
I inch along the top of the courtyard wall, careful to keep low and out of sight while vying for a closer look inside the dramatically lit room.
Frost is behind me now, barking orders in his bass voice and scraping in the courtyard with his fine leather soles.
The window is just out of reach now, the curtains flickering as the shape paces across the floor once more.
It’s a woman, clad in black as if from a different era; the 60s, maybe… or the 70s.
She limps to and fro, her jet black hair tied back away from her face; away from her shoulders.
The curtain flaps again, she turns and… I gasp, barely able to contain my arched perch atop the courtyard wall.
“Mom?” I whisper, so low I can barely hear myself.
She pauses, just for a moment, and peers out the window.
I flinch, tempted to flee, but don’t.
She stops, inches forward and throws back the curtains; it’s her.
It.
IS.
Her.
Frost’s had her all this time!
How many years now?
25?
30?
And she’s been here, in LA, right under my nose?
“Lydia?” calls Frost, clamoring forward in his high leather boots as if he can read my mind; or perhaps even Mom’s. “Something wrong?”
She lets loose the curtains as they billow once more.
Frost advances, cane in hand, the silver tip tap-tap-tapping across the tile with every step.
There are French doors that face the courtyard and by the time he’s whipped them open he holds the cane aloft, heavy handle up over his head as he slams it into Mom’s skull with a vengeance.
I crouch, Bliss in hand, but by now the rest of the Zannibals have followed, quietly urging Frost away.
He turns, and in a flash of freedom Mom looks my way, tired, sad, black eyes begging me to leave, to save myself once again.
(Been there, Mom; done that – not doing it again!)
I leap from the wall instead, landing on the nearest two Zannibals with a vengeance, slicing through the tendons of one’s arm, rendering it useless as he flails at me impotently while I efficiently behead the second.
His head lands, face first, at Frost’s feet.
Frost sees me, not recognizing me with all the new ink.
There’s not much time to get reacquainted anyway, since his Zannibal reinforcements come hard and heavy.
They flank me, two by two, and Bliss gets a workout.
In minutes there are fingers and toes, arms and legs surrounding me; it’s like a fort of dead limbs, gradually rising to my knees.
Zannibals stagger or crawl, limping off in the wrong direction or groping for me with two fingers attached to a severed arm.
I’m not saying it’s easy, but I have Bliss on my side; and vengeance.
And still they come, one by one, as I crouch and juke and jive and flit about.
I can feel Bliss growing dull from all the slicing of bone and tendons and thick Zannibal hide; it’s like an eight-hour shift at a slaughterhouse.
When I have a few moments to look at anything but another rushing Zannibal coming my way with froth on his lips and rage in his dead, black eyes, I see Frost staying true to his name; observing everything coolly, watching me, wondering who I am and what I’m doing here.
I don’t see Mom, but then I’ve got my eyes – and hands – full at the moment.
At last there are only a few Zannibals left, giant men in all black who’ve been watching carefully from the sides.
They advance, not two by two where they’re manageable, but four at a time.
I’m good, but not that good.
I crawl and I clamor, using limbs and headless bodies to scale the courtyard wall.
The remaining Zannibals try to follow but they’re huge, and it’s a challenge.
While they’re trying I pick them off, one by one, Bliss slicing through shoulders and knee caps until more Zannibals stack like cordwood at my feet.
Then I see Frost smile, at something; not me.
I turn to follow his eye and hear him before I see him, “I’m sorry, Holly! I’m sorry!”
Four more Zannibals surround Percy, who looks like they’ve already tried to pull him limb from limb.
He is limping between them, one eye black, nose bloody and bent, lips puffy, shirt torn.
“Holly, is it?” asks Frost as the Zannibals bring Percy straight to him. “So that’s who’s been turning my soldiers into cordwood? Always nice to put a face with a name.”
Percy is feisty and yanks himself free of one of the Zannibals.
Frost silences him with a swift slap across the jaw from the snowflake end of his cane.
Percy yelps but remains defiant.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” he shouts up to me as I crouch on the wall, willing his tongue to be still. “The Casting Director who killed your—”
Another swift slap of the silver Snowflake silences Percy once and for all; I hear the crack all the way on the courtyard wall.
Percy slumps to the courtyard tile as Frost eyes me scrupulously.
“So it’s you I’ve been hearing about for the last few years. Stopping my boys from their nightly dinner?”
“They’re feeding on my friends, Frost,” I spit, still angling atop the courtyard wall and slightly out of the reach of his giant minions.
“Who else should they feed one, Holly? You have such delicious, anonymous friends.”
“They shouldn’t be feeding on anyone; they should be feeding on things, like other good monsters do.”
Frost waves a gloved hand and seems distracted, until two more Zannibals emerge from the mansion, each bearing one of Mom’s arms.
I gasp as she shakes her head, teeth gnashing as she tries to yank herself free.
But there’s something… off… about Mom’s arms; and legs.
I peer closer as they drag her into the pale moonlight and see why; they’ve been patched together, hand sewn almost, like Franken-Mom.
And not in a good way; it’s like Frost did a rush job, on purpose, to keep Mom in her place.
To make sure she never saw the light of day or walked in public again.
Right then and there, I pledge to kill him; even if he takes me down with him.
“Holly!” Mom gasps now that the cat is out of the bag, thanks to Percy. “Thank God you’re alive!”
“You too,” I whimper, but I’m not sure if she hears me.
It wouldn’t matter anyway; Frost drags her close, she stumbles to her knees and he leans down and says, “Get her down here, Lydia, or I’ll have to kill you all over again.”
I slip Bliss behind my back and drop, effortlessly, to the floor.
Within moments several Zannibals surround me; then several more.
They rip off my hoodie, tear apart my black yoga pants and find Bliss; leaving me half-naked and defenseless.
“My, my,” says Frost, admiring the blade as he circles me. “I don’t know which to be more impressed with; this switchblade or your… artwork.”
He touches the tip of the blade to each tattoo, peering closely with his intense black eyes as I hear Percy grunt back to life behind me.
“Holly!” he gurgles before I hear the slap of skin on skin as a Zannibal quickly silences him.
I turn but Frost uses Bliss to yank my face back to his; he’s within reach now, dark eyes alive as he leans forward and hisses, “I’m all you need to worry about tonight, dear.”
I smile and open my mouth to say something, whispering so lightly he has to peer in just a little closer.
The minute he does I head butt him, the sound of his nose cracking against my forehead as Bliss clatters to the floor; I slip from the Zannibals and snatch it just as Frost brings his cane down, hard.
I slice the ancient wood in half with Bliss, both pieces clattering to the courtyard floor.
The Zannibals rush me but I have Bliss back now, cutting them down to size one by one.
Then I hear a whimper, a reluctant groan of pain and turn to find Frost, sticking the shattered end of his beloved cane in Mom’s ear.
One strong thrust from Frost and the jagged, wooden edge will pierce her brain; and no amount of sewing will bring her back from something like that.
“Leave my men alone,” Frost hisses, “or this will be the last time you see your mother alive again.”
“Leave my wife alone!” shouts a surly voice from the darkness.
I smell gasoline and hear the faint flicker of something being ignited; suddenly an arc of flame shoots from the top of the courtyard wall and engulfs the three Zannibals to my side.
Their tough hide sizzles like dry firewood, engulfing them instantly in their own sizzling, bubbling skin.
I roll away from the heat, from the flame and stumble into the room where Mom was pacing.
As the Zannibals run from the flames Dad leaps to the ground, his Army surplus flame thrower strapped to his back and a fountain of flame shooting from the nozzle in his old, trembling hands.
Frost crouches, literally shoving Mom and the other Zannibals in front of him as he flees.
I follow instinctively, despite the fact that Frost could be setting a trap.
Still, from the look on his face, he seems too panicked to be planning ahead.
Then again, I’ve been wrong before.
Turns out, I’m wrong this time, too.
Frost runs, just slow enough for me to keep up.
He is not like the other Zannibals; he is loose and limber and more like me.
I wonder about that, but not for too long.
Too soon we are in a clearing surrounded by dense brush; another lonely and desolate outcropping amidst some of the city’s finest homes.
Even with millions of dollars of prime real estate all around, I know I’m too far away for anyone to hear me scream.
Not that I’d give Frost the satisfaction, of course.
Just at the edge of the clearing he pauses, looking left, then right; then stops.
I stop, too, because suddenly I realize… this is too easy.
He turns and smiles, leaning against a towering oak now that I’ve snapped his iconic cane in half.
I open my mouth to confront him when, out of nowhere, a giant hand slaps me to the ground.
I land in dirt and dust and grab two hands full, turning around and tossing it in a giant Zannibal’s face.
He sputters and spits and spins wildly, but he’s not alone; three more inch from the trees, each one bigger than the last.
Like Frost, these move more quickly than the rest; they seem smarter, too.
I’m barely able to scramble to a crouching position before one knees from the left and another pile drives me from above; I land in a crunching pile of bone and dirt and scamper, reaching for Bliss.
I find her, but too late; one of the Zannibals kicks her into a nearby tree where she lands, her butterfly case quivering as it bobs up and down like something out of a cartoon.
One of the Zannibals tries stepping on my fingers but I yank them out from under his steel-toed boots at the last minute, grabbing his ankle from behind and literally ripping his Achilles tendon from the back of his leg.
He stumbles in the dirt and I leap onto his neck, snapping it as I duck low to avoid another blow from the next Zannibal.
I roll away, reaching for my Bliss but stopping just a few inches too short; I grab a small branch and snap it in half, holding it like Bliss and waiting for the next Zannibal to lunge.
When he does I jab it into one ear; it sticks in halfway and, leaning up on one foot, I kick it all the way in with the other.
Even I hear his brain “pop” from two feet away as he falls onto his side, spasming as the remaining two watch him in awe.
I don’t wait for the applause; I grab Bliss and grip her tight, the feel of her handle comfortable in my palm as I slice off the fingers of one Zannibal and the forearm of another.
And still they come, with no Frost in sight.
He has disappeared, and left me to deal with his henchmen.
By the time I’ve left them lying in pieces next to their comrades, I can only hear Frost crunching away in the dry underbrush.
I follow in the general direction of his branch braking, but feel like I’m still too far behind.
Then I hear a rustle, a snap, a crack and someone – or something – gurgling.
“Mom!” I gasp, but it’s not her that’s gurgling.
She’s smiling as Frost turns, a branch about wrist thick sticking out of his Adam’s apple.
“Hurry, Holly!” she urges as Frost reaches out and grabs her long, graying hair.
She gasps but doesn’t give up as Frost yanks her to the ground, still dangerous until his brain is destroyed.
I lunge for him but miss by an inch, slicing only his fancy blue silk shirt as he tries to stamp Mom out like a campfire.
I forget Bliss for a moment and reach for the end of the branch sticking out just to the left of his spine; I yank it, turning him like a rudder and forcing him away from Mom.
He lashes out with his closed fist and I hear something click in my ear; by the time I look away I’m on the ground, Bliss nowhere to be found and Frost leering over me, pulling the branch from his throat.
When he’s done he holds it aloft, ready to bring it down over my head when I hear a slice of steel on skin and watch when his neck disintegrates as the weight of his head drags it clean off his body.
When his torso follows, I see Mom standing cockeyed behind him, Bliss in hand!
“Mom!” I grunt, standing from the forest floor and embracing her tightly.
“Holly!” she snuffles, unable to cry.
We embrace as the sound of more breaking branches and cracking timber signal another round of Zannibals to deal with.
But flames flicker at the end of a flame thrower and Dad stands, staring down at Frost… and then Frost’s head.
“Dad?” I question, but I know that look in his eyes.
With a simple flick of his wrist Dad lights Frost on fire, then his head, then the rest of the Zannibals and their body parts.
Soon we’re standing around a pile of smoking, flickering Zannibals as Percy emerges from the forest, wheezing as only a human can and dabbing his eyes from the smoke.
“Is that… is that… her?” he asks, wiping his broken nose on one long black sleeve.
“It is,” I say, keeping her close. “Can you believe it, Percy? After all these years, I’ve finally found her.”
Mom clings close but offers a hand to Percy.
He takes it, smiling when her dry palm is cool to the touch.
“Just like Holly’s,” he says, and finally Mom smiles.
“Come on, Dad,” I urge, yanking him away from the crackling pile of cannibal zombies. “Let’s get out of here before the fire department comes!”
He shrugs but turns, looking at Mom shyly out of the corner of his eye.
We walk out of the clearing until we find the nearest street, Dad’s flame thrower still flickering in case anyone follows.
Mom limps next to me, our arms linked just as they were that fateful day she led me into the hills and never came back.
“How did you find us, Dad?” I ask as he smiles, proudly, at last dousing the flame and dumping the thrower in the woods as we climb, carefully, back down to the constant sounds of Hollywood Boulevard.
“All I had to do was follow Percy here, Holly. He’s not exactly a stealth ninja, if you know what I mean.”
“But why, Dad? Why follow Percy at all?”
He winks at me and says, “I had a feeling tonight might be special, Holly.”
“How have you been, Herbert?” Mom interrupts, linking arms with him as well.
“Herbert?” snorts Percy as the old man shoots him the evil eye.
Turning to Mom he winks and says, “As you can see, darlin’, Holly and I have had a rough time without you. But now that you’re back, my dear; things look a whole lot better!”
I smile, and walk with my family toward our home.
The home where tattoos are mandatory and family is so important if you’re going to survive.
Now that mine is back together, the grimy street looks a whole lot prettier, the smoggy air a lot more peaceful.
And just try to let anyone mess with that…
About the Authors:
Nick Pawluk & Rusty Fischer
Nick Pawluk is a Southern California native, born in East Los Angeles and working in television production. He is an entrepreneur who has had many successful businesses.
Nick is currently developing fun and exciting new iPhone and iPad game applications through his company, Zombie Active Games. The first app released by his company is Hollyweird Zombies.
Rusty Fischer is the author of several YA supernatural novels, including Zombies Don’t Cry: A Living Dead Love Story (Medallion Press, 2011), Ushers, Inc. (Decadent Publishing, 2011), Detention of the Living Dead (Quake Books, 2012) and Vamplayers (Medallion Press, 2012).
Visit his blog, www.zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com, for news, reviews, cover leaks, writing and publishing advice, book excerpts and more!
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