Rambling tangent/Gideon County Zombies Squad

[SeerSavant]

I don't do a lot of posts in the fiction/art section, not because I don't write, I love to write, been writing for over 25 years, dammit, STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS....

AHEM..
Anyway, I don't really write in here a lot because I simply don't write Zombie fiction, post apocalyptic, whatever.... Did you just ask me a question?.... Okay, um where was I?

I'm cleaning up a corner of the office... You know that corner...

Every writer in here has THAT corner, the one where all the unfinished, unedited, and simply unwanted get stacked for "later" revisiting...

What do you mean you don't have a corner???

Liar...

Anyway.... No I'm not drinking and shut up about it already.... um.... oh yeah... right....

So I'm cleaning, and Hand on the Bible, Swear on the long dead souls of every little person that was in the original Wizard of Oz... I Find this story...

A story called Gideon Country Zombie Squad.

So what???

Oh, wait....

This probably seems kinda rambling and nutty huh?


Been writing for a while, Hit a snag and sometimes I dig thru old stories just cause.... Turn the brain in another direction and go, and sometimes the answer zips in at the last minute causing you to stay up late and function at about 2 percent the next day at work.....

Anyway, I find this story.

See Gideon Country is sorta my own personal Castle Rock. A fictional town to put a buncha stories in, because back then I was a pretentious shit, you know the type who proudly wear the future pulitzer prize winner tee shirt?
Yeah, don't rub it in....

Anyway, I wrote it back in the early early nineties. Before Zombie Squad...

Get it?

I know, pretty lame, but I thought it was cool.

Anyway, I'm gonna post this, hit the head, have a quick smoke then post the actual story...

Never published it, amongst the others, I always thought of it as a personal fun to write project....

Re reading the first few pages, I forgot all about it, so figure, since I read and enjoy so much of everyones stories here, I figured I'd give back a little and allow everyone to laugh and point at the guy who can't write a half assed zombie story.


..... By the way, this is what I'd like to call a tangent...

when I write this kinda wandering mental stuff, it means that I'm stuck deep inside one of my stories and am still shaking it off.
It's cause I write in a kinda brain dump onto the screen and it's got very little filter between the brain and the fingers.... Wait, that sounded pretty dirty... Screw it, you either know what I mean or gave up on the post halfway down....

Back in a bit....

[SeerSavant]

Okay... remember, this was supposed to be tongue in cheek... Kinda a Philip Marlowe homage/parody... AND it was written a long time ago...


Case File; 2740-13b,
Gideon County Zombie Squad
Stone, Jacob E.

Death tends to throw you a curve ball every now and again, sometimes a knuckle, sometimes a spit, but always a pain in the ass.

Welcome to Gideon County, Virginia.
Not much of a town actually, little more than a forgettable flyspeck on a few older roadmaps, easily overlooked.
This is the place that you find when you want to get away from it all, Failed Job, relationship, life in general.... Reality?

A little township, nestled in a valley just east of the appalachians.

Normally such a small town, population roughly 2200, would draw hardly any attention at all. Fact is, most folks around here kinda prefer that it stay that way, which isn't always such an easy task, seeing as how Gideon isn't your typical sleep little town.

I guess the really weird shit began happening back in the late seventies, early eighties just as all the flaky cults and hippy communes were dying out. A couple of really strange folks approached old man Sutter about using his farm for a pretty big shindig, sold him on the idea of another Woodstock or similar such nonsense.
In reality, it turned out to be one of the largest group suicides since Jim Jones Kool-Aid party a few years earlier.
Almost three hundred certifiable space cadets packed into Sutter's barn after a quick shower in premium high test and stroked a match.
Instant looney roast.
That in itself wasn't all that big a deal, after all, the barn was pretty old and Sutter could use the insurance money, but after the smoke had settled and Sutter decided the money could be better spent on buying part ownership of Gideon's sole nightclub and bar, the Whiskey Jitters, that the really strange shit began to happen.
Not much at first, but enough to qualify as an X-files episode.
Some of the local livestock were found, apparently turned inside out, just like an old sock.
All of the plumbing at the local K thru 12 school began to run blood instead of water. Honest... Type O in fact, and did it for about three weeks before the water came back. And don't let anyone tell you it was rust, because it damn well wasn't.

Time seemed to speed up and slow down from time to time, midnight coming on as late as early morning, that day back in eighty nine, when the sun went down and decided not to come back up for nigh on a week.
Plants grown in the soil inside county lines would occasionally grow in odd surges, sometimes simply to gargantuan sizes, other times mutating. Bleach white peaches the size of soccer balls, a new form of Willow tree with leaves coated in a sticky residue that would trap the local wildlife and a few unlucky locals with the strength of krazy glue.
Seems the tree's sap was actually considered by one glue company before a certain lethal side effect became known.
We had one year where all the children born with a sizable birthmark on each one of their left buttocks in the shape of a certain trademarked cartoon character.
The blizzard of Independance day weekend and the crippling heatwave the following Christmas.
Exploding cats.

Hell, the whole damned town simply began to act with a total regard for the laws of physics.
Oh, I know what your thinking, chalk it up to bored groups of kids, pranks, pollution, El Nino, a surplus of fireworks combined with a severe hatred of cats.
Whatever rationalizations fell by the wayside and gave way to reluctant acceptance years ago.

Seriously, at least three hundred cats in the last ten years.
Never a dog or bird, or any other type of critter, just cats for some stupid reason.
It would actually be kinda funny if the blasted things didn't make such a God awful mess.

One went pop by my truck a few months back, chunks of Princess Frisky Whiskers all over it.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean off former feline chunks after baking into a dark paintjob after a half day of cooking in the sun?
Pretty fucking hard...

Don't happen too often nowadays, as the cat population has kinda dwindled down quite a bit. The ones still around know it too, you can tell by the way they walk around, all twitchy and nervous.
Sucks to be them, I guess.

Now if for any reason you don't believe me, check out a few of your local supermarket tabloids and read the locations off of the stories.
That's right, most of them are from here.
Hell, the Globe and the Weekly actually have field offices in town.

At first the whole town bought into all that "End of the World/armageddon/judgement day" horseshit, and for a while Gideon was a bastion of every crackpot and guru at the peak of it's weirdest days, as it seemed to be headed for self destruction in ways that most of the folks don't care to remember.

Eventually the constant panicky worries began to die down and as year after year the world kept turning, the folks started returning to as normal a life as they could manage, albeit with the occasional oddball interruption.
I guess after a while, even the most unusual things, if seen often enough, can become commonplace and to a certain degree, normal.

Well, Normal for this town anyway....









To be continued in a bit.

[SeerSavant]

Okay...


I moved to Gideon back in the early eighties.
Being a med school dropout with a penchant for detective work, having previously an investigator for an ambulance chasing law firm and doing repo work or my short stint as a skip tracer for a local douchebag bailbondsman, I had grown weary of kicking around looking for my way in life.
I had heard the stories about Gideon by then, dead folks coming back to life and all the other stuff and decided that I would pitch a classic confidence scam, that, while obvious in nature and tone, was bought hook line and sinker.

Officially i began Gideon Counties one and only "Recently Deceased Retrieval and Disposal Unit".
Yeah, it's a mouthful, but in the end it simply became known as the Zombie Squad.

Now I know what your thinking, in fact I thought the same way, soaking up the extremely generous, perhaps gullible, town budget for my so-called "services". I spent the better part of a week putting up signs, buying a new truck and gear and generally making it up as I went along, wondering how long it would be until I was found out and sent packing, but not before I nestled away a tidy sum that could see me thru life for a while in comfort.
In fact, I kinda liked the slow relaxed pace of the town and the way that people actually seemed grateful that I was here.
Apart from the boredom, I actually began to feel a bit guilty about the whole set up...
Until I got my first call.

Can you imagine the shock, the disbelief, when the phone range at two o'clock in the am one morning with the Sheriff's department on the other end.
Turns out, I was the one who was naive and gullible.

Have you ever heard of the Nude diet? It's the one where you have to do all your eating both nude and in front of a mirror, as a kind of shame you into watching your portions motivation to drop the junk and begin to eat healthier.
Yeah, it never works.
I arrived at the outskirts to this little run down double wide trailer, and stepped out in my full Zombie Squad gear, to the full delight of the Sheriff and two deputies who bellowed with laughter at my appearance.
I had pieced together a wide variety of safety gear, from football pads to a motorcycle helmet, to pieces of chainmaille and plates, with an extra long katana shoved down the back and a fully tricked out shotgun and a pair of .44 magnums strapped to each hip.
In fact, looking back, I must have looked a riot, but at the moment, I was about to launch into a tirade the occupant of the trailer bellowed like a wild animal and I heard shattering glass.
From a quick look I saw something pale, naked and fucking huge lumber past a large window.
I swear, the trailer actually shifted as she... It walked back and forth, throwing things around inside.

Several things came to me, clear as a spring day, that very moment. First; My cushy "job" just became the absolute stupidest thing i had ever attempted. Second; The Deputies laughing their asses off, weren't there just to watch, but probably to make sure that I did my job, and would probably put a bullet into me if I even thought about shagging my ass out of there.... Which I definately was. and Third; I honestly was to damn curious not to go in.

It appears that the zombie in question was in fact eating takeout chinese (the kitchen table was covered in enough takeout boxes to feed half the town, it seemed.) and had choked to death on a chicken bone. She was also, both a shut in and one of those people who simply never threw anything out. It was not so much a mobile home as it was a nest. Boxes of shit piled to the ceiling, with everything and anything piled up everywhere.
I slip into this den of stuff, and before I can chamber a round into the shotgun, I am attacked by this stark naked six hundred pound zombie bitch who proceeds backhand my ass right thru the front door, across the porch and into the yard.
Two more attempts ended up with me making my exit, thru separate windows, the second time, physically thrown out by a zombie that didn't care to eat me, but simply wanted my ass out of her trailer.
At first, I was simply too shocked to come up with anything more than, go back in and get thrown out again. Then i got the bright idea to shoot her with the shotgun.
For a big woman, she is suprisingly nimble, and i ended up out of rounds, and firing at her with the .44 magnums, then when I couldn't seem to make my aim steady enough, nor was she willing to politely stand by as I aimed for her head, I pulled the Katana over my head with a mighty roar and promptly got it wedged tight into the ceiling.
Fuck.

With a mighty roar that rivaled that of the most freaky japanese monster, she came at me again, this time gripping me in a bear grip that ended up with us slamming to the floor, which promptly gave way and we fell thru the bottom of the trailer into the dirt.
Her head was ripped clean off by a bit of plumbing which managed to rip off the face shield of my helmet and leave me crumpled and working up the breath to finally scream for help from the deputies as i was now hopelessly trapped beneath the headless bulk.

They eventually had to get a tow truck to winch the body off of me.

[SeerSavant]

After a short stay at a right swanky little doctors office and clinic, I manage to return to work.
It's not bad work after all. I threw away the silly ninja gear and settled on a good shotgun that was cut down and a decent bedliner.

The phone rings, I go out and find granny rooting around in the garden and pop a round into her skull, (I have a little .22, sometimes the family will pay me an extra bit if I can make a clean kill and they get to have an open casket funeral.) chuck her in the back of the truck and head off to the funeral home.
Most of the Zombies are natural deaths, which means they stumble around, are easily confused and easily handled, and make for light work.
Every once in a while, there was a violent death. That's where the job got dicey.
You see, when someone in the valley is killed violently or murdered, the zombie that returns sometimes becomes a biter.
A biter turns others pretty damn quick, and those bitten by the biters become biters too.
Not sure why, but luckily, the violence of our little valley is almost nonexistent, for the most part.
Being a small town, deaths are usually of natural causes and few and far between, so i work alone, keep my own hours, and generally fight boredom with an ever growing collection of mail order bootleg movies and porn.
You would think that having dealt with this kinda shit would sour a person on zombie films and standard exploitation, but it's actually the opposite. I look at them with a new appreciation, and sometimes even find a bit of useful idea that i try out at work.
The porn... Well, uh... You figure it out.

This was a good, if not great, life.
I had friends, a decent income, and the time to take it slow and enjoy the simpler things in life, fishing for a long balmy day, without a care in the world, a small pager on my hip my only caveat to my duties, which rarely ever went off.

All this changed on a chilly November night.

I got the call about midnight.
A bunch of gear heads, racing up along Canyon Road, collided with the Gideon High School Football Team bus as they returned from an away game, spilling forty or so football players, cheerleaders, coaches and staff as well as a mascot, still in his costume, into the woods just outside of town limits.
Less than half survived the wreck, ruining our chances for a shot at the state finals, with some of them being bitten before the first deputy arrived on scene.

Damn.
Biters.
A whole bunch of them.

Now the deputies had recovered a few, too mangled to wander off, and saved me some work, but the majority had gone deep into the woods.
I have gained the utmost respect for the local law enforcement, and they are some great guys, it's just that most folks don't have the grit to go chasing into the woods, at night, after the recently deceased. And with biters mixed in as well.

'Sides... That's my job.

[GhostTiger]

Wicked story, keep it up!

[wyecoyte]

when I write this kinda wandering mental stuff, it means that I'm stuck deep inside one of my stories and am still shaking it off.
It's cause I write in a kinda brain dump onto the screen and it's got very little filter between the brain and the fingers.

Had me chuckle a bit there. I do the same thing just start typing away and whatever comes out comes out. Sometimes I've even wrote a different story or a part that should be stuck further away. Bitch of it is going back and trying to edit into something that makes sense. Also for the fact that when I write I don't really have a story in mind so it all just comes out. Most of the time it sucks and will never see the light of day.

As to Castle Rock. I went to Castle Rock, WA until second grade and just lived about 20 minutes away after we moved. I used to think as a kid that those stories were about my home town until about 8 or 9 when I realised they weren't.

Also got me interested so far.

[Narshalla]

This was really quite funny. I look forward to reading more.

[SeerSavant]

I'll have the rest when I get a chance, it's been a wee bit busy around here, and I've been a wee bit sick.

[SeerSavant]

I was loading up the tools of the trade into the back of the truck when a fresh face from the county PD showed up. (for the sake of protecting this Moron's family name, I'll just call him "kid')

I sized him up pretty quick, rookie, probably no more than a week or two out of the academy.
Didn't score high enough to make the big city PD, probably not smart enough to duck out of sight when the Sheriff called for volunteers.

"I'm looking for Jake Stone? He's on the Zombie Squad?" the Kid asked, coming into my office. The office being where ever I parked the truck.
The Truck that had Gideon Country Zombie Squad in bright letters on each door, amber and red light bar on the roof, not to mention the custom motorcycle jacket with Zombie Squad emblazoned both on the back and shoulders as well as beneath my name written on the front in bright red letters.

I was loading up a few extra cases of ammunition, and had decided to break out the heavy guns. A few back up revolvers and a pair of pump shotguns that went into the gun rack behind the seat.
I had just dumped the second bag of kitty litter into bed, best thing for soaking up all the fluids that end up left behind when the bodies are finally dropped off at the funeral home when the Kid brightened after a minute of reading my name on the jacket.

"Hey!" he said, brightening up after reading the name silently, but with lips moving with the effort. "You must be him."

Scary thing is that he'd probably be in his own squad car within a few months.

After introductions, I helped him stow his gear, answered about two dozen questions which were actually only a few simply rephrased until it became annoying, and then we got the first of what I knew would be many phone calls.

[SeerSavant]

Old man Renfro lived just outside of town, a few miles from the scene of the accident.
Apparently a few linebackers were wandering around the back of his house and destroying his garden.
We arrived in about ten minutes, give or take, after he called, two more calls already on the way.

Leaving the Kid in the truck, I made my way cautiously up the steps of a rickety wooden porch and caught sight of the business end of a double barrelled shotgun, held in the very unsteady grip of an already irritable and very drunk eighty year old man.
"Hey there, Mr Renfro." I said, breathing a audible sigh of relief the moment the barrel of the shotgun dipped to the floor.
"What the hellfire took you so damn long! They're tearing up my Mabel's tomatoes!" Old man Renfro growled, then looked past me to my truck. "Who's the Kid?"

I began to explain about the accident along Canyon Road, but Renfro's interest dissipated with a shrug and he barked, "Round Back!" before ducking back indoors, killing the porch light before I even had a chance to step off.

A funny thing about the job. Dead folks are pretty tough, despite the lack of coordination and quick decay, a bullet to the brainpan will usually do the trick. However, nothing is ever as easy as it seems.
Why on God's green earth would these kids still be wearing their helmets is beyond me, but a quick look and I returned to the truck, grabbing a pump shotgun loaded with some solid brass slugs.
With the kid a few feet behind me, I know, makes me nervous just to know that he's there and holding his own shotgun, probably loaded with number 4 buck or something that is guaranteed to have me visiting the Doc if he spooks wrong, but I couldn't count on another dead high school hero walking up behind me, I rounded the back and drew a bead on the two that I noticed initially.
One kept crouching down and then standing to stumble thru some cornflower patch that was already the victim of several clumsy tackles, while the other sat in a pile of his own intestines, watching as if benched from play.
I shot the sitting player where he watched, a large hole appearing in the back of the helmet while it what was under it sprayed all over his own innards.
The second turned suddenly, lowered to one knee and hitched up it's rump.
I racked a second round as it stood and began to stumble towards me.
My second round caught off center, but spun the helmet around with a sickening crackling as the spine snapped from the impact. It turned to the right, began to take another step then fell flat on it's face, gifting the air with a long and wet burst of flatulence.

A third player, also helmeted had wandered in on us and as I turned realized that the Kid hadn't even noticed, so intent he was on what I was doing, that he didn't even notice it walk up.
"Move aside." I told him calmly, but he spun around and squeeked.
He actually squeeked. What the hell?
He also didn't move out of the way but brought his shotgun up point blank and fired into the face of this thing, the blast carrying what was left of the head and the helmet up and away, across the yard and into the hood of my truck where it bounced and smacked into the lightbar, which cracked, sparked and went out.

I frowned and stared down the kid, who's moment of exhilarated joy turned to disbelief then sheepish embarassment.
"Throw the bodies in the truck, I'll rope off the messy bits." I barked at him, before retrieving the Biohazard tape from the truck.

I'd get a few more volunteers in the morning with some shovels and pressure washers to clean up, but tonight we still had a lot of work to do.


Later on we had more trouble, but it went pretty routine, if exhausting, until we hit a snag.
Well, actually we hit a cheerleader.

[SeerSavant]

Both the Kid and I had been doing all we could to keep alert, even though we had grown tired and bogged down by the physical exertions so that by 2 am, we had grown careless.
Coffee ran continuous through our systems and even though we tried to stay on top of it, mistakes began to happen, minor stuff, but tempers began to fray.

A Cheerleader had wandered out between two parked cars and I "Grilled" her with the truck.
I mean, that's what I bought the heavy duty grill guard for right? Only after all this time of doing the job, the Kid, after one half night decided that he knew better than I did.
"She was alive!" He gasped.
I shoved the truck into park and stared at him.
"What?"
"She was alive! She even raised her arms in front of her." He looked to be near tears.
I got out, at first unsure, hell, we were both exhausted, maybe.... But I could tell instantly, despite the broken body, and unnatural sheen to her skin that she had been dead several hours already. Besides, folks don't come back to life that quickly.
I told all this an other reasons to the Kid, pointing out the cheerleader who was slowly crawling towards us as we argued the point.
Any idiot could tell that she had already been dead for a while... Well, not any idiot.

"She was alive..." The kid said accusingly, "And you killed her."
"Look at her legs you idiot," I began, wondering if it would have any affect, "She's been dead long enough for the blood to pool, that's why they're all purple and blue. Look at where her arms broke when I ran over her, where the bone is poking out, it didn't even bleed. Why is this?"
I waited for a few brief seconds, "Because the blood drained down to her legs already, responding to gravity and the fact that the heart was no longer beating, you moron."
I punctuated the last word with a one handed shot from the shotgun that sprayed her grey matter all over the Kid's shoes.

Look, we were tired, at least I loaded her up myself, partially to let him cool down and also to give him a chance to scrape the goop of his shoes.
No way in hell he was putting that shit on my floormats.

This was the first of many arguments between us. The next came as a large group came between us the and kid fired, spraying chunks of undead gore all over me and nearly killing me in the process. A second time he missed and spiderwebbed the windshield of my truck.
We were no longer talking and began to smell as bad, if not worse, than the heavy load in the back of the truck.

I had dumped off a full bed three times now, and we circled thru town along streets until we finally pulled into the town park, located dead center, and spotted two more cheerleaders munching on some poor drunk guy who had passed out on the bench.

The kid grabbed a shotgun and without waiting wandered into the park.
I let him go and pulled out my notebook, double checking the numbers, with the list of stiffs that the PD had finally gotten to me.

Three short shotgun blasts later, I turned my full attention to the list.
Three times I worked it out, three times I came up short.

Suddenly I heard several more shotgun blasts from the kid, then a muttered curse and pistol shots.

I looked up and saw a large tattered foam and fabric shark staring at me.

[SeerSavant]

The mascot had been beat up and thrashed, but inside the large shark suit, it glared out at me.

Yeah, I know, a thousand miles from the ocean and the school mascot is a friggin shark. Of all the bizarre shit in this town, that's bothering you?

I jumped out of the truck, shotgun in hand and fired several rounds into the large JabberJaw looking blood stained creature until it fell then proceeded to jump up and down as hard as I could where I imagined the head would be inside the large costume until I heard a solid crack and felt a melon sized object crush under my boots.

Running into the park, I saw the kid had dropped the shotgun and was currently reloading his sidearm, a player was crawling towards him as he backed away and to the far side of him I saw a topless woman and a man with his pants down around his ankles walking up to the kids blindside.
I shouted his name in warning and the Kid turned saw me aiming my shotgun and began firing.
At me!


All of our arguments, and the constant stress of the night.
Did the kid really think I was trying to kill him?
I stood stunned as the kid fired two shots and was tackled from behind by the 'couple', who I later found out were married, only not to each other, and in a small town like this caused almost as much of a stir as the bus accident did.

I ran forward and began to yell at the kid who had rolled onto his back while the woman clawed at him, the man grappled with his legs.
I planted a boot in the man's shoulder and rolled him, firing point blank into his head, before buttstroking the woman off the kid.
I reversed the shotgun and shot her in the throat severing her head clean off.
The kid scrambled to his feet and took off without a word.

I yelled after him, but he simply wailed something unintelligible and kept running.

The woman's head was twitching and I walked over to where it had stopped rolling and stopped cold.
It was chewing on something wet and red. I put a round in it's skull and sighed.

That's when I heard the trucks engine roar to life.

But the kid wasn't running.

The truck erupted thru some box hedges and raced across the park straight for me as I dove towards a few trees, pausing to turn beside the thickest and fire several rounds into the windshield of my truck.
The glass spiderwebbed and took on a misty red hue as the truck impacted the tree at speed, the windshield exploded outward as the kid flew thru it and landed, rolling to a stop a few feet past me.
The shotgun had run dry, and I ditched it, pulling my revolver and drawing a bead on the kid, who was now struggling to get up.

He wasn't dead yet, a round had gotten into his upper chest and he had an arterial spray gushing from high in his chest as he struggled to raise his sidearm. I noticed then the large chunk of meat missing from his forearm and raised my gun, putting a round thru the bridge of his nose.

I recognized the harsh gurgling thing he had been repeating as he stood.
"Your fault."

I stood looking down at his body for a few minutes, thinking that my paperwork had just quadrupled, and I had even more bodies to load and dump, after I went out and found another vehicle, and decided that in fact it wasn't my fault at all.
It was the kid's. So fuck him.
I put another bullet into his head.
Then a third.
Just on general principal.


The day broke but it was nearing mid day before I was able to finally head back to my place and shower off the nights fun.
My back hurt, my head hurt, and everything combined to make me feel about as shitty as a person can feel and not be dead.
Fuck it, I'd do the paperwork in the morning.
I made a mental note to visit the doc the next day and sat down with a beer on my couch, and tried to put the nights events in order.
But fell asleep instead.

[SeerSavant]

Later on I woke up, cramps had hit me and I collapsed into the shower, wanting nothing more but to go back to sleep and to be free of the stink that seemed to be stuck in my nose, laying in a huddled ball under the cold spray as another cramp hit me and I spent the night waterlogged and in unbelievable agony.

Eventually the pain subsided and I found myself staring into the bathroom mirror, not quite grasping what I looked at.

In the center of my chest was a neat little bullet hole.
I hadn't noticed it before, because of my manly growth of Magnum PI chest hair, and because it barely bled more than a few drops, not even enough to stain my shirt.
Then it hit me.
That little fucker had shot me!

One of the rounds he had fired at me had hit me dead on and stopped my ticker cold. No exit wound that I could find and judging from my still working nerve endings, hardly any other tissue damage had occurred.

If anything, the lack of anything out of the norm had been the most unusual part.

I tried holding my breath. Gave up after about a half hour. Took a deep breath, some minor irritation as the lungs began to move again, but still, no big impact on what I was feeling.
I was feeling, you know. Dull and kinda without any conscious meaning to it, but I could still feel.

But I had died.
I was.
Am.
Dead.

[SeerSavant]

Well.
Since that night, my life... err, death, hasn't been quite the same.

Yeah... No shit.

I still run the Zombie Squad, for Gideon Country, only with what you might call a bit more insight into my job, which I manage to do pretty well, despite the initial urge to eat most folks that I see.
Yeah, it's a strong urge, not quite as hard to resist as smoking, but pretty strong still.
So far, no problems.

Okay, that one incident, but as I see it, I did the world a favor, so we'll leave that for another story, shall we?

Besides, the only time the really heavy urges hit is on the job when I see a zombie trying to munch away on some poor sap who's in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You know, like after quitting smoking, when one of your friends lights up, the urge is pretty damned hard to ignore.



For the obvious reasons, I've kept the news of my demise pretty quiet.
I did make a few changes.
A workout machine and strict regime of daily exercises keeps the blood from pooling and causing bruising although I don't seem to tan anymore, but most of my work ends up at night so folks just assume I don't get enough sun.
I still buy food, but don't have the desire to eat it.
Still haven't figured why my brain didn't turn to mush like those I hunt down.
I've tried to talk to a few, but they just ignore me.
Forgot to mention that, the dead no longer seem to care about my presence, probably know on some base level that I'm no longer among the living.
Makes the job a lot easier, and because I don't get tired, the jobs actually kinda nice now.

Anyway, It's the routine, workout, watch the television and wait for the calls.

I don't know how long I can keep it a secret, but for now, it's just me, my journal, which means you dear reader, and my insurance agent.

Yeah, I cashed in my policy.
Took some work to get around the red tape, but in the end, it was well worth it.
Still, it's a lonely life.

I should talk about the time I found a hot little hitchiker who had committed suicide at the No Tell Motel while she was passing thru town and came back.
It's a story about mindless lust, duct tape, and a whole bunch of vaseline.

Maybe next time...













Well that's it, written a long time ago, and honestly forgotten until I was reorganizing my stories.
Hope everyone enjoyed it.

And let me know what you thought?

[Narshalla]

I should talk about the time I found a hot little hitchiker who had committed suicide at the No Tell Motel while she was passing thru town and came back.
It's a story about mindless lust, duct tape, and a whole bunch of vaseline.

Maybe next time...

LOL! That would be interesting! On second thought, never mind, I don't think it's anything I should be reading!

Well that's it, written a long time ago, and honestly forgotten until I was reorganizing my stories.
Hope everyone enjoyed it.

And let me know what you thought?

This was wonderful!

[SeerSavant]

Thanks, you can blame this in part on Tribunal Power, remember his journal styled Tell Me Your Alive thread? I remember you posting in there.
I had gone without writing for about a decade, when along came his thread and I just jumped in.

By the time a few pages had gone by, the writing bug had come back.

Now, aside from dusting off old stories that I had written, and some new stuff I started, now I'm in the process of a novel, and have an outline for another in the works...

I have little enough time as it is, and deciding to get back into writing....

Well, it's more of the stories popping into my head and can't get them out until I commit them to the page syndrome.

Hopefully by the end of the year I might have some feelers on a book...