Episode 38: Oh No More Characters

We take you once more to the moments before the Zombie Crisis arose. This was hours upon hours ago, nearly immeasurable in thoroughly confused and frightened human standards. It was a time when presumably human figures in black cloaks sang in graveyards. It was a time when few innocents had any idea that a Zombie Apocalypse was possible. It was, more than anything, a time when Burger King was still open.
Specifically, we speak of a Burger King in Denver, Colorado, just west of Moda Garden, and just southeast of Coors Field. We enter it at a moment shortly before the dead began to rise. Perhaps five minutes. Behind the counter, we find a pudgy white man wearing a traditional Burger King crown, a papery hat coated in deep fry oil. He seems to be in his late twenties, but the amount of acne assaulting his face suggests that he’s only seventeen years into his, now likely short, life. He is vaguely despondent, vaguely depressive, vaguely depressing (what with being a twenty-eight year old man working at a Burger King) and, as all fast food employees, could easily be considered vaguely human. He has always done his job with little open complaint, in part because he is the Assistant Manager. This gives him a feeling of self-satisfaction, which is made ironic by the fact that being Assistant Manager just means that he has to work the night shift alone. He has been through twenty-two robbery attempts. His name is Edgardo Church.
The man with darting eyes and an unnecessarily heavy jacket at that booth over there, the one holding his cheeseburger much as a squirrel holds a nut, who has large black bags under his eyes, is named Kevin Simpson. He really has no important history, and is very nearly a homeless bum. Had anyone ever thought to take him to a psychiatrist, or had he received the money to go to one, he would have been diagnosed as violently schizophrenic. It’s a very apt diagnosis. For some reason, unknown even to him, he often supposes that people have given him the nickname “Rider”, leading him to introduce himself to strangers as Kevin ‘Rider’ Simpson. Beneath his heavy winter jacket, he has a cheap handgun, stolen in an unusual act of bravado and skill from a pawn shop.
Now entering the store are three rowdy, talkative, and threatening-to-whitey African Americans. At the lead is Tyree Davis. He’s fairly tall, twenty-one, and, even when sober, is undeniably stupid. He’s quite different from sober at this moment. Since he’s entered, there’s been a very loud string of what sounds to both Edgardo and Kevin as modern ebonics. In reality, it’s just a loud, slurred version of low vocabulary English, strewn with curse words. The things he is saying, as well as the things he usually says, are entirely inane, and so are not important to recount. He holds in his left hand a football, which is now in his right hand. Every few seconds, he suddenly grips it in both hands, shakes it gently with his words, and then pulls it away with the other hand. When he doesn’t have both hands on the football, he tends to have his arms spread wide, making it difficult for anyone to walk beside him. Which is why his companions are just behind him.
The lovely young woman shaking her head dismayingly is Charrone Portinari. Had she been born thirty or forty years before she was, she would have been called by her hypothetical contemporaries a “foxy mama.” Being a child of the 90's and Oughts, she is known by her horny contemporaries as “a sexy baby.” While she doesn’t particularly care for the sexism inherent in the epithet, or in the objectification of her body, she does enjoy knowing that she is, to speak frankly, a sex fantasy for a number of the boys she knows. She has a trim waist, a fairly large bust, wide hips, and, the part she’s most proud of and most embarrassed by, a large ass. Her skin is very dark, though far from literally being black. She’s fairly intelligent, though not pedantic, or overbearing. Some may want to draw parallels between her and Sylvie, but they would be correct at all, except in the fact that they’re both female, sexy, and enjoy being sexy. Charrone does not, however, use her overwhelming sexiness to her extreme advantage intentionally. She spends her free time with Tyree (and their other companion) merely because the three of them have been friends since childhood.
The third member of the party is Chaz Raymond. He wears his hair in a combination of corn-rows and dreadlocks, which is quite possibly very painful. The dreadlocks came from a period where he felt like taking no care of his hair; the corn rows came from a desire to fit in with a slightly off idea of what was “in” at the time. The combination of the two came from a desire not to cut his hair after he decided to begin brushing and combing it; he couldn’t brush it past the dreadlocks, meaning that both sections were growing. After a few months, the clean section had gained enough ground to become corn-rowed. It’s a very difficult process, corn-rowing dreadlocked hair. Besides his bizarre looks that combine two black stereotypes, Chaz does in fact have a personality. He’s quite similar to Charrone, in part because they grew up together, though majorly because he is madly in love with her. He, like her, is twenty-two. She, to his dismay, is dating Tyree at the moment, and he is Tyree’s best friend. He is intelligent, though not quite as intelligent as Charrone because she’s got natural intelligence and he doesn’t. He, like her, is kindly, and, out of loving mimicry of her, disdainful of Tyree.
Edgardo, upon seeing the entry of a group of three black people-all of whom he characterized immediately by, not only the tone of their skin, but primarily by the flamboyant, annoying, and idiotic manner of Tyree-immediately unlatched the case over the emergency silent alarm button. To be fair to his racial profiling of the three, sixteen of the twenty-two robberies he survived were committed by African Americans. The other six were, contrary to his most general expectations, committed by “Whitey.” Since becoming Assistant Manager of this Burger King nine months ago-he had worked there for nine years and three months prior-he had significantly changed his opinion on races, particular the plethora of Mexicans that he had noticed in Colorado. It did not, however, suggest to him the truth: that individuals make their own decisions about their own lives, and that it has little to do with race, only with raising which is often effected by race.
Tyree approached the counter. He began to order some set of burgers, fries, and drinks that were incomprehensible to Edgardo. His hand fluttered closer to the button.
“Come again?” he asked hesitantly.
“We want three Double Whoppers with cheese, two normal Whoppers, four large french fries, two sides of Chicken Tenders, a large Coke, a large Sprite, and a large Dr. Pepper,” Chaz quickly translated. Tyree, having no idea that his words were slurred, as he always forgot his tendency to slur them, gave Chaz a confused and partly angry look. Chaz shrugged. He was much more sober than Tyree was, and knew how to deal with drunks, especially drunk Tyree. None of the four noticed the gradually increasing pitch of the sound outside, or the increased twitchiness of the strange, oft unnoticed Kevin Simpson, nor did they notice the fact that he was cringing with his eyes shut and beginning to claw at his ears.
“That’ll be twelve dollars and fifty nine cents,” Edgardo said guardedly, allowing his hand to drift away from the silent alarm button.
“No it won’t, Homes,” Chaz said threateningly, holding his hands in his pockets and stretching his letterman jacket threateningly. Edgardo deftly and subtly hit the silent alarm button, and then stuck his hands up in the air. Chaz and Tyree laughed, and Charrone gently smacked Chaz on the arm. He looked at her pretending to be hurt and rubbed his arm.
“Sorry, man, I was just messin’ with ya,” Chaz pulled his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out twelve dollars. Edgardo’s mouth swung open and his arms swung down.
“I...”
“Sir, I’m very sorry for that,” Charrone interrupted. “They’re just a couple of frat boys, you know how it is.” She gave Chaz a friendly nasty look. “But I expected better from this one.” Chaz blushed gently and fumbled to get thirteen dollars out of his wallet.
“No, I just...”
“Everybody down on the ground!” a flustered voice cried out from the booth in the corner. Chaz, Tyree, and Charrone all turned around slowly, while Edgardo turned just a little bit, then raised his arms quickly once more. A disgruntled, unkempt man in an ancient, torn winter jacket held a revolver in his left hand, and the right side of his face with his right. He had the gun pointed at Tyree. Tyree smiled drunkly, stumbled, and fell respectfully down to the ground. He began to stand up not-so-respectfully. Charrone and Chaz both obeyed instantly, and, after attempting to pull Tyree back down, covered their heads.
“Heeeeey, man,” Tyree-who Chaz and Charonne hadn’t managed to bring down-slurred almost coherently. “You don’t need that gin... Gone... Shooter here! We ain’t gonna hurt ya,” He stumbled forwards a little. Kevin didn’t particularly notice, as he was too busy clutching his face in terror.
“No, No, you’re going to hurt me!” He screamed. “You and your damned song! It’s making me crazy! You want me to kill, you bastards, you want me to kill, so I’ll kill!” He screamed, getting progressively louder, drowning out what little the other four may have been able to hear of it, but unable to block it out from his own ears.
The clock struck 11.
“What the fuck is that?” Edgardo screamed as the entire sky lit up with white, green, and red lights intertwining. Kevin heard the song stop, and he began screaming in relief. Chaz, overcoming his bewilderment, decided to display his hearty bravado, and leapt across the room from his position on the ground. He collided with Kevin, knocking the revolver across the room, and knocking both of the two down. Kevin’s head connected with the tiled floor with a sickening crack. But rather than scream more or die, Kevin’s eyes tore open.
“Experiments!” He screamed a moment later. Chaz forcefully pinned him to the ground. Kevin stopped struggling, and smiled wisely. Charrone got to her feet, ran over to the gun, and picked it up.
The store stood still for a moment.
“That was confusing,” Tyree finally slurred.
“Those weren’t fireworks,” Kevin said coyly.
“And those aren’t people coming out of that house,” Edgardo stuttered. Chaz looked out the window, as did Charrone and, after a moment, Tyree.
“Or that one,” Tyree said almost coherently.
“It’s bad,” Kevin snorted. “I know it better than you,” he nearly sang. Chaz pushed down on him suddenly again.
“I’m locking the store.” Edgardo grabbed his keys. He looked to Charrone, being that she had the gun, and in crime situations the one holding the gun is in charge generally. She nodded as soon as she understood. He walked to all the doors and locked them.
Chaz wouldn’t let Kevin up to see what was going on. Fortunately, Kevin felt that he knew what was going on. He knew, like many people would if they had seen it, that there were zombies outside. How he knew this, he only half knew-and you don’t really get to know it anytime soon either. At least, not in this episode.
You do get to know, however, finally, why zombies were so quick to reach places distant from grave yards. At least, you get to half know it. Edgardo, Chaz, Tyree, and Charrone were in prime positions to join the small group-several thousand or so large-who saw zombies advancing out of what had previously been thought to be homes. Previously, many of them were homes. Most of those that had been had been lived in by those who were wearing black cloaks that night. Many of them were also positioned along Ley Lines, as well as at convenient points where magickal energies collided perfectly-much like those that we spoke of in relation to Michael, the natural hero, and Andy’s House.
And they were coming out of domestic residences by the dozens.
It took about an hour for a large number of zombies to build up around the Burger King. Throughout that time, Chaz sat/crouched on Kevin. When the zombies were right up against the West Glass Wall, however, Chaz couldn’t take it anymore, and joined the other three pressed against the counter. Kevin stood up, brushed himself off stylishly, and went to cower with him. Chaz made sure that it was on the far side from Charrone, for a couple of obvious reasons. Not much significant was said during this time, except for the slow realization that these were the living dead, and that it was entirely likely that no one would come to rescue them. This continued for another half hour or so, when the shambling corpses outside of the glass window reached a critical mass. Charrone passed the gun over to Tyree, who passed it fumblingly to Edgardo, who slipped it through his fingers like a hot potato right into the hands of Chaz, who, shrugging mentally, handed it right back to Kevin. Kevin nodded, zipped up his jacket, and pointed it at the glass.
The glass shattered.
A split second before Kevin was about to fire, a red sedan with military license plates burst through the zombie hoard. It sat and sputtered for a minute, then started up and flew into reverse. Kevin went dashing through the gap in the zombie army, and was quickly followed by the others, Charrone at the rear. As they passed into the street, which was relatively zombie-free due to their concentration on the Burger King, Charrone waved a thank you to the driver of the red car. She turned to run as fast as she could after Kevin and the others. The red car tore off into the night, and the group from Burger King tore off into the ABC News building.
A shelter had begun there, as shelters had begun in all local network broadcast centers. They somehow seemed safer to people than the prescribed shelters that had been in place in case of a nuclear attack. Many of the prescribed nuclear bunkers were, in fact, defunct and full of things that you don’t want to take with you to a post-apocalyptic setting. Used condoms will do no good against nuclear mutants or magic-powered zombies. ABC Colorado Headquarters was housing one hundred and seventy three employees, and, at that point, fifteen civilians. When our five entered, it was twenty civilians.
Kevin instantly handed the revolver to a surprised security guard, and wandered into a lounge, to lounge. The other four found their own places. Tyree found a place to nap, in order to try to sober up. He, much like Marty, had no idea what was going on, due to his extreme drunkenness. Chaz and Charrone, meanwhile, began to share intimate moments, proud of themselves and each other for having contributed to the defeat of Kevin before he stopped needing to be defeated. Edgardo headed into the news room, behind the cameras, to try to get some sort of an idea of what was going on. There didn’t seem to be any real need to keep him out; it seemed beneath the situation.
As the night progressed, more and more survivors trickled into the station. It was about 1:30 when they officially declared themselves a zombie shelter, what with the ten floors of sleeping space.
It was 2:00 when the government made an official statement. What that official statement was is not yet pertinent to the circumstances. Amongst our current heroes, the only one who really cared what the government had to say was Edgardo. When he tried to tell the others about it, they didn’t care. Before he could even start with Kevin, the latter said very simply, “The government is dead.”
At about 3:45, Tyree woke up, sober enough to try to comprehend what was going on. He found Chaz and Charrone, who pretended that they had not just made out, and the three went, for an indeterminate reason, into the news room. Kevin was already there, having completed his self-assigned lounging duties. He wasn’t wearing his winter coat anymore. Beneath it’s bulky, almost obese frame, he was actually a gangly and skinny man, perhaps even lanky. He was grinning smugly at the news reporters.
All smugness dissipated from the room, however, when a Naydeer truck came barreling through the wall just behind Kevin. There was another moment of silent bewilderment as everyone-for everyone had been a safe distance from the wall when it burst in-turned towards the wall and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Then there was a “chunk” sound, and the truck slid a little bit farther into the room. Everyone jumped back. And out of the truck burst a tallish, gangly, crazed man with a shotgun. He spun his head around the room furiously to survey it, and dashed, apparently at random, to Kevin. He held Kevin by the back of his shirt and pointed the shotgun at his head. He glared hatefully at the hole in the wall as a Chinese teenager brandishing a katana dashed through the gap.
“I hate crashing ca...” The man said as he turned the shotgun to point at the Chinese teen.
“Oh, shut up!”