Becoming Badass

I was living the dream. I was in an empty store full of toys I could load up and use on zombies, and had the luxury of being able to take my time packing. Now, if this were a traditional fantasy novel, I would spend the next 2000 or so words explaining in glorious detail what items I put where. Good thing it isn’t. Suffice to say I figured I would at some point find some other humans and we could all team up, so I packed 8 ‘backpacker’ bags with the same gear:
Maps, dried food, water packs, med kits, a knife, a flint, a multi-tool, some rope, and some other goodies.

For myself I quickly realized that I’m not nearly as fit as I need to be. Once I packed up my bag of holding, I did my lower back the disservice of lifting it up and strapping it on. Apparently 150lbs of all the goodies I wanted weighed 150lbs. Also apparently, I’m not capable of moving all that quickly with a 150lb backpack strapped on. In fact ‘movement’ is more of a leaned forward duck waddle. Suddenly my whacking stick was looking mighty efficient.

While lamenting my lack of physical fitness I heard for the first time a sound that is permanently etched as a neural trace in my poor brain.

Two-Seeeeeep

Doesn’t look so bad does it? Two Seep. Oh noes, so scarzed!

Try for your own amusement to whisper the two, then inhale through your teeth and say seeeeeep as if sipping some hot tea.

Two-Seeeeep, click-ick-ick-ick-ick
Two-Seeeeep, click-ick-ick-ick-ick

Ok, now I’m getting freaked out. I duck-waddled around to face the sound and saw just what it was. At first glance it looked like a car mechanic wearing its coveralls down so its upper body was not covered. What was once a regular human torso was now a demented caricature of a fitness model. Bright red as if burned by the sun on March break skin clashed with bulging black veins to create a wickedly demonic looking zombie. It’s eyes were where a humans would be, however they were all black. Not dark and mysterious black. Black, 100%, no whites, no pupils, just darkness. Creepy. The sun burned, black-veined, black-eyed creature was spooky enough, but what really gave me the willies was the grin.

It was looking at me like I was crack and it needed a fix. It LITERALLY grinned ear to ear. Its mouth stretching beyond the capacity of any humans, it looked at me and uttered two simple words:

Twooooo (puckering its lips to accentuate the ooo)
Then back to the grin and
Seeeeeeeep

The Click-ick-ick-ick-ick was its teeth chattering and weirdly blistered tongue flicking against them.



So I might have peed a little.



It then flashed forward with the speed and grace of a raging anime ninja. Bounding at me it apparently was just like a Hollywood movie – it had a love affair with Parkour as well – and pulled some flashy acrobatics off by running along a wall for a few steps and side flipping over the pile of gear I had gathered.

Two hands whipped toward either side of my head as if boxing my ears because I swore at it. I managed to lean back just enough that its hands hammered together in front of my face, the force of their clap resounding loud enough to set my ears ringing.

I kept right on falling over, apparently that backpack had sided with Newton and wanted to party down with gravity. Thanks science.

Because the creature was moving full speed it continued right over me, making it look as if I pulled off some sweet back bridge dodge. What a sec, isn’t momentum in science too? Thanks science!

Howling in rage and lashing out with one leg, the ugly jerk hit my bag with enough force to send me spinning away into my collection of gear. I guess it was luck because if he had hit my body I think I might have been liquefied.

TWOOOOOO-SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!

Yeah, I know, you want to smash my noggin and eat my brains. Good thing this isn’t a movie or I would have struggled until just the last second to get the bag off. Turns out the clips worked just as they were intended to and I quickly unclasped them. Looking up I saw speedy McUgly streaking towards me again. Eeep. Diving out of the bag and rolling forward I reached out and grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on and threw it at the beast on my way around. Turning end over end I could almost hear the whistle as my implement of destruction whirled toward my adversary. With a soft thud my weapon struck, halting the beast in its tracks. It looked at me, down at its chest where my desctructo disk had landed, and back at me, tilting its head like a confused dog.

And that’s when I realized I had thrown a yoga mat…FML