Zombies frat boys monste.., p.1
Zombies, Frat Boys, Monster Flash Mobs, page 1
part #1 of Snog Team Six Series
Zombies, Frat Boys,
Monster Flash Mobs
&
Other Terrifying Things I Saw at the
Gates of Hell Cotillion
Also by Ted Neill
- Science Fiction -
City on a Hill
The Selah Branch
Reaper Moon
Snog Team Six Series
Volume 1: Jamhuri, Njambi, & Fighting Zombies
Volume 2: Zombies, Frat Boys, Monster Flash Mobs
Volume 3: Halo Jumpers, Human Traffickers, & Tiger Zombies (forthcoming)
- Fantasy -
Elk Riders Series
Volume 1: In the Darkness Visible
Volume 2: Voyage of the Elawn
Volume 3: The Font of Jasmeen
Volume 4: Journey to Karrith
Volume 5: The Magus
- Short Stories -
Bunny Man’s Bridge
- Non-Fiction -
Two Years of Wonder
Finding St. Lo: A Memoir of War & Family
Tenebray Press
© 2020 by Ted Neill
All Rights Reserved
Published 2020. Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 9798638105549
Cover art provided by: Agata Broncel at Bukovero Designs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Zombies, Frat Boys,
Monster Flash Mobs
&
Other Terrifying Things I Saw at the
Gates of Hell Cotillion
By
Ted Neill
Copyright 2020
Dedicated to:
José Luis Hernández, the real-life members of the
Caravana de los Mutilados, and all the dreamers and strivers like them.
Part I
Campus
Chapter One
Gerald
Tuesday, October 20th, at 9:47 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Liam returned to his workshop on the ground floor of Lambeth House to find a demon floating above his workbench.
The scaly, horned, gargoyle-looking . . . thing . . . was singing “Bodak Yellow.”
Liam blinked a number of times, as one is wont to do when confronted with a vision of a supernatural being hovering over their volumetric flasks singing Cardi B’s 2017 breakout hit.
Liam’s first thought was that the seals on some of his solvents with higher vapor points had gone bad. Hypothesis number 1: enclosed within his lab, these chemicals had formed a vapor cloud with psychedelic, dissociative (or both) effects. Liam left the door open to the workshop as he wheeled his bike inside, allowing some fresh air to waft in. This was in an effort to test this hypothesis. Hopefully a strong draft would clear up this unexpected sensory experience.
After a brief check of the seals on all his solvents, acids, and bases, Liam could see that they were all intact. The demon remained, wiggling his butt to the beat, his scaly tail following while he did his best to beatbox along with Cardi.
Eiann had been flying behind Liam in his dragonfly drone configuration. The AI assistant buzzed through the door, making his way to the top of one of the bookshelves, where he hovered over his port before settling down and plugging in to recharge. Liam swung the door back and forth a few times, hoping to pull in a few more gusts of fresh air, then closed it so he could reach the hook hanging from the ceiling behind it. The winch in the rafters let out a low hum as the cable extended. Liam removed the trombone case from the pannier rack of the bike before looping the hook and cable around the bamboo-epoxy frame of his bike. He gave the cable a tug. The servos kicked in, winding the bike up and out of the way.
With that taken care of, Liam turned back to the demon.
It was still there.
As demons went, it appeared pretty standard: gray-green in color, with a flattened bulldog face, upturned nose, and a nest of interlocking needle-like fangs. Its ears were floppy and conical, reminiscent of a bat. Its arms, just a bit longer than its stocky legs, were tipped with claws a deep shade of green—a shade of green that matched the stumpy set of horns on either temple and the row of spikes running down the length of the demon’s back. The spikes grew smaller until they reached the end of the creature’s tail, where they shaded to a more yellowish-chartreuse color. The last three spikes were larger than the rest. Horns, spikes, and nails all looked to be made of a keratin-like substance.
Although the . . . apparition . . . hallucination . . . whatever it was . . . had wings with the graceful curves of scimitar blades, its body lacked any logical biomechanical coherence. The wings, the distribution of weight . . . it all was impossible, aerodynamically speaking—especially when Liam considered the wings’ surface area to the volume of the demon’s gut, which was ample and rotund enough to make Liam wonder if this was a demon of gluttony or some other related vice or sin.
Unless the gut was actually a ballast filled with some type of lighter-than-air substance. Methane maybe, produced in its gastrointestinal track by methanogens. Maybe that was how this thing was able to fly. . . .
Liam shook his head, chiding himself for going as far as even contemplating that this might be anything other than a hallucination or dream.
The demon floated over Liam’s tool tray, where Liam had left out his wire strippers and Allen keys. The creature was moving into the third verse of “Bodak Yellow”—if one could even call it a verse, although it played more like a bridge. (It had been Liam’s opinion for years now that Cardi B was wildly overrated, including in her latest incarnation of Megan Thee Stallion.)
Despite the demon’s poor choice in music, Liam decided to do what any good scientist would: he took a deep breath to lower his heart rate, cleared his mind, and turned to his powers of objective observation and scientific reasoning.
He went through a mental checklist of possibilities, quickly recognizing that he needed to corroborate his data, since his senses, in their current state, could not be trusted.
“Eiann, are you picking up any unusual chemical vapors that would indicate broken seals?”
“No sir, Mr. Liam,” Eiann said. Now that the AI assistant was settled in his port, his voice emanated from the speakers placed throughout the workshop. Eiann was even-toned and calm in his objectivity. His voice had only the slightest hint of a British accent in its electronic warble. “But the mics are picking up an unidentified voice in the laboratory.”
“Other than my voice?”
“Yes.”
Liam’s heart began to race again. He wondered if even Eiann’s voice just then had been a hallucination—which would complicate collecting corroborating data through the AI assistant.
“Mr. Liam, your pulse rate is elevated, even for just having ridden your bike across campus from the marina. Are you feeling all right?”
“No, Eiann, I most certainly am not.”
“If I may provide additional data, sir, the cameras are picking up no readings in the visible spectrum or infrared. Readings on the chemical filters are normal, and motion sensors detect only you; however, the dark matter array is picking up anomalous signals.”
“That is interesting.” Liam had forgotten about the D.M.A. It was in the trombone case in his hand—they had just been testing it down at the marina. Eiann was still linked up to it. Liam set his father’s last—mysterious—invention atop the workbench. The trombone case, his mother’s, was still covered in campaign and protest stickers from the 2000s and 2010s. The stickers ran from the high minded “Yes We Can” and “Out of Many, One,” to the less polished but more strident “Resist” and “Keep your tiny hands off my pussy.” They included the iconic Shepard Fairey portraits of President Barack Obama, circa 2007; the triptych of three woman of color from 2017; We the Future, from 2018; Believe Survivors, from 2019; and even a few knockoffs of migrant children locked behind red bars with the phrase “close the camps” (the bars themselves forming a ghostly American flag).
As Liam stared at the political stickers, he felt a familiar stirring of emotions he didn’t want to deal with just then—especially now, when he might be losing his mind.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and dropped into his swivel chair. It rolled out and away from his desk. “Fudge sticks, Eiann, we need an outside observer I can—”
But Liam didn’t finish his sentence. The demon, now fluttering around the row of ring stands and burets on the workbench, had finally taken notice of Liam. The creature’s scaly eyebrows arched and his teeth popped apart in what Liam could only interpret as a smile. His wings flared and he came down for a landing, perched on his coiled tail atop Liam’s writing desk.
“Oh well, you are here—ahem—I didn’t hear you come it,” the demon said in a gravelly but chipper voice. He covered his mouth with his fist as he cleared his throat.
Liam was certain now he was losing his mind.
But there wasn’t much more to do than to let the hallucination play out. He continued to stare wordlessly at the apparition.
“Let me introduce myself,” the demon said.
Liam pressed himself into the back of his chair, wishing now that he had designed it with an ejection function—or at least the option to recline. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and this . . . thing . . . this situation.
Hypothesis number 2
: I am having a psychotic break.
The chair came to a stop as Liam rolled it backward up against his writing desk. This was as far as he could get. Unfortunately, the demon didn’t pick up on the hint and floated closer.
The demon put his fist to his mouth once more, nails clicking against one another as he cleared his throat a second time. He turned his head to the side, as if out of politeness. He placed his other hand on his puffed-out chest, presumedly where his heart would have been, although it seemed more an effort to distract from how he tried to suck in his gut. His throat fully cleared, the demon continued, this time with added pomp:
“I am Narvicous Scalegrim Gorgonzola Grimmold Maximus the Terrible. Spawn of Magnus Nightshade the Hideous. Scion of the Dread House of Flayers. Progeny of the Dark Order of the Nocturnal Succubae. Fully pledged member of the Fifth Rank of the Dreadnaughts of Splinterspleen. Keeper of the Plague of Babylon and the Pox of Ezerdown. Honorary Regent of the Scepter of Sheol and Steward of the Doomsday Tome.”
Liam blinked. The demon extended his hand as if to shake. “But you can call me Gerald.”
“Gerald . . .” was all Liam could say, although he was pretty sure he had also heard “gorgonzola” in that litany of names and titles, which otherwise were nonsense to him. His own hands remained in place, his fingers curled, his nails digging into the armrests.
“Mr. Liam, cross referencing the House of Flayers, the Scepter of Sheol, and the Doomsday Tome,” Eiann said. “These all appear to be artifacts which occur in occult literature and non-canonical Christian gospels, such as the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Apocalypse of Paul. These writings, dating from the second century CE, were categorized as apocryphal by the Catholic Church at the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century—”
“What an interesting automaton,” Gerald said, his yellow cat eyes turning to the upper corners of the room, where Eiann’s sensor arrays and speakers hung. Gerald dug a nail into one of his ears. Liam winced, anticipating him picking out a wad of hairy wax or whatever grotesque things waited in the ears of gargoyle-looking demons. But instead Gerald plucked out an Apple AirPod.
Hypothesis number 3: I’m dreaming. That’s it. I must be dreaming.
“I am not an automaton,” Eiann clarified for the . . . visitor? “I am an advanced artificially intelligent personal assistant. You may call me Eiann, which is an acronym for Enhanced Information Analysis Neural Network.”
Liam was somewhat encouraged that Eiann could interact with this manifestation at all. It provided evidence to support the hypothesis that Liam was not dreaming, nor was he losing his mind.
Hypothesis number 4: maybe this thing . . . Gerald . . . is real.
Real as such things could be. After all, the whole world had recently witnessed proof that the “supernatural” was not necessarily fanciful. The massive “zombie” outbreak in East Africa two years prior had given scientists, theologians—not to mention everyday people—reason enough to reevaluate long-held assumptions about . . . reality.
But Liam was fixated now on a particular incongruity in Gerald’s appearance. While it was indeed Cardi B blasting out of his now dislodged AirPod, the device it was connected to was an old-style, 1980’s Sony Walkman, its corner hanging out of a partially zipped fanny pack slung around Gerald’s girthy midsection.
“Uh, why are you listening to a Walkman . . . connected to AirPods . . . in a fanny pack? That makes no sense.”
Gerald pointed a curved talon at the pack. “Isn’t this what all you youth are listening to these days?”
“Maybe in 1989.”
“Right, right, silly me. It’s hard to keep track of these things, you know, when you get past six millennia old. How is this?” Gerald snapped his fingers, and the Walkman morphed into a first-generation iPod. For a moment, Gerald’s features darkened so that he was a complete silhouette. He danced, a black shadow with only the iPod, its white wire running up to the white earbuds lodged in his ears. He crooned out the words to U2’s 2004 single Vertigo.
Liam realized he had seen videos on YouTube like this . . . the first television ads for iPods: black silhouettes wearing white wires and earbuds, dancing against backgrounds of bright primary colors.
“Uh, maybe in 2005. You were better off the with AirPods.”
The inky blackness dissolved, and Gerald morphed back into three dimensions. By the expression on his face, he must have realized his miscalculation. The demon waved his hand and the clunky, old school iPod—wire, earbuds, and all—vanished.
“Eiann, what is the number for campus counselling services?”
“I can dial them at your request.”
“No, no, no, no, you are not hallucinating,” Gerald said.
“Then maybe I should call a priest for an exorcism.”
“Would you like me to call the campus priest, Mr. Liam?” Eiann asked.
Gerald snorted, raising an eyebrow. “Young boy like you . . . how old are you, thirteen?”
“Fifteen!” Lian corrected.
“Hmmph . . . can take your own chances with them,” Gerald huffed. Lian expected a Catholic priest joke to follow. Instead the demon settled down, his tail uncoiling so he could sit closer to Liam’s level on the edge of the desk. Gerald spread out his hands, the fingers with their nails or talons . . . whatever they were . . . splayed apart.
The demon started again.
“I assure you I am real. Well, as real as I can be on this plane of existence. Here, look, your little electronic friend can see me now.”
“Eiann?”
“Goodness, Mr. Liam, I am now registering a shape in the vicinity where you are looking. Cross referencing its shape and appearance, it does indeed correspond to catalogued images of cathedral gargoyles and other grotesqueries—”
Gerald crossed his arms. “What an offensive word choice. Grotesqueries! Your talking appliance there could use some manners.”
“—gargoyles and grotesqueries of a cartoonish nature, that is,” Eiann continued.
“Cartoonish! Cartoonish!?” Gerald shouted. “I am a demon with a fierce visage, terrible to behold, robed in great power!” Gerald began to flap his wings and turn in a circle, snarling and hissing as he looked about the room, seeking something—anything that represented Eiann—in order to direct his irritation.
Liam suppressed a laugh, cutting it off with his own fist to his mouth, as if clearing his own throat now.
“Might I add,” Eiann’s voice continued, effortlessly dialing up his volume to drown out Gerald’s threats, “I am no mere appliance, but a self-teaching, self-learning neural network.”
“I’ll show you neural—” Gerald said, shaking a fist, but he abandoned his threat as Liam began talking to himself.
“I know what happened. I got into a bike wreck, hit my head. I’m in a coma now. At least I hope so, because if I am dead and this is the afterlife that would be deeply disappointing. . . .”
“No, no, no,” Gerald said, gliding down again. “Let me tell you, this planet may be a dump, but it is not one of the afterlives.”
“Or my winch hook failed and my bike fell on my head.” But with a glance toward the door, Liam saw that the bike was in place, the hook intact.
“If it fell and hit me on the head . . . in my dream of course I’d see it there—”
“I assure you, this is not a dream, young man.”
“I just need to wake up,” Liam said, ignoring Gerald and beginning to get up. “I just need to find something to kill myself with . . . you can’t die in a dream, so that will wake me up.”
Now both Gerald and Eiann were speaking at once—suddenly on the same page—discouraging this course of action.
“No, no, no, that isn’t a good idea, young man.”
“Mr. Liam, sir, I am recording so we can review all the data later. I assure you such a course of action would be ill advised.”
Gerald leaned forward to ease Liam back down into his chair, his claws retracting so he could lightly touch Liam’s shoulders and even pat him on the head once he took his seat again.
He certainly felt real, Liam reflected on the demon’s touch—grateful Gerald had retracted those claws first.
