Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Should I be worried?

Before I get started please let me say one thing: I generally try to not piss people off.  Granted, there are some times when I try to, and other times when it's necessary, but they're rather few and far between.  Life is just easier when you don't go around pissing people off.  With that said, let's get to it.

Should I be worried about voodoo zombies?  Or, more appropriately, a voodoo zombie?  I keep racking my brain trying to figure out a scenario in which voodoo zombies are a big problem in my life, and I just can't think of one.  The only way in which I think I should be afraid is if I piss off some voodoo priest and he starts sending voodoo zombies after me.  But since I don't generally go around pissing people off, or hanging out with voodoo priests, I just don't see that as being very realistic.

Some may ask, "Hey, what about an army of voodoo zombies going around eating everyone's brains and causing havoc?"  Again, I don't see this as realistic.  Admittedly, I've never met a voodoo priest before but I'd assume they're pretty laid back people who wouldn't want to just kill everyone.  And voodoo zombies aren't the kind that just go around eating everyone; they're made for one specific purpose, and once that's finished so are they.  So as far as I can tell this probably won't happen unless some random voodoo priest wants revenge on the world and creates zombies whose goal is to kill everyone they see.

But there are reasons why I think I should be worried about voodoo zombies.  If there were one after me it would be hard to stop.  It's my understanding that a voodoo zombie won't be stopped by anything except accomplishment of its goal or complete and utter incapacitation (beyond just destroying the brain, to the point of removing all limbs from the torso or something similar).  Unfortunately, though, by the time one figures out that it is a voodoo zombie it may already be too late to take the necessary action to completely incapacitate it.  So if I was the target of a voodoo zombie I would probably have a lot of sleepless nights.

Not that the destruction of one voodoo zombie would be the end of the story, far from it.  If I angered a voodoo priest to the point where he thought it necessary to send the living dead after me, I certainly doubt it would stop at one.  So maybe I can take out the first one.  But then what about the second, third, fourth, et cetera.  I would either have to find a way to kill or placate the priest (which I imagine would be difficult due to their being pretty laid back and therefore hard to anger) or spend the rest of my life running from, and trying to kill, voodoo zombies.

As long as I don't go around pissing people off I should be okay.  Also, the more I think about this, the more I think it would make a really cool video game.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

June is a great month for marriages


Sgt. O'Leary tentatively poked around the bandage.

“Hey!” snapped the nurse, “Don’t touch that too much.  You want it to heal, don’t you?”

The sergeant dropped his hand to his side.  He looked at the nurse, “So how long do I have to wear this damn thing?  I have to give my daughter away Saturday.”

She didn’t look up from her clipboard as she spoke, “Well it’s still going to be there on Saturday if you ever want it to go away.”

Patrick looked around the room: sterile, white, dead.  It was depressing and bright, he felt dizzy.  Raising his hands to his face he closed his eyes and tried to not think about what just happened or all the paperwork it was going to require.  The nurse turned around to face him, clipboard still in hand, “Your blood work came back clean but the doctor still thought it would be best for you take an antibiotic.  Follow the directions on the bottle and make sure you change your bandage twice a day and clean it with alcohol, okay?”  She held out a prescription note.\

O’Leary looked up and took the note, nodding as he did.


“And to think, just before Debbie’s wedding.”

“I know, Margaret.  I just don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?  Let’s just go to bed.”

Margaret looked pretty good despite all the extra years her husband had put on her.  Her hair, previously a gorgeous dark brown, had picked up some salt over the years, but in his eyes she was still the same twenty two year old he had first met way back when.  “Patrick, you know I hate this: you go out all night and I can’t sleep a wink!  Twenty years of this and I’ve been worried for every single moment of it!  And now this?  Some psycho meth head takes a chomp out of your neck days before the wedding?”

Patrick sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his shoe.  “Margaret, I was a cop before we were married and you knew damn well what you were getting into.  I know that you worry but what am I supposed to do?  Either I tangle with that God damned meth head or he murders some innocent old lady.”

He looked back to see her back turned with hand on her face.  He stood and opened his arms to her, “Come here, Margie.”  She turned and fell into him, sobbing.  The good sergeant stumbled a little as he held her.


“Sir, I understand the importance of your daughter’s wedding-“

“Only daughter’s wedding,” O’Leary interrupted.

The smaller man took a breath, “Only daughter’s wedding, of course.  I understand the importance of it, but there’s nothing I can do.  Anything I could do would look much worse than that small bandage of yours.”  He was young for a tailor, and much smaller than O’Leary.  His stature paled in comparison to the wide-shouldered sergeant.  Intimidation, however, is nothing compared to a lack of recourse.  “The only thing I could suggest would be to wear a turtle neck under the shirt.  I have plenty to choose from and-“

“A turtle neck?  At a wedding?  I’d look like a damn fool!”  O’Leary took a step closer and was about to put a finger on the man’s chest when he felt faint, started to sweat.  He doubled over, took a step back and tried to regain some composure.  He straightened up some, “Fine, show,” he leaned over again slightly and put a hand to his face, “show me the damn turtle necks.”
 

Patrick poked around his bandages.

“Dad?  Are you going to be okay?”  Debbie looked a little harried, and a bit nervous, natural at a wedding rehearsal, but was glowing nonetheless.  She was petite, like her mother, with shocking red hair like Dr. Beverly Chrusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Debbie wore it longer, though, halfway down her back.

Patrick put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, “I’m fine, honey.  Is it time yet?”  He looked down the aisle past the bridal party couple slowly making their way down; he looked at Jonathan.  He was a fine man and a recent academy graduate who had started his police career in a nicer, and much slower, neighborhood than had Patrick.  “It’s a good move for marital harmony, thank the good Lord for that,” O’Leary thought.

“Just about, daddy.  Okay, let’s go!”\

This was the happiest Patrick would be in his life: taking his daughter down the aisle in a rehearsal for when he was supposed to take her down the aisle.  Granted, the rehearsal dinner was fun, but paying for everything takes out some of the zing.
 

It was odd that O’Leary tumbled so much in bed that night, but Margaret just attributed it to nerves.  In a way Patrick did too but, in another way, he was just repressing the truth.
 
He awoke the next morning feeling like he had drunk an entire bottle of bourbon on top of what he actually did drink.  He forced his legs out of bed and rubbed his face, “Sack up, son.  Its Debbie’s wedding day.  Time for your ‘A’ game.”


The big day was upon all of them.  Sgt. O’Leary was dressed in his tuxedo; he wasn’t the kind of man who would bring his career into his daughter’s wedding.  He thought it would be inappropriate to draw any attention from her and her husband.  That’s also why he vomited discreetly several minutes before the ceremony started.

There was only one problem: he also died discreetly.

His lifeless body sat there crumpled on the bathroom floor, his face on the rim of the toilet.
One of Jonathan’s groomsmen, Steve, found him there and gagged at the smell, “Good God,” the young man thought, “I didn’t think he drank that much last night.”  Steve dragged the poor, dead man up and out of the bathroom, and shoved the corpse onto its daughter.  “Sorry Debbie, this is how I found him.  You’re just going to have to make do.”  Steve was quickly off down the aisle with his accompanying bridesmaid, all the better to him.

Debbie frowned at the corpse just dumped upon her.  “Daddy?” she whispered.  The corpse emitted a guttural groan but didn’t look up.

The music changed, it was time to go.

Debbie dragged the poor sergeant’s corpse for a few steps until its feet started to work again.  One foot after another, the dead man started to shamble with her for a few feet and was starting to draw his own power as they slowly made their way down the aisle.  He leaned on her less with every step and she felt a bit better about her father as they got closer to the awaiting groom.

When the blushing bride had brought her corpse to the front she released it, as Jonathan beamed and outstretched his right hand for shaking.

Patrick’s corpse took that hand and pulled Jonathan close.  The younger man leaned in to hopefully hear some words of encouragement, waiting for his father in law’s mouth to reach his ear.

The zombie bit hard onto the ear and ripped back on it with the ferocity of Mike Tyson.  Jonathan screamed and jerked back with his upper body, but was still connected to the zombie by the right hand.  Jonathan’s back slammed against the pew and he tried to roll off as the father in law’s corpse rushed back in and sank his teeth into the young man’s neck.

About half of the people in the church quickly rose in shock as they watched the gruesome spectacle.  Debbie stood speechless as her own father, face dripping blood, let go of Jonathan’s hand and let him fall to the floor.  The corpse turned to her and she looked into its eyes: it seemed to look through her as it took a jagged step in her direction.

In anger Margaret yelled her husband’s name.  The former man’s body grabbed her daughter’s dress by the shoulder strap and yanked her upper body towards its descending mouth.  Margaret reached out instinctively as the zombie chomped on her daughter just below the jaw.  As the corpse drew back, blood spewed from her daughter’s jugular.

Margaret stopped and stood there, shocked as she drew her hand slowly to her mouth.  She was so preoccupied with her own horror that she never saw her would-be son in law before it was too late.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Book Review: Patient Zero

Tonight I'd like to review a book I recently read called Patient Zero.  It's written by Jonathan Maberry and is published by St. Martin's Griffin.  It's 421 pages and was published in 2009 and I stumbled upon it in a Barnes and Noble when I was looking for another novel that I needed to read for one of my classes.  Since the semester is over I've had time to read it and, wouldn't you believe it, I did.

The book starts with a cop being picked up by some FBI agents several days after he had to kill several people in the raid of what was believed to be a terrorist hideout in the US.  These agents take him to a secure facility and introduce him to a man of many talents who heads up a super secret division of the US government that stops terrorist threats.  It's after he meets this man that he is subjected to his first test: re-killing a terrorist he already shot several times with his .45.  You guessed it: terrorist zombies.

SPOILER ALERT

This cop is recruited for this super secret government agency to stop a terrorist born zombie epidemic.  Not only that, he's to lead a group of totally awesome special forces dudes to do it.  And why not?  He himself is totally super awesome and is able to beat up all of the special forces dudes.  This is his entry to lead the small group of the most awesome of the awesome super special forces dudes.

Okay, I'll admit it now in case you didn't understand already: this book is a little over the top.  But that's alright because it's fun.  It reads like a Bruce Willis/Chuck Norris/Steven Seagal movie in that everyone in the book is the most totally awesomely badass at his job in a world inhabited only by total awesome badasses.  My only real complaint about that is that it takes about half the book to set up all the necessary badassery to make the book possible.

So, of course, in a book like this there would need to be some equally badass bad guys to make the good guys look as badass as their bad asses would allow (okay, I'll stop using that word now).  So the zombies come from a state-of-the-art laboratory in the middle of the Afghan desert that is set up by the world's richest, and most charitable, drug company CEO.  It's an underground facility run by the genius and beautiful wife of Bin Laden on steroids.  So this lab was set up and funded by the CEO so that the jihadists can create a zombie virus to scare the Americans into creating and distributing a vaccine that will make the CEO billions of dollars.

The problem with this scheme is that the jihadists (obviously) don't care about the money and just want to kill all the Americans with the virus.  The hubris of the CEO prevents him from being able to control the jihadists; they run roughshod all over him behind his back and create newer and newer versions of the virus.  With the CEO's help they have a very elaborate scheme to let the Americans, including the protagonist and the super secret dudes, know some of what they're doing, only a few versions behind.

The book pinnacles at a re-dedication ceremony for the Liberty Bell in which a new Liberty Bell is to be dedicated (one that won't crack).  Unfortunately, the US government chose a woman to cast the new bell because her ancestor cast the original bell (or the second one, there's a story in there that the original bell didn't make it to the US so what we all call the Liberty Bell is actually the second one.  I didn't check on the story so I don't know its veracity).  Well this woman, it turns out, is the girlfriend of the brother of the wife of Bin Laden on steroids so she's in on the whole zombie virus plot.  It ends up with the First Lady and the wife of the Vice President in the same room as the new Liberty Bell which, get this, is rigged to shoot out hundreds of darts full of zombie virus.  Like I said, a little over the top.

In addition to this the current generation of zombie virus (the Liberty Bell darts have a previous generation) has evolved to such that it will give people zombie strength without cutting off oxygen to the brain.  Essentially it gives people all the benefits of being a zombie without any of the drawbacks (other than the dead-ness).  This is the version of the virus with which the genius jihadists have been infected.  Also Bin Laden on steroids is there with a bunch of makeup and posing as a Secret Service agent.  Again, a little over the top.

As you can imagine, this sets up the ultimate battle of intelli-zombie Bin Laden on steroids versus totally awesome, super secret cop dude and guess who wins..... you guessed it!  The totally awesome, super secret cop dude.

SPOILER ALERT OVER

The zombies were written as a 28 Days Later kind of zombie: virulent, fast and hungry.  They were written pretty well.  Overall, the idea of the zombie virus wasn't taken any further than you've already seen.  It's essentially Resident Evil if the virus did exactly what is supposed to do.

The book is a fun ride, although it can be a bit much.  It reads a lot like a military novel: a lot of blustering and slow-mo action scenes with a cast of role fillers rather than actual people, not that that's a bad thing.

Bottom line: This is a fun summer read (especially after finishing the semester with The Elephant Man and A Boy Called It) and it has some good zombie action.  It also has some good double agents and double crossing.  Add it to your list if you cant get to it by October, otherwise read it when you're on a plane or a long car trip.