Zombies and Shit (27 page)

When Mr. T arrived at the island of Neo New York, he was greeted only with hostility. The small sailboat he had taken from Dr. Wyslen’s island was stopped a mile off shore by the NNY Coast Guard. Two ships pulled up alongside his boat and he was forced to allow them to board.

Six men with automatic rifles came aboard, all of the weapons pointed at his face. Mr. T raised his hands.

“Are you armed?” asked the Lieutenant.

“Mr. T don’t need weapons to protect himself,” said Mr. T.

“Are you alone?” the young officer asked Mr. T.

“Yeah.”

After they searched his ship, the Lieutenant asked some more questions.

“Do you have business on the island or are you just looking for safe harbor?”

Mr. T responded, “I was sent by Dr. Jacob Wyslen of the Z-19 Project.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That’s not my problem,” Mr. T said. “He told me to give his research to the zombie research division on this island.”

“Zombie research division?” The Lieutenant laughed. “We don’t have a zombie research division.”

“Then who’s working on solving the living dead problem on the mainland?”

The soldiers look at each other with large smiles, then look back at Mr. T.

“They gave up on that decades ago,” said the Lieutenant. “The zombie problem hasn’t been a problem of ours for a very long time.”

“Then you shouldn’t have given up so easily,” Mr. T said. “My friend Dr. Wyslen continued his research over the past fifty years until the day he died. He finally came up with something that just might be a solution to make the mainland safe again.”

“And what solution might that be?”

“It’s a kind of zombie repellent device. If I can get the right minds looking at this research, I believe this device can be constructed.”

“It sounds like a load of bull,” said the Lieutenant.

“You don’t have to believe me. You just have to let me through. Leave the believing up to the scientists who might actually understand this jibber jabber.”

“Fine,” said the Lieutenant. “But your boat will be impounded. You’ll have to ride with us.”

“Whatever you say,” said Mr. T. “Just as long as I get this research into the right hands.”

When all of the zombies are writhing on the ground, Haroon and Mr. T climb down the ladder and continue on their way. In the distance, in every direction they look, there are hundreds of zombies staggering through the streets.

“More and more of those things are coming out,” says Mr. T. “And it’s going to be dark soon. We better find some shelter for the night if we ever want to see tomorrow.”

Haroon contemplates the zombie numbers up ahead. Then he says, “We shouldn’t find cover yet, not until it’s dark. We have to make as much progress as possible if we’re ever going to catch up to the others.”

“I don’t like it,” says Mr. T, “but whatever you say.”

“We shouldn’t have too much of a problem now that we have this weapon on our side.”

“I already told you, I don’t trust that gun. It’s a great invention, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not something Mr. T would rely on.”

“It’ll work just fine,” Haroon says. “Trust me.”

Mr. T nods. Then they move on, deeper into the city, deeper into the ocean of the living dead.

They didn’t allow Mr. T to enter Platinum to meet with the top researchers who lived there. One of the scientists came out to meet him in Copper, and by the looks of it they sent the lowest ranking member of the staff.

The doctor asked to see Wyslen’s documents and Mr. T handed them over.

After scanning through the pages for a few minutes, the young man said, “I’ll have to show these to the higher ups to see what they think. Are you staying here?”

“Yeah,” Mr. T said.

“Great. I’ll keep in touch.”

As the man walked back to the gates with Wyslen’s research in his hands, Mr. T yelled out, “Tell them I’ve got a lot of ideas on how to get it operational. I worked closely with Dr. Wyslen for quite some time.”

Then the gate closed behind the young scientist, then Mr. T went up to the gate and put his hands on the bars.

“And tell them if they don’t make this happen they will have to answer to Brick and Mortar.”

The man waved back at Mr. T without turning around.

He never heard from the scientist ever again and the Coast Guard never returned his boat, so he was left stranded in Copper with no home, no job, and nothing left to do. So he moved into an abandoned shack on the beach. It wasn’t much but it was shelter. He started crabbing for food and would sometimes sell crabs at the market. People in Copper didn’t have much money, so he didn’t sell them for very much. Later, he taught the other beggars in his shantytown how to fish and crab, but after a while so many of them started doing it that there weren’t enough crabs left to go around. Still, he was happy his vagrant friends were able to eat a little better.

One day, Mr. T saw a group of kids doing Waste under the peer. When he saw what they were doing, he charged right up to them and took the drugs out of their hands.

“What do you kids think you’re doing?” asked Mr. T. “Do you know how bad drugs are for you? You should be thinking about your futures, not wasting it on this trash.”

“Give it back, asshole!” said a ten year old street punk.

“You mouth off to me again and I’m gonna smack that mouth off your face,” said Mr. T, pointing his finger at the punk. “Now, you kids can do anything with your lives. You don’t need this to have fun.” He holds the drugs up to them. “You should have fun by playing basketball or practicing guitar.”

“Give it back, scumbag!” yelled a little 9-year-old girl with a shaved head.

“You’re not getting it back,” said Mr. T, raising his voice. “I’m trying to tell you how this stuff will get in the way of your dreams.”

Then the little girl put out her cigarette on his forehead. Mr. T screamed and the kids grabbed their Waste out of his hands and took off running across the beach. Mr. T ran after them for ten yards before giving up. He kicked a pile of seaweed into the ocean.

“And what were you going to do if you caught up to them?” Lee asked Mr. T, sitting on the beach in front of him, drinking a cup of the snake piss the Copper Quadrant calls whiskey.

“I was going to teach them a lesson about drugs,” said Mr. T.

“What for?” Lee said. “Those kids are prostitutes, thieves, and dealers. All they’ve got is drugs.”

“If they got off of drugs who knows what they could do with their lives,” Mr. T said.

“There’s nothing they can do, Laurence. This is Copper. Once you’re in Copper there’s no moving up in the world. If you’re born in the shit you die in the shit.”

“I don’t like you’re attitude, Lee,” said Mr. T. “There’s always a hope for a better life. If the people in Copper just came together we could clean up this place. We could turn it into a clean, safe place for children to grow up in.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“Well, first of all, we get rid of the drug problem.”

“What?” Lee laughed at him. “It can’t be done.”

“Don’t you think there’s a problem with drugs here?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well, if there’s a problem then there’s got to be a solution.” Mr. T

punched his fists together, then said, “And that solution’s name is Mr. T.”

Haroon and Mr. T go a mile deep into the zombie-packed streets of downtown, blasting their way through the horde. The first zombie that comes up from behind, Mr. T attacks with his spiked club. The bat goes through the zombie’s face and gets stuck in its mouth. The zombie bites down and thrashes it out of T’s hand, then blindly runs in the opposite direction.

Weaponless, Mr. T looks down at his hands.

“And you said you could trust that weapon better than this?” Haroon asks, holding up his solar-powered shotgun.

Mr. T smiles.

“Just because I don’t have a weapon,” he says, “doesn’t mean I’m not armed.” Then he punches a zombie’s head off of its shoulders.

The duo go a half mile farther down the street until there are so many zombies they come to a standstill. Haroon can only shoot them down quick enough to hold them back, not quick enough to enable them to move forward. The zombies come at them from all sides.

“They’re coming in from behind,” Haroon says. “Fall back, to the east.”

“We got this!” Mr. T yells, throwing punches at the living dead coming at them.

“Fall back!”

“We got this!”

Haroon breaks away from Mr. T and runs down a side street to get away from the main horde. Mr. T doesn’t follow. zombies fill the space between them.

“Come on,” Haroon says, trying to shoot a path for his large friend.

But Mr. T keeps on fighting, no matter how bleak the situation looks.