Zombies and Shit (42 page)

Out of the corner of his eyes, Oro sees the other two contestants on the sky bridge behind him. He doesn’t let on that he knows they are there, pretending to be too busy working on his latest creation: the glider-cycle. It wasn’t easy getting all the parts together, but it’s almost completed. He will be the first one to arrive in the evacuation zone because of this machine. His genius is too great for him to fail.

He steps over to his tool chest and takes it around the back of the glider-cycle, keeping his eyes locked on his work. He stretches and yawns, then slowly places his toolbox on the ground. By the time Junko and Scavy figure out what he’s doing it’s already too late. Oro jumps for his weapon—a rocket launcher—and aims it at the bridge.

“Nobody’s winning this contest but me,” he says, as he fires a rocket directly at them.

Oro had a plan from the moment he awoke in the hotel at the beginning of the previous day. He knew he was going to build a vehicle that would ensure his safe arrival to the evacuation zone before anyone else. He refused to team up with any of the other contestants. They were inferior to him. He had no use for lesser minds.

“I deserve to win this more than anyone else,” he said to his reflection in a hotel room mirror. “I am a genius. I cannot fail.”

But there was one major setback. The weapon he had been given was a rocket launcher. With only seven rockets in his pack, it was not the most useful means of defense. The launcher itself weighed nearly 40 pounds, which wouldn’t be that much if each rocket didn’t weigh 17 pounds each. Since Oro himself was such a petite man, his pack ended up weighing twenty pounds more than he did. He could hardly even drag the pack, let alone lift it.

When he left the hotel with everyone else, he dragged the large pack one inch at a time until he got past the wall. When he saw the weapon he had been given, he groaned with frustration. He believed the show’s producers were playing a very cruel joke on him. They probably thought it would be funny to see such a small man lugging around such a large weapon.

Oro had to ditch all but three of his rockets just so that he could carry it on his back, and even then it was slow going. Luckily, he left on the safer side of the building that was nearly free of the living dead. He left with some innocent-looking young lady named Wendy, who tagged along without his consent.

“I don’t need a puppy dog following me around,” he told her.

She looked up at him with puppy dog eyes.

“Get lost.”

Then he threw rocks at her until she ran away.

After a few blocks, Oro was able to get a shopping cart at a dilapidated grocery store which made wheeling around the rocket launcher much less arduous. He was also able to get several supplies for the machine he planned to build.

He decided not to use the rocket launcher against the undead. That weapon had only one use, to kill the contestants who got in his way. For the zombies, he had only one defense. Since he couldn’t run very fast with his shopping cart, he used a variety of chemical sprays on them. While at the grocery store, he grabbed cans of bleach, ammonia, drain cleaner, and bug poison. He grabbed some pepper spray as well, but the aerosol had long left the containers, rendering them useless. He used simple squirt guns to deliver the chemicals, which were still functional even though the cracks in the plastic leaked chemicals over his hands.

As he walked through the wasteland, the zombies came to him attracted by the sound of the cart. But as soon as they approached, he dowsed their eyes with some drain cleaner. Although they were dead, he was still able to disorient them and temporarily blind them long enough to walk by. Whenever there was a horde, all he had to do was combine some bleach and ammonia to make mustard gas and toss a bucket of it in the center of the crowd. It was enough to slow them down.

He continued moving all day, picking up pieces for his machine as he went. Eventually he needed a second cart and that slowed him down even more. By the time he got to the Medieval Times indoor theme park, he found all that he needed. The well-preserved flags of the theme park were just the material he needed for the wings of the glider.

As he closed the gates of the artificial castle, he tossed the last of his mustard gas at the zombies out front. While they shrieked and twitched at the chemicals in their eyes, Oro looked at them and put his finger to his mouth.

“Shhhh,” he said. “There’s a genius at work.”

Then he got started on his flying device.

The brittle glass walls of the sky bridge shatter as the rocket flies through, past the bridge into the upper castle wall. Junko and Scavy dive for the hallway on the other side just before the bridge is engulfed in a cloud of flames.

“Bow to my genius!” they hear the tiny man yell.

Scavy and Junko take the stairwell down to the ground floor. They enter a grand banquet hall designed to look like King Arthur’s round table. There are two crippled zombies writhing on the floor. They are wearing the costumes of serving wenches and look to have been beaten with a golf club until all of their bones were broken. Junko and Scavy peek around a wall overlooking the miniature golf course. They get a better look at the flying machine. It is a bit smaller than they had realized.

“What’s going on?” Rainbow Cat says as she enters through a broken window.

“Crazy fucker with a rocket launcher,” Scavy says.

Rainbow Cat steps over a wriggling serving wench and goes toward them.

“You were awesome out there,” Scavy says. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Self defense lessons,” she says, as she wipes some green slime off of her machete on the bottom of her shoe. “A girl’s got to be able to defend herself from scumbags.”

Scavy smirked. “Where’d you get that machete?”

Instead of answering the question, she leans against the wall and looks around the corner to see their opponent. Her eyes sparkle when they see his flying machine.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“I’m not sure,” Junko says. “Some kind of aircraft.”

“Can we get it from him?” she asks.

“No,” Junko says. “We should get out of here. The explosion is going to attract more zombies.”

“But it’s worth the risk if we can fly out of here.”

“It only looks like it seats one person,” Junko says.

“So? At least one of us can use it. We can draw straws.”

“Forget it. It’s not worth fighting a guy with a rocket launcher.”

“We’ve got a sniper rifle,” Rainbow says. “Come on, we can take this guy.”

“I said forget it,” Junko says. “I wouldn’t even know how to fly that thing, would you?”

Rainbow Cat stays silent.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Junko says, going for the window Rainbow had entered through.

With a loud sigh, Rainbow follows after her.

Oro did eventually invent something worthy of getting him into the Platinum Quadrant. It wasn’t his flying machines or home recycling devices that satisfied the executive. It was a football alarm clock.

“This is it!” said the executive. “This is what every man in Platinum needs!”

It wasn’t even a real invention. It was just something Oro slapped together for fun and he hadn’t even planned to present the item to the executive. He didn’t even know what a football was for.

“Are you sure you don’t want this water filtration system? It turns salt water into fresh water.”

“No, no,” the executive shook his head. “I’d have no luck selling that. Now this,” he held up the football clock, “this I can sell.”

Oro was a bit disappointed that his winning invention took him only a few minutes to shove together, whereas his other projects took months.

“A football alarm clock…” The executive’s face brightened with excitement. “Genius. Pure genius.”

It was the only time he felt bad to be called a genius.

When he moved into Platinum, it was not at all as he hoped. The people there weren’t geniuses. Most of them seemed dumber than his low class father. They were a bunch of fat, spoiled, lazy morons. He couldn’t stand any of them. His football alarm clock sold well though, and he was able to live a comfortable life for a while. And more importantly, he was finally given the respect he rightly deserved.

He got used to the good life. He spent his time on the golf course or at the public swimming pools. He smoked cigars and drank purple martinis on rooftop bars overlooking the sea.

“Ahhh,” Oro would say. “The life of a genius…”

But the good life didn’t last. Oro couldn’t produce another invention as stupid as the football alarm clock and his funds ran out. He was quickly thrown back to Copper, back to his old way of life. The executive stopped making his annual visit to the junkyard. Oro thought he was doomed to stay there for the rest of his life.

Then Oro came up with a plan. While he lived in Platinum, he had seen the first season of Zombie Survival on television. If he could volunteer to go on the show and win then they would move him up to the Silver Quadrant. He would also have a passport to Platinum and could try to sell some new inventions there. He would then come up with the most ridiculous, superfluous inventions possible. He already had plans for creating pedicure slippers, giftwrap cutters, laser-guided golf clubs, and the baconator, which was a cooking device that could infuse any type of meat with the taste and texture of fried bacon. All he had to do was win the contest and he could live the rest of his life in luxury.

But just getting on the show wasn’t as easy as he expected. He had met with Wayne “The Wiz” Rizla at a bar in downtown Copper. He heard the rumor that if you knew an interesting contestant for the show you’d be rewarded greatly. He had the perfect contestant for him.

“So who’s this contestant you have in mind?” Wayne said.

“Me,” said Oro.

Wayne squinted at him. He rarely got volunteers. “You? Why would I choose you for the show? There’s nothing special about you.”

“I am a genius,” Oro said.

Wayne continued as if he didn’t even hear him. “Look at you. You’re a shrimp. You have no muscle, no agility. You’re ugly, so there’s no sex appeal there…”

“But I’m a genius!” Oro stood up in his chair. “I would survive longer than any contestant you could ever find. Perhaps I’m not the strongest, fastest, or most attractive contestant, but I can outwit anybody. You have never met an intellect as impressive as mine before.”

Wayne laughed. Oro slapped the smile off of his face, then found several guns pointed at his chest.

“Put me on that show and I’ll show you what kind of genius I am,” Oro said, stubbing out his cigar on the producer’s plate.

“Fine,” Wayne said. “I’ll put you on.”

Wayne waved at his men and they took Oro by the elbows. Then he said, “I could use another easy kill anyway. Not enough early bloodshed and the viewers get annoyed.”

A few weeks later they gassed him at his shack by the garbage dump. He saw them coming and greeted them at the door.

“Are you ready?” one of them asked.

“A genius is always ready,” was his response.