this has been bubbling in my head for about a month, now...
when i was young, i read stories about why ivan the terrible got his name. i mean. vlad was the impaler and you'd think you couldn't get more terrible than that... apparently, during one winter, there happened to be a famine in russia. there was not enough food for everybody in some of the villages. so, he sent out word to the local villages that he was in town and he would be bring food to feed the masses. the poor, the desperate and the cold made their way to a large barn on one of the nobles land and waited for their tsar, ivan, to arrive, to relieve them of their burden.
ivan told his guards to shut the doors, bolt them and set fire to the barn.
he didn't even have the gumption to play a violin as he did it. i guess he thought one building does not rome make...this was before the internet and twitter and the like, of course, so they couldn't send word (@boris don't trust ivan! #burningtodeathasitweet) to the next village, keenly awaiting their turn, about what had happened. he killed thousands of his people in this way, but those who made it through that winter did so with full bellies.
like a lot of things i as told when i was young, that may have been a lie. i have no way of researching it, nowadays. i'm as bereft of an online search engine as those same peasants, who's ashes ensured the next years vodka was superb thanks to that bumper crop of potatoes. nero had his day and that empire fell. ivan had his day and that empire fell. we had our day and, boy, did things fall. zombies tend to do that.... oh, i know, i know, you're not allowed to use that word. zombies are a voodoo tradition! these shambling ghouls are not, by any stretch of the idea, raised by papa shango to do the bidding of the shaman he's riding. no, their dead and they want to eat human flesh. and, when society crumbles, i think that certain elements of the mongrel dog that is the english language should be allowed to evolve into new meanings. just like manufacture used to mean "made by hand" but was subsumed during that industrial revolution that was meant to make us all happy, i think it's ok to call an undead cannibal the "z" word.
it's been five years since the first wave. so many people were caught unaware and those that weren't ripped apart were unfortunate to get bitten or clawed, spreading the damn thing faster than a flesh eating virus (actually bacteria, that silly old english, again). i remember some of the movies that were made before the real deal. where some one would fall amongst the ravenous hordes, but you never actually saw them torn apart, so they'd turn up as a zombie, themselves, later on. i've never seen that. i've just seen the bones, stripped of sinew and flesh, crushed, so even the marrow could be sucked out.
people don't put a lot of thought into zombie behaviour patterns. movies show them trying to go for the throat, the wrists, or, if they're a crawler, the calf. zombies can be much more creative than that. i've watched a six foot hick torn apart by a five eight architect. she bit his cheek off, first. his skull glistened red, for a short time, before it congealed into dark, rusty flakes. i saw this one bastard pick up a small child and hold her in the air, while he started on her belly. it was just him, so she screamed for long time.
now me? i was in no way prepared for the zombie invasion but i was lucky. not in the "woke up in a hospital bed, not knowing what had happened around me" way that so many people rip off wyndham for. no, i was at a local firing range, with a double door security set up, to keep the junkies from trying to steal the goods. no one gets in until the the button under the counter gets pressed. it also helped keep the place soundproofed, so, as we heard the news about the event, they never bothered walking up to the building. no noise, no smell, no bodies to eat, so they just never bothered. a few militia boys took to the streets and a survivalist armed up and said if we tried to follow him back to his family and his bunker, he'd execute us. he said that, with the current situation, he was allowed to. as the last bastion of american amendments that mattered, the owner agreed and let him go.
eventually, i got hungry for something other than beef jerky and rations, so, i paid for a few guns, thanks to the old school clickclack credit card slip machine that was kept under a counter covered in bumper stickers that read "freedom ain't free", "take your ex out tonight (one bullet oughtta do it)", and the now ironic"...from my cold dead hands", before i ventured out into the streets. it was four days after the news feed died, so it was after the mass feedings. some buildings just reeked from the blood that soaked the floors and there were still a lot of people looking for other people to eat. more than i had ammunition for.
it was after i wandered past the good ol' boys truck, on it's side and every window smashed in, that i remembered the stories of mr. the terrible and an idea formed in my head. power was still on in some areas, so i knew i'd have a chance to strike back. so many people wander around firing guns at zombie heads that they never use their own. fire would have the desired effect and you'd still have a full clip. fire would work the best.
the first thing was to locate the best "barn" for the job. location, location, location, as they say. i had a few failures when i started. but i learnt from them. trying it in an actual barn proved a bit difficult, but how do you make zombies turn up to a barn? you can't send a messenger out to let them know that they have a surprise waiting for them. sending someone out to act as bait to lure them back still only nets you a few at a time. even having bait on the floor doesn't last long enough to get good numbers.
and there aren't many zombies out where barns are. most of them congregate in the cities. the gerrymandered districts were so barren of life, or zombies, rigged elections would be right royally ruined by the migration that had happened. one time, after i'd leapt about yelling and hollering at the undead, until i was horse, i'd made enough noise to attract about 30 zombies. not exactly a coup and i did feel a little guilty setting an entire barn on fire for such a piddling number of r.i.p's.
schools are a lot harder to burn than you'd think. after using a broom handle to make the bell to go off constantly, it keeps you from thinking straight, after awhile, and did not get as many zombies as you might expect. once i set up the p.a. system to play an old radio broadcast record from the school library, they started to pour in. that's when i learnt my most valuable lesson about this kind of thing. make sure you have an out, first, not like those mall kids from the remake. don't go to the roof, unless you have a rope to swing from building to building. don't try to run/drive through the crowd, then you can thin out sections by disabling their speakers.
oh, and waders save lives, not just stop you're pants getting wet.
but, the plan was proving sound, pun fully intentional. my next pyre was a night club, playing music loudly to bring in the punters. but some music works better than others. electro clash noise ebm and rap got me a few in, clawing at the loudspeakers and shuffling towards the dj booth when they saw me in there. not at all what i was looking forward to. unfortunately, that was almost all that this tinderbox of a deathtrap called a club had lying around. but someone had a sense of humour and left a mix cd with the absolute winner on it.
richard harris singing macarthur park.
i still don't know if it was the music or his voice that saw so many undead bastards make their way into the spinning gyro lights, if they were enraged to attack, if some part of their rotting brains liked it, or if they were just curious that such a thing could exist. i'd say there were 600 crammed into the venue (fire wardens, when such things counted had only given approval for 250), when i set the place alight, before i made my way through the back corridors where my transport lay in wait. and without a fire truck to keep the fire in check, i'm sure that i managed to get up to a thousand, as well. if only i'd grabbed that cd before i left, but i didn't want them wandering off. not from with that disco breakdown playing during that inferno...
now, i travel from town to town, traveling light, sneaking in when i can. raiding old electronics for tape decks and batteries to use like the old "throw a rock into the bushes to distract the guards" routine. checking out clubs and investigating venues, clearing them out so i can prep generators, set fuses and select the tunes. it's surprising actually.
ska and reggae music only seems to bring in the uniforms, police, soldiers, security and the like. i have no idea how this could be explained. country and western just makes them confused, with the exception of johnny cash(i think it's his voice) but generic pop/dance music? thatwill always get you good numbers. aside from harris, disco just doesn't cut it, but a bootsy collins funk piece can fill a venue in an hour. i always feel a little bad about using tracks i love, like groove is in the heart. while it's a great tune to listen to while you set fire to a building, keeping it on repeat as half rotting corpses fill a dance floor, kind of steals the joy of the song from you.
i can't help but wish the outbreak had been sooner than now. like the old days of vegas, they would have been in, what? three casinos? i would have taken the lot out in no time and then just have to watch out for a few stragglers, walking the desert. damn that place is massive, nowadays. they were herding across hoover damn 45 minutes after the outbreak, the one's that weren't heading over the hills to utah, that is..
i like to keep to myself, for the most part. other people only get in the way, blocking your exit or forgetting what you're trying to achieve, because they've decided, right now, that they really really need to listen to "freebird", because it reminds them of that girlfriend who died. besides, the people who i come across think that i'm crazy for operating a guerrilla war against "the enemy" in the way that i choose to. but those pussies take out a few stiffs at a time, and think they're protecting their turf. i'm not saying my solution is the best plan there is. but it's the last one i came up with that really works...
fire always works.
one day, i'll figure out how to break into a missile silo and then i won't have to get them to come to me...
i won't be satisfied until i've eradicated them off the face of the planet...
and then people will know how truly great *i* am...
<=+=>
the fiend
its good to get that out...
ivan told his guards to shut the doors, bolt them and set fire to the barn.
he didn't even have the gumption to play a violin as he did it. i guess he thought one building does not rome make...this was before the internet and twitter and the like, of course, so they couldn't send word (@boris don't trust ivan! #burningtodeathasitweet) to the next village, keenly awaiting their turn, about what had happened. he killed thousands of his people in this way, but those who made it through that winter did so with full bellies.
like a lot of things i as told when i was young, that may have been a lie. i have no way of researching it, nowadays. i'm as bereft of an online search engine as those same peasants, who's ashes ensured the next years vodka was superb thanks to that bumper crop of potatoes. nero had his day and that empire fell. ivan had his day and that empire fell. we had our day and, boy, did things fall. zombies tend to do that.... oh, i know, i know, you're not allowed to use that word. zombies are a voodoo tradition! these shambling ghouls are not, by any stretch of the idea, raised by papa shango to do the bidding of the shaman he's riding. no, their dead and they want to eat human flesh. and, when society crumbles, i think that certain elements of the mongrel dog that is the english language should be allowed to evolve into new meanings. just like manufacture used to mean "made by hand" but was subsumed during that industrial revolution that was meant to make us all happy, i think it's ok to call an undead cannibal the "z" word.
it's been five years since the first wave. so many people were caught unaware and those that weren't ripped apart were unfortunate to get bitten or clawed, spreading the damn thing faster than a flesh eating virus (actually bacteria, that silly old english, again). i remember some of the movies that were made before the real deal. where some one would fall amongst the ravenous hordes, but you never actually saw them torn apart, so they'd turn up as a zombie, themselves, later on. i've never seen that. i've just seen the bones, stripped of sinew and flesh, crushed, so even the marrow could be sucked out.
people don't put a lot of thought into zombie behaviour patterns. movies show them trying to go for the throat, the wrists, or, if they're a crawler, the calf. zombies can be much more creative than that. i've watched a six foot hick torn apart by a five eight architect. she bit his cheek off, first. his skull glistened red, for a short time, before it congealed into dark, rusty flakes. i saw this one bastard pick up a small child and hold her in the air, while he started on her belly. it was just him, so she screamed for long time.
now me? i was in no way prepared for the zombie invasion but i was lucky. not in the "woke up in a hospital bed, not knowing what had happened around me" way that so many people rip off wyndham for. no, i was at a local firing range, with a double door security set up, to keep the junkies from trying to steal the goods. no one gets in until the the button under the counter gets pressed. it also helped keep the place soundproofed, so, as we heard the news about the event, they never bothered walking up to the building. no noise, no smell, no bodies to eat, so they just never bothered. a few militia boys took to the streets and a survivalist armed up and said if we tried to follow him back to his family and his bunker, he'd execute us. he said that, with the current situation, he was allowed to. as the last bastion of american amendments that mattered, the owner agreed and let him go.
eventually, i got hungry for something other than beef jerky and rations, so, i paid for a few guns, thanks to the old school clickclack credit card slip machine that was kept under a counter covered in bumper stickers that read "freedom ain't free", "take your ex out tonight (one bullet oughtta do it)", and the now ironic"...from my cold dead hands", before i ventured out into the streets. it was four days after the news feed died, so it was after the mass feedings. some buildings just reeked from the blood that soaked the floors and there were still a lot of people looking for other people to eat. more than i had ammunition for.
it was after i wandered past the good ol' boys truck, on it's side and every window smashed in, that i remembered the stories of mr. the terrible and an idea formed in my head. power was still on in some areas, so i knew i'd have a chance to strike back. so many people wander around firing guns at zombie heads that they never use their own. fire would have the desired effect and you'd still have a full clip. fire would work the best.
the first thing was to locate the best "barn" for the job. location, location, location, as they say. i had a few failures when i started. but i learnt from them. trying it in an actual barn proved a bit difficult, but how do you make zombies turn up to a barn? you can't send a messenger out to let them know that they have a surprise waiting for them. sending someone out to act as bait to lure them back still only nets you a few at a time. even having bait on the floor doesn't last long enough to get good numbers.
and there aren't many zombies out where barns are. most of them congregate in the cities. the gerrymandered districts were so barren of life, or zombies, rigged elections would be right royally ruined by the migration that had happened. one time, after i'd leapt about yelling and hollering at the undead, until i was horse, i'd made enough noise to attract about 30 zombies. not exactly a coup and i did feel a little guilty setting an entire barn on fire for such a piddling number of r.i.p's.
schools are a lot harder to burn than you'd think. after using a broom handle to make the bell to go off constantly, it keeps you from thinking straight, after awhile, and did not get as many zombies as you might expect. once i set up the p.a. system to play an old radio broadcast record from the school library, they started to pour in. that's when i learnt my most valuable lesson about this kind of thing. make sure you have an out, first, not like those mall kids from the remake. don't go to the roof, unless you have a rope to swing from building to building. don't try to run/drive through the crowd, then you can thin out sections by disabling their speakers.
oh, and waders save lives, not just stop you're pants getting wet.
but, the plan was proving sound, pun fully intentional. my next pyre was a night club, playing music loudly to bring in the punters. but some music works better than others. electro clash noise ebm and rap got me a few in, clawing at the loudspeakers and shuffling towards the dj booth when they saw me in there. not at all what i was looking forward to. unfortunately, that was almost all that this tinderbox of a deathtrap called a club had lying around. but someone had a sense of humour and left a mix cd with the absolute winner on it.
richard harris singing macarthur park.
i still don't know if it was the music or his voice that saw so many undead bastards make their way into the spinning gyro lights, if they were enraged to attack, if some part of their rotting brains liked it, or if they were just curious that such a thing could exist. i'd say there were 600 crammed into the venue (fire wardens, when such things counted had only given approval for 250), when i set the place alight, before i made my way through the back corridors where my transport lay in wait. and without a fire truck to keep the fire in check, i'm sure that i managed to get up to a thousand, as well. if only i'd grabbed that cd before i left, but i didn't want them wandering off. not from with that disco breakdown playing during that inferno...
now, i travel from town to town, traveling light, sneaking in when i can. raiding old electronics for tape decks and batteries to use like the old "throw a rock into the bushes to distract the guards" routine. checking out clubs and investigating venues, clearing them out so i can prep generators, set fuses and select the tunes. it's surprising actually.
ska and reggae music only seems to bring in the uniforms, police, soldiers, security and the like. i have no idea how this could be explained. country and western just makes them confused, with the exception of johnny cash(i think it's his voice) but generic pop/dance music? thatwill always get you good numbers. aside from harris, disco just doesn't cut it, but a bootsy collins funk piece can fill a venue in an hour. i always feel a little bad about using tracks i love, like groove is in the heart. while it's a great tune to listen to while you set fire to a building, keeping it on repeat as half rotting corpses fill a dance floor, kind of steals the joy of the song from you.
i can't help but wish the outbreak had been sooner than now. like the old days of vegas, they would have been in, what? three casinos? i would have taken the lot out in no time and then just have to watch out for a few stragglers, walking the desert. damn that place is massive, nowadays. they were herding across hoover damn 45 minutes after the outbreak, the one's that weren't heading over the hills to utah, that is..
i like to keep to myself, for the most part. other people only get in the way, blocking your exit or forgetting what you're trying to achieve, because they've decided, right now, that they really really need to listen to "freebird", because it reminds them of that girlfriend who died. besides, the people who i come across think that i'm crazy for operating a guerrilla war against "the enemy" in the way that i choose to. but those pussies take out a few stiffs at a time, and think they're protecting their turf. i'm not saying my solution is the best plan there is. but it's the last one i came up with that really works...
fire always works.
one day, i'll figure out how to break into a missile silo and then i won't have to get them to come to me...
i won't be satisfied until i've eradicated them off the face of the planet...
and then people will know how truly great *i* am...
<=+=>
the fiend
its good to get that out...