The Adventures of Steve and Terry: The Zombie Chronicles (18 page)

“That’s not me,” Terry insisted.
“It almost smells like—whoa,” he said as he reached the deck.

Steve climbed up beside Terry and
whistled. “That is a lotta dead people.”

Terry nodded dumbly. Bodies
littered the entire deck of the ship. All looked to have been shot in the head.

“Some cure,” Terry said.

“Were they all zombies, you
think?”

“No way to be sure. They’re pretty
badly decomposed, whether that’s from being zombies or how long they’ve been
here, I don’t know.”

“So what now?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Now, we head
back to land, where there is lots of running room.”

Steve turned and looked back down
the ladder. He spun back around quickly and tried to look innocent.

“What?” Terry asked.

Steve coughed uncomfortably.
“Teeny tiny problem with the boat,” Steve said, holding his fingers slightly
apart.

Terry pushed past Steve to the
ladder to see the boat sitting low in the water. He looked closer and saw at
least an inch of water on the deck.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding
me!” Terry said angrily, turning and staring at Steve like a man on the verge
of doing something drastic.

“I know, right,” Steve said in
over exaggerated agreement. “You’d think a hundred thousand dollar boat could
handle a little more punishment, am I right?” Terry’s hands slowly rose for
Steve’s throat, shaking slightly. “I mean, piece a crap, right?” Steve asked
with a nervous laugh. “Right?”

Terry’s hands found Steve’s
throat. Steve coughed and started to turn red. “You’re—you’re choking me,” he
barely wheezed out.

“I know, Steve,” Terry said
calmly.

“I—can’t breathe,” Steve said,
dropping to a knee.

“That’s kind of the point, Steve,”
Terry said, his voice still deadpan.

Steve started to turn blue. With
the last of his strength he brought his fist up into Terry’s nuts. Terry
grunted and flinched, but kept choking. Steve grabbed Terry’s testicles and
started to squeeze. Now Terry started to turn red. Terry screamed, trying to
kill Steve before the pain overcame him. Finally with a last scream he fell to
the ground, letting Steve go. Steve collapsed as well and sucked in ragged
breaths as Terry groaned, curled up on the deck cupping his balls.

When Steve finally caught his
breath, he got to his knees unsteadily. “Whoa, whoa!” Steve said, rubbing his
throat. “You, my friend, need to calm down. Count to ten or something.”

“I think you crushed my nuts,”
Terry said between groans.

“Well, you were trying to kill
me,” Steve said, still rubbing his throat.

“You deserved it,” Terry said
between clenched teeth.

“Well . . . I don’t . . . okay, be
that as it may, still not cool dude.”

“I think you actually popped one
of my testicles.”

“Oh, you’re alright,” Steve said.
He got to his feet, then reached down and helped Terry up. Terry stood hunched
over, still cupping his nuts. “You know, you got a strong grip,” Steve said,
again rubbing his neck. “You do any cross training?” he asked, working his fist
in a pumping motion.

Terry shrugged him off angrily.
“God you’re juvenile.”

“Well, since we’re stuck on the
ship, maybe we should do some exploring. What’dya say?”

Terry glared at Steve, but then
nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

They collected themselves and
slowly made their way across the deck towards what looked to them like a tower
at the back of the ship.

“Do you think everybody’s dead?”
Steve asked in a whisper.

“I’m not sure,” Terry said. “And
why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know, just seemed
appropriate,” Steve said, still in a whisper.

They continued toward the tower-like
structure when Steve suddenly tapped Terry on the shoulder excitedly.

“What?” Terry asked spinning,
shotgun at the ready.

“Do you think they have food?”

“I don’t really . . . a ship this
size would have a galley, wouldn’t it?” Terry asked, getting excited as well.

“Most certainly,” Steve said, his
eyes lighting up.

Steve shoved Terry and ran by him.
Terry tripped Steve who fell hard to the deck. Terry started to run by Steve,
but Steve grabbed his foot and he fell hard. Steve scrambled up and vaulted
over Terry running full tilt for a large steel door at the base of the tower-like
structure. He reached the door and started to pull it open when Terry slammed
into him from behind. Steve was pancaked between the door and Terry, his face
smashed comically against a circular window set in the door. Terry stepped back
and Steve collapsed with a groan. Terry rolled him out of the way and pulled
the door open, running inside.

Steve got up and started to follow
him, only to find Terry standing just inside the entrance. He stepped up beside
him to see a long dark corridor.

“Ooh, spooky,” Steve said, his
voice echoing. “Are you gonna go in or what?”

“You know, on second thought, you
can be first.”

“The hell I’m goin in there
first.”

“You know, in the galley they may,
just may, have ice cream.”

“Oh, you’re a bastard, if ever I
saw one.”

“You want some ice cream,
don’tcha?”

“Whatever,” Steve said, pushing
past Terry and stepping into the corridor. But he got no farther.

“What are you waiting for?” Terry
said, giving Steve a nudge.

“No ice cream is worth this,” he
said, turning back around.

“Not even mocha almond fudge?”
Terry asked with upraised eyebrows.

“Mocha almond fudge or no, there
is no way in hell I’m gonna—”

An eerie moan cut him off. Steve
slowly looked over Terry’s shoulder. His eyes widened and he turned and
hightailed it down the corridor. Terry slowly turned, afraid what he would
find. He turned to see the bodies they thought were dead slowly starting to
stand up.

“Holy effing wow!” Terry screamed,
spinning on his heel and following Steve.

Terry slammed the heavy door shut
and hightailed it after Steve. He caught up to the man at a junction of
hallways.

“Did something seem off to you
about those zombies?” Terry asked.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen them lying
down like that. It almost seemed as if even the zombie virus was barely
compelling them to go on.”

“Yeah, it seemed, shit, it almost
seemed like the zombies were . . . depressed or something.”

“This is just a weird day. We need
to—”

“Did you hear that?!” Terry said
in a harsh whisper.

“What?”

“Voices.” Terry looked around.
“Come on, this way.”

Terry led them through the hull of
the ship like a bloodhound on a trail. Finally they opened a hatch to find a
dimly lit room. Four men sat huddled around a kerosene lantern in tattered
clothes. They all turned blurry eyes to Steve and Terry, and for a moment all
stood still. But then the men jumped up and whooped so quickly both Steve and
Terry leveled their guns.

“Rescue,” one of the men cried.
Steve and Terry realized they were, in fact, little more than boys.

“Just in time,” another said. “We
found the cure.”

“Wait!” Steve said, lowering his
gun and stepping forward. “You have a cure?”

The boy nodded emphatically. “We
know how to make babies now.”

“Great cau—wait. What the hell did
I just hear?!”

“We solved it, we can make
babies.”

“What the hell are you talking
about?”

“The plague that kept us from
making babies, we know how to fix it.”

“Babies aren’t the problem,” Terry
said.

“They aren’t?” another of the boys
asked, perplexed.

“No moron. It’s the effing
zombies
,
you idiot. You know, the walking dead that have consumed the world.”

“Oh, right,” another said, not
quite seeming to comprehend.

“And what do you mean you learned
how to make babies? There are no women in here.”

“That’s actually a common
misconception,” one boy said.

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s a
fact,” Steve said.

“No, Garret assured us we could
get pregnant.”

Both Steve and Terry looked at each
other nervously. “And who is Garret?” Terry asked.

Suddenly a brick house of a man
stepped from the corner into the dim light. He was covered in obvious prison
tattoos and looked like he could bench press a Buick. He wore a tight white
polo shirt unbuttoned to reveal a mop of chest hair and pink hot pants. A
yellow feather boa was draped around his neck.

“Oh, hi,” he said in a
disproportionately feminine voice, batting his eyelashes at them with a demure
hand wave.

“Oh. My.” Steve started.

“God.” Terry finished.

Garret started towards them with a
sassy swaying of his hips. Both Steve and Terry raised their guns.

“Garret, I have a gun and I
will
shoot you,” Steve said calmly.

Garret just smiled and backed off.
“So nice to have some new mothers join the party,” Garret said in his
effeminate voice.

Steve chambered a round and
pointed it at Garret, but Terry stopped him from shooting the man. “Terry, I
really wanna leave this room now,” Steve said, seeming near terror.

“There is a horde of ravenous zombies
on the deck.”

“I think we should risk it.”

Terry started to shake his head,
but then suddenly leveled his pistol at Garret who had been quietly sidling up
to them. “Seriously, Tinker Bell, we
will
shoot you.”

“Such a tease,” Garret said with a
swat of his hand, but he did back off.

“Hey,” Terry said to the sexually
enslaved and sadly misguided boys. “How did all those zombies get on the deck,
anyway?”

“Zombies?”

“The dead people on the deck,”
Steve said, flabbergasted at how obtuse they were.

“Oh,” all the boys said as one,
with a hint of sadness. “Those were the ones that couldn’t get pregnant.”

“What the eff are you talking
about?!”

“Garret tried with all of them,
but afterward they seemed haunted by their infertility and one by one went up
to the deck and killed themselves.”

“Okay, now I really wanna leave,”
Steve said in near panic.

“Oh you can’t leave,” one of the
boys said.

“Who’s gonna stop us?” Terry
asked, raising his guns.

“The witch pirates,” one boy said
solemnly.

“You can’t just mix genres like
that,” Steve said almost automatically.

Terry just looked at him like he
was an idiot. “The what?”

“The evil witch pirates that try
to kill us. They come by in a boat and hurl bombs at our ship while shooting at
it. Garret said they’re evil and that they would take our souls.”

Steve and Terry just looked at
each other. “At this point I’m willing to risk it,” Steve said.

“Me, too,” Terry affirmed quickly.
“You guys can either come with us, or die here.” Garret immediately stepped
forward. “Except you. You stay here.”

Steve and Terry backed out of the
room, keeping Garret in their sights. Finally, when they were far enough away,
they ran for it. They burst onto the deck to find the zombies still there, but
they weren’t really attacking. Steve and Terry shot several before just
stopping in shock.

“It’s almost as if . . .” Steve
said.

“They want to die,” Terry
finished.

Just then a Molotov cocktail
exploded on the deck. A sailing yacht cruised by shooting at the zombies and
hurling incendiaries.

“Holy. Shit.” Steve said.

“Wha . . .” Terry started, turning
to the boat, but he trailed off.

The witch pirates were four,
tanned, gorgeous women in bikinis. “Is this heaven?” Steve asked, completely
googly eyed.

Just then, the four boys and
Garret appeared on the deck, and that’s when all hell broke loose. The zombies,
being apathetic before, suddenly perked up. With moans they started toward the
five men.

“They’re going after the boys!”
Terry cried, starting to shoot at them.

“And Garret,” Steve added, not
shooting.

“But . . .” Terry said, torn.

“Collateral damage, for the
greater good, kill the monster, take your pick man.”

“But what about—”

“Here comes that yacht again,”
Steve cried, slinging his weapon and running to the edge and diving overboard.

Terry stood for all of a second
before following him. They hit the water hard and swam for the boat, hearing
screams coming from the ship. Unfortunately the yacht was heading directly for
them. Both men got rammed and then sucked under. The last thing either saw were
huge jiggling boobies as they were pulled aboard. Both thought they were dying,
and it was with smiles in their faces.