There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate: Now With Zombies

There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate: Now With Zombies (2)

 “Last night, the world was stricken by an instantaneous resurrection of soulless corpses previously thought inanimate. These things have destroyed everything we first world people have considered essential to our life; malls are crashing down, airports are being overrun by former Revolutionary War veterans buried on the concourses, and signal towers are being gnawed to pieces by these beasts desperate to chew anything off. If you are receiving this broadcast, consider yourself blessed, and if not, then chances are that the walking dead have knocked down your power lines and you’re essentially doomed.

“Now, no one knows how this undead uprising started, but one of the earliest reports to come in centres around a town in California, where rotting carcasses burrowed their way out of the ground in coincidence with a young man named Jesse Jacobsen singing a song to Miss Jordan Emery, which for some reason appears to be the instigator for this apocalypse. What ensued was a series of events culminating in Mr. T being crushed by his infected pet tyrannosaurus rex while one of Miss Emery’s friends changed gender, gaining enough super strength to attack the dinosaur and ripping its body into sixteen different pieces, not including the tail. The Feminist Alliance of Righteously Concerned Estrogenites have tried stirring up controversy over the idea of Mr. T shooting Snickers bars from a tank at effeminate speed walkers, but they don’t seem to realize that the world is going down the toilet, and as a result, their lawsuit will have to wait a while to be processed.’

The black and white TV monitor shut off in front of us, and we all looked up at Headmaster Solomon’s eyes boring through our ribcages in order to pierce through our hearts. Thankfully, we’d gotten iron ribcage reinforcements from a shady scrap dealer the night of the outbreak, spending all of Highly Unimportant, Extremely Disposable Best Friend #1’s college savings through the use of a pick-pocketed credit card, but at least it proved her idiotic death wasn’t in vain and at least it was helping us to face the Headmaster’s previously unhinted laser vision.

“You know what, girls?” Headmaster Solomon asked us after realizing his laser powers weren’t as powerful as he thought, “You know what, Mr Jacobsen? You know what, person of ambiguous gender? Do you know what that news report says about you four? Was there anything in the broadcast that spoke to you?”

“Well,” Highly Unimportant, Extremely Disposable Best Friend #4 spoke up, “I thought it was interesting that despite this worldwide catastrophe being classified as a zombie apocalypse, the reporter didn’t even mention the word ‘zombie’. I wonder if it’s becoming taboo already.”

“Well, Highly Unimportant, Extremely Disposable Best Friend #4,” Headmaster Solomon said, “that is a very interesting observation, but more on point, it appears that you four are the main cause for this zombie apocalypse, giving everyone a reason to  hate you.”

“But that’s not fair!” I blurted out. “There could be an organized cult of millions of tribal dudes who preformed a resurrection ritual at the same time Jesse...and I...broke out into song.”

“And besides, who else knows about it?” Jesse asked defiantly, flicking his head to whip whatever cowlick he had away from his eyes. “How many other people are glued to the screen, looking for a fix of news while their internet is down, rather than fleeing the area so they can escape the zombies? Thirty people? Maybe fifty?”

“Ah, but Mr. Jacobsen,” Headmaster Solomon pointed out, “These household occupiers, while perhaps stubborn in their attachment to their property, are not stupid. They have shotguns, machine guns, mallets, kitchen knives, chainsaws, musical instruments...”

“Flashlights?”

“Oh, that’s the least of your worries. Either way, we need to get you out of the state so that if an angry mob comes to kill you, they’re going to have to traverse through thousands of miles of this blessed country before you can get maimed.”