A Spooky Story... (Part Two)

Please read Part One first.

It was close to midnight, and something evil was lurking in the dark.

Not Michael Jackson. A Bucket Wizard.

Luckily, we were prepared. The traps were set. The time was right. It may have been coming up to the most occult time of year, but the forces of evil were about to go running back to their mothers in hell.

We'd spotted the wizard some fifteen minutes ago, standing in the street, watching the house, surrounded by a legion of his child zombies. Heaven knows why he had his mind set on us as his prizes. Perhaps he chose this house at random. Perhaps he was drawn to it by a mix a mixture of Jake's technical skills, Mark's brains, and my rugged good looks?

Yeah, it was probably chosen at random. Based on reading up in Jake's Bumper Occult Grimmoire, the Bucket Wizard would strike at midnight - and, for the second time on this blog, I'm compelled to say that that's the sentence most like spy code I have ever typed. Jake had his guitar clasped in hand. I was seated at the keys. Mark gripped the microphone so tight, his knuckles went white. We were going to fight the abomination to this world, the spawn of Satan, with the greatest gift God had given us. The foundation for the very best of all cities. Rock and Roll. And, as the hands on the clock reached 23:59, it had never been more vital to play music with such crystal clarity, such simple, beautiful perfection, that God himself would weep tears of utter joy. The sweet music would repel the wizard, and then we could initiate phase two of the plan, also known as 'hit him with a spade till he stops moving.'

"We're all settled on the song, yes?" Mark was checking me and Jake, who couldn't always be counted on to be playing either the same song, in the same key, the same chords, or at the same time.

"It's fine Mark, we've run thr- good God, here he comes."

The clock struck midnight. The wizard slowly and demurely crossed the road, his minions trailing in his wake. He mounted the steps, and reached for the door. He never got to open it: by the time he touched the handle, the door had been blown off it's hinges by a riff of such strength and power, it seemed the very earth was playing with us, in perfect unison with both guitar and keyboard. As the strains of that opening riff died away, I caught Mark's eye.

"Let's rock this joint."

And at that, he drew a deep breath, and sang. He sang like he'd never sung before: a tortured angel singing the blues in a smoky bar. Every phrase was injected with it's fullest meaning, and forced through his lips, to create a heartbreaking, melodious song. It brought a tear to my eye, and a tremble to my lip. For the first time in my life, I felt those words. I understood the true meaning of the song: a darkly ironic tale of two desperate lovers, forced together by a life of shallow materialism, where everything seems fake.

The words he sang were these:

"I'm a barbie girl

In a barbie world.
Life in plastic

It's fantastic..."

On the third line, Jake and I rejoined him, a triumphant, crashing chord. This was the pure joy of music making. This song, at this time, was perfection itself. If anything could defeat the Bucket Wizard, it was this.

Yet there he stood, unruffled, looking us dead in the eye. Around him, his zombie children stood, waiting only for his word to attack. As we saw him standing there, the music ground to a halt. This was not going according to plan.

Then, as the last echoes bounced off the street, he spoke, in a voice filled with evil and corruption. "You really think you can defeat me with such music?"

Jake was the first to gain courage to speak. "Back, foul demon, to the pits of hell that spawned you!"

"Oh, really, cut the melodrama. Besides, why would that song be particularly effective against me, the pinnacle of evil?" He grinned, and his teeth suddenly seemed incredibly pointed. "After all, I wrote it. Besides, I've had enough of your so called music." At this, he turned to address the ranks of child zombies surrounding him. "Kill them."

At once, a solid wall of the dead, four foot high and wielding buckets began, slowly and excruciatingly, to move towards us. I have to admit, I was panicking. I thought this was the end. But Jake, thank God, wasn't as easily defeated. In a hushed voice, he spoke to us.

"Guys, I have a plan. We're going to have to appeal to the one human part left of their brains, and stop them attacking us. There's only one thing for it. Only one song for the job." And he named it, to our horror.

"I hate that song!"
"Jake, do you really think this is the time?"
"Look, guys, just play it! What else can we do?"

And so, facing an eternity with our souls enslaved to a man who had just claimed to write Barbie Girl, we took up our instruments, and began to play.

TO BE CONCLUDED

A Spooky Story... (Part One)

So, Halloween.

Okay, okay, I'm a bit late. But it's a beautiful time of year: capitalism and the old custom of knocking on people's doors, threatening supernatural vengence on them if they don't comply, and demanding they give you sugar products come together in one sickly, slightly green, fusion.

It warms your heart.

But none of this bothered me. I was going to meet a friend of mine, we were plug in, amp up, and create that little something we call rock and roll. So I walked through the lonely streets, all by myself, on the one night of the year I was most likely to meet with the occult. Strange shapes flitted in front of me: ghosts, demons, witches, a pirate, long dead and displaced in time. The apparitions appeared small, out of proportion, and wandered the twilight world in groups of three or four. Each group was headed by a taller, more imposing figure, appearing almost human and yet mocking humanity - these arch demons seemed to be in charge of the expedition to the human world. Each group would march purposefully to the doors of the innocent, and demand entry, their thin, hellish voices piping up the eldritch curse of "Trick or treat!" to the unwary who opened their doors. I gripped my crucifix firmly and continued on to my friend's house.
I walked up the drive, rang on the bell, and... well, what follows happened rather quickly, so let's move into written slow motion. The door opened, and I saw the flushed face of my friend, eyes wild, and, much more importantly, holding a gun, which he shot at me. The shot flew wide, and I staggered down the steps in shock.

Recognition flickered across his face, and, with cracked and strained voice he greeted me. "Ben! Thank Goodness you're here!"
"Jake. Hi! You, err, just shot me." Although this was obviously a shock, it wasn't entirely unexpected. I have some... unusual friends.
"Yes, well, never mind that. Get in the house!"
"What?"
"Get in the house now."
"Jake..."
"We have a Code Lazarus, Situation Ultimate Gamma. You know your orders. Get in the house."

Damn. Code Lazarus, as it happens, is one of our series of emergency codes. The code for a zombie uprising, to be precise. Situation Gamma meant it was local - the fact it was Ultimate meant that we had certain, confirmed sightings nearby. I needed no further persuasion: I stepped into the house.

"You're here!" It was Mark, our singer. The two of us being shut in the house with Jake, a man who, I just remembered, had once set his shoes on fire because he was bored. Oh, and he just tried to shoot me. Maybe this wasn't the best idea...

Time to establish what had happened. "Okay, Jake. What's the situation?"
"It's worse than we ever planned for. It was about an hour ago, and I looked out the window, and there they were, stumbling down the road. The children, Ben! They took the children!""
"So you saw some children who looked like zombies walking down the road on Halloween..."
"And buckets! They've taught the zombies to use buckets! We saw them walking with buckets!"

"So, you saw some children who looked like zombies, on Halloween, carrying buckets?" I shared a sidelong look with Mark. "There's only one explanation for this." Mark was nodding. Jake looked worried, and the tension in the room reached breaking point...

"It's a Bucket Wizard."

"A what?"
"A Bucket Wizard. They reanimate those who died young, and give them buckets to collect human souls in."
"Buckets?"
"Jake, are you a dark and dangerous force of the occult?"
"No."
"Then don't question the buckets." At this point, Mark chipped in, ever practical.
"What can we do?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Outside, the thunder executed a perfectly timed dramatic roll. "We're going to need a bigger spade. Settle down, gentlemen. It's going to be a long night."

TO BE CONTINUED

Ten Things I've learnt This Summer:

It's been a long summer, and while a little of what's happened has involved me learning things which are, comparatively, Serious Business, I felt that this little list would sum up what the summer's really been like.

1. If I go somewhere else, and leave my tent with my friends, and get back to find my tent has mysteriously rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, my friends didn't move it: tents just get up and move like that, honestly.
2. You only need a cape, a paper crown, and a toy sword to become a convincing King. Even passers by will be impressed and reverent in the face of your majesty.
3. The reason Batman is so lonely and violent is because no one will hug Batman. The reason no one will hug Batman is because Batman wears a cape. Hugging capes is awkward: do your put your hands outside the cape, and thus have a much wider radius for your arms to cover due to dramatic billowyness, or put your arms under the cave and invade Batman's personal space? Superheroes are hard to hug.
4. Speaking of which, a man dressed as Batman preaching about God is hard to take seriously.
5. Celery is a difficult fashion accessory to manage, and not many people can pull it off: a decorative vegetable isn't for everyone. Don't wear celery.
6. Any story, if dramatic enough, can be adapted to the form of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air opening theme song.
7. I can imagine no bad day that cannot be improved by three or four people coming together to play "Yellow Submarine" on their instrument of choice.
8. Sandwich making among teenage males is somewhere between an art form and a competitive sport: making an incredibly tall sandwich with a ridiculous variety of flavours then crushing it down as far as it can go is an immensely manly pursuit.
9. There is always one person in a card game who takes it ridiculously seriously, one person who is astonishingly good, and one person who always loses. I will always be the last of those people.
10. People seem remarkably happy to lend me a cuddly lion at short notice.

Bonus eleventh thing: my good friend Mozzy, who I met in the far off lands of The Internet, has started a wonderful blog that is one man's story of his trials and tribulations in the Zombie Apocalypse. Regular readers may see why this appeals to me. I'm on hand as a sort of editor/zombie/story consultant, while not actually writing posts for it.

Anyway, go check it out here. It's pretty cool.

Viva la (social) Revolution! Your guide to social etiquette in a post apocalyptic world.

I realise full too well that the start of the next sentence is going to make me sound like a French revolutionary.

But come the glorious day, brother, (told you), when the dead rise, and the living take up arms against the shambling, slightly smelly threat, we're going to go through some changes. In a world where you may find yourself shooting that nice old lady from two rooms down right between the red, unblinking eyes, and having no one thinking you need locking up for it, social conventions are not going to stay the same. So here's a few rules for that time to avoid that dreadful "someone just committed social death" awkward silence.

Sleepwalking is now even more awkward.

You've watched your friends and family die horribly to hordes of stumbling necrotic flesh, you're wary about anyone walking slowly and badly and seemingly not looking where they're going. Sleepwalking is currently just awkward and embarrassing. In case of zombie apocalypse? It involves your head being blown to delicious chunky salsa.

Suddenly, everyone loves the nutters.

You know that slightly weird kid who knows all sorts of weird things about making weapons, explosives, and surviving in odd circumstances? The one who seems to spend far too much time on the internet reading up on things? Well, firstly, wave when you next pass him sitting alone in his corner. That's me. Secondly, get ready to make him your new best friend, because he's got the skills and possibly the equipment needed to survive in this zombie-eat-dog-and-then-everything-else-world. Similarly, you know the great big scary guy in the leather jacket with the shaved head and tattoos? The one who's almost certainly got illegal guns somewhere? Your best friend number two.

The Three Amigos

Basically, if you ever see someone you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, or someone wearing one of those "In case of zombie apocalypse, follow me" t shirts... follow them.

Romero will become God.

Back in the far distant past of 1968, George Romero released Night of the Living Dead, and gave our conciousness the idea of a zombie not just being the product of black magic. Due to the slight accident of forgetting to copyright the film and leaving it in the public domain, he attracted a wave of imitators, warning humanity of the threat to come. Should all this actually happen, what are the bets this man will become, at the least, a prophet - if not a God in his own right? Be prepared to run into nutty cults who end their sentences "Romero be praised!".

Oh, and one last thing:

However much you want to go there, stay away from the shopping malls.

Just remember, Max Brookes tells you how to avoid actual death with the Zombie Survival Guide. I tell you how to avoid social death. Together, we're a team.

The Differently Alive

What is it about the undead?

Don't get me wrong, I love a good zombie as much as the rest of the internet.

This is an example of how not to love the undead

In fact, I take the business of zombies so very seriously that I recently genuinely sent this email to the British Ministry of Defence:

Dear Sir,

Of the many threats facing homeland security, it seems evident to me that by far the greatest, if perhaps not the most probable, is that posed of the reanimated dead: I refer, of course, to the "zombie apocalypse" as popular culture has dubbed it.

In the (admittedly unlikely) event of the rising of the dead, has the army got a contingency plan to protect the citizens of this nation from shambling, necrotic warriors? Since such an adversary is incapable of thought - and thus espionage or any form of tactical planning is beyond them - I feel fully justified in requesting information on your plans for this eventuality under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) so that civilians of the United Kingdom might better prepare themselves for the eventuality of serious, large scale undead attack.

Yours Sincerely,

etc. etc. For some reason, they haven't replied yet.

But, anyway, what is it about zombies exactly? Why, in the last few years, have so many of us become quite so attracted to the idea of a zombie apocalypse? It's not as if it would, in reality, be very much fun, especially for those outside countries with lots of firearms. Starving to death inside your barricaded building because you don't have enough food and are surrounded by rotting, walking corpses doesn't sound like much of a way to spend my weekend.

I think the danger is that zombies are becoming too popular. Pretty soon, if we aren't careful, they're going to hit The Twilight Point, and be remarketed in an attempt to be edgy and appeal to twelve year old girls...

And no one wants that.

Oh, finally, on the note of zombies: this is awesome.