A Zombie Prescription

By Jose Santos

A Zombie Prescription is a short story “novella” that wends its way through the stark and, at times, bleak depiction of life in 21st Century America (Amuzistann).

From the ubiquity of media programming and mind-numbing technology, to the environmental engineering and corrupt corporate interests hell-bent on unraveling the very fabric of society, one man (everyman) is gradually being transformed...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jose Santos
• Release date: Oct 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465803870

Book preview

A ZOMBIE PRESCRIPTION

by Jose Santos

A ZOMBIE PRESCRIPTION

Jose Santos

Copyright © 2011

All Rights Reserved.

Smashwords edition.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Editing, cover and interior by Everything Indie

http://www.everything-indie.com

~

CONTENTS

About the Book

About the Author

Foreword

Zombie Prescription!

Can of Corn

Failed Political Radical

Peak Distraction

Birthday

After the Storm

The Amusement Imperative

Minders

Bully

Cabbie & Me

Learning to Fly

Catching Up

Corporate Thug King

Epilogue (Dosing)

Afterword

~

About the Book

A Zombie Prescription is a short story ‘novella’ that wends its way through the stark and, at times, bleak reality of life in 21st Century America (Amuzistann).

From the ubiquity of media programming and mind-numbing technology, to the environmental engineering and corrupt corporate interests hell-bent on unraveling the very fabric of society, one man (everyman) is gradually being transformed ...

~

About the Author

Jose Santos makes his home in Costa Rica with his wife and four young children, where he supplements his meager writing income by repairing and refurbishing small caliber firearms.

~

Foreword

Jake and Zeke are over. The wives are out celebrating Sara’s birthday. We sit on the deck and watch the kids play in the yard and talk about how bad the economy might get. It is 2007.

Zeke is alternately worried and not worried. He’s an incredible optimist. If I had just borrowed $15M, personally guaranteed and backed up by all my assets, I’d be scared shitless.

I share my view of the economy. It’s the fall of Saigon all over again, I tell them. Amuzistann’s economy is surrounded by its enemies and about to be overrun. People are on the roof of the embassy. An armada of helicopters swoops in, lifting the lucky ‘Stannians who survive off the roof to safety.

The Bernank is in one of the last choppers. He’s blowing dollars out like napalm. This is our last stand. We’re being overrun. We know we’re doomed if we stay here.

We don’t give a shit if he’s blowing dollars out all over the place. We just want to be lifted off the roof.

Jose Santos

~

Zombie Prescription!

Aya says zombies can’t open doors. I think this is a pretty canny insight for a five-year-old.

I asked her, How did you learn such a thing?

I saw it in my dreams, she says. It’s because they can’t open their eyes, she says matter-of-factly.

For some reason I can’t seem to let this go. All these anger issues I have – my problems with shouting … of thinking that I see death and dying everywhere. These are all explained if, in fact, I am a zombie. This is all natural behavior for a zombie! If I am a zombie, it would explain why I can’t function like a normal human being.

And this all seems to synch with a conversation I’d had at work with this guy named Mark. He was generally an asshole, but exceptionally smart.

I have to work like a dog to survive, I told him.

Re-orient your thinking, he said. Think instead, ‘I am a dog.’

Nice thought, I tell him. But that doesn’t really help my problem.

He pondered this for a minute. Then he said to me, What about zombiism?

I asked him what he meant.

He said, Well, zombies have it pretty bad. Maybe you’re a zombie. Do you ever feel like crushing skulls? he asked me. I thought about this.

Yeah, come to think of it, I do, I said. You think I’m a zombie? I asked him.

It’s possible, he said. It would certainly explain your looks and your IQ.

He was laughing now. He thought he was so funny.

Awesome, I tell him. I’ll make sure that your skull is the first one I crush.

***

It has been a few weeks since I started coming down with the lesions. I still go into work, but when people see me, they ask what happened. I tell them something benign, like, A resurgence of teenage acne. I can’t very well tell them I have a highly contagious, deadly disease (or that I’m a zombie who wants to crush their skulls)! That would freak them out. Acne is a plausible story because, on first glance, you might just think I had bad case of zits.

I go to the doctor, and afterward I relate what happened to Mark.

I’m told there’s no cure for what I’ve got. There’s a treatment, but no cure.

What’s the diagnosis? he asks

Zombiism, I tell him.

What?

Yeah! You were friggin’ right: zombiism. I was diagnosed as a friggin’ zombie.

Jesus!

Yeah, that was my reaction too. WTF, I thought. I felt like asking the doctor where the hell he went to medical school.

Did you?

No, but I made it really clear to him I thought he was full of shit.

Yeah, how’d you do that?

Well, first I grabbed him and threw him to the ground, with his arm behind his back and my knee on him. Then I told him if he didn’t wise up and get me some friggin’ vaccine I was going to kill him, zombie style.

Sounds like you handled it well.

Yeah, everything was going okay until his guards started shocking the shit out of me with their tasers. Apparently I wasn’t his first patient to have had an adverse reaction to a diagnosis. Friggin’ ridiculous. I bashed those guys’ heads in with a fire extinguisher I tore off the wall. Then I ran like hell and got the heck out of there.

No vaccine then?

No. Not yet.

Oh, I’m sure he told his nurse to call in a prescription for you. Did you call the pharmacy to see?

Nah. I plan to treat myself for this shit. The medical establishment is all screwed up.

He nodded sagely, before saying, Clearly.

***

We all like to believe our troubles are unique to us, and maybe they are, but even if our troubles are unique, the fact that almost all of us are troubled is not. Eventually everything and everyone must get perverted … depraved. I think this must be why we are all so fascinated by zombies and vampires and other supernatural creatures. We all feel the slide. We all know we are transforming. Turning into something else, transmogrifying. We just don’t know into what. But we see darkness in our peripheries and we sense it closing in on us.

BANG, BANG, BANG!

HEY! CAN SOMEBODY FRIGGIN’ LET ME IN! I CAN’T OPEN THE DOOR!

~

Can of Corn

I grew up as a soldier’s son, living on military bases and often having nightmares about the ‘Big One’ … nuclear war.

My dream was always the same. I’d be watching TV when it happened. The electromagnetic pulse from the burst high up in the atmosphere would zap my favorite show off the air. My hands would rise in vain to shield my eyes against the brilliant flash of light. Somebody had finally done it – maybe our side, maybe the other guys. Either way, in that one fleeting instant, I’d know this