The Zombie Job: The Zombie Job

By Vaughn Ashby

99.9% of humanity was turned into Zombies, in an event known as... you know what, hold on let's go back.

Zombies, yep they are a thing, turns out pop culture was right. Zombies are real, well in so much as creatures who used to be human now want us to be no longer living. It's still strange and what's worse turns out history was filled with ample examples of them, we were just manipulated into... wait, maybe we should go forward.

After the event known as The Event, capital T capital E, the remaining fraction of a percent of humanity who had yet to be torn apart, huddled together trying to survive near the arctic circle. All that is except for Angie and her crew, who while remaining further south, do their best heist movie impressions in order to gather supplies to well... keep humanity existing. Which is... hold on... fine... let's go forward...

In a world filled with nothing but dead, Angie, while on a routine train heist comes face to face with her husband who she hadn't seen in 15 years since the day of The Event, the day he... well, that's complicated and we'll get to that. Making matters worse, he's not alone, and he's asking for help from the only woman still qualified to save them all. Which normally wouldn't be an issue, only Angie is... currently suffering from... well, we'll get to that too.

 

Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland and the zombie-filled end of the world that it occupies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vaughn Ashby
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9798223161615

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The Job

The world didn’t end in some grand crescendo of destruction and cacophony. It should have, but it didn’t. No, the world as we knew it struggled along choking on its own phlegm and shit, living long past its expiration date. Leaving only a handful of people to desperately struggle to plug the holes in the sieve of this putrid sinking ship we know as earth. There are too many holes, and too many dicks trying to plug them. But hey, what else is new?

CHAPTER TWO

The Job

The eyes of the dead stared up at Angie from the floor of the train car, their arms reached up for her. It was a sea of dead, their bodies intertwined and piled on top of each other. Their movement mimicked the waves of the ocean, it was carnage and death. Their mouths wanted nothing but to devour her, to taste her, to eat her, to simply end her existence. The hands of a few would reach up for her, then would be pulled down by the hands of others, as they did all they could to reach her. It was hypnotic. 

Angie had seen hundreds of thousands of… even after all this time she hated the feeling of the word on her tongue… zombies. She’d killed hundreds of thousands of them before, but who hadn’t? Everyone had watched a movie or TV show featuring the only monsters made up of the people you’d failed to save. Zombies from the safety of your couch are one thing. Zombies in real life are pantie-soilingly different. But then again, she’d encountered more than any other still-breathing person. She’d been around the sun a couple of dozen times more with the zombies than most, her gravity tormented, but still opulent boobs could attest to this.  

As she stared down at the zombies from the hatch at the top of the train car, she wondered what made these zombies feel so special? Why did she feel such an emotional connection to them? She squinted and tried to stare through the darkness of the train car, into their eyes, but light died in the train; she could barely make out where one started and the next ended. They looked like one mass. On the surface they looked like all the other zombies she’d encountered, dark gray skin, long arms with the flesh on their hands and fingers mostly peeled back to claws. Those damn mouths that seemed to almost unhinge as they tried to devour you, to eat you. But the mass below her looked somehow familiar. Faces and hands cycled into view then vanished below the surface, and for a brief second she thought she saw her own face, and she slowly reached down for it, for herself, as the hands of the dead reached up for her. 

The snow around her blocked out the world, and she wanted to join them. She wondered what it would be like? Just to reach out, get pulled below the surface, endure a few seconds of agony, then it would be done. No one would have to know what happened. 

As her hand reached for the mass of death below her the movement of the dead increased. It almost felt like excitement, but she knew they felt nothing… like her. 

Angie? a voice she hadn’t heard in 15 years said from behind her, she knew exactly who it was, and she retracted her hand from the train car, zombies, and death. I need your help.

Angie sighed, closed the hatch to the train car, and turned to see her husband. It wasn’t often you ran into someone you thought was dead, it was even odder to run into them on top of a train you were robbing while it was moving. But then again, the world wasn’t what it used to be.

CHAPTER THREE

The Interview

Interviewer: Is that where you want to start this story? I was told to always start at the beginning, you seem to be working off some complex storytelling structure I’m unaware of. 

Angie: Do complex stories frighten you?

Interviewer: Frighten is a strong scary word.

Angie: Don’t worry sweetie, I’ll be gentle. 

Interviewer: That doesn’t make me feel any better, just so you know. Maybe try to keep it simple for peons like me while we’re doing this. Oh, and I want the record to show the interviewee winked at me and made me feel both extremely excited and very nervous. 

Angie: So, what is this?

Interviewer: An interview.

Angie: For what, the school papers?

Interviewer: There needs to be a record of what happened. The world, despite your and my best efforts, is trying really hard to end. If we are the last spark of humanity then there should be some kind of record of all the shit we went through.

Angie: If you only knew the half of it. 

Interviewer: Care to elaborate?

Angie: Not even a little. So what do you want to know? My favorite color? Bra size? What’s the what? I've got more important things to do. 

Interviewer: You want to fill me in on what exactly a Zombie Job is?

Angie: No.

Interviewer: Please?

Angie: Sorry, but that’s above your pay grade sweetie. 

Interviewer: Well this interview is tanking fast.

Angie: I’m sure your mom would be proud. 

Interviewer: Let’s go back to The Train Job then, and from the beginning this time, please. 

Angie: Please? How very Canadian of you. So, the beginning? Which one?

Interviewer: Are you going to be like this the whole interview?

Angie: Would you have it any other way?

Interviewer: Not even a little. Let the record show she winked at me again.

Angie: Oh sweetie, hold on to your panties, things are about to get, well… you’ll see.

Interviewer: Who are you?

Angie: I’m a mama bear pulling zombie heists at the end of the world to save my kids, and the rest of humanity by accidental association. 

Interviewer: You going to tell me what a Zombie Job is now?

Angie: Pay attention and maybe you can figure it out for yourself.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Job

There are fewer sounds in the existence of the universe more annoying and hated than an alarm clock. Most of the worst moments in the history of the world can be tied to people waking up before their brains were ready. Look it up, it’s true. Through the thick haze of hangover, Angie leaned over and gently smashed her fist into the alarm clock on her side table. It tumbled to the floor, smashing to pieces. She’d put it back together later, just like she always did. You’d think life as a mother of two would train you to get up early, but nope, it could train your body to wake up at a certain time, but that doesn’t mean you’d be ready for it. Though wine and age didn’t help the getting up process either. 

Angie sighed as she stared up at the curved ceiling of her makeshift RV. Pictures of buildings and people, blueprints, and scribbled notes covered the ceiling in a collage of plans to complete the crazed motif complete with string making connections between well… everything. It looked more like a spider’s web, but it made sense to her. She’d been working on it since the day of The Event, the day the zombies showed up, the day the world ended. 

Before all this happened she used to go camping a lot… no, they used to go camping a lot. Though they could never afford an RV, not that this was a real RV, no they had one of those toaster vans that they’d just throw the girls and a mattress into the back, pick a road, and just go, drive. Those are what those still alive at the end of the world biz call ‘The good old days’. It’s cliche to say, but it’s true they were. Looking back on the past and loving it, well it’s a pastime, and one basically all people have. But it can be a dangerous hobby that shouldn’t be lingered in. You spend too much time looking at the past and you lose your footing in the present. You start to see the world as the grimy cat’s ass that it is, and well, you start to contemplate remaining in it. Angie had been there, on more than one occasion, you don’t survive this long and not contemplate falling on your sword a few times. The whole saving the world thing becomes overwhelming at times. While acting on it is very different thinking about it, the thinking about it part seems to be coming up more and more often. Dying would be the easy way out, living is hard. Her reason why is what keeps her going. It's important in life to know why you’re doing something, because without it, shit, life can look endless and meaningless. You need to find that meaning and hold on to it. Luckily, Angie’s got two reasons with names, and one of them has a cold right now. 

Depression is a serious thing after you can no longer just run to the convenience store down the street to grab a lip chap. Angie licked her lips. Fricking lip chap, she muttered to herself as she rubbed the sleep boogers from her eyes, and adjusted the underwear that was making dramatic attempts to travel up her north.  

Wedgie free, she rolled out of bed with all the excitement of a teenager, and glanced down at her bra on the floor, then down to her naked chill-indicating boobs, and back down to the bra. She didn’t remember taking it off. Though, most of the night before was a blur now. The half dozen bottles of wine near the