Generation Zombie

Chapter 5: You’re Cassini?

The main road was terribly confusing to navigate. Mass of vehicles and motorbikes looped and stuck to one another; this door hugging that bumper, that bonnet high-fiving this rear. But Arthur was quick on his feet, and quicker with his eyes. Plus, he did have a knack for detecting and helping screaming people.

Ruby squeezed through the tight spaces effortlessly. She was almost as quick as Arthur, and although she couldn’t compete with his long legs, her tiny frame worked to her advantage; helping her pass through spaces faster and smoother than he could.

They made it to the electric blue sports-car where two zombies were trying to break the driver’s side of the glass. Someone was trapped inside; a young Korean guy with shiny black hair, bangs that slightly obscured his eyes, and a ridiculous peel off mask drying on his face. The girlish, high pitched screaming was coming from him.

The zombies were slow to realize that two humans had crept up on them. They were distracted and intrigued by the batshit scared, shrieking creature beyond the glass window. Arthur took the opportunity, and grabbing a long screwdriver from a discarded toolbox, drove the makeshift weapon through the temple of a zombie, into the skull. The undead’s head gave a sickening c.rack, but it wheeled about on its decaying legs and lunged for Arthur.

He should’ve brought along the crowbar; he thought despairingly. The screwdriver hadn’t made contact with the brain of the zombie, which is why it still moved.

The other zombie made for Arthur too; hands outstretched, snarling and drooling brown saliva. However, before it could reach him, who was already trying not to get eaten or bitten, Ruby found a helmet and bravely, while yelling unnecessarily, smashed it on the zombie’s head. The force knocked it down, but Ruby followed; repeatedly bashing the helmet on its head until the skull caved in.

“Ruby, it’s dead.” Arthur said, pulling her off it and to her feet. He had driven the screwdriver deeper into the skull of the zombie that attacked him, and it had done the trick.

Ruby raked her eyes over the zombie she had killed. Adrenaline and the fear of Arthur getting hurt had been what propelled her feet to move, her body to act. “Hah! I just killed a zombie. I just killed someone who at one point in their life had goals and dreams and aspirations and emotions and hope, but something somewhere somehow went terribly wrong—an administrative error probably, —the government everywhere is trash, and now they’ve been turned into a zombie and now I’ve killed them. Her. Him. Is it a him? I can’t tell. They’re wearing androgynous clothing.” She was slightly turning purple again.

Did she count the words in that too? Arthur was curious. He shrugged it off. “It might be non-binary.” It was a possibility. Game production companies these days wanted to add more diversity in their games. Somehow though, they never seem to do it right.

Ruby huffed. “And now I’ve killed a non-binary zombie...” It was still murder, right? But it was in the process of self defense. The police officers guarding zombie rights would understand, wouldn’t they?

“It’s a game, Ruby. These zombies never existed in real life. They’re not real.” Arthur said, seeing that she had begun to spiral into her little world of overthinking.

She tossed the helmet aside and sighed. “It feels real to me. And how do we know that they’re not like us? Living, breathing, people who got sucked into the game, too?” If they were, —and she prayed they weren’t, then this game was horribly twisted. And if they died here, did it mean dying in real life too? Was it —she feared; game over?

Arthur pointed to a spot around the head of the zombie, where the skull had caved in and thick, heavily deoxygenated blood pooled out. “Can you see the glitch around it? If we were to come back in an hour, or maybe a day, the body wouldn’t be here. It’s going disappear. Non-playable characters don’t respawn when they die.”

Sure enough, Ruby saw the glitch. It was a kind of blurriness that shifted and smudged, like an invisible hand was erasing little bits of the body very, very slowly. “How do you know all of this?” She asked, peering at him and trying to hide the fact that she was impressed and relieved.

Arthur shrugged. “I play a lot of games.” It was common knowledge, really. “And I watched Jumanji.” He added teasingly.

Ruby was about to throw an elaborately formed insult at him, but the sound of a window being rolled down and someone yelling out cut her off. They had both temporarily forgotten about the person they just saved, who was still in the car, eyes wild and searching.

"Is this a reality tv show? Is this What Would You Do? Where are the cameras? Where's John Quiñones?" He shrieked, his owlish monolid eyes exploring everything within his scope of view.

"Oh my God..." Ruby whispered. The recognition hadn’t arrived soon enough because of the peel off mask on his face. But now it came, hitting her harder than a train.

He measured their appearance. "Can we do a do-over? Can you delete the last clip? My hair wasn't in the right place. Where's Mr. Quiñones?" He rushed out again, slamming the driver’s mirror down and adjusting a lock of his velvety, slightly wavy hair in the reflection.

Arthur glared at him. "This isn't a reality show." Dumbass; he added in his mind.

Ruby beamed at last, excitement and surprise making her bouncy on her feet. "Cassini! You're Ajax Cassini!" She followed him on i********:, Twitter, YouTube, f*******:, Amino, Tumblr, and even diligently connected to his Discord server.

"I'm Ajax Cassini." He assured, waiting for the cameras and the paparazzi to pop out. To go “Gotcha!” And then he’d make a live broadcast and tell his fans how scared he had truly been, how good the special effects makeup of the zombies and the staged acting of these two teenagers were.

Ruby grinned. "What are you doing here?" It was a dumb question to ask, but she only realized this after she had spoken.

Ajax looked at her dubiously. "What am I doing here? What... what am I doing here?! How am I supposed to know that?! A moment ago I was trying to play and review this game my fans have been raving about and the next thing I know, I'm stuck in a sports-car with dead people trying to eat me!" Did they need more reaction? More freaking out and yelling on his part? Don’t they understand that when you drag pranks and reality tv show set ups like this, it ruins the overall delivery of the content? Someone should come out yelling “cut” this very moment. And where’s John Quiñones?

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Oh god, he's like a dumb version of you." He said to Ruby.

Ruby ignored his statement and continued to smile at Ajax Cassini. Her get up was all wrong, so her first impression wasn’t what she wanted it to be. But here was her preteen-hood, teen-hood and probably lifelong crush; staring at her. "Yeah well, the same thing happened to us. We're still trying to figure out what's going on." She explained.

Ajax paused for a moment, like he understood what she was saying, but then his mind turned an entirely different corner; the one farthest from the understanding lane. "Did Alexa Malhotra put you up to this? Is that what this is? An elaborate prank?" He poked his head out of the window. The doors were jammed, so he couldn’t open it and get out. "Alexa, this is not funny!" He yelled at the top of his voice-box.