Well then, this is Deadworld, a little thing I started... three years ago? Hell. But anyway... This was originally intended to be a comic strip, but my artist fell through, and I converted it to first person POV. If the formatting seems weird, that's why.

--

It's been one year since it all began... I've always heard that when hell was full, the dead would walk the earth. I can vouch for that.

For the past year, the new dead have risen, in a grotesque mockery of life. Bodies that aren't destroyed get up and kill. Those they kill, get up and kill. Every day, their numbers grow. Every day, our's wane. No one could have seen it coming. No one could have stopped it...

In fact...

Now that I think about it, nobody but Becky and me really noticed.

Standard Scenario: A guy's in the middle of the road, his SUV blocked by an approaching mob of zombies.

Guy: Would you assholes move?! I'm talking on my cell phone, here!

Thirty seconds later...

Guy: Oh god. OH GOD!... I'm roaming!

And so, that was what had brought me there on that street that day. I was going to make my last stand. My last bid for survival. My last esc-

"Hey, asshole," I heard Becky say, from next to me. Apparently I'd spaced out again, and she wasn't pleased. We had been waiting at our bus stop, for our ride to George A. Romero High school, like we did every weekday morning. Yeah... all that "last bid for survival" stuff? I just kinda threw that in to make this interesting...

"There's a mob of corpses coming up Elm Street," she told me, indicating the road adjacent to us. Becky (who would kill me if she heard me refer to her as "Rebecca”) is just kinda... strange. She has a pretty face and an okay body (she'd kill me for that too, you know) though you kind of had to look for a while too realize it. Becky's clothes don't really flatter her figure; she's into the grunge look, in Dockers, engineer boots, and a number of plaid shirts. Truth be told, they kind of make her look like a lumberjack; that seems to be what she was going for. The Stihl chainsaw that she was carrying, stowed away in her open bookbag, didn't hurt the effect.

You'd think someone would have called her on that, taking it to school and all. Of course, you'd also think they would have noticed what she carried it for...

The reasons she packed it were currently about thirty yards away, shambling towards us. About six of them. Zombies. If Becky hadn't been there to snap me out of my reverie, they might have been on top of me before I noticed them. I'd started to get used to them a while ago, and I kind of... get distracted, sometimes. Becky got acclimated to the stiffs even sooner than I did, but was always on guard for them. That was why I hung out with her; well, that, and the fact that I didn't have any other friends.

"Do you think you can take enough time out of your precious little internal monologue to chuck a bomb at them?" she asked; she really did know me too well. "Or should I just take point and rip one of your arms off to bludgeon them with?"

"Oh. Oh, no. I can handle them," I replied. I didn't mention the crack about her dismembering me; I was too grateful that she had pointed out the undead to take issue with it. And, of course, I try not to tempt her to make good on threats like that. She would do it. Instead, I reached into one of the pockets I'd sewn into my trench coat; I had some stuff in there.

I've got... kind of a thing, ok? For fire, I mean. It's not anything weird; I just feel better when I've got a lighter or two on me. Or sixteen. Along with a flask of gasoline, some cans of Sterno, six road flares, a blow torch, a few cans of hair spray, and a few sundry other items... I hold onto some thermite, whenever I get time to make a batch. I also carried a piece of steel wool and a nine volt battery, in case I used everything else. You know; normal stuff.

"I've got something for these necrotic assholes. Glorious, all-consuming flame," I said, as I pulled out one of my Molotov cocktails, and lit the wick. The site of the burning cloth kind of distracted me, and it took me a second to remember that I was supposed to throw it; Rebecca had backed away a few feet. Recalling what I was doing, I wound up and threw it into the middle of the crowd.

Whoosh! The ghouls went up in a blaze, and a few seconds later fell burning to the ground. The sight of the fire made my spirits soar, like it always does, and I got a little... carried away.

"Yeah!" I laughed, jumping up and down. "That's my shit! If you can't take the heat... Fucking die!" I turned to Becky, to see if she was watching. "Did you see that shit?" I asked.

She just sighed, and shook her head. "You know something, pyro? You are a twisted, twisted little man."

"Ok, Becky, seriously?" I asked, frustrated; she always does that, acting like I've got some kind of a problem just to screw with me. I can take a joke as well as the next guy, but sometimes she just goes too far, you know? "Who exactly shit in your cornflakes? I want to talk to them about that. Because while they may get a big kick out of it - each and every morning, apparently - I'm the one who has to deal with you the rest of the day, and-"

"Shut your noise hole, Tony," she cut me off. "The bus is coming." I looked over her shoulder, to our left, and saw it coming up the street. I was still ticked as I followed her onto the bus, but I pulled out my Zippo and flicked it open, staring into the flame. I calmed down as I watched it, trying to see where that beautiful pale blue darkened into indigo, and flared into that lovely golden yellow... That always makes me feel better.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I heard the bus driver, Miss Lopez, say; it sounded like she was coming from far away. I looked up from my lighter, and saw her pointing at Rebecca's bookbag, and the chainsaw within. "What do you think you're doing with that?"

"What, this? I'm supposed to bring it," she lied nonchalantly. "For Home Ec."

The bus driver looked at her for a moment, before deciding she was telling the truth. "Fine," she said, closing the doors and looking out the windshield. "Does that guy need a doctor or something?"

One of the zombies had survived the fire; I must have mixed too much washing detergent in with that Molotov. His legs were gone, and his shirt was smoking, but he kept on crawling towards our bus.

"No. He's just homeless. And probably drunk," Becky said, as she moved to take our seat at the back of the bus; we always sat there, and nobody would try to take it before Becky got to it, even though our stop is the last one before we go to school.

"Yeah, and I think I heard him mention that he was some kind of veteran," I told her, as I went to join Becky.

"Oh, is that all?" Miss Lopez said, before shifting gears and forgetting about it. As I sat down, I thought I felt a bump, and I think the driver finished the zombie by running over it. But I didn't really know; I had started watching the Zippo's flame again, and I just kind of spaced out until we got to homeroom that morning...

--

"All right class, settle down," Mr. White said. Me and Becky have him for English in first period, and his class is pretty cool. Not because of any effort on his part; he's kind of a dick. But he's also fairly stupid, and you can get away with anything in his room. He didn't even notice that the kid standing at the front of the room with him was a zombie; somehow he didn't catch the gray skin, gaping wound in his chest, or blood encrusted around the edges of his mouth. The cannibal leaned forward to take a bite out of him, but missed as he turned to erase something off the blackboard. Considering how everybody seems just too preoccupied to notice the zombies, it's a good thing they're so slow; otherwise, they would have already taken over the world.

"We're going to be watching a video today, but first I want to introduce our new student. This is Gene; he just transferred here. Gene, turn around and say something to the class," he said, reaching past his grasping arms to turn him towards all of us.

"...flesh," he moaned, staring at us blankly. I was surprised he could still speak; usually, by the time the dead got as decayed as he looked like, they only groan.

"Mr. White?" Rebecca said, from two seats behind me and to my right. "I don't think you've noticed, but the new kid seems to be somewhat... undead."

"Certainly not, Miss Valentine," he answered. He didn't even seem to notice that only his hand on the zombies shoulder that kept him from turning around and taking a bite out of him; as it was, the new kid had his head turned as far is it would go, snapping at it. "Gene here is simply afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder."

"Which is why he's standing there with a thousand-yard stare, groaning for 'flesh'?" I asked. I knew it was a lost cause, like Becky did, but we still try.

"Correct."

"And you account for the maggots... how?" Becky asked, making a last ditch effort as one fell from inside Gene's shirt.

"ADD."

"Riiight," Rebecca mused.

"Very good. Now let's find you a seat." He looked around, and seemed to settle on the empty desk next to Larry, the fat kid in the class; I could already tell that wasn't going to end well. "How about right there, next to Laurence. Right there, the big one. Plump, juicy Laurence." He guided the walking dead to the desk in question, and by random chance he just kind of stumbled into it. Mr. White seemed satisfied, and walked away to wheel the TV to the front of the room.

As he turned down the lights and started the VCR, the zombie strained to get to Larry, the metal bar of the desk obstructing him. He kept working against it though, and as the video started, he managed to get a grip on the fat kid's shirt.

"Mr. White?" Larry called nervously, as the zombie began tugging on him.

"ADD!" he yelled back, distracted, playing with the volume...

--

"Hey you guys! You guys!" Dan yelled, rushing to our table.

Becky and I were sitting alone, like we always did; my trench coat and her reputation kept people away. We had had to get the school lunch; I had spent all my money on kerosene, and Becky had been pretty strapped for cash after she'd lost her job at the Taco Nazi, our town's former German-themed Mexican restaurant. Former, because it had been shut down after what we referred to as the "deep fryer incident". Becky had actually been responsible for the "deep fryer incident", but I can't go into the details; there hadn't been any witnesses, and I was the only one who knew what she did. In all fairness, it had really been the other guy's fault for asking for extra Fiesta Sauce...

"What is it, Dan?" I asked with a sigh. Dan's a freshman, a year younger than Beck and I, and always want's to hang with us. We both hate him; it's not his fault, it's just that he's kind of a bitch.

"It's the zombies! They've infiltrated the school!" He sat down his tray and took the seat across the round table from me, not catching Becky's warning look. Apart from us, he's the only one who's noticed the living dead, and he seems to think that makes us his friends. He always wants us to join him in some kind of campaign to exterminate them, but it seems like too much work to me, and I think Becky kind of likes the prospect of the world ending; also, we hate him. He had a barbecue fork stuffed through his belt loops, that he carried around for the same reason Becky sported her chainsaw and I have my incendiary devices... well, one of the reasons I carry them. I have no idea what he plans to use the fork for if he ever gets cornered by a zombie. "The new kid's one of them, and he's infected that guy, Larry!"

"Oh, no, haven't you heard?" Becky asked him, pushing her food around with a fork; neither of us had worked up the courage to actually try and eat any of it. "Gene has ADD."

"Yeah, and he must have passed it on to Larry," I said, taking a sip from my chocolate milk. "You know? When he ate him, and stuff."

"Speaking of the cadavers, I haven't seen them since homeroom," she noted, looking up. "They around anywhere?"

"They're over there, eating with the jocks," Dan answered, pointing them out. Sure enough, they were hanging out in the top echelon of our school's social ladder; apparently, being dead had only made them more popular. "They've just finished their third helpings of the mystery meat."

"That's funny," I said. "I thought the stiffs only ate human flesh." I caught Becky's eye, and we both looked down at our trays. After a second, we pushed them away.

"Think the jello's safe?" Rebecca asked.

"Larry and Gene seem to like it," Dan said. So much for that.

Becky sighed. "I don't think we can ignore this much longer; if it spreads any farther, this place will be a bigger hell hole than it is."

"Why didn't you say so?" I asked her. "I've got a firebomb here that'll reduce everything in a twenty foot radius to carbon," I said, as I reached into my coat.

"You can't. It's too crowded in here, and you'll take out the jocks."

"Well, not all of them," I told her modestly. "Some of them will be outside of the blast range. Of course, I can always pick off the stragglers-"

"No. Just no," Becky said. "At least, not in front of so many witnesses. We need to handle the corpses somewhere less crowded. And we need to make it look like an accident." She turned and looked at Dan. "Do you know what Gene has next period?"

"I think I heard one of the jocks say he was in P.E. with him," Dan said.

"You have that next period too, right?" she asked me. I nodded. "Fine. You take him down. Do whatever it takes; improvise."

"I'm on it. How about Larry?"

"No problem; I have Home Ec with him," she answered. "I can deal with him there."

"In Home Ec?" I asked her, wondering what she could do there.

Becky only smiled. "You know, nine out of ten home accidents occur in the kitchen..." There was no way I was going to ask what her plan was.

"What about me? What should I do?" Dan asked. He just wanted to be part of the moment.

"You're going to have the most important job," Becky told him. "Do you have any money?"

"Yeah. Like seventeen dollars," he said eagerly.

"Ok. Give it to me, and then go wait for me in the second floor janitor's closet of the E building. Don't leave it until I come tell you what to do," she ordered him.

"All right," he said, taking out his wallet and forking over the money. "I'll see you there."

I watched him run off, as Becky counted his money. When he was out of earshot, I asked her, "What was that for?"

"To get him away from us," she said evenly. She took a five dollar bill from what he had given her, and passed it to me. "I'm gonna go get some pizza from the a la cart; here's your cut."

I took it, surprised, and followed her to pick up some real food. I didn't mention the size difference between my fraction and hers; it had been her idea in the first place, and I didn't want to provoke a repeat of the "deep fryer incident"...

--

"All right maggots! Line up!" Coach Jones bellowed.

Lunch had faded into third period P.E. class, and I was supposed to hold up my end, and take care of Gene. I could see him ten yards away, trying to bite another kid; the kid kept telling him to "quit it". Gene had been excused from dressing out because it was his first day, but I'd had to. While I still had a few things on me bulging from my pockets, I'd had to leave most of my high-yield stuff in my locker; I had no idea what I'd do to handle it...

“I want you all to pay attention," the coach yelled, "because today we're going to be playing with 'lawn darts'. Most of you have never seen these before, because your parents make you wear a life jacket to use the toilet and a helmet to jack off, but we used to play with these all the time when I was a kid. It's a plastic cone with a six inch steel spike coming out that's sharp as a needle." He held one up, to show us what he was talking about. "It's kinda like if a Nerf football and a bayonet could mate and reproduce," he clarified, "So I want you to be really careful with these; someone could get hurt really, really bad if you screw around. I want to pair up, and get one."

A minute and a half later, I found myself partnered with Gene, holding the lawn dart; it just seemed like it was too easy.

"Flesh," the monster groaned, staggering towards me.

"Yeah, yeah. I got your 'flesh' right here, asswipe," I told him, pulling my arm back to throw... But something stopped me. It just didn't feel... right. I thought for a second, and pulled out a road flare, setting it off and using the tip to heat the dart. I watched as the metal began to glow red; that felt better. I wound up, and chucked the dart.

Just at that moment, Gene tripped. It probably would have missed anyway; the weight was completely different from a Molotov's, and I think I put too much force behind it. I saw it sail over the fence, where the cheerleaders were drilling...

"Aaah!" I heard someone scream from over there; I thought the voice was Kimberly's, the head cheerleader. "My uniform! AND MY SPINE!"

That's odd, I thought to myself. I completely missed, but I still feel like I accomplished something. But never mind that; Gene was off the ground and coming for me, and I had nothing. I backed up, resorting to prayer.

"If you're listening, Gods, I could sure use a hand here. Vulcan, Pele, Loki..." I thought for a second, to see if I missed any. "Maynard," I added.

Gene had gotten closer; but suddenly, he stopped. I watched as he stood there, almost looking confused, before smoke began pouring out of his eyes. In a second he had burst into flames; I was too surprised to enjoy it. He fell down, and somehow, out of the clear sky, a bolt of lightning came down and struck him.

"Watch out, you kids!" I heard Mr. Satchel, the grounds keeper, yell. He was bearing down on us on his lawnmower; he ran over the pile of Gene's ashes and skeleton, spraying dust and bone fragments all over the field. By the next good rain, there wouldn't be anything left of him.

"Huh," I said to myself, watching it go down. "I have got to remember to make a burnt offering to the old Gods later." I thought another moment, before I amended, "and Tool."

--

It was 2:45; Becky and I were standing outside the school, watching the fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, and the local news van. The latter had actually made it to the scene first. As we looked on, a female reporter positioned herself in front the guidance office, and they began rolling.

"I'm standing outside of George A. Romero Highschool, where the Home Economics Class was rocked by a tragedy today, that ended the life of fifteen year old Laurence Fletcher," she intoned, solemnly. "Said the teacher: 'We were making a yellow cake, when everything just went horribly wrong...' "

"Dude, what the fuck?" I asked, turning to Becky. "Gene died by Spontaneous Inhuman Combustion, and I paralyzed an innocent bystander; how did this get on the news?"

"Cheerleaders are 'innocent', now?" she countered; neither of us are real big fans of either them or the jocks; the feeling was pretty much mutual.

"I'm speaking relatively," I explained, not wanting her to change the subject. "But still; what in the hell could you have done to Larry that overshadows the captain of the cheerleading squad getting a hot steel spinal-tap?"

"Fine, if you're that curious," she began. "First, I took an eggbeater, and-"

"Stop," I interrupted her. "I changed my mind; I don't want to know anymore."

"Good choice," she agreed, as we began walking; the buses wouldn't start running for a while, what with all the paramedics and cops blocking the driveway, and it would be quicker just to foot it. "Well, you kind of botched your job, but in the end you were saved by an act of God-"

"Act of Maynard," I corrected her. "Tool kicks ass."

"Whatever. All that matters is that the stiffs got taken care of somehow. So I guess I'm not going to kick your ass," she said graciously.

"Sounds like a reason to celebrate to me," I suggested. "You wanna go set fire to a vacant lot?"

"No, Tony. Just... no," she sighed, closing her eyes and bringing a hand to her forehead; she looked disappointed for some reason. "I've still got some of Dan's money left over; let's just swing by the 7/11 and get some Icees, ok?"

"Fine with me," I assented. I was still confused by the way she was acting. "And while we're there I can pick up a couple dozen books of matches," I said, upbeat.

"Like I said," she told me, sounding pained. "A twisted, twisted little man."

I still don't know why she gets such a kick out of joking around like that...

--

Well, that was that. It might be continued. It might not. Either way, just a friendly reminder: I am not, in fact, dead yet, and the second chapter of "Jimmy and Satan" is posted and waiting for you. You know you want it. You know you want it bad.