Zombie Pink

PINK ZOMBIE

copyright © 2015 by Noel Merczel

All rights reserved

AmKraft Corporation

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to all those many women who thought they loved the color pink...

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, and events are the product of the imagination of the author alone. Any resemblance to actual persons, either dead or alive or with a pink rash is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

Eighteen year old
Andrea Muller was home alone. Her parents were away at a business seminar in Indianapolis.

She didn't have any hot guys lined up, and she wasn't planning on attending
any wild parties.
But that was okay, since she was actually looking forward to enjoying some very rare and wildly anticipated TIME ALONE
.

Andrea never had the chance to be alone since both her parents worked from home trying to launch their burgeoning E-juice business...a business that wasn't burgeoning very much.

Andrea's father was a big fan of vaping (the
act of inhaling water vapor as means to obtain a substance such as nicotine). He had been a two pack a day smoker for twenty years, and vaping was the only
method
that allowed him to quit.

Andrea's mother mixed up the E-juice concoctions in the "laboratory" (i.e., the spare room in the basement) while Andrea's father went around to different stores in the area and local events trying desperately to sell their "line" to bearded pierced and tattooed guys in their twenties
.

Because for some reason, that was the demographic who was selling the stuff.

Thus far, they only had two accounts.

Andrea wanted to scream and shout, "I'M GLAD YOU'RE NOT SMOKING
ANY MORE, BUT YOU'RE TOO OLD FOR THIS BUSINESS! WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING MORE AGE APPROPRIATE, LIKE OPEN A DELI OR A DRY CLEANING BUSINESS?

But she never did
. Her parents
were so damn excited about their business "prospects," often sitting around, verbally envisioning their future lifestyles of the rich and famous once their line of Easy E-juice
(
Andrea thought that was a really stupid name) takes off.

Hence, her parents were ALWAYS around...every single stupid
second. Except when they went to Costco, which wasn't often enough.

And when they weren't engulfed in the pursuit of future E-juice fortune, they busied themselves by butting their collective noses into Andrea's business
.

It was just so damn irritating!

But now, FINALLY, they were gone. Gone, gone, gone....for the WHOLE WEEKEND!

A dream come true.

Only, there was a problem.

A stupid dumb problem.

Even though Andrea had been looking forward to enjoying all this delicious alone time - having the whole house to herself; doing art whenever the mood strikes her....watching whatever she wants on TV - she
just couldn't relax.

She felt all...creeped out.

She blamed her agitated mental state on the lame show she watched with her best friend Drew the night before
. It
was a zombie show called Dead Heads, and it was loaded with just about every single horror cliché in the book.

For instance, the group escaping the zombies only consisted of attractive people under the age of thirty.

Plus, they were
all holed up at the local mall.

Oh,
puh-lease,
Andrea had thought
.
The mall? How original
.

And, natch, there was the requisite skanky bitch with the huge chest wearing a skin-tight short top so all the guys could drool over her bouncing breasts as she galloped away from the zombies.

LAME-O!

Andrea kept wishing the skank would get killed so she wouldn't have to look at her dumb over-sized boobs any more.
Not that she had anything against big breasts per say
... it just irritated her when they were used in a manipulative way to get people (guys!) to watch...and watch they did.

Dead Heads was the most popular show on TV.

Andrea was
sick and tired of zombies.
She thought there were way too many zombie shows and zombie movies and zombie books and zombie shirts and zombie Halloween costumes and zombie jewelry, and ZOMBIE EVERYTHING
.

First it was the damn vampires
.
Then, just when the age of sappy annoying vampires was dwindling down, in ushered The Era of The Zombie.

Z
ombies weren't even sleek and sexy like vampires. They just shuffled and growled through life (or death
, depending on how you looked at it).

BORING!

Andrea felt superior to others her own age who were always so quick to hop aboard the good old
Trend Wagon.
She never felt the need to do that
. She wasn't a
cow in a herd, for Christ sake!

Nonetheless, Andrea sat there dutifully repulsed by zombies chowing down on body parts since Dead Heads was one of her friend Drew's favorite shows.

Drew was really into Cosplay and Live Action Role Play, otherwise known as larping
. She planned to dress up as Blakely
, one of the characters on Dead Heads, at her next Cosplay event.

Blakely was the smart hipster girl with the oversized black rimmed glasses and short dark hair - not the skank with the big boobs!
Drew already owned a wig that would work for the character
. She just needed to buy the
fake glasses.

Andrea was not into cosplay at all, but she supported her friend's hobby
. She had even
accompanied Drew to one of those geeky larping events
. That's what friends were for,
right
? J
ust as Drew accompanied Andrea to various art competitions and shows, since art was more Andrea's "thing."

Andrea really liked Drew, so the friendship was worth making some sacrifices for
.
Besides, Drew was smart and quirky and interesting, and she didn't give a damn what anyone else thought - which was a very rare quality in girls their age.

Plus, Drew wasn't always trying to sex it up like so many others were lately; most especially, Andrea
's other friend Lisa.

More on her later.

While Drew and Andrea were watching Dead Heads, Drew asked Andrea a question that Andrea (secretly)
thought was really dumb.
She especially thought it was dumb coming from Drew, who she considered to be the most logical member of their group.

“Do you think a zombie apocalypse is possible?” Drew had asked, in all seriousness.

"
Are you for real?
No way!" Andrea shot back
. "
Dead is dead. The end
!"

"But what about Frankenweenie?" Drew persisted
. "He came back to life with electricity. Do you think that's possible?"

Again, Andrea said
"No way! Nothing against Frankenweenie...I mean I think he was really cute in an undead sort of way. But electricity can't start something that's already burned out."

After that, Drew pointed out that you can jump-start a car.

Reluctantly, Andrea agreed, remembering the cute married guy from her neighborhood who jump-started her
mom's car last January.

Then Drew told Andrea
about something she read that happened a long time ago.

"These people hooked up a severed cow's head to electricity and made it look like it came back to life!" Drew
exclaimed, with a gleam in her eye. "That's how they got the idea for Frankenstein."

After that, Drew regaled Andrea with a gross factoid about this parasite that beetles get.

Evidently, the parasite takes over the beetle's brain and tells the poor bug what to do.

After that, the parasite bursts out of the beetle in the form of a long skinny worm.

At that point, Andrea informed Drew that she was a weirdo and she should stop watching so many
freaky nature shows.
She was just teasing, of course...sort of.

Nonetheless,
Drew still kept trying to convince Andrea that a zombie apocalypse was possible.

"Like maybe people will get a virus like Mad Cow disease or Rabies that's mutated!" Drew exclaimed, getting more and more animated by the moment
. "So everyone
will be consumed by some brain controlling disease that makes them attack each other!"

Andrea had to admit, this theory made more sense than dead people coming back to life
. But still
... she wasn't exactly worried about it happening
.

To Andrea, a zombie apocalypse was in the same category as Bigfoot setting up camp in the north woods
or aliens invading the planet.
Definitely not worth staying up at night worrying about, like...

What is she going to do with the rest of her life
?

How will she ever be able to afford college or her own car
?

Why was she still a virgin at the ripe old age of eighteen
?

And most importantly...

Why was she so obsessed with that married guy from the neighborhood to the point where she actually had these weird sexual fantasies about him... complete with cheesy dialog
?

Andrea's nickname for the married guy was
Mr. Sexy Jogger. That
was due to the fact he jogged by her house almost every
evening.

MR. SEXY JOGGER!

Andrea was well aware of how lame that name sounded
. B
ut she didn't care.

Andrea thought Mr. Sexy Jogger had the most gorgeous head of dark curly hair she'd ever seen!
She just loved
guys with dark hair.
She couldn't understand why so many girls went for blondes.

In Andrea's opinion, blondes just didn't look bad-ass enough.

One of Andrea's favorite fantasies about Mr. Sexy Jogger, is that she runs into him in the woods.

In the fantasy, he stumbles upon Andrea taking a picture of a clump of vibrant orange mushrooms by the side of the trail
.

He startles her.

"Oh!" she gasps.

Then she says, "You scared me! I thought you were a bear!"

"No bears in Illinois," he reminds her.

"Hey wait a minute....I know you," Andrea says. "You're the guy from my neighborhood...the one who jogs by my house every night. You jump-started my mom's car!"

"That's me! In the flesh!" he jokes back. "Better than a hungry bear, right? Or what about a hungry wolf.....L
ittle Red Riding Hood?"

He shoots her this
sly smile...this knowing look. Then he winks at
her
.

Andrea imagines, in the fantasy, that she's wearing her daisy lace collared dress
which is really short yet very sweet and innocent.
She also has her long thick honey-colored hair pulled up into a high ponytail.

Plus, she's wearing her bright red hoody that always makes her feel so crisp and cute; hence, the Red Riding Hood comparison.

"You're not exactly dressed for the woods, little Red Riding Hood," he comments.

He approaches her
slowly...teasingly...enjoying her fear.

Then, suddenly, he grabs her and roughly backs her up against a tree. She's powerless against his strength.

"You like it
," he says. "
You think about me all the time."

Both statements are true
.

His behavior is very predatory, which Andrea finds sort of exciting...

His hand tries to sneak up Andrea's dress
. She
slaps it away and says,
"Hey!"