Zombie Killa - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Fear And Loathing In Cleveland

When the cop, now handcuffed, sat in the chair on the right of Myf’s contraption, High got his Glock .9mm from a box under his bed. He was sure they were popped, and that the cop’s performance was a ruse to stall them while he waited for back-up. Perhaps it was the freebase, maybe it was the ghost of Ayn Rand.

He put the gun against the box containing the cop’s head. “You may hear a slight noise. That’s Alderaan. Fuck Alderaan.”

To Myf’s amazement and horror, he pulled the trigger, scattering the cop’s blood and brains onto the opposite wall.

“Don’t take any guff from these swine,” he said casually to Myf.

“You crazy, stupid motherfucker!” Myf yelled.

“What? I really, really don’t like jail. I can’t have another misdemeanor on my record, either. Doesn’t look good to the kids.”

He scooped a fleck of gray matter from the wall and tasted it. “Braaains!”

Myf threw up.

“We’re really going to catch hell getting our cleaning deposit back,” High-C said.

Unable to think of any other course of action, he dialed E.P.P. in Florida. Betty Rebel answered.

“B.R., we need an out. High-C’s gone crazy!”

“So what else is new? That’s all he ever does.”

“He shot a cop in the head.”

“Oh,” Betty said quietly. “Well, that’s a new one. Ok, y’all can hide out here. But you have to promise to help me on my solo album, ok?”

“Are you serious?” Myf said.

“Very. I have a lot of ideas I’d like to explore. Want to drop sixteen bars for me?”

“Betts. We’re in serious, ass-pounding prison trouble, here.”

“Yeah, well I need producers.”

“Ok, ok! This is silly.”

“Fine. Bring yo’ asses on, then.”

Emergency Pizza Party were, characteristically, eating pizza and generally partying. There was no real emergency, but they were recording a new track with Patri Friedman about the myth of Keynesian economics for some bizarre reason, when Betty Rebel broke into tears.

“Fucking High-C’s coming back,” she said. Lady Down began sharpening her steeliest knives.

Beefy, the Beefster, Captain Beefheart, sat in a hot tub smoking a cigar, the scene marred only by the fact that he did so with his shirt on. There was no dialogue, because he was alone, and talking to himself would have been weird. Nevertheless, he chuckled and said, “Excellent.”

A lot of his power stemmed from the fact that he was alone. If only he could cure himself of his chronic porn addiction.

Myf scrambled around the apartment gathering various mementos and keepsakes, throwing things into an Adidas duffle bag and trying to make rash judgments on what he could leave behind. Suddenly the value of everything seemed skewed, and he realized that most of his really important things were stored online, anyway. High-C ate two big-ass bacon and ham sandwiches, blasé to the dead cop in his living room.

“It’s a shame to lose the prototype,” he said to a distraught Myf. “But I think we can build a better one. Let’s put 3D displays in the next one, maybe.”

“Let’s roll,” Myf said.

High-C walked out of the apartment with his dope and car keys.

“Maybe we should set the place on fire,” he said to Myf.

“Sure,” he replied sarcastically, “What’s a few more dead bodies?”

They jumped into O.D., Original Dora, his candy-apple red Isuzu Amigo, and High said, “Fuck!”

“Now what?” Myf asked, exasperated.

“I didn’t even have a chance to grab my old school tape.”

“What?” Myf was so freaked out, he didn’t get it at first. “You have a CD player. Who uses tapes?”

He paused. “Rhyme Pays! I get it, copkiller. Now drive, motherfucker.”

“I’d really like some cigarettes,” he said.

“Drive!”

“Roll me one,” High said.

So High-C drove while Myf rolled joints, and lo and behold, he found Ice-T’s Rhyme Pays under his seat. They smoked individual hooters and dug the genius of Ice-T and Evil-E, while the Myfster texted ahead for accommodations.

They made good time traveling through the Ohio valley until fatty fat fat High-C wanted to stop for lunch.

“Google me a strip club, fool,” he said, waking the sleeping rap giant.

“A strip club? We’re on the lam, and you want to look at titties?”

“Duh. Don’t you?”

“Well, sure,” Myf said. With a few keystrokes, he found one a few miles ahead, Cadillac’s.

“An occasion such as this calls for cocaine,” High said.

“Lunch?”

“No, a visit to a strip club. You be Metroid. I’m Beetlejuice.”

“Why I gotta be Metroid?” Myf asked in faux ebonics.

“Because crazy-ass Beetlejuice needs a bad motherfucker for a bodyguard.”

“Point made. But why you gotta Dave Chapelle me? You know Metroid is a woman.”

“Because I’m about to go David Hasselhoff in this motherfucker. Besides, it could be anyone under the Gundam suit. You’re a male Metroid, okay?”

They ripped a few lines in the parking lot, and Myf got a text.

“It’s Benjamin Bear and Futuristic Sex Robotz. They say we owe them royalties.”

Fanatical heard High-C was coming back to Florida and moved to England.

Sir-Up was working his lab tech job when he got bored. He had shoulder-surfed his boss’s boss’s administrative password and decided to use it.

He dug through the top-clearance files until he found a chemical signature that he didn’t recognize. It looked a like a blend of meth, coke, acid and ecstasy, but the research indicated no deleterious side effects and a minimal, short-term addiction at best.

He copied the files to a USB drive for later. Maybe this shit will chill High-C’s ass out, he thought. Plus it was a pretty revolutionary chemical, and he was tired of making eleven dollars an hour.

At Cadillac’s, High-C drank too much, managed to eat too much even though he was zooted, talked with his mouthful, and borrowed money from Myf only to ball it up and throw it at girls’ asses.

The management eventually asked them to leave. High filled his pockets with free chicken fingers wrapped in napkins and packets of Saltines for later.

Back on the road, Myf got another text.

“You won’t believe this shit. Nursie’s in Tennessee.”

“What?”

“Serial. She and the Doc are visiting his parents.”

“Location of Karl Olson?” High asked.

Myf Googled.

“Uh, he has a weekend show with Beefy in Seattle.”

“Tell Nursie we’re on our way. Um, warn Doc, rather…”

Magitek were making startling discoveries with the Book of the Dead. Apparently, the version they possessed had a spell to raise a heretofore-undiscovered entity with unfathomable power.

The three joined hands, having memorized their parts of the summoning incantation. They bowed their heads and began chanting. At the crucial moment of their recitation, however, one of them opened their eyes and looked at a picture of MC Router perched on his PC.

“I love you, Router,” he thought.

Kristen’s eyes opened wide, even though she was in a deep sleep. She leveled up to a ridiculous degree.

Myf and High drove straight through to a town on the outskirts of Nashville, where they rendezvoused with Nursehella and Doctor Popular.

“Whee!” she said, throwing her bags in the back. “Road trip!”

“Mr. Doctor?” High asked.

“Not me, guy. All day in a jeep with two stinky guys and a drama queen? I’ll fly,” he said.

They said their goodbyes, and were back on the road in under ten minutes. Nursehella sat in the center of the backseat so she could look out of the windshield.

Myf was driving, and High said, “What ya got for me, baby?”

She reached into her shorts and pulled an eighth of B.C. hydro from her snatch.

“A little light,” he said.

“I’m a lady, sir. That’s all I had room for.”

“Oh, pshaw,” High said. “Wait’ll Karl puts a baby in there.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. I plan on waiting. You know, if you didn’t have such perverse requirements, I’d have brought more.”

“I’ll take your quality over quantity any day, my dear.”

“You are such an asshole,” she said sweetly.

“Yeah, about that. Take your shirt off.”

Myf followed the exchange with silent interest.

“What?” she said.

“Sorry, I don’t make the rules,” he lied. “Myf had to do it. I had to do it when I bought the jeep. The first hundred miles have to be topless. Dora is in charge.”

“Oh, bullshit,” she said.

“It’s true,” High said. “This is no ordinary jeep. I won it in a bar bet with the bastard sons of Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard.”

Playing along, Myf turned the ignition key when she was distracted. The engine killed, and he pulled over to the side.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Out of gas?”

“No,” High said. “It’s Dora. She demands your shirt.”

Nursie took her shirt off. “You guys are creeps,” she said. “Let’s listen to my new demo!”

Before they took off, High-C resumed driving duties. First, he went to Burger King. Then he drove through a full-service carwash.

“Asshole,” was all she said.

“You love it,” High told her.

And she did.

The objects in Router’s room levitated. She was suddenly spotted all over the place: Youtube, Chatroulette, 106th and Park. She cranked out an entirely new eight-song demo, and it was the hottest female MCing anyone had heard in years. And she did it all while lying in bed, never moving a muscle, heart and lungs included.

E.P.P. was having an argument.

“He’s not staying with me,” Sir-Up said. “I’ll stab him in his sleep. He insulted my wife’s dead father!”

“Well, he ain’t stayin’ with me,” Betty said. “He said I should do sit-ups, and pulled out that Revenge of the Nerds line, “Betty. You’re like a goat”. I’ll stab him in his fuckin’ sleep.”

“He can stay with me,” MC Wreckshin said. “He usually has good weed, and Myf said Nursehella’s with them.”

“Like you have a shot,” Bbear said.

“No, it’s not like that. I have webcams in every room. I’m gonna make a fortune.”

In New York, Incredibad received High-C’s minimalist remix of I Think I Might Have Killed the President, and were underwhelmed.

In Alabama, High again said he was hungry.

“Hungry for titties and blow,” Myf said.

“Cocaine?” Nursie said.

The ripped lines off of her tits, and let her snort some off of a Gortician CD case.

“Put on your shirt,” High told her. “We’re going to a strip club.”

“No irony there,” she said.

But there was a freaky vibe inside. The people all seemed creepy to Myf and Nursie. High-C was nonplussed.

“I see zombies and stuff a lot,” he told them, unasked.

They both wanted to leave, but he was spending Nursie’s money on lapdances from women who looked increasingly dead. Plus there was a two-drink minimum, so he had six Heinekens to finish. But when a black girl with fangs took the stage, he said, “Ok, we can go now. Aaliyah’s here.”

“I don’t know what’s crazier,” Myf told Nursehella. “Him, or this situation.”

At the jeep, Danielle said, “I want to drive!”

“Gee, I don’t know,” High said. “You being Canadian and all…do you guys even drive on the right side of the road? Plus we could be violating local ordinances. Sounds risky…”

She flashed her tits at him again. “Get him high,” she told Myf, taking the keys.