Chuck Greene grunted as he hurled a newspaper stand from his makeshift throne of corpses. The heavy metal box landed in the sea of the undead, snapping necks and crushing skulls as it made its way to the floor. Blood was everywhere. It was on Chuck's jacket, it was on the floors, on the walls, and, in ways that baffled and confused Chuck, it was on the ceiling. Chuck jumped down from the mountain of dead zombies, and sprinted forward, swinging his knife blindly as he covered his head with his other arm. Undead hands were everywhere, but by virtue of speed and luck, he made it to a break in the mass of the undead. He did a roll upon his exit, a poor choice considering that doing so while holding a knife is a good way to stab oneself in the face. Chuck dodged and ducked past a few lone zombies, before rushing into a clothing store for a moment to catch his breath.
He bent over, putting his hands on his knees, once again inexplicably avoiding stabbing himself with his weapon, and panted heavily. Chuck figured he'd have about a minute to compose himself before the undead would catch up with him. A box of Zombrex rested in his jacket pocket, which was why Chuck was hurrying through the mob of the undead. His daughter Katey desperately needed that medication. When Chuck Greene's daughter Katey needs something, then come hell or high water, Katey Greene's father Chuck is going to get it for her. Chuck congratulated himself for coming up with that quote and made of a note of it to get it put on a coffee mug or something when he gets himself and his daughter out of this mess.
A lone undead police officer shambled in front of the store. The hoard was coming. Chuck cracked his neck and raised his knife. He bolted from the store, in the direction of the emergency bunker. As he was clearing the doors, a voice called out to him.
"Chuck..." The voice was distinctly female, whispering in a drawn out call.
He looked away from his current action of shanking the zombie cop prison-style with his knife and back to the store. There was no one there. He extracted his weapon from the gut of his dead enemy and kept running for the safe-house. He chalked up the voice to possible having something to do with banging his head real hard after a nasty slip from the top of a slot machine. As he ran, he struggled to remember why he was standing on top of a slot machine to begin with. Needless to say, he had underestimated the damage caused by his concussion.
The next day, after some rest, Chuck passed by the same store, this time swinging twin machetes at his foes. He showed considerable skill at killing humanoid targets with sharp objects, despite his family tree lacking any notable sugarcane farmers, serial killers, or civil war death squad captains. Limbs and heads were flying everywhere, much to Chuck's satisfaction. Just as he was wiping the blades of his weapons against the skirt of a decapitated waitress, the same voice called to him again.
"Chuck, come in here." Chuck raised an eyebrow, while simultaneously bringing one of his machetes down on an undead mailman. The voice sounded so real to Chuck, and walking towards it seemed like a great idea to him, having never have seen a horror movie before. He slowly walked into the store, fortunately having more or less mutilated every zombie in the immediate area.
"Is there anybody here?" Chuck called out as he entered the store. He couldn't see anyone. He was about to turn around and leave when a gleam caught his eye. He spun around quickly and readied his machetes. There was nothing there, thought, only a headless mannequin wearing a sundress. Chuck scoffed, not knowing how he could have been so easily scared. He shouldn't be so jumpy. Of course there's nothing here, he thought to himself, turning to leave the store.
"Chuck, don't leave me."
"Alright, what the hell is that? Where are you, I'll kill you!" Chuck shouted, completely forgetting the minor epiphany he had just had. He started swinging his machetes around wildly, knocking over racks of clothes and laid-out shirts. He was breathing heavily, and stopped to catch his breath so he could more efficiently flail aimlessly at the air. There was another gleam that caught his eye. It was the same dress, yellow with a flower design on it. Chuck was drawn to it. He stared down the dress, doing something he never thought he'd have to do again.
"Put me on, Chuck..." The siren's voice called out from inside Chuck's head.
Chuck gave a blank stare at the dress.
"Put me on," the voice repeated. "We'll have fun."
"No way." Chuck stared at the dress. "There's no way I'm putting on a woman's dress."
"Please, Chuck. We'll have so much fun together."
Maybe it was the concussion doing Chuck's thinking for him. Maybe it was the cabin fever of being trapped in a casino resort full of murderous, walking corpses. Maybe it was the several days of slaughtering said walking corpses with lawnmowers, bar stools, and guitar amps. Whatever it was, some small part of Chuck's mind thought that obeying the strange voice's request for him to suddenly take up cross-dressing was a good idea.
"Alright, Dress," Chuck said. "I'll put you on. Just for a few minutes. But I'm not doing anything gay in it, understand?"
Chuck took the dress from the mannequin, and paused briefly to consider if he should simply put it on over his jacket, or strip down before putting it on. He thought about it, and decided upon stripping off his jacket and pants. He kept on his boxers, however, as he pulled the dress over his head.
"What do you think, Chuck?" The voice was back. "How do you feel?"
"Cold," Chuck said immediately and without any delay. "My arms and legs are cold. This is not a good first impression."
"You'll learn to like it, Chuck. You'll learn to like a lot of things."
"What the hell does that mean?" Chuck shouted, forgetting that he was still talking to himself.
"Never you mind, Chuck. Hey, what's that on the table next to you?"
Chuck turned to look. The table had several blue woman's hats on them, all with a flower design dead center at the front. "Uh, hats."
"Put one on, it'll be fun."
"This is getting weird, but okay." Chuck shrugged, and grabbed a hat from the table. He put it on his head, and immediately felt lightheaded. "Whoa! Uh, Dress, I'm feeling a little dizzy here." He swayed back and forth, trying to keep his balance.
"Good. Now close your eyes, Chuck, and let the good feelings take you over."
Even a man as contused and brain-hemorrhaging as Chuck could tell by this point that something was up, but it was too late. He struggled to keep his eyelids from closing shut, but he couldn't help himself. The world went black for Chuck Greene.
"Chuck! Chuck, for God's sake, wake up!" It was the voice of Stacey, the bunker's resident annoying hippy.
"Daddy, please wake up, please!" It was Katey, his daughter.
Chuck opened his eyes slowly, the light blinding him briefly. Puzzled, he looked at his surroundings. He was back in the safe-house, lying on his back on a stretcher in the medical room. Katey and Stacey were on either side of his bed.
"Daddy! I knew you would make it!" His daughter hugged him tightly, and the two shared a loving embrace. He looked at Stacey, and smiled.
"So it was all just some crazy dream? Was I just hallucinating all that stuff about the dress talking to me?" He asked, glad to be somewhere safe and not crazy.
"The dress was talking to you, too? Jesus Christ!" Stacey exclaimed, clearly furious. "None of that was a dream, Chuck! You attacked us when you came back to the bunker! You were wearing that dress, and you just started screaming and swinging an axe at people!"
Chuck was confused. "Wait, what?" He asked flatly.
"You kept yelling over and over that Chuck was gone, and that there was 'only Mrs. Nesbitt'! It took six men to take you down and pry that axe out of your hands! You smashed your head against the floor, so we dragged you here!"
"Well, at least we're all alright," Chuck said, tussling his daughter's hair. "No harm, no foul."
"Roy Sullivan is dead! You killed him!" Stacey shrieked in rage and disgust. A few of the other survivors entered the room, and escorted Stacey and Katey out before restraining a struggling Chuck against the gurney and sedating him. Outside, Stacey dropped to one knee and looked Katey in the eyes.
"Don't you worry, honey. In a couple of days, the army will come rescue us and we'll get your daddy the help he needs."
"Where did you take my daddy's dress?" Katey asked, in a typical adorable childlike fashion.
"We took it downstairs, where we won't have to ever see it again."
Skylar Ali fumbled around the bunker's basement, looking through cardboard boxes.
"I'm telling you, man," he shouted upstairs, "there aren't any goddamn board games down here!"
"Keep looking!" The voice from upstairs called out.
Skylar turned and started shifting boxes, desperate to find a game of Monopoly, or Risk, or even that game with the clay that was always dry. He was about to give up when he found himself staring at Chuck's bloodied dress.
"Skylar, put me on." The voice had crawled inside his head and was speaking to him from within. "Put me on, we'll have some fun."
"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me," Skylar said, already stripping off his Terror Is Reality tank top.