Author's note: If you've followed any of my Lost Boys fanfics, then you should know that this is my very first Marko-semi-solo fic *gasp* It was challenging for me because while I love all of the boys, Marko came off as the most difficult to write. I've had a few other ideas bouncing in my noggin for a while that had Marko as the main character, but in the end, I wound up with this monster of a story. If you are an 80s horror fan, you will probably pick up on references I've used in regards to the original character and the elements featured in this story. C&Cs would be very helpful and much appreciated, especially if it concerns Marko's depiction. So lay it on me, Marko fans!

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. The song lyrics found within the story belong to their individual owners.

"Just Like In The Movies"

One of the worst things about Santa Carla during the winter time was that there were hardly any people on the boardwalk. Despite the cool days and clear visibility across the waters, tourism always took a nose dive. It didn't help that the rides and attractions were closed except during the weekends and even then the hours were cut short. So due to the lack of food during the week, this often forced the Lost Boys to separate and seek their meals elsewhere. On one particular night, Marko decided to take his chances and comb the moonlit beaches.

His boots scuffed along the sands and his hands were shoved into his jacket pockets. He kept his head down and he looked docile and thoughtful, a ruse that always worked. Someone would see him and want to approach him: whether it was to join his company or to beat the living shit out of him. Either way, they ended up slaughtered and his thirst quenched.

A foamy wave rolled across the sands and over his shoes. When the water pulled back into the ocean, he caught a whiff of some ungodly, putrid smell that burned so badly that he thought his senses would go permanently numb; fortunately he was able to recover.

What the hell? That was definitely not him!

He sniffed his jacket and under his arms just to make sure that it really wasn't him. A sharp gust of wind blew and his attention was directed to the rickety old piers just ahead. They were blocked off to the general public with no shortage of yellow police tape and warning sings. Naturally Marko made himself the exception because there was something there (sure as hell wasn't something he'd eat) that pulled his curiosity into that general area.

So beneath the old quay he ventured and it was there he discovered a solitary girl hunched over and dragging a broken foot behind her. Long, stringy brown hair curtained half of her face while the visible half was leathery and discolored with purplish-red blotches on her cheek. Her eye was clouded milk-white and her skin had an overall grayish tone. Dressed in an oversized cream colored sweater and jeans speckled with blood and water, she looked like she drifted from a George A. Romero movie set.

Marko tilted his head to the side and watched as the girl hurried up to him in spite of her broken limb, only to quickly and curiously lose interest in him. She brushed up against him and let out a ghastly moan before she continued onward, like he was nothing more then an inanimate object.

"Hey," he called out mischievously. The girl froze in her spot and registered his presence once more. She slowly turned her head until she was looking at him, even though it didn't appear as if she was focusing on anything in particular. Her hair fell away from the one side of her face and Marko saw her eyeball was missing from its socket as well as a bite-sized chunk of her cheek. Her torn muscles and her jaw bone could be seen plain as day.

Holy shit! Marko couldn't help but grin from ear to ear behind his closed fist. She was a zombie! A real life walking dead just like in the movies!

The girl stiffly lifted her arm up, only to let it drop limply to her waist, and her mouth moved like she was a cow chewing on its cud. He spotted a strange, sticky black substance on the corner of her lips. It looked like blood smear but the smell was all wrong - tainted somehow. Sour… rotten… Definitely not something he'd want to even consider licking.

At this point Marko felt his throat flare with hunger but this girl, this zombie, was very intriguing. He never thought anything like this would happen in Santa Carla. He'd been around for quite a while but this was the first time he'd seen anything that wasn't human, vampire, or werewolf. Guess tonight wouldn't be a typical winter night.

"Where'd you crawl out of?" he asked offhandedly as he leaned against one of the columns that barley supported the pier above them and gazed curiously at the undead girl.

The zombie swayed unsteadily in silence. Marko thought she'd topple over from the sea breeze but she managed to hold onto her footing in the sand as she continued looking at him. She tried to speak but she could only emit low, angry sounding growls. So he decided to change his communication tactics and he telepathically heard her simple thoughts.

Pain… Pain…

Yeah, he thought, he'd be hurting too if he were missing an eyeball and had parts of his body ripped out of him.

Hurts… dying… BRAAAAAINS…

Now that part he vividly recalled from the movies. Some zombies wanted to consume the flesh of the living (the fresher the better!) while some of them wanted only the brains.

"Do brains taste better than the rest of the body?"

The girl bent forward and her hair spilled over her face once more, concealed her missing eye. Brains… flesh… but brains… more… help forget…

"Forget what?"

Forget… being… dead… from being in… pain…

It was her most coherent sentence and it made the most sense… sort of. How and why did mortal brains help forget the pain? He could only surmise that living flesh and-or brains equaled sustenance for zombies like human and-or animal blood did for vampires. That was just how things rolled. He tried to delve into her memories, to see how she originally died, how she became a zombie, and if there were others like her. His efforts were murky at best and a few times he thought he would drown in the darkness. He couldn't see anything or move any further, but he contributed that to her brain slowly rotting away along with the rest of her body.

Not to mention that there was something slowing her decomposition rate to a crawl. Judging from the appearance of her flesh, she had probably been dead for some time before being brought back. He thought about the many zombie flicks he'd seen with his brothers and the reasons for bodies being animated and coming out of their graves: a radioactive asteroid from another planet landing on or passing by Earth; government meddling; mad scientists; toxic fumes; aliens; Voodoo witchcraft… He practically had a grocery list of possibilities!

The way she moved at him when she first spotted him, she must have thought he was food. From a distance he looked and moved like a living person but once she got close enough she, by some means, figured out he was not food. She could probably smell death all around him.

Speaking of food…

He closed his eyes and allowed all of his senses to work in full force. His hunger was starting to overwhelm him while his curiosity for the zombie girl lingered. She was poised erratically next to him with her occasional undead groans becoming lost along the gusty winds.

Suddenly he sensed a jumble of thoughts, different voices, echoing in his mind all at once.

… can't believe it…

Oh god, we let her get away!

So what? She couldn't have gone that far. She's dead for Christ's sake!

… should've made sure… spell was done right…

We'll find her. Just relax! Have some fun!

Fuck yeah! Blast that music!

Marko's fangs were revealed in the darkness as his eyes glowed yellow, raw with hunger and power. Yes! Three stupid lambs ready for the slaughter! Their conversation was rather bizarre, seeing as how they were probably talking about his companion here, but he was more concerned with getting some grub.

Now that he was accustomed to her stench, Marko collected the zombie into his arms (he almost accidentally threw her over his shoulder because she weighed practically nothing) and flew off into the night. It was during the flight that he decided to refer to the girl as "Zelda," like from the video game that came out on Nintendo (not that he ever played any of those stupid games - he kept hearing a bunch of nerds on the boardwalk last year talking about how it was the most revolutionary game ever and they wouldn't shut up about it until he and his brothers turned them into dinner). "Zelda the Zombie" had a nice ring to it. That and "zombie girl" was too repetitive to always have to say.

In no time he arrived at the Santa Carla Memorial Park where the voices amplified in his ears. The town's oldest cemetery was outlined with many trees but from high above the vampire could easily pinpoint his victims. In the middle of the graveyard, surrounded by rows upon rows of headstones were three teenagers dressed in all black clothing, wearing dark make up, with styled and teased hair that could land them in a stupid MTV music video, and seated around an open book next to a tall candle that had long since been burned out. Next to one of the teens was a boombox with loud rock music (Mötley Crüe from the sound of it, and he knew that only because Paul liked this band) blaring from its speakers, cutting through the serenity of the graveyard.

He's the wolf screaming lonely in the night,

He's the blood stain on the stage,

He's the tear in your eye,

Being tempted by his lies,

He's the knife in your back…

Zelda opened her mouth and let out a raspy cry. Braaaaains!

"Shhh!" Marko hissed as he took them clear across the cemetery until he landed on top of a tall tree branch that overlooked the landscape. With Zelda still cradled in his arms, he focused upon the three blissfully ignorant humans. Thankfully they were absorbed into whatever they were doing to have heard the zombie's cries.

But Zelda started struggling in his grasp, lurching forward, and eager to chew on some spongy human brains. So Marko decided to let her go - literally. His arms went wide open and she tumbled twenty feet to the ground below. He watched, flawlessly balanced, as she crashed to the bottom in a mass of tangled limbs and broken branches. For a time she didn't get up and he thought he actually killed her (well, since she was already dead, he could say he "destroyed" her), until she suddenly staggered to her feet. She wasted no time making her way into the cemetery, hauling her broken foot behind her.

Marko fell backwards but kept his legs wrapped around the tree branch. Hanging upside down, he watched Zelda disappear behind a long row of elaborately decorative tombstones.

The kid's resilient, I'll give her that, he thought before he swung himself away from the tree and was launched into the air once more. This time his entire face was transformed: twisted, monstrous, and craving human blood. He flew above Zelda's blundering form and over to the three teenagers where he crashed not-so-gracefully right on top of their open book, knocking over the candle from the force of his landing.

"The fuck?" one of the teen's screeched as he scuttled backwards like a crab and knocked over the boombox.

The second teen, a girl, gasped and clung anxiously to the third teen, presumably her boyfriend and cried, "Omigod, omigod, omiGOD!"

Marko laughed viciously as he reached over, grabbed the boyfriend by the front of his neck, and snatched him away from the girl's clutches. His sharp nails pressed themselves into the soft throat until the Adam's apple was pulled out in a sticky mass between his fingers. Blood churned out and Marko wasted no time in feeding ravenously. The girlfriend remained petrified on the ground, screaming and wailing hysterically until she was abruptly cut off.

From the corner of his eye, Marko watched Zelda as she tackled the girl, landed on top of her, and bit into her shoulder. The girl howled like a banshee and thrashed about madly, desperately trying to push the dead girl off of her. Zelda's chin was red and gummy as she made wet smacking sounds with her lips. Once she swallowed the meat, she took another bite but this time she went right for the forehead. A moist sounding fracture was heard and her fingers were like claws as they broke through the wound, pulled apart the skull, and reached inside for the wrinkly matter of what was the brain.

The brain was the main course while the rest of the body was either appetizer or dessert. Marko shrugged indifferently as went back to his own meal. His fangs were buried deep into the boyfriend's neck where his nails tore open earlier. By the time he finished feeding, the human was nothing more than an empty husk with crappy taste in clothes and music.

But I'll take the boombox, Marko promised himself as he tossed aside the body and wiped his face clean with the back of his sleeve. By this time, the music in the cassette player stopped and was replaced with the stomach-churning noises of bone crunching and muscle chewing. The sounds of a person being devoured didn't trouble Marko in the least as he mulled over the music situation at home. I'd rather listen to whatever's playing on that thing over Paul's tone-deaf singing.

Remembering the third human, Marko realized that he was nowhere in sight. Well, well, it looked like it would be a nice little hunt through the graveyard. How very clichéd. At the same time, however, there was suddenly no sign of Zelda. The girlfriend whose brains had been pulled through her cracked skull like spaghetti was twitching on the ground in a pool of her own blood and waste.

Marko knew the boy was around here somewhere because the smell of blood and fear lingered like perfume. He could also smell Zelda trailing right behind him (her smell never did go away and in fact, it only seemed more potent now…). As he made his way through the burial grounds, deliberately stepping on top of the grave markers, he heard the hysterical boy's thoughts.

Fuck! I knew we shouldn't have done this! Should never have messed with that book! I wanted to stay home but nooo! Nobody ever listens to me! Now I'm fucking dead!

Marko came to a stop when he saw the boy had managed to climb on top of an ornamental family crypt. Zelda was trying to grab him and her gaunt fingertips could only brush against the boy's dangling heels. Marko took his place next to the agitated zombie and slanted his head just a bit.

"Can't stay up there forever, buddy boy," he remarked in a playful tone while the boy sniffled and wept.

"Someone help me! Please, someone! Anyone!" The human hiccupped and cried some more as he pulled his entire body up to the very middle of the stone structure's arched roof. "Oh god, god, god please someone help!"

Marko stole a fleeting glance at Zelda, who was insistent of wanting to devour this kid, and thought, His god must be on strike if a zombie and a vampire both wanna get their hands on him.

Enough was enough. Time was short and he was pissing away his feeding opportunity. Marko smoothly bound onto the rooftop where the boy let out an ear-piercing scream. The vampire nabbed his quickly retreating form by the ankle and lifted him up. Holding him upside down, Marko leaned over the edge of the roof and dangled him just mere inches above Zelda, who was lifting both of her decomposing arms skyward and groaning loudly.

"N-N-Nooo! Please, no!" the boy sniveled uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry! It wasn't supposed to be this way!"

"What's it gonna be?" Marko deliberated humorously as he watched Zelda open and snap her jaws like a frenzied shark. He wasn't up for hearing any last minute regrets from such an idiot. "Whose hands do you want to die by? Mine or hers? Either way, it won't be pretty."

"God, god, god… No… Oh god…"

Marko shook his head. God this, god that - nope, that was not a satisfying answer in his opinion. He lifted the boy up high enough so that he could use his free hand to clutch the back of his head. With a fistful of ratty hair between his fingers, he jerked his elbow back and tore the head off the spine. A simple flick of his wrist sent the head tumbling off the roof and landing on the ground next to Zelda. The zombie girl scrambled for it like a football player and within seconds her teeth tore through the skin and working its way to the sweet, nourishing brain.

Meanwhile Marko was ingesting the gushing blood that spewed from the open wound like a fountain. Halfway through his gorging, he heard another moan but it wasn't coming from Zelda. With his entire face coated in blood he listened as he heard the sounds of movement along the grass. His keen, supernatural eyesight discovered the girlfriend - the one Zelda feasted on earlier - approaching them. The gaping tear in her shoulder was still prominent and despite not having much of a face (since Zelda all but ripped it apart, thus rendering her like a poor man's version of Humpty Dumpty after the fall) she was on her feet. The smell of spoiled blood could be detected even from his vantage point. She staggered along like a drunk coming out of a bar after having one too many drinks, slightly swaying to and fro but at least she was moving.

Just like in the movies, Marko observed as he finished consuming the last drop of the blood from the corpse before he swooped down from the rooftop. Without even touching the ground, he flew up to the zombie girlfriend in the blink of an eye. He took her by the shoulders and hoisted her up into the air where he dug his nails into her flesh until he could hear her bones crack from the pressure. The newly created zombie didn't make any indication that she was in any pain (but without a face, it would have proved difficult either way). Then Marko jerked his arms part and watched as her body was ripped in half, practically right down the middle in a crisscross fashion. The stench of zombie blood sprayed against his already stained skin and clothing along with chunks of torn muscle and fat and shattered bone fragments.

He wrinkled his nose at the foul smell but was never the less satisfied with his deed. Meanwhile Zelda was still bent over and chewing on the decapitated head in front of the vault, unaware of what was going on behind her. Marko, with his features returned to normal, chucked aside the body parts and flew over to where the teenagers were sitting. The book that he stepped on remained open and upon retrieving it, Marko saw the title of the page all too clear:

"How To Raise The Dead In Five Easy Steps!"

He rolled his eyes. Really? This was what those kids wanted to achieve? Second-rate godhood? He skimmed down the list of instructions (find a corpse, gather various herbs, pick a day when the moon was in a certain stage, blah, blah, blah) until he came across a single name written in blood on the next page. Going by the thoughts he plucked earlier, it dawned on him that this name must belong to Zelda, as in her real name. Never the less he wasn't going to bother with retaining it. He would stick with Zelda. Certainly he wondered why these kids brought this person, this particular girl, back to life. A friend of theirs? Did she have a burial site here? Well, he wasn't up for finding it, especially since daylight was just a few short hours away.

Lifting his eyes from the words, Marko saw that Zelda had followed him and was now standing there, staring at him with her one eye. With a light hearted scoff, Marko closed the book and tossed it carelessly behind him. He wrapped his arms around his chest and dug his heel into the dead earth beneath him as he momentarily reflected on what it would be like to keep her as a pet.

He could chain her somewhere in the cave. Hell, they had plenty of room and many parts of the cave went deep underground like catacombs. Anyone they wished to terrorize could be left alone in the cave with Zelda. She could chase them around for hours on end while the boys watched (Paul would probably get more of a kick watching it all while high). If he or she managed to survive Zelda's assaults, David the others could swarm in and rip them to pieces and offer the leftovers to her. Or they could work their typical mind fuckery on them, eventually driving them insane or most likely killing them.

However her constant, clumsy movements and undead moaning would keep the boys awake during the day. David was always so damn cranky if woken up early and Dwayne… Ugh, he was a real bastard if he didn't get his forty winks. What would happen if they did manage to get their sleep but some time during the day Zelda got out? Or some stupid mort ventured into their cave? She could bite them, turn them into a zombie, and in turn go off and have that new zombie infect other people and turn them into zombies. Before you knew it, the live population of the town would rapidly diminish and there would be nothing the boys could do about it. The thought of having to leave the terrain that took him and his brothers years to establish was not on their to-do-list any time soon. There was no need for any competition when it came for fresh food.

He knew what he had to do.

Zelda made a soft chomping motion with her jaw and she dragged her broken foot forward.

Braaaaains?

He advanced on her crippled form. Sorry, kiddo but I can't let you wander around here, potentially killing off my source of food. And frankly, you fucking stink worse than I do and I've been dead much longer.

The girl's one milk-white eye fixed itself upon him as if somehow anticipating his thoughts.

No… more… brains…?

"Don't worry," he assured her amiably as stood in front of her and cupped the side of her rotting face with his hand. With a charming smile he added, "You won't be in any more pain."

With that said, he brought up his other hand and drove it against the other side of her face, smashing her skull with his immense strength. Her head shattered like a watermelon and Marko's hands were sticky and covered with red, pink, and black lumps of gore. The smell was devastating but because he was fully fed, he was capable of quickly overcoming it. Zelda's body fell into a heap on the ground and went into spasms for a few seconds before ceasing all together.

Stepping over her remains, he went back to the crypt where the partially devoured head lingered. The nose was ripped off, an eyeball was hanging out of its socket by a stringy muscle, and the forehead was partially caved in with a mesh of liquid glistening under the moonlight. Despite all the damage done, its jaws were snapping at the air like a piranha, only with traces of dark red, almost black blood leaking from the corner of its mouth.

Ugh, that fucking toxic smell was relentless with this one… and it was only a HEAD!

Marko had enough.

He lifted his boot and brought it crashing down on the animated cranium.

Sunrise was less than a half hour away by the time Marko arrived inside the cave with his hands behind his back. The hurricane lanterns and oil drums were lit and David was sitting comfortably in his wheel chair, Dwayne was doing some tricks on his skateboard, and Paul was slapping his hands on his knees to the beat of a tune playing in his head as he sat on top of the old grand desk. Gritting his teeth, Marko went over to Paul and practically shoved the boombox against his chest.

"Don't say I never got you nothing," he snickered before jumping back and wiping the last trace of black ooze from his sleeve.

Paul's face brightened as he marveled over his new present. "Heeey… This is exactly what we need to liven things up around here! Thanks, Marko! What's the occasion?" Suddenly his head snapped back like he'd gotten whiplash. "Dude... buddy! Ugh! I think I better light up a joint to get a GOOD smell going on in here!"

Marko shrugged. "Your box? A few humans had it in their possession and I thought they should share with us."

David raised a brow as he too was disturbed by the strange, unfamiliar odor. "So… how was your night?"

Appearing contemplative, Marko walked back over to Paul, who was practically ogling his new present and having already gotten over the smell, and opened up the cassette deck. The tape inside didn't have a label but he remembered that it needed to be turned over so he did just that. Recalling the rock music he heard earlier, he pressed the play button and decided to use it as background music for his story telling.

"So I was on the beach and I came across this-"

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,

Everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together,

Brighter than a lucky penny,

When you're near the rain cloud disappears, dear,

And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine.

The perky and bubbly voice of Lesley Gore ricocheted all throughout former hotel resort. Dwayne nearly fell off his skateboard as he couldn't help but start laughing, his brooding façade completely shattered. David groaned and pressed his forehead against his folded hands as he tried to contain his own snickering. Meanwhile Paul wore a dreadful look on his face as the noticeably not-so-rock-and-roll music played in his hands.

Then Marko, zombie-killer-extraordinaire-but-not-for-the-sake-of-mankind, stifled a yawn, and smiled a devil-may-care smile. He decided that yes, this merry melody would provide the perfect backdrop for his story of curiosity, adventure, and death with Zelda the Zombie.

"So I was on the beach…"