Hello, everyone. The following story is a parody of The Walking Dead I wrote some time ago. In it, metalhead zombies have taken over the world, and sheriff's deputy Mick Rimes embarks on a journey to find his family. He does, but in addition, he finds a zany group of new friends too!
I've completed up to season four. I stick very close to the show/comic's storyline, though some things are different (the Governor and his motivations, for example). Parodies of all your favorite characters and plot points from seasons one through four are present. What follows is episode one.
It was a warm, lazy Saturday afternoon: Mick Rimes sat in the driver seat of the King County police cruiser and watched as cars whizzed by on Route 10. Next to him, his partner, Blaine Falsh, smiled at himself in the mirror, baring his teeth and looking for bits of lunch.
Or maybe pubes.
Mick chuckled to himself.
"What's so funny?" Blaine asked.
Mick shook his head.
"Come on. What're you laughin at?" Blaine was grinning now too.
Mick told him. They had been partners for years, and friends for longer; otherwise he would have lied.
"Aw, shucks," Blaine said. "It ain't like that, Mick. I didn't do nothin last night."
"Really?" Mick asked, affording him a sidelong glance.
"Honest."
Blaine was a ladies man. Every night he went down to the roadhouse on Route 6 and wound up leaving with a woman. He would come into work the next day bragging about his exploits. Mick could only shake his head. They were both thirty-six, handsome, and doing good in life. The only difference was that Mick had settled down; Blaine hadn't.
"I just figured with it being Friday night and you'd have a blowout."
Blaine shrugged. "Wasn't really in the mood."
"No?"
"Nah." Blaine shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Mick looked back out at the road, a two lane ribbon of blacktop running along rolling farmland. He had learned long ago not to push Blaine. He would open up in his own time.
"I haven't been goin to the bar neither," Blaine said.
"Why not?"
Blaine only shrugged again. "I dunno. I guess I just been thinkin..."
"Bout what?"
"Bout what you and Tori have."
Tori was Mick's wife. They had been together thirteen years and had a son, Howard, who was twelve. In high school, Blaine and Tori dated for a couple years before she and Mick hooked up. Over the years, Mick had caught him looking at Tori with something like envy tinged with sadness.
Presently, Blaine sighed. "I mean...you guys love each other and support each other and all that. It's nice. Makes me want someone to wake up to in the morning, you know?"
"I'll be damned. You're going soft."
Blaine chuckled. "I reckon so."
Mick opened his mouth to reply, but the radio on the dash crackled to life. "All units, 10-15 in progress, First National."
Mick and Blaine looked at each other. Armed robbery in progress.
"Jesus, Mick," Blaine said.
Heart beginning to pound, Mick threw the car into drive, pulled out onto the highway, and hung a sharp U-turn. When they were steady, he turned the sirens on.
"Yeeee-haaaaaw!" Blaine yelled, punching the roof. "This is why I joined the force!"
The road continued straight for a hundred feet before bending around a hillock. Mick pressed on the gas, and the front end began to shake. "When we get there," he said, glancing at Blaine, "I want you to..."
Mick looked back in the road just in time to see a man in a headband and leather jacket step into his lane. "Holy shit!" Blaine screamed.
Mick jerked the wheel to the right, and the car rolled.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blaine may have been a lot of things, but you couldn't call him irresponsible. He was wearing his seatbelt.
Mick wasn't.
He blacked out just as he flew through the windshield.
2
Mick Rimes dreamed.
In those dreams, shadowy and long, he saw Blaine standing over him, a worried expression on his face. He blinked, and Tori and Howard were there. Voice spoke as if underwater.
"...army. Something about an evacuation."
"I just hope they show up."
He heard alarms, gunshots, screaming and crying. Again, Blaine was there, stricken. "I'll get you out of here, buddy."
Then that was it.
Until he woke up.
For a long moment, Mick thought he was still dreaming, but the room swam slowly into focus. It was daytime, the ceiling was gray, and the walls were an ugly puke green. Achy, his stomach grumbling, he tried to sit up, but collapsed back to the pillow with a small, strangled cry.
He stayed that way for nearly twenty minutes before sitting up again; this time, though his head spun, he managed to keep from falling over.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mick took stock of his many woes: His back and butt were numb, sore, as though he had been lying down for a long time. His legs ached, his head ached, he was hungry, and he was thirsty, his mouth so dry he couldn't even spit.
He reached for the call button built into the side of his bed and pushed it.
Nothing happened.
In five minutes, a nurse still hadn't appeared.
Getting to his feet, he shuffled into the bathroom and hit the light switch.
The room remained dark.
Taken somewhat aback, Mick jiggled the light switch up and down.
Nothing.
Huh.
At the sink, he drew some water from the faucet and collected it in his cupped hands. Bringing it to his mouth, he slurped greedily, going back for thirds, fourths, and fifths. It was warm and smelled faintly of rotten eggs, but it was wet and good nonetheless.
Back in the room, Mick went to the door and opened it.
The hall was silent and empty. Directly across from his door, a nurses station sat forlorn, unmanned. Medical supplies littered the floor.
Turning, he found a piece of paper tacked to his door.
STOP! It said. ZOMBIES DON'T COME IN HERE!
Zombies?
Zombies?
Mick didn't like scary movies, but he damn well knew what a zombie was: A reanimated corpse that ate human flesh. Howard played some X-Box game where you had to fight zombies, and Mick remembered thinking they were stupid. Duuuuuhhhh, stumble, shamble, bump into things.
Zombies were lame.
They also weren't real.
"Hello?"
Mick's voice echoed eerily through the halls. He turned left, right, didn't see anything (living or undead), and sighed. Something had certainly happened. Something bad. Terrorist attack, maybe?
Calling out again, Mick started walking down the hallway, taking a left from his room and following the tiled floor. Stretchers and gurnies sat quiet along the walls. Doors were tightly closed. Something black and nasty caked the floor up ahead, and as he drew closer, he saw that it was blood.
"Hello?" He was starting to get scared.
At an intersection, he paused and looked both ways: To the right, a bank of elevators, to the left, a door, a heavy chain threaded through its handles. Someone had written something on the wood.
DON'T METALHEADS
OPEN INSIDE
Don't metalheads open inside? What the hell did that mean?
Suddenly, the door bulged forward, and a sea of hands reached through the gap, grasping for him. Uttering a cry, Mick jumped back and nearly fell. The chain held.
So it was zombies!
Hot damn.
He never would have guessed. He wondered if they ate people just like they did on TV.
The door bulged again. The chain groaned. He decided he wasn't goin to stick around to find out.
Next to the elevators, he found a door marked STAIRS.
Opening it, he stepped onto a sunwashed landing. A man was lying dead before the flight heading up, a gun clutched in his head. He looked like a security guard.
In the lobby, Mick found more desertion. Through the double doors, he saw an ambulance sitting at the curb, its back doors standing open. Blood was smeared across the side.
Tori. Howard.
He froze.
He had to get home.
Outside, he stumbled to the right and nearly tripped over a woman sprawled across the sidewalk. She wasn't moving.
King Memorial Hospital is surrounded by residential neighborhoods laden with trees. Mick's house was on Fischer Street, to the northeast of where he currently stood. Moving quickly, he crossed the parking lot, ducking behind cars here and there, looking, always, for a zombie.
At Wolfe Road, where cars sat abandoned at crazy angles, Mick turned right and followed it to Dorry Miller Park on Park Place. Standing by the swingset, he could just see the roof of his house.
"Living...after...midnight..." something rasped.
Starting, Mick turned. A horrible rotted thing in a black T-shirt lie partially under the jungle gym, reaching.
"Rocking...to...the..."
Mick turned from the thing and started across the park, looking back over his shoulder to make sure none of the things were following him.
When he turned, a black boy was standing there, a gun in his hand. "Freeze!"
Instinctively, Mick reached out and snatched the weapon from the boy's hand. "Really?" he asked. "Were you gonna...?"
Something hard hit him in the back of the head.
Darkness.