HARK!: Hey everybody. Sorry for the delay. I'd been kinda kicking around a few ideas but this one's the one I've settled on. And oh boy is it a doozy. I won't tell you more, you'll have to read on. Once again, thanks to my readers. You validate my existence.
"Where the fuck's Charles?" Nathan asked. "And Toki. Toki's missing, too. Huh." He looked around like he was expecting either of them to walk in just that second. Well, he was. They were supposed to be there. "I thought we were supposed to have a meeting. The robot's never late."
"Yeah, that's really weird. I guess we should go look for 'em," Pickles said, standing up.
"Yeah, you guys go do that," Murderface said, putting his feet up on the table. "I'll shtay here."
"I ams stayings here, too," Skwisgaar said. "I don'ts really cares."
Pickles and Nathan left the conference "Okay, I'll check Toki's room, you see if you can find the robot," Pickles said. "Then I guess we'll meet up here if we find 'em." He scratched his butt, which was now padded with enough bandages to pretty much fill the crater. It still itched slightly sometimes, and he really hoped there weren't any maggots left under there. He didn't want to bother with taking the bandages off and putting new ones on. That would be a chore.
"Okay," Nathan said. "Good idea." He nodded and walked to Charles's office. "Hey, robot. You in there? We've been waiting like forever. Open up," he said, pounding on the door. He narrowed his eyes when he heard some strange noises coming from inside the room, and tried the handle. It was unlocked.
"Hey, what's… going… on?" he said as he opened the door, trailing off when he saw what was going on in there. "Toki, what the fuck?"
Toki was on the ground, hunched over Charles's body, about to take another bite out of his torso. Charles's front was covered in bleeding bite marks; his eyes were closed.
"Oh, hi, Nathans," Toki said, standing up, wiping his mouth on his arm, essentially just smearing the blood around. "I was just eatings. How are yous?"
"Toki, you asshole, you weren't supposed to eat the robot!"Nathan said. "We kind of need him, remember? He does all that shit we don't do." He glared at Toki and then looked toward Charles's body. "How much damage you do?"
Toki shrugged. "Not much. I was abouts to…" he started, but then it dawned on him. "Oh. That's bads, rights?" He frowned. "Yeah, yeah… that's… not goods. Not goods at alls…"
Charles groaned a little, twitched, and slowly opened his eyes. He groaned some more, then cleared his throat. "Okay… what happened?" he asked, blinking, squinting up at Nathan and Toki. "What am I doing down here? Where are my glasses… oh. Toki. You, uh… you killed me…?" The thought of it was absurd, but… he thought he did remember… yes, it was Toki who'd killed him.
"Uh… heres," Toki said, picking Charles's glasses up from the ground and handing them to him. "Tokis ams sorry!" he said, a worried look on his face. "I ams! I ams very sorrys! I didn'ts means it! I was hungrys…"
"Well, Toki, I must say I'm impressed," Charles said, sitting up, putting his glasses on and examining the bites on his torso. "You managed to catch me off guard."
"I'M SORRYS!" Toki yelled. "I really really didn'ts means it! Don'ts kills me!" He made a face like he was about to cry.
Charles sighed. "Oh well. It's all right, Toki," he said, standing up, clinging to the desk for support. He wobbled slightly. "I should have expected something like this to happen eventually."
Charles had been so caught up in everything, his workload having increased so much after the concert fiasco, that he had let his guard down. Instead of seeing the band for what they had become, that is flesh-eating zombies, he had just kept thinking of them as the same guys they'd always been. So when Toki wanted to see him, he'd thought he just had some kind of problem he'd needed some help with.
He never realized that problem was what to eat for lunch until it was too late. He was mentally kicking himself for that; he had been so sure that he'd be able to fight off anyone if they'd try to kill him. After all, he'd survived before. It turned out that somehow he couldn't fight off zombie Toki, though, and now he was one of them.
"Uh… Charles? You okay?" Nathan said.
"Yes, I'm fine," Charles said. He could work through this. It wasn't the end of the world. "I assume the others are in the conference room?"
"Oh, yeah! Pickles went to look for Toki," Nathan said. "We'll have to tell him we found him. And you. And… uh… that you're dead."
They went back towards the conference room where Pickles was standing outside.
"There you guys are!" he said. "I was waitin'… Charles?" His eyes widened as he noticed Charles's torn suit and the change in his odor. He didn't smell like a delicious meal anymore. "When'd you die?" Then he looked at Toki and his blood-smeared face and made the connection. "Oh. That's where Toki was."
"Yes… well, let's get this meeting over with," Charles said. He opened the door and walked in. Murderface and Skwisgaar stared at him.
"Uh, robot? Did you know you're dead?" Murderface asked. "'Caushe you're pretty dead."
"Yes, I'm fully aware of that," Charles said. He looked down at some papers that he had brought. "Now, let's…" he trailed off and looked up towards the door.
"Let's what?" Pickles asked.
"Excuse me for a minute," Charles said, and walked out of the room.
About a minute passed and then a scream was heard echoing through Mordhaus. Five or so minutes later Charles nonchalantly walked back into the conference room, wiping his face with a handkerchief. "All right. Now let's begin."
Murderface stared. "Did you jusht—"
"I said let's begin."
"Okay. Jeez. Zombie robot'sh touchy." He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, feet still on the table.
"So what's this for, anyway?" Nathan asked.
"We have a few things we need to discuss. Like what happened yesterday." Charles raised an eyebrow at Nathan. "That was a disaster. We need to make sure the next one won't be like that."
"I thought it wash great," Murderface said, glaring.
"Well, it may have been great for you, but it really isn't doing much for the media," Charles said. "News programs are always looking for some sort of scandal, and it looks like you all are the hot news item."
Pickles shrugged. "What else is new?" he asked. "They're always talkin' about us. What else? Little old ladies sayin' we're bad for the kids? Sounds like the same old shit."
"All right, then… on to the next item," Charles said.
"What elshe is there to talk about?" Murderface asked.
"I it seems the makers of a new zombie multiplayer online game want you to endorse it," Charles said. "They say that 'it would be most brutal and an honor to have Dethklok endorse our game. We've worked really hard on it and having actual zombies advertise it would really help.' End quote. They do seem to be paying quite well, and there's a lot of buzz already."
"Brutal," Nathan said. "We'll do it!"
"Then I guess that's all for now," Charles said. "Try not to kill anybody yet."
"Yeah, right, robot. That'sh exactly what you're doing," Murderface said, rolling his eyes.
"Dood, Toki. How'd you end up killing him, anyway?" Pickles asked when they left the room.
"I just dids," Toki said with a shrug. "I wasn'ts tryings to." He thought for a second, then continued. "I was hungrys so I was askings hims abouts the foods, you knows, that we ams supposed to gets? And I was askings and then I was eatings."
"Tokis, you can'ts control yourselfs," Skwisgaar said. "You ams goings to gets us all killed."
Toki glared at Skwisgaar. "I cans! I cans control myselfs!" he said. "I just didn'ts." He frowned. "No… No, I guess I can'ts control myselfs. Huh."
Charles had bandaged himself up and changed his suit and was now calling the scientists. He had to tell them—no, order them, to work faster. Now he knew exactly what the guys were going through. He realized how important this really was. He couldn't keep killing Klokateers, no matter how discreet he was. Now that Mordhaus was up one zombie, things would be even more dangerous for the living.
After making sure the scientists would work faster, he hung up the phone and sighed. He still wasn't sure what to make of this. He was a zombie now. This wasn't something he'd planned for at all. He had been so sure he was going to stay alive. After all, he'd survived plenty of shit before. And somehow, despite everything, he'd ended up downed by Toki. It just didn't seem to make any sense. But that didn't matter. What did matter was what had happened to him and how he was going to deal with it. He had to stay professional. It was his job.
"So, do you believe me now?" asked the Angry Beavers dude, now clad in a Strong Bad t-shirt, a very smug look on his face. His nemesis sat across from him, now wearing a Yoda shirt and a very frustrated expression. The talk show was having a follow-up to their argument due to the events of last night's concert and it looked like it was going to end the same way as the last time.
Pickles lowered the volume as the two started arguing with each other again. "So, wait. We gotta write a song about video games or zombies or what?" Pickles he asked. "Or both?"
Nathan looked at the paper Charles had given them. "Says they want something that'll be played in the game and commercials. Nothing about what it's supposed to be about."
"Sho we gotta think?" Murderface said. "Shit. I hate thinking."
"Can't be too hard," Pickles said. "Just have it be about brains or somethin'." He shrugged. "Hey, do we get a free game outta this?"
Nathan looked back at the paper. "Yeah! It says that. Free game."
"Let's gets to works," Skwisgaar said. "I'm hungrys. I needs to thinks about somethings else."
"Charles really was takings it wells, dyings, huh?" Toki said.
"Hey, the robot's had shit happen before, right? I mean he works with us. We're pretty brutal. Dying's pretty brutal," Nathan said, shrugging. "He's used to it."
After the concert, the girl had gone home and immediately went to bed. When she finally opened her eyes, there was no trace of intelligence left. She was just a regular zombie. And she was hungry. So very hungry. Instinct guided her out the door to the outside world, where she knew she would find food.
