A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS: Hey, everybodee! It's your pal lovable non-furry old AgentKaz. I love you people, in a non-creepy way. The last one was a bit more gross-out than violent, so I'm making up for that in this one. Enjoy the violence! WARNING: this chapter contains pantsless Murderface. This may bother most of you. Not me. DON'T' YOU JUDGE ME. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming!
It was the day of Dethklok's first show after their death, and the news was buzzing.
"It's a publicity stunt!" yelled a young man in a Captain America T-shirt on a popular morning talk show. "Zombies can't talk! But the footage clearly shows them talking!"
"What, and all the blood and gore is totally fake?" asked another young man, this one in an Angry Beavers shirt. "Just because you think Max Brooks is the leading authority on zombies doesn't mean he is." He crossed his arms and glared at the camera. "I've seen the footage too, and I can assure you it's real."
"There is absolutely no way zombies can talk! They can't even think! They run solely on instinct and hunger!" the other man countered. "Dethklok was seen talking. Hence, not zombies."
"Look, you've made it obvious that you're an idiot, but that doesn't mean everyone else is!" the Angry Beavers guy said. "They're clearly zombies. You can see it in how they move, how they act. How they RIP THE FREAKING GUTS OUT OF PEOPLE. If that doesn't prove they're zombies, I don't know what does!"
The argument degenerated into a bunch of name-calling and Pickles changed the channel.
"Aw, jusht ash it wash getting good!" Murderface said. "Change it back! Maybe they'll shtart fighting!"
"Oooh, I wants to sees the nerds fights!" Toki said, grinning. "Ands they cans haves their lightsbagers!"
"Shut up, guys! Look at that!" Nathan said, pointing at the TV.
On TV a reporter was talking to Charles. "Yes, despite recent… events, we are still going through with the concert tonight," he said. "The rumors of cancellation are completely false."
"We can hear him talk anytime," Murderface said. "Let'sh go back to the lasht channel. I bet they're really tearing into each other by now!"
"Yeah!" Toki said. "Nerds fights! Nerds fights!"
"We don'ts needs to see nerds fights," Skwisgaar said. "Charles is sayings somethings, probsablys importants."
"…taking every precaution," continued Charles on screen. "We can't guarantee anything, of course, but we are working on it."
"Come on, guysh. He'sh jusht shaying the shame shit he alwaysh shaysh," Murderface said. "We're probably misshing the biggesht nerd fight of the year!"
"Okay, fine! Jeez," Pickles said, changing the channel back. The Captain America guy and Angry Beavers dude had indeed procured plastic lightsabers and were in the midst of dueling.
"Shee?" Murderface said, gesturing toward the TV. "I told you!"
"Ha! That's awesome," Nathan said. "Go beaver guy!"
"I likes the other guys," Toki said. "He's stupids. That's funnys."
The Angry Beavers dude had knocked Captain America guy's lightsaber out of his hands and was beating him over the head with his own. Finally the show's tech guys had enough sense to cut to a commercial break.
"What else is on?" Pickles said, flipping channels again. "More Charles… cartoons… hey, it's us!"
"Dethklok, the recently zombified popular heavy metal band, is playing a concert tonight in—" started the announcer.
"Boring!" Pickles said, and changed the channel. "More cartoons, more shit… Nuthin' good's on."
"Oh man, tonight's gonna be brutal!" Nathan said. "We're gonna fucking rock! From the grave!" He laughed.
"Are we gonna end up going nuts again tonight?" Pickles asked. "I mean, this one's gonna be worse 'n the press conference. Way more food… I mean people."
"We tolds Charles we wouldn'ts," Toki said.
"Yeah, but we don't know that for sure," Pickles said.
"Sho if we kill shomebody, we kill shomebody," Murderface said with a shrug. "It'sh not that big of a deal. Our fansh are inshane. They'd love it!"
"Buts we tolds Charles—"
"Shuts ups, Tokis," Skwisgaar said. "It was yours faults last times, anysways."
"We shtill don't have any food," Murderface said. "If we can't eat anything, we're gonna have to kill shomebody. You guysh know we can't go that long without eating."
"That's true," Nathan said. "We get pretty screwed up without food."
"But if we dos, Charles will—"
"He'll what? Ground ush?" Murderface said, rolling his eyes. "We're Dethklok. We can do whatever we want. I shay we kill tonight."
Toki didn't say anything else. His arguments were halfhearted, anyway. He wanted to kill just as much as the others did. And when he thought about the carnage they could cause later… well, he'd definitely enjoy it. Probably a little too much.
"Sho that'sh shettled," Murderface said. "Tonight, we eat."
Toki was nervous. Everyone else seemed fine, but he just couldn't calm down. The last few times they'd eaten, it was spontaneous, but this time it was premeditated. Sure, they didn't know who they were going to kill this time, but they knew that they were going to do it. And they were going to kill a bunch of people, not just one, like the doctor. Sure, he wanted to kill. He was hungry. But it still bothered him slightly.
Nathan thought it was going to be brutal, and the fans who weren't being eaten would think it was brutal too. It would be a really cool addition to the show, he'd said. So they were going to do it. Of course, they weren't going to tell Charles about it.
The fans stood in the stadium, screaming and cheering. They'd all signed their waivers and finished their paperwork, and they were ready for what they knew was going to be a very brutal concert.
The band stepped out on stage and the place erupted. Their now-natural deathly pallor made their makeup seem even more sinister.
"Hey fleshbags!" Nathan growled, letting out the biggest hungry groan he could. "Are you people ready for death? Undeath? DETHKLOK!!"
And with that, the concert began.
Surprisingly enough, things were going rather well, Charles thought, watching from the side. Very few deaths.
It was suspicious. There was no way that their first show as zombies was going to go off without a hitch. Charles wasn't even sure if they were ready for this, but the show had to go on.
Then, suddenly, somebody climbed on stage.
"Oh… shit." Charles stared. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to stop this from happening. Somebody screwed up. Somebody was getting fired. This was turning into a fiasco.
Of course it wouldn't be easy. Of course.
Nathan had been planning on attacking somebody in the crowd eventually, but someone happened to climb up on stage and Nathan decided he'd do. He groaned, the music stopped, and he ripped the guy's throat out with his teeth.
The crowd went wild as blood sprayed everywhere. Some of the more insane fans started climbing all over the stage, overwhelming security.
Toki had really, really been trying to control himself, but this sudden influx of food coming onstage was bothering him. "No… I cans do this…" he mumbled, looking down at his guitar. Then he looked up to see a woman coming toward him and he just snapped. His feeble attempts at control lost, he dropped his guitar, tackled her, and bit into her stomach, tearing out her intestines.
Murderface sat on a corpse, eating two others, his bass sitting next to him on stage. He was pantsless, having dropped trou immediately before being interrupted by dinner. He didn't feel like putting his shorts back on; he was busy eating. So far he was pretty pleased by how things were going.
Nathan tore the throat out of another fan, who gurgled and fell to the ground. Nobody noticed the one he'd killed earlier twitching. The new zombie opened his eyes and moaned, crawling towards the edge of the stage.
Skwisgaar groaned and jumped into the crowd into the arms of a group of women. Their squeals of excitement turned into cries of pain as he started to eat.
Pickles popped an eyeball into his mouth and looked up. "Uh, hey, Nathan? That dude you killed's up and movin'," he said, pointing towards the edge.
Nathan's line of sight followed Pickles's finger to see the guy who had first climbed up on stage fall into the crowd and start biting people. "Oh shit," he said. "He's gonna eat all our food!"
Charles was frantically making phone calls, trying to get the situation under control. A few Klokateers were making their way through the crowd, evacuating those who hadn't been bitten yet. The job was rather difficult, as the band was still eating, but finally they managed to get the unbitten out.
Only the band, several dozen partially eaten corpses, and a couple of newly-dead tottering zombies remained. One Klokateer stood by with a gun, shooting the zombies in the head as they reanimated.
The band lounged around on the stage, eating their dinner, feeling rather good about themselves. Charles stepped out from the side and gave them a stern look.
"'Sup, robot?" Pickles asked, waving a severed arm at him. He grinned and took a bite out of it.
"You said you were ready," Charles said. "I think it's safe to say you weren't?"
"Well, what are we shupposhed to do, shtarve?" Murderface asked, sitting and leaning on a pile of corpses, still pantsless, snacking on a brain. "Not our problem we have to eat people." He shrugged and scratched his crotch.
A slight look of disgust crossed Charles's face, but was quickly replaced by his usual businesslike manner. "This is going to be a problem, isn't it," he said.
"No way," Nathan said. "Our next show's when, a week? They'll have our food ready by then, right?"
"No guarantees…" Charles said. The new researchers certainly seemed competent enough… He hoped they'd be able to get the job done. Firing employees was tiresome.
"Murderface, this was a goods ideas—hey!" Toki said, interrupted by Skwisgaar punching him in the face. "What's was thats for? That almosts hurt…"
"Tokis. Charles doesn'ts knows about that we was goings to be killings on purpose, remembser?" Skwisgaar hissed. "Shut ups."
Charles raised an eyebrow at Toki and Skwisgaar, but shrugged. "Okay, then. Well, tell me when you're ready so this can get cleaned up."
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Nathan said, poking his tongue through his cheek and licking the blood off. "We'll tell you."
"We really should do thish more," Murderface said, ripping a heart out of one of the closest corpse's chest and taking a bite. "It'sh brutal."
"Yeah!" Toki said. "It's really cool! Why can'ts we just eats all the peoples?"
"Well, y'know, if we eat all of 'em there won't be none left. Then we'll starve," Pickles said.
"Well, I likes being deads, anyways," Toki said. He really did. Sure, he had his doubts sometimes, but after this… well, it was pretty great.
Many of the fans who hadn't been bitten stood outside, talking about the show, comparing injuries. Despite the fact that it had been cut short, nobody seemed to be complaining. It was cool.
One girl, standing a bit farther away from everyone, lifted up her hair and touched a spot on the back of her neck. She looked at her blood-covered fingers and smiled. That was where Skwisgaar had bitten her. In the confusion she'd slipped out with the others. She looked back at the stadium for a second, then turned and started to walk back toward her car.
Brutal.
