Battle of the Network Zombies Read online

  “A star that outshines the night sky,” he hopped onto the raised platform and held his hand out to…“Mama Montserrat, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Canned applause filled the room and if I could have, I’d have turned red as baboon ass. Thank God for low blood pressure.42

  Mama Montserrat didn’t say a word. She pulled out an ivory pipe, stuck it into her mouth like she was stabbing a pincushion and sparked it up with one of those lighters crackheads use. You know, the kind that looks like flames from a jet engine. I imagine they’re sold wherever you go to pick up Mad Dog 20/20 or a “40” of “Old E.” The smoke coiled around her head like a snake darkening at the head, which refuse to dissipate. Finally, she acknowledged the camera with a blunt nod—no pun intended—without once looking at Cameron, who merely shrugged and continued.

  “Next on our panel is none other than the undead socialite herself, that party girl extraordinaire, not often seen without a Big Gulp of booze and clothes you wouldn’t be caught dead in…”

  At least they didn’t corral a real audience to provide the snickering that snuck out the speakers.

  “Oh, wait…except she is dead…and she’s wearing it anyway, ladies and gentlemen!” Cameron broke out in a fit of laughter, never once taking his eyes off me. The fucker relished my discomfort. Always had.

  More laughter poured into the room, big rocking guffaws. I had to force myself to shut my mouth. He really couldn’t be talking about my McQueen. Not unless he had a death wish.

  “It’s Amanda Feral, everybody!”

  I put on my biggest smile and gave a tidy wave. “Thanks, Cam, looking dashing as ever.”

  “Why, thank you,” he said and then for the camera’s benefit, “I clean up pretty well, if I do say so.”

  “You certainly do. That suit is beautiful.”

  Cameron brushed his hands down the lapels of his jacket.

  “But those shoes!” I hunched over the table to gawk.

  His hands hovered around his waist, the smile deflating on his face.

  “Now, those are really spectacular. In fact, I haven’t seen platforms so high since the Olympics. Are you training?”

  Cameron blushed, but deflected with a little spin that brought him directly in front of the man of the hour. “Johnny Birch is a bona fide star of stage, screen and countless recording triumphs,” he chanted. “His celebrity is such that he’s become the target of many crazed female fans, and some male.” Cameron gestured as though he’d asked a question.

  Birch nodded.

  “Each clamoring for a second of his precious time, a private serenade or possibly his head on a stick for their home altar!” Cam shouted.

  Johnny’s eyes bulged.

  Mama rolled hers.

  I felt a headache coming on.

  “Ladies and gentlemen…Johnny Birch!”

  “Thank you for that…” the wood nymph stood and searched for the word and didn’t find it. “Introduction,” he finally said.

  I’d have inserted a few adjectives, like insane.

  He rounded the table and came to a stop next to Cameron, resting his hand on the host’s shoulder like they were old pals. “I’m excited about the prospects of this show. As you know, I’ve yet to find the love I so desperately deserve on my fantastically popular and, if I do say so myself, romantic television series, Tapping Birch’s Syrup. That’s right America, I’ve yet to be tapped.”

  Chuckles and a smattering of applause echoed from hidden speakers, as opposed to the gagging I’d have introduced.

  “Bullshit,” I coughed and struggled with my purse until I landed the little flask of whiskey, unscrewed the cap unceremoniously and took a long drag. Cheap shit nowadays, but it packed a punch and flooded my weak veins with some welcome warmth—Lord knows I wouldn’t get any from this crowd.

  Birch swiveled toward me, “That one’s gonna be trouble…and I love it.”

  “Meow,” Cameron added with what he wrongly assumed was the requisite cat’s paw mimicry. On a child it’d be cute, on him it looked retarded, just like the shoes.

  Jesus, I thought. This gamble better pay off.

  Meanwhile, Johnny beamed for the camera, sucking in his cheeks and rocking his head on his shoulders in what must have seemed to him to be a saucy seductive move. Turns out, he just looked drunk. I’d have to remember to tell him later.

  “Are you ready to meet the first contestant?” Cameron motioned for Johnny to sit down, but he just stood there, mugging and stabbing the air with his arrogant chin.

  “He means, sit your ass down, Birch!” I yelled and the camera spun on me, its oculus tightening in. I couldn’t resist a smirk. Who could?

  Birch huffed his way through a fiendish scowl, presumably for the benefit of the invisible audience, as it clearly had no effect on me, and pointed a twiggish finger in my direction—a threat—then darted around to reclaim his seat. Once settled in, he leaned back in his chair.

  “Good stuff,” he said. “Keep up the false antagonism, it can be our shtick.”

  “Who says it’s false?”

  “You kidder. I knew you’d work out great.”

  “Listen, Birch. I’m just around to buy some time and exposure for my company and to see you get murdered. Get any more suspicious packages in the mail?” I winked and then glanced at the camera mischievously, hoping they’d caught the exchange but doubtful the wendigo working the damn thing gave a shit about anything other than waxing his antler.43

  He waved off the words.

  Mama Montserrat puffed a cloud of smoke that hung around her head like a phantom. “You two shouldn’t joke about those threats. Someone sendin’ dead things is serious bad juju. Means they serious.” Her face poked out of the gray cloud like an Eskimo emerging from a dirty parka. “Serious as a heart attack.”

  Cameron’s voice interrupted her by proclaiming, “Welcome! To American Minions!”

  He led in the first victim, a vinegary, rat-faced woman with bleached-blond hair as crispy as chow mein noodles, a pale pink blouse that fit as loosely as sausage casing and thoroughly eco-conscious and utterly beige slip-on hikers. I scanned the atrocity between my fingers—there’s nothing more offensive than unchecked fashion don’ts—they do produce magazines for that very problem, you know? Her skin was nearly as gray as Mama’s pot smoke and veins webbed her face—much like mine when I don’t expect anyone to stop by the condo. Most likely a zombie, though I really hated to acknowledge our kinship.

  Is it really so hard to slap some makeup on the dead? Really?

  “Je m’appelle Absinthe,” she spat. “I’m Belgian.”

  “Like Poirot?” I asked. The fact that I was reading Evil under the Sun seemed overly coincidental; never mind that I’d likely abandon it for the DVD.

  The woman soured further—I know it doesn’t seem possible44—and began to speak in that decidedly French way that features hairball coughing in every other word. “Hercule Poirot is a fictional character. I don’t see how I merit ze comparison. I’m here, aren’t I? I exist, oui?”

  “Of course you exist, Absinthe.” Cameron patted the woman on her back. “At least until someone knocks you out in an elimination round.”

  “What. You zink a ghoul can’t prevail? Well you are most wrong, Monsieur Hansen. I’ve learned a varieté of techniques to—”

  “Lovely to meet you!” Cameron shouted, cutting off her rant. “Please wait for your competition in the study.” He swung his arm around her and sped her toward the door in the rear of the forested lobby.

  A commotion bustled at the entryway, as Tanesha thrust herself between the twins who’d been politely waiting their turn and stomped across the tangle of vines snaking across the floor.

  “What the hell is all this shit anyhow, sugar?” She steadied herself against Cameron as if he were a small stool and kicked up the tallest stiletto I’d ever seen to pick out some stray threads of ivy from a hollow under the pad. “I better not trip up in here or y’all bitches are gonna hear from a l
awyer.” She scanned the judges and ended on Cameron. “A good one. You got it?”

  “I do,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, our next contestant is Tanesha Jones, drag wolf.”

  “With a ‘u’,” she added.

  “Drag wulf with a ‘u’.” Cameron raised a note card. “It says here, Tanesha is an expert in the ancient martial art of transformational glamour, a regular MacGyver with cosmetics who can also, and I quote, vogue the hell out of some bustas.”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” I shouted, checking my co-judgers reactions.45 Mama continued to puff away nonplussed, while Johnny leaned forward with an odd look on his face. I wasn’t sure he was entirely aware of what he was looking at so lasciviously. Tanesha struck a seductive pose and Birch’s eyes followed her form from those deadly-ass shoes up her sleek chocolate gams to a body-hugging red halter dress that accentuated her plump ass. She must have been wearing a bullet bra as her breasts protruded like weapons.

  “That’s right, sugar,” she called out to me and winked saucily.

  Cameron ushered her to the study and joined the twins in the center of the room.

  “Hurry up with those two, Cam.” Johnny propped his hands behind his head. “Don’t want them to get bored and start singing, we’ll end up washed up on the rocks.” He howled with laughter.

  I stared at him. “That would have been hilarious, if it were a joke.”

  “You can do better, I suppose.”

  “Of course.” I dug a cigarette out of my purse and lit up. As far as I could tell the show was a solid piece of crap. The only thing to do was play up the camp.46 “Now get me an ashtray, fairy boy.”

  “You—” Johnny was definitely riled. He slid his chair back like he’d attack.

  “Shh!” I interrupted. “The ladies don’t like ’em abusive.” I thought about that for a moment. “Except for the ones that do. Oh, forget it.”

  Birch mumbled a curse under his breath and a swath of ivy turned brown behind him, like he’d cut some magical fart.

  “Nice,” I said, and then pointed out the cameras.

  Cameron escorted in the alcoholic twins—escorted being the appropriate word, since they still looked like hookers—skirts hiked up to their poons and eyes glazed over with the sort of intoxication reserved for twenty-first birthday celebrations or amateur porn shoots.47 “Janice and Eunice are sirens from Lake Ontario who spend their time lounging on the misty rocks of Niagara Falls coercing receptive men48 into ill-fated barrel rides. God love ’em.” He slipped in between the two, wrapping his arms around their shoulders like he was about to give them some much needed advice—not that he knew any. The twins shook their hair, cooed and fluttered their vocal chords. Cameron’s face slackened and his mouth drooped like a naughty kitten cuffed by its mother.

  “Simmer down girls, he’s the host, not your quarry.” Mama Montserrat tapped her pipe on the edge of the table, sprinkling the cloth with red sparks and black char and eyed the girls ominously. “What good are you to the legendary Johnny Birch, if you can’t control your venom? No good, that’s what.”

  Janice and Eunice scowled, one scuffed her bare (and dirty, I might add) feet in a tangle of clover, while the other batted her pale lashes at Cameron, himself slowly coming back from wherever it is sirens send their victims.

  As the girls stumbled their way to wherever Mama and the other producers—assuming there were others—designated as the green room, probably the bar, Cameron and the rest of us turned toward the door just in time to watch a billow of fog roll across the ivy and rose petals and swirl about the host’s stilt-like shoes like a hurricane in miniature. The smoky substance grayed as it formed snaking tendrils; they coiled up his body dragging the cloud behind until Cameron was cocooned in its murky roil.

  He began coughing and in that moment, the smoke instantly receded to his left, becoming columnar and dense. A pair of badgers scampered in, dragging a large piece of silk behind them. They darted up the column and wrapped the smoke in a silky kimono, seconds before the haze turned to flesh, then huddled together behind one of the “trees.”

  Before us stood a beautiful Japanese woman, black hair draped around her bare shoulders like a shawl. She clutched the robe closed with one hand and reached out to Cameron with the other. I glanced at Johnny. He needed a napkin for the gush of drool spilling from his gaping mouth.

  “Japanese smoke ghosts, or Enenri, are rare in this part of the world and as you can see, both dangerous and beautiful.” Cameron stopped to hack up a little more lung and then continued. “Maiko hails from Osaka and easily wins the farthest travelled to compete on American Minions. Welcome Maiko. Aren’t you something?”

  The woman eyed him suspiciously, shrugged and then turned toward us and bowed. I gave her a polite nod, which she seemed to scrutinize and make me regret even acknowledging her.

  Try to do something nice.

  She shuffled toward the doors, whistling for her badgers to follow, which they did after a fit of hissing and scratching each other.

  When the next contestant entered, I wasn’t exactly shocked, though I couldn’t imagine what sort of supernatural creature she might be.

  It was Hairy Sue, clad in a plaid shirt, tied off above the belly button, and a pair of Daisy Dukes. Cameron swung his arm around her shoulders as she kicked out a cowboy boot and rested it on its heel, swaying the toe back and forth like one of those little pageant girls.

  “This here’s Hairy Sue.” Cameron took on a southern accent that faltered at every other word, making him sound like he was gargling. “She’s got her some special talents, don’t you darlin’?”

  “I do, Mr. Hansen. But y’all will have to wait longer than St. Peter on a poker to see ’em.” She giggled.

  There it was again, another weird religious statement that didn’t mean anything. Something was definitely off with Ms. Hairy Sue…other than her big old bush, I mean. I didn’t care for her cute little accent, either. Creeped me out.

  “Our last contestant is another unique Asian beauty, a manangal, but this one has only had to travel from up the street at Mr. Wally’s Pho-tastic Noodle and Nail! Welcome Angie!”

  A petite Filipina strode in wearing a pair of mile-high cork wedges and a bright smile, massive waves of black hair piled atop her little frame like a troll doll…only cute.

  “Now what’s your story, Angie?” Cameron took on a chummy tone with the little brunette.

  “Well, let’s see. I’m a nail tech like you said, I like Chinese food, romantic comedies and…oh yeah. I can do this.” She bent her head forward and a slithering sound emanated from her body. The next thing we knew, a dripping tentacle was tapping Cameron on the shoulder.

  He spun away from her and spasmed as though he’d been forced to touch a tarantula or something. The tentacle was nothing alien as it turned out, but a prehensile entrail from inside her body, more flapped around the hole in the back of her neck like a collar of sea anemone. Gross, yes, but more than that, impractical.

  “So.” Cameron chuckled uncomfortably. “And on top of that, you’re also a vampire?”

  “And I do a great acrylic and fills at very competitive prices. Also mighty mean beef broth.”

  “Good to know!” Cameron’s knowledge of supernatural species was only slightly more advanced than mine, which is to say, I’ve got very little interest in anything that doesn’t effect me directly. Basically, I lump them all into two categories. Cute and not cute. Werewolves? Cute. Vampires? Also cute. Yetis? Obviously not. Angie was one of the rare species that didn’t fit neatly into my system. Sure she was cute in her skinny jeans and off-the-shoulder disco blouse, but the blood and bile draining down her back was a deal breaker. Nothing kills “cute” like gore. This, I know from firsthand experience.

  I leaned over to Mama and whispered, “Weren’t there supposed to be nine contestants? What happened to the other two?”

  The big woman took another toke and said, “Well, we had a charming chupacabra named Shirl and a weremaltese wh
o looked like that Dee Wallace Stone in The Howling but the manangal got thirsty and, I’m afraid, the limo was woefully undersupplied in the blood department. Don’t worry, child. It’ll all come out in da wash.”

  Cameron hopped up on the dais again. “So you’ve seen the contestants. Quite a pool, if you ask me, but let’s get the opinion of our judges.” He stabbed his hand in my direction. “Whaddya say, Amanda. Any frontrunners?”

  “Um…no, dumbass. We just met them, how could I—”

  He cut me off with, “You’re definitely a firecracker.” He whipped around to ask Mama the same question.

  “I’m partial to a big puff a smoke now and then, in case you ain’t notice. That Maiko, child gonna be somet’in’ to watch. Mind you.”

  “Well, I’m buying whatever Tanesha’s selling,” Johnny added. “That girl could bite a batwing off a buttercup.”

  “Okay now,” I said. “You people are just making those phrases up to get on my nerves.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Birch sneered.

  “There’s no such phrase. It doesn’t make any more since than Hairy Sue’s bullshit chattering.”

  “Ahem.” Cameron must have sensed I was about to explode, as he interjected, “So. We’ve got some varied opinions and some dark horses, all of them, in fact. It’s bound to be a rollicking good time on this season of…”

  The camera pulled back to the far corner. The contestants were herded back in and urged to stand in either threatening or seductive poses, provocative at the very least. Cam stood in the center of the indoor meadow, amidst the vinca and morning glory and spread his arms with the gusto of a musical theater major—only slightly less effeminate. Unfortunately the pan was wide enough to also catch Wendy spying on her intended victim, Johnny.

  Cameron shouted, “American Minions!” at the same time someone screamed, “Cut! Some old cooze is clogging up my shot!”

  Wendy rushed from the room backwards, kowtowing in Johnny’s direction. So embarrassing. Mama Montserrat hissed quietly beside me, while Birch chuckled in his self-satisfied manner.