Читать книгу Allied Zombies for Peace - Craig Nybo - Страница 8

Chapter 1

Veteran’s Day parade officials had put the Allied Zombies for Peace behind the Ku Klux Klan for the fourth year in a row and Arlo Fitzgerald, AZP leader, was furious about it. “I filed the paperwork ninety days ago.” Fitzgerald said, his useless right arm tucked into a sling across his slight chest.

“I’m following orders; not much I can do for you now,” the fat parade official said, spreading his hands defensively.

Fitzgerald bit down on his lower lip, struggling to hold his temper. He glanced over his shoulder at his constituents. Some sat in wheelchairs; others lay on the ground, ready to drag their bodies along the pavement. They looked back at him, their eyes appealing for a satisfying resolution. Marching behind the KKK would defeat the point of the AZP’s marching at all. Though the AZP had made brilliant strides against prejudice towards the undead, most people still viewed zombies as monsters. It was easy for ignorant parade spectators to lump the AZP with groups such as the KKK. For the past four years, AZP marchers had been forced to put up with a crowd stirred up to impudence by the KKK: the jeers, the catcalls, the thrown beer cans.

“Best I can do is call in a request to my boss,” the parade official said, not bothering to take off his sunglasses or to stop chewing his gum.

“Then do it.”

“Parade starts in twelve minutes. You can’t realistically expect me to reposition you before the line starts to move.”

Fitzgerald shook his head slowly, an action he often used to defuse his anger. The scattered wisps of sparse, white hair on his head flicked in the wind.

“Look, if it makes any difference, I’m willing to get on the horn and talk to my boss. If your people don’t want to march—”

“So that’s it, is it?” Fitzgerald said. “You don’t want us to march.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You people never actually say anything; it’s all lip.”

“There’s no need to—”

“I do want you to call your boss. Tell him that I personally meet with Lyndon Johnson on a regular basis. Tell him that, unlike him, the president of this great country is not a bigot.”

“So I’ve been told. But that still doesn’t change the fact that you aren’t moving forward in the parade queue.”

Seething, clenching his one good hand into a fist, Fitzgerald bit down on his lip, suppressing the words he really wanted to say. After collecting himself for a moment, he leaned in close to the fat parade official. “The truth is, if I tell these people we are marching behind the KKK again this year, many of them will likely go home.”

The fat parade official smiled and pushed his Cincinnati Reds baseball cap back on his scalp. “Well, to be honest, that would just about make my day.”

Fitzgerald shook his head slowly and bit down on his lip again.

“You’d better tell them something; they look like they’re liable to throw a little tantrum.” The fat parade official smiled and crossed his arms over his flabby chest.

“Oh yes, I shall tell them something,” Fitzgerald said and turned away. He limped back to his constituents: a lump of spindly zombies with pennants and t-shirts that bore slogans for undead equality. Someone handed Fitzgerald a megaphone. He raised it to his mouth and clicked it on. All AZP eyes, some blue, some white with cataracts, some gone, looked at their leader. “I’m sorry to inform you that we will not be relocated to another slot in the parade queue.”

A general groan.

“It seems, though as a movement we have made tremendous progress, there are those who still would have us abused.”

The AZP marchers began to stir.

“I say, do not be disheartened. On this crisp, November day, here in the good city of Columbus, Ohio, we will march.”

Zombies nodded in solidarity, chins stout.

“Today we are, once again, the victims of prejudice. We are the victims of those who would have us crawl in the gutters, who would have us live in the trash dumps, the abandoned warehouses, the swamps, and in the root callers of this country. What they don’t realize is that we don’t march for today. We march for tomorrow, for the undead future. We are at the dawn of a new world, free of bigotry towards the black man, towards the Jew, and towards the undead.”

Undead marchers pumped their fists in the air, nodding in staunch agreement. Fitzgerald glanced over his shoulder at the fat parade official. The man appeared visibly rattled, even frightened. The AZP leader turned back to his flock and continued his sermon. “And so I ask for you to remain here today. I know there are some among you who want to go home. To you I say: march. Withstand the jeers of the crowd. Withstand the taunts and the thrown missiles. Our work here is more important than us. If you don’t join us today then who will? If our numbers ebb, so does our strength. And if our strength ebbs, our entire cause falls to ruin, and men like them win.” Fitzgerald pointed at the parade official, who smiled nervously.

“And men like them win.” Fitzgerald pointed at a throng of KKK marchers ahead in the parade queue, clad in full, white regalia, formed into ranks and files.

“Damn right,” a zombie man with half his face torn from his skull shouted. The damage in his jaw caused the words to come out: “am, ight.”

“I am not saying that you can’t leave if you don’t want to. Far be it for me to impede on your right to choose. You may leave with no protest from me or from any member of the AZP.”

Nobody moved. All AZP marchers stood solid, like a single body of conviction.

“That’s what I thought,” Fitzgerald said. “I am proud to march with you this day. Prepare yourselves to deliver the message of the Allied Zombies for Peace.”

A cacophony of grinding shouts through gritty, half-decomposed throats erupted from the AZP marchers. Arlo Fitzgerald smiled to himself as he lowered the megaphone and let it dangle from his shoulder by its leather strap. He wheeled around on his heel and pointed with his good hand, two fingers directly at the eyes of the fat parade official. The man straightened an imaginary tie and coughed even though he didn’t need to.

“Today we will march,” Fitzgerald said. The words chilled the fat parade official. But the words Fitzgerald didn’t say, the words that he couldn’t have known to say that warm November morning were: today, I die.