Zombaiting

On the outskirts of town was a weather-worn sign.

JAGERVILLE...POPULATION 7,242

Right next to it stood a relatively new sign declaring in bright red paint....

FRANKSVILLE...POPULATION

LIVING...1

WALKING DEAD...5,117

REALLY DEAD....2,124

The numbers were of the 'slide in-slide out' type, this was to make life easier for Frank because he updated the board just before sundown each day.

Frank was a martial arts teacher before the infestation snatched all of his fee-paying students, thus taking away his livelihood and his beloved sport in one fell swoop, but now he had a new sport to play.

Frank was the sole survivor, custodian, and (in his eyes) owner, of the freshly re-named Franksville, and he was systematically clearing out the town, and immensely enjoying his new sport at the same time. He had set up a well-equipped gym in one of the rooms of his penthouse fortress, and worked out daily with weights and hand weapons, he prided himself on never using or carrying firearms, he didn't need them, he was strong, tough, and very very fast.
In a sheath at his side hung Macca, a fourteen inch machete, and strapped to his back, a beautifully crafted samurai sword, oh, he loved taking the Zacks out with the nunchakas or stars, but for serious Zombaiting you couldn't beat Sammy the sword, he was a little worried at the fact that he had given the weapons names, but reflected that maybe it wasn't so strange after all, as they were the only friends he had now.

Zombaiting was Frank's new sport, and he was the world champion, because as far as he knew, he was the world's only player too. It consisted of teasing the Zacks, dancing in and out of reach, and occasionally lopping bits off them until they were just a crawling lump, and it was time to administer the coup-de-grace.

The game was much more fun, and required much more skill, when facing several Zacks at once, but right now he had a lone shambler, in full working order, and it was almost sunset, so Frank decided to have one last dance before adding the day's tally to the pop-sign, and retiring to his suite before nightfall.

Frank turned up the volume in his earphones, the classic sounds of 'Ode to joy' pulsed through his ears, “Okay, let's dance.” He said,and pirouetted towards the walking corpse.

As the Zack reached for him Frank moon-walked backwards keeping a mere inch from the grasping fingers, he swivelled lightly on one leg, swinging Sammy in a wide arc, and lopped one arm off at the elbow, continuing the movement he ducked under the other arm, then danced full circle around the zombie, flickering Sammy out again to take the other off at the wrist, he waltzed around twice more before doing a double spin, culminating in a low slash that took both legs off at the knees.

The rain began just as Frank was raising Sammy to give the final blow, “Okay,” thought Frank, “game over, time to get going.” He sliced off the head in a single blow, then picked it up from the street. Holding the head by the hair he hoisted it high, tilted his head back, and laughed his triumph to the sky, as the rain fell onto his face, the single drop of virus-filled liquid that dripped from the zombie's lip went unnoticed as it landed on the side of his nose, and was washed by the raindrops into his open laughing mouth....

©2011 Stephen. J. Green.