Zomband

AUTHORS NOTE:-
In the comments section of my March 4th #fridayflash ZOMBAITING, I happened to remark that I found zombie fiction “quite easy to write”, and so my daughter Louise, a talented writer and published poet, who is also a lover of zombie fiction, challenged me to write only zombie stories during April, so I accepted the challenge, and ZOMBAND is the first of the five April zombie #Fridayflashes.

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Gary 'Boulderbelly' Lucas shuffled through the open door of the nightclub, unmindful of his threadbare appearance, the ripped and shredded suit, the torn frilly-fronted shirt and bow tie much blood-stained from the many violent and gluttonous mealtimes. He was also unmindful of the other shuffling, shambling undead as he made his way through the moaning crowd towards the stage.

Boulderbelly's brain flickered with memories of his former life, images of the jazz band he fronted, his musical genius, his drug addiction, he had no understanding of the images, but somewhere deep inside his cortex, a compulsion formed, brewed, fermented, became irresistible.

As he dragged his feet across the boards there came a dull clang as his wingtip shoe sent something brassy-shiny spinning.

“Peeeek uuuuup” Spoke the voice in his dead head.

Boulderbelly slowly reached down and curled his fingers around the instrument, straightening, he lifted the mouthpiece to his lips.... and blew....

Pfffffffffffffffffffftttttttttttt

In his zombie mind the tone of the trombone sounded compelling and sweet.

Pfft.. Pfft... Pfft... Pfffft... He launched into the mindless, one-note, walking dead version of “When the saints go marching in”

The other shamblers paused in their aimless shambling, all heads turned toward the stage, eyes wide, mouths agape.

A skinny guy wearing a flowery shirt shuffled forwards, if his brain still worked he would have memories of being called Ronnie 'Flaky-fingers' Bagshaw, he fumbled his way onto the stage and picked up the guitar...

Drraannng.. Drraannng... Drraannng... the three remaining strings made a fine accompaniment to the trombone.

Another found his way up there, a very tall man with a pencil moustache and a high forehead, any jazz fan would have no trouble recognizing his torn features as that of former musician Jimmy 'Quickstick' Williams, he groped his way to the seat, picked up the drumsticks and gave it his all.

Boom..clash... Boom..clash... Boom..clash...

The hundreds of walking corpses began finding their way to seats, their defunct minds somehow telling them that this was getting interesting.

Before long several more rotting bodies had made their way to the stage, and the instruments...

Noah 'Needlearm' Shulky tinkled the ivories and ebonies.

Danny 'Lushlips' Oliver, despite both of his lips having rotted away, still managed to tease a note from the cornet.

The double bass was manned by one-legged Alan 'Hoppy' Hopkins, the only hopping corpse in zombie history.

Big Jimmy “Peepers” Peterson peeped out a soulful monotone on the clarinet.

The band was topped off by ex-sensational vocalist Leo Claine, whose multi-octave moans echoed around the room alongside the cacophony of instrumentalism.

The crowd went wild, those that still had both hands clapped along, those with less than both did the best they could, toes tapped along to the PffftDrranngBoomclashDungdung beat...

Benny Percival looked down from where he was hiding amongst the spotlights and electricals, as a music agent he could see the potential, now all he needed was some signed contracts and a name for the band.


©2011 Stephen. J. Green.