Fifty Shades of Brain
by Jeffrey John Eyamie
Dustin Blackledge tried to make his breath quieter so the garbage bags wouldn’t crinkle. Right now, with the heaving up and down of his chest, the dumpster sounded like a megaphone of garbage bag crinkling – the loudest, most reverberated garbage bag crinkle of all time. The rats that lived beneath where Dustin had curled up were probably banging their broomsticks on the roof and chirping “oi, cool it with the racket already!”
Maybe this wasn’t much of a hiding place after all.
An explosion in the distance made everything rumble. It couldn’t have been more than a block away… downtown Modesta was under siege. They’re going to find me. They’re going to kill me. This isn’t a nightmare this is real there’s no escape oh my god oh my god oh my god.
He sniffled a bit. Wiped some moisture from the corner of his eye. His penny loafers were digging holes into his achilles tendons. Dustin knew it was only a matter of time before the zombies got him.
If only I had passed my driver’s test.
If Dustin had passed his driver’s test, he could have driven his mom’s car. If he could have driven his mom’s car, he wouldn’t have asked Pablo for a ride to prom. He wouldn’t have had to wait outside his front door for an hour, hoping that Pablo was just running late but knowing that Pablo wasn’t coming to get him.
Yep, if Dustin had passed his driver’s test, he was sure he would be safe and sound at the Michael Jackson prom at Jacob Williams High School and not trying to run from the bloodthirsty taffeta-and-tiara-wearing zombie girls who were presently wreaking havoc on his town. And who were presently looking to eat his guts. The garbage bags crinkled louder than ever.
Stop breathing, stop breathing, stop -
Something took Dustin’s breath away. It was the partially-manicured hand of a zombie princess, which grabbed him by the shoulder. In terror, Dustin swallowed his breath and choked. Finally, he was silent.
He didn’t make a sound as another hand clutched his ankle, and another grabbed him by the ribs, tearing through his shirt and digging into his flesh. Another clutched his neck. And another. More hands than Dustin could count pulled him from the dumpster and slammed him to the concrete.
Four zombie princesses growled and drooled as they scraped at Dustin’s Michael Jackson-inspired pirate shirt, popping each button with ease.
In a second, Dustin was stunned, gasping, topless and prepared for death. The princess who still had teeth bared them. The one who still had two lips parted them in a smile. They all stared at Dustin’s palpitating heart.
As their bloodied, splintered gel nails reached for Dustin’s chest, they stopped.
There was a purposeful clip-clopping behind them. The clip-clopping of a woman’s stiletto heels.
Dustin looked up, between the zombie princesses as they looked back at the wearer of the heels: it was another zombie – petite and immaculately made up. Leopard skin Steve Maddens. Matching Birkin Bag. A full-on crown perched on her brown up-do. Her eyes were a sickly, supernatural-looking green. Dustin’s thing was always big, pretty eyes, and if the eyes weren’t eyeing him up and down like they were checking for marbling and gristle, he would have been attracted.
“Make way for the queen,” she said to the zombie princesses. Her voice was high-pitched and human-sounding, with a bit of twang; Dustin couldn’t make out the accent. Pretty hot for a zombie, he thought as he pushed himself up against the side of the dumpster.
The princesses growled and lunged at her.
The Zombie Queen shot her arm up – “wait!”
The princesses stopped.
The Zombie Queen reached into her handbag. She mumbled to herself: “know it’s in here somewhere. Ah.” She pulled out an electric carving knife – the fancy cordless kind.
The four princesses attacked.
“Ah-ah,” the Zombie Queen said. “Before I literally rock your faces off, let me just put this bag down. We don’t want to scuff a Birkin bag, do we?”
The zombie princesses slowly shook their heads and grunted ‘no.’
“God forbid we get some spatter on it.” Daintily, the Zombie Queen placed her handbag in a clean corner of the alley, straightened her skirt, flicked on the electric carving knife, and said, quite cheerfully over the whrrrrrrr, “okie dokie pokeys.”
What Dustin saw next made him decide that this Zombie Queen was The One.
Like some kind of superhero, she bounded and leaped with such speed and agility that Dustin could barely see her. She was a magenta streak with leopard skin accents as she tore into each zombie princess a little at a time.
I’m gonna die and she makes killing look… pretty. Dainty.
The princesses had no chance. Whenever a zombie princess reached or kicked at the Queen, a limb went flying and the Queen’s whirring knife dug into the zombie princess’s face. Dustin was horrified and tantalized at the same time.
I’m ready to submit. Submit to the Zombie Queen.
In seconds, the four princesses had lost their faces. They lay on the floor of the alleyway, bleeding and twitching. And the Zombie Queen made her way toward Dustin.
She looked hungry for him.
A feeling had overcome Dustin: the sweetness of utter surrender. “Zombie Queen?” Dustin stammered. “You can have me. I will submit to you, willingly. But there have to be some rules.”
The Zombie Queen licked her lips and smiled.
“I’m the Queen, darlin. I make the rules.”
Dustin knelt, closed his eyes, and let the Zombie Queen have her way with him.
The last word that Dustin heard, over the whirring of the electric knife:
“Squee!”
THAT. WAS. FREAKING. AMAAAAAAZING.
Seriously, I’m totally not even joking. I am always SUPER excited and uber flattered when any of the author’s guestposting here at The Bookish Brunette, write *shorts* or *mini stories about the Zombie Queen (shhhhyea it’s wicked badass having alter ego). But what makes THIS particular story SO much fun- is that Jeff John Eyamie doesn’t even KNOW me. At all. I know right?
Fifty Shades of Brain is EPIC and will go down in HISTORY here at The Bookish Brunette as one of the best stories EVER!