This week’s creative piece steps outside the box to deliver a look into the mind of thirteen-year-old zombie hunter Caramia Rediviva. Arizona-based writer Wilson F. Engel, III gets creative in his rendering of Caramia’s world and the result is an entertaining and fast-paced piece of short fiction.
Caramia Rediviva
My frame defines me. Now you see me . . . now you don’t. Flitting around the mall on my new bike with my hair flying like a red streak behind me, I defy authorities of all kinds, even the authority of the Newtonian physical laws of the universe. Zombies have no regard for niceties, and they can be found almost anywhere. Over there, right now, is one of THEM. By the Starbucks. Excuse me, I will ride this way and that, slide under the barrier, and voila! Zap you! Another Zombie gone, no thank you to my pursuers.
Now the Feds have me traced and tracked. They don’t know about THEM or about ME. Imagine calling my DAD! Sheesh. As if I am some sort of monstra. Well, thank you, I guess I am. How would you like to wake up in a pool of your own blood? Thought so. Tell me I should wait, I’ll guarantee you won’t see me tomorrow. I am Caramia the bicycle girl, the board girl, Zombie killer supreme. I rise from my own blood and run roughshod over your illusions, for they will kill you for certain.
Hear me, Zombies? Bloodsucking scum. Mall crawling on my bike, I dodge the law and, over there! Another one of THEM. Under and among the crowd, flash girls and dweebs, nobodies. I am the super agent of the impossible. Don’t look at me, you rafter. I am after THEM. My bike is my weapon, and here I go again. Brake, slide, fire. Another Zombie gone. And look—no blood in this one. No feast today, Zombie GF! LMAO.
Know what I hate? Zombies on the loose. Take would-be BF Ben, the dweeb! He did not believe in ZFs, and now where is he? Working as a stooge for the Feds, my searchers, my fiends. Blast by the crowds, and here I go again! Imagine a Zombie Friend. In the media, who knows the diff? Am I a ZF? Only clandestine, to find my prey.
Cool, for there along the ledge looking down on their prey are two ZFs. Let me slide right by, taking two. ONE, TWO. That makes FOUR taken down in one mall, one just before closing time. And I am away, back home again on my murdercycle, blowing away Zombies as I go.
Caramia. Freaky red-haired bike aficionado, death wheeler suprema. Diva. Watch me fly across the blood-red moon. Watch me swoon and duck under the hedge gate, back into the garage next to Dad’s Mercedes. My ride is better because cheaper and more deadly. Zombie deadly.
Imagine Zombies teaching in the Middle Schools. If you cannot think it, just figure Mrs. Catsup squirting her nonsense on those addled brains. Bloody mess her classes are, and students are devoured or minced, their blood everywhere. Zombies in the making. Odd the ZF became a legendary way to out a Zombie until folks thought it super cool, cryogenically comically cool and cruel to bully some with taunts of ZF! So everyone no longer had BFs or GFs but ZFs. That transgender, upender bed of lies in which we all wallow. Rise from the bed of blood and wash, and then run to the bike and I am gone again.
Over there will be the Fed lookout team. Drugs and such. Boring stuff, and what self-respecting tween would dare? I have crossed the bar now, so looking back I see the outlines clearly. I graduated from the board. I took my first successful shots at Zombies and WIPED THEM. They are just gone. ZFs no more. And I asked Zellie about her BF. Oh yes, just asked her, and she could not truly answer whether Art was her BF or, as he sexted, ZF. I read her sexts, and I knew right away the dweeb was a Zombie. POW. I caught him at the mall—just riding by, you see—and zapped him or it or whatever. Stay away from my GFs, Zombies! Imagine Art trying to frame me as a bully-girl because I outed him.
Zombie music, a talisman for ZF gatherings. Feds would not listen. Could not listen to a thirteen-year-old geek girl like me, troublesome redhead nut job, Caramia.
Zip under the line again, up the atrium and around the side of the building, class doors on the outside, bike rack right by the door. Just in time Zombie arrivals noted. Another boring day, but instead of numbers ratchet Zombies, target and plan. Geometry of deviltry and countermeasures. Caramia plots and schemes. Waving my hand because the rest room calls, and Zombies live there, waiting. On my bike again. Zipping to the mall, two down on the way and one waiting there at the rest-room door. Zap. And here come the truant folks, a race. Caramia is off again on her super bike, the rail gun certain Zombie dude killer bike, guaranteed.
Believe a six foot one thirteen-year-old girl with red hair? Believe it. See there we have a robbery in progress. Definitely not Zombies. Watch me play. In, out and around. Feds all over the place. Caramia shows the play. They close in behind me, and I am out and off. In class, breaking a sweat barely, wishing I could strip bare and show them all. But death before dishonor. I am Caramia.
Bike to the open computer, and I am logged on searching, coordinating with my wrist watch computer and with my on-bike screen. Navigating has become exciting again because I can keep my hands and mind free as my bike caroms and slides. And locks on—there! POW! Another Zombie locked and—gone! Caramia, you are soooo good. Girl, you ROCK! And now back to class. Boring. So boring.
If only we had all been as cool and energetic as Caramia at thirteen, hunting zombies and escaping Feds between classes, then life might have been much more interesting for us all!
Join us again next week for more great creative work!
Words, Pauses, Noises 