Pick Bunny’s Brainz

I heard a bunch of feet come stomping in to the clubroom, and then I heard them pouring drinks, which kind of sucked, because that meant they would be sitting around all night. I wished I had a computer so I could work on making some scary Halloween cartoons.

I made out the coach’s voice, and the voices of some of my old teachers, and some of the guys on the football team. And then you could have knocked me over with a feather, because I heard a voice that I hadn’t heard in a million years, but there was no mistaking it.

There was only one person in the world I knew who sounded like a Southern Baptist minister and said the F-word twenty times a minute.

It was John Trickle. Johnny Trick, I’d heard his friends call him. I used to call him Uncle John, when I was a kid. I listened hard and kept telling myself no way, but when he said, “the ol’ alma fuckin’ mater” just like he used to, I knew it was my dad’s old best friend.

Soon he was running the conversation, firing questions at the coach and at some guys’ whose voices I didn’t recognize even though I was eavesdropping as hard as I could.

This is what I overheard.

One second, they’re talking about the missing cheerleaders and how now it’s serious because ‘one of their own’ is missing. The next second, casual as anything, like it’s no big deal at all, they’re talking about zombies. No. Scratch that. They’re SHOUTING about zombies.

Uncle John says that effing zombies have been spotted all over the effing school grounds, and that it’s the effing coach’s effing job to find them.

The coach says he wants nothing to do with the whole mess, that the organization isn’t what it used to be, it’s full of kids with no sense that don’t even play football…

And then Uncle John interrupts him, and he’s talking about effing tradition, and effing responsibility, and that if killing some undead motherf*ckers is what it takes, he’s sure as hell not going to run and hide, especially when a tw0-hundred-year-old fraternity is at stake. And it sounds like he’s going to yell and swear a lot more, and then the coach says, really quietly,

“It wouldn’t be going down like this if Marcus was still alive.”

And suddenly I’m both hot and shivery because that is my dad’s name.

And now Uncle John isn’t saying anything, he’s just really quiet. And the coach says, “It was his daughter, Johnny. How did we fuck something like that up?”

And then they stayed there for a long time, talking in low voices, but I couldn’t pay attention.

THE ZOMBIE HUNTERS AND THE SECRET FOOTBALL CLUB WERE THE SAME THING. And it was all centered around a fraternity. The fraternity, I’m sure, that Lance is a part of.

I was sure of it because my dad played football in high school, at this high school, and he went on to play college ball, at the same university that Lance goes to. And him and Uncle John, they met because they joined the same frat. That’s why they called themselves brothers.

Mom always hated Uncle John, but I never knew why. Now I feel like maybe I’m an idiot, and I’ve never really understood anything, my whole life.

Okay, so obviously, there’s no point pretending. The truth is that somehow, thanks to all this zombie stuff, I am totally psychic. All kinds of things tell their plans to me, I see people’s memories when I’m turning them into a zombie, AND sometimes, I can see what other zombies are doing. Zombies that I don’t even know exist. I wonder if maybe I am some breed of vampire or something, because a lot of this stuff is like vampires. Except I don’t know if vampires get told things, by trees and walls and bugs and stuff. Or even if vampires are really real. Sigh. Anyway, after the whole Leland thing, I got a better idea of how it all fit together. I was being shown all this stuff for a reason, probably so I could be a better zombie. It’s because I had this feeling that I was able to clean up the clubroom. Old Bunny would have just said, uh-uh, that is WAY too much blood, but I knew we couldn’t up and find a new hideout. So I cleaned all day and all night and all day and then it was over! And I realized that I couldn’t keep letting us starve, because we aren’t just cheerleaders anymore, we are, like, a society! So I thought I’d see if we could eat stuff other than people first, which was hilarious. Leland will eat, like, gophers and cockroaches and corndogs, but it turns out that Leland will also eat a phonebook if you smear some blood on it. Cee and Misha also ate the gopher, but they looked all pissed off the whole time, and I was forced to realize something, which is that I might be a brain-eating zombie, but that does not make me want to eat a gopher. Sorry. There is just no freakin way. Long story short, we’ve got to occasionally be able to eat, so I’m going to try to do some meal planning, to avoid letting things get out of control again. The other major life issue here is that we’re living in the clubroom of some secret society. There is also a secret society of zombie hunters out to kill us. So I’m thinking: coincidence? No freaking way. And when I sit very quietly, and do pranayama, this little voice from the wall by my head and the ground under me and another little voice way in the distance all say that I can’t wait. I can’t sit and wait.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to not wait for until last night, when I finally finished cleaning and it was just in time because someone was coming down the stairs to the clubroom and I had about two seconds to shove everybody out the little back door.

PS - All the images I did up with Toon-FX using regular pics, s’check it out!

Obviously, I’ve been super busy with getting us all looking fabulicious once again. I gave Misha a super cute ultra short boy cut from this faux-fur mini jacket she had in her locker, and she looks SOOOO good. I’ll do this whole cartoon zombie photo shoot of us right away!

With CeeCee, I had to take her weave out first, which was a HUGE pain, and caused, like, a TON of her brain to fall out (oops!), but it was worth it. I used a thinner laminate film on her so that she would have more flexibility. Once her makeover was totally complete, she looked…wmaybe not great, but like someone in a really great zombie costume.

Finally, it was my turn. The worst part was shaving my head/pulling all my hair out. That was bad, but going in to the oven was like nothing. Five minutes of heat and darkness, but no pain, and then voila, I was reborn, a shiny plastic version of my former self.

Of course, I got about two seconds to be proud of myself before all hell broke loose. I had stopped quickly at the home ec room to get supplies for my weave, when I heard yelling vibrating through the entire school.

Actually, it wasn’t really yelling. More like a person screaming, and a zombie roaring.

I’d left Misha and CeeCee out in the tunnel so they wouldn’t be in the clubroom if anyone showed up, but as I ran (read: hobbled) back underground and down the endless tiny tunnel, I could already smell what had happened.

Leland had come down to the clubroom, alone, and Misha had busted through the door to get at him.

I could smell it all. The dust that Misha kicked up in the tunnel, the scraped metal of the beaten-down door, the acidic stink of a zombie in hunting mode, and Leland, obviously, reeking like sweat and horror and finally, before I could get to them, blood.

We’re getting settled into our new place. It’s pretty swank, and people hardly ever come down here. The only drawbacks is that I have to do a lot of cleaning up. I haven’t even had time to toonitize many pics for you guys because everything is SUCH A MESS.

Harsh reality check: we are falling apart. Besides CeeCee, our hair is coming out in clumps, everything’s flaking and peeling and breaking off in chunks, and even with the zombie polish, we leak gooey stuff in every gross color you can imagine.

Last night, I raided the janitor’s supply closet (again) and scored a big bottle of bleach to clean the carpets. And while I was up there, I noticed that the school’s got this old laminator stored in the back all covered in dust.

I remember it being a really big deal in grade 1 when we made our own placemats and they all got laminated. I guess they don’t do that at school anymore, but I’ve still got mine. It was actually super durable.

And it got me thinking. This zombie polish I made is only a temporary solution. But what if we could laminate ourselves?!

I did some research online, and figured out that I couldn’t put us through the machine, but I could do the next best thing.

Stored along with the laminator were all these rolls of laminating film. So last night, I took Misha out, and wrapped her up in this film. Then we went to the kitchen off the school cafeteria and I wrapped her in foil, because on the internet, they say you need some kind of guard between the laminate and the heat.

After that, I stuck her in the big oven for about four minutes at 260 degrees.

Eek! Do you hate me now? Am I awful?

I know I should have tried it on myself first, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to just stick myself in an oven like that. And even Misha, who didn’t know what was going on, was, like, screaming and fighting me…

But guess what? It worked! She came out all smooth and shiny with hardly any problems.

And okay, maybe the rest of her hair all fried off, and maybe the film I used was too thick, so she walks like a robot now, but NO smell, NO mess (except from her face, which maybe I’ll try laminating another time), and guaranteed no parts falling off!

It started with a bottle of bleach, but in the end it’s your undead chic beauty tip of the week. Ta-da!

This is what I’ve figured out.

In Ring City, football is kind of a big deal. The stars of the team get treated like kings, and even cheerleaders get a lot of status, but obviously we don’t get status like the guys.

The room that we found under the school grounds is some kind of secret football club room. Plush carpets, fat leather couches and chairs, a pool table giant flatscreen TV, a fully stocked bar, the works.

There’s nothing that really says ‘club room,’ exactly – no retired jerseys on the wall or anything, but I figured out that it was a football thing because just as we were getting settled, we heard people clattering down the stairs that were behind the main door, across the room from our weird little entrance.

I hustled the girls back out of the room, and then we heard the coach’s big booming voice talking on the other side. And I could tell he was SMOKING! A CIGARETTE! INDOORS!

There were a bunch of other voices, too, and then Misha started freaking out for some reason, and I focused and realized I could hear her boyfriend Leland, talking loudly above the other voices.

They were arguing about whether or not they should let the cops search the club room or not. Leland was shouting that they couldn’t let anything get in the way of finding the girls, but he was the only one arguing. I put my arm around Misha.

I felt sorry for Leland. Since Mish ‘disappeared,’ I’d seen him a lot, sitting around outside school by himself, just looking really depressed (I even tooned this sad picture of him). Which was weird because Leland is a popular guy that usually acts like he’s so above everything. But now he was really fighting for her.

The problem was that some of the cops hadn’t been football players, so they didn’t know about the club, and apparently, it’s a pretty big secret.

The coach said, “Leland, you really want Sergeant Destino to find out why your dad got that scholarship to State and he didn’t? Because I’m pretty sure Leland Sr. doesn’t want that cat let out of the bag at this point.”

“We could at least tell them about the tunnels,” Leland shot back.

“And say what?” someone else said. “That there’s this whole network of secret tunnels under the school that only we know about, but that has nothing to do with us in particular, or our membership in an essentially illegal organization?”

I felt a shiver go down my spine, a feeling that I was starting to think was connected with some kinda zombie sixth sense. Leland mumbled something else, but that pretty much ended the discussion.

We waited until they left, then crawled back into the room. I figure we’ll stay here most of the time, and go hide out in the hall when the football club uses the room. Who knows? We might even learn something, spying on these guys.

I found us a new hideout. Sort of by accident. I’ll put up some toony-toons of it tomorrow, but for now I’ll just tell you how it happened.

For the first time, the cops actually brought DOGS down into the basement. I guess people aren’t just going to forget about a bunch of missing cheerleaders. And for the record, I do feel bad for Misha and CeeCee’s parents. I do! I know them pretty well, after all, and I know especially Misha’s mom will be freakin out.

But we gotta survive. Especially now that I feel like zombies are really part of the big picture, y’know? Like, we totally have some bigger purpose than just being a plague on society…

Or maybe our bigger purpose IS to be plague on society. Like, maybe we’re the planet’s idea of cosmic retribution for people being so evil and corrupt.

That’s the point of all the zombie movies, right?

Anyway, I’m getting off topic, which I hear is bad from blogging. The point of this was to tell you about when the dogs came down. I crammed us all in to the crawlspace, as usual, but as soon as the dogs came in the room, they went bananas barking at the grate we were hiding behind.

I totally panicked, so I just started pushing at Misha and CeeCee, and thinking really hard “MOVE! MOVE YOUR FAT ZOMBIE ASSES!” And we were all squirming around in there, and then all of a sudden there was this crazy cracking noise

AND THE GROUND FELL RIGHT OUT FROM UNDER US!

We landed in this tiny underground tunnel, and I was sure the cops heard the big crash, so right away I got the girls up and scrambling down the tunnel.

It was pitch black, even for zombie vision, so I couldn’t really see where we were going until BAM! There was light everywhere, and there were these really elaborate lights in the wall, and this giant, super fancy archway right in front of us with a tiny little metal door, and I was like oh shit end of the line, but Misha and CeeCee still had this order from me to MOVE so they slammed against the metal door like crazy and suddenly it busted open!

We all fell through and I slammed the door behind me. Then I turned around only to behold the most pimpingest freakin’ room I have ever seen.

This stuff was really fun to toon. Thanks for saying my stuff is looking good, Suzanne! Hmm, maybe I could put a little how-to about Toon-FX up here. Haha as if I could ever be the expert on anything!

This girl Hillary made a good point on my last blog. She was like “why don’t you protect yourself by making more zombies?”

Even a couple weeks ago, I’d have said that was totally gross and weird, but now? I’ve got the girls to think about, and they need to eat, and we really probably do need more zombies around us, just to protect ourselves.

I mean, why should we be the only ones?

I’ve been thinking about it, and doing my yoga breathing (my mom would be so thrilled), and here’s the thing: I’ve been in the mind this whole time that it’s wrong to bite people because eating people and turning them into zombies is horrible.

And maybe eating people is horrible, but IS BEING A ZOMBIE REALLY HORRIBLE?

Because if being a zombie isn’t all that bad, then it’s not really bad to create zombies, right?

When you’re in Pranayama, my mother says you can either ask the universe a question, or just be open to whatever wisdom it’s willing to give. So I asked, “Is it totally gross and weird to make zombies?”

When I was done the exercise, this is what I knew:

The question isn’t “Is making zombies weird and gross?” The question is “Is there any such thing as weird and gross?”

The world is full of perverts and disasters and sad things and rotting things and vomit and disease and mutations that are physical and mental. So is anything actually weird or gross?

The answer is NO, which is the opposite of everything I’ve ever thought. Woah.

So back to the point: Is there a place in the universe for zombies?

The answer is blurry. It’s like one of those old zen master questions. The answer is YES and NO.

Okay.

I painted my nails, played with toon-photo a bit, and did some Pranayama yoga, and I think I finally got this all straight in my head.

It seems like these brown robe guys are some kind of secret society of zombie hunters, right? Which means they’re into all this sci-fi stuff, which means maybe they know how to make zombies, right?

Sooooo, they definitely made me a zombie. I’m so sure of that now – but WHY?

Could it be because they had no one to hunt, because zombies, like, totally don’t exist?

Would they turn me into a zombie just to hunt me?

And more importantly - How could Lance do this to me?

Yeah, I know I’ve gotta get over him. I’m just really confused right now.

It’s hard to figure this stuff out, because it’s really easy to just zone out for hours and hours when you’re a zombie, and the next thing I know it’s night…

And at night now, I have to figure out how to get us out of this basement, and snoop around school trying to find a to a better hiding spot. The school was PISSED about the smashed library window, and now they’re CONVINCED there’s someone hiding in the school. And that it all has to do with the people disappearing.

Which is pretty smart of them, really, since they’re totally right!

They searched the basement again yesterday. With CeeCee onboard, it’s HARD to fit in to the tiny crawlspace.

AND I thought that after the fight, Misha and CeeC wouldn’t be trying to escape to eat and whatever, but they’re worse now!

We definitely need to relocate.