Reader’s Choice selection from DMC’s flash fiction group, Friday Frights.
by Jeffrey Hollar:
Legal Disclaimer: As the attorney of record and chief executor of the estate of one, Zigismund Abraham Zapperstein, herein after referred to by his stage name of Ziggy Zapp I have been requested to provide the following information. While the memoirs of Ziggy Zapp may contain what seem, on the surface, to be stories of an anecdotal nature, it is vital to note that the memoirs, in their entirety, have been vetted by the Zombie Emergency Management Administration (ZEMA) as well as by scientific experts from nearly all universities still in existence.
Excerpt from “Swingin’ To Live”:
So, who woulda guessed the key to not only survivin’ but turnin’ a tidy profit from the Zombie Apocalypse (ZA) lay not in superior firepower but in awesome beats. Yeah man, you heard me cats. All them soldier boys in camo shoulda traded the duds in for a proper Zoot suit. Insteada flingin’ lead and incineratin’ away they woulda done better to be swingin’ the brass and ticklin’ them ole ivories.
When the ZA come up on us, me and the guys was just another small road orchestra lookin’ for a gig. The whole swing craze of the late 20th century peaked a bit before we made the scene, but hey, we was already “committed”. We did a lotta Ramada Inn gigs, some union hall parties and the occasional bar mitzvah and managed to keep ourselves afloat, so to speak. I won’t kid ya. Those were some tough times that only got tougher for awhile.
We was in Scranton, holed up in an all-night bender and jam session when the Undead Masses come swarmin’ in on the place. We didn’t know nothin’ had gone down ‘till we come stumblin’ out into Oh Shitsville with them zombies gnawin’ the hell outta anybody and anything.
We figured we was daisies up and damned Joey Bones decided to go out wailin’ on his sax.
Well fuck me runnin’ if them slobberin ‘ bastards didn’t stop their meal and go into some kinda trance. Now some of them eggheads say it’s got to do with frequencies and harmonics and some shit but we like to think that it’s the pure soul of the music just winds ‘em down and gets ‘em all to swayin’ along.
Well, we kept the horns ablowin’ while we boarded the bus and sailed right on outta that shitstorm and onto the open road. From that day on, things got a whole lot sweeter for us and we never fuckin’ looked back.
We was hotter than a five-dollar pistol anywhere and everywhere we stopped. See, with the ZA there just wasn’t a whole lotta happy, entertainin’ stuff to do. The movie houses went bust. Sittin’ in the dark when a buncha bloodthirsty ghouls could come poppin’ in at any time wasn’t wise. Odd enough, same went for damned near everything but us. Live theater, operas, sporting events…whatever, they all got nixed as just settin’ yourself up to be a Happy Meal for the “shuffle and feed” crowd.
But we was different. Dance halls were packed to the rafters with new-made hipsters flippin’, twistin’ and swingin’ the night away to our repertoire. Even if the face-eaters decided to crash the party, our crazy brand of Big Band, blues and jazz sat ‘em back on their collective asses like them Injun guys done with snakes.
Hell, we’d play non-stop for 6, 7 hours straight and all the while fillin’ our tip jars almost as fast as the stuff we played. End of the night, everybody would slide on out while we covered them with our licks. Then we’d collect up our wages and play our way on down to the next town.
Them government pukes finally got the hint and stole all our thunder, damn ‘em. They declared our recordings, sheet music, and all “materials necessary/essential to public safety and security” and there went our meal ticket. Oh, we lived us a fine ole time off our saved up dough and some residuals but nothin’ like the gravy train with biscuit wheels we’d been drivin’ down the line.
The end of Ziggy Zapp and the ZA Zippers come when they started sendin’ out trucks with mobile loudspeakers pumpin’ OUR music out like they had a right to do so. They used it to herd the zombies inta traps and slow but sure they finally exterminated ‘em all.
We all got some kinda jive-assed certificates and medals and such bullshit but ya know them political ass clowns never DID pay us for our stuff or give us back the rights to it. Anyway, there’s a whole lotta sweet details later on in this book, just figured it was best to start this set off with the playlist so ya knew where we was comin’ from.
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