NUKE Love!: A Road Trip Through the Zombie Apocalypse... by Scott Christian Carr Page A

crusty old Koop dries his hands and flips on the radio as Alan the Alchy staggers in from the cold.
     
                  ...welcome back to Love Talk –just kidding, you’re tuned into Acid Rock, only on Satellite Underground, but you already know that, unless you’re dosed and trippin’ the stratosphere, which brings us back to point—time for a friendly public service announcement from yer favorite gal pal Debbie Diamond. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or haven’t left the bar in three days, you know that the dead are walking, and man, are they hungry! So get to your shelters, folks, and lock your doors. Get to your churches, ‘cause it’s time to start praying—grab your honeys, call a priest, ‘cause Daddy-O, I’ve been released! Yee-haw! And now that that’s outta the way… we’ve got Rocket Jones on the line. How are we doing today, Spaceman?
     
                  “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Alan announces in his loudest need-a-brewsky-quick voice, not to be outdone by the radio. “Hoooo-ley! What’s goin’ on outside! Friggin sky is falling… Looks like the goddamn heavenly operatin’ system done crashed!” He waits for a reply, receives none. “Go out an’ look up, you don’t believe me,” he dares his lifelong toasting buddies. “The hell’s next? Friggin’ zombies here in Scranton?”
                  “Not in my backyard!” from the far end of the bar.
                  “Amen, brother!” Redding holds up a beer and a wing. His long, greasy black hair nearly touches the bar—his arm, a tattoo study of flaming skulls and upside-down crosses. “Not in our backyard, indeedy… Let the rest of the country eat themselves silly in sin. Scranton don’t play that game!”
                  “Well, they got ‘em in Wilkes-Barre,” Koop drops a fresh plate of wings in front of Redding. “An’ Billy-Boo says they saw some over on Cedar Street. By the church. Stumblin’ around an’ smellin’ up the place…”
                  “Sumbitch…” Redding shakes his head, nuclear wing paused between the bar and his mouth. “Christ Savior—I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Father Bob and his faithful flock of devotees got all their on-again, off-again dead, not dead friends and relatives shacked up in there with ‘em…” He turns to the far end of the bar. “Whatchoo got to say ‘bout that, Schmoe?”
                  “Uhhh…” Schmoe is uncertain. “Not in my backyard?”
                  “That’s right!” the antichrist declares. “Not in OUR backyard! What say ye, good men?” he starts the chant. “Not in our backyard…! Not in our backyard…!”
                  “NOT IN OUR BACKYARD!—NOT IN OUR BACKYARD!—NOT IN OUR BACKYARD!”
                  “You know what they say, dontcha?” Redding asks the crowd, “When bad things happen…?”
                  The crowd is stumped.
                  “More bad things happen!”
                  “MORE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!—MORE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!—MORE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!”
    “How do we know they’re not harboring their dead?” the Bad Man shakes his head and smiles.
    “It ain’t right,” Alchy Alan frowns.
    “Damn right, it ain’t right,” Redding grins. Takes a bite and smiles a mouthful of sharp, nuclear teeth. “And you know WHO ain’t right, right?”
    “FA-THER BOB!—FA-THER BOB!—FA-THER BOB!”
    “He ain’t right in the head,” says Alchy.
    Redding sucks the last of the meat from his wing and turns to the mob. “Drink up, boys! Cuz we gonna blow this taco stand…!”
     

 
     
     
     
    D ebbie… Debbie… how could you do this to me? To us? Me stuck up here, and you… you…
                  That’s right, Jones. You ARE stuck up there. On the friggin’ Moon. And you’re not coming back. Get over it. Did you really