From: Dry (dryad48@aol.commoner) Subject: [PW!] Zombie Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2001-04-03 21:38:02 PST [PW!] Zombie written by: Dry "Yeah, they were teasing me again. Doesn't that give me the right to punish them? You never punish them, all you do is point your finger and give them the eye. They don't care about that kinda stuff. It just makes you look like an idiot. I mean, like, the other day when they were throwing french fries at me. And you know the fries are more important. So what did I do? I walked right up to that asshole and socked him right in the nose. A-word? Sorry. I mean, he's just doing that stuff to be cool because he has pokemon and I don't. I mean, pokemon is not really important. That's what my father says all the time. Hell, oh, heck, thats about the only thing he ever usually talks about. 'Pokemon will ruin your life. Think about making a real living.' Yeah, he's right I guess. I mean, pokemon isn't gonna help the people out there. Can I go now? What? My father? Isn't that none of your business? Suspension? OK, whatever. No, I wouldn't say he neglects me, I dunno. I miss mom. I dunno why she married him. I mean, he's old enough to be my much older brother. Well, yeah, she was only 29 when... Anyway... can I go now? He has a job, yeah. He buys me stuff, yeah. Well, most of the time he's sitting on our top floor and looking out the window, elbow on the table. I dunno, he just stares out there at the trees or the sky. And no, he's not high, I get that a lot. I dunno 'how' he looks he just does. It's sorta like he's waiting for something to happen. I dunno, maybe he misses someone, or something. Not my mom. Sometimes I feel sorry for him. He acts like he's been to hell and back sometimes. He listens to too much of that Radiohead stuff it just makes it worse. Can I go now? No, he doesn't hit me. Yeah, he touches me. What? You mean the other thing? Man, you're like five times as old as me. You should actually say what you mean. I'm twelve, we already know about this stuff. Can I go now? Finally! I don't get detention this time, do I? Great." Four fifteen in the afternoon. Shimmering sun in bloom overhead. Wind bending toward the burning buildings. They stand helplessly against the heat. It isn't even summer yet. Kurt still had time to go to the park and meet with what few real friends he had. He was supposed to be home by sundown and always was not knowing why. There probably wasn't any real consequence. As he approached the park Kurt saw one of the school's pokemon trainers with his yellow and black striped pokemon. Kurt didn't know the names. He looked at the guy and grumbled to himself. "Look at him, all his future will be nothing but pokemon. He's gonna earn money by forcing little creatures to fight. He's gonna get chicks by forcing little creatures to fight. He's gonna... He has his life laid out for him. All he has to do is not stray from the path. Kurt sighed and started at the little pipsqueak jumping up and down. The trainer turned his head in Kurt's direction. Kurt looked away and kept walking. "I'm not supposed to think about this stuff... I'm just a kid." Kurt reached the park and looked around. Grass, trees, grass, bushes, grass, benches, grass, ponds, grass, pavement, grass. No one. Kurt sighed and walked over to a bench under a tree. He laid his body on the bench making sure the branches shaded his eyes, let out a sigh, and stared at the dirt pavement crawling to a bend around the corner, where his house would be. Only his mother, his father, his stepfather and he have ever been in the house. Not to mention the others before who owned it. People told him the house was haunted, and sometimes he felt they were true while he lay in bed at night with the creaks in the walls and the twigs tapping the windows in complete black desolation. He barely had a memory of his real father, but he missed him so. His mom told him that his father had left them when he was just a baby. At school it was a different story. People, even the staff sometimes told the story about his mother, whom they called 'Crazy Jane'. They say his father was wealthy enough to buy Celadon itself, and that 'Crazy Jane' married him for his money, waited a few years, having a child in between, and then killing him. "Bullshit," he thought to himself. His mom would have never done that. Of course, the new rumor is that when she married a new man, a man even younger than her, she wrote out a new will leaving everything to him. And the day he discovered this will, his eyes flooded with greed, his heart shrunk, and he cleverly took her life. They say the ghost of his mother and father still linger around the house seeking a blood filled revenge on each other or someone that would bleed. Sometimes he wanted to believe these rumors, that his stepfather is evil, that he only wants money. He never accepted a new father and this one was just out of place. Most of the time though the only ghost Kurt ever saw was in his stepfather. After enough rest Kurt got back up to his feet and walked slowly up and around the bend. There was the house, just as desolate as he could remember. Window sills sagged down vainly. Trees surrounding still as a pole, until night falls. Porch creaking with every step. Kurt opened the door and walked into the kitchen where his stepfather sat reading the newspaper with a glass of water. "Hi." "Hi." Kurt walked up to his room. "You want something to eat?" "No." He continued upstairs. For a few seconds his stepfather didn't do anything, just stare in blank space. Then he looked back at his newspaper. Kurt was just standing around waiting for something to happen. His father was doing nothing, wasting away his life. He urges Kurt to be a success while lying there with a can of beer in one hand and headache medicine in the other while watching the reruns of life outside the window. A tree sways back and forth. Insects wage wars with themselves. "You look so tired and unhappy," he thought to himself picturing his father. "Who are we mistaken. You are not me. You are not my family. The trees are having a fucking better time than you. But in your head they're dying. In your head they're crying. What's in your head? Zombie, you never tell me. And why do you always try when I don't wanna listen?" Out of frustration he threw a baseball at his mirror. The silence was shattered but there were no feet rushing up the steps to see what was going on. "Look at me." Kurt noticed some small paper fall down to the ground with the shards of glass. He carefully picked it up slowly and looked at it. It was a photo very crumbled and more than five years old. He recognized his stepfather right away, on the far left. He was surprised to see a smile on his face, one which was absent even of the weeding photos. He was next to a girl in her late teens with dark red hair, brown eyes, fair skin, and a grey top. Two others were there too, but there was a stain blotching the right side of the photo. He could only make out one of them had a cast around his arm. It might have cheered up Kurt to see this photo of his stepfather having a life. He was especially drawn into this girl beside him. In no way did it look like his mother. "Something... wrong?" Kurt's stepfather asked as he entered the room and saw the shattered glass. "Let me get the dust pan and vacuum cleaner." Then he noticed the picture in Kurt's hand and dropped his mouth just slightly. Kurt pointed to the figure in the photograph. "Who is this?" To Be Continued