Saturday 25 August 2012

Episode 2 - In the rough


The golf ball soared through the air, catching the light as it arced gracefully away from the fat man, disappearing into the distance.

‘Bally good shot Rupert old bean!’ enthused his companion, a wiry man sporting a handlebar moustache of ridiculous proportions.

Rupert regarded the other man with a barely disguised look of contempt. Although there was little that Rupert enjoyed more than a midday game of golf at the taxpayers expense. Rupert certainly didn’t like having to share life’s luxuries with annoying bloody politicians. To make things worse, Rupert’s least favourite politician was the man stood before him now. The political leader of Rulton City Council - Gideon Height-Walker.

‘Thank-you Gideon. I have had four decades of public service to practice my golf swing. By the look of your game, you haven’t worked in the public sector long enough to have honed yours...’

Gideon’s mustache twitched like nervous rat. ‘Hmph, well that may be, but it is not quite as easy for one to forge a lifelong career as a councillor. This is why one must sometimes rely on the “fringe benefits” as it were. After all, we’re not really here to play golf are we?’

‘Are we not?’ replied Rupert sarcastically ‘What a shame. Perhaps we should get down to business then eh?’

Rupert scanned the golf field from left to right. He hadn’t got this far in life by being sloppy about personal security. The field was empty save for a besuited man standing a couple of hundred meters away looking in the opposite direction.

Gideon nervously twiddled with his moustache as he watched Rupert withdraw a cardboard tube from his golf bag.

‘This’ began Rupert ‘is a planning application for an incinerator...’

‘Ah, hmm, yes - I think I see where this is going. There shouldn’t be any particular problem in...’

‘I didn’t finish’ interrupted Rupert ‘our friends at the incinerator company want to build it in a particular location. It seems that the home for the elderly on Carr Street has become an inconvenience and would be best located elsewhere...’

As Rupert and Gideon talked, the besuited man began to move slowly across the field towards them, walking with a slight hobbling gait.

‘Well old boy’ continued Gideon ‘as I already mentioned there really shouldn’t be...’ Gideon paused, looking past Rupert at something in the distance. ‘I say, do you know that chap?’

Rupert turned, regarding the hobbling, besuited man as he drew closer to the two. ‘Hello?’ shouted Rupert ‘You there, what do you want man? Don’t know you know that this is a members only club?’

The besuited man ignored Rupert’s shouts, seemingly oblivious as he continued his inexorable progress towards them.

Rupert turned to Gideon, turned away again and forced the cardboard tube back into his golf bag. The two stood uneasily and waited for the man to make his shambling way across to them.

As the man drew closer it became apparent that he sported a most unhealthy grey pallor. Stick thin and with an otherworldly presence about him, Rupert couldn’t help but feel that something wasn’t quite right with the newcomer. As he reached the two, the man opened his mouth and uttered a single word.

‘Brainzzzz.’

Gideon looked to Rupert, mouth opening and closing silently, secretly hoping for Rupert to tell him that this wasn’t really happening.

Rupert turned away from the grey man quickly, hoisting his golf bag over his shoulder, preparing to make an exit. The grey man reached out a stick thin arm and with a surprisingly strong grip, seized Rupert by the wrist.

This turn of events was too much for Gideon. As the thinner of the two he decided that his best hope would be to make a quick getaway. Looking to all the world like a strange bipedal daddy-long-legs he sprinted into the distance without so much as a backwards glance.

The strange man brought his head closer to Rupert. Rupert closed his eyes and felt his heart hammer against his ribcage.

‘Brains.’ repeated the man ‘You have demonstrated a remarkable lack of brains Mr Hill.’

Rupert winked one eye open and focused on the man’s face. He must be getting jumpy. For a minute there he thought that the man was... well, that’s just silliness, too much work, all this rubbish with Denton was making him paranoid.

‘And who the bloody hell are you?’ asked Rupert, who had now recovered enough to shrug the man’s hand away, regain some composure, and open his other eye.

The man answered without a hint of humour. ‘My name is Mr Grey. We spoke the other day. I believe I ordered you to instigate a zombie preparedness plan?’

If Rupert had been scared earlier, now he was positively shitting himself. A real life, bona-fide senior civil servant here at Rulton. In fact Rupert was so surprised that it didn’t occur to him how unlike his literary namesake Mr Grey appeared, which would have amused the missus if Rupert chose to tell her about it, which he wouldn’t...

‘Ah, it is an honour Mr Grey. How very kind of you to come all of the way to Rulton.’

‘Cut the bullshit Hill.’ replied Mr Grey ‘I’m not the kind of man who enjoys or appreciates small talk. I think we both know that you’d rather undergo a prostate examination than spend another five minutes talking to me’.

Rupert considered Mr Grey’s words, mentally agreeing while at the same time shaking his head vigorously and mouthing ‘no, no, no..’.

Mr Grey continued ‘I have one interest and one interest only. I want you to carry out my orders and instigate the plan as soon as possible. If you have any inclination not to do so, I think it only fair to tell you that Central Government has more than a passing acquaintance with your past - shall we say - misdemeanours.’

At this point Rupert blushed. Not the gentle blushing of a girl on her first date, but the deep purple blushing of a middle aged man who has indulged in too many cigars and foie gras.

‘I can absolutely assure you Mr Grey that I have my best man on the job and I will stop at nothing to ensure that Rulton City Council delivers exactly what you want.

Mr Grey attempted briefly to twist his mouth into an approximation of a smirk. ‘I expect nothing less Mr Hill. I also expect priority access to any and all persons involved in the project at any time I wish.’

‘Consider it done Mr Grey. Is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘Yes. Don’t mess this up. Your job, and quite possibly your life depends on it.’

With that the civil servant turned and hobbled off, disappearing into the treeline, leaving a confused and worried Rupert behind him.


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Friday 10 August 2012

Episode 1 - Jobs for the boys


‘Erm, is this some kind of wind up?’ said the smaller of the two men.


‘Absolutely not. And if I’m entirely honest I must say that I don’t appreciate the assumption that I have the time to indulge in frivolity.’ replied the older, fatter man.

The small man shrunk visibly in his chair and lowered his gaze to the floor. ‘I’m sorry sir’ he said quietly ‘but you’ve got to admit that what you’re asking is pretty unusual.’

The fatter of the two shifted forward in his chair, the weak aluminium frame creaking under the strain of his bulk. ‘Well George, that’s where you have me wrong.’

‘Sorry sir?’

‘Well, you have me wrong on two counts. First of all, I don’t have to admit anything to you and second of all I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.’

Leaning back in his chair smirking, the fat man fixed George with watery eyes and awaited his reply.

‘Of course, erm, I wouldn’t ever mean to presume sir. That’s not what I meant. Sorry I’m not putting myself across very well, it’s just the zombie thing came as a bit of a shock.’

‘Yes, well I suppose it would George. It is a little unconventional but the fact remains - you are to formulate Rulton City Council’s official zombie preparedness response.’

‘But zombies don’t exist sir, so I’m not sure why the Council needs to erm, respond to them?’

George’s response seemed to amuse the fat man. He issued a guffaw that wouldn’t have seemed out of place at a Tory MP’s dinner party.

‘Lots of things don’t exist George. The Afghani shoplifting gang mentioned in our press release last week didn’t exist but nevertheless; despite the gang’s non-existence, we managed to secure a rather handsome amount of funding off of the back of it.’

As George listened to the fat man he thought - not for the first time - about what an absolute waste of space the Chief Executive was. As he considered this he felt a growing irritation build in his stomach. He knew he should say something, but as was so typically George, he said nothing. Instead George added his annoyance to the angry little ball inside his gut, where it joined the rest of his frustrations and waited patiently until it could manifest itself as erectile dysfunction or a peptic ulcer in years to come.

George was dragged back to reality by the sound of a phone ringing.

The fat man reached out a bloated hand to the ringing phone, stopping just short of picking it up as he remembered George sitting there. ‘Be a good lad and run along now eh George?’ he said in a condescending manner before picking up the phone and engaging the caller in an over friendly, bullshitty, how’s your family conversation.

George got to his feet slowly and turned to his boss. For a moment he thought about saying something, but on balance George decided that it probably wasn’t worth bothering. Opening the door very slowly, he stepped out from the office into the corridor beyond.

As he wandered down the corridor George formulated a plan. He realised that to get to the bottom of this very unusual situation he would require only two things. A cup of coffee and a chat with the Council’s resident know it all Tim Bernard.



* * * *

George returned from the vending machine - cradling two cups of what could barely be described as coffee - and headed towards a tall, slightly dishevelled looking man who seemed to be waiting for him in one of the darker looking corners of the dirty canteen.

‘I appreciate you letting me know what’s going on Tim’ uttered George in a hushed voice, offering the coffee to his companion.

‘No problemo man’ replied Tim ‘Let’s cut to the chase. Walls have ears and all that.’

Tim hunched closer to George, making a dramatic display of covering his mouth with his hand in a bizarre attempt to ward off lip readers. ‘Well it’s like this. The Council gets these requests from the public about shit like how much money we spend on brushes, or what expenses get paid out to officers and that sort of thing, but occasionally we get something a bit more interesting.’

George replied with a nod.

‘This one bloke right, sent in an information request about what plans the council might have to deal with a zombie apocalypse.’ Tim illustrated the words “zombie apocalypse” with a frantic waving of his arms.

‘Anyway’ Tim continued ‘the law says that we have to take these requests seriously, so the bloke gets a letter back saying “The authority does not have a plan at this time to deal with this eventuality” or something like that.’

George took a sip of the coffee like liquid. ‘Erm, OK Tim, but how does that relate to the extremely strange job that I’ve just been given?’

Tim fixed George with his best attempt at a steely gaze. ‘I haven’t got to the best bit yet dude. This request got picked up by a civil service type. He for whatever reason decided that if people are asking about this kind of shit, then we should probably have a plan to deal with it. Crazy eh?’

‘I’m no psychologist Tim, but yeah, that seems like a pretty good description of crazy to me.’

‘So bish, bash, bosh, a quick phone call to a certain big, fat Chief Exec we all know and hate, and this civil service geezer orders the immediate setup of a zombie preparedness plan. As a bonus, to help grease the wheels of local government, he also transfers a nice fat grant into the Council’s coffers to be spent specifically on putting the plan together.’

George raised an eyebrow. ‘The chief didn’t mention anything about any kind of budget assigned to the project?’

Tim laughed. ‘Well he wouldn’t fella. According to my mate in finance, the project budget went straight into his personal pension pot. It looks like you’re the only resource assigned.’

George shouldn’t have been surprised. He had worked in local government for longer than was healthy for him and he should have been used to this, but somehow, each and every time somebody did something stupid, selfish or corrupt it hit him right where it hurt.

So what? George had been given a job to do. A stupid job perhaps, but when George thought about it, most of the jobs he had been given within Rulton City Council had been pretty stupid. The important thing was that George always did his job to the best of his ability and he was damned if this would be any different.

From now until his superiors sacked him or found somebody better he would be George Denton - Zombie Preparedness Project Lead.


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Missed an episode of Zombie Authority? Find them all here