Chapter Text
Melissa had seen Zachary in many moods. Usually, he was a mix of happy and derpy. On very rare occasions she’d see him upset or nervous, mostly when he ended up doing something that left a mess in the house or he ended up eating something he wasn’t supposed to.
So when Zachary approached, shuffling more than he usually did all while wringing his hands together like dish rags, Melissa immediately turned her attention away from her laptop.
“Hey Zach. What are you up to?” Melissa asked, slinging one arm over the back of the chair as she faced him.
Zachary took a moment to respond, stilling his hand wringing to clutch them together tightly. Now that she was facing him more fully, Melissa caught sight of a sheet of wrinkled loose leaf paper crumpled up between his fists. After chewing on the remains of his lip, the zombie anxiously averted his eyes and unfurled his hands to allow Melissa to reach out and take the paper. She smoothed it out on her desk, and treated her eyes to the scratchy penmanship of Zachary.
The message was short and sweet, and stained with what looked like grass:
Woold yoo help me find a freend? It’s veery emportant.
“A friend? As in a zombie friend?” Melissa asked.
Zachary gestured with his hands, holding one out and miming flipping it over with his other hand. Frowning quizzically, Melissa flipped the paper over to the other side.
A veery smort freend is on a veery eemportant mission in Weerding Weirding Woods. But hes stuck, and I neeed yoo and yoor smort brain to help him stoop gross plants.
Weirding Woods? The name was vaguely familiar to her, and it took a minute of scrounging the few memories she had of examining the Neighborville map for it to click. “Are you talking about that giant forest near the lake?”
Zachary nodded eagerly. Melissa perused her lips in thought, finger tapping on the top of the wrinkled paper in slow percussion.
On the one hand, she would technically be aiding the “enemy”, the same party who was also technically the whole reason for all of Neighborville being on lockdown as it were. Also, Melissa had never really gone into the woods beyond a horrendous summer camp that had pretty much turned her off of nature and she still refused to remember for the sake of her sanity. Any experience roaming in the wilderness was limited to taking a walk in a city park with neatly cut grass and tiny trees with benches underneath them.
However, it’d been months since she’d gone out of the house for anything beyond emergency supply runs, which hardly counted as full excursions anyways. Melissa knew she was supposed to be rooting for the plants, but weeks and weeks of being bugged by overly cheery, big-headed crops had worn on her. And Zachary, as much of a hassle he could be, had been her single most valuable method of defense against any zombies who did happen to notice her totally defenseless house.
As much of a dunce the rotting soldier could be at pretty much everything , he was shockingly effective as a fighter, and could come up with rather clever strategies by himself. She’d seen him perched on top of her roof, feet dangling lazily off the edge as he sat and took precise potshots at empty-headed browncoats that milled too close. At least once, Melissa had caught sight of him wandering in what she presumed to be a zombie patrol near her block, very conspicuously making a wide breadth around her house.
It was…oddly heartwarming. Maybe it was partially a byproduct of being isolated for literally three years with the only interactions with plants that she’d long lost any sort of happiness in seeing. Zachary was pretty much her only friend, and she felt compelled to go with him with how earnestly he looked to her, nothing but trust and hope in his lurid eyes.
Of course, it was that and…the incident, still hanging heavy in the back of her mind. Melissa would have to chalk up part of her decision to that.
It’d been almost a year since it’d happened, and still she’d wake up cold and freezing in the middle of the night from dreams of pea splatter covering destroyed furniture and pearly white fangs dripping right in front of her face. Distorted laughing and taunting, as a monster of a weed prepared to bite the head off of-
No! No, don’t get caught up in that.
Melissa had plenty of time to reflect, alone once every plant had been extricated from her lawn and especially once Zachary forcefully inserted his presence into her monotonous little existence. Maybe, once upon a time she would’ve whole heartedly gone with what every other human in Neighborville did and let the plants battle the zombies out of existence. She most definitely would’ve balked a heck a lot more at the thought of actively helping the enemy.
But things had changed quite a bit, and Melissa would be the first to admit that she was most certainly the type to hold a grudge. For that, there wouldn’t be any forgiveness for the plants, no matter how many apologies they gave.
Call her petty and spiteful, but she probably wouldn’t lose any sleep if the plants ended up getting a little roughed up if she happened to be helping a friend.
Besides she did have a bit of macabre curiosity in what the hell it was that Zachary ended up doing anyways. And how bad could some trip to the woods be?
After some deliberation, Melissa made her choice. “You know what, sure. I don’t have anything else better to do,” Melissa shrugged, closing the laptop. Her customers could stand to squirm in their chairs for a day or two. She stood up stretching, arms lifting up as her back let out a satisfying crack.
Zachary beamed, cheerfully smiling as she met his gaze. “Alright, what exactly is it that you need?”
Eagerly Zachary took Melissa by the hand and began tugging her out the bedroom door. She snickered a little bit at his nervous energy, but she wondered a little bit how much he exactly needed her.
Should I worry about it that much? I mean, it shouldn’t be anything too crazy. What could a zombie even be doing as a mission in the middle of the woods anyway?
…
This was a stupid idea.
There were many times where Melissa wouldn’t hesitate to call herself a complete fool. As much as she prided herself on being at least somewhat more level headed than most people she knew, dear Sun she was still capable of making some extremely stupid, stupid decisions. Decisions so amazingly stupid that those she would happily call an idiot to their face would look at her and return the favor.
Dressed up in a roughed-up dress suit and pants that looked as though it’d crawled out of a garbage can, a “borrowed” necktie, a bucket, and coated in green face paint from her Secret Santa office present kit, she’d readily agree with said idiots that she, too, was an idiot: both for agreeing to help with a zombie and for how she looked.
For his part, Zachary had shown zero hesitation in carrying out whatever scheme he had cooking in his head. Melissa was afraid to ask where he’d found the clothes, or where the mystery stains all over them had come from. What she was certain of was that they felt flimsier than rags and smelled absolutely awful. If she weren’t already used to Zachary’s more potent stench, she probably would’ve gotten sick from the proximity. She was just barely able to convince Zachary that she did need to bring a backpack full of basic survival things, and that she didn’t need to roll around in the garbage.
She had to maintain some form of dignity after all.
As they walked out onto the street, she asked, “Why do I need to wear all of this? I thought we were just going to the woods?”
“Brains brains!” Zachary said, shaking his head while smiling knowingly. For not the first time, Melissa sorely wished she could understand what Zachary was actually saying. She probably should’ve brought a notepad or something for him to write on; as terrible as his penmanship and grammar were, at least it was something she could understand as coherent English.
She adjusted the jacket, thanking that she at least had the foresight to put on a tank top beforehand as Zachary took a moment to check his own outfit. He made sure to be fully kitted out, having his usual pack on his back alongside a belt full of grenades and cartridges. His gun securely gripped in his hand, Zachary finally reached into his uniform and pulled out a beat up walkie talkie with several big buttons.
Leaning over his shoulder curiously, Melissa found herself comparing it to some weird mix of a compressed GPS and a radio. She also got to read some of the overly large text printed on the buttons.
Talk, Locate, Map, nothing really standing out…
Wait.
What does Home Warp mean?
Melissa received her answer when Zachary clicked the button.
Melissa’s stomach lurched as inexplicable, blue light began to surround them, engulfing their forms. The foot soldier stretched languidly, a placid expression on his face as from the edges of his body inward he became consumed with bright, pure white. Then, like a collapsing star, his form was pulled inward and -
Pop!
- vanished without a trace.
Melissa didn’t get more than a fleeting second to panic about the fact that Zachary had just collapsed when, in a blur of white and blue her insides twisted and-.
A vortex surrounded her, pulsing and humming with energy. Melissa could see all around her a maelstrom of items floating about in a surreal landfill - everything from empty cans, errant street signs, flower pots, and even disjointed pieces of land drifting like asteroids.
If she didn’t know any better, Melissa would’ve thought she had finally gone bananas from isolation and drank that expired milk she’d forgotten to toss.
She wished this were a mold-induced hallucination.
For what felt like an eternity Melissa helplessly tumbled in the swirling void, eyes wide and limbs pedaling. In all likelihood the ordeal probably only lasted a minute at most, but to her frantic mind she feared that she’d be stuck spinning alone, forever and ever and ever-
-at least until the world popped back into view, and Melissa face planted onto the ground. The grit rubbing itself into her face was both relieving and irritating. She couldn’t muster the energy to pull herself up and dust herself off just yet.
“Brains?” A familiar boot and sock slid into sight, and Zachary’s face leaned over into view with a look of concern. A rotting finger prodded at her shoulder, at which Melissa weakly swatted.
“G’way,” she grumbled, half-stunned and half-disgruntled. “I’m suffering. Let me suffer.”
Zachary reluctantly backed away, and after a solid minute of letting the sense return to her head Melissa finally heaved herself off the ground. She stumbled as the blood rushed back to her head and made her lightheaded. Before she could trip over and reacquaint her face with the dirt again, Zachary grasped her shoulder in support.
“Thanks,” Melissa said weakly as she leaned against him, eyes blinking frantically to rid the sparks dancing on the edges of her vision. It took another few moments for her to completely come back into her own body. When she finally did she took in the landscape around her properly for the first time.
Melissa didn’t think she’d regret coming along even more than she did after warping through what was presumably the fabric of time and space.
She immediately felt worse the second she saw the first gigantic Z painted onto a wall.
“Oooooh crud.” One pivot, there was a giant, semi-Grecian stone building bulging with steel machinery that wound around the stone like gigantic metallic parasites.
“Ooooooh crud, oh crud, oh crud,” Another pivot, and Melissa faced a vast outcropping overlooking Neighborville. The vaguely familiar sight of the Giddy Park ferris wheel, one that she’d seen featured on many a Neighborville postcard, stood out on the horizon before the much closer sight of an array of giant fans that appeared to be ginormous launch pads (what?).
“Oh, fudge.”
No matter where she looked, there were nothing but zombies, zombies, and more zombies as far as she could see.
They milled about the plaza dressed in an absolute mishmash of outfits, ranging from professionally if shabbily clad soldiers to outlandishly flambouyant scientists with hair that would give any mad scientist envy. There was a shocking amount of zombies who looked like they’d been yanked straight out of the 1980s, dressed as though they were about to bust sick moves with disco music or if they’d just escaped some high school sports locker. There were the usual browncoats, but many of those were just as strange, with some wearing TVs (?), or looking as though they just came out of some bizarre history comic con - why were there so many in bandages? And in pirate hats? How were some of them in outhouses and literal robots?
Some simply walked about idly toward nowhere while others dashed/rocketed with terrifying speed over to the biggest building on the bizarre plateau where multiple stalls sat buzzing with customers and the various other buildings about the place. Others clustered together in small groups, chatting with varying utterances of “Brainz!”, cackling cheerfully as they casually toted about silly yet intimidating looking weapons that were strongly suspect of being more powerful than they looked.
Her brain was short circuiting at the sight before her. Melissa could feel herself starting to hyperventilate, but she didn’t bother trying to calm herself down because dear sun she wasn’t ready for this she was surrounded by zombies and she was going to -
Smack!
Zachary very lightly smacked her on the cheek, his dopey grin dropping for a concern slant. Melissa’s panic stalled as her face stung from the smack, less from the impact and more for being brought back to reality. She forced a breath into her lungs, forcefully dragging her attention away from the literal zombie horde wandering willy-nilly around her.
She immediately regretted even thinking about doing deep breaths as the familiar zombie stench that she thought she’d long gotten used to from Zachary scorched her nostrils a hundred-fold. Melissa gagged, but it was enough to make her feel less panicked and more irritated.
Good. Irritation was a familiar feeling, and much, much more manageable than the adrenaline pumping dread of facing a painful death by being eaten alive by dozens of ravenous corpses.
“Brains?” Zachary’s face had an apology written all over it, and he gently patted her on the shoulder.
“You’re fine, Zach. I kinda needed that,” Melissa sighed, patting his hand back. “Just…let's try not to default to physical violence to get out of mental funk unless it’s absolutely necessary?”
“Brains!” Zachary gave a thumbs up, and she smiled a bit at how relieved the zombie soldier looked. She straightened back up, and now took in the rest of the plaza plateau with a clearer head.
“So, is this your headquarters?” Melissa asked. “Not quite what I expected. It’s…surprisingly sunny. And there’s a shocking lack of tombstones.”
Zachary just shrugged and spouted out a series of more, “Brains!”. It was probably an explanation for her question, and again Melissa wished that she had some sort of translator as she watched him blankly. After a few seconds, Zachary seemed to catch onto her lack of comprehension, then slumped and sighed.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll figure things out as we go,” Melissa sighed. She looked about. “Now, where do we go from here?”
The foot soldier beamed again, and with great gusto took her by the hand and began to pull at her again. He led her toward one of the less zombie-infested sides of the base, to a more open area where a shocking diverse array of vehicles sat which teemed with a few scattered groups of zombies inquiring with one another in more mono-syllabic conversations. Thankfully, none of them seemed to take note of Zachary or Melissa the totally-real-buckethead please-nobody-look-at-me sweating literal buckets as they shambled/walked past them. Her heartbeat from picked up as zombies passed by lost in their own business, including a terrifyingly muscular zombie dressed in spandex with perfectly permed hair brushed close by them, humming jauntily.
The vehicle they were dragged to was one of the less attended ones, with only a lone, pudgy zombie sitting forlornly on the ground on a sloping ramp framed by brick and a bent metal fence. Even though their eyes were as wide open as all the other zombie’s, it seemed that this one was asleep from how much further apart their eyes were drifting, and the slow rise and fall of their shoulders. In accordance with the rest of the bizarre clothing choices she’d already seen, this zombie was clad just like a construction worker, with a bright orange safety vest and a construction hat slowly sliding down the front of his head.
Within a few feet of the lone zombie Melissa paused to take in the sub, letting her hand slip out of Zach’s as he plodded forward.
Is this what zombie tech looks like?
The submarine bobbing in the pond of water was a strange sight in and of itself, because unless she was crazy the nearest source of water where a submarine could be useful was miles and miles away from this plateau. It was just a bit smaller than the pond, and was a cartoonishly cheerful purple and looked more like it’d been yanked out of a whimsical children’s book. What was less whimsical were the bloodshot, twitching eyeballs in the multiple periscopes that seemed to be moving by themselves, engorged spheres dribbling a small bit of ooze over their metal rims. She flinched a bit as one eye momentarily fixated onto her, pupil dilating as it lingered on her for a few seconds too long before resuming lazily drifting about its metal socket.
That is disgusting.
Melissa’s momentary introduction to zombie tech was interrupted as Zachary loudly greeted the pudgy zombie with a loud, “Brains!”
With a dribbly grunt the zombie jolted up from their position on the fence, drifting eyes correcting themselves to focus straight ahead as they clumsily scrambled to their feet. They blinked blearily, rubbed their eyes, then straightened from their slouch as Zachary waved at them with a big grin.
“B-Brains?” The zombie squinted at the foot soldier, then gasped. “Hey! Brains! Bra-Ra-Brains!”
“Yeah-ha!” Zachary gave a thumbs up. The construction zombie gasped, and then with a gleeful, raspy laugh rushed forward to glomp the soldier. They were shorter than Zachary by a bit, but stockier, and his arms dwarfed Zachary’s less wide frame as the foot soldier happily reciprocated. They hugged each other for at least two minutes, the engineer squeezing Zachary hard enough to elicit several concerning creaks from his bones and Zachary not caring in the slightest to hug his apparent friend back even harder. When Melissa started wondering if they were just going to stay like that, Zachary was dropped to their feet and without further ado the two zombies began rapidly exchanging more exclamations of “Brains!”, an excited conversation that she couldn’t make heads or tails of but was probably very engaging.
Melissa found herself smiling a bit at the interaction, then her attention moved to taking in more detail of the zombie. Interestingly, the construction zombie was much, much chubbier than any of the other zombies she’d seen. Pretty much all the zombies she’d seen, barring the one muscular gargantuar that’d once prowled past her house and gave her a heart attack and the few other zombies they’d just walked past, were rail thin and looked about ready to collapse with a strong enough push (she knew that this was deceiving, considering that Zach looked like he was starving to death but was strong enough to casually tote around a giant metal jetpack).
This zombie was (pardoning her language) fat; practically obese in fact, going off the way its stomach bulged out between the construction vest and work jeans and…the rather generous view of its behind. Unlike the glances of zombies she’d taken in since they’d gotten here, this one didn’t seem to have any equipment beyond a toolbelt that jangled about their waist. Also, for some reason, the zombie also seemed to have taped a fish below their mouth. A fish that was still wriggling about vigorously without any water.
…We just barely got started with whatever this mission is, and this is already weird. Is it too late to back out of this?
It was obviously too late, as the construction zombie finally took notice of Melissa. He cocked his head, grunting as she stiffened up. Suddenly feeling very acutely naked and exposed, she gulped. Zachary turned his head too, still smiling and looking along with the other zombie at her expectantly. Melissa sucked in a breath, batting back instinctual terror and with more effort than it should’ve required lifted her hand.
“Hey there?” Her voice tapered off, and she immediately felt embarrassed as the construction zombie raised an eyebrow. Zachary just frowned a bit, likely wondering why she was freezing up so bad.
To be fair, I only had to deal with you by yourself. Give me some time.
“Bra-Brains?” The zombie turned back to Zach and gestured to her with clear questioning in his eyes. Zachary turned back to him, and they promptly launched into another conversation. This time though, the subject of their discussion was clear as they repeatedly stole glances at her.
“Brains brains?” The construction zombie repeatedly pointed to her and then at his head, to which Zachary would gesture back with his own series of grunts and exclamations, stealing side glances at her and pointing to the sides of his own head. This continued for a quick minute, with Melissa’s anxiety slowly cranking up as the questions in her head multiplied.
Finally, evidently having come to some conclusion, the construction zombie snapped a finger and awkwardly bent over to rummage about in a pocket of his work belt. After a moment and several sardines he tossed out to wriggle on the floor, he triumphantly held up a tiny little box, encrusted with some greenish grime but at the very least looked intact. He fiddled with the box for a moment before clumsily pulling it open with a tiny plastic click .
“Brains!” Melissa jolted a bit as the construction zombie turned and thrust forward his hand, the opened box held to her. Heart drumming in her chest, Melissa inched forward a bit and peeked at it, not entirely sure what to expect. She was pleasantly surprised to find it was an elaborate metal earpiece, shiny and new and entirely the opposite of what she expected from something pulled out of a pocket full of wet fish. There was a thankful lack of anything organic, with the only hint that it was made by zombies being the small hints of purple metal and the bold Z printed on the main body of the earpiece.
“Oh…uh, thank you?” Melissa asked. As she took the piece from the construction zombie, he beamed, mouth curling up into a smile full of missing teeth. Still feeling a bit cautious, she turned the earpiece over in her hands. A quick, more thorough examination of the little piece of Z-Tech showed that it looked not too different from other earpieces Melissa had used before, when she’d been working at a desk rather than from a zombie-besieged home. Mentally sighing in relief, it only took a little bit to put the earpiece into her ear, snug and almost weightless.
“So now what?” Melissa asked.
“Brains brains!” Zachary stepped forward this time, and reached to her ear to fiddle with the earpiece. His fingers were surprisingly elegant, fiddling with some dial that was on the earpiece. She grimaced as the earpiece buzzed, oscillating between a low buzzing to a high pitched screech that pierced her eardrums.
After a few seconds the electronic noise from the earpiece softened, and as Zachary stepped back there was an electronic click. Zachary stepped back, seemingly satisfied with his job. Then, he cleared his throat and spoke.
“Melissa can hear me? Say yesz if ear work good.”
Melissa’s brain stalled.
Wait…can I…?
“Can you hear me? Did I put on cow setting again?” Zachary pondered, frowning and scratching his head.
Holy moly, I can actually understand Zach now?
Melissa shook off her stupor to give a shaky thumbs up, mumbling, “I hear you loud and clear?”
Her response made the zombie beam.
“Oh, yay! Was worried Melissa was on cow setting!” The foot soldier said cheerily. “Zomboss translator is very cool and smart, but sometimes it makes you able to hear cow and not zombie! Cows are stupid, you don’t want to hear stupid cows.”
“...okay…”
Melissa wished she brought some Tylenol. Or maybe an aspirin. Or a psychiatrist.
“Good too see new zombie with Zach!” the Engineer zombie finally spoke up.
Just like with Zachary, Melissa could still hear the repetitive Brainz-babbling. But with the earpiece, it was muffled to amplify what felt like a voice directly in her head, clear as crystal and still maintaining the slight distinctions of the zombie’s voice as if it actually were speaking perfect, horribly butchered English instead of repetitive chants of the word "Brain!" over and over again.
Well, I guess I asked to be able to understand, and now I’ve received.
The construction zombie continued cheerfully, seemingly unbothered by the confused awe on her face. “Lot of browncoat like you always forget important Zomboss Translator, so I always keep some in my bag! Very smart of Zach to bring you here…Meh-liss-ah?”
The construction zombie looked over to Zach who gave a nod. “Melissa! You look very good! Although…why Zach not take giant army to the scary woods?”
“Don’t need giant army. Everyone else too chicken!” Zachary stuck out his tongue. “Me and Me-liss-ah can do it just fine, even better! We have best brainz chance!”
“Your other friend said he had best brainz chance, and he never came back!” The engineer zombie tapped his hands together, friendly expression suddenly looking quite strained. “You are one of nicest zombies Seabasstian ever meet! Don’t want to see you get eaten by tree monster Dreadwood!”
“Tree monster?” Melissa scrunched her forehead. “Dreadwood?”
Are there any plants that are trees? I mean, I remember there being the little torchwoods that used to be on my lawn, but not much else…
Zachary just scoffed, and he proudly thumped his chest. “Mean Dreadwood don’t stand a chance against me and Meliss-ah! Once, she kick pot twenty feet straight through window!”
Melissa hoped her sudden embarrassed flush wasn’t visible under all the green face paint - for that particular incident she had been very caffeine deprived, and her neighbor had been singing awful opera at three in the morning, and she’d lost her temper. Miraculously she hadn’t had a plant patrol called on top of her head. She probably wouldn’t have been able to restrain herself from yeeting more things at them.
After a moment of consideration, the engineer zombie sighed. “Okay, Seabasstian will take you to scary woods. I stay in sub though, for important tree-reason! Important reason. No more land for me, ha!”
Melissa just raised her eyebrow, but politely chose not to point out as the zombie - apparently named Seabasstian, of all things - anxiously patted the squirming fish taped to his chin before he waddled over to the pool with the sub. Melissa followed after Zachary, and as the engineer busied himself with a brief detour to a rather messy pile of junk by the pool she took the chance to take in the sheer number of pipes leading to the pool. She was sure that any sane construction person would be having a seizure at all the exposed piping and water leaking about the cracked concrete and exposed dirt. However, none of the zombies seemed bothered so Melissa just figured that broken architecture was a staple of zombie life…for some reason.
After some loud clanking and grunting, Seabassitan wrenched a beaten up ladder from the pile of junk. He hauled it over and with a clank put it up against the side of the sub before clambering up it to pull open the hatch. He hopped in, then poked his head back out like a groundhog.
“Get in sub! If have to do this again I want to do fast! Dreadwood grow faster each day!”
Melissa had even more questions than before at the sheer fear that glimmered in the zombie’s eyes at the mere mention of the name - is there a plant called Dreadwood? - but she simply followed after Zachary as the zombie soldier confidently strode up to the ladder.
“Hey, Zach? Real quick question before I go into…that…” Melissa shuddered as the backmost periscope eye spun about to look at her, pupil dilating. “Do we have to worry about…fighting plants?”
After a beat, the zombie just grinned. “Maybe, maybe not. But Zach take care of all mean stinky plant! You handle all big thinking!”
His statement didn’t do much to assuage the nerves, but Melissa managed to plaster on a weak smile.
“Okay then. I…guess this should be fine. How bad can it be?”
Even as she said that though, she could practically hear her brain screaming at her -
“JINX!”