Ted Erikson: Musician and Zombie Hunter

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  • Dedicated to my friend, Paul.
                                    

A New Team Member

It had been a long night for Ted Erikson and unfortunately it was about to get longer. The young, acoustic-folk star had just preformed a concert for an audience of thousands. That portion of his career was going swimmingly. Playing on-stage for hours on end while wearing a suit certainly wasn’t a walk in the park, but hey, it was better than his night job and so much more fun. Music was more like a hobby he got paid for than an actual job. No, the hobby he considered his actual job was a lot more…unusual. And dangerous. And not for the faint of heart. His other job was a zombie hunter. He was a pretty busy dude and could honestly say his life was never boring.

His best friend, Steven, was waiting impatiently for him backstage. He’d played a few more encores than he’d planned and he knew they were running late. Steven made sure to inform him of that.

“The zombies will still be there,” he answered, shrugging. He placed his guitar in its case, making sure it was secure. That thing was important. Maybe it didn’t save lives, but it pretty much was his.

“But the people might not be,” Steven reminded, as he waited for Ted to change into appropriate zombie hunting attire, which simply meant a different suit. The one he wore to performances needed to stay nice.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have played that last song. But this is only making us later, so let’s go!” he responded, ducking out of the dressing room.

“Gage is already at the shop,” Steven informed him. He nodded. That was good. At least someone was on time.

“Jesse and T-bone?” he asked as they navigated their way to Steven’s red Bronco. The concert security was helping them get to the car, but once they were there, it was well established that they were on their own. It wasn’t that security didn’t want to go with them. Ted simply wouldn’t let them. It made his manager a nervous wreck, but Ted could take care of himself. He didn’t need a babysitter.

“They’re on their way. They’ll get there before we do, I guarantee it.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t quit. It’s been a while since I’ve preformed.”

He shrugged. “I get it. But still…zombies, dude.”

“Yeah. I’m aware. Fuckin’ zombies.”

He nodded in agreement and they made small talk for the rest of the ride; music, movies, video games, girls, etc. It was the usual car conversation of two normal guys. Granted, they weren’t the most normal guys, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have normal discussions.

They finally arrived outside a small white building with a neon sign displaying, ‘Steven and Sons Plumbing.’ Ted often wondered why they never changed it to ‘Steven and Sons Zombie Killing,’ because it was widely known that that was the buildings true purpose, but they never had the time. Besides, it wasn’t the only inaccuracy. Steven had no sons. Might as well just leave it as is. There were damn good high school memories associated with that business.

The door was locked when they tried it and Steven had leant his key to Jesse, so they were forced to knock. Gage let them in.

“You’re late,” T-bone pointed out as they walked inside.

“He knows,” Steven replied, going straight to the back room. The building only had three rooms. The front room was a reception area. It contained a desk, a couch against the left wall which Jesse seemed to be napping on, a couple of chairs against the right side of the room, and a door to the back, on the right side of the desk.

The back room was the interesting part of the building. The only normal thing in it was the door that led to the bathroom, on the left side of the room. The rest of it was in essence an armory. Each wall contained floor to ceiling shelves with various zombie hunting supplies, guns, knives, flamethrowers, explosives, bows and pretty much anything they could possibly need to take out the undead. Today, there also happened to be a strange girl, standing in front of the gun shelf. Ted started at her presence when he entered the room and looked over at Gage who was right behind him.

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