THREES' COMPANY
6/
14/2k6 - A last ditch effort made at salvaging JREZHS
Soon after JREZHS HQ was blown to smithereens by the satanic forces of The Church of Death, the sole remaining zombie hunters: Drew “The Tough Noun” Parazynski, The Mad Hatter, and Ben “Two Sheds” Parazynski decided to split up. The Mad Hatter would travel south in search of Jesus McMahon, in hopes that McMahon’s totally excellent wisdom might lead to victory. A man of both keen intellect and awesome detective hat, Drew agreed to track down the rest of the missing Elite Zombie Hunters. Armed with only a nifty alphabetized list and several assault rifles. Ben would defend Blue Springs from the gigantic tide of hell-spawned zombie goons…
Ben Parazynski: An American Zombie Hunter
A Historical Account by Ken Burns
As reported by special guest writer Ken Burns, with selected letters and excerpts from the personal battle log of Ben Parazynski.
The summer of 2006 was to be a difficult time in the life of Ben Parazynski, known to his friends and co-workers as “Bloodscorn.” Parazynski was a man from a different era, an anachronism who felt lost and alienated in this post- 9/11 world, and could only find acceptance and satisfaction through his career at Jim Rage’s Elite Zombie Hunting Squad, a small undead-extermination business in the quiet town of Blue Springs, Vermont. For Parazynski, tracking down and dispatching reanimated corpses was his life. He planned his social calendar around scheduled hunts and expeditions, often refusing to join his next-door neighbors for their barbecues if they fell upon the weekend that he had allotted for filling in graves with concrete. Parazynski stayed long hours into the night wading around in some dark cellar or fallout shelter in search of brain-eating ghouls to slay. In this letter to his cousin Clancy, Parazynski expresses his great emotional attachment to his work.
Dear Clancy.
Hello. How are you? I am doing well. Thank you for sending me the movie. UHF was very funny. How are your kids?
From your cousin
-Ben “Bloodscorn” Parazynski
P.S: I love my job because I get to kill zombies.
But Parazynski could not possibly have seen the vast changes his life was about to undergo. Having left with his comrades to collect condiments for the company congregation, Parazynski returned with the others to discover the flaming wreckage that was once his beloved JREZHS headquarters. His despair soon transformed into fury. Having been known in the past to have difficulties containing the destructive side of his psyche, or animus, Parazynski’s berserker frenzies were not unexpected but his colleagues had never before witnessed such raw anger. Parazynski had experienced a loss greater than the others: the loss of his spiritual center. His reaction was dramatic: the generally mild-mannered, cheery Parazynski donned an ill-fitting leather-jacket and eye-patch and leaped upon a nearby motorcycle to ride into the distance.
When Parazynski returned the next morning, after having been arrested in the City of Hanover for yelling loudly and scaring people by screeching his tires, he discovered that the only other survivors of the incident –The Mad Hatter and the one called the Tough Noun– had gone. They left a single sticky note attached to the still-smoldering stump that was once the company mail-box.
The note was written by the Tough Noun.
Ben:
Chico’s gone to visit the Ancient One and rally the other hunters while I’m headed off to meet up with Carvin’ Kervin. We want you to take care of the zombies in Blue Springs. There’s powdered Gatorade mix in fridge if you get hungry.
-Drew
With all of the Toad-Eating Yes Men murdered by the nefarious Church of Death and all of the other hunters away or incapacitated, the job was up to Parazynski. Now he had the responsibility of protecting the entire town of Blue Springs by himself, and he had no idea where this supposed “fridge” was since most of JREZHS’s possessions had been reduced to dust.
In this passage from his personal battle log, we witness Parazynski’s brave resolve and determination.
Journal Entry Number 468 469
“I don’t like this situation! Everything’s so terrible! It’s just…y’know I still haven’t gotten a raise? I’m still getting minimum wage for chirstsake! I’ve been breaking my back for this company and what do I get? They’re all like “Oh well Ben you’d better just stay here in Blue Springs and hold down the fort while we go do stuff.” I’m so sick of this! Why me?
Every single miserable organism that had to go and expire is coming back. Everything. We’re talking people, dogs, cats, cows, goats, raccoons, squirrels, mice, moose, bats, birds, maggots, snakes, EVERYTHING. And I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but that's what I was doing a few hours back to our old horse Norman. Every stupid re-animated cadaver wants a hunk of my hide! I have to track down and exterminate all of the undead pseudo-life-forms in Blue Springs alone. I can’t sleep anymore because zombie crows are hurling themselves at my window, trying to peck out my eyes. I guess they’re from the Church of Death or something. I can’t go out in public because I’m followed by flesh-hungry ghouls in polyester leisure suits. I guess they’re the Church-Goers of Death. How am I supposed to get groceries? Oh yeah, and do you know who gets to clean up the smoldering remains of H.Q? Me! Didn’t want to hire some contractors to do it! Nooooo! “Too expensive.” They said. “We don’t have that kind of money.” So I’m out there from 8:14 to 4:30 every day using a garden rake to scrape the coals into a pile and then I’m shoveling it into garbage bags! I’ve got zombies to kill! I DO NOT NEED THIS!
I don’t get any respect around here! I’m tired of being shoved around by everybody! I’ve had it! I swear as soon as we’ve got this whole Church of Death thing sorted out I’m giving Jim an ultimatum: either things get better or I quit! Yeah! How’ll they like that?! They won’t have Ben Parazynski to kick around any more!
Maybe the Whippi-Dip’s hiring.”
Later, the girl at the counter of the Whippi-Dip would tell Parazynski that they were not hiring after all, and asked if he wanted his creamee dipped or not. Parazynski sat dejectedly at the bench, while a creepy bulldog stared at him with creepy bugged-out bulldog eyes.
This was a great turning point in Parazynski’s life. While he licked his cone, he had a realization of vast importance: he could either cling to the old ways of past or move forward and embrace this new world. In front of several onlookers, Parazynski leapt to his feet, ran to his Mongoose bicycle and peddled like a madman until he returned to Blue Springs. Once he arrived at the old site of HQ, Ben formulated a daring plan to dispose of the zombies en masse and take care of the problem in Blue Springs once and for all dor awhile.
We know little of what was coursing through his mind at the time. Was he confident? Was he afraid? We will sadly never know, but it is this reporter’s opinion that Parazynski was possessed by manic poise.
Using his own bronzed, muscular, god-amongst-men body as bait for the hungry zombies, Parazynski cruised around Blue Springs rounding up a vast mob of moaning and waling undead. The various Voodoo Zombies in the town, uninterested in human flesh or brains, were ingeniously lured by shiny metal objects that Parazynski had fastened to his rat-trap using packaging tape. All went according to plan. The zombies followed Parazynski onto main street, unknowing of what this brave man had in store for them.
Earlier that evening, Parazynski had visited the empty Foster and Co. Fishing Reel Factory and arranged piles of “plastique” with detonators. Leaving the massive loading bay doors open to the street, Parazynski raced to sidewalk across the building and prepared to uncap a fire hydrant and force the crowd of zombies into the building with an intense blast of water.
It was at this point that Parazynski felt around in his pockets and realized with horror that his Civil Defense fire hydrant wrench was missing. Someone had taken it.
Ben would relate this incident many years later to his fiancé
Dearest Marie,
Do you remember when I didn’t have my fire hydrant wrench when I really needed it that time? That was so un-keen.
With love,
Ben
The zombies approached Parazynski with menace. The various biohazard zombies began to eagerly foam at the mouth and spasm with ferocity, while the toxic zombies clumsily grabbed hunks of wood and debris to use to bludgeon their victim to death. Parazynski was seemingly trapped.
And then: salvation.
Spying a discarded fifty-five gallon drum of heating oil, carelessly discarded Ben worked up a complex scheme. Parazynski seized the barrel and hurled it onto the crowd of zombies. Raising his shotgun, Parazynski fired five rounds into the mass of metal, producing an enormous explosion that consumed the undead fiends in flame. It saved Parazynski, but the stress of the incident resulted in a streak of his hair turning white. Parazynski would deeply regret this happening, as it made him look like he was going goth, and would turn towards hair dyes to cover it up from outside world.
Parazynski was hurled backwards, but landed safely upon the soft picket-fence of a friendly neighbor, who later invited him in for an iced tea/lemonade medley. Chatting with the neighbor, Ben realized that it would have been better idea to have just shot all those zombies with his gun, but the exploding oil drum was so cool looking. Ben regretted that he had not had the forethought to have created a witty and stinging retort to unleash just as his slew the zombies like “Don’t get burned up about it ”, “This’ll make your blood boil”, or “You’re fired!”
It was at that moment that Parazynski’s eyes bulged as a peculiar feeling undulated up and down his spine. A familiar voice echoed throughout the canyons of his mind.
“Ben! Beeeeeeeeen! BENEBENEBENEBENEBENEBENEBEN!!!!,” said the voice, “We must go to Boston. We must go to Boston now.”
Parazynski recognized the voice at once. It was Rye Crofter.
If you enjoyed this Ken Burns special historical account, you might also enjoy the film version Parazynski: A Film by Ken Burns.
Meanwhile…
Weeks later, Drew had found nothing. Two flat tires and a dead battery had crippled his mighty 1998 green Subaru Forrester, forcing him to travel by moped. Eventually he was forced to ditch the moped too because no one took him seriously riding around on a scooter. Of all of the hunters, Drew was only able discover Jono “I’m Battling Desire - Lord Help Me Douse This Fire” Thomas was teaching ice skating to forest rangers in New Mexico. Dirk Razor, Peter Fury, and Alice Thompson had all left on a road trip to Atlantic City.
With a heavy heart and very little cash, Drew set out to uncover the whereabouts of the last zombie hunter on his list: Zachariah “Carvin’” Kervin. After the horrendous events of the 9th, Kervin had wandered to Marlboro, VT, where he had studied philosophy under the Mongolian Battle Shamans of Ulan-Bator. The destruction of JREZHS HQ had caused Kervin untold psychic trauma and he had returned to the Marlboro Center for Spiritual Fulfillment to seek answers. Drew found him sitting in the meditation gardens covered in plastic wrap. A blind man in a brown three-piece suit sat nearby playing the cello.
“Carvin’” Kervin, the ZOMBIEAPOCALYPSE has come,” said Drew, “In the days after the explosion of HQ, a legion of killer zombies was unleashed from Hell. No time to explain. We’ve got to get back up to Blue Springs so we can put a stop to the ruckus.”
“Strangers...in the river of time,” muttered Kervin from underneath the layer of saran wrap.
“Hey Kervin!” shouted Drew, “Now is the time for action - not peaceful reflection upon the nature of man’s true place in the cosmos! Wake up!”
But Drew’s appeals were for naught and Kervin remained in a ghostlike trance. To make matters even worse, there was a sudden noise of breaking glass and splintering wood as no less than forty Hell Zombies swarmed into the meditation gardens, their bones rattling and bloody juices dripping from their jaws. They were led by a sinister figure with in a flowing red cloak. His face was a skull, bleached white with ghastly green light pouring forth from the eye sockets. The figure approached Drew, cackling with insane glee.
“I am the Archbishop of LIVING DEATH,” hissed the Archbishop of Living Death, “and you were a moron to ever think you could escape us.”
“Just an average Joe from the grand design,” gasped Kervin, still in some manner of bizarre trance.
“Behold the legions of the HUNGRY DEAD!” continued the Archbishop, “they want your brains! They want YOUR LIFE! Go get ‘em boys! Rip him to little red pieces and then rip the pieces to pieces!”
Drew suddenly remembered that not only had he left his assault rifles in his other jacket, but he had also left home with the stove on. He snarled and balled his hands into knuckled fists. The old blind man packed up his cello and prepared to exit. Drew flipped him a silver dollar.
“Stay a little while longer old man,” said Drew, his eyes narrowing into snakelike slits. “Play something lively.”
The blind man nodded with approval and whipped out his cello and started playing. Drew charged into the crowd of bloodthirsty zombies, fighting back the undead with his feet and teeth and fists of fury. It was an awesome spectacle - easily the kind of thing you’d want to have on tape to watch for yourself in the comfort of your home entertainment center.
Drew fought with bravery, but he was unarmed and outnumbered. The Hell Zombies surrounded him and pushed him into a corner. Drew began to wonder if he was going to die. It didn’t really seem fair, ‘cause Drew was pretty young guy and there was lots of stuff he had wanted to do before shuffling of the mortal coil and all that jazz. Shrugging his shoulders, he sighed and bounced a rock off of “Carvin’“ Kervin’s head.
It did the trick. Kervin’s eyes flashed open, the trance broken. He stared right into the glowing eyes of the Archbishop. With one fluid motion, he tore off the plastic wrap, lept to his feet, and whipped out his Norwegian carving hatchet. Within mere seconds, Kervin had reduced eleven zombies to so much spam. The momentary relief was all Drew needed and he renewed his assault and fought back the zombie menace. Soon the zombies had been dispatched and “Carvin’” Kervin lept at the Archbishop of Living Death, tackling him to the ground and tearing off his skull and crushing it into dust. He climbed to his feet, brushing himself off.
“Hi.” Said Drew, “Let’s split.”
“Wait,” frowned “Carvin’” Kervin, “when I awoke from my trance, I locked eyes with the Archbishop and saw directly into his evil soul. I now fully understand his dark philosophy as well as the details of their vile plan. We must hurry, for if we fail in this next battle...the entire earth with be consumed by a shadow of living death! Are you hungry? Do you want some raisin toast?”
Drew politely declined the raisin toast.
At that very moment Chico was talking to a friend on his cellphone, relaying his adventures.
“My first stop was the Hampton Beach area hospital to visit Maximmortal. It took a little effort and electrical shocking to wake the sleeping mummy but finally his eyes opened (which were the only signs of life on the body covered head to toe with bandages).
“How’s it going Maxi?” I asked him.
“Most of my skin is gone and I’m on so many painkillers I’m not sure if this is actually real.” He responded.
He seemed a little groggy so I poured some coffee into his IV, which caused him to have a heart attack. A few defibrillations and a court summons later we were back in business. I told him that we were meeting tomorrow under the leadership of Jesus McMahon so that we could strike back. He told me the paralyzed state he now lived in was hell. I told him he couldn’t be slacking on the job and that I expected him to be at the meeting on Wednesday.
“But I’m incapable of moving!” He said. I told him to put some aloe on it and meet me in Blue Springs, and early so that we could cleanup before everybody got there.
Next it was off to the hard mean streets of Boston. First I stopped by the apartment I live in with Mary The Mistress of Madness, Justin-In-Famous, and some guy name Eli. They’d all been having a James Bond movie marathon (except for Mary who crawled across the floor and occasionally attempted to cry from her empty eye sockets). My roommates were completely unaware that headquarters had burnt down. Having not seen the light of our yellow sun for three days they seemed a little unresponsive. They also ate all my rocky road ice cream thinking that I no longer wanted it. I said it was okay but secretly I loathed them with the darkest regions of my heart. I figured I’d just force them to come along with me back to Vermont when I was ready to go.
But first I had to go to the Heinz™ Convention Center for the everlasting life summit to find Jesus McMahon, the oldest man in the world. If oldest man in the world means anything to me it’s wise, not senile, just wise. Tickets were forty bucks but I knew somebody who worked there who managed to sneak me in. I had to sit through all these boring speakers who just talked about stupid diets and states of mind (although Alex Chui’s eternal life device was pretty neat www.alexchui.com). Finally Jesus McMahon came on and said that he drinks a glass of orange juice every morning and he’s lived longer then he could remember. Then he apologized that his speech was less then a minute long and that he’d never really been very good at public speaking. Then he just kind of awkwardly walked off stage. I went and met with him afterwards. They tried to stop me from going backstage but I knew somebody who managed to sneak me in.
I told Mr. McMahon about the ZombieApocalypse and headquarters being destroyed and Jim Rage going missing along with Frank Gritt, and everybody else. I told him that in this time of need we required his guidance. He told me that he didn’t really have much experience leading a zombie hunting force but that it sounded fun and that he would make a few calls to some people he thought might be able to help.
I walked him outside and I punched a crazy guy in the face who was trying to bum a quarter because I thought the whole crazy thing was just an act and if he was really crazy it wouldn’t matter because he’d be too crazy to even know it ever happened. I told Jesus I’d buy him a random piece of food at a Chinese market, which is one of my favorite pass times, but before we could get there we were attacked by zombie players.
I quickly assessed the situation. They were big, there were a lot of them, and they were being given direction by a decapitated head who was being used for a football. Most importantly however was the clear presence of face guards. The cages would make it impossible for them to bite me. So I kind of felt like it was a free ride. So a few minutes later I was pinned on the ground surrounded by 6’5’’ Neanderthals. All the while the head was screaming:
“KILL EM’! GO GET EM! RIP EM’ TO PIECES!”
While my pelvis was being removed from my spinal column I noticed that they’re team name was “Los Lagartos” which means “The Lizards” in Spanish. The faint satisfaction of remembering something from my high school language course dulled the pain a bit. But not much. When my knees were pointing up and my chest was pointing down I decided I should think of a plan. I had fallen by a nearby fire hydrant. A memory triggered a spark, which ignited a thought, which formed an idea, which schemed up a plan, which flew out of my brain, stopped by my stomach to see if I wanted anything to eat, and finally put me into action. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Ben’s fireman’s wrench, which I’d borrowed. Yanking open the hydrant sent a torrent of water out into the streets. The football players were knocked to the ground. In the few precious minutes I had I managed to realign my vertebrae (which felt really good) and rose to my feet ready to fight. I pulled out some hammers and started beating at my opponents. I scorned myself for leaving the KillHammer in the car, but that thing is really heavy, I mean it’s like seriously heavy. Seeing that Jesus was a vulnerable target I went to protect him. Of course all the zombies were attacking me (because zombies hate me) so it kind of just unwanted attention to him. Together the zombies managed to back us into a corner. I’ve always said that a corner can be a pretty good place to be in a fight because nobody can sneak up on you. Turns out, it’s not a good place to be.
“Well we’re going to die.” Which was the most optimistic thing I could think to say.
“I can’t die, I drank my orange juice this morning.” Replied McMahon.
Then as always came the unlikely coincidence which saved my life. A rope ladder fell from the sky and I heard a bark. The bark from the dog owned by none other than SHERRY ANDERSON THE BEST GODDAMN HELICOPTER PILOT WE EVER HAD!
We rose from the chaos like yeast in dinner rolls. I could deal with the zombie menace later, at that moment I wanted to talk to Sherry.
“Sherry Anderson!” I exclaimed. “I thought you were dead!”
“Why did you think that?” She replied fairly baffled.
“Because your helicopter exploded and your charred body was pulled from the wreckage… At least that’s what I heard happened.”
“That’s not true. Where’d you hear that?”
“It’s on the website.” I said now rather angry that obviously Sherry had not been reading all the cool stuff on our site which we spend so long to make so that stupid people who like the Blade trilogy, can come across it and criticize it and… God I hate people more then anything.
“You guys have a website now? Well it sound like a lot of the information is wrong and conflicts with other information on th…”
“Look it’s a work in progress okay.” There was a long awkward pause. Then I said. “Max Power became a Hindu and then we built a statue of you.” There was a long awkward pause. Then I said. “This his Jesus McMahon. He’s the oldest man in the world and he’s going to help us get Jim back from the clutches of absolute evil.”
“Jim Rage is in trouble! I’m in. I haven’t being seeing enough zombie action ever since I started studying psychology part time in New Jersey.” Said Sherry Anderson with gusto.
“We’ll alright let’s meet up with the rest of the gang and go kill things.”
On the way back I asked how classes were going and Sherry’s faithful dog “Sport” interrupted before she could respond uttering…
“Ruff!”
We all had a good laugh about that one.
Hello? Are you still there. Aw man how long have I been talking to myself?"
Epilogue
The three Elite Hunters managed to reconvene at The Mad Hatter’s sweet pad in Malden. Their force was still small but growing. The group was now Just-In-Famous, Mary The Mistress of Madness, Sherry Anderson, Zachary “Carvin’” Kervin, Ben Parazynski, The Mad Hatter, and Drew Parazynski. Leadership was now under Jesus McMahon. Eventually Rick Ironside showed up because he'd seen on our Myspace that we were giving out free sleeveless t-shirts to any of our employees who came back.
On his way to get food for the gang at Vinnie’s Pizza (the best pizza in Malden) The Mad Hatter remembered he’d told Maximmortal to meet him in Blue Springs and hoped Max wouldn’t be too upset at the change in plans. Everyone sat down in the cramped kitchen to start the meeting, but before the meeting could get underway the radio broadcast of Pink’s “Stupid Girls” was interrupted by a news bulletin.
“ZOMBIE DINOSAURS ATTACK BOSTON! MILLIONS FLEE! MENACE SPREADS! ANARCHY IN THE STREETS! CITY CONSUMED IN ORGY OF BRAIN EATING MADNESS!
