Apocalypse in Flavortown, Pt. 2

Guy Fieri returns to fight zombies, because democracy.

With just 68 days to go until the election, I think we can all agree this is pretty good timing for a lesson in democracy, yes? So then, a couple weeks back I had covid, and was bedridden, and so in lieu of a new essay I published Part One of my unfinished novella about Guy Fieri battling a zombie horde, “Apocalypse in Flavortown.” Mind you — this was not a rash decision. Earlier this summer, I created a reader survey asking whether it seemed like a good idea to publish this material at all, and by a score of 2-1 the survey reflected your collective answer that indeed it was. Hence, this:

 

At the end of that post, I added another survey asking if I should continue this endeavor, and once again by a decisive margin of 3-0, the answer was Yes. (Special shoutout to commenter Avren Keating, who declared, “A masterpiece. Please post the rest!” Two things there: 1. I do not know Avren and did not pay them to say that; and 2. Avren has great taste.) I hope the lesson here is obvious: In a low-turnout voting situation, it is often a passionate minority that determines the will of the people. Thank you, passionate minority. 

And so it is with great pride in the democratic process that I present to you the second installment of “Apocalypse in Flavortown.” Would you like a third installment? By all means express your preference below — or else. Here endeth the lesson. 

Apocalypse in Flavortown

Part Two: The Escape

[Editor’s Note: For those of you too lazy to read/re-read it, Part 1 saw Guy wake up in the Courtyard by Marriot, detect something amiss, then make his way to the lobby. It included several long digressions. Part 1 was more vibes; this next section has more action. Anyway, here we go:]

The lobby is where he started to get worried. Emerging from the stairwell into an alcove near the bell desk, he felt the fear well up as he tried to comprehend what he was looking at. It wasn’t just that the place was empty, that it seemed like people had left in a hurry, with various chairs and tables tipped over, plants and debris strewn about, computers and bell carts and other objects seemingly thrown from one side of the room to the other—it was the air of violence that still lingered. Guy didn’t see any blood, but it occurred to him to look for it. He didn’t see any evidence of human injuries, but the way the place looked would indicate they must have occurred. And now the lobby was empty, at least from Guy’s vantage. Where was everyone?

It was impossible to know what to do. Should he just make his way back to his room and await word of some kind? Should he venture further out into the wide-open space of the lobby, potentially exposing himself to whatever danger was responsible for this destruction? Guy was scared now, that much he knew, but it was unclear whether he’d be safer going back the way he came or pressing on. Plus—and this was important, because it often played a role in the decisions he made in his life, decisions that led to his phenomenal success, which validated it as a decision-making tool—he was hungry.

“Yo!” he shouted, the volume and intensity of the call an attempt to compensate for his fear. No one answered. Stepping out from the alcove, he made his way toward the check-in counter, careful to stay close to the walls, with one eye on where he’d take cover should the need arise.

“Yo yo yo!” he announced again, with as much cheer and curiosity as he could muster, channeling his TV personality, as if he were greeting a chef on an episode of Triple-D, ostensibly just saying hello but also asking implicitly and with that sincere combination of kindness and chutzpah, How do you plan to impress me and my massive audience of loyal viewers today? That was among his many gifts, this ability to communicate on multiple levels at once, something he’d unconsciously learned how to do over years spent with a camera in his face. It’s a trick of the trade, being able to connect with both the viewer and the chef in tandem, making both feel as if they’re the ones whose side you’re truly on.

To the chef: Don’t worry buddy, I’m a cook, you’re a cook—we’re cooks, and we’re going to show these amateurs how it’s done.

To the viewer: Isn’t life amazing, how you can stumble into one of the best empanada places in the entire country, stashed away in a strip mall in Utah?

In the lobby of the Courtyard by Marriot, no one was listening, and no one was answering. The silence was unlike anything Guy had experienced. It went without saying that he was someone who lived his entire life at a volume most would consider too damn loud, the bleached tips being just one of many pieces of evidence. At this stage, he really wouldn’t have minded doing away with them, going with something a bit more natural, but each time he even intimated as much, his manager stopped him in his tracks.

“Let’s just get the app launched and then we can discuss it” or “Let’s just cut the ribbon on the Cesar’s food court and then we can look at switching things up.” Guy knew it was all a ruse. No one—not his manager, not his wife, not his kids, not his dog—would ever get behind Guy changing  his hair, or his bowling shirts, or his flip-flops. And if they wouldn’t do that, they certainly wouldn’t get behind him losing thirty pounds and taking six months off to walk the PCT.   

Guy took a few more tentative steps out into the open space of the lobby before being startled by a noise that pierced the quiet. It was the sound of glass breaking—a bottle falling from a shelf, or maybe a pint glass. Guy couldn’t tell but the noise sent him scurrying behind the check-in counter as he tried to place it. Poking his head up from over the counter, he scanned the room until he locked onto the source: the hotel bar, abandoned like everywhere else, where a handful of liquor bottles were perched precariously on the edge of a shelf. One of them must have fallen, Guy thought to himself, standing upright. Then—SMASH—a glass exploded against the mirror behind the bar. Guy ducked down again behind the counter, attempting to place the direction the glass had come from, when a hand grasped his shoulder, causing his soul to leap fifteen feet out of his body.

“Shhhh,” a voice said. “Shhhhhh.”

Guy turned around.

“Liz!” he exclaimed, recognizing his field producer.

“Shhhhh, be quiet,” said Liz, attempting to calm the person she was no longer sure was her boss, at least under the current circumstances.

“Liz-what-the-fuck-is-happening?” Guy muttered.

Liz didn’t open her mouth but simply made stern and direct eye contact, then brought her finger to her lips. She signaled with both hands that the next series of movements would need to be made calmly, slowly, then she gently raised her head in order to just barely peak up and over the counter, inviting Guy to mimic her. He did so, and from the relative safety of the check-in desk, Guy finally found his answer to the confusion of the morning as he laid eyes on what he thought initially was a person until he looked closer. It was wearing the remnants of a brown business suit, with a white shirt and yellow tie, but the left sleeve of both the jacket and shirt had been ripped off, revealing skin the color of broccoli-cheddar soup, with bits of flesh peeled off around the forearm and above the elbow. Yellow mucus collected around its eyes, which were bloodshot and crusty. Its dark black hair was jutting in all directions, seemed greasy, was maybe covered in…oh god. Guy could see teeth through a gaping hole on one cheek, and clasped between the teeth were what appeared to be food of some kind, reddish-brown, with specks of white—

Guy’s gag reflex kicked in as he squatted back down behind the desk. Liz gave him a look to collect himself. He took two deep breaths, then slowly poked his head above the desk again. Liz’s plan had worked. The thing—the zombie?—was now focused on the bar area, where the sound of the broken glass had come from. It moved slowly, awkwardly, limping along as if its bones and joints were rusting, which if it were in some respects dead, Guy thought to himself, was sort of the case. He thought about rotting meat, about that time years ago when he and his friends took DMT at Lake Havasu, and subsequently forgot about the massive rack of ribs Guy had brought, thinking he’d prep them for dinner that night. But in the confusion of the drugs and profound spiritual experience that followed, he left them on a picnic table near the boat dock, sitting in the Arizona sun, and when they returned to the ribs the next day they’d turned green and were covered in maggots.

Guy watched as the zombie trudged behind the bar, searching. It was almost like going to the zoo, watching the lions or the bears obliviously go about their business, unaware that they were being studied, marveled at, that scenarios were playing out in the imaginations of various observers in which the ferocity of the animal was fully revealed when perhaps it jumped the fence or smashed the barrier, dismembering the onlookers, eating their children. Guy felt a chill run down his spine as this thought sunk in. He thought about his own family—his two young daughters¹ back home, their mother, how all of this would feel like just the most pointless of endeavors if he were to ever lose them.

He felt Liz tugging his bowling shirt down to floor level.

“OK from what I can tell they’re not very fast, but they’re not slow either, and you never know where they’re hiding. I think our best bet is to try to make it to the van. I have the keys.”

Liz pulled the set of keys out of her pocket to show him, which is when Guy noticed the engraved keychain that read, “IF FOUND CALL BOOMER,” with his cameraman’s number on the back.

“Liz, why do you have Boomer’s—”

“Focus, Guy,” Liz whispered sternly. “There could be ten or twenty more of them here any second. Now I don’t think the front door is our best bet, but I saw a side exit I think will spit us out closer to the van. I think we sneak our way over there, but be ready to make a break for it if one of them spots us. How’s your knee these days? Can you run?

“I think it’s fine, but—”

“It doesn’t matter you’re gonna have to. Whatever you do, don’t slow down. You ready?”

“Liz, I don’t understand, why don’t we just go back to—”

“One… two… three…”

---

“You’re using Seek, try pressing Tune and going one at a time,” Liz instructed from the driver’s seat, hoping they might find someone, anyone, who was still broadcasting. But Guy was inept when it came to technology, no matter how rudimentary, and was just pushing random buttons. “Nevermind,” she said, and did it herself. The effort was pointless, though—there was only static.

“What the fuck,” Guy said, mostly to himself.

They’d managed to find their way onto a backroad of some kind, but it hadn’t been easy. Although Liz was right about the side exit she’d spotted in the Courtyard by Marriot, what she failed to notice was that it was hooked up to an alarm, and so while she and the mayor of flavortown had made it there unnoticed, when they pushed the door open it triggered a high-pitched staccato wailing that literally woke the dead. Panic pushed them out the door, which opened onto a parking lot with a field just beyond it. Had he more time to think, Guy would have connected the tableau that greeted him with the cordite smell that had woken him up: cars on fire, including a giant RV, and beyond that, out in the field, some kind of cistern that had exploded and was still shooting flames.

But he didn’t have time.

“Run!” Liz screamed, yanking his arm. Guy had put in one season of high school football before realizing he was made for gentler pursuits, and so he tried to channel those short-lived months of wind-sprints and two-a-days as they booked it through the parking lot. It was no use. He was multiple decades and several truckloads of mac-n-cheese removed from any semblance of athleticism, plus he was wearing flip-flops. Their pursuers emerged from every nook and cranny, first a handful, then a couple dozen, jerking themselves clumsily behind them, a zombie tornado picking up speed. Liz made it to the van a good fifty feet ahead of Guy, had gotten the doors open, the engine started, and began screaming to her maybe-still-boss to get the lead out. His heart about to burst, Guy heaved himself into the passenger side and slammed the door, the wheels screeching before he even had a chance to sit up straight. As they peeled across the parking lot, Liz managed to ram a few of the undead as she slalomed through debris.

Out on the streets, the scene was even worse. Their van seemed like it was one of the few vehicles still being controlled by a sentient human. The rest looked like they’d participated in some kind of demolition derby. There were cars smashed into trees, into telephone poles, or just stopped in the middle of the road. A gas station was on fire, a car had run into a laundromat. Liz zigzagged between the chaos, bumping up onto the sidewalk and through shopping centers when necessary, as Guy gripped the dashboard with such force his fingers started to hurt. Eventually they made it to a freeway onramp, but it was so crammed with cars they just moved on. Recognizing the futility of counting on civilization to assist them in their escape, Liz navigated away from it at every turn, finally hitting upon a stretch of open two-lane road that extended toward nothing but empty farm land. They had half a tank of gas.

to be continued…

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Healings is written by Garrett Kamps and edited by Tommy Craggs. Ayana H. Muwwakkil provides art direction.

Healings is about illness, recovery, spirituality, and related topics, and began in the summer of 2023 as a chronicle of Garrett’s battle with cancer. We make no guarantees that it will hold together, thematically speaking, now or ever.

1. Yes, I am aware that in “real life” Guy Fieri has two sons, but this is fiction, remember?