with an infinite amount of time on his hands, he decided to continue his work, but this time he used the flesh of the living dead.
His sanity had left him on Z-Day, when the sculptures in his
The first sculpture to come to life was the infant inside of the pregnant woman sculpture. A man saw it moving in there, wiggling. He leaned in for a closer look, then the pregnant woman came to life, bit into his skull, and ripped out his brains with her plasticized teeth.
The crowd ran screaming as the exhibits came to life. A zombie split into three sections on top of a horse trampled through the crowd. A running male zombie with its muscles sprayed out like fans grabbed a woman from behind, weaved his rope-like muscles around her torso, then ripped her throat out. A soccer-playing exhibit staggered through the crowd with his soccer ball glued to his forehead. A paper-thin slab of an obese man gurgled on top of a table.
When he saw his specimens come to life, Gunther von Hagens fell to the ground, bawling. He looked over at his wife and saw blood spraying from the top of her head. A skinless corpse dangling from the ceiling by wires had torn the scalp off of her head. As he watched his wife shrieking, blood coating her dress, Gunther began to scream.
The zombie dangling from the wires looked over at him, chewing on his wife’s scalp. The sight made Gunther scream louder. This made many of his sculptures turn their attentions on him. They staggered toward him. Gunther found himself surrounded by his specimens. A basketball player growled behind his back, a male and a female joined at the crotch pulled themselves across the floor, a chess player with an open skull cried for his brains.
Gunther ripped an umbrella from the hand of one of his exhibits and used it to push his way through the walking dead. He grasped his shrieking wife by the wrist and ran out of there, through the chaos of Z-Day, and barricaded himself inside of the art museum.
This is where he spent the next decade of his life, constructing new works of art out of the flesh of the undead. Eventually, he was discovered by a band of soldiers scavenging the wasteland, and brought back to an outpost outside of town. He re-married, had children, and those children moved to the island of Neo New York. But his works of art were left behind.
His grandson hired the merc punks to retrieve his work from the museum, as many pieces as they could carry. The rumors of his grandfather’s work were spread wide through the Platinum Quadrant. He knew they would become popular gallery pieces. All he needed to do was hire some merc punks willing to go there. Unfortunately, merc punks didn’t travel that far into the Red Zone, they only went on missions near the coasts. That is, until he told the Mongol tribe about the
“But make sure to get the one with the red dress,” Gunther’s grandson told the merc punks the night before their mission. “That was his masterpiece.”
“Red dress?” Xiu asked.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” he said.
Xiu stares at Gunther’s masterpiece on the wall, a 4’ x 5’ painting using the flesh of a woman wearing a red dress. It was Gunther’s first wife. After she had become infected and turned into a walking corpse, Gunther decided to turn her into the most beautiful work of art he could create. He knew that she never wanted to become one of his sculptures, but it was the only way he could be with her and be safe from infection. She would not become an ordinary sculpture, though. She would become his masterpiece. Like the Mona Lisa, Gunther’s wife was transformed into artistic nobility within the frame.
“Mission accomplished,” Xiu says, as she takes the woman down from the wall, wraps her in a sheet, then ties her in twine.
The woman in the painting rolls her eyes into Xiu’s direction, her lips tremble, begging for mercy.
“Let’s go,” she tells her Arms. “The helicopter is only an hour away. Forty minutes if we hurry.”
Her two Arms nod at her. Zippo doesn’t nod very excitedly. He doesn’t want to hurry to the helicopter. He wants their mission to last forever.
Xiu’s unit sees this as a suicide mission. Even if they succeed, they will not be able to return home as a whole. Xiu will have to leave her two Arms behind. Mongol units are always willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the tribe. The money that would be made if this mission is successful is enough to feed their tribe for a very long time.
After three months into the breeding period, Xiu learned that she was unable to have children. No matter how many times she had sex with her Arms, she could not conceive. This was crushing to her unit. It was what they wanted most in the world. Then Xiu’s unit was volunteered for this suicide mission. Because her unit was unable to reproduce, they were considered expendable by the Mongol tribe.
Zippo didn’t want to go on the mission. Even though Xiu was proud to be of service to her people, Zippo couldn’t help but disagree with her.
“I don’t want us to go,” Zippo said to his Head, the day before the mission. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Xiu kissed him on the head. Even though he surprised her with his disobedience, she decided not to punish him.
The thought of leaving them behind was horrible to her. She would rather stay in the Red Zone and die with her Arms than return home without them. There was a part of Xiu that hopes their mission will fail.
“We will always be together,” Xiu said, rubbing his curls out of his eyes. “Even after we die.”
“In Heaven?” Zippo asked.
“Yes,” she said. “On that day we will be combined into one body, together as we were meant to be, for all eternity.”
Zippo laid his head on her breast, a tear rolling from his eye, as she stroked his dark curly hair. Then she saw Vine ready to move out, so she got up and dropped Zippo face-first into the side of the bed frame.
They arrive outside of the hospital with the paintings shifting on their backs.
“This is it?” Vine asks.
“This is it,” Xiu says.
They pause there for a moment, staring at the crumbled asphalt ground. None of them are ready to part ways. Zippo trembles at the thought of losing Xiu. When she departs, they will just be two empty shells, severed limbs lying on the ground, waiting to be eaten by ants.
“Good journey,” Xiu tells Vine.
She wraps her arms around him and kisses him on the cheek. Zippo wishes she was hugging him instead of Vine. Because the unit is Right-handed, she decides to say goodbye to her favorite Arm instead of both of them. He wishes he could feel what Vine is feeling as Xiu cries on his shoulder. He wishes he would have been a Right Arm instead of a Left Arm.
When Xiu lets go of Vine, she turns to Zippo. His mouth widens in surprise as she embraces him as well.
“Good journey, Zippo,” she says, her hot tears dripping down his neck.
Then she grabs him by the face and kisses him deeply. She holds him with all of her strength, releasing all of her love into him through her lips, her tears running down his cheeks.
When she stops kissing, she looks Zippo in the eyes. She tells him she loves him in the telepathic way Heads communicate with their Arms. Although Xiu’s unit is Right-handed, it is only because Vine is the stronger warrior of the two and a better partner in bed. But in Xiu’s heart, she loves Zippo the most of the two. Zippo was her little sweetheart ever since they were kids. She has always loved Zippo. Leaving him is the hardest part of their separation.
“I’ll finish the mission,” Xiu says, her voice cracking. “Our death won’t be for nothing.”
Then she takes the paintings from Zippo and Vine, and straps them to her back. She bends down and clicks
