Zombie Holiday

between his legs but it weren’t no good at all. He dropped to his knees right there in the road and started hollering like the hounds of hell were tearing him a new asshole.

  And she just walked up real close and looked at him, her head moving from side to side, her eyes flashing red even from where I stood. Then she put his dick in her mouth and started chewing with him screaming and carrying on. Grabbed his head in her hands and leaned in real close. Started chewing on his face and the screams went all gurgly and awful. Even for me, I almost had to look away, but the bone in my throat said no, keep looking. He’s warm yet. But I knew I wouldn’t go close to him. And the main reason was because of her. I knew right then if I did she’d rip me to pieces too and from the way she kept glancing over in my direction as she did what she was doing, I knew she wanted me to.

  I just came out of the tree line, stood a good many paces down the road, and watched. Why? You forget, there’s no TV now, no radio. You got to get your entertainment where you can. And this was like a combination of Iron Chef meets WWE. Except there weren’t no playing around here. Here was strictly business. Couldn’t been no more than a minute or two that she had the guy reduced to a puddle in the road. And then, right before he woulda started coming back to his new life, she wandered her naked self off to the side of the road and grabbed something. Came back to the road and I saw it was a rock. A big sonofabitch. She stood over the pile left of him and smashed it down on his head. Squashed it like a toadstool. Then she began gathering everything together in her arms and brought it over to where she’d laid in wait. Took a good many trips too, since there was so much of him that seemed to want to stick where it was. Regardless, in the old world she musta been a maid because when she set up shop again by the side of the road, her ass up and waiting for the next customer, there wasn’t much but a black smudge in the road.

  She never even looked my direction again and after a while I turned away and walked my own naked ass away from there.

  I don’t know how long I wandered around like that. Naked, that bone twanging in my throat. Seemed like forever. The sun came up, the sun went down. I slogged along. Found an old dead something one time and gobbled it up like a snack left for Santa Claus. I got to tell you, I was hopeless. Here I was, alone, naked, lost. And for what? I remembered burning down momma’s house and couldn’t really figure on what had drove me to it. Did I think that was gonna make things better? That somehow I’d elevate my status from the common ghoul to some sort of ghoul epitome? It was all lost to me now. I ate dead shit like a vulture, I creeped around like something to give Freddy Kruger nightmares. Who the hell was I kidding? What the hell was I trying to achieve?

  Believe me, I had plenty of time to think about it. And like I’ve said several times, even though my mind ain’t much good any more, I could still make connections. And everything I come up with was pure bullshit. I thought better to end it now. What’s the use? Thought about how to do it. Hmmm, well I couldn’t eat myself. Everything was about the head and I damn sure couldn’t eat that. So maybe jumping off something high? Sounded like too iffy. Running my head into a tree? Again, it seemed mostly useless. Besides I could put out my eye or something and about the only thing I could imagine that would be much worse than this was blind. So no. A shotgun blast. Definitely, but where the hell was I gonna find a shotgun? I sure as hell wasn’t walking back into the black widow’s nest.

  And it was here at my new low point that I saw the sign.

  It looked like something only a true retard could make. Two poles at different levels, one pitched forward the other back. A piece of plywood between em. And in the middle a big splotch of black blood. What was the message here? I stood in front of it and puzzled for a good long while. Came up with exactly nothing standing there naked in the middle of the road. After awhile I gave up and continued on.

  Wasn’t long after that I came to Zombie Town.

  Now here’s what I don’t want you to forget: as whatever it was happened and we reverted to what we are now, we didn’t forget where we come from. By that I mean we still seemed to have a sense of what we’d been. Dead or not, old habits are hard to break. If you spent most of your life working in a mechanic’s shop, that’s what you did now. Slept on your mother’s sofa most of the damn time? You could barely get off the motherfucker now. You go with what you know. And since the Dead only really knew about Life, and we weren’t the sharpest knives as I’ve said before, that’s what we went about doing.

  This was a smaller place than the one I come from. In the old world I’d lived in the suburbs. And even though I really didn’t know where the hell I was, I knew right off it weren’t the suburbs. This was the real Andy Griffith spread. One long road ripping straight through town. Old buildings on either side looking exhausted in the heat. But the Dead were here, or at least they’d been here. Broken glass all over the place, cars leaning over on flat tires, bones in the street. Oh yeah, they’d been here. And I had to ask myself the next logical question. Where were they now?

  It was dead quiet all around. I stopped where I was and considered the options. Go on through or peel off into the woods. The second option wasn’t much to think on because there I was naked as a babe. Fashioning clothes outta leaves and such just wasn’t my bag. And from the looks of it I’d probably be able to find some clothes somewhere. But here in the light made me kinda nervous. I could still hear the shotgun in the back reaches of my mind and if there’s one thing I have learned, it’s that you just never know. Here was a town. A chance at getting some clothes. That made my mind up for me.

  But still, it was broad daylight.

  I slipped off to the side of the first building and worked my way back into the undergrowth growing wild near the far corner. Then I laid down and waited for dark.

  When it got there I was still a little jittery. The whole time I’d lay there in the deep grass I kept seeing the black widow and what she done to that dumb hard-leg. Those fucking eyes. The last thing I needed right then was to meet up with a whole gang of that variety. And from what I’d seen lately, with the babies and such, it wasn’t such a far stretch to imagine.

  Regardless, I got up. Moved to the front of the building and looked around. All pitch black but I could see movement from several different spots. Lurching shadows actually. So I realized I hadn’t been far wrong, if anything. There were mudheads here and from the darkness of the shadows they seemed to be of the run-of-the-mill type. I didn’t see no flashing eyes to make me think different.

  That being the case I moved out from the building and started walking down mainstreet. By this time my eyes had adjusted as well as they was gonna and I could see just enough to make me either laugh or cry. There was one wild-haired lady pulling the skeleton of a dog on a leash behind her. A coupla kids shambled right past fighting over what looked to be a human leg bone. A guy with a filthy black apron came out of the barber shop and started peeling off skin from his arm in long strips. Intent like he was reading some technical manual. I still ain’t figured that one out yet.

  But I moved along looking at each of the shops as I passed by. Not one of the mudheads I passed seemed to know or at least care I was even there. Then I came up on it. Some kinda dress shop. The door was hanging by one hinge and all the glass was smashed out of the window and laying on the sidewalk. Inside looked like the aftermath of a shitstorm. Clothes were flung everywhere. Racks knocked over and crushed flat. All the counters laying in pieces. I even saw what appeared to be an arm poking out of the open doorway. Wasn’t shit to me. I went over and stepped inside.

  Now I ain’t ever been a fashion buff but with all them clothes laid out for the taking I figured I’d take my time. Found a pair of pants that fit just fine. A button up shirt that I even managed a button or two. I even wrapped an expensive-feeling tie around my neck and knotted it around my chin. I kicked around for a few more minutes and found a pair of shoes that called my name.

  Once all that was done I shuffled over to the mirror and took a good look.
Hell, I coulda worked a stretch at Wall Street from the looks of it. But don’t get me wrong, now, not then. Then I turned back to the door, sniffing over that arm before I gained the street. I was hungry. Hell, I was always hungry, but the smell of that rotting arm was just about too much. I felt like a fat lady in a candy store.

  I picked up that old, gnarled motherfucker and gave it a good look. The hand was all gripped into a claw but it might as well have been crab legs as far as I was concerned. I snapped one of the fingers off, munched it for awhile, staring out into the darkness of the street. Spit out the fingernail and looked at what I had left. There weren’t much skin left above the wrist but the palm looked meaty enough. Plenty good for a walking snack. I cracked the hand off at the wrist. Looked back into the room again. I needed something with pockets, the bigger the better, and it wasn’t long before I finished my ensemble. Senator Mudhead at your service.

  Then I went to do some politicking.

  Didn’t take long for Zombie Normal to start up either. First thing I saw was a form in the street, groaning. Reaching around and fucking with something down there on the ground with him. I walked over