NIGHT OF THE ANNOYING DEAD: By Dale Phillips
Saturday, December 4th, 2010When the zombie apocalypse finally came, it didn’t go down like we expected. Sure, the dead rose from their graves, all rotting and nasty, and shambled around everywhere, moaning so loud they’d drive you crazy. But they weren’t hungry to feast on the brains of the living. They just wanted to go back to the lives they’d lived before they died.
So all over the world, the loved ones of the departed got quite a shock when the deceased came back home and tried to rejoin the family. Hell of an inconvenience. Ever have a zombie knock down your door and try to kiss you like they were still alive and fresh? Ugh. Graveyard breath is something you really don’t want a whiff of. Sure you could whack them on the head, put them out of their misery once and for all, but a lot of families couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Rather, they took off, and left the zombies to remain in their last place of residence. Waves of people hit the road to look for untenanted dwellings, only to meet up with waves of zombies going back to their old jobs.
Zombies wanted to get back in their old office buildings, and so smashed all the glass and battered down the doors to do so. Once inside, they wreaked even more havoc, destroying things while trying to do former jobs, with falling-off fingers and no motor skills. They’d accidentally set fires when using the break room microwaves.
Nothing much changed at the Motor Vehicle Bureau and most government offices, as dead clerks replaced the live ones. Service even improved in a few places.
But mostly it sure was some awful mess. Zombie drivers soon made the roads impassable, with wrecks aplenty, and cars every which way. People and zombies just don’t mix on the roads. It was hard to know when to cross a road, too. I remember that first week, I saw a zombie Boy Scout latch onto an older lady, trying to help her across the street. She couldn’t break away, and they were moving so slowly, a car finally hit them.
Recreation was difficult because of the zombies everywhere. Let me tell you, a zombie foursome plays one very slow round of golf. And anyone who tried to swim would get manhandled by zombie former lifeguards, and probably drown first. You wouldn’t even take a dead Baywatch-era Pam Anderson dragging you out of the water and doing mouth-to-mouth. Playgrounds? No way would you let your kid near the little zombie girl, especially on the seesaw.
Public gatherings soon stopped, after some gruesome incidents and grisly scenes of mass horror. Zombies got in to the Paris fashion show and started force-feeding the anorexic runway models, with hideous results. That viral video went all over the world, before the stations stopped broadcasting and the power went out.
The food supply soon became a problem. Restaurants closed that first day the zombies came back, as the service was even more terrible than usual. Zombie farmers on tractors and harvesters ran them through the crops, ruining them. In the grocery stores, zombie clerks and shoppers accidentally destroyed all the food, and all canned goods were soon snapped up by living scavengers, who defended them to the death.
Things got so bad that people protested, as if they thought the shreds of government remaining would save them. They marched with signs saying things like, “Let the Departed STAY Departed,” and Make Them Stop or I’ll Kill Them (Again).” But when zombie Senators and Congresspersons mixed with the live members, it was hard to tell the difference.
So many people were killed outright, and lots of others couldn’t take it, and killed themselves out of despair or disgust. Which only made matters worse, because they just added to the zombie population.
Some folk started fighting back. Picking them off helped some, but you felt bad, as they didn’t really mean any harm. And all the head squishing gets tiresome. But it’s tough to get by. For example, you find a hotel room to sleep in, and then a zombie chambermaid breaks down the door and comes to change the sheets, while you’re still in them.
One bunch of survivors set up a zombie cruise ship. Hundreds of zombie tourists were lured aboard, and they were taken out to sea and stranded. Turns out a lot of them eventually made their way to land, having fallen overboard and walked along the ocean floor.
We survivors hunker down and get by the best we can. We try not to go out much, because there are still zombie insurance salesmen, and they never let go once they get hold of you. All day and all night, you hear the slow moaning. Get more than two or three and it’s pretty loud. So I guess this is the end of civilization. Unless we can figure out some way of getting the zombies to just leave us alone and start a new life. Get them to let go and move on. Man, the dead sure are annoying.
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©2010 Dale Phillips
Check out Dale’s website at: www.daletphillips.com
