Date of the Dead Page 3

The Stairway and the Sexists

  It was time to run. Laura Lee was first to notice that they indeed were zombies, when none of them whistled or made catcalls because her skirt had blown up from the wind. I followed her back into the building, making both catcalls and whistles. Hey, times might be tough, but I’m still a man and I have needs.

  We panicked and pressed the elevator button so many times, I think it got confused—the doors would open and then suddenly close as it rose and then would stop and come down again, finally just leaving our floor altogether. We were so frightened we practically jumped down the stairs, flight after flight, not caring if the zombies were lying in wait or were just too damn lazy to climb a few thousand stairs. We must have made it down 20 flights when we started to lose our breath and noticed we’d passed our floor – the one floor we knew didn’t have any zombies. It was too late to go back; the zombies from the roof were on their way down. In fact several with damaged legs, hips, knees, or had night blindness, had tripped and were rolling down—very close behind. In fact one had rolled past us. He crashed into the wall on the level blow, rose, brushed himself off, and started climbing towards us. Others were now either rolling past or crashing into walls just above. We were surrounded. Their moans chilled my bones especially my weakened right femur, the result of a tennis brawl. A few high notes cracked the screen on my iPhone 17S, one that not only answered your questions but did blood tests, urine analysis, and checked your dog for worms. I could hear teeth chomping on the stale air in their rancid mouths. Their stench was so bad Laura Lee couldn’t smell my garbage-soiled clothes. A tall zombie, with tattoos of steroids being injected into muscles covering his mammoth biceps, pounced on me, while other zombies were tearing at Laura’s Lee’s clothes. I tried not to look as one tore off her blouse, revealing a see through lace bra. Ignoring the zombie who was about to swallow me in large delicious bite size chunks, I turned toward Laura Lee and her zombie attackers and yelled. “Rip off her skirt!” A set of teeth, taxi cab yellow, yet unusually straight, was about to make me one of their brethren by oral initiation, but stopped. A dart sunk into his head and he fell. Darts, pool balls and cues smashed through skulls and zombies fell and rolled down the stairs.

  Then I heard a real voice, slightly drunk, but human said, “Come on, get out of there, and grab a few of the darts, we didn’t finish our game yet.”

  I yelled back, “How about the pool cues?

  “If you play pool, you’re going to need your own cue.”

  I grabbed a couple of cues, any darts I could find, and then helped Laura to her feet. Although, it was easily within reach, I left her blouse. OK, I’m a sexist pig. But at that moment I needed something to think about ravaging as opposed to being ravaged myself.

  A tall guy, who would be a distant loser in a beauty contest with a zombie burn victim, but only if he won the talent portion of the show, pushed us through an open door into a hallway. He was followed by a six -pack of guys who would have certainly lost a smell competition with zombies even if they rose from the city dump. They led us to the open entrance of a bar. People, actual living people, were drinking alcoholic beverages and playing bar games as if life were still going on as usual. I was not in my normal state of confusion. I had entered a myriad of thoughts swirling around, blending with each other like hair down a drain after a mixed race orgy in an all men and women’s shower. I was about to ask my saviors a question, which Laura Lee stole before it could leave my mouth. “Why do you guys stink like a zombie’s afterbirth?”

  She didn’t use the same words as I would have, in fact I was thinking of using Spanish, since I’d spent all that dough on Rosetta Stone and it might be my last chance to use it.

  “Sorry, but that’s what happens when you leave southern politicians in the same small space for too long. We piled into a closet when the dead starting rise to the supper bell,” he said with a mile long drawl and a voice that wasn’t used to telling the truth.

  “Yeah, we were at a political fund raiser and had stopped here to spend our bribe money on a few beers. We heard some screams but thought it was just a woman getting raped who was pretending like she didn’t enjoy it,” he laughed a lecherous snarl suited for a dark alley.

  I held Laura Lee back from stream lining this guy’s body, so he wouldn’t be weighted down with genitals, but I couldn’t stop myself from kicking him in his field of dreams. He collapsed like a coal miner’s lung. The other’s just laughed and then the lead savior spoke out. “Bobby Bob, I told you not to talk like that. Northerners don’t think women enjoy involuntary sex.”

  I was ready to do my Rockette thing again when Laura Lee jumped in front of me and spoke out. “Yes, we northern ladies are spoiled and not used to be beaten into submission.” She was being sarcastic and knew these guys were too dumb to notice and would see it as a peaceful gesture.

  “If more northern gals would think like that it would make slipping Rohypnol in gal’s drinks a lot more fun.”

  “Actually, I’d prefer getting raped on Ketamine, I enjoy it even if the guy has a small dick. I bet you know that from experience,” Laura Lee said and then winked and did a pirouette.

  The guys laughed and eyed her up and down and even walked around her. One guy pulled out a tape measure but before he could wind it around her, Laura Lee said, “You don’t’ have to measure your dick, I’m sure it’s nearly two inches,” then mimed like she was trapped in a box.

  The guys laughed slapping each other on their backs and then the big guy spoke up, “Here, if you ever get tired of saying no to him.” He handed her a business card.

  I was quickly losing my temper so I segued into another subject. “I’m going to buy my little lady here a drink.”

  The tall guy spoke up. “Bloody Mary goes with any kind of roofie. The little lady here won’t even taste it,” a fellow misogynist stated.

  I thought he had to be joking and was about to come back with a witty retort, but the look on his face said he was dead (brain cell) serious.

  Laura Lee, not wanting to see me get beat up until she could record it on her iPhone, which she later used to take some award winning photos, blew them a kiss and then dragged me away from the group singing, “I’m A Woman,” correctly figuring they didn’t like a gal who could spell woman.

  Meeting Our Crew

 

  We found an empty spot at the end of the bar. Bartending was a woman whose breasts hung out of all three dimensions. I gave her my order and then asked Laura Lee what she wanted, but her answer surprised me. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Why not? We’re safe.” I was starting to think this date was not going to work out.

  “You are, but I need to go to an AA meeting.” She said and then for no reason started to tap dance.

  “You want to leave now!” I said as I was started to do the Twist.

  “If we stay I’ll fall off the wagon and I’ve been sober now for thirty-one years if you count the nine months in my mother’s belly.” Laura said, and then started the bunny hop.”

  “That means you’ve never even had a drink. Why would you need an AA meeting?” I joined the bunny hop line a few people down from her. “Were your parents alcoholics?” I shouted.

  “No.” She said as she segued into the hokey pokey.

  “Drug addicts.”

  “No,” she stammered as she stopped and stuck her right leg out— the line following her lead.

  “Then why?” I stuck my left foot out and was immediately shoved out of the line into a table that fell over along with the chairs.

  “Because, they were addicted to coffee and it’s one of the few places where I can smoke.” She jumped out of the line, which continued around the room.

  The bartender with the rack for all ages threw a pack of cigarettes to her. “We got some coffee made and you can smoke here, I won’t let anyone toss out a cute thing like you.”

  Laure
Lee caught the cigarettes and spoke up. “I don’t want to mislead you, but I’m not a lesbian, I just have sex with girls because I like it better than having sex with men.”

  The bartender at first looked disappointed, but fought it off. “Hey, I understand, sexual preference is genetic, something that we’re born with like the obsession for orange Jello.”

  The conversation about sexual preference went on for another twenty minutes before it was decided that being a bi-sexual hermaphrodite was the way go, especially if you’re a teenager just experimenting, necrophilia came in a close second considering what might be left of the human race.

  Their sexual preference debate morphed into a heated conversation on how long would take zombies to be considered part of society, and if so, at what point should they be required to file for taxes. I drifted off into my own thoughts, wondering how and why most people had become zombies and we hadn’t. I was sure I hadn’t missed a flier or an Internet ad asking us to join a new movement that involved cutting edge eating habits. Why hadn’t I become a zombie? What had I done or not done? Was it something I ate? Was it a medication I was on? Was it because I was a left-handed switch hitter who only batted from the right side? Was it because I could never whistle during rush hour, or triangulate phone signals, or is it because I have never seen an episode of Law and Order? What the hell was it? I guessed it could be anything and that there was a good chance I’d never find out the truth. Right now, we had to survive, and I had to make sure I had enough money to leave a decent tip.

  I did see something that made me wonder if we weren’t any better than those things chewing on our friends, family, children, and munching on sider orders of newborn infants. Some of the bar guys had caught a couple of zombies and had them chained to the wall. But that’s not what disgusted me. No, it the midst of this chaos, my human brothers and sisters had tied a zombie up to a mechanical bull and were betting on how long it could stay on while they shot body pieces off of it. It was savagery, it was in humane, and it was frustrating since I had left all my money as a tip.

  Laura Lee came over to me and gently broke a glass on my face which made me forget about my gambling addiction and how it caused me to lose, my eight wives, my family, my friends, my duck hunting dogs, my toiletries and eventually every cent I’d ever had, not to mention, all the broken bones I endured, plus the loss of one kidney, one lung and a portion of my liver I had to hand over to the mob.

  “We need to get out of this place,” Laure Lee said. “You can stay if you want, I’m just asking out of politeness.”

  “I was told that they have plenty of coffee and cigarettes. Why leave?”

  “Marcy Phyllis Carolla,” she said pointing to the bartender. “Everyone calls her Skim Milk, because it makes no sense, says that the clientele here are nuts and it’s only a matter of time before they get so drunk they get us killed. One of the guys was talking about having a zombie wet t-shirt contest. The winner gets to eat the first one of us who dies. Skim Milk and two of her coworkers are leaving tonight. She knows how to get into the elevator that runs from a chief executive’s office, on this floor, to the sub-basement, which is closed from the outside by large metal French doors. Are you coming or should I say goodbye and tell you how I wished I could be here to see you turn into a zombie.” She smiled, winked, moved each ear separately, feigned sticking her finger down her throat, did twelve jumping jacks, five squat thrusts, a one arm handstand, a counter clock wise pirouette, and one poorly executed summersault—crashing into several bar stools, knocking herself unconscious for a few seconds. How could resist someone so adorable?

  “Count me in, I’m going,” I stated, figuring Laura Lee’s display of dislike for me was just a way for her to disguise her hatred.

  Following Skim Milk

 

  The plan was for Laura Lee and me to walk behind the bar pretending we saw a skunk. It worked like a charm--no one wanted to help us find the critter. Skim Milk’s two co-workers came armed with handguns with silencers, several kitchen knives, and a complete set of silverware for eight. The man was squat and looked like he was stretched and widened to fill a 70-inch flat screen TV. His name was Joe, which he decided to shorten to Jo because he didn’t trust silent letters. Next to him stood, Maria, a woman whose large round butt made me think she was sitting on a globe.

  We snuck out the back door and down the hall, Skim Milk holding a flash light steady in her cleavage. In each hand she held a kitchen knife ready to slice up the first dead thing she saw. She didn’t see any and neither did we. When we arrived at the CEO’s office, she slowly opened the door, made a sound like a crow, and never explained why. Then swinging her breasts into the room, like they had tassels stuck to them, she sent the shaft of light in circles until she was sure there were no zombies. Skim Milk turned on the office light and led us to the private elevator. As the elevator door slid open a zombie in a three and half-piece business suit, wire-rimmed glasses, and a bad toupee lunged out from behind a cabinet, knocking me to the ground. He would have taken a chunk out of my shoulder, if his toupee hadn’t slid over his head, which blocked his view. When he tried to push the toupee away he knocked his glasses off. He leaned forward to bite me and stepped on a lens—the crunching sound distracted him like a tantalizing appetizer. With each bite of air his teeth got closer to removing part of me. Just as he was about to simultaneously make me both a meal and a brother, his head exploded off his neck, in too many pieces for even a show as unreal as CSI could reconstruct. That’s how we got the idea that Jo was a good shot, which was soon confirmed when we tossed zombie body parts out the window so he could demonstrate his shooting skill. When the last appendage was blown apart, Skim decided it was time to try the elevator. Jo, of course, shot the elevator and was dejected when it didn’t bleed. Skim sat Jo down and using charts on anatomy, scientific periodicals on the chemical make-up of DNA, and string theory, plus a quick game a Pictionary was able to convince him that elevators are not a life form.

  I pressed the button on the wall and the elevator opened immediately, since it was left on our floor. At first we entered the elevator in alphabetical order, then Jo insisted we go by height. Maria thought weight would better, since she always carried a scale. I’ve always hated scales. I found them difficult to stand on long enough to get my correct weight since one of my legs was ten inches shorter than the other. I tried to keep it a closely guarded secret, even though I tended to lean severely to the left. They were adamant that I take off my custom shoes, which would have made my body nearly parallel to the ground. I refused to cooperate and insisted that instead we enter by the lowest social security numbers first, which put Maria, who was an undocumented worker at a distinct disadvantage. (She did argue that not having a social security card made her number the equivalent of zero.) Even though under normal circumstances Maria spoke perfect English, under this stress of being eaten alive, she began speaking Albanian every other word. Rather than try to understand her or find another solution, we just piled in.

  The elevator was fast, since it didn’t stop at any other floors. Whatever weapons we had were pointed toward the opening of the door. When the door opened there was no one to kill or even ask if they knew if the Yankees were now over paid zombies. Curiously enough there were lights on in a few sections of the basement, which normally worked as a garage for executives.