Date of the Dead

by John DeBellis

  It’s Me

  Was it time for me to tell Dr. Bliffover that he was a hero, a medical genius, the savior of mankind, or should I wait to see what these beings would become and if the change were permanent? The world may have been saved, but at what price? Would former deceased man-eating fellows become functioning members of society or would they form a new Tea Party? (I know that was at least the second Ted party reference, but I’m just trying to get them the recognition they deserve.) That last thought made me charge for the elevator and to tell Dr. Bliffover and then wait with the others to witness the outcome. When I arrived at the floor I was greeted by Bliffover and company, all holding make-shift weapons, except for Mander.

  “Hey, it’s me. I’m cured,” I said, doing the best impression of me I could muster.

  Dr. Bliffover held up his hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Three. See I’m fine.”

  “What’s the capital of New York?” Shrimp asked.

  “Uh…Albany.”

  Laura Lee’s stuck her finger in my face with such ferocity that it could never be mistaken for affection or even humane. “Do I look fat in this outfit? When I hesitated she got annoyed and added. “Go ahead answer chicken sh--.”

  “--No, you don’t. You flatter the outfit.” I shot back as she violently pulled down one of my ears pretending my head was a slot machine.

  Dr. Bliffover jumped in. “What’s my favorite color?”

  “How do hell do I know?”

  “Correct-a-mundo, I’m color blind.” He shouted and started laughing. .

  Skim Milk didn’t want to be left out. “How old do you think I am?”

  Even if they bashed my brains in and liquefied my private parts and forced me to drink them artificially sweetened, I would refuse to answer that one. “Enough! I’m cured. Look no bite marks. I even grew some more ear hair, “I said, hoping Laura Lee would suddenly fall in love with me or drop dead with the thought she might find me attractive. “Oh, can one of you help me get the false teeth out of my neck? They’re in pretty deep.” I said hoping that Skim’s question had been averted.

  Dr. Bliffover smiled, tore out the teeth, along with a piece of my neck and said, “He was smart enough not to answer Skim’s question. He’s cured. “

  The others, except for Mander, weren’t so sure and backed up as I left the elevator and walked to the window. “Doc, it looks like it’s working on the zombies, they’re turning back into people again, one is even selling bottled water.”

  “I don’t care how cute any of the guys we cure, I won’t go out with them, until they shine their shoes,” Laura said and broke into an Indian war dance.

  Doctor Bliffover, followed by the group, decided not to put on war paint, looked out the window. The cure quickly made its way outside. As zombies turned to humans and were bit by other zombies, they too turned to humans—most immediately began searching for their wallets and accusing each other of stealing their cash.”

  “Doc, is there any danger that the cure could weaken as more zombies turn human?”

  “Kill joy!” The Doc spit out.

  “The jerk has a point.” Laura Lee replied.

  Another Volunteer

  “Maybe,” Maria suggested, “someone should take your vaccine, go out and inject it into a few dozen zombies?”

  We stared at her, forgetting she’d even been with us. I found out later that Maria had been silent because she’d temporarily decided that the English language depended too much on words.

  “It’s a great idea. You go, and we’ll watch from here,” Laura Lee replied, this time feigning a little known Navajo chant.

  Mander shook her head. I think it was her head; it was attached to what I think was her neck, and said, “gee idee, IyeeeGa.”

  Dr. Bliffover understood her. He turned in her direction holding his hand over his eyes. “We’d have to put a bag over your head, a very thick bag, possibly led lined with spikes.

  “But what if the bag fell off?” Laura Lee asked.

  “We could use bolts, or we could cut off her head. He turned to Mander, shading his eyes. “It’s the style in some Arabic countries.” Dr. Bliffover later told me that beheading a person was one of his life-long ambitions well before he was even born. I think it had to with his over sexually deviant and over protective dad who didn’t remove his head until his mother gave birth.

  “Give me the stuff.” Shrimp said, “I’ll go, I may be short, with stumpy legs, and a small difficult to find sneaker size, bent toes, webbed feet, and hundreds of fragile broken bones overflowing with arthritis that might me make me collapse at any second, but I’m no coward.” He limped around in pain, falling several times.

  “You’re in no shape to go out there,” Skim Milk remarked.

  “Okay.” Shrimp quickly responded.

  That’s when my mouth stepped up without consulting the rest of me. “I’ll go. I already have the cure in me.”

  “Any other volunteers? I have a two gift cards for Bed Bath and Beyond.” Doc said, hoping he could bribe someone else into going.”

  “Don’t look at me. It’s Friday the 13th,” Klaus squealed. We all held our ears in case he had more to say. Thank God he didn’t.

  Doc looked at me, “I guess you’re on your own. I’ll give you a booster shot first.”

  I nodded.

  Doc tossed the needle in the air, spun around, and with his eyes closed caught it behind his back and then injected me.”

  The others, of course, broke into applause and began to chant. “More. More. More.”

  Dr. Bliffover bowed, picked up several needles, juggled them, and tossed them in the air again; this time they stuck in the ceiling. He did a somersault, a quick moonwalk, just as they came lose and fell. He looked up, caught them all with his mouth, and then spit the needles into me. As much as I was in pain from the injections, I joined the applause. I’ve always appreciated real talent. When the clapping died down the Doc handed me a shoulder bag full of needles, but first he pulled a rabbit out of it, which led to more applause and Maria throwing him her room keys.

  “If we survive this, I’ll tell you where I live,” Maria said seductively, while pulling down her pants to show him her behemoth butt.

  “I’m there, babe. All you have to do is—“

  Skim Milk coughed. “Now is not the time for that, besides it’s lent.” Her words held more than a hint of jealousy, and she slapped Maria’s ass. She kept slapping while Maria moaned and then started to sneeze with pleasure when Skim spanked her to the opening of “Sing, Sing Sing.” We all clapped along until Maria pulled up pants, and trying to take all the credit for the funky sound, did a backwards curtsey. It was quite a feat; she broke her spine in six places and became crippled from the waist down, but by then everyone was tired of clapping and turned away from her and faced me. Maria crawled around us making funny faces and sounds like a seal and even pretended to make a snow angel. Still we ignored her, recently crippled or not a person has to learn her boundaries. It was also a good lesson to learn: never take credit for someone else’s creativity.

  “I guess it’s time for me to save the planet,” I said, trying to sound masculine. I winked at Mander, she tried to return the wink but her eyelids drooped, got caught on her teeth and then she accidentally pulled out a few molars and one wisdom tooth when she yanked her lids open with fishing hooks.

  Saving the World

  They all walked me to the elevator, except for Maria who was not a strong crawler and gave up after twenty yards—the Doc making her journey more difficult by smashing several glasses and a Molotov cocktail on the floor. The group wished me luck. Laura Lee was more specific, “I hope you make it back alive, but become deathly ill from food poisoning. Oh, which reminds me. I packed your lunch. Make sure you eat it all,” she said as she handed me a brown bag that smelled like whatever was inside died from food poisoning and threw
itself up.

  The elevator arrived and I stepped into it, well fell in, Laura Lee tripped me. Mander reached in with some part of her, pulled me up, and then tried to kiss me. Instead, she bit a few buttons off my shirt before the doors closed on her head. Luckily I was able to kick her face hard enough so she escaped without leaving her ugly head with me--good thing because the only bag I had was full of needles.

  The trip to the lobby took longer than it should have. I stopped at every floor and searched all the rooms, pretending I lost my contact lens, in case the security cameras were still recording. I was stalling, trying to get up my nerve for the task ahead and wanted to finish the Times cross word puzzle that I’d carried in my back pocket for just such an occasion.

  When I finally reached the lobby, I was surprised to find a group of cured guys greeting me angrily. “Where the hell is the doorman? I lost the keys to the office!” Another one of them was banging on his locked mailbox.

  I pulled him away and said reassuringly, “You can’t get in using a thigh bone. Call a locksmith, dumb ass.” Before he could respond I ran outside ready to do my duty as a savior of the human race, but made one stop first to get more porno films before the owner got cured and returned.

  The street was full, but not with zombies. Hundreds of newly refurbished people milled about in ragged clothes, trying to find their wallets and car keys, several looking for missing body parts. A few fights broke out over some loose eyeballs and limbs, but ended when the missing body parts began to grow back. Yes, I said, grow back. Dr. Bliffover’s cure restored what they were missing. The chunk of skin that I’d lost when the Doc had pulled the teeth out of my neck had grown back. I wished I had lost my penis; maybe a brand new addition would work better.

  As I looked for zombies to vaccinate I felt like I was being watched and I was. It started with a small crowd that were staring at me and then soon began pointing and yelling. “He’s da man. He’s da M-A-N!” I didn’t know what they meant, panicked, ran from the crowd, around the corner and right into a massive zombie and a few of his wingmen. I was minutes from saving the world, this nightmare finally over and I was about to be devoured by a mob of very lonely and very hungry zombies. I knew Doc’s vaccination worked earlier, but now my resistance was suddenly low, I felt week and got dizzy. Maybe I should never have eaten the lunch Laura Lee prepared for me (good thing I hadn’t eaten all of it) I began throwing up, and worried that I was emptying myself of the Doc’s magic elixir. My puking worked as an appetizer; the zombies sprayed saliva as they chomped their teeth in anticipation of a new feast. I wondered if Doc’s cure would work on minced human meat. I reached for the needles the Doc gave me, but realized I had emptied the bag in the porno store so I could put the entire Bouncing Basketball B-B-B-Butts of Abu bu-bu-bu Ghraib, series parts 1-28 with the bonus DVD, Big Breasted Bosnia Babes Before Being Beheaded. B’s are still best sellers in porno’s post zombie period.

  The massive zombie face was just inches from mine. I was breathing heavy and hoped the garlic in Laura Lee’s lunch would make him have second thoughts. I could smell him all right; it was disgusting. Before dying he must have doused himself with Old Spice. That’s when I passed out.

  I felt like I was floating away and then I plummeted, heading towards blackness. I smashed my head on something hard and wet. I had gained just enough consciousness to realize it was the street. Before I could lift my head out of a pothole full of vomit and flesh, I was pulled up and up and up and then spun around. I caught glimpses of light smearing what left a trail of yellow and white. My eyes finally started to focus and I realized I was being carried around in circles by a flock of people, and those were building lights I was seeing. Recognizing that I was awake, they began chanting. “You Da Man!” “You Da Man!”

  Only later from eyewitness accounts and home movies did I find what had happened. Here’s what I learned. After an hour or so of looking out the window, Dr. Bliffover and company realized they were facing the alleyway. Doc found a window on the other side of the building that they all agreed gave them the best view. There they waited another 90 minutes. Finally Shrimp started taking bets on when I would be seen outside. Mander tried to place a bet, but because she vainly refused to remove the duct tape, they couldn’t understand what she was saying. Annoyed that she couldn’t place her wager, since even the most positive bets said I wouldn’t show up until the summer solstice, she decided to spoil their fun and sneak down the stairs to look for me. She easily made it through the crowd of second term humans, scaring away anyone who came within eye-shot. When a balding man threw up only a few feet away, she lost it. She had her fill of people vomiting at first sight and was about to head-butt him, when he started to scream that he should have never taken a bite of the half-sandwich he found on the floor in the Badminton Bisexual Bull Dyke Bitches of Beirut section and that it was a good thing he didn’t fall off the wagon by the temptation of all those needles lying on the shelf next to the Nearsighted Nipple-less Nymphs of Nicaragua and Nagasaki in 3 Double D. N’s were big sellers until the letter “N” was be replaced by the “W” in the post apocalypse English dictionary. The D quickly emerged as the number 1 porno seller thanks to me.

  Mander, kicked the Adult video store owner in the shins a few times until she heard a snap, just for fun, raced into the store, picked up as many needles as she could carry in her colostomy bag, which we all had mistaken for a birth mark, and searched for me. She followed the “He’s Da Man,” mantras guessing they were aimed at me. There she found me about to become nectar to the undead. She stuck her face into the middle of the zombies, who, upon setting their chalky eyes on her, gagged trying to inhale their roars and then turned to run. Zombies are very good at tearing off limbs, chewing raw flesh, smelling any blood type, some might even say they are superior to sharks and most mobsters, but they are not gifted runners, and can barely maintain a slow jog for more than three quarters of a mile.

  Several fell, tripping over their own legs, arms, and feet most of which were lying on the ground. Mander injected me again to ensure that the serum was potent to keep me alive and then injected a few dozen zombies until she ran out of serum. The zombies gone, the fledgling members of new society quickly found me—a needle place in my hand by Mander. Mander wanted to give me the credit for the former zombies transiting back to the life—human life. She later told zombie haters as well as sympathizers, much to my chagrin, (I’m still getting hate mail) that it was my bravery that saved the day. The crowd had lifted me up and held me over their heads, spinning me around bellowing, “He’s Da Man! He’s Da Man! He’s Da… Give me and M… Give me an A. Give me an M, no just kidding. Give me an N… What’s that spell? It spells M-AAAAA-An.” With all the cheering, Manda while fantasizing about an additional D and A in their chant, easily snuck away without scaring anyone and waited in the lobby for the celebration to end. That’s when I regained consciousness.

  My new fans finally put me down and I shook hands, signed a few hundred autographs, traded eating at Gaelic cafeteria stories, did a poll on what is the preferred method of cranial therapy on Norwegians, and even got promises of phone numbers from female admirers, when and if the cell service resumed. When I’d had my fill of accolades I headed back to the lobby. I would have arrived sooner, but it took me awhile to find all my porn.

  Mander and Laura Lee