That night, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. What if she was being held hostage by a serial killer, waiting for a knight in shining armor to come rescue her? What if she was kidnapped? What if she was stranded on the side of the road somewhere after a terrible car accident, slowly bleeding to death?
The only thing keeping me awake at work the next day was the hope that she would come in. The day passed, and she wasn’t seen. That night, my waking nightmares continued. If only I had asked her name, maybe even her number, I could find her and see if she was okay.
I posted to the Craigslist Missed Connections forum: “SWM Barista looking for his Hipster Doll. You come in every day and order a grande caramel latte and write music on your laptop. I’ve missed you the past couple days, and I hope you’re okay.”
Apparently, there are a lot of people who go into coffee shops and order grande caramel lattes and work on laptops. But none of them were my Grande Caramel Latte.
The next morning when I went into work, my boss looked at me and said, “You look like hell. Go home and get some rest.”
“Oh no, I’m fine. I’ll be okay,” I said, and begun my vigil of staring at the door.
He snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Didn’t you hear me? I can’t have you making people’s drinks when you’re sick. Go home.”
Faced with no other choice, I took off my apron. Before I walked out the door, one of my coworkers handed me a handful of pills. “Take one of these,” he said, “they’ll help you sleep.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, and shuffled home. I took a pill and lay on the couch.
The entire day passed while I was sleeping. When I woke up, I took another pill and fell asleep again. I had the next day off work, so I continued to sleep through that day as well. By the time I emerged from my self-induced coma, I realized that Grande Caramel Latte probably had just moved away, closer to another coffee shop, and it was my fault that I would never see her again.
My head hung down the next day at work. I focused on my job and didn’t look up at the customers. Then at 7-o-clock on the dot, I got an order for a Grande Caramel Latte. Talking myself down, I set the coffee on the counter and called out for her.
And there she was, looking as gorgeous as usual, if a little worse for wear. Her sweater was fraying. Her skirt was covered in blood. Her leggings were torn. Her hair was matted. Yet still, she smiled a small smile up at me and said, “Thank you.”
I reached out and pulled the drink back before she could grab it. She looked up at me with tears in her big blue eyes. I said, “What’s your name?”
“Carrie.”
“Carrie, can I have your number? Would you like to go out sometime?”
A tear rolled down her face. “You don’t want to go out with me now.”
I was astonished. “I can’t see why any guy wouldn’t want to go out with you.”
“But I’m a zombie,” she cried.
“So.” I shrugged, and handed her a napkin.
She wiped her face and blew her nose. “Really?”
“Yeah. So what about it? Would you like to go out sometime?”
She pulled the marker off of my apron and wrote a telephone number on a cup and handed them both back to me. “Sure. Call me sometime.”
Carrie. Her name was Carrie. Carrie Grande Caramel Latte.
(back to TOC)
****
Sweet Justice
I was walking home from work after a particularly hard shift. The Sunny Side Up Cafe was an all-night diner, filled with greasy eggs and bacon. Even the toast was soggy. The customers were a mix of creepy truckers, drunks who had been kicked out of the bar, and fairly nice but tired people on the way to or from work. Usually I worked second shift, but I agreed to trade with Darla so she could go out with her boyfriend that night.
Also, usually my boyfriend Rick would come to pick me up. He’d come in about an hour before my shift ended, sit at the counter, and eat some soggy but burnt pumpkin pie. He’d always tell Lucy that her pie was the best. She knew he was lying, but appreciated the compliment.
But tonight, Rick didn’t show. I tried calling his phone, but he sent me to voicemail. I knew he’d rejected my call, because it would ring once, then transfer to voicemail. Once he accidentally answered it, then hung up right away.
I was pissed. I mean, fine, we’d had our rough spots recently, but if he was going to dump me, he should at least have the balls to tell me.
But I was also sad. Not returning my calls like that wasn’t like him. I was sure I wasn’t dating a douchebag. So as I walked, I texted him.
“baby, r u ok?”
No answer.
“r u mad at me?”
No answer.
“I <3 you. Let’s talk.”
I was still waiting on his reply when I reached my apartment an hour later. I lived in one of those old houses that was converted into apartments, and my door was around back through the alley. “Damn,” I said to myself as I walked through the yard, completely ignoring the cracked and rotting path put in years ago. I had forgotten to turn on the porch light. It was always a pain trying to find the right key and fit it into the hole while in the dark.
That night, no one at all had turned their lights on in the alley, so it was particularly dark. I reached out for the door handle and stubbed my toe on the step. Luckily, my hand grasped the door handle in time for me to catch my fall. Surprisingly, the handle turned under my grip. Apparently I had forgotten to lock the door as well.
I composed myself, stepped inside the door, and flipped the light switch. The living room lights didn’t come on as expected. Replaying the walk home, I was trying to remember if there were any lights on in the house. Perhaps the power was out.
Sleepiness was catching up with me, and I decided to just crash on the couch instead of trying to trip my way through to the bedroom. I shuffled across the carpet to avoid stepping on my cat.
In fact, Kibbles wasn’t even bugging me for dinner. Usually she would start meowing before I even got in the door. When I kicked something furry, she didn’t even meow. She didn’t even move. I was getting worried, so I abandoned my plan to get to the couch and replaced it with a plan to find a light source.
I made it to the kitchen, which was faintly lit by the glow of the clock on the microwave. I should’ve realized something was wrong then, since if I didn’t have electricity, the clock wouldn’t be on either. I found the junk drawer, rummaged around, and finally found an old book of matches.
I finally got the third match lit and made my way to the bathroom holding the tiny little stick in front of me. By time I got to the bathroom, I was burning my fingers, and threw the match into the bathtub. Before trying to light another match, I thought I would just feel around to find the candles I sometimes lit for my baths.
Suddenly, the door to the bathroom slammed shut. In a part of my mind, I knew I should panic. Instead, I calmly found the candles and lit them. I wasn’t surprised to find the door locked, but I wasn’t worried, since the lock was broken when I moved in. I jiggled the handle to the left, and the door popped open.
The kitchen light was on, and sitting at the table with my long filet knife sat a man I didn’t know. He was short, with dark hair and a distinct widow’s peak. His surprised eyes were dark, and he was wearing a raincoat. But he reacted fast, came at my throat with the knife, and the last thing I saw was the tiles on my drop ceiling.
I woke up on the couch, thinking that perhaps I had made it to the couch after all, and the rest was just a dream. I called out for Kibbles. When she didn’t come, I looked down at the approximate spot that I thought I had kicked her the night before.
Now I was assured that it was not Kibbles that I had kicked.
Rick lay on the floor, soaking in a pool of blood. My taupe carpet was ruined. His neck had been slashed open, and it appeared he was still lying right where he had fallen. Next to his body was his cell phone, covered with bloody fingerprints.
I picked it
up. It said, “5 missed calls. 5 unread messages.” He had never even known that I had called.
Desolation flooded over me. I had likely been mad at him for getting killed, in my apartment, while I waited for him at the diner. Why was I still alive? It was unfair.
I went back into the bathroom, now flooded with the morning light coming in through the windows, and grabbed every pill bottle I could find in the cabinet. I turned on the faucet, took a drink of water straight from the tap, and proceeded to take every single pill I had.
I lay on the floor next to my love and willed myself to fall asleep. Minutes later, a wave of nausea came over me, and I rushed back into the bathroom and vomited into the bathtub. I was able to compose myself long enough to go for the toilet the next time. I continued to spew until nothing but blood came out. With my head in the toilet, that is where I died.
I know this, because 3 hours later, that is where I woke up. Man, I couldn’t even die correctly.
I went into the kitchen, now more determined than depressed. In the knife block, the filet knife was missing. Now I understood why the killer chose that knife, it would have slit my wrists like butter. Remembering the knife at my neck, I finally looked down at my own clothes. I was covered in brown, dried blood. My hands found the gaping slash in my neck.
Back in the bathroom, with the lights on, I inspected myself in the mirror. I looked like death warmed over. Literally, I looked dead. I seemed to have lost most of my blood, and not only was I pale, I was starting to take on a green/yellowish hue.
At that point I realized, oh my god, I’m a zombie.
After I got over the shock, I went back into the living room and stared at Rick’s body on the floor. How could I have been resurrected and not him? It wasn’t fair.
I picked up his phone again and dialed 9-1-and stopped. What would the police think of a zombie calling about a murder? If they didn’t just laugh at me, I’d surely be blamed for it.
Another wave of despair came over me. Usually in situations like this, I would call Rick. My eyes found their way to his limp, rotting form on the floor. Wait, since I’m a zombie now, wasn’t I supposed to want his brains? The idea made my stomach churn, and I would’ve vomited if I had anything left to expel. It gave, “puking your guts out,” a new meaning.
No, the thing to do now is find out who did this. I had to find the man who took my Rick away from me. In his phone, I scrolled down past my calls and messages to find who called him last. Someone named Debby. Who the fuck was Debby? I called the number.
“Hello?”
Skipping all pleasantries, I asked, “How do you know Rick?”
“I work with him,” she said without hesitation.
“What did you call him about?”
“That’s private.” I could hear her defenses going up.
“This is his girlfriend, and he’s dead. So it doesn’t matter if you were sleeping with him.” I was already impatient.
“Oh no,” she said quickly, “it was nothing like that. I owed him money.”
“For what?”
“What does it matter?”
I yelled into the phone, “He’s fucking dead, and I’m trying to find out why! Are you so fucking cold and heartless that you’re not going to help?”
“Jeez, okay. He said he could get me out of a DUI if I paid him. He held up his end of the deal and got it off my record, but I still owed him a fiver.”
“Five dollars?”
“No, five hundred dollars, duh.”
“How’d he fix it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, defeated, and hung up the phone.
Now what? I thought. I started looking through his pockets and found his wallet. When I opened it up, I was staring back at myself. He kept a picture of me in his wallet, the first thing he would see. I tried to cry again, and couldn’t.
Rifling through the rest of the contents, I found a business card for a detective for the city police. I thought about calling him, but what would I say? So I did the next logical thing, I Googled him.
The first thing that came up was his Facebook page, complete with a picture of him with his dog. He had dark brown eyes, and looked quite short. And he had a distinct widow’s peak. And Rick was listed as one of his friends.
I easily guessed Rick’s password to his Facebook account and got access to the cop’s photos. His profile picture was a cropped version of him and his dog in front of his house, with the number 502 next to the door. Browsing through more pictures, I found some of a Halloween party he had in his backyard, with the city monument close by in the skyline in the background.
Hm, I should be able to find that house. What’s the worst that could happen, that I’d be killed? Again? Whatever.
Downtown, I had no problem finding his house. I went to the backyard, did away with all subtlety, and broke in the back window. Cutting my dead flesh, I reached in and unlocked the door. It led into the kitchen. And there next to the sink, washed and drying next to his dinner dishes, was my filet knife. I used a towel to pick it up, stuck it in my apron, I couldn’t believe I was still wearing it, and found his bedroom.
Just as I predicted, I found a loaded gun under the bed. I took it with me too, and headed back home.
I dropped the knife next to Rick. The police should find it along with the detective’s fingerprints. Then I put the gun to my head, and prepared myself to fire. I better not wake up this time.
(back to TOC)
****
Fine China
I couldn’t remember back to a time when my mother had been living. Obviously, she had to have been alive to give birth to me, the youngest of three kids. But as long as I could remember, she had been a zombie.
She worked hard to be sure that us kids still had a normal childhood. We had trips to the zoo and Christmas mornings and dinner at the dining room table as a family every night.
It was my oldest sister’s job to cook the vegetables, my brother’s job to do the dishes, and my job to set and clear the table. On July 27th every year, my mom would tell me to set the table with the good china. When I asked why, she would always say, “It’s been too long since we’ve last used it. We should get it out more often.”
As the years went by and I grew more aware and more mature, I realized there were questions I should be asking. When I was eleven, I asked, “Did you get these plates when you and dad were married?”
“No,” she said. “They have been passed through our family for several generations.”
When I was twelve, I asked, “When I get married, can I have the fine china.” She smiled and told me yes.
When I was thirteen, asked what was so special about July 27th. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “That was the day your father and I got married.” Then she looked down at her hands sadly. “That was also the date when your father died.”
On July 27th of my fourteenth year, I set the table with the fine china without my mom asking. As I was getting the plates out of the cupboard, I noticed another plate tucked in the back. I pulled it out, and saw that it had been broken and was glued back together.
I set it aside and set the table. My mother came in and smiled and said, “Thank you for remembering.”
“You’re welcome, Mom,” I said, then grabbed the broken plate. “But why do you keep a broken one in here?”
She took it from me and caressed it lovingly. “When I was in high school, my brother brought his girlfriend over for supper. But her family was strict and wouldn’t let her come over without her brother. Well, her brother was very handsome, so when I set the table, I sat him next to me.
“During dinner, he handed me his plate and asked me to put some of the mashed potatoes in front of me on it for him. In my nervousness, I dropped the plate. This plate.
“Although my brother didn’t date that girl long after that, her brother asked me out. I eventually married him.”
“So this plate is from the first time you met Dad?”
I asked. She nodded.
“Mom,” I asked, “how did Dad die?”
She looked down at the plate. “It was our anniversary. You were only two months old. I had tried to make us a special dinner, complete with the fine china, to have ready when your father came home from work. I left the kitchen only for a moment to check on you kids. The flame from the stove caught on the paper towels, and the house caught on fire. I was caught inside, in your room. I was able to shield you from the flames, but my back was severely burnt.
“Your dad came through the burning house to rescue us. When he got us outside, the paramedics went to work on me, but the outlook wasn’t hopeful. That’s when your father told me that he was infected with the zombie virus. He bit me, and said, ‘you’ll need to be around for the kids.’ Then he went back into the burning house to rescue your brother. He didn’t survive.”
Years later, when I married, my mom did in fact give me the china, the whole set, complete with the broken plate.
(back to TOC)
****
Trimming the Tree
The past year had been difficult for Levi and Heather.
Their older daughter had finally moved out of the house and was on her own for the first time. She had accepted a job across the country. Her boyfriend had moved with her, but only a few months later, stole all the money out of her accounts and moved away. She wouldn’t be home for Christmas this year, she just couldn’t afford it.
This would be the first year without their younger daughter as well. During the summer, she had been out with friends when their car was hit head on by a drunk driver. The girl in the back passenger side seat had survived and was in a coma in the hospital. Their daughter, the driver, and the other passenger had died at the crash site. The drunk driver, although injured, was alive, and had fled the crash scene. Therefore, their car wasn’t found until hours later.
Brains for the Zombie Soul (a parody) Page 8
