Zombies at the Bar Mitzvah: a novella

by Michael Homler

  Out of all the side streets and even in the parking lot shambled zombies.

  We were the last of living flesh.

  Grandpa stopped running again, his hands on his knees.

  “Come on!” yelled Karen.

  “Go!” he said. “Go! I’ll keep them busy. I want to re-join my Esther anyhow.”

  “Crazy old coot,” I said.

  Karen punched me for that. “We’re supposed to look after him now that Mom and Dad are gone,” she said. “We need to go get him.”

  We ran back and picked him up and rested his arms on our shoulders and we started to walk him out of there.

  It was ridiculous lugging around his weight. He also had bad breadth and wasn’t afraid to let us notice it as we aided him.

  He started telling us stories that started with, “When I was your age…” We had to ignore them. He just told too many of them. We weren’t even sure they were real.

  Laura kept us calm, reminding us that we were not alone.

  IN WHICH I GIVE YOU THE ZOMBIE POV AS PER MY IMAGINATION

  Meat. Hungry.

  Shamble, shuffle.

  Oh so hard to walk.

  Me talk pretty.

  My ass hurts.

  My leg doesn’t work right. I’ve got to drag it.

  What a pain. Oh that’s why I have a pain in the ass!

  Ha, ha. Okay, okay, don’t put myself in stitches. It hurts to laugh cuz I can’t.

  Hark. Lo. Ho. What’s that?

  Meat. Fresh meat.

  The fleshy things are running. Damnit. I can’t catch them. I’ve got to shuffle faster.

  Who made me this way? This blows.

  Shamble, shuffle.

  Maybe they will go to sleep. Then: I eat!

  I eat brains! Ha, ha. So many brains!

  Wait, what is that?

  He is attacking. Not good. I can’t move.

  Moan. Moan. I scare you away with my deadly moan.

  Moan.

  Crap. Chopped off my arm.

  Oh no…. he’s coming for me again.

  Craps!

  THE LAST STAND

  It was biblical. That’s about all I can attest to. There weren’t locusts per se, but there were a lot of flies because there were a lot of dead people walking about. I wondered if that was annoying for them. They’re shuffling around looking for meat and the flies are buzzing around their heads. Maybe even in their heads! Bet there’s money in fly swatters designed for zombies. Maybe that’s even why they behave the way they do—it’s the flies.

  The shopping center was as far as we got. Now deserted, except for the dead people, we’d have plenty of cars to hide behind. We convinced Grandpa he needed to get in a stray shopping basket so we could wheel him around.

  “I’m not getting in that!” he shouted.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “No way!” He crossed his arms. Then he grew tired. “Okay, fine. Let’s make this quick.”

  We had to help him in.

  We wheeled him through the parking lot running as fast as we could. Passing a lot of turning heads, heads that were taking notice of us. Then the bodies that belonged to those heads followed.

  We smashed Grandpa through a couple of shufflers, and got some blood and guts on the front of the shopping cart. He wasn’t happy about this.

  “Asswipes! Watch where you are steering this thing!”

  Then we came to the sidewalk adjoining the mall. We helped Grandpa out. Every zombie movie I’d ever seen had a scene at a shopping mall. It figured my man-making disaster would be no different.

  We momentarily watched as masses of them began to gather, forming a phalanx and heading in our direction.

  They were surrounding us, coming at us from every direction.

  “We’re screwed,” said Jenny.

  “I don’t want to go like this,” said Laura.

  “I think this is kinda funny,” said Grandpa. “I can’t wait to see what happens. Uh-oh. Ow.”

  He reached into his mouth.

  “It’s come loose, after all these years, I don’t believe it.”

  He pulled out a tooth.

  “How about that? I just lost my final tooth. To think I should be crapping my pants right now but I lost a tooth. Wowie, today is a big day.”

  “Guys, can we go inside? We can make a stand in the mall.”

  The entrance doors were open. We went in. It was eerily empty but it was closed. People had already fled. The gates were pulled down over stores so there was no way we could sneak into them to get more weapons. We had to work with what we had.

  We built a barricade out of benches and garbage cans. We built this barricade by a set of escalators that we could hide behind.

  As we did this the zombies made it to the doors of the mall. Too stupid to realize they could just open the doors, they began banging on the glass with their hands, heads and shoulders (most used their heads).

  We heard glass break.

  They were coming through. One set of doors.

  We heard glass break again.

  They’d be coming through for good this time.

  That’s when I noticed the creature in the back of the bunch, trying to push his way ahead of all the others. He was larger and more terrifying looking than all the others, and he had a Pentagram carved into his forehead.

  The anti-golem.

  “Holy crap!” said Grandpa when he saw it too.

  At this moment Grandpa took my bag away from me. Digging through it, he got out the tefflin and wrapped it around his arm and head. Then he got down on his knees and began davening. He began chanting in Hebrew, I guess praying for his death or our deaths to be merciful.

  You know, it was kind of sad to watch. This old man having lived a long life praying for forgiveness and a blissfully short death.

  The only thing is like everyone else I didn’t want to die, and the creature that could end all of this was right in front of us.

  I may not have known as much about my people as Grandpa, but I had read the Bible before and was familiar with the story of David and Goliath. I wasn’t going down without a fight. I wasn’t going to die with my tail between my legs. I was going to die in action. Like a man.

  I stared at Grandpa realizing that in his davening he held the key.

  Why is it that old people are so wise?

  Grandpa had given me the answer. David and Goliath.

  Phylacteries.

  I hurriedly grabbed my bag away from him. It was loaded with religious equipment. I knew they would come in handy.

  I pulled phylacteries out of the bag. I raised my hand above my head and began to twirl. When they made a huge whistling sound, I threw them and watched them soar like a bolo whip, landing at the large zombie’s feet. He looked down and then continued towards us.

  “Okay, that’s not good,” whimpered Laura.

  “If you are going to do something bro, do it now. They’re getting close.”

  “I’m working on my aim. This isn’t easy.”

  Grandpa continued to pray with his eyes closed.

  I raised the next set of phylacteries and did the same, but spun it longer and harder and then released it. Whipping around the zombie’s throat, I struck a blow, especially when one end spun around to smack him in the eye.

  Stopping momentarily to pump my fist, I grabbed another set and lassoed his feet.

  I knotted phylacteries around his ankles till I ran out.

  Then I prayed.

  Along with Grandpa.

  Karen.

  And Laura.

  Our prayers were answered…

  The huge creature struggled to keep his balance and then he toppled, slamming into the floor and knocking down zombies that were all around him.

  WE REACT NOT THE WAY I HAD HOPED

  “You knocked him down but now he’s on his back.”

  “So, what does that mean?”

  “We need him on his front.”

  “But he’s too hea
vy to turn over.”

  “Crap, we were so close.”

  “Why couldn’t you have knocked him on his back. Who knocks Goliath on his stomach when you have to erase his forehead?”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m new at this!”

  It’s true. We tried pushed the thing over, with all the zombies scattered, but it was really heavy.

  “We’re going to die because of this. The whole town is going to die, maybe even the human race. All you had to do was get him on his back.”

  “I said I was sorry!”

  “Do you have any more magic tricks up your sleeve?”

  I pulled Col. Elkins radio out of my bag. I just needed some batteries.

  We ran through the mall, banging on shutters, searching the stores. When we found a drugstore, we were lucky that the shutters were only part way down. Karen, the smallest out of us, was able to fit beneath. She scrambled around inside and found the batteries I needed. I popped them into the walkie-talkie.

  They looked at me. They nodded.

  Had to do what needed to be done.

  But I didn’t do what they wanted me to. I said I wasn’t going down without a fight and I meant it.

  THE CALL

  “Hello?”

  Silence for a bit, then…

  “Who is this?”

  “Marc.”

  “What the hell is a Marc?”

  “I’m a kid from New Jersey.”

  “This is a secure channel. How’d you get this frequency? Never mind. I assume you are still alive. What’s your position? How many are with you?”

  “There are four of us. We are at the Melvin Shopping Mall.”

  “Good. Hang tight. We’re coming to get you.”

  “Um. Okay.”

  SEMPER FI HIGH FIVE

  I had radioed in a distress call to the Marines. They began pouring through the windows via ziplines down from a helicopter. Bare-Team Six, I learned. Some sort of unfortunate streaking incident during training and there were only six of them.

  They gunned down all the remaining zombies in the area, making appendage-and-guts fireworks out of them.

  I explained to them how to stop them. They got it.

  Of course there wasn’t much to get. The anti-golem or whatever you want to call it was still facedown on the ground struggling to get up.

  The semper-fi team talked to one another in hand signals, very similar to when I used to make shadow puppets at school when the lights got turned out and there was a projector in class and the teacher’s back was turned.

  I tapped Sergeant Pillory (he was in charge of the unit) on the shoulder.

  “Sir, we need to flip him over. He’s not going anywhere but we can’t stop the hordes until we get rid of the Pentagram.”

  He nodded. He had his men push, but they couldn’t do it.

  “Okay, I have another idea.”

  Pillory looked at my grandpa. He was still davening and I don’t think had a clue what was going on.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Praying,” said Karen. “We’re all praying just not like that.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Break the bench,” I said, running over to the slatted bench.

  He ordered his men to do some boot-stomping. We took two of the long beams. I grabbed one on my own and wedged it under the mass of the anti-golem. Pillory wedged the other behind it. we pushed. The other men helped. We almost got him then he fell over.

  “Try again!”

  He went up and then we flipped him over.

  We all almost shouted with excitement but now his hands were free. He grabbed a marine’s leg and I heard a crunch. The marine began yelling. The creature had snapped his ankle just like that. Some scary strength. Now I really knew why they said in stories that the legend of the golem was not something to be trifled with even if used for good.

  The men helped free their friend, and then all of us together scrambled to hold the behemoth down. It flailed and smacked us about. But in the ensuing commotion, I managed to scale the chest and while staring the angry creature in the face, I frantically mashed the symbol around, distorting it.

  Something got hold of my neck. The hand, but it didn’t close. I was able to see the yellow light go out of the creature’s eyes.

  Then I heard bodies collapsing all over the place.

  Then I heard a congratulations you did it, and a marine cheer went up. I’m embarrassed to say they also fired their guns into the air, not only scaring the bejesus out of us but sprinkling us in broken lights.

  They apologized for that.

  When they pried the creature’s lifeless hand from my neck I was able to see that the threat had been averted, that we were all safe, that Col. Elkins fire-bombing would be unnecessary.

  It was safe to assume: We had won.

  To some degree. There obviously were heavy losses. Casualties. Mom and Dad. Obviously so many others.

  Karen and Laura came over to me. We all hugged. It was at the very least good to feel relieved that the threat was over with.

  Now it was just about picking up the pieces.

  Grandpa was still on the floor praying. He stopped. He got up. He put his hands all over himself seeing he was still alive.

  “Eh.”

  He looked at me. He came over.

  “Mazel Tov, Marc. Mazel Tov. I was praying so hard I injured an internal organ. Pretty sure of it. Now I feel a bit silly. And to think after all this we never even completely go through you’re whole Bar Mitzvah.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I can live with that. I don’t want to do that again.”

  “You and me both. But crap, couldn’t you have let me go so I could join my Esther before putting an end to this fracas.”

  “Maybe next time, Pops.”

  He smiled at me and put his arm around my shoulder.

  THE MITZVAH PROSPECT AND EPILOGUE

  Mom and Dad were out back in the yard. They were moaning about again.

  The military was kind enough to let us keep them once they were located and found to be still living dead. They each wore large chains around their neck and the chains were pegged deep into the ground.

  We fed them dead mice and rats for the most part, or raw cow meat that we got at the grocery store. It was gross, that was for sure, but it kept them around. We’d go out there if we just wanted someone to talk to about our problems. They usually didn’t listen. They just groaned and moaned mostly.

  Grandpa often went out there to stare at them and eat his microwave popcorn (a new habit of his to consume more fiber). He’d just stand there, munch and laugh at them. I guess it was whenever they did anything funny. But Karen and I never noticed them do anything that was remotely funny. We thought it was all sad.

  But Grandpa seemed to think that visiting them was a lot like going to the circus. It amused him—the way they fought over food, with each other, and so on.

  One time this squirrel showed up outside their cage. Grandpa saw it, and watched them beat each other silly trying to get at it and knocking themselves against the bars. The squirrel just stared and then raced away.

  We didn’t mind that Grandpa did this. It kept him happy, and it also kept him from passing gas in the house (he did this a lot without apology and it was the smelly kind which is kind of hard not to notice).

  Karen and I had tried to get back to our lives as much as normal. We still had school so that side of things never changed.

  Karen grew to be a bit of a troublemaker, always staying out late, not really trying all that hard to get good grades. I don’t think Mom and Dad would have approved. But she was still my sister, so I loved her even though sometimes I wished I could trade her in for a puppy, but I realized that could mean that Mom and Dad might eat her, puppies being wiley little creatures that could slip away into some troublesome spots.

  She got really annoying when she would speculate about what would have happened if she had had a Bat Mitzah. She claimed it would have been n
othing like mine. All the festivities, the joyous occasion it would be.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  I was in high school burdened with a lot of schoolwork. I was taking honors classes and trying to make Mom and Dad proud (that is if they were around today in a more coherent fashion). I didn’t want to let anything get in the way, though often what got in the way, if something did, was looking after my sister or my parents. They required constant surveillance just to make sure they were okay. And Grandpa, with his mind not always being in his body, also needed some looking after.

  Laura Moody decided not to spend the rest of her life with me (secretly, I hoped she would); instead, she moved away with her parents, promised to write, and never did. That was sort of it. Kind of heartbreaking, but everything was really. I managed to get over her even though I didn’t want to.

  Life now was almost harder than it had ever been. This was the state of things.

  I resented the fact that was always looking after everyone. It was a burden, being older, being responsible, depended on.

  One night towards the end of finals, Karen and I were at a party. While Karen tried to hook up with this boy she had the hots for, I sat on the couch wanting to leave. She didn’t think about rushing home to care for Mom and Dad or to check up on Grandpa. I realized that someone needed to. It was Karen’s turn. She refused.