Zombie Guts

ZOMBIE GUTS

By Andrew Crevier

1

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Mike asked, shaking his head.

“Take it easy, bro. We got enough TP back there. ’Sides, Herbie said he wanted to be a mummy for Halloween.”

“Um, no he didn’t. And ’sides, it’s Columbus Day.”

“Close enough, no?” Sam approached the dead thing that had once been Herman Davis, before Herman became one of the walking dead, and peeled the wrapping off a roll of single-ply toilet paper he got from the men’s room at the rear of the pool hall. He stood back from where the zombie was tied to a pillar with bungee cords, duct tape, string, and an extension cord scavenged from the utility closet. He scratched his head.

“You ain’t even right, son. You’re like a Romper Room version of Martha Stewart,” Ray said, laughing.

“You’re just mad ‘cause you’re adopted,” Sam shot back. He spit on one end of the toilet paper and stuck it to the backside of the pillar. He walked in circles around Herman, better known as Herbie, dispensing streams of toilet paper as he went.

“So it’s like that, Mr. I Wasn’t Getting That Tranny’s Digits? You outta control, nigga,” Ray said.

Mike noticed Sam’s smile after the comment. He could tell Sam was trying to hide the pleasure he took in being labeled so by Ray, their lone African American friend. Mike suspected it made Sam feel down, because for being so urban and into ‘street culture,’ Sam was whiter than white. It would be fun to call him on it, but Mike opted to let his friend bask in the glory. After all, it was Sam he would betray.

Ray was the only black kid they hung out with, and Mike was pretty sure Ray wasn’t normal. The kid listened to death metal for Christ sakes, but the three of them had been friends since they were in the third grade. Mike and Sam stuck up for Ray back then, but as they grew up Ray seemed to do more to keep his Caucasian friends out of harm’s way than they did him.

Sam crouched as he waddled around and covered Herbie’s legs in layers of single-ply. When he was done, the groaning, dead, ex-pool hall operator was completely covered in toilet paper.

            “Check it out—Tutankhamen,” he said, presenting his achievement as if posing in front of a showcase showdown.

            “What about his face, Bob Barker? Uncover it, or at least his eyes,” Ray said.

            “Whatever you do, shove something in his mouth. That groan is getting old.” Mike threw the duct tape to Sam. “Here.”

            “You mean you don’t like being serenaded by the soulful sounds of Herbie Hand-Cock?” Sam pulled a long strand from the roll of tape. “Ray, hold an end of this. I don’t want him thinking my fingers are chicken tenders.”

            The two of them wrapped Herbie’s head until only a faint groan emanated from beneath several layers of silver duct tape. Sam used a billiards bridge to pull toilet paper away from the zombie’s eyes as Mike looked on. Satisfied with their work, they turned to him for approval. Herbie looked like a third grade art project—Pharaoh of the Pool Hall.

            “What’s this world coming to?” Mike asked, taking in the scene of his idiot friends and a mummified Herbie. Why did this have to happen in our lifetime? With his left hand he adjusted the ball cap that covered a crew cut of dirty blond hair. The black shirt he wore read “More Geek,” and his jeans were tapered down to an overly broken-in pair of knock-off Converse. The chain that used to be attached to his wallet had busted when he got into a fight with a fascist skinhead over the last bottle of Hawaiian Blue Mad Dog at Vic’s corner store. That was at the beginning of this whole mess. He shoved his folding knife, having just used it to cut lengths of rope, into his jeans pocket.