Horror 100 Volume 2

Zombies and Plumbing

Zombies have no respect for plumbing. They don't teach you that when you fill out the paperwork for your apprentice license.

Since the plague slowed down, people didn't see the need to finish off their family members. You just pay a wrangler to tie them up, slap a rubber ball in the mouth, and send them home. They may want to tussle with you every once in a while, but for the most part they just sit there. People hold on to some hope for a cure, but I know better. Christ could raise Lazarus, but Lord knows he wouldn't try to bring a pork chop back to life.

I used to just pull hair out of drains. Use a snake or some other such tool to drag matted balls of bath grime and shaving leave-ins out of bathtubs.

This brings me to my current predicament. Standing in the shower of some blue haired granny who just couldn't say goodbye to her oaf of a husband. I saw him walkin' in, that festering pile of meat. The red ball in his mouth would have made him look like a pig on a spit, that is, if he still had any natural color left in him.

She called to tell me her drain was backing up; that a horrible smell and rusty colored substance was coming through. I figured it was a sewage back up. Not my favorite call, but you can gouge these people and they have to pay it.

Unfortunately for me, it wasn't sewage.

When I start pullin' the snake back, the white chunks start dropping off the cable, little flaps of raw skin. At this stage, it starts to fall off like a bad sunburn, only meatier. The smell hits me and I want to double over. At least if the worst happens I am in a bathroom and can easily find the can.

"Ma'am, do you know anything about this?" I ask, pointing at the muck, retching under the stench. I'm pretty sure more than a couple teeth are in the mess now.

"Oh dear. Why don't you plumbers make these drains good enough?"

"Well, we don't expect you to push the cherished remains of your dead husband down the drain."

"But he needs his shower, his hygiene was never in order, even before his accident. I just pushed it down with my toes."

Now, I normally don't take kindly to this sort of viscera, or the type of person who puts up with it, but something struck me in that moment. Its brilliance was so simple, but I had the idea that would revolutionize the in home zombie phenomenon and plumbing as we know it. "Miss, would you like me to install a garbage disposal in here?"

"Can you do that?"

"Yes. Yes I can."