ZOMBIE lost & found

Pica Chew

Fred stepped out into the deep violet hues of pre-dawn.  He had a while yet before needing to get in and away from the painful light of day.  Posters around the car park advertised the upcoming launch of a second local television station. TV One was mostly old movies, TV Two promised news, talk shows and live streaming from the local government offices in Hilldale. Scintillating.

Fred made his way to a local diner, Pica Chew.  A scattering of late shift locals sat at the booths and tables, mostly alone—an Edwin Hopper of undeath.  At first glance, they almost looked human until you noticed the woman in dusty overalls had skin with highlights of green. The couple at the back were gaunt and grey, and the old lady in the booth by the window had thin lips retracted back from pointed teeth and a crown of cutaneous horns.

The waitress was missing one ear and all of her hair. She was not the type to hide it with a wig or hat.  Instead, her face was aggressively made up with false eyelashes and gold blush that contrasted strikingly with her mauve complexion. Her remaining ear boasted a diamante chandelier earring.

"Aw'right there, doc?" She slapped a laminated menu down on the bar.

"Can't complain, Christy. You?" Fred replied, just as he did most mornings.

"Ugh."

I know exactly what you mean.  He perused the menu. 

"I'll have the green tea, fermented, sweetened, and some of the red clay with salt and sauce." Fred pushed the menu back. His thoughts wandered to his experiment.  Some of his problems might be due to the agar.  He was making the beef blood gel, a good basic medium for sustaining and growing all kinds of cells.  But he had a feeling that once he had a promising treatment he would need to fine-tune it with something better, something like human blood. Disrupted zombie cells were more like the flesh of new-made zombies than their mature form, they needed sustenance with a human origin. 

Fred's next-door neighbor, Baz Harris, dropped heavily onto the stool next to him and grabbed the discarded menu. Baz had the misfortune of being a ghoul. He needed to eat human flesh, at least occasionally, to get by even after all these years. Ghouls received a minimal flesh-dole to meet their special nutritional needs, but it was an unreliable system and left him constantly strung out and starving. Baz constantly nagged Fred to find him a better supply.

"Don't start bothering me about getting the fresh," Fred snapped.  "You know the hospital doesn't get any in."

"Nah man, I'm okay," Baz replied.

Fred looked at Baz again. 

Baz grinned cheerfully wriggling his pear-shaped body into a comfortable position on the small chrome barstool.  His stubby fingers looked slightly pink, his mangy patches of hair more lustrous, and his grinning face more oily.  For Baz, this was positively glowing with health.

Baz grinned at Fred with complacent joy.

Don't ask.  Don't ask.

The glamorous Christabel slammed a bowl of red clay and cattle salt lick down in front of Fred and glared with open hostility at Baz.

"A mug of your best moany. Hot like you are, doll," Baz said.

"Lukewarm like your intellect," Christy replied.  "If you're lucky."

"And I never am," Baz muttered.  "But you can't blame a zom for trying."

Fred grimaced.  Sitting next to someone drinking hot liquid ammonia was pretty disgusting when you weren't craving it yourself.  Sitting next to Baz under any circumstances was rarely a joy, but he didn't want to be rude. 

Fred's mind wandered in several conflicting paths to the same conclusion.  Like most zombies, his innate sympathy for humans was pretty weak, but that didn't mean he wished in harm on them. 

He wondered how someone this far from a reservation was getting hold of human flesh. Any humans that died on the res quickly went to the flesh dole, so it was more likely to be poaching than scavenging. The implications for the poor humans they were getting hold of were unpleasant.

But at the same time, it would be good to get hold of a quantity of human blood to make some premium agar.  Just about a pint would do it.

Fred sampled his food cautiously.  He wasn't experiencing any particular craving but the flavored clay included a lot of what a zombie body needed.

What kind of monster am I? Fred mused. The kind that wants in on the crime or the kind that wants to stop it? Either way, I need to learn more.

He poked his bowl of red clay and vinegar listlessly, watching the large chunks of mineral salt turn pink in the slimy mixture. He leaned back in his seat and turned to Baz.

"Oh, ho, ho," Baz whispered. He glanced at Christy who had retreated to the far end of the long bar.  "I know that look. Nosher are you, Freddy? Doesn't surprise me, the pretty ones always are."

Pretty had become a relative term in post-poc society.  The cultural cringe was such that people who looked mostly human were best admired—even if they had never passed for handsome before. 

Apart from his two anatomic omissions, Fred knew he was fortunate to look and function mostly like his former self, albeit in considerably less than fifty shades of gray and with sparse and yellowing hair.  He still looked good enough that many folks at the hospital whispered that he might be eating the fresh on the down low.

Fred wasn't sure he really wanted to ask about Baz's source. Baz ran a market stall which traded openly in salvage and secretly in whatever was in demand. He'd been making overtures of friendship towards Fred since he moved into the house next door, which Fred had contrived to ignore.

"Well, it seems like you are the one with supply now," Fred ventured reluctantly. "There might be something else I could get for you in trade."

Baz chuckled. "Oh, you'd have to do a little better than that.  You'd have to do me a favor."