“He was near death when he was brought in to
me.” I leaned forward in my chair. “What I tell you next is
classified information. If anyone finds out that I told you, I can
get into a lot of trouble. But Alec asked me to tell you, and I
think you need to know. So it doesn’t leave this room, okay?”
They nodded in understanding. “Before being
stationed at the church, Alex was being trained in a special top
secret program for necromancers.” They gasped. “The program was
abandoned, and he was assigned to my battalion.”
“Like I was saying,” I continued, “he knew that
he was dying when they brought him into the medic tent. Before I
could treat his wounds, we were hit by a round of gunfire. I was
hit in the face, as you can see, but also in the chest. I lay next
to him on the ground, dying with him.”
“Even though I knew that my injuries were fatal,
I did my best to save him. He stopped me and said, ‘I’m not going
to make it, you know that. And unless we do something, neither are
you.’”
I had to take a gulp of coffee before I could
continue. “’Do me a favor,’ he said, ‘and I can give you another
chance at life.’ I said that yes, of course, I would do anything he
asked. ‘Tell my wife and son that I love them. Tell them what
happened here. Tell them to have hope and faith and acceptance.’ I
agreed, and then everything went dark.”
The family stared at me in silence. “When I woke
up, the world seemed very different. I came to the realization that
although I was technically dead, I could still function. I was sent
back on the next flight back to the States. I came here
immediately.”
At this point, I was crying. “I’m so sorry I
couldn’t save Alec. Here, he wanted you to have these.” I handed
his widow his wedding ring and a picture of the three of them,
presumably taken right before he left.
Mrs. Deeter hugged me, and we stood in the
middle of the kitchen, crying together in each other’s arms. We
both kept saying, “I’m so sorry,” to each other.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can’t believe that
I could be scared of someone who was brought into being by my
husband. How wrong I was to be afraid of you. I’m so sorry.”
I told her that I forgave her. “You reacted much
as I would have before this whole thing started. It’s okay.”
“Where’s Isaac?” asked Alec’s father while
holding his wife. She was sobbing into his shoulder. “He should
come meet a true war hero.”
Mrs. Deeter went back down the hall. It was a
while before she came back since she had to explain the whole thing
to her son first.
She brought the boy into the room, and he gave
me a hug. Not a polite hug, like he was being told to do it, but a
big sincere hug. “My mommy told me that my daddy made you one of
the good guys.”
I started crying harder than I ever had before.
“That’s right, Isaac,” I said. “We’re good guys.”
****
Carrying Groceries
A man who lived in a large apartment
complex had just gotten home from work and parked in one of the
parking spots out front. On this particular property, a large
parking lot sat in front of the buildings, and residents had to
walk to their apartments. The people who lived in the back of the
property had a considerable walk to their doors, especially if they
lived on the 5th floor.
Such was the case with this businessman. Not
only did he live on the top floor of his building, but his building
was as far away from the parking lot as possible. He hated the walk
from his car to his door, especially in this cold weather. To make
things even worse, the elevator was out in his building.
As he got out of his car, the neighbor that
lived right below him, a zombie, was unloading groceries from his
own car. The zombie said, “I’ve got a lot of groceries here. Since
we’re going the same way, would you take a bag or two for me?”
The businessman said, “On that far of a walk? No
thanks.” He then walked to his building, leaving the zombie
behind.
He stepped inside, winded from the walk up the
stairs, took off his coat and shoes, and collapsed into a chair.
And then his cell phone started to beep because the battery was
running low. And the charger was in his car.
With a sigh, he got back up, put his coat and
shoes back on, and trekked back out to his car, passing his
neighbor struggling with the groceries along the way. When he
returned to the building, the zombie was right in front of him in
the stairwell. The businessman huffed and sighed, wishing the
zombie would hurry up.
When the zombie took the next step up, halfway
up the first flight of stairs, the load he was carrying became too
much for him. The bags of groceries were so heavy that they ripped
his arms off. The bags upended when they hit the steps, tumbling
down and losing contents as they fell. The stairway was now covered
with cans and oranges and all other manner of groceries.
In all the mess, the businessman couldn’t get
by. He had to help the zombie so he could get to his own apartment.
Reluctantly, he started picking up all the groceries and put them
back in the bags. He put the zombie’s arms under one of his own,
picked up the bags (which were very heavy), and started up the
stairs.
He didn’t know how the zombie had gotten so far
with the bags himself. He had to stop at least once per flight to
set everything down and rest for a minute. After what seemed like
forever, he finally got to the fourth floor and the zombie’s door.
He had to pull the key out of his neighbor’s pocket to get the door
open and the groceries inside.
He put the zombie’s arms in a bag and put the
bag around his neck so he could take them to get sewn back on. When
the zombie left to get help, the businessman finally got back to
his own apartment and relaxed.
The realization humbled him: if he had only
helped the zombie with half of the load when he had asked, the
businessman would’ve been in his nice warm chair, and nowhere near
as exhausted, a long time ago.
****
Reservation in the Desert
Right after college, I volunteered at
a zombie reservation in the Arizona desert. So many zombies lined
up for our clinic every day, I didn’t know how we could help them
all. There were zombie mothers missing arms and therefore unable to
care for their babies. There were zombie children infested with
bugs and parasites. Some of them literally had bugs crawling under
their skin.
We did what we could to help them, one at a
time. We removed larvae that had infested itself in their skin. We
gave them pesticides that wouldn’t hurt them, but that would kill
off the infestations in their bodies. We gave them prostheses and
rehabilitation.
One day when we drove into town for supplies, we
were stopped on our way back by figures dressed in all black and
wearing black ski masks. From their smell, I assumed they were
zombies. If only we could help them! They ordered us to take
another side road, and promised death if we turned around.
The road led us to an illegal zombie camp. There
was a demonstration going on, which had attracted a large crowd. We
got out of the truck to observe and listen in.
The leader spoke of zombie rights and zombie
superiority. He showed how the zombies in their camp needed help
that they couldn’t get. While he spoke, I looked around at the
zombies standing with us. I wasn’t scared; I could see they needed
help.
Being of healthy complexion and in possession of
all of our extremities, we stood out among the crowd. The speaker
came over to us and demanded to know who we were.
“We’re aid workers,” I explained. “We have a
clinic a mile down the road.”
“I have many men in these hills,” he gestured
around him, “that could use your help.”
I thought for a minute. “I would love to help
them,” I said, “but I fear that our government won’t let me. If I
go to them in the hills, the authorities will shut our clinic
down.”
“But,” I added, “EVERYONE is welcome at our
clinic, no questions asked.”
The leader stepped aside a moment and exchanged
words with several other men. Then he came back to us and asked,
“Where is your clinic?”
“It’s about a mile that way.” I pointed down the
road.
“You should be attending to it soon. Thank you
for all your hard work. We appreciate it.” And they let us go on
our way.
****
Prophettown
I
lived in a small town in Indiana during the Zombie Hunts. We were a
close knit town. The people who had been turned into zombies had
been prominent members of the community, and many of them still
were. We didn’t think of them as zombies, we thought of them as
neighbors.
There was one family that had all been turned
into zombies. They hadn’t been very well off in life, and business
was now down in death. The father was a fine shoemaker, but it
didn’t always get them by. The mother started taking in tailoring
jobs to help supplement their income.
They had seven kids, which included two sets of
twins. The oldest two children were the first set of twins, and
they often took odd jobs around town to help their family out. The
three middle kids helped their mom with the babies, the second set
of twins.
With the bonds of family, they survived and were
able to make a living. The people in the town helped when they
could.
One day the zombie hunters came to town. They
raided houses of suspected zombies, including the shoemaker’s
house. A neighbor tipped the family off before the mob got there,
and the oldest twins, both boys, got two of their younger sisters
out. The four of them escaped through the roof and jumped from
rooftop to rooftop to hide and escape.
The father tried to escape the same way, but he
twisted his ankle on the first jump, and instead ran down to the
street. He was hit by a slowly passing truck, and the townsfolk
rushed him to the hospital.
The zombie hunter insisted that since he was a
zombie, he couldn’t be injured, and the hospital couldn’t help. But
the doctors won out, insisting that he was not well enough to
travel but he was rehabilitating.
Meanwhile, the hunters were able to capture the
three youngest girls and their mother. They were put on a train
headed to one of the camps. The locals sabotaged the train, making
it derail just outside of town. In the commotion, the rest of the
family was able to escape.
The town proudly stood their ground, protecting
their zombie residents. They still stand by all the zombies in
their town to this day.
****
The Neighbors
One
time, a zombie was walking in front of his neighbor’s house and he
accidentally dropped an important piece of paper. He didn’t realize
it as he was hurrying on his way.
His neighbor was watching out the window at the
time. He saw the zombie drop the paper, which floated onto his
lawn. Thinking, “That dirty zombie, getting litter all over my
yard,” he planned his revenge.
That night, he went over to the zombie’s house
with his wastebasket and dumped the contents all over the zombie’s
driveway.
When the zombie woke up in the morning, he found
the trash all over his property. Most of it was his neighbor’s junk
mail, but he also found the important paper that he had dropped. It
was ripped to pieces. He thought the neighbor had deliberately
stolen the paper from him and then destroyed it.
The zombie called a butcher friend of his and
said he would take all the meat scraps off of his hands. He had
them delivered by a dump truck into the neighbor’s driveway.
The neighbor responded by gathering paper sacks
of dog poop from all the houses in the area that had dogs. He lined
the zombie’s yard with them and set them all on fire.
Then the zombie got revenge by releasing
hundreds of cockroaches, termites, and carpenter ants into his
neighbor’s house.
Then the neighbor called a sorcerer and had a
tornado and rainstorm planted over the zombie’s house.
Soon, both of their houses were damaged so much,
they could no longer live in them. They both had to stay in a local
shelter while they saved up the money to fix their houses.
At the shelter, the zombie and the man were
forced to stay in a room together. When they found out they
couldn’t continue to seek revenge on each other, they were forced
to actually talk together.
They found they were very similar, and soon
became great friends. By working together, they were able to fix
both houses in a very short period of time so they had somewhere to
live again.
They continued to help each other out and became
lifelong friends.
****
Movie Star
Johann
was a rich little boy with a good life. His dad was a doctor, and
his mom stayed at home to be with him, so he always had everything
he wanted.
On Saturday, he went to the movies like he
normally did. He showed up right before the movie was about to
start. As he got there, a poor zombie boy had just bought a ticket.
“Thank you,” said the zombie boy to the man in the ticket booth.
“I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a long time, and I’ve been
saving for weeks for this ticket.”
When Johann got to the ticket booth, he was told
that the movie was sold out. So he cornered the zombie boy and
demanded his ticket. “You’re dead,” he said. “You don’t need to see
movies any more. Give me your ticket and go back to the grave you
came from.”
This made the zombie boy cry, but still he
refused to give up his ticket. A well-dressed man in line pulled
Johann aside and said, “Here you go boy, I have an extra
ticket.”