THIS IS JEOPARDY!

 

Modern embalming techniques.

What can be said for them except that they kept a pack of obsessed forensic detectives from projectile vomiting on one another when they did the exhumation of Medgar Evers? I knew a man who was a first cousin of one of the detectives who stood in the muddy graveyard on that rainy day.

“My cousin said that the whole thing was beyond creepy,” my friend, whose name was Brian, said over a drink of brandy at the bar of a local and dingy watering hole. “He said that Evers looked exactly the same as he had on the day that he’d been buried.”

The brandy could have been exaggerating his opinion of what he had been told, but somehow, I didn’t think so.

“How is it that we always end up discussing the most disgusting things imaginable when we have drinks, man?” I asked.

 

It was true. We always ended up talking about decomposition, vomit, s**t, the benefits of syphilis psychosis, the Republican Party, you name it….as long as it was vile and beyond the pale, we would talk about it when we were in our cups.

“He said that Evers looked like he could’ve stood up and walked the f**k away, right down to the nearest NAACP meeting,” said Brian; as if he hadn’t heard a word I had said. “That’s how fresh he looked, my cousin said.”

I drained my shot of booze and threw my jacket across my shoulder. Once again, I had had enough gloom and doom for one evening. It was bad enough that there was no p***y involved. A few sides of decay and a mysterious race-motivated murder tipped the hat for me.

“Got to go,” I said to my friend.

“Modern embalming techniques, Will,” he said. “Wave of the future, a gift from the past. They haven’t changed a bit since Egypt.” Now he downed his third shot. His eyes had gained a glazed look over an hour ago. It was all a fun ride downhill from this point on. He would now be a rapid spitfire of wild supposition and hyper-thought.

“Brian,” I said, throwing my jacket on.

However, Brian was beyond listening, now.

“Ya see Will, the Egyptians; they had a way to make their work last for thousands of years. Special herbs and spices, just like the Colonel. The craftsmanship was fantastic.”

“Make your point before I leave,” I said. There was always some insane point to these rants. Hell, they were even funny sometimes.

“My point is that they did excellent work, but not perfect work. Morticians are still working on the road to perfection. Not there yet, but nearly,” he said.

I tried my best not to smile, not to provoke him, not to lead him on, but sometimes you just can’t shove a smile away in the Later Library file.

The smile drove Brian forward.

“The word is curse, Will,” Brian slurred. There were frantic, yet joyous fires in his eyes.

“More often than not, the curses wouldn’t start until some disrespectful crew of a******s dug up some royal or politically or spiritually powerful muckitymuck. There would be strange sicknesses, terrible accidents, and brutal murders. All chalked up to coincidence. Of course, intelligent people knew better. The dead were rising from their tombs, pissed off at being shaken awake.”

“I’m walking,” I told him. I turned around and walked toward the door. He was getting comfortable in his speech, getting a load of steam up, and if I didn’t cut my involvement off I would have been stuck in the watering hole for the rest of the night. It was already three in the morning, and I was tired. Besides, I had Cinemax and the possibility of make-up sex waiting for me at home.

“My point is that fucked over zombies are more effective at murder, rabblerousing, and casting one hundred percent fatal gonorrhea spells if they’re in good shape. Each subsequent civilization in almost every culture around the world preserved them so well that they have been, throughout history, almost impossible to stop.”

Another shot from the bartender and Brian was wobbling like heated lava lamp liquid upon the container of his stool. He burped, toasted me, and guzzled.

Dramatic f****r. He had finally reached his point.

“Think about it. Nearly impossible to beat in the past, when embalming styles were crude, yet damn good. We have come so far in the last few decades in every area, especially in the areas of preservation. What widow or grandchild wants to see a loved one who looks like whipped s**t in a coffin at a funeral?”

“Door, Brian,” I said, cocking a thumb over my shoulder at him.

“The dead only ever failed at taking over in the past because they would end up falling apart do to such vibrant action after years and years in the grave or the tomb. They fell apart before the real fun could start.”

I pushed the front door open and walked into the dark and soggy world beyond.

“Good night, Brian,” I said, not caring if he heard me or not.

“I had a dream last night,” he said from within the building in a loud and watery voice, but by the time his words reached me, I was already thinking about what I’d tell Latosha to convince her to neglect her bed at three-thirty in the goddamn morning.

Of course, I failed and fell to sleep with a boner.

At five in the morning, the phone rang. After the tenth ring, I answered it.

“Who the f**k calls at five o’clock in the goddamn morning?” I spat into the phone.

“Take a look outside your window,” said the shaky voice on the other end of the line.

“Who…?” I said, but the voice cut me off again.

“Go to your bedroom window and look outside, Will.”

It was Brian on the phone.

I did as he told me to do.

 

I knew what I was seeing, the reality of it, as soon as I saw it. How? I just knew.

There were hundreds of dead people in the streets, shambling here and there. They walked with horrific purpose in the directions of buildings and houses and cars. Inside every one of these new sanctuaries were people. I looked down into my front yard and saw no less than thirty zombies in disintegrating clothes shimmying up my lawn and onto my front porch.

“The dream I had the other night,” said Brian, “was about the dead rising, like they do every few thousand years. They have always lost before, Will. Nevertheless, this time, they have the power of chemical enhancement and technological expertise on their side. It’ll be a long time before they fall apart, and no matter how many of them we re-kill, it will never be enough to stave off an invasion of the dead. We’re screwed.”

There was the sound of shattering glass on the other end of the phone. Brian swore, screamed, and then the line went dead.

There they were, thousands of them, up and down the street, breaking into cars and houses and apartment buildings to get at the soft meat inside.

That was a day ago.

Another look outside.

Naturally, there they are in their endless thousands, invincible this time around. Advancement finally managed to kill the human race. We will be driven into extinction not by nuclear weapons or bioengineered super diseases, or a cool and cozy love affair with chlorofluorocarbons.

We will be killed off by the s****y and foolish skill of preserving dead flesh.

As I watched the tide of seething bodies walk their way to the next meal, I saw her. Right at the head of the pack. Oprah Winfrey. She was wearing a garish pink body suit and a purple hat. Why the f**k would anybody want to be buried in that sort of getup?

And where the hell did she get the microphone that she held in her right hand?

A hundred feet behind Winfrey lurched Lauren Bacall and Mommy Dearest herself, Faye Dunaway. There was a half-formed grin hanging on Dunaway's painted face.

On the sidewalk, in front of my mailbox, stood Alex Trebek. He wore a gray business suit and a pair of dusty alligator shoes.

He bared his teeth at Winfrey. Winfrey's smiled at him with rotting lips.

They seemed to be sparing for some completely alien reason.

I have my shotgun, now. I’m going to walk downstairs, open my front door, and give Mr. Trebek a taste of hot lead.

I never understood why he shaved his trademark smart-man mustache. Without it, he just looks like one more old b*****d with thinning hair and an expanding waist.

The front door is open.

The army of the dead advances on me, and the view is startling to say the least. Panic tries to set in for a moment, but before it can, I shove it down into my stomach and gather my strength.

A long look is called for when looking at something like this. For God’s sake, I just need a moment longer to take this all in.

Before they can get close enough to do anything, I’m going to raise my shotgun and lay Trebek down in the dirt.

He has no right, walking around town without his mustache.

He was the host of Jeopardy, for f**k’s sake.

Reviews

[Inda Lauryn]

Just when I thought I was in for horror, you threw Oprah in there. It amazes me that you can be entirely creepy one moment then turned insanely funny the next. I'm still trying to stop laughing.