It was just a standard Zombie outbreak, until the Government got involved.

Look Out For Zombies

An Account of the Wickesborough Zombie Outbreak:

by the editor of the Wickesborough County Herald.

 

It was winter in Wickesborough County, a time when nature is fallow, but in the unnatural realm long dead things were stirring. The peaceful, long dead souls  in Mt. Lazarus Cemetery were re-animated, restless and hungry. Soon, they’d clawed their way out of the earth and went forth on a hellish gambol among the living, looking for brains to eat.  

 It was just a standard Zombie outbreak, until the Government got involved.

Now brain-eating ghouls might be a bit disconcerting where you’re from, but it’s an old story around Wickesborough. From long experience we know that, if confronted by a confused looking dead person, you get your deer rifle, or other large-caliber weapon, and shoot it in the head, a double tap if you are so inclined.  Then cart its unholy carcass someplace where it can be burned to ashes.

Until the fuss started, we used to stalk the undead during resurrection season, that time of the year when the recently deceased rose from the grave. We never figured out what made our Wickesborough dead folks so restless, but it was something for locals to do after you bagged your buck limit and before doe season opened.  It was something a father and a son might enjoy.

Zombies are slow and kind of guileless, so even a youngster can pick off a goodly number, provided the ammo selected had the proper stopping power. You should see the look in their eyes the first time they blew the brains out of one of the cannibalistic fiends. A kid might be tuckered after a day traipsing after Zombies, but he’d be raring to go next deer season after splattering some ghoul brains out in the woods.

The one thing about Zombies you have to remember is you can pick‘em off all day long provided you don’t run out of ammo or reflect too long on the transitory nature of life.  Nothing attracts Zombies like loud noise, gun fire for example, and if you get the attention of enough of them, they’ll swarm you and eat your brains. Then you will become a part of their soulless retinue, similarly stalking the innocent, until someone blows your brains out and burns your body at any convenient, chamber of commerce sponsored, bonfire.

Unpleasant as it seems, it must be done. The bite of a Zombie invariably turns good, honest, church going folks into howling demons, although I did hear that a fellow in Ford City got bit, recovered, and is doing fine, excepting he drinks paint.

Downstate, they think Zombies are stupid, but it isn’t so. They can talk and do mechanical things depending on what parts have moldered away. A ghoul whose arm has rotted off isn’t likely to sit down and play the piano, but he might be able to swing an axe with his good hand. Some still remembered little bits about when they were alive and could be proper cunning, even deceitful. Some are brighter than your average vo-tech graduate and could have had useful, productive deaths, if they could control themselves around live human brains.

A meal of living human brains is pretty much all Zombies care about, and much time has been wasted on what it is about human brains that makes them so darned irresistible. Cow and sheep brains are as repulsive to Zombies as they are to any living person outside of France. The brains of other deceased people are even less appetizing, which only makes sense considering they couldn’t gang up on the living if they were simultaneously trying to devour each other.

The ones we caught said the taste of brains made the pain of rotting go away, but as much as we might sympathize, we weren’t going to join their hellish carnival by letting them nibble on our cerebellums. Likewise, Zombies refuse to understand our reluctance to part with our grey matter, so, try as we might; there was no reasoning with them.  So to save time and aggravation, we shoot them instead.

If you’re looking to spot Zombies in the wild, the yard of an abandoned house is a good place to start. They like to corner their victims inside and begin banging on the outer walls. It's amazing they remember that people live and shelter in houses, but forgot what a doorknob is. The outlook for any folks trapped inside is pretty grim unless somebody notifies the proper authorities.

If done in time, the Zombie-alert siren down at the firehouse will sound, the volunteers fetch their weapons and the women fix sandwiches. Everybody musters at the fairgrounds and pretty soon the deer stands would go up and everybody would be up in their favorite tree popping off trophy-sized Zombies.

Now, trophy is just a figure of speech, it isn’t like putting a deer’s head up in your den. Every Zombie was somebody's grandfather before becoming a cannibalistic ghoul, so you have to be respectful. Besides most Zombies are too far gone to go up in a recreation room; they stink enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.  Believe me, it is hard enough to get that smell out of your memory without some grinning souvenir giving you a refresher whiff every time you sit down to watch the game.

I blame society for the situation in Wickesborough and, of course, liquor.  Hunting is hunting and everybody needs something to steady the hand when a twelve point buck strolls by. It didn’t occur to anyone that discretionary imbibing would be any more of a problem than it was during doe season, but that just goes to show how wrong you can be.

It was the VFW sponsored a Zombie hunting contest that started it. All the participants paid an entry fee and whoever bagged the most undead got a prize. It was for a good cause as they wanted to put in wheelchair ramps down at the hall so the disabled could enjoy a drink on Sunday, Wickesborough County still having Blue Laws and such. Unfortunately, some folks forgot it was for charity and the competition got rowdy.

First, there were accusations about some of the bodies in the count not being technically Zombies yet. There were arguments about whether a complete Zombie body counted more than a partially disassembled one. Some of the boys had just lopped off the heads of convenient Zombies and threw them in the bed of their pick-up trucks. Of course, that really irked people, as the headless corpses were wandering around the county, knocking over corn ricks and scaring children and dogs.

Things got nasty, and before long, the hunters were fighting among themselves and making a racket, which, of course, attracted Zombies and soon all concerned were rolling in the dust. It was an unholy mess. Fortunately, the sheriff kept his wits about him and got the National Guard to turn a flamethrower on the Zombies. After they ran over the smoking remains with their big water truck, things quieted down, but the Sheriff had to put down a couple of sportsmen because they might have been bitten by Zombies.

Anyway, city people took video of the fracas and a TV station in Erie showed it, although folks in Latrobe said they saw it too. It caused an uproar. Harrisburg said it was a bunch of trouble makers from Philadelphia, undoubtedly with ties to the Democratic political machine. The Lieutenant Governor declared a moratorium on Zombie hunting and had the State Police investigate. By the end of the week, it was all a faint memory except for some sore heads, broken bones and sucking chest wounds.

Folks were pleased that the State Police carted away some bikers as well, but there was a problem: the Zombies kept coming out of their graves and nobody was culling the herd. Granted, the State Police got rid of a fair number of Zombies, but likewise created a similar amount by what they called “normal wastage”-- that is the people they killed in the normal course of maintaining the peace. People were divided as to whether the State Police were a net positive or negative regarding the Zombies, but most folks were impatient to get back to snuffing Zombies by the time they left. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Wickesborough County was taking a beating in the national press on account of MSNBC making such a big deal of the First Annual Zombie Shoot and Potluck Dinner disaster. They claimed we were a bunch of dumb ass crackers for killing already dead people.  News crews started following the Zombies and reported they were being mistreated. They couldn’t see that we were simply restoring them to their previous state of deadness and depositing them back in the same hole they crawled out of. They started calling Zombies:  “internment-challenged Americans,” which spawned outrage in an uninformed nation.

There was a lot more press coverage, but it didn’t come to anything except that everybody on TV started yelling at each other like when Bush was President. There was a late snow storm that year and, with Zombies wondering about, we knew there were going to be some bizarre traffic accidents.

Harrisburg issued travel advisories that warned holiday travelers to avoid Zombies, but they still managed to nab the stray tourist or two. It was stray Zombies that caused a bus load of Adventist to go off a road near Schoolhouse Falls, which really confounded things, as the ones killed in the accident were in and out of the grave before the injured ones were out of the hospital.

That’s how it is with Adventist, the whole congregation would appear as dead as a post and next thing you know they’re out of their sepulchers, wandering around the highways, praising Jesus and looking for brains to eat. Some people think it’s because they believe in bodily resurrection, but I think it’s their healthy pre-mortem lifestyle and restraint from spirituous liquors. They were certainly perkier than your average Zombie and required a bigger slug to bring down.

Some Evangelicals came to investigate whether Zombies are a sign of the Second Coming, but, as we explained, Zombies had been coming out of the ground for a long time  around Wickesborough and it didn’t require a special occasion to get the restless undead up and around.

By now, the debate about what to do with the Zombies had stretched into bass season and folks were getting upset. We hoped maybe a judge or somebody would tell us how far we could go in suppressing the Zombies, but we waited in vain.

 The Government was hard at work though, and eventually they got down to the business of blaming the most expedient party. It turns out the undead are citizens just like us and them being dead did nothing to alter their basic rights as Americans, as long as they paid their taxes. Of course, since they’re dead they aren’t endangered, protected from any workplace hazards, or eligible for social security. No word, as yet, on how this went over with the Zombies, as anyone who got close enough to ask has been eaten.

It finally dawned on the politicians that as much had been done as could be done, without actually doing something. We couldn’t just shoot the Zombies, as they were back to being citizens who happened to eat human brains, so with the legislature gridlocked as to who was to blame and nominate scapegoats, the President acted. He appointed a Zombie Czar, or Tsar, to contain the outbreak. The Czar, or Tsar, created some terrific anti- Zombie commercials and identified two leading causes of the outbreak: fanatics opposed to the American values and dead people that came back to life.

When he set up shop in Wickesborough, we held a parade and barbecue in the Czar's, or Tsar's, honor which, of course, attracted Zombies which we, of course, shot to demonstrate how we dealt with Zombies before the Czar, or Tsar, arrived, sort of a lesson in Zombie history. Imagine our chagrin when our new Czar, or Tsar, immediately called a halt to the shooting and started profiling the residents to see who was the most likely to be a Zombie and who was most likely to shoot a Zombie.

We explained that the surest indicator of future Zombie behavior was a current state of deadness and the likeliest candidate to shoot a Zombie was any male in the county healthy enough to carry a gun. Our Czar, or Tsar, ignored us. Later, we found out he had a theory about a worldwide Zombie conspiracy that controlled world events through international banking. He wanted to uncover the evidence here in Wickesborough and then breed a race of super Zombie clones that would battle their satanic overlords and defeat their empire of evil. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

After our Czar, or Tsar, rounded up everybody who was shooting his evidence, he deployed Alpha Squad Zombie, a specially trained team of covert specialists that would get to the bottom of the Zombie menace. They slipped out of town at night and tracked the Zombies to their lairs. Unfortunately, later that night, the entire cadre of highly trained undercover Zombie infiltrators were eaten and turned into brain stalking fiends themselves.

The Czar, or Tsar, had a change of heart after that, and went back to Washington, DC, to concentrate on stamping out the Zombie scourge from there. He declared the Wickesborough County outbreak contained and left a deputy Czar, or Tsar, in charge.

Unfortunately, the Zombies didn’t get the message and kept coming. It got so a person with a brain couldn’t go anywhere in the county without trailing a string of hungry ghouls behind him. In certain neighborhoods you couldn’t get a decent night sleep because of the endless banging on doors and windows. It was like Zombie Halloween every night.

As acute as their distress was, no aid was forthcoming for the citizens of Wickesborough since the security forces designated to protect them were deployed around the gated communities where the Government people lived and worked.

When the folks in Wickesborough got up a petition to get the Government to actually protect them, the deputy Czar, or Tsar, called them fear mongers. To impress on us how safe we all were, the deputy Czar, or Tsar, went for a walk in the new Zombie proof park the Government built by the Clarion River. He was eaten, but they appointed a new, tougher deputy Czar, or Tsar, the next day.

Nothing attracts the vehement and complete authority of an ineffectual Government agency as much as an accessible powerless person, and since they were unable to do anything about the Zombies, the new deputy Czar, or Tsar, set about devising regulations for the living citizens of Wickesborough County.

Neighborhoods were declared Zombie-Free Zones, which impressed everybody but the Zombies who wandered in and out as they pleased. The Government concluded from this that some citizens were smuggling Zombies into Zombie-Free Zones, so conspiracy to aid and abet Zombieness was outlawed, as was aiding and abetting Zombies. These new laws were backed by the full power and authority of the State.

The new harsher penalties reflected how seriously the Government regarded these offenses. Soon, they had rounded up every suspicious citizen and placed them in camps. Meetings to discuss the Zombie problem were discouraged as they were a common source of rumors and misinformation. In the name of community safety, all guns were collected to prevent unauthorized Zombie hunting until the Government decided it was okay. Resistance was dealt with severely, as this was a national emergency.

A bounty was paid to those who uncovered secret opposition to the Government's program and miscreants were re-educated by Government counselors to bring them around to the proper point of view. Literature was screened, broadcasts censored and the local newspapers were seized. When bleeding hearts for the first amendment objected, it was pointed out that only commercial speech was being regulated; free speech was not affected: you could say anything you wanted, as long as no one was willing to pay for it.

Eventually, all the Zombies in the ground were out of the ground and all the living citizens were concentrated in Government-run camps. With meals of fresh brains harder to come by, the Zombies drifted off into Butler County where they were gunned down by citizens that weren’t under the deputy Zombie Czar’s, or Tsar’s, jurisdiction.

Although brain-eating ghouls stopped being a factor in Wickesborough County, the Zombie Czar or Tsar was now a cabinet-level position, so even though we weren't exactly Zombie epicenter anymore, the supervision of Wickesborough County continued.

They questioned everyone about the location of secret Zombie cells; some folks confessed again and again, but were kept locked up anyway. It was  just to keep things orderly. Of course, the expense of keeping us in the camps and passably nourished threatened the solvency of the county, so they gave us simple jobs in manufacturing to offset the cost of incarceration.

If you worked hard enough, you could be set free, at least that’s what the sign over the camp gate said, although we never heard of anybody that did. I made inexpensive electronic gadgets for the Chinese and signed a paper agreeing I wouldn't sue the Government or talk to the press. Eventually, they let me out and, if I keep my nose clean and mouth shut, I can vote again in ten years.

The last of the media left the county when Scott Baio announced he was getting married and the Government went back to Washington when it was decided domestic Zombie abatement could be done as well in DC as in the sticks.. They issued a statement thanking all the Government employees for their efforts during the battle against the Zombie curse in Wickesborough County. A Zombie special interest law firm sued immediately, saying that calling Zombieism a curse was discriminatory. There was some ambivalence in Wickesborough County about the statement as folks were grateful for the Government's help, but, all in all, most preferred the Zombies.

After that, things got back to normal, but things were never the same. We learned our lesson. Zombies still pop up, but we don’t shoot them these days, when anybody’s looking. If we get a few more than our normal crop, we put them in the trunk and drop them off in New York City. So far no one has complained. We had a bumper crop this year, more than we thought Manhattan could handle, so we put them on Butler Coach Company buses. The first lot we sent to Washington, D.C. The Adventist will take turns spelling the driver. They should be arriving pretty soon.

OSCAR, THE LIKABLE OGRE

 

Oscar was a likable ogre, but he still ate children, because that’s what ogres do. He was great at work, fun at parties and active in the church. Everybody liked him. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries with cards and gifts. His cave was always the first decorated at Christmas time and he could always be counted on when the PTA held a fundraiser. He lent out his gardening tools; helped folks clean out their garage and was always the first to welcome new neighbors with a friendly smile and a hot casserole of neighbor kid au gratin.

 

The little town put up with Oscar because they had a lot of unlikable children around and never wasted a morsel. The parents would get a neatly wrapped parcel of undigestables like buttons and loose change with a thoughtful note attached. At first they would be, then they'd read the note and realize they never really liked little Billy or Susie very much and they still had six more likable children left. After a while they’d come around and realize Oscar saved them the expense of raising an Internet porn star, chiropractor or political consultant and send Oscar a thank you note in return. After all, Oscar was a likable ogre.

 

Even the kids liked Oscar--up to the point where he bit off their head. He always gave away the best candy on Halloween and took his scout troop camping or to a ball game every month. The local scouting council was upset when he'd return minus a boy or two. He ate kids, but he wasn’t homosexual or an atheist or anything against the rules.so their hands were tied.

Besides there were always new recruits clamoring to join his troop, so they decided the casualties were acceptable as long as he never ate Eagle Scouts or other promising sorts.

Oscar had the uncanny knack for finding the least welcome new comer at the table of life. He would befriend them, raise their self-esteem, and then eat them. The locals got pretty astute at reading the signs; if a new kid with a bad attitude suddenly started feeling better about himself, he was headed for an Ogre pot roast. As a result the kids of the little town were well behaved and tried to live up to their potential.

But these things are relative and Oscar was sharp; there was always a kid who was least likable in any group, no matter how hard they tried. Oscar never went hungry.

 

This went on for years and Oscar got older and older, he was eating the grandchildren of people whose brother or sister he’d eaten years before. It should have been a golden time for Oscar, but it seemed like the kids were getting faster. Truth be told, he had lost a step or two in his golden years and Oscar started losing weight and looking poorly. This concerned the people in the little town who took steps to level the playing field.

 

Occasionally a few of the families would break a kid’s legs and leave him or her on Oscar’s door step or let the kids in wood shop and auto repair class know that they were going away for the weekend and leaving their liquor cabinet unlocked. Any number of good for nothing Juvenile Delinquents drew their last conscious breath after awakening from a drunken stupor on the floor of Oscar’s lovely finished basement. Yet despite their best efforts, nothing seemed to work, Oscar continued to decline. The little town despaired.

 

One day a child who didn't like broccoli and refused reasonable adult requests to settle down, awoke from a laudanum induced haze in Oscar's humble cave. He found Oscar slumped over his workbench where he’d been knitting Afghans as Christmas gifts for his neighbors. Oscar was cold and stiff, his green skin an unhealthy pink color. Oscar was a dead ogre.

 

The little town mourned. Oscar had arranged for them to get free cable TV including major pay channels, but the local Cable Company was going digital and with Oscar gone they didn't know what to do. The local kids heard about his demise almost immediately and right away began to question adult authority and act like wild Indians.

 

Christmas was bleak that year in the little town. No one put up decorations or visited much, the bake sale didn't raise enough money to buy new PCs for the computer lab at school. The Church couldn’t raise enough money for a new roof and lawns started looking scruffy and unkempt. The kids were downloading porn and violent games from the Internet, and nothing anyone did or said could control them. Finally the city council took out an ad that said, “Small town looking for Ogre”. It ran in newspapers back east next to the ads for military schools.

 

Only one ogre answered the ad: Larry, but he was never as likable as Oscar.