This is a VERY short piece I wrote for a 'zine I co-published a few years back. Our first issue of ROT was zombie-themed, and we asked Chris Herndon, artist/writer/creator of the comic Living With Zombies to do a piece for our cover (the picture at left). Surprisingly, he said "yes."
Well, actually, he said "Bam!" in an email with a link to the file - I assume he meant yes. He didn't complain when we gave him a complimentary copy at the Motor City Comic convention later that year.
A Zombie Love Story
Sometimes we go on picnics in the graveyard where we met. We sit in the shade under the big oak tree at the back, where the heat from the sun won't draw files, eating pickles or melon balls -- whatever fits into the hole where her mouth used to be. She smiles once in a while, I think. It's hard to tell. You know how women are sometimes.
She was clawing her way out of a hole, barely three weeks after she got there. I had on my suit -- the one I wear to weddings and funerals -- and she was wearing the dress she was buried in -- white lace. The witch doctor was chanting a hauntingly beautiful spell, sprinkling her grave with powders and chicken blood. I told him to be careful not to get any on her beautiful dress. He just hissed, but I think he understood that I wanted this to be perfect -- and perfect means no chicken blood on her dress. Witch doctors.
We went swimming today. She turned all gray and bloated up like a sponge. She didn't mind, though -- she never complains. She just moaned and floated on her back. I floated next to her as the fish nibbled on her arms, and we held hands and stared up into the big blue sky until the sun went down, and she started to sink.
I know it doesn't seem normal, me and her, but what we have goes beyond all that. What we have is special.
Sometimes, though, I think I see her staring off with her good eye at the other zombie guys. When they lumber over and I have to smash their heads with sticks, she doesn't say anything, but I think deep down, where her heart used to be, she wishes I was a zombie too.
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