grateful to be living dead.
5. ZOMBIE SHENANIGANS
I dropped my pencil and let it roll on my desktop, the pink eraser gnarled into an unrecognizable shape. I couldn’t concentrate. Math was my last class of the day. That’s when my cravings got the worst. I have gotten a lot better at controlling them. That’s part of zombie education too. You’re no good to the zombie community if you can’t curb your brain cravings. But the longer you go without brains, the harder it is. The Wakes who have been around for a while are a lot better at it. I’m still learning. I’ve only been in zombie school for a year and a half, and the year before I spent in pre-school, having my mind slowly re-taught the basics of thinking and speaking.
I didn’t know how the twenty or so other zombie kids in class could stand it, but when I looked around I could see they were getting as restless as I was. Zombie feet tapped up and down anxiously on the linoleum floor, zombie bodies squirmed in their hard, uncomfortable seats, and zombie hands clenched at the fabric of their stiff jeans. We wore typical human teenager attire, whatever had been dug out of the closets of the humans that had lived in town before we controlled it, or any human brought in by breeders that fit, were comfortable, and we deemed cool enough. Zombies shared many traits with humans, and pride was one of them. Zombies did not like being naked, especially since it tended to show off our zombie scars – abrasions, wounds, loose, wrinkled skin, and the like. We may be dead, but we don’t have to look it, at least not so much on the surface.
I folded my arms over my desk and buried my head in them, trying to quiet the pounding in my head. My mind was starting to play tricks on me. Visions of cerebellums were dancing in my head. I just needed class to end, but Mr. Melbourne wouldn’t shut his brain hole. I didn’t know how he could talk about something as boring as math for so long. If I had to focus my whole life on studying and reciting math formulas and calculations, I’d probably die again of boredom.
“Hey!” a voice behind me chirped.
Kids were stifling their giggles. Something sailed over my head and landed on a desk two rows away from me. I shook my head. Didn’t they ever get tired of this?
“Keep away from Peg-ear!” someone whispered harshly.
Peggy, sitting directly behind me, was fuming. I felt bad. It’s not her fault her mentor couldn’t afford to take her to a tailor. Things were really tight, and most Wakes couldn’t afford anything but the bare necessities.
“Give it back,” she hissed behind me.
“What?” the kid two rows away, Anthony, called in a whisper. “I couldn’t quite make that out. Wait. Let me try this.” Then he held Peggy’s ear up to the side of his head and set his face straight, feigning attention.
“Very funny,” she shot back. “Come on!”
This was a semi-daily event. Either in class, or the hallways, or the school campus. It was a running joke.
Peggy was always getting made fun of for losing her right ear. Her mentor couldn’t afford to take her to a tailor to get it patched. When a body part had been lost prior to reanimating, or in the course of the wear and tear of everyday zombie life, Wakes could opt to have it reattached by a tailor. It wouldn’t operate as it had before, so it was mostly for show. Most zombies were missing some sort of body part – that was a necessary consequence of being zombified – but most didn’t like the idea of appearing maimed or incomplete, especially teenage zombies in school, where looks seemed to matter more than anything. Vanity thy name is zombie.
Since her mentor couldn’t afford to have it patched, Peggy usually had her ear pinned in place with some needles, but it almost never lasted the whole day. It had almost become a game to try to sneak her ear off when she wasn’t looking and see how long it would take her to notice it was gone. Peggy had pleaded with her mentor to get her ear patched, even offering to skip a ration of brain a day to help offset the cost, but she refused. Peggy’s mentor was a courier. It wasn’t the most lucrative zombie profession.
“Can you even hear me without this? Hello, Peg-ear!” Anthony called, waving her ear in Peggy’s direction.
“You’re a real cut-up!” Peggy shot back. “Just give it back.” She started to get up from her seat.
“Oh, sure, Peg, here,” the boy extended the ear toward her. Then he flung it across the room.
Now you may wondering, Joe, why Mr. Melbourne hadn’t done anything yet to stop these zombie shenanigans. Well, Mr. Melbourne is a very good math teacher, but his body is not in the best condition. He was older when he died as a human, and his eyesight wasn’t very good, and he had never been able to find a pair of glasses that quite matched his prescription after he was zombified. There were always a lot of, “Yes, you’s” or “Very good, son’s” or “Well done, missy’s” when he called on you in class. His hearing was even worse than his eyes, and you practically had to shout at him across the room for him to hear you. Mr. Melbourne’s class was a hotbed for zombie shenanigans.
“You aren’t funny,” Peggy seethed.
“Keep away from Peg-ear!” someone shouted.
And the ear was tossed across the room again. Kids were laughing. Mr. Melbourne was still going on about some math formula. He squinted in the general direction of his students. Then he turned back to the chalkboard, satisfied that his students were behaving as far as he was aware.
“Come on,” Peggy moaned. “You know if I lose that ear my mentor can’t afford another one! Give it back!”
I felt bad for Peggy. Some zombies didn’t know what it was like to have a defect that hadn’t been patched. I was personally a little ashamed of the pointer finger on my right hand. It had no skin on it. There was just a long, thin white bone, jointed together, extending out from my hand at the knuckle. The rest of my fingers and hand had skin. It was likely that the Stiff that zombified me had tried to bite my finger off when he attacked me, but only tore off my flesh. I could always get a new finger attached, but that was costly, and if an appendage worked, there was no reason to replace it. It was sort of an unwritten zombie rule. We didn’t like to waste resources out of conceit. Of course, teenagers had their own rules and judgments.
“Come on, stop,” Peggy pleaded as the ear sailed across the room again. “You guys aren’t funny.”
More giggles. Mr. Melbourne was pointing at the chalkboard, emphasizing the importance of this math formula. Nobody was paying attention.
Another kid picked up the ear and threw it across the room in my direction. I jumped out of my seat and caught the ear in my hand as it flew overhead, knocking over my chair in the process. Game over.
“Here, Peggy,” I said, handing the ear back to her. The students in the class groaned. I may be a smartass, but I wasn’t a jerk either. It’s one thing to make fun of someone. It’s something else entirely to abuse their appendages for your own amusement.
Peggy gratefully accepted her ear. “Thank you. I swear, you’re the only gentlezombie in this whole barbaric school,” she said, taking the ear and carefully pinning it to the side of her head again.
I bowed slightly. “Always glad to be of service, ma’am.”
“Zellner Olander!” Mr. Melbourne’s voice quivered across the room.
“Yes, Mr. Melbourne?” I called across to him, as if shouting over a horde of groaning Stiffs.
“I’ve had it up to here with your shenanigans,” Mr. Melbourne said, holding his hand flat to his head.
“Shenanigans?” I said in my seemingly permanently cracking voice. The joys of being zombified during puberty. I looked around. My chair lay on the floor and I stood in the middle of the classroom, among a bunch of innocent looking school zombies with their hands folded and looking attentively ahead at Mr. Melbourne’s latest equation. That was just my luck.
“When are you going to grow up, young zombie?” Mr. Melbourne demanded. “You can’t be a teenage zombie forever.”
“Technically, that’s all I can be,” I mumbled.
“What was that?” Mr. Melbourne called.
“Yo
u’re right, sir,” I replied.
“I’m going to have to send your mentor a message,” Mr. Melbourne said. “You may be bright, but your antics are going to put you on the fast track to the Stockade.”
The Stockade. It was a former human penitentiary where Stiffs that were captured and deemed unworthy of conversion to Wakes were put. They were used for extra parts, and it was better to have them undead so the parts were fresh and not rotting. They were never fed. They just eventually died off, and new Stiffs were continuously added to the frenzy. The new ones ravenously ate the dead ones. We were not in short supply of Stiffs. Some of the least desirable Wakes who caused trouble for their community were put there, too, locked away in the solitary confinement to fend for themselves after they skidded and eventually died or were used for spare parts. No one wanted to go to the Stockade. It was a death sentence.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Sit down and focus,” Mr. Melbourne instructed.
I obeyed, setting my seat upright and sitting in it.
I sighed. Those were just some of the zombie shenanigans that took place at Oakrest High School.
6. BORED STIFF
I slammed my locker door shut. I was still a little more than upset about the injustice dealt by Mr. Melbourne. My mentor was not going to be happy that I was acting up again - allegedly. But there was nothing I could do about it now. I kind of had a
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