Zombies at the Bar Mitzvah: a novella

by Michael Homler

  “We’re a family,” I said. “We take care of one another.”

  “And human beings look out for one another, they don’t just follow orders,” said Laura.

  “Barf! To that.”

  OUR PLANS OF SURVIVAL

  We watched at the windows, at the door and from the roof. There was one pair of binoculars that we found and shared. We ignored the colonel’s continuing missives from the basement. After a while, they didn’t make much sense through the door anyhow. He was ticked, but at least we knew that Melvin, New Jersey wouldn’t be getting fire-bombed anytime soon.

  The zombies were making their ways up the road. They weren’t coming our way, which was great. They still had no idea we were hiding out.

  We were able to stay hidden for hours. The respite was nice. But in that time we were also able to barricade the doors with chairs and tables and a refrigerator. It took a lot of sweat, a lot of pushing and pulling… with a few disagreemtns.

  “Don’t put the refrigerate in front of the window,” said Mom, when Dad and I had turned it on it’s side for easier moving. “Put it in front of the door.”

  When we put it in front of the door, she said, “Maybe you should put it in front of the window.”

  We looked up at her, without saying anything, but our for real? Looks on our faces said it all.

  “This is no time for decorator’s remorse,” said Dad. “Make up your mind.”

  “The door. Leave it at the door.”

  We were also able to arm ourselves with hairspray and matches, an axe, and a shower rod, among other things. We each tried swing around the objects before we claimed them as weapons.

  Laura picked up an iron and swung it and fell over in the process. Seeing if she was alright, Karen helped her up.

  “Probably should stick to something a little lighter,” she said.

  “You’re right, but a pillow I don’t think is going to do much.”

  “How about a fork and spoon?”

  “Deal.”

  As it grew dark we began to think of plans for getting through the night, and we realized that things wouldn’t be so easy.

  We shut all the lights. We fed ourselves with some of the leftover food from the fridge.

  Then we tried to take it easy.

  MY SISTER AND I HAVE A FAIRLY INTELLECTUAL CONVERSATION

  We were sitting on the stairs to the loft area. Just Karen and I. Laura was trying to nap on a chair.

  “Do you think zombies have eating disorders?” I said. “Like maybe they crave too much flesh and if they eat too much they have to purge to preserve their well being. It might explain why they vomit a lot, you know. Projectile vomit, too. Some of them do that. And it also helps explain why they’re never sated.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Man, who would have thought that zombies could be like that?”

  “You.”

  “Don’t you see? They have very human problems. This is like a medical breakthrough or something. Wow. What about the runs? Do you think they get diarrhea from eating too much? I mean, they really do eat non stop.”

  “Did you really just ask me that? Do I have to answer that? Do I want to talk about this anymore? Can’t you go play with your new girlfriend or something.”

  “Shh. She’s tired. You need to let her rest. I don’t want her to worry her pretty little head.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to worry my pretty little head.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not pretty.”

  She hit me.

  “Okay, just entertain this for a moment. We have no idea if they actually go to the bathroom.”

  “They don’t have to. They’re dead.”

  “Yeah, but the human body is a post/waste consuming organism, and if they are dead, if they are ingesting something, it has to go somewhere, right?”

  “So you think they go in their pants?”

  “Well, they’ve got to go somewhere.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But they’ve got to go somewhere. Might be why they smell bad.”

  “No. They smell bad because they are corpses.”

  “I wonder if that makes them uncomfortable. It’d make me uncomfortable. Crapping in my pants.”

  “You are making me uncomfortable. Can we give it a rest? Please.”

  “Okay. I rest my case.”

  TROUBLE BREWS IN THE BASEMENT

  Col. Elkins, who had shut up for a while, now began to yell again, again muffled through the door.

  “Hey, up there! Forget about ol’ lonesome Colenel Elkins down here?”

  We didn’t answer, at least not at first.

  “You’re making a big mistake! Without my help you’re doomed.” Later, he said, “Look, I forgive you for what you’ve done to me. But how about a little sympathy? I am a product of my upbringing. I was a military child. I believe in fighting. I was wrong.” This last part touched off some feelings in Mom.

  “Roger, maybe we ought to do something.”

  “Too risky.”

  And then, he said the magic words. “Okay, you want to leave me down here, fine. Just give me something to eat. My stomach is growling and I’m having pangs of regret. I’m sorry, okay. I’d really like some food.”

  Mom couldn’t ever refuse a person in hunger. She liked to make sure people are fed, even ridiculous colonels. Mom loaded up a plate of granola bars, some fresh fruit and packaged turkey that we had found in the fridge for Laura and I to take to Col.

  We set it on the floor.

  “You’re going to behave?” Dad called out.

  “Cross my heart hope to die.”

  We opened the door and as soon as he came out to get the food, he broke out. He was apparently a tough old colonel after all. He wouldn’t have any of our nonsense. He had found a hunting rifle while he was down there and he came out swinging and aiming, making us all back away.

  “Are you crazy?” said Mom. “Put that thing away. We’re the living ones.”

  “Yeah, but you locked me in the basement.”

  He held us all back aiming the rifle.

  “It’s not loaded,” said Dad.

  “Sure you want to find out,” said Col. Elkins.

  He moved up the stairs, waving us back. He made his way to the phone.

  “In a second, I’m going to call the Pentagon. Then all of you can prepare to do what we should have done at the start.”

  Lucky for us when he went to pick up the phone to make a call to the Pentagon, the line was dead.

  “Crapola.”

  He stomped around.

  “Okay, this doesn’t change anything. I keep the gun. You all stay away from me. We make our stand here.”

  We nodded. Not that we had a choice.

  THROUGH THE EVENING WE COUNT THE SHEEP HOPING IT WILL NOT BE OUR LAST

  The following morning when we woke up the colonel was wrestling with a zombie that had entered the house. It started out as arm wrestling on a table and then it turned to grappling. We had no idea how it had gotten inside. At first we didn’t do anything because we were so stunned to see this.

  Col. Elkins wrestled and struggled with the zombie. We sprang into action.

  Using a pitchfork I’d found in the basement, I managed to poke the zombie in the leg. When that didn’t work I began poking him repeatedly. This finally go the zombie to stumble back, especially when it got stuck in his gut. He reached for it, moaning, trying to get at the scissors. I was defenseless meanwhile.

  The zombie turned around and knocked me down with the pitchfork stuck inside him. He swung around hitting all of us with the pitchfork as we tried to get the colonel to safety. And he was spilling out his gross guts as he did this. Funny how zombies have so much guts. They never run out.

  He knocked over Laura and Karen.

  Grandpa took a fall.

  “Watch where you are swinging that crap you diseased fool!” he shouted.

  Dad was able to wrestle the zombie to the ground and brain him with a pa
per weight.

  He went to check up on Col. Elkins who lay on the floor coughing.

  “How’d that thing get in here?” asked Mom.

  “I think I left the door open,” said Grandpa.

  “What?” she screamed. “Why did you open the door?

  “I had to go in the middle of the night.”

  “Couldn’t you have used the toilet?”

  “Can’t. I was scared. So I went outside.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know, but at the time it did for some reason.”

  He shrugged.

  Dad sat the colonel up on the couch. He was coughing up blood.

  “Oh my god, he’s been bitten,” said Mom.

  “What do we do?” said Karen.

  “We brain him,” said Grandpa.

  “Kaff, kaff,” the colonel coughed weakly.

  “You’re still with us,” said Dad.

  “But… I won’t be for long. Kaff. Take your family. Run. Kaff. For it. Leave me here.”

  We started to gather up our stuff. There were more zombies coming.

  “Wait,” he said. “Here. Take. Receiver. Call in back up if you need it. Batteries are dead. But if you fine… you use.”

  He handed the military walkie-talkie radio to me. It was huge for what it was, and had lots of great big dials. I opened to see that it took double A batteries. Wasn’t sure where I was going to get those, but if I did I knew what had to be done…

  “Thank you,” I said, putting it in the bag. “Thank you so much for your help. I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “Just do me a favor and make proud. I’ll hope that I was wrong about the fire-bombing. Get the big bastard and wipe that unholy name off his forehead. You can do it, kid.”

  With that he slumped over (only to rise again I’m sure), and we were on the move again.

  FLEEING LIKE BATS OUT OF HELL

  We took our leave out the back door and ran into the forest. We could hear the zombies descending upon the house. The moaning and groaning terror that we’d all come to expect, the sound that kept you up at night or made you laugh your butt off depending on your frame of mind.

  All of us went. Grandpa seemed more light of foot now too. It was as if the fighting for our survival had woken some version of himself deep within and brought back a side of him even he hadn’t seen in years.

  “This way, this way,” Dad yelled as he shot through the trees clearing a path for us.

  We did our best to keep up. Then we made it to a road. It was lower down a hill. I recognized this road as one we took to school every day on the way from our house, a back road that Mom used whenever there was an accident or a light was busted on the regular routes.

  Few knew about it she argued. It was a secret she always said.

  Well, Mom couldn’t right about everything.

  “Oh my god,” said Grandpa, scratching his head. “They’re everywhere.”

  The zombie horde surely knew about her shortcut.

  SAYING GOODBYE

  The zombies milled forward, their arms dangling almost uselessly, swaying back and forth. It was like dancing the Monster Mash on my sister’s Wii game.

  “Well that doesn’t look too encouraging,” said Mom.

  “I know,” said Dad.

  “We stand and fight then,” I said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Mom. “Just me.”

  “Honey, I don’t like the tone in your voice.”

  “What are you talking about, Mom?”

  “I’m talking about the survival of this family. Now don’t argue.”

  She got this look in her eye and rolled up sleeves. She was missing a rolling pin or something to take with her.

  PROTECTING THE FAMILY

  Ululating, Mom charged at the first zombie from the horde. She looked like a character out of one of my comic books when she connected with the zombie’s face. I could even picture the panel freeze frame with kabloom plastered across it in large bright yellow letters. Mom wrestled the creature to the ground, and then beat it with the end of a broken broomstick. She repeatedly thwacked it atop the head, keeping it down.

  Karen and I looked on.

  Somehow we were proud to see her torment of such an unsuspecting corpse, but we failed to notice the other corpses coming to attack her.

  At least at first.

  One in an Alice in Wonderland dress with the mustard stain on it (sorry, I couldn’t think of anything else to call it) pushed her to the ground. Mom got a cracked light bulb and plunged it into the zombie’s neck. Another one grabbed her. Mom kicked it over and put it out of its misery with a can of Endust in its face. She took out zombie after zombie. Using garden shears from her unbearably large handbag, she felled two more. She put up a heck of a fight. But finally the zombies got to her, closing in.

  One bit her throatily.

  “No!” shouted Dad, hammering his way through the horde. And yes he was wielding a hammer.

  Our family had a sense of humor.

  By the time he got to Mom, he had her in his arms and the backend of his hammer was at rest in a zombie’s head. Tears were coming out of Dad’s eyes.

  Karen and I were struck dumb seeing Mom lying there like that.

  Undergoing a transformation with Dad holding her in his arms, Mom started to have a fit, body moving epileptically.

  “Kids, I don’t want you to see this. Take your grandpa, and run.”

  Karen and I stared in shock.

  “But…”

  “Now! Go. I can’t let you see this. And I can’t go on without her.”

  “What about us?”

  “You’ll just have to grow up! That’s what today was supposed to be about anyhow.”

  “Come on,” said Grandpa, tugging on my sleeve. “He’s right. There’s nothing more that can be done here.”

  Okay, today was about growing up. I was supposed to be a man. But nothing had prepared me for this.

  I was practically taking over the family.

  “Your mother and I will always love both of you. We would do anything for you.”

  He gave us the most forlorn look, but he wasn’t just doing it to be with Mom we realized he was doing it so that he could distract the horde and allow us to escape. Agonizing screams left his lips long after we left him.

  We made the best of it. We didn’t want our parents’ deaths or re-awakenings, so to speak, to be for naught.

  But that didn’t mean we had to excuse it. Let’s face it, your parents are your anchor to reality. Without them, life is so much harder. And sadder. They buffer you from danger and allow you to enjoy childhood.

  THE DEFEAT OF MURDERFACE ONCE AND FOR ALL

  Let me flesh out the scene.

  We were marching up a hill. Well, a road.

  Custer’s Last Stand in Little Big Horn. Hamburger Hill in Vietnam. Yup.

  It was going to be those kinds of odds, with little hope for survival.

  Various cars on the street raced by. We flagged them down so that we could be rescued, but the jerks wouldn’t stop. One guy said it was “every man for himself.” Great, what a day to become a man. Another guy honked at us and called us “stupid kids.” Laura actually yelled back at him: “You’re the one who is stupid stupid! We’re running from the zombies, not driving straight towards them!” She had the right idea. He didn’t.

  Then, like a car running out of gas, we made it to the top of the hill. Karen had to assist Grandpa who rested with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.

  The shufflers shuffled at their leisure, slowly coming up the hill while we caught our breadth.

  Soon enough I recognized one of the shufflers.

  Murderface.

  The bone sticking out of his knee was more pronounced. His face grittier. His teeth more yellow.

  He made his way up the hilly road faster than the others. I wished I could ask him why. The zombies all seemed to travel at a particular pace, which for the most part made th
em easy to outrun. He was trying harder though.

  He got closer.

  I got ready. I wanted to survive. If I was going to die it was not going to be at this goon’s hands.

  Closer.

  I could see scaled flesh populating his face.

  I was glad we had stopped by the rabbi’s office. I just happened to have a shofur in the bag I had taken with me. More than just phylacteries were at my disposal.

  Bracing for impact, I brandished the heavy end of the rabbi’s shofur and smacked him in the face when he got close enough. The impact plopped his remaining eye to the ground. He moaned around blindly, and then stepped on it.

  Squish. Ever hear anyone talk of eye-guts? Well that’s what came out. Who knew.

  I wasn’t done though.

  With Jenny and Laura urging me to hurry up, I plunged the shofur into his mid-section and left it there, backing up. I heard a sound like a fart. When he took a step forward he blew out his guts.

  The other zombies slipped and fell on his organs squirting about. For Mom and Dad!

  Sandy Green suddenly appeared, at least the zombie version of him, and got down on her hands and knees and began slurping Murderfaces’s entrails.

  Okay, that’s one way to get revenge.

  We climbed the rest of the hill and began the descent on the other side. I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself after that attack. I was thankful I was so clever and had bought us more time.

  Grandpa had a hard time keeping up with us as we made our getaway.

  We made it to the parking lot of a shopping center.