by Frank Lesser
I want to give you more credit than thinking you’re with him just because he’s famous. But you realize it’s been over two hundred years and he’s still coasting off a legend from the Revolutionary War. Don’t you think he could at least have managed to get another body part blown off during a more recent battle?
I’m sure there’s something you see in him, although I don’t know what he sees in you. Not because you’re not great, but because he has no head and therefore no eyes. I’m sure he’s a brilliant conversationalist, once you get around him not having a mouth or ears. Are you even sure he knows he’s dating you?
I guess I’ve said everything I wanted to say. Not much else is new with me. I recently started haunting a local bed-and-breakfast. Not to brag, but they named a brunch item after me—the Sobbing Ghost Omelet. I also got a ghost golden retriever. At least he’ll stay faithful. By the way, I’ve had a few decades to think it over—it still counts as cheating if you were invisible.
That was uncalled for. But this isn’t: Based on your dating history, when you’re out haunting you shouldn’t wear white.
I guess I’m not over you quite yet. Probably just need another hundred years. In the meantime, I think we should figure out custody of our favorite haunting locations. You can have the old cemetery if I can have the deserted roadway, and we can share the house built on top of our moldering bones. You can have it Monday through Friday if I can have it on the weekends. I don’t want to run into you at any more séances, so you can have those.
You need the attention more, anyway.
Dearly Departed Departed
Grwrrrrgorrry Mrrrrrwwwwwgh entered into eternal rest last evening. He is survived by his undead wife, Blurgrethibeth, his undead son Grwrrrrgorrry Junyorrrrr, and legions of the infected.
Born Gregory Murphy on August 3, 1953, Mr. Mrrrrrwwwwwgh became a zombie when intercosmic radiation leeched into the atmosphere during the Orion IV shuttle reentry on June 24, 1974. He passed away after contracting an intestinal illness from consuming contaminated intestines; a last-minute liver transplant failed when the attending surgeon, Dr. Murrrgmmmmerl, ate the donor liver. But these details fail to capture the rich and fulfilling tapestry of Mr. Mrrrrrwwwwwgh’s life, a life spent stumbling about mindlessly devouring small groups of frightened humans.
He will be cremated at 3 p.m. on Saturday and his ashes will be scattered over the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area in the hopes of further spreading his plague. In lieu of brains, please send donations in his memory to his alma mater, Harvard Medical School’s Autopsy Room.
We mourn the passing of Count Corneliu Dragomir, known to friends and superstitious townsfolk as “Dragos the Terrible,” whose reign of bloodshed was sadly cut short in a staking ruled by authorities to have been accidental.
An avid furniture restoration hobbyist, the Count tripped and fell on the leg of a Louis XIV chair he was varnishing. The next day he was to marry his third bride, a local shepherdess named Eliska, who upon his death awakened from her spell of dread allegiance and released the following statement: “I am deeply saddened by the loss of my dear—wait, what’s going on? What are these marks on my neck?”
Because the Count’s body turned to dust the instant the chair leg pierced his blackened heart, the service will be memorial in nature. Buxom ingenues still under his thrall are invited to attend and share their fondest non-memories of his nocturnal visits.
His remains will be placed in an urn until such time as his minions can mix them with the blood of a doubting priest and perform an appropriate satanic ritual to resurrect the Count. In lieu of flowers, his minions request that mourners send the blood of doubting priests.
The ghost of Madame Desmarais, the legendary “White Lady of Willow Lane,” departed her spectral plane earlier this week under grim circumstances. Her ectoplasmic remains were found by two high-schoolers at Make-Out Point, and although the Kirlian crime scene photographs are still being examined, detectives suspect she was the victim of a premeditated busting.
Neighbors in nearby cemetery plots told investigators that the night of her disappearance, four men wearing proton packs ran out of the Desmarais family crypt screaming in a comical fashion. Although it was dark, the witnesses described three of the men as Caucasian and the fourth as African-American. An overweight blob-shaped green ghost seen lurking nearby has been brought in for questioning.
The late late Madame Desmarais is survived by five ghost children, who through a spokesman thanked the public for their prayers, and urged anyone with information to come forward so their mother’s murderers may be brought to justice before they can bust again.
Mourners are encouraged to materialize in front of strangers while weeping mysteriously, only to disappear upon questioning.
Kids Slay the Darnedest Things
This child development class sucks. Christine just told me we don’t even get a real baby to take home with us for the week, and how is taking care of some dumb doll going to teach me to raise the kid I’m planning to have with Don? And now what am I supposed to race my turtle against?
Mrs. Menckley didn’t have enough dolls for everyone, but I got Brooke’s after she dropped out of school because she got pregnant. I named him Bradley, which I later found out was the name of the serial killer who was gunned down in front of my house exactly a year ago today. It’s such a cute name!
It’s 3 a.m., and Bradley just started “crying.” If he was a real baby, I’d say he woke up because of the weird electrical storm that’s been raging all night, but I guess also if he was a real baby his cries wouldn’t sound like the angry shrieks of an escaped mental patient. He’s supposed to cry like this every three hours, and I’m supposed to turn a key in his back to quiet him, but luckily I was able to show him how to turn the key himself, and he calmed right down.
When I woke up this morning Bradley was perched next to my pillow, watching me silently. Adorable!
Taking care of a baby isn’t so tough. At first it was a pain having to carry him around wherever I went, but earlier today he started walking by himself, and with such speed! Also, I didn’t realize babies fight back so much when you try to change their diapers, and with such inhuman strength. I guess this doll really is teaching me a lot about raising a child.
Bradley said his first words! “Mommy! Mommy! I’m going to kill you, Mommy!” I was pretty shocked, because according to our textbook most babies don’t talk until they’re nine months old. I must be an amazing mom!
Bradley’s been talking nonstop ever since, although it’s tough to make out the words—ever since this afternoon’s little knifing accident, Don has insisted that I keep him locked in the broom closet. Personally, I think he’s just being selfish; when someone throws a knife at him, it’s just like Don to focus only on the “him” part.
I never knew being a parent could be so difficult. After Bradley’s “bedtime” this evening, Don came over to help me study for tomorrow’s quiz on breast-feeding. He knows a lot—he told me he’s only two exams away from becoming a fully licensed breast inspector. But before he’d even gotten past my undershirt, Bradley leaped out from behind the TV and attacked him with a sharpened pacifier.
We later figured out that he picked the broom closet’s lock, which is an accomplishment I would have been proud of except for, you know, the attacking. I managed to pull Bradley off Don, but not before he stabbed him in the arm. I’d have thrown Bradley against the wall, but I was afraid the sensors inside him would record it, and I cannot fail another class.
This time, Don and I both agreed: Bradley is grounded.
Bad news: We had another little child-rearing speed bump. I won’t get into all the details, but it involved another knife, some more stabbing, and Bradley stealing a car and running over Don like he was a speed bump.
Bradley drove off, and I wasn’t able to find him in any of his normal hangouts—the strip club, the morgue, recent crime scenes. I called Mrs. Menckley to see if I could write an essay on ch
ild-rearing instead, but weirdly Bradley answered her phone and said, “Mrs. Menckley doesn’t live here—or anywhere,” before laughing in his creepy human-doll way. So I drove over to her house to pick him up and we went for ice cream.
Bradley suggested bringing some ice cream to Don in the hospital, which in hindsight I can see was a bad idea. You wouldn’t think you could stab someone with a sugar cone, but Bradley continues to surprise me.
A Living Dead Will
Will
ITEM 1. If I become terminally ill, I wish to receive any and all procedures that might prolong my life, regardless of cost or adverse side effects, including but not limited to the following:—Administering experimental treatments/drugs.
—Performing experimental/horrific surgeries (e.g., the transfer of my head onto the body of an unwilling victim).
—Hiring a vampire to drain me and then fill me with his/her blood, thereby granting me eternal life, albeit a condemned one in which I am cursed to feast on the blood of innocents. My health care proxy has been instructed to appropriately remunerate said innocents for their pain and suffering.
—Trading the Devil or intermediary demon for additional time on earth in exchange for my soul. See my lawyer for a draft of the contract and a satanic summoning ritual.
—As a very last resort, I am willing to be Frankensteined.
ITEM 2. If I am in a coma or have little or no conscious understanding with absolutely no hope of recovery, I request that the attending physicians terminate my vital functions at their discretion, providing I am immediately buried in an old pet cemetery that was once an Indian burial ground.
ITEM 3 (A). If I am bitten by a zombie or otherwise become infected by a zombie-like plague (e.g., interstellar radiation brought back by NASA probe, a “rage” virus), I hereby request that my brain NOT be destroyed, unless the effects of said zombie condition are such that my quality of undead life is compromised.
ITEM 3 (B). If I become a zombie and I am captured by surviving soldiers/scientists to be experimented upon, or if my limbs are accidentally or purposely severed but continue to wriggle with unnatural life, my health care proxy is instructed to destroy my brain, preferably by shotgun or other high-caliber bullet.
ITEM 3 (C). If the above situation occurs and my health care proxy has also become a zombie, then I hereby authorize as my new health care proxy the nearest surviving human with a shotgun.
ITEM 3 (D). If I am not a plague/infection zombie but instead a Haitian voodoo zombie, my health care proxy should find the voodoo priest/priestess who is controlling me and attempt to break the bond, as long as breaking said bond will not result in harm to my insensate body. If the bond is unbreakable, I hereby instruct my health care proxy to vanquish the voodoo priest/priestess, at which point control of my zombie self shall be duly given to my sister Gina, who has a detailed list of instructions in the case of this contingency.
ITEM 4 (A). In the event that I am bitten by a vampire, not in conjunction with Item 1, do not exhume and stake my corpse. Additionally, do not trick me into feeding on a beautiful girl until morning and then pull the drawn curtains so I burn to ashes, and do not question the strange wounds appearing on the necks of beautiful women who seem to have suddenly developed severe and inexplicable anemia. My health care proxy is instructed only to do the following:1. Run a prepared obituary that doesn’t mention my unnaturally extended life.
2. Start leaving her windows open at night.
ITEM 4 (B). If it’s a gay vampire who bites me, that’s cool, I’m willing to be open-minded in exchange for eternal life, but please mention in my obituary that while I was alive I slept with tons of chicks.
ITEM 5. If I die in an unexpected accident and a cursed pet cemetery/ancient Indian burial ground cannot be located in a timely fashion, immediately contact my assistant Geoff, who has in his possession a monkey’s paw with one finger/wish left. I hereby request that my health care proxy use that final wish to bring me back to life, regardless of any imagined horrific consequences, including but not limited to the reanimation of a mutilated and unrecognizable corpse caught in the machinery of a nineteenth-century factory.
ITEM 6. In the event I survive a werewolf attack, my banker is hereby instructed to sell all my silver holdings.
ITEM 7 (A). In the event that I die and return as a poltergeist, my health care proxy may only exorcise my spirit if she is certain beyond all reasonable doubt that the spirit is not actually me, but is instead a demon masquerading as me in an attempt to trick my survivors, or if my poltergeist activity adversely affects my home’s property value.
ITEM 7 (B). If I am murdered foully and most unnaturally, and said murder occurs before I receive last rites, resulting in my unclean spirit being doomed for a certain time to walk the night and for the day be confined to fast in fires till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away, my health care proxy is hereby instructed to revenge me. Contact my attorney for a script of a play to stage in order to confirm the murderer’s guilt.
ITEM 7 (C). If I die and become a corporeal ghost, and science has advanced to the point where “ghost-busting” technology exists, do not “ghostbust” me. However, if a ghost-busting team is looking for a new Slimer-like underworld liaison, I might be willing to apply, depending on the perks. See my lawyer for a draft of a Slimering contract.
Unless I revoke it or state an expiration date or circumstances under which it will expire, this document shall remain in effect indefinitely, especially if I become a vampire or ghost (Items 1, 4, and 7).
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank everyone I annoyed/ignored while writing this book: Dan McCoy, Jack Kukoda, Josh Levin, Audrey Evans, John Arceci, Elisabeth Bernstein, Josephine Decker, Ruth Graham, Bill Weeks, Lily Rothman, Jacob Reidel, Victoria Cook, and more than anyone else, Danica MacAvoy. I don’t have space for all the people I annoyed/ignored while I wasn’t writing this book.
Thanks to Stephen Colbert and all the Colbert writers, especially the ones I pestered the most to read drafts—Rob Dubbin, Jay Katsir, and Mike Brumm.
Thanks to my teachers/professors Joann Lamuth, Jan Meckley, Meredith Steinbach, and Abraham van Helsing.
And thanks to Brian Lesser and Lois Gruhin Lesser, the most loving parents since Grendel’s Mother and Hamlet’s father’s ghost.
I’d also like to thank my manager, Greg Walter, and my literary agent, Daniel Greenberg, who tricked an editor into publishing a silly book about sad monsters; my editor, Becky Cole, whose love of monsters is equaled only by her love of puns; and the illustrator Willie Real, whose talent for drawing from life is exceeded only by his talent for drawing from the afterlife.
Finally, my deepest gratitude to all the girls whose hearts I’ve broken, and to all the monsters who broke my heart. I couldn’t have written this without you.
1 No further guarantee implied by this statement.