I live right next door to a big cemetary.
There’s nothing like coming out the door each morning with a song in your heart and a spring in your step only to be confronted by rows and rows of dead people. “Oh yeah,” I can hear them say, “We all went out one morning with a song in our heart and a spring in our step…then we got killed in a trampoline accident.” Which would be a wild coincidence except that there’s a circus across the street.
Anyway, it can be depressing sometimes, but I’m actually used to it. I have happy memories of cemetaries–when I was growing up I lived right next to one too. It was great–a lot of paved roads to ride my bicycle on without worrying about cars. And it was a good shortcut to school.
However, when I tell people about growing up near the cemetary, they always say, “Yes, but John, what about the zombies??” Sure, I know you’d think that living down the street from the hideously deformed, walking undead would be miserable but after a while they were the perfect neighbors. In general, they were quiet, with only the occasional unearthly moan or the screams from innocent passers-by during a carnivorous feeding frenzy disturbing the peaceful nights.
Some days they might come by, thirsting for human brains (you know how one does), and ask to borrow a cup of brains, and we’d root through the cabinet, and we might find some monkey brains (canned, usually), and that would fool them. But then they’d leave and halfway down the driveway an arm would fall off, and they wouldn’t notice, and we’d have to run out and grab it and make sure they got it. Then they’d go on their way with a cup of brains in their hand and a detached arm under the other arm, and then they’d fall into a ditch and wail ghoulishly until finally my Dad would have to go and just put them in the back of the truck and drive them back to the graveyard. But when they fell in the ditch they would have dropped the brains, so they’d come back up the road to get more brains and this would go on for, like, hours and finally my mother would just shoot the poor things in the head with a shotgun.
Sometimes, when my parents would go out to the movies, they might see if one of the walking dead was available to sit for me. So usually one of them would come over, and we’d watch TV until he couldn’t contain his overwhelming urge to kill me and feast on my gory entrails, so I would eventually have to run up into the attic and barricade myself in, and the sitter would wander around the house bumping into walls, growling hungrily, and smashing the windows. I never got in any trouble, holed up in the attic, fighting for my life. Sometimes we played Monopoly too.
In general, though, the living dead kept to themselves except for the occasional rampage involving large scale human carnage. Oh, they’d plan for weeks, and you’d see them out practicing on the lawn. They’d be lumbering through fields moaning, shattering windows in little fake houses they’d set up, and smashing their way through boarded up doors. They also liked to practice circling around a car and rocking it back and forth and then lighting it on fire. After a good week of rehearsals they would be ready for the big night.
We used to sit out on the porch, and we’d see them shambling up the street with their glassy stares and dragging limbs. They would have put on fresh tattered rags, and they looked for all the world like a big parade of flesh-crazed monsters out for a big night on the town (which, of course, they were). It was always fun to see them go, but then they’d come back, and they’d look a fright. People would have been hacking off their limbs, lighting them on fire, and shooting them in the head. They’d come in real early in the morning and just crash, and we wouldn’t see them for a couple days. But they would always be back. If there’s one thing you can say about the undead it’s that they can bounce back.
We usually got along fine with the accursed souls of the undead, but finally their bad reputation got them into trouble. It was when one of them was rampaging on the south side of town, and Ida Mae Hackett asked him to come in for a minute and bust up a chiffarobe. Well, one thing led to another, and she accused the zombie of trying to eat her brains, and they ended up in a big dramatic trial which was a setup from the beginning. I mean, there were only like, three walking dead on the jury, and one of them was dismissed early for knawing on the arm of the jury foreman so the jury was totally stacked against them. So, unfortunately, the living dead were forced to leave town, and they packed all their stuff into a U-Haul and moved to Denver. We got a card that Christmas, but it was hard to read because it was covered with brains and blood. After that, we lost touch.
Meanwhile, next door, they turned the cemetary into a giant pyramid and a buncha mummies moved in. But that’s a different story.
Happy Halloween.