Читать книгу Beach Blanket Zombie - Mark McLaughlin - Страница 12

Three Cheers for the Dead, Bite And Chew

Brytni was sipping her low-fat, sugar-free, cherry-mocha-flavored latte, chatting about boys and clothes and shoes with Ashlee, who had ordered a chai tea sweetened with organic honey, when the commercial came on.

“Bring out your dead and get out the vote!” bellowed a phlegmy male voice.

The patrons of the Hallowed Grounds Coffee House looked up, and most performed simultaneous spit-takes of surprise in response to what they saw on the TV screen above and to the left of the cash register.

The pus-yellow eyes of the man on TV competed with his bruise-purple skin and feces-brown teeth for the title of Most Disgusting Color Ever Found On A Supposedly Human Face. They all lost out to the slime-green streams trickling down from his flared nostrils.

“Like, is that a zombie or what?” Ashlee cried.

“Good evening, fellow Americans!” intoned the grinning cadaver. “My name is Telemachus Vuurmek, and I am running for president of the United States.”

“Can a zombie even run for president?” Brytni wondered aloud.

“A lot of you are probably wondering if a zombie can even run for president,” Telemachus gurgled. “The answer is: Yes. I was born in America and I am certainly old enough. The laws do not require any candidate to have a heartbeat. I sincerely hope none of you will discriminate against me, just because I am pulse-impaired.”

“He has a point,” Ashlee said. “We can’t hate him because he’s, like, different.”

“But what does he stand for?” Brytni asked.

“You’re no doubt asking, ‘Where does a zombie stand for?’” rumbled the campaigning corpse. “I am the only candidate willing to speak out about equal rights for the dead. Zombies are up-and-coming members of the community, as many of you will learn before this night is through.”

“What do you suppose that means?” Ashlee said.

“It probably means he’s not the only zombie in the world,” Brytni surmised.

“I’m sure many of you have surmised that I am not the only zombie on Earth,” Telemachus croaked. “My living campaign planners ... the Resurrectionist Party ... summoned me from beyond the grave to run for office, and they’ve been traveling the highways and byways, raising supporters in every major city. Once my newly risen supporters put the bite on you, you’ll be joining the party, too!”

“Like, I don’t get what he’s saying!” Ashlee whined. Outside the coffee house, prolonged screams echoed in the distance.

Brytni’s eyes brimmed with tears as she said, “It sounds like our country is filling with the shambling bodies of the hungry dead, rampaging for living flesh upon which to feast, and once we are bitten, we too shall become ravenous zombies, prowling the blood-spattered streets, creating more and more zombies with our infectious bites, until at last the Earth has become a spinning, planet-wide graveyard of agony and doom.”

Up on the screen, Telemachus Vuurmek smiled and nodded. “Yeah. What she said.”