Chapter 8: Marilyn Monroe's Tits

I’m dressed up like zombie Michael Jackson. The shiny red jumpsuit getup and everything. Tabitha is dressed up like Elvira, even though she doesn’t have the tits or hips for Elvira.

We’re over at Eli’s apartment, drinking before we go to out to the bars, and I think I might already be drunk. Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell, but I keep bumping my knees on the coffee table when I get up to grab another beer and I just managed to spill Keystone Light all over Marilyn Monroe’s tits. I think those are pretty good signs that I’m drunk.

“You need any help, baby?” I ask Tabitha. She’s helping wipe beer off Marilyn’s tits. They are nice big tits, and I’m jealous.

Tabitha just rolls her eyes at me and keeps wiping.

“There there,” she says to Marilyn, whose white dress now has a piss-yellow spill down the front. “I’m sure it’ll wash out. Why don’t you go back in the bedroom and take it off, and I’ll throw it in the washer.”

“Okay,” Marilyn says, and she goes ahead and pulls the dress off right there in the kitchen.

X

There are three zombies standing with me in the kitchen, but I’m the only zombie Michael Jackson, so that makes me happy.

One of the zombies, who has a screwdriver in his neck, says, “Where’s your white glove, man?”

“It’s in my pocket. I took it off because it was hot.”

“You should wear the white glove,” says a second zombie, who has an exposed eye socket.

“Michael Jackson doesn’t wear a white glove in the zombie scene of Thriller,” I say.

“You don’t really look like Michael Jackson without the glove,” the first zombie says. “You just look like a dork with a Jheri curl.”

I burp beer and pretend I didn’t hear him.

Fucking zombies.

Chapter 14: Sex Zombie

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and I scroll to Tabitha’s number. I’ll hate myself later for calling her, but I’m drunk and the episode with Derby rattled me — I had no idea I was capable of performing such atrocities against animals!

Even throwing the pages away didn’t provide any relief; I still feel all dirty and creepy when I think about what I wrote.

It doesn’t help that the bunnies found the pages. Like I figured they would, they dug the wadded-up evidence of my depravity out of the trash and flattened it out again. Now they’re reading excerpts to each other across the table.

“She was always pissing on the walls …”

Pretending to cry. Going, Boo Hoo Hoo! Imitating me with these whiny falsetto voices.

“It looked so pathetic, I started getting angry …”

Hooting. Hoo Hoo! Ha ha!

“You’re a monster, Fred,” Dumper hollers.

“A sicko.”

“Would you shut up?” I yank the phone away from my ear. I can still hear Tabitha droning on about how she thinks she’s bored with being a lesbian.

“Fine,” Dumper says. “Pervert.”

X

It’s 2:30 a.m. and here I am knocking on Tabitha’s door.

My brain is floating on beer fumes and I’m burping bubbles and for once, I agree with the bunnies: I’m a pathetic loser.

I’m a spineless bitch.

A stupid cunt.

Tabitha opens the door. She’s dressed up like a naughty librarian: a blouse and a pencil skirt. Glasses. Black bra hinting through virginal white cotton. Fishnets down to her spike heels. Bun pinching her head.

“Ah!” she screams when she sees me. “Zombie!”

I stomp into the apartment, grunting and snorting, ripping at my clothes. Moaning for sex. Sex! Seeeeex!

Tabitha’s mouth is a cherry-red circle. Her eyes saucer big. She turns and dives for the sofa. I manage to snag her blouse and she rips and wiggles her way out of it. Still screaming. Help! Help! Heeeeelp!

She’s doing a good job of selling the part. Really getting into the role, acting just like a naughty librarian would if a sex zombie was attacking her. And her tiny nipples are poking through the lace of her bra. Typically this would have me going crazy with anticipation, but I am drunk and feeling like a loser, and besides, the zombie game is kind of dumb. I’m not feeling it. I’m not getting hard.

Tabitha, who is actually a great lover, senses this and immediately changes gears. She falls onto the sofa and tries a different tactic -- one that usually always works. She hikes her skirt up. Spreads her legs.

“So,” she says, “I saw on Yahoo! that there have been three shootings so far today …”

She runs her hands over fishnet. Stroking her calves, her thighs.

“ … one at the mall,” she purrs. “One in a grocery store and one in a daycare …”

Dipping a finger into her panties, she continues talking.

“ … eight dead so far. Like, twenty people injured …”

I unhook her bra.

“… they killed one of the shooters. The one at the mall …”

I’m biting at her neck, nibbling her earlobes, burying my lips in her cheeks, planting kisses up her nose and forehead.

“… the one at the grocery store killed himself …”

My heart is between my ears, pumping blood into my eyeballs.

“… the one at the daycare is still on the loose. He could still be killing people …”

I’m clawing her throat. Her back. My brain is on mute. My head is full of thunder and ocean swells.

My hands are hot, jiving spiders. My hands are cold, ferocious beasts. They snap. They twist. Poke. Pry.

Down her thighs. Up her ass. Fingers tickling. Reaching. She heaves air down her throat. Blows it out. Heaves it in.

Mmmmm. Baby. Oh, baby.

I’m brutal. Brainless. A creature of lust and hunger. A zombie. A real sex zombie after all.

Oh baby, yeah. Oh, baby.

The stories about the gunmen, somehow they do the trick. Every time. I hear a story about a shooting — and we’re getting, like, at least two a day anymore — my belly starts getting warm and my balls start shrinking.

I hear stories about a shooting, and I’m picturing me and Tabitha arm-in-arm on a killing spree. Walking into convenience stores and shooting them up. Shooting people over the Twizzlers. Shooting people over the Sprees. Shooting as we kiss.

Blood flying. Guts spraying. People shouting. Screaming. Dying.

There we are, Tabitha and Fred. Bonnie and Clyde. Gun-to-gun, cheek-to-cheek. Killing.

Ah, love.

Tabitha told me once that I’d be the perfect person to go on a shooting spree with. I’ve been making plans for it ever since. Stocking up on weapons.

Even after she dumped me, I was planning it. Except at that point, she was on the other end of the gun. Tabitha and her bitch girlfriend, biting bullets.

Now she’s back by my side again. My shooting partner.

I am a floating happy bubble.

I am a sex zombie.

We ride an avalanche of sofa cushions down to the carpet and I don’t even break rhythm.

And when Humper says, “Don’t lose it, Fred,” I can barely hear him.

Chapter 17: Get Down with Zombies

I step outside and light a cigarette. The sky is full of sunshine — hard, blue sunshine that does nothing to chase the shivers out of my bones. A dead gray street surrounds me. Shadows skulk in the windows. Leftover Halloween decorations still haunt the building next door: Skeletons with paper bones taped to windows. Faded grins and dusty capers. Mush-mouthed jack-o’-lanterns mug from ledges. Witches on strings sweep cobwebs out of the sky.

The cold air makes me need to pee. I decide maybe I’ll find a bar, take a leak, and kill my hangover. I’m sick of being hung over. It’s been a week since I called Tabitha out of desperation, and I've been drunk every day since then. Tabitha likes to drink. It's her favorite pastime (aside from gluing cow faces onto the heads of Victoria's Secret models ... and studying crime-scene photos). Now that I'm back with Tabitha, that means I'm getting drunk every night. Fucking every night. Feeling hungover every morning. I may need a break.

Weirdly, I'm getting a little burned out on getting drunk and fucking Tabitha.

“She’s using you,” Craphole Joe says as I slam into this dark little pit called The Gold Standard.

“Yeah, you’re just serving as a dildo until something better comes along,” Jumper says.

“Shut up,” I say.

GET DOWN WITH GAWD BEFORE GAWD GET DOWN ON YOU, God Talk Radio says. In bed, I reply in my mind as the door slams shut behind me.

X

I stumble outside three hours later with my veins loaded full of beer. My thoughts are sloshing around in my skull and there’s no doubt this time that I’m drunk.

I turn to go up the street and hey … is that one of the zombies from Eli’s party? The one with the screwdriver in his neck?

He’s lurching toward me with his lips ripped back to show his teeth and his eyes bugged out and rolling around in his face. His hands thrust out of ripped-up sleeves, his nails rusty red and splintered from rending flesh. White earbuds plugged into his ears are feeding him thoughts.

“Sup,” he says, trying to play it cool as he closes the distance between us. Like he's just another guy.

I see through his ruse.

The bunnies, sensing danger, snarl and cluster around the zombie, driving him back until he gives up and shuffles away.

The bunnies are very protective of me. They may hate me — they may mock and ridicule and abuse me — but they respect the fact that I’m their only conduit to the world. Without me, they’d be nothing, which is probably the only reason they haven’t already killed me.

“Fucking zombies,” Dumper says.