The Living Dead

From Singles 2011

I have finally finished a book! The first since Zuperfliegen was born!! !! !! I think I only succeeded because it is a book of short stories and I can find a few minutes on random days - enough to read a shortish story. Yay!! Yay!!

The mothers at my mother's group were talking about all the books they're reading. Books about getting your baby to sleep. Or, understanding their cries. About schedules and milestones and...

I'm reading about zombies.

Everyone has her own priorities.

Kevin read this first and made notes about which stories he found to be "good" (14/31). In general, I agreed that the stories he liked were likable. But, as he'll be the first to tell you, I'm easy. I found several more to be worthy (20/31). Kevin didn't like the "alternate zombie" stories - like the Haitian zombies. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the broad array of undead - Ann can not live by shambling, flesh-eating zombies alone! And, I really appreciate a zombie story with a sense of humor. (OH MY GOD! I almost put a (2nd) "u" in humor!!!! Speaking of zombies...)

"Some Zombie Contingency Plans" by Kelly Link. (Kelly, I don't understand this story but it has some fabulous lines.)

When Soap got tired of thinking about art, he thought about zombies. He worked on his zombie contingency plan. Thinking about zombies was less tiring than thinking about art. Here's what Soap knew about zombies:

Zombies were not about sex.

Zombies were not interested in art.

Zombies weren't complicated... Vampires, for example, were middle/upper-middle management of the supernatural world. Some people thought of vampires as rock stars, but really they were more like Martha Stewart...

Zombies didn't discriminate...

There was something about clowns that was worse than zombies.

"Death and Suffrage" by Dale Bailey

You could just see that they were dead. It was every zombie movie you ever saw, and then some...

"My God," I said again, when I finally manged to unlock my brain. "What do they want?"

"They want to vote," said Lewis.

"Almost The Last Story By Almost the Last Man" by Scott Edelman

Zombies are a force of nature, and forces of nature do not come equipped with morals. Forces of nature do not come packaged with a purpose, a message, or a reason. They just are.

"She's Taking Her Tits To The Grave" by Catherine Cheek (Very funny. I love this zombie! Four quotes...almost the entire story!

"What are you doing here?" Larry finally said. "I thought you were dead."

"I am." She pushed her way into the condo, irritated. For that, she didn't slip her pumps off and line them up next to his five pairs of shoes on the tile, but tracked grave dirt across his white carpet.




It was easier to go without a soul than a car in this town. She felt her skirt for keys which weren't there, since they don't bury you with car keys, and muttered some unladylike words. They don't bury you with a purse, either, no matter if it was Prada and went very well with the shoes.





By the time she staggered up the pavement in front of their house, the lacquered layer of hairspray on her professionally dyed hair was starting to flake off, she was getting a little squishy around the eyes, and the flies kept landing on her, especially her eyes and mouth. She tired to wave them off, but her coordination wasn't what it should have been, so she kept smacking her boobs.





She took the crow's path, cutting across lawns and parking lots and once over a chain-link fence despite a "No Trespassing" sign. What was the point of following city ordinances when you weren't even obeying the laws of nature?