The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home

Chapter 8 - Okie

I should have known that Grandma Clio would have good advice. I should also have known that things wouldn't quite go according to plan.

The drawer was a good idea. I managed to unhook it from the chest and wielded it fiercely in my right hand, imagining I was a warrior woman of yore. I'm not sure when yore was, or whether they had warrior women, or if the Yore Women were supposed to be indoors having babies, but it felt strong anyway.  Powerful enough to deal with Smokey the Undead.

I opened the door just a crack. As if I were the last rib on the hog roast, the zombie started moaning and scratching to get in. I let it stumble forward a pace or two and then – bam! Bucket full of pee in the face! Take that, undead! (I may actually have shouted “take that, undead”. I'm not really sure. I also think a bit of pee splashed on my shoes, but in a situation like this there will always be casualties. They're not even my favorite pair.)

But then what neither I nor Grandma had taken into account was that this bucket in the face would madden the zombie. I mean, maybe it was the bucket, maybe it was the urine, I should probably report this finding to one of those zombie research stations. If those places really exist and aren't some urban myth spread by the government to make us feel better. Anyway, it really started going for me, pushing through the door, I wouldn't have thought a zombie could be so strong, pushing the chest of drawers out of the way, stumbling around the cabin blindly reaching out – because obviously it was too stupid to take the bucket off its own head.

Have you ever been in a house when a bird's flown in? It happened once in our house when I was a kid and my mom went crazy, I mean kerrrazy. We had the big doors of the living room onto the garden open, and this little bird, like a sparrow or something, flew in and started flapping around and shitting everywhere. It was scared I bet – it couldn't find its way out and it got tangled in the curtains and my mom was shouting “Norm, kill it! Kill it Norm, hit it with the broom kill it!” It was horrible. My dad was running round with the long garden broom, and he managed to get that caught in the chandelier and there was the little bird flapping and making these squawking noises and trying to find its way out – eventually I managed to pull the curtains back far enough that it could see the open space and fly out to freedom. I remember I was shaking afterwards. It's just nasty to see a thing caged up like that and blindly struggling to be free.

Why was I even talking about that? Oh yeah. That's a bit what it was like to be stuck in that tiny cabin with a blind zombie snarling and lurching towards me. I tried to hit it on the head with the drawer, but it was too fast and I just got it on the back – pulling a long strip of cloth and flesh off its rotten body. Can I just say: ewwwwwwww.

It turned to face me. I say 'face'. I mean 'bucket', obviously. It couldn't see me, and was still too dumb to take the bucket off, but it could hear me moving, and it shuffled a little toward me. I backed away very slowly, trying to be as quiet as I could, and surveyed my options.

I was holding a drawer. Good. There was a chest of drawers mostly covering the exit from the cabin. Bad. My phone was in my pocket. Good. My bag was on the other side of the shack. Bad.

The thin tattered curtain by the window flapped a bit in the breeze and the zombie turned its bucket-head towards the sound for a moment. And that flapping fabric gave me the idea. Matadors, right? Bullrings. I have never felt prouder of myself in my life.

The zombie was shuffling forward, toward me where I stood in the corner of the shack. I held the drawer firmly under my left arm and with my right hand I pulled at the knob on the front of it. It didn't budge. Come on, come on. The undead park ranger took another shuffling step in my direction. Oh come on – the door's not strong enough to withstand a zombie but the drawer knob is going to stay put? Another step – one more and its groping arms would find me and then I'd be toast. Not toast. Corpse. I pulled with all my might on the knob, and yes! It came off in my hand!