Odd Jobs for the Undead - A Zombie For Hire Story

Chapter 18

"Oh, geez! Dude!" Merl said, wrinkling his face when my smell hit him. "What did you do, roll around in rotten fish?" he asked.

I settled into the passenger seat of his Beetle and he waved his hand in a useless attempt to clear the air.

"Something like that," I said and shut the passenger door. I rolled down the window to keep my stench from building up in the car.

Merl did the same and turned up the air on the dash before pulling away from the curb.

"Thanks for coming," I said. "I didn't know who else to call."

"Sure, man. No problem. To the warehouse?"

"No! Uh, your place, if that's okay. Warehouse is definitely not a safe place to go"

"What's going on?" Merl asked, turning onto 3rd street.

"WexlerPharma kidnapped me. They want to use me to make super zombies. A workforce that doesn't need sleep or food and won't complain about hazardous work conditions, to quote their COO."

Merl looked at me to make sure I wasn't kidding. I even had to wonder about it for a minute, it sounded so absurd. But then again, I'm a zombie.

"I'm not kidding," I told him.

"Dude, that's really no good," he said.

"In so many, many ways. Who'd hire me if you could get a slightly more stupid zombie that really doesn't care if it gets dismembered."

"That's all that bothers you about this?" Merl asked me.

"No, of course not," I said sullenly. "But I've got to eat just like anybody else. Speaking of which, can we stop at Chun Lee's? I haven't had any food all day and my muscle tone is practically gone."

"I got a roast in the fridge at the office," Merl said, sharply. "You can have it when we get to my place. Now tell me everything that happened."

"Why do you keep meat at work?"

"I don't. I went to the store this afternoon and was planning to cook the roast this weekend. Start talking, Gordon." Merl accelerated through a yellow light, the back end of the bug grinding on a dip.

I told him everything that happened from the moment Sherwood's muscle showed up at my place. Although I downplayed my instructions to the zombies to eat the living a little bit. By the time he'd found a parking place for the Beetle near Foggy's, he knew what I knew.

The hunger I'd been feeling when Merl had first picked me up had started out as a mild craving. An urge to eat. But watching him, now, fumbling with his keys at the door to the shop, the urge had grown to a nearly overwhelming compulsion. I found myself staring at Merl's exposed forearms and thinking about how warm and juicy they would be if I bit into them. The worst part was that in the back of my head I knew Merl was my friend, but I was having a hard time not seeing him as meat.

Merl got the lock open and pushed open the door.

"Why are you moaning like that?" he asked, glancing back at me as he went in.

"I wasn't moaning," I said defensively.

"Yes. You were," he said, locking the door behind us.

"Just give me the roast, okay?"

"It's in the fridge in the office. Help yourself," he told me.

"Gretchen isn't back there, is she?" I asked.

I like Gretchen. She's a nice girl. But what I really like about her is she never, ever, treats me like a zombie. I didn't want her to see me chowing down on a few pounds of raw meat. At least, that's what I told myself.