Zombie Kids

Well, as usual, I was just minding my own business. I was sitting on my front lawn. Because this was a dream, it wasn't covered with cat poop, mud and sticks. It was a nice lawn to sit in. The sun was warm, and I was reading a book.

Some of our neighborhood's horrid little feral children would pass by on the sidewalk. They moved quickly from one place to another, which was odd. They were in large groups that didn't appear to be fighting with each other. They didn't pester me, which was even odder.

Then I realized that they were zombies. They didn't seem to have the killer instinct, though. They were just walking quickly up and down the sidewalk.

Their bodies weren't mauled or showing any other causes of death. They looked a little blue, though, and their eyes were very odd, like solid red eyes covered in milky cataracts.

Even though they weren't hurting anyone, they were plenty creepy. Also, in my dreams I just can't suffer a zombie to live. I went out to the shed and got the first tool I could lay my hands on. I don't like to spend too much time in the shed because it smells of cat urine and it's full of baby spiders. I hate being covered in spiders, because I want to brush myself off but I don't want to hurt them. I feel really bad when I scratch what I thought was an itch and my fingernails come back covered in crushed spider.

There's also a natural human aversion to being covered with spiders.

The tool turned out to be a pickaxe. I went to the front yard, stood by the sidewalk, and swung at one of the zombie children.

Pickaxe turned out to be a bad weapon choice. I swung it like I usually do when I'm digging, so I impaled a zombie toddler from crown to crotch. It was a little blonde girl-child, and I felt a little guilty. She twitched and twitched and slowly oozed pus, as though she were a squashed bismark. There was no blood.

I tried to shake her off the pickaxe, but that just flung pus all over. I finally pushed her off the blade with my boot. She landed in the sidewalk, where she lay splayed and twitching.

None of the kid zombies had cared before that I had attacked one of them, but now their path was blocked and they started looking up at me. And hissing.

Those of you who know me know that I think it's a hoot when movie vampires start hissing. "Oh, I am the dark prince of the night! Hsssssssst! Fear my wrath!" I have been known to exclaim.

This was different. They hissed not like underpaid B actors, but like
Ben Truwe
240 South Grape Street
Medford, OR 97501-3124

Huh? Oh, Pop must have a macro set. I'm writing this at home.

Anyway, they hissed like it was the only sound they knew how to make, and it contained all their thoughts. Also, there were a lot of them and they only came up to my thighs, so it was like I was knee-deep in a sea of snakes.

I didn't know if they'd start biting, and I didn't want to find out. I dropped the pickaxe and started running.

I ran to my grandmother's house. Sort of odd, as my grandmothers are in Minnesota and Arizona. Anyway, this was a different grandmother. Her house smelled like old people and was full of hideous china figurines, but there weren't any zombies. I stayed inside with the lights out, making small talk with my third grandmother.

Now and then a zombie would stand in front of the screen door for a while. My grandmother would fret and wonder if she should let the zombie in.

"NO!" I would say, "It's a ZOMBIE!"

Eventually they stopped coming. It was getting dark, but there weren't any zombies on the sidewalks anymore. I walked home.