Zombie and His New Job

Brandon Figliolino

Zombie and His New Job

November 17, 2019

            My first college-level writing workshop was taught by an amazing horror fiction writer. Before taking the course, I had little exposure to the genre, and I hadn’t read any of his work. I’d get nightmares from reading Goosebumps and A Series of Unfortunate Events as a child, so stories of terror didn’t appeal to me. I had no interest or business reading nightmarish prose. Still, the class seemed exciting and I was prepared to do my best.

            Our first assignment was to write a short story about zombies. Of course! I thought. It made sense that our professor would help us develop the ability to terrify people on paper. The parameters of the paper included what would become the usual: an eight-to-twelve-page limit, double-spaced, and twelve-point font. Each story had to start with the words, “I told them you couldn’t do that with a zombie.”

            Class was dismissed. I went home and started writing.

            Or I tried writing.

I stared at my computer screen for an insufferable amount of time. I had no idea how I was going to write anything scary. Apocalypses were cliché in 2009, even before Walking Dead and Zombieland. I didn’t want to write about zombie attacks, brains, guts, or blood.

I guess I didn’t want to write about zombies.

            After several rounds of typing, highlighting my text, and striking the delete button, I decided to drop the horror genre. The story had to include a zombie, but nothing was said about what the zombie did or in what tone it did it. I decided to write a feel-good story about a recruiter who helped a zombie get a job, many years before I decided to make that my profession. It started like this:

            I told her she couldn’t do that with a zombie, work with him that is.

          Nineteen-year-old Brandon didn’t know why it was important for humanity’s sake not to end sentences with prepositions.

          Throughout the story, the narrator took the zombie around town to try out different jobs. Edgar, the zombie, failed as a playground monitor and a plane-jumping instructor. The career services counselor eventually found him the perfect job in a horror film.

How cliché!

                                                          ***

          Fast-forward ten years. Instead of sitting in a classroom in Boulder, I’m sitting in a dark bar. One woman paints my face with fake pus and blood, her eyes intense and focused. Another woman circles us both, snapping photos with her professional camera.

          “Try keeping a straight face,” the camera woman tells me.

          I nod and drop the smile. Outside, I hear screaming. Without turning my head, I shift my eyes to the window near us. I see people running across the street dodging one another. My stalwart face cracks into a grin.

          “Sorry, I’ll try not to smile,” I tell them both.

          “You’re very happy,” the makeup artist says, applying a bloody gash to my forehead. “It’s definitely out of character.”

          I shrug. “Yeah, I’m going to have a hard time with this job.”

          After ten minutes, the makeup artist finishes. She hands me a mirror. My face is ghost white. Black circles surrounded my eyes and sticky blood and gore drip from my mouth onto my chin.

          “It looks like you ate something really nasty and forgot to wipe your face,” the photographer says.

          “When you’re a zombie, I guess hygiene doesn’t matter much,” I reply.

          “I think you’re ready for the action!” The makeup artist takes the mirror. “Good luck and have fun.”

          I step out into the blinding October sun. The crowd has died down. Several dozen people are huddled across the street at various bars, touch football flags dangling from their waists. In the street are my peeps: zombies. There is a dead Waldo, who looks like he has been retrieved from a shallow grave. A military man has half his face blown off and is missing an eye. My favorite zombie is a businesswoman who has a scowl on her face and this determination to attack anything that comes near. She is also one of my close friends from graduate school, and the reason I am walking around a street in all black with fake blood on my face.

          “Hi!” I shout to her. We exchange hugs. “Let’s go eat some people or whatever we’re doing.”

          “Steal their flags!” she says. “They’re running from bar to bar. You must stumble like a zombie, but it’s not too hard to grab the flags! When they run out of flags, they must buy more, so get as many as you can.”

          “I’ll take your lead!” I say.

          Music from a DJ starts up. Thriller. The perfect segue into my role as a zombie. I eye a group of women who look ready to bolt. They dart past me shrieking. I reach out haphazardly to grab at their flags and miss. I burst into laughter.

          My friend walks up and bops me on the forearm with a closed fist. “You’re the worst zombie ever! Stop laughing!” she jokes. “Be scary!” She turns to a runner, raises her hands in front of her and shouts, “Garrrrr!”

          I’m laughing so hard I prop myself up by holding my hands to my bent knees. “I can’t stop laughing! This is so ridiculous!”

          “Get it together, Brandon! Get their flags.” She smiles and starts walking towards a bar entrance, continuing to growl at the runners.

          That only makes me laugh harder.

          An hour passes. I have caught zero flags. If I had a Fitbit or step counter, it would say I have slow-walked the single block at least several miles. There are more runners now. It is time to get serious.

          I want to grab at least one flag. I can’t let the zombies down!

          With that determination, I snag my first flag. Thinking I’m harmless, a woman walks right past me while I am dancing. I reach out and snatch it from her belt, enjoying the sound of the Velcro pieces coming undone.

          Ha!

          I drag my feet towards my friend, waving the flag ahead of me.

          “Look! I got one!”

          We high-five and I continue with my new strategy: looking like the happiest, most ridiculous zombie ever, essentially the normal, undead version of myself. I dance. I pump my arms in front of me and above my head. I clap my hands to the music. I wave and smile at everyone and constantly laugh. Both zombies, runners, and passers-by come over to talk to me.

Towards the end of the day, a family walking towards downtown stops so the son can look at the zombies. I start walking towards him. With a finger extended, I say in the cheery tone I use when speaking to my nephew, “I’m going to get you!” The boy screams with delight and plays along with the bar runners for half an hour, bolting back-and-forth across the street while his mom and grandmother snap photos and videos on their phones.

There is little doubt my dancing will be on many Snapchat and Instagram stories today.

          These bar hoppers are such fools to think I am not a threat. Pretty soon, I have accumulated four flags. My fifth and final flag comes from a woman who boxes herself between a car and a queue fence.

          “Well that was dumb of me,” she says when I approach.

          I take her flag. “Yup! Enjoy your day!”

          At five, the music stops and one of the hosts for the event announces over the sound system that the 2019 End of the World Pub Crawl has ended and the proceeds from the event will go towards two charities, one of which is a nonprofit my friend the zombie businesswoman chairs.  

          The bar runners cheer and clap for the zombies. Several come out on the street to exchange hugs. I take several bows.

                                                          ***

          Throughout my day as a zombie, I kept thinking back to my short story, Zombie Gets a Job. Poor Edgar floundered at the jobs he was given. He ate a little girls’ flower on the playground and was fired for it. He pushed a guy out of the plane without a parachute and caused him to break both his legs. I thought I was coming up short as a zombie too. I wasn’t scary and although I was dressed in skinny black jeans and a black shirt, I didn’t look like something from Resident Evil.  

I felt out of place until I leaned into the role. Not every short story needs to be graphic and violent and not every zombie needs to growl and screech and eat brains; some of us like to dance to Thriller and take photos with random strangers.

          For many years I thought the world was black and white and that there were rules and parameters that had to be followed for people to fit into society. For example, zombies were evil and ate brains and belonged in horror stories and shouldn’t laugh and smile. But when those confines are broken, zombies get to be themselves, clichés are buried, and life is more fun. Zombies can act however they’d like and perform whatever job is their passion.

That’s the way I like them best.