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.
