Mander and Laura Lee

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About fifteen minutes later, when I finally wrestled my way out of the revolving door, (it was one of those times I wished I had my GPS with me), I saw Manda waiting for me, tears sprouting out of every pore in her body like ten thousand geysers.   She held her dripping arms wide, hoping that I would run into them, and that they worked properly so she didn’t crush any more than four ribs.  I would have been the answer to her dreams if I didn’t stop to find a towel.  Those thirty seconds were all it took for everything to change.  The elevator opened and there stood Laura Lee.  I was shocked; she was smiling. She hopped towards me on one foot displaying dexterity that she knew Mander would not be able to duplicate.   Women have a sixth sense that alerts them when another woman is vying for a man’s affection even if her competitor is as ugly as chewed food.  At the height of each leap she shouted, first, “You Da Man,” and then on repeated hops moaned.  “My hero.” Leap. “I love you.” Leap again. “I to want to spend.” Another leap. “the rest of my.” A higher leap, this time waiting to stick the landing, before speaking, throwing her hands out to her side dramatically like a bird, or a penguin and sung almost, no exactly-Beatlesque, “date with you-you-you. I want to hold Da Man!”  When I didn’t respond right away she loosened her ponytail allowing her hair to fall to her shoulders.   She undid a button or two on her blouse, put on fish net stockings, took off her 7-inch spiked heels and kicked them to me (one stuck in my face and she laughed) and then pursed her lips like a fish pressing against the glass of a tank and moaned,  “No more Match.com for me, b-b-b big b-b-b-boy.”

Mander not to be outdone groaned, “Avavaavaa Ewtingo satpu loggoooo,” which I don’t think she even knew what she said or even got close to the seductive B sound. 

Laura Lee smiled coldly and spoke. “I’m wait-ting.”

Mander drooled.

On one hand, there was Mander who loved me unconditionally, but when I took a good long look at her, even with the duct tape hanging from her mouth dripping with drool, still made me want vomit on her face so I couldn’t see it.     

On the other hand I had Laura Lee who loved only herself unconditionally, but made my loins produce smoke, and with a wink or with a picture of her in bed straddling a handcuffed violin and a large black cello, could make me toss away my porn (the stuff still on VHS). 

There I was the savior of the human race, standing before a beautiful, sexy, nasty little bitch and a fish-gut faced caring person.  We humans were given a chance to start over: to learn from the past, to correct our mistakes, to make wiser choices.  It was up to me to choose between the ugly, the good, and the beautiful bad.  I swept back my greasy hair, wiped the blood and viscera off my hands and onto my pants, tucked in my shirt, which I should have done before I blew my nose on the sleeve, spit out rancid food that was stuck between my teeth, cleared my throat of phlegm, saliva and hair balls, (I had eaten Chinese food last week), and then turned to the two women. For almost a minute I couldn’t utter a word, although I was able to mime playing the banjo. Finally, I smiled and looked toward the women.

Before I could even speak a word, Laura Lee burst out laughing.  “I can’t believe you’d even think for one second, or even five tenths of a second, I’d go for a lizard-brained low life, mutating sack of DNA like you.”

“But you said, I was Da Man and that you love me.”

“I was yanking your repulsive chain. You da m-m-m-moron! ” She laughed so free and hard, it became infectious. I couldn’t help myself and I started laughing, even Mander laughed. We didn’t care.  Why should we?  What the hell, funny was funny.

The laughter went on until Mander began making prolonged gurgling sounds raspy enough I thought she was trying to imitate Rod Stewart under water. That started Laura Lee and I laughing again, this time actually guffawing, both of us holding our stomachs with the same three fingers on our right hands. Coincidence? Who knows? This wasn’t the time to investigate.

It was only after Mander, wheezed a gallon of mucous on a half a roll of duct tape, fell, cracked her skull, broke her neck in a couple of places (fortunately not seriously) and turned blue, that we suspected she had stopped breathing.  We knew it for sure when the duct tape that hung from her mouth like the dark side of flounder was no longer flapping.  Laura Lee, who thought Mander’s blue-pallor matched her outfit dashed to her side.

“I’ve never seen that shade of blue. I’d love a handbag that color,” Laura swooned, lifting rolls of loose flesh from the back of Mander’s arms and holding them against her dress. I wish I had a knife.”

     “I think she’s choking to death,” I shouted as I ran after Laura Lee, trying keep within her shadow because it was at least three degrees cooler.

     “It’s a shame, it’s the best she’s ever looked.  I’d like to get a picture, so I can paint my room that color,” Laura took out her iPhone and starting snapping photos.

     “Do you know CPR?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the iPhone’s flash.

     “Why do you ask?”

     “Because maybe we can save her?”

     “Oh.  I can see your logic,” she said admiring the pictures she’d just taken.

     “Well, can you?”

     “Sure, I taught a class to people who eat a lot of fish. They have tiny bones that get caught in--”

     I interrupted. “That’s the Heimlich maneuver.”

     “Duh! I know that. I wasn’t very good at it, and most of my student’s family members choked to death, so I began teaching CPR. I made a fortune because they all wanted to kiss me. Little did they know the AMA said mouth to mouth CPR doesn’t work.”

     “Can you perform CPR on Mander?”

 “Without doing the Heimlich maneuver first? I guess I could try. ” She stopped snapping pictures and started videoing while she jumped on Mander’s chest--hopping up and down on one foot trying start her heart, unfortunately using the foot with the high heel on it. I attempted to help, but my longer leg got tangled up on the duct tape and stumbled, landing face-to-face with Mander.  Before I could vomit or scream for help, Laura Lee’s heel got caught in between one of Mander’s ribs and she fell on me, causing her to fling the iPhone to the ground. 

The high heel must have awakened Mander’s heart.  Her large ears stiffened and lifted off her eyes, which popped open and she started to breathe, her nose hairs tickling our faces. Laura Lee also infatuated by nostril follicles giggled and then softly moaned. The three of us were all looking at each other and what happened next none of us anticipated.  It must have been the combination of our body’s chemical reactions to each other, mixed with Bliffover’s cure, because the three of us were suddenly bursting with passion. All I know was that it was wild, instinctive, pure ecstasy with various bodily fluids exchanged--mostly from open sores.

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter, because we were greater than the sum of us; we were no longer just three lonely people, we were three and seven-sixteenths.  No future zombie attack, nor threat of nuclear enemas, or the forced removal of deviated septums, or being run through a wood chipper backwards, could separate us, or break our bond. It wasn’t love, no. We were drawn to each other by something stronger and more powerful, the uninhibited sexual desires that we gladly sold to each other.

     It’s been six months since the zombie epidemic. Bliffover got so famous for the vaccine that saved the world he became the star of his own reality show and was able to rebuild his medical practice despite killing all his patients on the air. Jo kept the silent e in his name but removed the o. Skim Milk and Maria were arrested for indecent exposure and were executed. Klaus was completely cured of zombie-ism, but died when Dr. Bliffover tried to cure his schizophrenia by chopping him in half. Shrimp had an operation that added a foot to his height, but unfortunately a side effect prevented him from standing. Laura Lee paid to have her high heel removed from Mander’s heart and replaced by a cheaper shoe. And me? I found Laura Lee’s iPhone video, transferred it to DVD and I’m making a fortune with my true to life porno stories, D-D-D-Dates of the Dead.     

The End

Saving the World

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They all walked me to the elevator, except for Maria who was not a strong crawler and gave up after twenty yards—the Doc making her journey more difficult by smashing several glasses and a Molotov cocktail on the floor.  The group wished me luck.  Laura Lee was more specific, “I hope you make it back alive, but become deathly ill from food poisoning.  Oh, which reminds me.  I packed your lunch.  Make sure you eat it all,” she said as she handed me a brown bag that smelled like whatever was inside died from food poisoning and threw itself up.

The elevator arrived and I stepped into it, well fell in, Laura Lee tripped me.  Mander reached in with some part of her, pulled me up, and then tried to kiss me. Instead, she bit a few buttons off my shirt before the doors closed on her head.  Luckily I was able to kick her face hard enough so she escaped without leaving her ugly head with me--good thing because the only bag I had was full of needles.

The trip to the lobby took longer than it should have. I stopped at every floor and searched all the rooms, pretending I lost my contact lens, in case the security cameras were still recording.  I was stalling, trying to get up my nerve for the task ahead and wanted to finish the Times cross word puzzle that I’d carried in my back pocket for just such an occasion.

When I finally reached the lobby, I was surprised to find a group of cured guys greeting me angrily. “Where the hell is the doorman?  I lost the keys to the office!”  Another one of them was banging on his locked mailbox. 

I pulled him away and said reassuringly, “You can’t get in using a thigh bone.  Call a locksmith, dumb ass.”  Before he could respond I ran outside ready to do my duty as a savior of the human race, but made one stop first to get more porno films before the owner got cured and returned. 

The street was full, but not with zombies.  Hundreds of newly refurbished people milled about in ragged clothes, trying to find their wallets and car keys, several looking for missing body parts.   A few fights broke out over some loose eyeballs and limbs, but ended when the missing body parts began to grow back.  Yes, I said, grow back.  Dr. Bliffover’s cure restored what they were missing.  The chunk of skin that I’d lost when the Doc had pulled the teeth out of my neck had grown back.  I wished I had lost my penis; maybe a brand new addition would work better.

As I looked for zombies to vaccinate I felt like I was being watched and I was.  It started with a small crowd that were staring at me and then soon began pointing and yelling. “He’s da man. He’s da M-A-N!”  I didn’t know what they meant, panicked, ran from the crowd, around the corner and right into a massive zombie and a few of his wingmen.  I was minutes from saving the world, this nightmare finally over and I was about to be devoured by a mob of very lonely and very hungry zombies.  I knew Doc’s vaccination worked earlier, but now my resistance was suddenly low, I felt week and got dizzy.  Maybe I should never have eaten the lunch Laura Lee prepared for me (good thing I hadn’t eaten all of it) I began throwing up, and worried that I was emptying myself of the Doc’s magic elixir.  My puking worked as an appetizer; the zombies sprayed saliva as they chomped their teeth in anticipation of a new feast.  I wondered if Doc’s cure would work on minced human meat.  I reached for the needles the Doc gave me, but realized I had emptied the bag in the porno store so I could put the entire Bouncing Basketball B-B-B-Butts of Abu bu-bu-bu Ghraib, series parts 1-28 with the bonus DVD, Big Breasted Bosnia Babes Before Being Beheaded.  B’s are still best sellers in porno’s post zombie period.

The massive zombie face was just inches from mine. I was breathing heavy and hoped the garlic in Laura Lee’s lunch would make him have second thoughts.  I could smell him all right; it was disgusting. Before dying he must have doused himself with Old Spice.  That’s when I passed out. 

I felt like I was floating away and then I plummeted, heading towards blackness.  I smashed my head on something hard and wet. I had gained just enough consciousness to realize it was the street.  Before I could lift my head out of a pothole full of vomit and flesh, I was pulled up and up and up and then spun around.  I caught glimpses of light smearing what left a trail of yellow and white.  My eyes finally started to focus and I realized I was being carried around in circles by a flock of people, and those were building lights I was seeing.  Recognizing that I was awake, they began chanting. “You Da Man!” “You Da Man!”

Only later from eyewitness accounts and home movies did I find what had happened.  Here’s what I learned.  After an hour or so of looking out the window, Dr. Bliffover and company realized they were facing the alleyway.  Doc found a window on the other side of the building that they all agreed gave them the best view.  There they waited another 90 minutes.  Finally Shrimp started taking bets on when I would be seen outside.  Mander tried to place a bet, but because she vainly refused to remove the duct tape, they couldn’t understand what she was saying.  Annoyed that she couldn’t place her wager, since even the most positive bets said I wouldn’t show up until the summer solstice, she decided to spoil their fun and sneak down the stairs to look for me.  She easily made it through the crowd of second term humans, scaring away anyone who came within eye-shot.  When a balding man threw up only a few feet away, she lost it.  She had her fill of people vomiting at first sight and was about to head-butt him, when he started to scream that he should have never taken a bite of the half-sandwich he found on the floor in the Badminton Bisexual Bull Dyke Bitches of Beirut section and that it was a good thing he didn’t fall off the wagon by the temptation of all those needles lying on the shelf next to the Nearsighted Nipple-less Nymphs of Nicaragua and Nagasaki in 3 Double D. N’s were big sellers until the letter “N” was be replaced by the “W” in the post apocalypse English dictionary. The D quickly emerged as the number 1 porno seller thanks to me.

Mander, kicked the Adult video store owner in the shins a few times until she heard a snap, just for fun, raced into the store, picked up as many needles as she could carry in her colostomy bag, which we all had mistaken for a birth mark, and searched for me.  She followed the “He’s Da Man,” mantras guessing they were aimed at me.  There she found me about to become nectar to the undead.  She stuck her face into the middle of the zombies, who, upon setting their chalky eyes on her, gagged trying to inhale their roars and then turned to run.  Zombies are very good at tearing off limbs, chewing raw flesh, smelling any blood type, some might even say they are superior to sharks and most mobsters, but they are not gifted runners, and can barely maintain a slow jog for more than three quarters of a mile. 

Several fell, tripping over their own legs, arms, and feet most of which were lying on the ground. Mander injected me again to ensure that the serum was potent to keep me alive and then injected a few dozen zombies until she ran out of serum.  The zombies gone, the fledgling members of new society quickly found me—a needle place in my hand by Mander.  Mander wanted to give me the credit for the former zombies transiting back to the life—human life.  She later told zombie haters as well as sympathizers, much to my chagrin, (I’m still getting hate mail) that it was my bravery that saved the day.  The crowd had lifted me up and held me over their heads, spinning me around bellowing, “He’s Da Man! He’s Da Man! He’s Da… Give me and M… Give me an A.  Give me an M, no just kidding. Give me an N… What’s that spell?  It spells M-AAAAA-An.” With all the cheering, Manda while fantasizing about an additional D and A in their chant, easily snuck away without scaring anyone and waited in the lobby for the celebration to end.  That’s when I regained consciousness. 

My new fans finally put me down and I shook hands, signed a few hundred autographs, traded eating at Gaelic cafeteria stories, did a poll on what is the preferred method of cranial therapy on Norwegians, and even got promises of phone numbers from female admirers, when and if the cell service resumed.  When I’d had my fill of accolades I headed back to the lobby. I would have arrived sooner, but it took me awhile to find all my porn. 

Another Volunteer

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“Maybe,” Maria suggested, “someone should take your vaccine, go out and inject it into a few dozen zombies?”

We stared at her, forgetting she’d even been with us. I found out later that Maria had been silent because she’d temporarily decided that the English language depended too much on words.

“It’s a great idea. You go, and we’ll watch from here,” Laura Lee replied, this time feigning a little known Navajo chant.

Mander shook her head. I think it was her head; it was attached to what I think was her neck, and said, “gee idee, IyeeeGa.”

Dr. Bliffover understood her.  He turned in her direction holding his hand over his eyes. “We’d have to put a bag over your head, a very thick bag, possibly led lined with spikes. 

“But what if the bag fell off?” Laura Lee asked. 

“We could use bolts, or we could cut off her head. He turned to Mander, shading his eyes.  “It’s the style in some Arabic countries.” Dr. Bliffover later told me that beheading a person was one of his life-long ambitions well before he was even born.  I think it had to with his over sexually deviant and over protective dad who didn’t remove his head until his mother gave birth.

“Give me the stuff.”  Shrimp said, “I’ll go, I may be short, with stumpy legs, and a small difficult to find sneaker size, bent toes, webbed feet, and hundreds of fragile broken bones overflowing with arthritis that might me make me collapse at any second, but I’m no coward.” He limped around in pain, falling several times.

“You’re in no shape to go out there,” Skim Milk remarked.

“Okay.” Shrimp quickly responded.

That’s when my mouth stepped up without consulting the rest of me. “I’ll go.  I already have the cure in me.”

“Any other volunteers? I have a two gift cards for Bed Bath and Beyond.” Doc said, hoping he could bribe someone else into going.” 

“Don’t look at me.  It’s Friday the 13^th,” Klaus squealed.  We all held our ears in case he had more to say.  Thank God he didn’t.

Doc looked at me, “I guess you’re on your own. I’ll give you a booster shot first.”

I nodded.

Doc tossed the needle in the air, spun around, and with his eyes closed caught it behind his back and then injected me.” 

The others, of course, broke into applause and began to chant.  “More. More. More.”

Dr. Bliffover bowed, picked up several needles, juggled them, and tossed them in the air again; this time they stuck in the ceiling.  He did a somersault, a quick moonwalk, just as they came lose and fell. He looked up, caught them all with his mouth, and then spit the needles into me.  As much as I was in\ pain from the injections, I joined the applause.  I’ve always appreciated real talent.   When the clapping died down the Doc handed me a shoulder bag full of needles, but first he pulled a rabbit out of it, which led to more applause and Maria throwing him her room keys. 

“If we survive this, I’ll tell you where I live,” Maria said seductively, while pulling down her pants to show him her behemoth butt.  

“I’m there, babe.  All you have to do is—“

Skim Milk coughed. “Now is not the time for that, besides it’s lent.” Her words held more than a hint of jealousy, and she slapped Maria’s ass. She kept slapping while Maria moaned and then started to sneeze with pleasure when Skim spanked her to the opening of “Sing, Sing Sing.”  We all clapped along until Maria pulled up pants, and trying to take all the credit for the funky sound, did a backwards curtsey.  It was quite a feat; she broke her spine in six places and became crippled from the waist down, but by then everyone was tired of clapping and turned away from her and faced me.  Maria crawled around us making funny faces and sounds like a seal and even pretended to make a snow angel. Still we ignored her, recently crippled or not a person has to learn her boundaries.  It was also a good lesson to learn: never take credit for someone else’s creativity.

“I guess it’s time for me to save the planet,” I said, trying to sound masculine.  I winked at Mander, she tried to return the wink but her eyelids drooped, got caught on her teeth and then she accidentally pulled out a few molars and one wisdom tooth when she yanked her lids open with fishing hooks.