The Journalist Encounters the Rare H.P.Z.

June 25, 2007

I should have heeded the warnings. He had claimed that he wasn't feeling well of late and had wondered out loud if he would be a zombie by Thursday. I chalked it up to an overactive imagination and too many late night freezer visits.

When I arrived at his apartment, the door was ajar and Paul was nowhere to be found. Figuring he'd gone down to the laundry room, I let myself in and took inventory of the refrigerator. He was always good for a beer or two.

It was when I was rifling through the junk drawer for the bottle opener that I heard a strange noise, like furniture being moved across the carpet and a voice that sounded like Paul, though oddly strained say "Bewbies.......".

I chuckled and called "That must be some good porn!!"

No answer. Just the same dragging noise and the now unnerving "bew...bies......". I was about to turn and join him in the bedroom when a movement from the other side of the kitchen caught my eye. What I saw was Paul...but not Paul any more. His scalp, blond hair still attached hung loosely on his skull, his eyes were vacant, his skin reminiscent of the bellies of frogs I caught as a child.

The worst had happened. Paul had indeed become a zombie and was making slow shuffling movements toward me, hampered by a knee that had apparently completely given out. I froze for a moment, intrigued. Even the process of becoming a zombie, Paul's strong drive and need for female breasts had over ridden his innate desire for brains. A rare occurrence in a zombie, usually only seen in the oversexed and highly perverted. Huh...a Horny-Pervert-Zombie. An H.P.V. Knowing Paul, I should have seen that one coming.

He shuffled ever closer...."Bew....bies". I sprang into action, slamming open the oven door on his head, bouncing his skull like a melon off of the kitchen floor. Hoping that I had cracked it enough to do some damage, I danced out of reach of his seeking hands and found THE NEW KNIFE. He'd been proud of that knife...and I hoped it would make me just as proud.

Luckily, the frying pan he'd used for his last human meal was still on the stove. Taking that in my other hand, I used my foot to flip the oven door up and in the same motion slammed down hard with the frying pan, wincing as what used to be brain matter spattered my black converse all-stars. Eww.

Using the pan to hold his head down, I knelt on his back...disgusted by the way the skin shifted under my knee and made quick, hard sawing motions with the knife.

To this day, I don't know how I survived it without a scratch, but I was able to separate his head from his body and throw it into the oven while the remaining corpse writhed on the floor. I turned the oven onto broil and waited until the unearthly screeches "BEEEWWWWBIES" finally stopped and the body on the floor ceased flailing.

Shaking my head, I turned the oven off and went to sit down with my beer. The brain had been destroyed, and the body could do me no more harm. I took several long drinks from the beer and when my hands had steadied, I phoned PRTZL. The Philly Resist the Zombies League.

I was going to need some help with the cleanup