Life With A Werewolf

Zombies, Explained

“So, zombies, huh?” It was a rare day off for Crash. I told him what I had spotted on the way back from the drive through, and he proceeded to just shrug it off. “They’re harmless. They stink, but honestly, they’re harmless.”

“So, what I saw was real?” I asked. We had some cheesy werewolf movie on in the living room. Red Corn Syrup, rubber effects, and horrible acting was one way to pass the time around here, especially around Halloween, a holiday that’s so remembered, honestly because it’s the one day of the year Crash can walk through Walmart in his wolf form “au natural” as he calls it, and get compliments instead of screams. I get the impression that werewolves sometimes have a lower self-image of themselves. I guess all of those screams and shouts in fear every time you show the world your furrier side must wear on a person after a while.

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Real enough. Zombies are just like, soul wrappers without the cosmic center. They house the contents of you: the spirit and soul, but they aren’t you. Not really.”

I turned to look at him. He was human, no sign of change. His face looked haggard. His goatee and side burns had grown to nearly overtake his whole face. The match set of luggage under his eyes looked as though they were preparing to fly to Europe for a twelve week stay. He’d come in a day earlier and told me that he’d been forced to take a day off. “shift fatigue,” he muttered, then walked back to bed. And proceeded to sleep for almost eighteen hours. I don’t know what ‘Shift Fatigue’ is, but I’m glad I really can’t get it. It sounds like a werewolf thing. And it sounds horrible.

“Soul rappers?” I said. “So, what. They’re going to come up to me and start spitting rhymes about God and heaven and hell?”

He gave me a look. “Not funny,” he grumbled. “Think of them this way: they’re more or less chip bags blowing in the wind. They know they’re dead. That the soul that possessed them before is gone. They have very few likes or dislikes. They can’t eat. They don’t even know why they’re moving. But they do move, a lot. In fact, their favorite thing to do is to walk around neighborhoods and hang out with humans.”

“So, head shot kills them, then?” I said.

“No. Well, it can but that’s kind of cruel.” He grumbled.

“Why?” The monster on the screen growled and snarled as it began to slash through the front door separating it from its fresh kill. Crash paused the movie and looked at me. “It’s like stomping on a lost kitten.”

“Lost?” That was new to me. “I thought they were resurrected by voodoo priests or something. That they hungered for human flesh or were some sort of ghoulish slave.”

Crash rolled his eyes. “It’s more like they’re lost puppies. The ones being controlled are something else entirely and the best thing you can do for them is to kill them again. These, it’s well, the best I can explain it is that the flesh remembers life. It remembers having a soul, a spirit, a guide. But here, at this time of year when things are thinnest and thickest they regain the ability to move.”


“Why?” none of this was making sense. When someone was dead, they were dead. A bag of mostly assembled flesh and bone that will soon be worm food. Why all of this ‘thinnest and thickest’ crap?

“Well, to hang out at Halloween parties. To talk to former relatives and find out what their missing soul used to be like. To meet new people and try to make friends to visit their grave from time to time to say hi. To be, well, human. At least for a while.”

“So, they long to be what they were?” I hummed. “I guess that makes sense in some strange way.”

“They long to know and remember the soul they once held so lovingly and carried through this life.” Crash said.

“But, they’re dead. Worms are eating their brains. They can’t remember anything cause they no longer have the ability to remember.” I replied.

Crash nodded. “So, you see,”

“It really would be like stomping on a lost kitten.” I muttered. I did feel bad in a way. They were missing a part of themselves they only remember having, but couldn’t remember anything about. Doomed to wander until they returned to the grave searching for that piece of themselves, they’ll never grasp, to get some peace and closure.

“Besides, they’ll just rot back into the ground soon enough anyway.” Crash shrugged, then flipped the movie back on. He didn’t go into any further details about that. They’ll just rot back into the ground? Like at a faster rate? At a slower rate? I didn’t really want to know. I turned my attention back to the woman on the screen, screaming as a werewolf tried to claw its way through her front door.

Hopefully all of the red corn syrup and bad acting can wash the taste of miserable rotten flesh desperately seeking themselves out of my brain. But as the movie played on, I began to doubt it. I just hope we don’t get any particularly smelly trick or treaters.