Dead Things
In a apocalyptic world where the living and the undead uneasily coexist, a visitor comes to a bar where the live entertainment and the help are dead, and occasionally hungry...with guest appearances by dead celebrities, human and canine.
It was in those days following the cosmic seeding of Earth with the virus which would bring the dead back to life that I sat in the Restless Dead bar, drinking...what else?...a Zombie, that mixture of fruit juice, liquer, and various rums, a potent alcoholic concoction that helped me to keep going going in those unsettled times when the living and the undead tried to forge an uneasy alliance, a time of tolerance where the dead moved among the living, refraining from consuming the living flesh that called out to them in exchange for the living forbearing from blasting the undead in their craniums upon sight.
The entertainment at the Restless Dead bar that night was legendary country singer Patsy Cline, who unfortunately had died in a plane crash in 1963. She no longer possessed her rich and expressive contralto voice but did her best to give the bar patrons an experience of the Nashville sound, singing her hit I Fall to Pieces as her corpse did just that, right before my eyes. In fact, it was her right eye that went first, popping out of the decayed socket and oozing dark stinking fluid down the mummified pale skin of her cheek.
I drank deeply of my Zombie as the undead waitress shuffled up, bringing me some of the miserable swill that passed for food in these post-apocalyptic days.
"I fall to pieces/Each time I see you you again," sang the zombified Patsy Cline, dead until recently for fifty years. True to her words, Patsy's right arm fell off at the elbow joint. She appeared to notice, but ever the good performer continued her set.
Nearby, the deceased Buddy Holly tapped his rotted foot in time with Patsy's singing.
Apparently my warm flesh proved too much of a temptation for my waitress, as she put down my plate of food, and began gnawing on my neck.
"You walk by and I fall to pieces," sang Patsy Cline in her undead voice, her left ear detaching itself from her head and plopping to the filthy floor.
Not wishing to become a happy meal for my waitress or have her infect me with her virus, I pulled away from the girl only to hear her moan "brains!," and move in for me again. As a furry, however, I was not without my resources, and turned to my undead canine companions, Lassie the famous collie and the original Rin Tin Tin, the heroic German Shepherd. Now Rinty had been dead since 1932 so he was largely skeletonized, but was no less loyal and devoted to protecting his master. The two dead legends looked expectantly at me, awaiting my command.
"Tear her up!," I ordered, gesturing at the troublesome waitress.
Cerberus himself would have been no less ferocious than these two deceased canines in their attack, and soon my late waitress was no more of a threat to anyone. I let my dogs have their way with her remains as I ate my semi-rancid cheeseburger.
The zombie Patsy Cline had appropriately started to sing her hit song "Crazy," but was unable to continue as her mandible had detached and joined her left ear on the floor. No one could say at least that Patsy wasn't a real trooper to the end and well beyond. She made some sounds from the remains of her mouth that bore no resemblance to language.
Ah yes, I lived in interesting times! I gave a whistle to my dogs to get them to stop savaging the now dismembered waitress and join me as I exited the bar. The bones of Rin Tin Tin made soft rattling and ticking noises as he trotted after me through the door, his long-vacant eye sockets focused devotedly on his master...