By Ed Staskus

   The night that zombies invaded Canterbury Crossings everybody except Oliver and Emma locked their doors and telephoned the governor in Columbus pleading for the National Guard to be called out. Oliver and Emma climbed a ladder to the top of their roof instead of calling anybody. They pulled the ladder up after them so the zombies couldn’t reach them. They didn’t necessarily have to since they knew zombies didn’t know how to climb ladders, but they didn’t want the neighbors joining them. The pitch was severe. Not all of them had a good sense of balance. Many of them were hidebound. If too many joined them, the roof might even collapse.

   Oliver and Emma straddled the gable roof and watched the zombies lumbering towards their house, which was the last house at the turnaround at the end of the street. They looked out at the field behind their house. A young man was taking selfies with some zombies, at least until they reached for and dragged him away. His red-rimmed sunglasses fell off his face. One of the zombies mindlessly stepped on them.

   “Why was he wearing sunglasses?” Oliver asked.  “It’s nighttime.” The only reason the night wasn’t dark as a tar pit was because there was a full moon.

   “That’s Noah from the other end over by Naylor St.,” Emma said. “He has photophobia.”

   “Is he scared of light?” 

   “No, his eyes are just very sensitive to it.” 

   “Should we go down and help him?”

   “We don’t have to. Once they get to the woods the zombies will be getting more than they bargained for and Noah can run away as soon the fighting starts.”

   “Oh, right, I see what you mean.”

   Their friend the honey badger lived in the woods. He had many “No Trespassing” signs posted. Some people ignored the signs, to their regret. The honey badger was very tough. He had strong claws, a powerful bite, and a fearless attitude. He could fight all day if he had to. He was tireless. He was immune to just about everything, including snake and scorpion venom. It wasn’t long before the zombies who had dragged Noah away came stumbling and bumbling out of the woods, licking their wounds. Noah took a picture of them fleeing the wrath of the honey badger.

   “There’s no sense in asking for it,” Emma said. “You always get what you ask for when you bell the cat.”

   Oliver nodded, although he wasn’t paying attention. He was peering through his binoculars at more zombies entering the condominium complex from the approach off S. Ridge Rd. Their faces were the color of dried mud.

   “Where are they coming from?” Emma asked.

   “I am guessing they found a secret passage out of the land of the undead into the land of the living through Perry Cemetery,” Oliver said. The cemetery was a quarter mile away around a bend.

   Zombies are reanimated corpses, the living dead, who are always looking for something to eat. Their favorite meal is people’s brains. There is no negotiating their menu choice. Their clothes are moldy and their flesh is rotten. Nobody ever cuddles up to them. They are slow on their feet, shuffling rather than walking. They are slow-going as infants crawling on all fours. Somebody would have to be standing still, like Noah had been, for a zombie to be able to catch them.

   The problem wasn’t outwalking them. The problem was that zombies never stopped. They didn’t need to rest or sleep. They were like the Energizer Bunny. They didn’t like daylight, though. It made them even slower than they already were. They were careful of direct sunlight. Too much of it would make them burst into flames.

   When the National Guard arrived in their tactical vehicles and deployed, they started filling the zombies full of bullets until they didn’t have any bullets left. The  bullets penetrated the zombies but had no effect. The soldiers would have been better off bringing chainsaws. When the zombies started marching towards them the soldiers retreated.

   “What can we do to help?” Emma asked.

   “Didn’t mom plant pennyroyal in the backyard last year?”

   “What’s that”  

   “She calls it pudding grass.”

   “Oh yeah, the stuff with purple flowers that smell like spearmint. Mom likes the smell and she likes that none of the animals around here eat it, not even the honey badger. She said It keeps snakes away from the house.”

   “It’s not just snakes,” Oliver said. “Fleas and zombies both hate the smell of pennyroyal.”

   “Are we going to chase them away with the purple flowers?”

   “Not exactly,” Oliver said. “You go get your clarinet and I’ll crush lots of the flowers into a pile.”

   Emma played the musical instrument in the school band. Her favorite clarinet player of all time was Benny “The King of Swing” Goodman. Her favorite clarinet song was George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” although in her opinion it could have used even more clarinet.

   Dawn was starting to happen. They climbed down from the roof when the zombies weren’t looking. Emma ran into the house and got her clarinet. Oliver ran into the garage, found a pair of gardening gloves, and ran into the backyard. He wore the gloves because he knew the oil of the pennyroyal flowers was poisonous. He tore purple flowers off their stems and crushed them with his hands until he had a soccer ball-sized pile of them.

   “Do you know how to play the song ‘Sure Shot’ from the movie ‘Shrek’”?

   “Of course.”

   “That’s great,” Oliver said. “Here’s the plan. You be the Pied Piper and I’ll bring up the rear with the pennyroyal. We’ll be like sheepdogs and herd them back to Perry Cemetery.”

   It was easier than they thought it would be. The zombies were enchanted by the clarinet and repelled by the pennyroyal. They followed Emma while Oliver waved handfuls of pennyroyal at stragglers. They herded the zombies down S. Ridge Rd. to the Perry Cemetery on Lane Rd. The boneyard, like most of the town of Perry, was shaded by many trees.

   “Ollie, I have a better idea,” Emma said once they got to the cemetery.

   “What’s that?”

   “Let’s take them across the street to that big open field off River Rd.”

   “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Oliver asked.

   “Hurry up,” Emma said. “The sun will be coming up any minute.”

   They highballed the zombies down River Rd. to the big open field. When they got there they herded the living dead into a tight circle. They looked tired from their forced march. A pack of dogs passing by helped Oliver and Emma make the zombies behave.

   The sun came up just as the zombies were getting restless. By that time Tommy One Shoe  had joined Oliver and Emma. They split the pennyroyal up among themselves and kept the ghouls corralled. When the zombie apocalypse happened it happened fast. First, the greasy hair of one of them burst into flames. Then the mossy shoulders of more of them burst into flames. Before long all of them were on fire and melting. They melted down to the ground, the ground opened up, and they were swallowed up by a hole that immediately filled itself back up.

   “Thanks for your help,” Oliver told Tommy.

   “That’s what friends are for,” Tommy said.

   When they got home they found their father making breakfast and their mother staring at what was left of her pennyroyal. They had slept through the zombie invasion. Their mother gave them a long look.

   “What happened to all my pudding grass?”

   “It’s a long story,” Emma said. 

   “It better be a good story,” the head of the household said, tapping her foot.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A stem-winder in the Maritimes.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVDP8B58

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Two hired guns from Montreal. A rookie RCMP constable stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication