The Living Dead 2

Zombie Gigolo by S. G. Browne

S. G. Browne’s first novel Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, “a dark comedy about life after undeath told from the perspective of a zombie,” came out in 2009 and was a finalist for this year’s Bram Stoker Award for best first novel. His second novel, which comes out in November, is Fated, “a dark, irreverent comedy about fate, destiny, and the consequences of getting involved in the lives of humans.” His short fiction can also be found in the anthology Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead.

One of the things that’s appealing about zombie fiction is that zombies used to be us, and we’re just one bite or infected wound away from becoming one of them. That’s a sentiment Browne shares, but he also believes they’re experiencing their current popularity because they’re no longer just the mindless, shambling ghouls we’ve known and loved for the past forty years. “They’re faster. Funnier. Sentient,” he says. “Plus there’s this constant fascination with the inevitability of a zombie apocalypse. I mean, no one ever talks about the werewolf apocalypse. That would be ridiculous.”

Browne’s own take on zombies, in his novel and two short stories, intended to show a different side to zombies: giving them sentience, viewing the world through their eyes and what they have to deal with. “When you think about it, most zombie films and fiction are really about the people rather than the zombies,” Browne says. “My fiction is about the zombies.”

Just to warn you, our next story is a little gross. It was originally written for the “Gross Out Contest” at the 2008 World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City. Browne had just sold his novel Breathers, so, for his contest entry, he took a couple of ideas from that and ratcheted them up viscerally. The rules stated that the story had to be between three to five minutes in length when read aloud, so the authors had to be frugal with their words, maintain a decent gross-out factor, and cut out anything that didn’t move the story fast enough.

Browne didn’t win, but he did come in third, winning him the coveted gummy haggis prize. But if our next story wasn’t gross enough to win, I’m not sure I want to know what did.

Is it necrophilia if you’re both dead?

Okay, technically we’re not dead. We’re undead. But semantics tend to take a back seat when you’re banging a three-week-old corpse who’s moaning that she’s about to come just before one of her main body cavities bursts open.

At first I can’t tell if it’s the abdominal cavity or the pelvic cavity, because honestly when you’re an animated corpse, everything smells like a fecal smoothie. But then I see something that looks like a partially dissolved kidney and the fluid spilling out of her has the consistency of chunky chicken noodle soup, so I’m guessing abdominal cavity.

I’m suddenly wishing I’d worn a condom.

Though I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been eating her out. But she didn’t pay for the Surf and Turf.

Not that this is the first time something like this has happened to me. After all, when you’re a zombie gigolo, you have to expect the smell of hydrogen sulfide and the oozing of intestinal juices and the occasional skin slip. But I should know better than to accept clients who are more than a couple of weeks past their Use By date.

If you’ve never had your tongue down the throat of a zombie whose liquefied brain suddenly bubbled out of her mouth, you probably wouldn’t understand.

The Cavity Burster gets up from the bed, apologizing for the mess as she tries to pack her internal organs back into her Lucky Brand jeans, dripping a trail of liquefied internal organs across the concrete floor on her way out. That’s why I use plastic sheets instead of Calvin Klein. They’re easy to rinse off and with the set-up I have in the cellar, I just wash everything down the drain. Otherwise, I’d spend all of my time at the laundromat.

My two o’clock appointment is less than a week old. A Freshie. Still, she doesn’t exactly smell like Irish Spring. More like summer compost. Her stomach is already starting to blister, she has skin the texture of a greasy banana peel, and when I slide inside her, it feels like I’m fucking a nest of mummified cats’ tongues.

The thing about zombies is that, other than our internal organs turning to soup and liquid leaking from enzyme-ravaged cells, there’s not a lot of natural lubrication.

However, for those of us who were fortunate enough to have been embalmed, formaldehyde is the magic elixir that allows us to maintain some sense of pride.

The Freshie wasn’t one of the fortunate ones.

In addition to her cracked, bloating stomach and the aroma of rotting eggs that keeps leaking out of multiple orifices, the tips of her nipples are coming off in my mouth.

Liquid from the deteriorating cells of a corpse can get in between the layers of skin and loosen them. This is called sloughage. It usually starts with the fingers and toes. Sometimes the skin of the entire hand or foot will come off.

Not a pleasant thought when you’re fucking sandpaper.

If you’ve never had the skin of your cock peel off like a used condom, you probably wouldn’t understand.

As I slide in and out of the Freshie, I open my eyes and glance down at her face just inches from mine. Her eyes are closed in ecstasy, her mouth is open in a silent gasp, and greenish fluid from her lungs is oozing out of her nose.

Morticians call this “frothy purge,” like it’s some new drink at Starbucks.

Just as I’m about to blow my load, the Freshie sneezes and I’ve got frothy purge on my tongue and lower lip.

Some zombies are walking Petri dishes, serving host to a plethora of bacteria and fungi. These are the unlucky ones who weren’t embalmed and who suffer the indignities of putrefaction as they slowly dissolve. In zombie circles, we refer to these pathetic creatures as Melters.

My last customer of the day is a Melter.

Her skin is peeling away, her body is covered with festering wounds, most of her hair has fallen out, and when she smiles, what few remaining teeth she has are coated in an oily black goo that runs down her chin because she has no lips.

Before she gets on the bed, I pull out a can of Glade Neutralizer and circle around her, covering her from head to toe. I prefer the Neutralizer fragrance because it works directly toward the source of the odor, though Tropical Mist has a nice, fruity scent.

The moment I climb on top of her, I’m wondering if I’ve made a big mistake.

Her breath washes over me like fresh, hot vomit. Her skin is the texture of raw chicken, sliding back and forth and tearing away in my hands. When she drags her fingers down my back, her fingernails detach. Occasionally, the pus oozing from her wounds erupts in an orgasmic geyser.

Keeping your focus when you’re banging a Melter isn’t easy. It’s enough to deflate even a post-mortem permanent boner. So I think about human flesh and I close my eyes and I keep banging away.

But with every thrust it feels like I’m fucking mashed potatoes. Like I’m fucking overcooked rice. Like the rice is swarming around my cock.

When I pull out, my cock is covered with maggots. They’re swarming around my shaft, trying to eat their way inside. At least I remembered to wear a condom this time.

I slap at my permanent erection, knocking the majority of the maggots off, but I can feel some of them scurrying across my nuts, tickling my perineum, headed for the nearest point of entry. Before I can brush the rest of them away, I have maggots squirming up my ass.

I need a bidet.

I need a Clorox douche.

I need a turkey baster and some gasoline.

On the bed, the Melter is picking larvae out of her pubic hair and asking me if I want to clean her carpet. She smiles at me, black saliva dripping from her lipless mouth. She says if I do, she’ll suck the maggots out of my asshole.

I tell her to get out and to take her infested pussy with her. Then I lock the cellar door, grab a bottle of Jack, put on some Barry Manilow, and try to figure out what I’m going to do now.

You spend your entire undeath working to cultivate a reputation for affordable, high-caliber, parasite-free sex and in one moment of misguided judgment, you throw it all away.

If you’ve never had maggots crawling around inside your rectal cavity and feasting on your subcutaneous fat, you probably wouldn’t understand.