Back From The Dead

that overwhelmed him. Scott turned away, gagging, and he stepped back, seeking fresh air.

“Fuck,” Dave said again, following him.

“Shit,” Gordon said. He went further, heading outside into the night.

Scott took one final glance back before he followed his friends outside. John was on the ground now, on his back. The zombies were still feeding in a frenzied manner but John was no longer struggling. His sightless eyes stared upward.

Scott stumbled outside and closed the door behind him. He took a deep breath of the night air and fought to retain his equilibrium. The sights and smells from inside made him swoon. He closed his eyes for a moment, struggling to contain his wits. His friends were doing the same thing; nobody wanted to be the first to puke.

“Holy fuck, man,” Steve said, his voice slightly strangled. He staggered away, heading toward the gazebo.

One by one they followed Steve, where they sat down on the benches that lined the gazebo’s interior. Scott slumped down, taking deep breaths. He felt light-headed but was beginning to feel calm, more in control. He sat there for a moment catching his breath, waiting for the sickness to subside.

Steve broke the silence. He let out a slight chuckle, his voice low, excited. “Goddamn man…that was fucking intense! Did you see that shit?”

“No shit, man,” Dave said, his tone of voice equally excited.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Scott said, still coming down from the excitement buzz. “But I have to say that was the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Me too!” Dave clapped Gordon on the back. “You did it, man! You made real zombies!”

“Yeah, I did,” Gordon said. He looked at the others and smiled. Scott smiled back. Gordon’s face was flushed and Scott could see why. What happened in that guest house was some intense shit and they all looked blind-sided by it, but at the same time it was awesome.

“Tell me the truth,” Scott said to Gordon. “Did you know that would happen?”

Gordon shook his head. “No. I didn’t. I had an idea it might happen, but…” He shook his head. “I didn’t know it would happen like that.”

Neither did I, Scott thought. He took one last deep breath and stood up. “Let’s go inside and get a drink.”

They got up and headed into the house.

* * *

It was a good thing the attack had momentarily shocked the other guys. It helped explain Gordon’s own expression.

Gordon reclined in the living room easy chair, nursing a beer as the other guys relived the attack in excited tones. He grinned and made the occasional comment, especially when it came to John Elfman. “That fucker’s had this coming to him,” Gordon said. “Sonofabitch has been nothing but a complete asshole since the day we met him.”

“You got that right,” Scott said. He pounded his beer, set the bottle down on the coffee table. “Good riddance.”

“Did you see the way he looked at us when the zombies were eating him?” Steve exclaimed. He was the most excited of the bunch. He was pacing the living room, his lanky figure jittery with adrenalin that the alcohol was having no effect on. “He looked like he was crying to us for help!”

“What a dumb shit,” Dave said. He settled back on the sofa. “I still can’t believe that idiot came with us. Like he thought everything was going to be cool.”

“No shit,” Gordon said. John Elfman had been a thorn in his side, too, but not enough to kill him.

“So what do we do now?” Dave was looking at Scott. He took a swig of beer.

“I don’t know,” Scott said. He looked contemplative. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see how much of John gets eaten.”

“Shit’s gonna be a bitch to clean up,” Steve said. He finally plopped himself down on an easy chair.

“Yeah, it is,” Scott agreed. He took a sip of his own beer. “But it’s gotta be done. Dried blood is just gonna smell after while.”

“Those zombies are gonna smell worse,” Gordon said.

Scott nodded. For the first time he looked like he was seriously considering the complications of keeping two zombies in his guesthouse. “I say tomorrow we check and see what kind of mess we have. If there’s any pieces of John left, we snag them and burn them in the fireplace. Then we secure the zombies and clean all the blood and shit in the room. That will take care of that.”

“And then we hang those fucking air fresheners all over,” Steve suggested. “That’ll mask the smell.”

Scott nodded. “Exactly. There’s gonna be a week or so of some nasty ass rankness coming out of there and we have to mask it as much as possible.”

“What are we going to tell people if they ask us what happened to John?” Gordon asked. He’d reached a sort of zen state as far as fitting in with the mood of the general group; inside he was absolutely horrified over what they’d done and witnessed. He was more terrified of his own part in it. I helped make this happen, he thought. If I hadn’t gotten that book from Gaines, hadn’t suggested we turn them into zombies —

“Nobody saw us leave Susan’s party,” Dave said. “I made sure of that.”

“And he didn’t say anything to anybody else,” Steve confirmed. “John just talked to us.”

“His friends left him,” Gordon added.

Scott nodded. “If the cops ask where he went we just tell him we don’t know.”

“And if somebody did see him get into the car with us, we tell the cops we dropped him off on Mill Valley Road near his house.”

They all nodded. Mill Valley Road was in a remote area of the county. It would be perfectly plausible for somebody to be dropped off there with no witnesses. It would be their collective word against anybody else’s.

“But we don’t volunteer that information,” Dave said.

“That won’t work,” Gordon said, his mind working at all the angles. “If we say that we don’t know what happened to him during a first round of questioning, then they find somebody who saw John getting into the SUV with us outside of Susan’s and they come back to us with that and we say, ‘oh yeah, well we did drive him home, but John wanted to be dropped off on Mill Valley Road. He wanted to sober up before he went home.’ We say that, it’ll look like we’re trying to hide something.”

“So we should contact the police and volunteer this information?” Scott asked.

“No. We just mention it the first time the police question us. If the police don’t question us, we don’t say anything.”

Scott mulled this over. It was a good approach. “I agree,” he said. He regarded the others, more confident. “This stays between us. If any of us is questioned separately we stick to the same story. John met up with us at Susan’s, we talked, he was really drunk and we drove him home, only he wanted to be dropped off at Mill Valley Road. That’s the last we saw of him. We don’t deviate from this simple story. Not one bit. Got me?”

The others nodded and Gordon grinned at him. “Yes sir, Master Scott!”

Dave and Steve laughed at this, guzzling their beers. Gordon cracked a grin. His take-charge demeanor was working.

In reality, he was a complete mess.

They spent the rest of the evening drinking and talking, reliving the incident. Gordon was mostly silent, observing his friends with subtle glances. They were gung ho, excited about what they’d done and they laughed about how they’d pulled one over on their long-hated nemesis. At one point Steve suggested they feed one of their other enemies to the zombies and Scott brought up Tim Gaines again. That was when Gordon spoke up. “We do that, especially if we’re questioned about John, the police are going to zero in on us,” he said. “The fact that they questioned me about losing that book at the cemetery is enough to nail me, but you guys have a history with him.” He settled his gaze on Scott. “And they’ll put two and two together.”

Scott sighed. “Fuck, I hate it when you’re rational.”

“Yeah,” Dave chuckled. “Thanks for blowing that particular fantasy, Gord.”

“He’s right, though,” Scott said. He drained the rest of his beer and quickly retrieved more. In the past hour they’d gone through a complete case. Scott’s parents wouldn’t notice. “Okay, so I guess the next one is just gonna