There are few things in life more surreal than turning into a zombie and spending a hot Minnesota afternoon lurking in a cornfield.
I started the day as a normal dude, cruising to a farm in the boonies to meet some friends. We were the first ones there, so we sat around and chatted about the usual junk: punk rock and splatter flicks. Soon, the crew arrived and we were briefed on the day’s events.
The first order of business was zombie practice. Corpsing around and getting shot aren’t things that come naturally. They take some time to perfect and we spent the morning doing just that. Me and the rest of the zombies-to-be engaged in an insane dance of lunging, circling, creeping and just generally being the walking dead. We all pretended to get shot a few times, learning how to fly backwards onto the ground without doing permanent damage to our spines.
Next we were killed off one by one. I was one of the first to be zombified. At that point, I ditched my glasses. Corpses are no good with breakable things. We hunt by smell anyway. The completed rotters gathered around in a circle, telling bad zombie jokes and eating brownies. The makers of the film didn’t have a big enough budget for brains.
When it came time for my comic relief scene, my belly was empty. Starvation was my motivation as I repeatedly chased down an SUV full of corpse-hating bastards who had thrown an apple at my head, distracting me from a meal of guts I had just knocked to the ground. I felt like I could really eat some of those turkeys, but I didn’t. I was a good zombie.
Once that scene was completed, the gaggle of zombies I was hanging with walked down the dusty dirt road that lead to the farmhouse. Considering that I was starving, couldn’t see without my glasses and was probably dehydrated, I walked dizzily, almost falling over at times. I was dead.
Night fell and we spent it chasing after corpse killers. Again, they fled in their damn SUV. SUVs are the bane of the zombie’s existence! We can’t pierce their gas-guzzling hides. In the struggle to do so, a good friend’s decaying head fell under the front tire. His skull popped and his putrid brains splattered all over the dirt road.
Typically, seeing a buddy’s head crushed would be the sign of a bad day. Not this time. This time, it was a blast.
Jet Lag Gemini: Business (Doghouse Records)
If this band was a zombie, it would be the wussy, preppy zombie at the back of the herd. He’s always the last one to get to the victim and is left licking scraps off bones. As he tongues little bits of leftover meat, he whines to the night sky, crying about how he’s been screwed over even in death. When the corpse killers arrive on the scene, they don’t even have to waste a bullet on this pansy. They drive over him in their van. He just doesn’t have it in him to get out of the way.
Hammer Bros: The Vitality (Crosscheck Records)
This is the musical equivalent of a roid-rage zombie. The ridiculously buff corpse smashes out of the window of a gym and lands on a shrieking woman who was just walking past. He’s got seventy pound dumbbells clutched in each rotten fist that he uses to turn his victim’s skull into a red-brown smear on the sidewalk. Every vein in his body looks like it’s going to push out of his skin as he gorges himself on his kill.
Dead City Shakers: Ship of Beggars (Zero Youth Records)
The rockabilly zombie thinks he’s cool shit. Unfortunately, he’s too busy preening to realize that a ten-year-old with a homemade explosive is sneaking up behind him. As the corpse combs his hair, the kid sticks the bomb in the zombie’s back pocket, lights the fuse and runs. Not surprisingly, rockabilly corpses burn the same as all the others.
All City Affair: Bees (Lujo Records)
More wussy zombies? Pretentious wussy zombies to boot?
For more information on Doomed to Consume, the zombie movie I was in, visit http://www.doomedtoconsume.com/
If you’re into gory horror insanity, check out my new collection of short stories, “The Mutilation of Paris Hilton.” Find out more about it at my site, http://www.freaktension.com/.