Joe Dead Guy (standard:horror, 8261 words)
Author: Renny	Added: Jul 29 2004	Views/Reads: 3582/3276	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An average joe [hence the title] dies in a car wreck and is resurrected as a zombie for reasons unknown. The story is his journey, as his girlfriend leaves him, he kills a man who has tried to kill him in a fit of rage, and goes on the run across the coun

Joe Dead Guy By Renny Thomas 

`	First of all, don't call me a zombie, okay? Just don't. I hate that
word. It's as much of an insult as "nigger" or "spic". You know what 
people think of when they hear that word? That's right, shitty b-movies 
full of lurching monsters that eat people. Now that is the most 
ridiculous myth I've ever heard. Why the hell would I want to eat 
people? Why the hell would I want to eat anything? I'm dead! I'm an 
animated corpse, I don't need to eat or drink or sleep or even breathe, 
for that matter. They only reason I'm doing it now is to talk to you. 
And I'm no monster, either. I can talk and think and feel just like I 
could when I was alive, but nobody seems to realize that. They can only 
see what's on the outside and they're scared of it, and people hate 
what they're scared of, you know? They fucking... 

Hey, wait, okay, okay, I'm sorry I'm ranting, it's just... I get mad
about it sometimes, you know? Ever since I died not one person has 
shown me an ounce of decent human respect. I'm still that, you know. 
I'm still a human being, even if I leave pieces of myself behind if I 
rub up against a tree too hard or something. I just want somebody to 
listen to me, all right? Can you do that, man? Can you put aside the 
fact that I'm just a head sitting on this dirty cardboard box and 
listen to what I have to say? 

Okay, cool, thank you. Now, where do I start? Yeah, you're right, the
beginning's always best. I guess it comes as no surprise to you that I 
wasn't always like this. Nope, I was just another guy. I grew up and 
lived most of my life in Bedford, Nebraska. No shit you never heard of 
it, it's represented on a map by one of those little black dots. I 
wasn't anyone special there: made a solid B average through high 
school, didn't thrill or disappoint my parents too much, had a little 
group of guys I hung out with. Eventually I did the walk with my 
diploma, went to Colorado State and did pretty much the same thing 
there, except when I got off the stage with that piece of meaningless 
paper, I had a girl waiting for me outside the auditorium. 

Her name was Jamie. We met when we were both working at the library
shelving books, and we started talking and it...we went out on a few 
dates, and I guess we fell in love, that's sure what it felt like, 
anyway, and...sorry, it just hurts, you know? It wasn't long ago at all 
when this happened and still it hurts a lot. 

Well, anyway, a month before my graduation, my parents died in a plane
crash, and they were my only close family. I probably would have gone 
crazy if Jamie hadn't been there for me. We moved back to Bedford 
together and started the long slog through the real world, trying to do 
something constructive with ourselves. I had a major in communications, 
which basically says that I didn't know fuck-all what I wanted my 
future to be. I got a janitor's job at the hospital in the next town 
over and Jamie got a job as an assistant in a nursing home and that 
kept us fed and sheltered. Jamie had studied to be a nurse in college, 
so she was doing what she wanted, but I was drifting, I admit it. I was 
content to push around a broom and clean toilets and haul garbage all 
day and then drive home and have sex with my girlfriend, maybe eat some 
takeout pizza in front of the tube and fall asleep.  I'm sure that's 
the lap of luxury compared to what some people have, but it sure didn't 
feel like it to me at the time. 

Let me tell you something, man, you have got to appreciate what you have
in this world. You've got to. If you've got a home, friends, a steady 
paycheck, or a woman who loves you, you hold onto that shit as tight as 
you can and thank God for your good fortune, because it can all be 
taken away so fast, man, so fucking fast you might never get over it. 
That's what happened to me, and I'm still trying to figure it out. 

This was a couple months ago, after a little unseasonable snowfall. I
had had to clean up after a patient's explosive diarrhea earlier that 
day; the old fart had tried to make it to the bathroom after it started 
and I mean there was shit all over that fucking room. I was tired, 
cranky, and just wanted to get home and lay down, so I was maybe going 
a couple miles an hour more than I should have been when I looked up 
from tuning my radio and saw the sharp turn. 

I slammed the brakes and felt myself starting to skid, and I wasn't so
bad at first, you know, just trying to go with it until the car stopped 


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