Tales From The Oddside: Living Dead Nerd

Living Dead Nerd
by
Al Bruno III

I can’t really blame what happened on some kind of horror movie outbreak or evil spell. I just woke up one morning and I was dead.

Dead, totally dead but walking around, no pulse but a head still full of Star Trek trivia. I was 16 years old and it looked like I wasn’t going to be getting any older. So weird. I’m still not sure what I am really. Am I some kind of a zombie or vampire or something? Has this ever happened to anyone else? Even Wikipedia couldn’t tell me, maybe when I’m done here I’ll make an entry.

My complexion had always been pale and my parents never listened to me really so the whole I can’t go to school because I’m only breathing out of habit. excuse didn’t fly so I still had to shamble on out to catch the bus for school.

The ride to Allen Palmer High School was always rough, insults and blunt objects get thrown at me not matter how close I sit to the bus driver. That day was no different, so I guess we can add dead people to the things that metalhead stoners have no respect for.

Sometimes the shit they pulled would make me get angry or even cry but that day none of it bugged me. Of course it made the shop class rejects even madder when I didn’t react to them. Finally a textbook hit me in the back of the head and I turned in my seat to glare at them.

Except I wasn’t really glaring on purpose, I thought I looked surprised because I was trying to figure why in the Hell one of those idiots would have a calculus textbook. Still it shut them up for the rest of the bus ride and they left me alone from then on.

School wasn’t much of anything, I kind of just went through the motions but that’s sophomore year for you isn’t it? It’s like the middle film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, not good, not bad just kinda killing time until the ending.

I wasn’t sure what my ending was going to be now though, was I going to rot away and fall apart? I didn’t know, I still don’t but it doesn’t bug me much. After you’re dead what’s the worst that could happen?

The next week went on like nothing had happened, it was school, home and then World of Warcraft.

Of course now I didn’t have to worry about bathroom breaks messing up my raids.

Occasionally I would get hungry- not the kind of hungry you know. It was like my bones were aching, like I could feel them going soft. It was a hunger that fish sticks and fries couldn’t touch. Thankfully my neighborhood is full of cats, some of the stupidest cats you’ve ever seen.

And plump too, like those little chickens they serve at weddings.

By the second week of my new ‘life’ things started to change, I smelled a little but it was nothing that my Dad’s Hi Karate couldn’t hide. People started treating me differently, even when I smiled I had this look that weirded people out. I told the gym teacher I wasn’t going to play dodgeball, I was going to the library and he just let me. Amazing!

My skin cleared up but my grades stayed the same. You jocks even stopped calling me ‘Timmy the Tard’ not that I cared anymore. One guy did pick a fight with me, some seven foot tall freshman. He punched me a few times, it didn’t much hurt and for once I hit back. One smack and he was crying on the floor. Didn’t know my own strength. I sure as Hell got called into the principal’s office for that but after he realized I was staring at his carotid artery and licking my lips he cut his speech about responsibility and citizenship short and just suspended me for the a week.

Not that I cared. My Mom hit the roof when she found out, my Dad actually seemed kind of proud of me for once. One of the neighbor’s dogs went missing that night, I felt like celebrating.

Since I was suspended my mom gave me punishment chores to keep me busy while she and Dad were at work. That was ok by me. I liked the physical activity it kept me from just sitting around the house because when you’re dead that’s what you do- just sit around a lot. You don’t get bored, you don’t think, you just are. You kind of let things happen to you.

What was it my Aunt said? Let go and let God.

Not that God was something I worried about much either anymore. I do wonder sometimes if Jesus was just a nerd like me, if he was just someone that kept having to swallow abuse and insults until he just choked on it.

Of course he got cool powers out of the deal. All I got was this thousand yard stare.

And I got laid too.

Seriously. It was the girl next door. Well, across the street.

You don’t have anything to say about that? Well, anyway, she’s this gothy chick named Stephanie but she wants everyone to call her ‘Serpentina’. She doesn’t go to school anymore. They expelled her for spraying the tampon dispenser in the girls’ room with lighter fluid and setting it on fire. I had been taking out the trash and I had just kind of zoned out. I didn’t even notice when it started raining. Stephanie- I mean Serpentina- came over and started talking to me, talking about how much she liked standing in the rain too and how I sure had changed. That never happened before.

She invited me in to talk but the next thing I knew we were making out on her parent’s couch. They were at work too. I was already hard, mostly because I had died with one of those piss erections I guess. She starts taking off her clothes, showing me all the places she’s going to get tattooed and pierced as soon as she’s eighteen.

Girl’s gonna be busy.

Now it didn’t feel like I expected, mostly because I was dead but I got off in other ways. She was so warm, I didn’t realize how cold I was until I had her on top of me. I let her do the driving, she kissed me and moved my hands to wherever she wanted to be touched. Then she guided me into her.

So warm. And since we’re both guys here let me tell you that I was doing the full on zombie groan if you know what I mean. You know what I mean? Serpentina was going crazy too, she kept complimenting me on my staying power. I think we could have still been at it if I hadn’t faked and orgasm and told her I’d call her later.

Bet you thought I was gonna kill her and eat her or something right?

Well are you out of your mind? She’s crazy about me, and she told me she wanted to introduce me to this girlfriend of hers named Umbra. And it was the way she said girlfriend that has me thinking. I may be dead but I’m not stupid.

Of course all that exertion has me tired out and that’s where you come in you big broad shouldered jock you. I knew you couldn’t resist the chance to follow me here to ‘teach me a lesson’ after what I did to that mongoloid brother of yours. The dogs and the cats went neck first but since you pulled down my shorts in gym class

I’m going to start with your guts.

Scream all you want. No one is gonna hear you.

Man, I always wanted to say that.