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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.

Rural Dead by Bret Hammond

Bret Hammond is the coauthor of the book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geocaching and the publisher of Geocacher University (www.geocacher-u.com), a website devoted to providing education and materials to both new and experienced geocachers. This story is his first and only fiction published to date, which originally appeared on the zombie website Tales of the Zombie War. In addition to his interest in geocaching and zombies, he’s also a pastor and has published articles and cartoons in a variety of religious publications.

The Amish are a Christian community of Swiss-German origin centered in Pennsylvania, perhaps best-known in pop culture thanks to the Harrison Ford movie Witness. Amish culture emphasizes hard work, humility, and family. They dress simply, largely forego modern technology (notably automobiles and electrical appliances), socialize mainly among themselves, and work in trades such as farming, construction, and crafts-making. Their main method of ensuring that members keep to Amish ways is peer pressure, known as shunning. Whether or not an individual is to be shunned is determined by the leadership, and when someone is being shunned even their spouse may refuse to speak to them. In severe cases of noncompliance a person may be expelled from the community, though they are always welcome to return if they mend their ways.

Many schisms have developed in Amish communities over the years over what rules are to be followed and how severe shunning should be. The Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder established the precedent that Amish are exempt from many American laws, including those involving compulsory education (Amish children are not educated past eighth grade), child labor, and Social Security. The Amish are also extreme pacifists, and once faced severe penalties and abuse for refusing to fight in America’s wars.

Our next story, which is a bit more wholesome than the last one, takes a look at how this unusual and close-knit community weathers a zombie apocalypse, and what happens when extreme pacifism collides with extreme circumstances.

***

We’ve blocked off the reference room in the small community library for these interviews. Otto Miller sits across the table from me, his arms folded tightly against his chest. He is an elder in this small Amish community and looks every bit the part. I ask him to state his name and he simply stares at me and then looks down at the digital recorder I’ve placed on the table. He strokes his beard a couple times and then folds his arms again. I can see we’re going to get nowhere with this.

I click the device off. That’s not enough. I put it back down in my satchel and pull out a yellow legal tablet. As I click my pen he begins to speak.

“I have nothing against you, English, nor your devices. But you have to understand us. We don’t cling to your machines, we don’t participate in your ways, we don’t ask anything of you. But you and your…things…your ways…they are constantly thrust upon us. Even your plague.”

He points his finger squarely at me. I’ve heard of “righteous indignation,” but I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen it. “I read your newspapers, listen to your broadcasts. You think this plague was the hand of God? Wouldn’t that be convenient? If all this were simply the divine pouring out judgment and wrath upon the world? No, this was your own doing. You-you English-you played with the natural order of things and this was the result. Like breeding your livestock in one family line, sooner or later the results will haunt you. They haunt all of us.”