“Come on, angel, don’t make me bust your gourd open. I just want your purse!” The green, slimy, shuffling assailant had a death-grip on an elderly woman’s handbag.
“Go to hell, you vile old bastard!” The silver-haired granny had an equally tight grip on her Louis Vuitton.
“Been there, done that. And I ain’t so old, see? I was with the Fighting 84!”
The old lady squinted at the skull and crossbones tattooed on the creature’s bicep. She gasped, “My husband was in that squadron!”
They both released the handbag and plopped down on the grass–she, from shock; he, from exhaustion. After exchanging enough information to confirm both claims, the woman invited the creature back to her apartment.
***
“The Navy lied to you, ma’am.” The creature scratched his noggin in confusion. He was only used to teletypes and oscilloscopes; the woman’s laptop was as foreign as the Kamikaze to him. He continued his explanation:
“That bunker was never destroyed by the Japs. We had wiped them out the first time they showed their ugly mugs. What really put us in a cemetery was Uncle Sam’s mad scientists!
“They had the bright idea to inject us with a zombie virus. That way, if we got shot down, our rebirth was assured. We didn’t know this at the time, but we glommed onto their angle after they stopped sending recruits.
“Of course, the shots didn’t work. Most of us, like your Bob, died horribly. But a few unlucky ones still roam the earth, stuck between life and death. We are victims of of a perfect symmetry between cell apoptosis and regeneration.”
The old woman nodded in complete understanding. Her Bob had never known what she was working on at Fort Detrick.
Copyright © 2016 by Mitchell Allen
Originally appeared on CreativeCopyChallenge #460.