David was on the bus.

"It's 'It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power" from Reader's Digest, as well as the summer 1996 Victoria's Secret catalog, and a fanzine for the Atari 2600."

"Well, that's a brainfull." The bum went back to sleep.

The bus rocked and rolled through the Memphis night as like a bullet it rocketed from Los Angeles to New York on old route 66. Tired of reading, even though he was literally dead and therefore not able to produce seratonin, the chemical responsible for the sleep state in homo sapiens sapiens' brain, David put the magazines on the vacant seat next to him and closed his eyes. His head bounced on the vibrating bus windows as he didn't sleep. Because he couldn't.

Busses always smell like urinals.

"It's the sweat," said Father Blarney Pierre. David Hasselhof (not his real name) was in Littleton, England, visiting the burial sight of Marco Polo. Many people believe that Marco Polo, the explorer who discovered pasta in the East and later become immortalized in the Olympic swimming event bearing his name, was buried in Italy, or Portugal, or even China. One person actually believes he was buried in Arizona, confusing his remains with Old London Bridge. But he was buried in Littleton England, under the Catholic church altar, for it is the law of Christ that no church can be built that does not possess a holy relic. That's why the Catholics invented saints: otherwise, holy relics would be hard to come by. Saint Peter's bones, in fact, are more widespread throughout the world in church altars than even the most ambitiously distributed evil-parts of any vanquish-the-vampire endeavor.

David wanted to make a joke about pews and PU, but held his tongue. He was on a class trip, after all, and in a church, and Susan McGillicutty was nearby. That's three strikes.

"This cathedral saw a full worship service every Sunday for the past 400 years, no matter how hot it was outside," Father Pierre continued, mopping his brow with a holy-looking handkerchief. "And over here is the very fountain of holy water used to banish the flesh-eating zombies from the parish when they attacked in 1693."

"Gosh," David allowed himself to say. It was a very terrible thing to be impressed on this school trip. Paid for by a contest that his school had won, the pace of nonchalance had been set early by Kyle Wintergreen, who said, upon hearing that they had won and that the 2nd 30 smartest kids in school were going (the top thirty smartest were going to Washington D.C. for a Future Problem Solvers of America tournament, paying their own way, of course), "Yeah? I've been to England before." And it became cool to not care much. On the plane ride, Susan McGillicutty, who believed she was the only authority on this trip since her name was Irish or Scottish and they were British states, after all, confided to David that she wasn't at all impressed with the difference between the way English and American refer to their television sets, and secretly, she was certain the whole class would giggle or gawk the first time they heard someone call it a "tellie"

This story was originally going to be called "The Flesh Eating Zombie Climbs The Empire State Building" but had to be changed when it was discovered that more than one flesh eating zombie (FEZ) had already climbed such a building. And this is a good thing, for the two "the's" are somewhat cumbersome. Another prospective title was just one word taken from the above, like "Climb" or "Zombie," but it was rejected out of a desire to go back to the old school, the day, when titles were not miniature essays, works of art, then subject to a minimalist movement like all derivative art is, but were instead just identifiers for the piece which they named.

David reached a finger into the bowl to show how unimpressed he was and carefully smeared a good deal of greenish-ghoul residue on his fingertip.

"Now, be very careful with that, my son, as it has been suggested that the very source of the evil which animated those zombies so many years ago resides still in that sludge." The good father crossed himself continuously throughout this speech.

David shrugged. He looked over at Susan, at her knockers, then absentmindedly flicked the stuff at a wall, where it hit a microbe, which turned into a zombie microbe, then ate the flesh of other microbes for about one minute, which is how long microbes live anyway. Susan looked back at him. She wasn't at all impressed, and she was so happy that she wasn't that she just thought the world of David. There would be sneaking around between the boys' and girls' rooms tonight, an exchange of underwear, maybe even third base. Hoo boy. It's great to be fifteen.

Hey kid.

What

Did you learn any words?

No.

The dawn was trying its best to go back to bed, but the bus relentlessly pursued it through the bible belt.

What word you on now?

Pulchritudinous

What's it mean?

I don't know.

What's it say?

Beautiful.

Well, there you go.

Nope.

Why not?

I'm dead.

So what?

So I can't learn anything.

Why not?

Brain can't change. It's decaying.

Well, if Plato or Socrates or whoever it was was right, and we know everything before we're born, but the shock of birth makes us forget, maybe as your brain decays you'll reveal areas of your mind unattainable before.

But that's still not learning.

Well, it is, but in a relative sense.

Everything's relative, huh, David said, sighing, looking as wistfully off into the dawn as he could, being without eyebrows which had rotted away pretty quickly at the beginning.

Of course. For example, The fact that you're a flesh-eating zombie should be very freaky to me, but then again I am a homeless person and also psychotic to bend spoons, if you catch my meaning.

David leaned very very close to the bum, so close that he would have been able to smell him if he had been able. "How did you know I eat flesh?"

They symptoms that would later prove to mean that David was a flesh-eating zombie began to occur that same night. After a quick lick-me feel-you in the bathroom at the Waddlesmith Inn, David and Susan, both very much not excited about the whole thing, to the point of pale skin and at least one sigh and two yawns per minute, went back to their rooms to tell anyone who cared (no one) what hadn't happened.

"Did you at least get a boner" asked the requisite nerd, who was pretty much in awe of everything, even shoelaces.

"Naw." Said David, bored, flipping pages on a German-language Gideon bible. For no reason (he certainly had no itch) he scratched his forehead, and one of his eyebrows came off.

Gideon (coincidence) looked over and said, "Lost one of your eyebrows, cuz," nonplused.

"Huh." David replied.

David stood at the base of the Empire State Building. His legs were torn in a few places, and he had big black spots on his chest, His t-shirt, ripped for good effect by a truck-stop whore in Des Moines, Kentucky (there's a Tallahassee, Kentucky and a Minneapolis, Kentucky, too). He wanted to pay her for her trouble, but she explained she'd had a degree in fashion design from a school in Dallas (Texas) and that ripping t-shirts was like lincoln logs for an architect.

The evil which had eaten away at his soul as it did his skin coursed through what was left of David's muscles, and he flexed his hands. Savagely, bored, he drove one fist into the concrete of the building's base, and was pleased that it went in with an eerie dry squelch.

"Why are you reading the Victoria's Secret catalog, then? asked the bum. They were outside Reading, named after the monopoly railroad.

David shrugged. "I'm not sure. I hate Latitia Costa."

"Why is that?"

"She's kind of plump. And when her teeth show they're all gaps and round edges. Blach."

"Is that any reason to hate someone? Do you even know her?"

"I don't need to apologize to you," said David, biting into a piece of Kentucky Fried chicken (Ohio) "You're a bum. I'm a zombie. This is a greyhound bus. I had to kill a man for this ticket. They would never let me on a plane."

The bum blinked. "Why not?"

"Ah, I don't know." David said. He opened up the Atari 2600 Fanzine. Latitia Costa wasn't even a Victoria secret model in 1996.

When Doctor El Hasbro, Writer and Director of "A Flesh Eating" set out to tell the story of David, he set himself an almost impossible goal. Producer Estephan States explains:

"Hasbro was always something of a purist, of a musculature, if you will. He decided at the beginning that for 'A Flesh Eating' he would write only one word per day. Well, when we heard this, we were, no need to say, well, I won't then. But anyway, we begged him to at least ignore articles and pronouns and helping verbs, but he insisted. I remember in a meeting, after he'd been working for a few months, let me see, we were at Flannigan's restaurant in Pasadena, umm, I think his alma mater was in the Rose Bowl that year. well, I said why not count as the one word a day only those words which would be capitalized in a title? But he wouldn't have any of it. And you know what? Well, at one word per day, no break for Christmas, Fourth of July, birthday, even a 5000 word story would take more than fifteen years. But Hasbro managed to finish in only 9 months."

When States is challenged that this is clearly impossible, he replies:

"Impossible? Man, that's art!"

At the top of the Empire State Building, David stood. Most of his putrid flesh from the wrist to the elbow ha been ripped away, revealing rotted forearms-muscles running over with maggots and meal worms gross. He looked at the city beneath him. The trip home from England, the bus ride, the three hour climb, the sheer force of will that was a zombie's only source of energy (aside from the evil) had accomplished this. It was the year 2000, January 18th, about 2 in the morning.

God changed the universe. Like the clock on the TV when you're watching soccer, the people of the earth had got it wrong by about 18 days. God the ref had the correct time. Computers were safe, but God made all the evil in the world go away. David crumpled into a pile of dust. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Melissa Joan Heart, and Cuba Gooding Jr. died at the moment. But that was a coincidence. They weren't evil.

"Folks," the bus driver said over the intercom, even though his regular voice could be heard at the same time, "if you'll look out the left side of the bus, you'll see the worlds largest family reunion gathering, the Gregories. They meet here in Wichita county every five years, and the celebration is so big that they appropriate the town's electricity, meaning we won't be stopping at the Stuckey's for our dinner break. However, the good Gregories always agree to allow us to partake of their massive pot luck dinner, and sorry for the inconvenience."

The bus stopped, David shuffled off

The bum sat down in the seat across the aisle from David.

"Hey there kid, how's it goin."

"Fine," David said.

"Where you headed?"

"The Big Apple."

"Yeah? Me too." The bum was silent for a second. "Ain't you kind of young to be traveling alone?"

"I'm fifteen."

"Is that legal?"

"I don't think it matters," David said. "I'm a zombie."

"Yeah, I had all them childhood diseases," the bum, said, leaning back in his seat, getting good and comfortable. "Depression, narcolepsy, rickets, chicken pox."

"Being a zombie isn't really a disease," David explained. "It's more of a condition. Or a lifestyle, I guess."

"We got a long ride, kid, you can explain it to me all the way." The bum went to sleep.

The Empire State Building (ESB) has been called many things. The Big Apple's Big Banana. Tallest building in the world. New York City's middle finger. The whore's penis. It has been mentioned in seventeen major works of literature, 32 minor works of literature, and 217 insignificant works of literature. "A FEZ Climbs the ESB" hopes to score one for each category.

Would you like a Snapple? asked Marty Gregory of the Craig County Gregories.

No thanks.

How about a nice piece of fudge.

I'm fine, really.

A piece of celery? With peanut butter in it?

No, thank you, ma'am.

They're really yummy."

That's nice. But mostly I just eat flesh.

Oh. I'm sorry. The Daly City Gregories are vegetarians...

Well that wouldn't really be-

Oh, I know, Edmund Gregory and his grand kids are all allergic to nuts, maybe they have some flesh.

Actually, I'm not really hungry at all.

Alright sweetie. But you be sure to sign up for our horseshoe tournament.

I think the bus is leaving soon, ma'am. But thanks.

Remember, its better to throw from the side, not the bottom. Marty Gregory mimed an example for him.

Okay, thanks.

David's hand moved like machinery. Pow, into the side of the Empire State Building, squelch, the other hands comes out. His legs, too, were digging right in and pushing him higher and higher. He tried switching from punches to claws, and was pleased by the result. His hair was a sort of slimy gray color, dark circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks, teeth black and what few remaining, sharp. Soon he was slithering around and about the thirtieth through fortieth floors, scaring children and leaving behind a nasty sludgy smear on the windows.

"So why is a flesh eating zombie going to New York City? asked the bum. He was the only one who would talk to David, who was the only one who would talk to the bum.

"To climb the Empire State Building."

"I did that once." The bum chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. "Cost five bucks just to ride the elevator. They won't let folks on the stairs anymore."

"No, I'm going to climb the outside."

"What for?"

"It's like this." David squinted his eyes. "You ever watch those zombie movies?"

"Sure. Loved 'em."

"Did they eat flesh?"

"Yes they did." The bum nodded his head gravely.

"Why?"

"Well, the ones in Return of the Living Dead claimed that eating brains made the pain of being dead go away."

"But that's brains. I'm a flesh eating zombie."

"Okay."

"So why?" David squinted harder.

"I don't know."

"There you go." David's voice matched the bum's exactly. "Neither do I."

In a very quiet voice, the bum said, "I thought you said you couldn't remember anything." He curled his lip. He had perfectly straight white teeth.

"Remember what?" David said, just as quietly.

"Zombie movies."

"Who said I remember them."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"It wasn't rhetorical."

"You weren't using the Socratic method?"

"Fuck no," David explained.

The bum smiled, in a regular voice.

On the plane back to the states, David switched seats so he could sit next to Susan.

Want to make out?

No thanks, he said.

Want to turn off the lights? Feel each other up?

Naw. Not really.

Oh, Davy, you're so hot.

He grabbed her hand, put it on his cheek.

Ohmigod, you're ice cold.

Check this out. He reached into his mouth, pulled out a molar. Smell this.

Gross.

Yup. I'm dead.

Ewww. Susan smacked her gum and perused the in-flight magazine crossword puzzle. 3 across, pulchritudinous, nine letters.

Must have been that sludge,

Wanna go steady?

Okay. but I have to go climb the empire state building.

Okay.

El Hasbro wrote almost fifteen different endings for "A FEZ Climbs The ESB", none of which were used for this version. Critics called the endings "the final word in English literature," "A grand finale of sorts," "What happens to good stories: an ending" and one critic even went so far as to say, "When there is nothing left to say, that's where these endings go. They end."