Dead I Do’s

Note: The narrator has a very generalized worldview that is not meant to be taken seriously…please enjoy!

I don’t like Christmas. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s my least favorite time of the year. You must think that my heart is dead and cold. You would be right, for more than one reason. Here is the first. Everyone should appreciate the holiday season. Christmas is a magical time for love, generosity, and above all else, family.

Family. That wonderful, miserable little word. You may balk when I say it, but family is exactly the reason why I wince at tinsel, or groan at the sight of snow-dusted pine trees. Once, there was a time when all I wanted was a family of my own. I was just like every other little girl in the universe, making Barbie and Ken kiss in front of a milk carton church, and imagining my own wedding day with a strong, handsome man.

Five years ago on the dot, that wedding day had finally arrived for a head-over-heels woman in love. To make it all the more special, my wedding was on the twenty-fifth of December. Yes, you read that right. The happiest day of my life was on Christmas. So how, you now wonder, could I ever come to despise it?

Let me explain.

It had almost been time for me to walk down the aisle. George stood before the priest in a meticulously tailored tuxedo. He smiled proudly and his white teeth flashed. So did the camera of the wedding photographer, who happened to be the media designer of George’s profitable orthodontist business. At my own request, he used a Polaroid to give the day a down-to-Earth, non-commercial, genuine Christmas feel. He pocketed the printouts in a manilla folder and regularly checked the digitally uploaded copies.

George continued smiling, conspicuously unfazed by the translucent braces spanning his upper teeth, while I downed my fifth glass of eggnog. Eggnog during the holiday season always made me feel more relaxed. On the morning of my wedding, I had discovered that vodka only maximized those effects. By the time I threw down my veil and accepted Dad’s arm, I had a confident, easy grin to rival that of my husband-to-be’s.

As we walked down the aisle together, passing slowly by pews lined with smiling, misty-eyed relatives, I noticed a strange feeling that began to pervade my body. My skin felt colder than the brisk, winter air outside. The beating of my heart stuttered and choked, until I couldn’t feel it in my chest at all, and my body seemed to deflate and sag like my parent’s blow-up snowman that the neighbor’s Chipin went to war with.

My thoughts swirled, bobbed, and sank like marshmallows in hot cocoa. Walking in a straight line became impossible. I leaned heavily on Dad, and he sniffled, tightening his hold around me. It helped more than he knew. By the time he’d guided me to stand in front of George, my swimming vision skewed my fiancé’s face more than the delicate, lace veil. It didn’t make things any better when my vision went black in my left eye.

At that point, I regretted drinking so much eggnog with vodka. Maybe, I should say, vodka with eggnog.

But romance and Christmas magic still permeated the air. I knew nothing could ruin this day for me. Not my own wedding day jitters—or sudden lack thereof. While my fiance read his vows, my shoulders were relaxed, my back nearly slouched. My heavy arms hung limp at my sides, like boughs burdened with thick sleeves of fresh snow. When it was time for me to say my own vows, all that emerged from my mouth was a low, garbled mess, somewhere between a growl and a groan. Somehow my fiance didn’t notice. Maybe because his attention had drifted to the photographer, who he encouraged closer with a couple waves of his arm.

The photographer removed himself from the front pew and crouched beyond George’s shoulder, flashing a couple of pictures as the groom put an impressive ten carat diamond ring on my finger. Finally, it was time for us to say our I Do’s, and share the most romantic, meaningful kiss of our entire lives. The camera flashed right as George lifted my veil. I leaned forward for this kiss. My lips never met his, because he’d toppled backwards from the force of his own blood-curdling scream.

The room erupted into panic. People screamed and poured from the church in a stampede of dresses, skirts and suits. The priest threw a handy splash of holy water in my face before making a mad sprint for his own life. I stood in the church all alone, wondering what sort of disaster I had paid the makeup artist too much money for. Really bad blush was the only possible explanation I could imagine for the horror my unveiling had created.

Distantly, I glanced down at the Polaroid camera lying abandoned on the polished wood floor. The last photo, taken right as George had lifted my veil, had gone uncollected by the photographer. The square photo laid flat on the floor, as lonely and forsaken as me. I picked it up and shook it out. Slowly, the black faded away, revealing the picture. Slowly, my confusion faded away, because the reason for my wedding day disaster became all too clear.

The pink blush was way too dark for my pale complexion. Also, my left eye had fallen out of its socket. I thought with great chagrin that I looked very much like a monster. This left me with a lot more questions than answers, of course. Over the next several days, the pieces of the puzzle would come together while my rotting flesh would fall apart.

Emergency broadcasts played on tv sets in broken storefront window displays, their jagged glass framed prettily by multicolor string lights. Radio interviews with doom-stricken scientists blared from the open doors of abandoned, smoking cars, in the breaks between Rudolph and Jingle Bell Rock. Messages of warning, repeated in several languages, called from speakers affixed to roving military vehicles as their heavy wheels crunched over snow. They all cried for people not to drink my favorite brand of widely distributed eggnog.

It turns out that the blame for Armageddon belonged to a low-wage worker in Pennsylvania, who’d applied to the eggnog-job for extra financial support while he completed his graduate studies. He was a virologist with a special affection for the rarest, most adaptable strains. One way or another, by some lack of hygienic protocol, he’d managed to overlap his work life and school life to devastating effect. Because of his mistake, my perfect life had been shaken up like a snow globe. When the little white flakes of ash settled, all of my hopes and dreams were in ruin.

Now you understand why Christmas is my least favorite day of the year. Some people would share the same sentiment, but only because it was the start of an everlasting apocalypse. For me, the most devastating occurrence was George’s failure to love me until death, like he had promised during his wedding vows. Sure, I am dead, but he is still alive. I know this, because I have seen him creeping around town, gathering survival supplies with another woman. She has eyes in both sockets. She also has straighter teeth than I ever did. My snaggle tooth always did cause some strain in my relationship with George.

I poke at that tooth, now, as I watch him tremble in front of me. Being so close to George puts a strange sort of sweetness on my tongue, even more potent than the fermenting mixture of saliva and blood in my mouth. We stand near the deteriorated face of the church, the exact same one where he’d failed to stay true to his wedding vows. The holy structure has begun to crumble around the edges like an over baked gingerbread house. But the memories remain the same, like fresh, cool buttercream icing to frame its worn, old silhouette.

I have been standing here, on the street, for days. Even after so many years, when the holiday season comes around, I can’t help but feel bitter nostalgia. Nostalgia for what could’ve been—what should have been.

In my dormant state of savoring old memories and fantasies, George must have thought he was safe to come close to me. Close enough to look over my worn, weather-tattered wedding dress. Close enough to look into my cold, gray eyes, which still hold so much love for him.

Close enough to try and remove my ten carat wedding ring. He wants to gift it to his new girlfriend for Christmas. Perhaps he does not remember that this wedding ring represents an eternity of partnership between us. But I still do. And I think it is very romantic, how he falls to his knees in pure amazement, as I speak past my decaying throat to properly finish a ceremony years in the making.

“I do,” I growl.

Completely paralyzed with disbelief, George struggles to say anything. I know he is filled with regret. Only now does he realize that the true love of his life still exists, even beyond the facade of a horrifying, rotting, undead corpse. Only now do I realize the error of my own thinking.

Christmas is not the worst day of the year. In fact, it is a day when miracles can happen. It truly is a day of love, and generosity, and family. In the spirit of all those things, I offer my groom my forgiveness.

While he sits on his knees, like he had when he offered me that ring so many years prior, I lean forward to give him the wedding-day kiss I still owe him. My lips meet his. My teeth come right after.

Until death do us part, he had promised in his vows. In my own vows—that growling, garbled mess—I had taken it one step further. Until death, and after still. He would be my groom forever, right after this initiation into eternity. If I take a few extra bites than necessary, he can hardly blame me. He has kept me starving for his love for too long.

The little girl that used to play with Ken and Barbie, who loved Christmas and dreamed of a holiday wedding, would not be disappointed for her future. Her marriage would turn out just the way she played it out on her bedroom floor. After Ken got married in front of the milk carton church, an infected Barbie bride would rip off his plastic arm. I’d mimic screams of horrendous agony, and giggle at my own, silly game.

Just like any kid, I loved playing Zombies, too.