(05/16/05 Dear me, this seems to be spreading! Let me know your comments at grzesiak@gmail.com)

(05/16/05 Also, this was written for NaNoWriMo 2004, which is why it's so freakin' long.
That also explains the continuity errors. Disregard those, I'll fix them someday. Honest.
It also explains the complete lack of formatting; this is still just a draft document.
Copyright (c) 2005 Joseph Grzesiak, all rights reserved, and so on and so forth.)


Book I - In Which The Narrator Introduces Himself, And Sets The Stage

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that greatest of men,
He who traveled far and wide, across ocean, mountain, continent and sea,
Who struggled valiantly against the will of the gods,
And who saved his country from a zombie scourge.

You heard me, Muse, a zombie scourge.

Sing of that man, that Jonathan Brewer, he who became renowned,
For his skill against the scourge, against the plague;
Brown-eyed Jonathan Brewer, the blacksmith, the son, the brother,
And probably the uncle, too; he never really talked to his siblings,
And for all he knew they had a couple kids, and come to think of it,
He may also be a grand-uncle, who knows.

But sing of that guy, Muse, and relate of how Jonathan Brewer, brave Jonathan,
Tall Jonathan, clean-shaven Jonathan saved Parliament, saved the Queen,
And saved truth, justice, and the American way,
Even though there was no America, really, so maybe he saved the British way,
But that just doesn't have the same ring to it,
Regardless, though, he killed a lot of zombies.

O Muse, set the stage, so I can stop appealing to you for aid and get on with the story.
O Muse, to use the vocative case, which is really archaic and a pain in the ass to decline,
And you Latin scholars out there will agree with me;
Yes, you, the one in the back, nodding your head in agreement,
You're the one I'm talking to. Goddamn vocative case.

But Muse, setting the stage, spoken to a modern audience,
With your hi-fi players and your dee vee dee sets and your tight suspenders,
They need to understand that this history is not their history, no,
But a counterfactual version of their history.
Kind of like those stories in which Hitler won World War 2,
Or the South won the American Civil War
(and not the War of Northern Aggression as some people would have you call it,
no, but let's not get into that now).

But yes, Muse, as I was saying, a counterfactual saga,
A world sent on a different path, soaring through the cosmos,
Then taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque and not ending up at the Pismo Beach of our world,
But rather the cave of Ali Baba of the wrong world,
But this world, this bright-eyed and dewy-grassed world, is not the wrong world,
But the right world, the world of our story, the world of our saga,
The world of our zombie plague.

As ships with white sails skimmed the surface of the sea,
As alliterative authors anguished as all audiences ached,
The conquistadors and colonists spread from Europe to the New World.
Thick ships with wooden planks quivered -- yes, quivered, ships do that --
Or maybe the arrows quivered as they plunged into the mast,
For the men on board these ships were bored, deathly bored,
And so they practiced archery, shooting shaft after shaft into mast after mast,
Ignorant of the rhyme that a future author would force,
Since who rhymes shaft with mast, anyway?
Maybe shaft with maft, or shast with mast,
But I digress: these ships were crossing the ocean, following Columbus,
That Genoese navigator, that Italian explorer, he, who with the blessing of the Queen,
That really hot Spanish queen, you know, she was kind of a wild one, nudge nudge,
But with the blessing of that small-eared queen he discovered the New World,
Which from here on out I shall call America,
Even though it's still vague where that name came from,
This name will stick, and I'll blame it on the cabin boy,
The snot-nosed cabin boy,
Dear cabin boy,
America Americus.

Now that's a copout if I ever saw one.

These explorers and conquistadors and traders,
These Europeans of fair hair and blonde skin, or blonde hair and fair skin,
Either way, they were Europeans, and they had forgotten the old gods.
The Greek gods, the gods who forced this story, the gods who set this world in motion,
Maybe they didn't create the world, but they kicked off this plot.
Just bear with me and you'll see.

Zeus, powerful Zeus, mighty thunder god Zeus, he was bored.
B to the O to the R-E-D, he was bored.
Almost as bored as the sailors with their archery, and their masts and shafts,
But he wasn't so bored as to shoehorn a rhyme,
No, jealous Zeus had little to do with so few believers;
He went down among the mortals every now and then,
Trying to get a little nudge-nudge among the women,
But pillars of fire and oxen just didn't 'do it' for the women of that day,
And mighty Zeus grew cranky.

Cranky as a newborn baby denied his rattle,
Cranky as a football hooligan denied his crowbar,
Cranky as an old man, virile Zeus looked for something to do.
He thought about Prometheus, traitorous two-faced Prometheus,
And wondered if he should take mercy, and call off the vulture,
But that'd set a bad precedent, he decided,
A precedent that would lead to worse things.
Things like, like, well, he couldn't think of anything,
But damnit, he wasn't about to go back on his threat,
So he poured out a 40, and whispered how sorry he was,
And Prometheus, daily-tormented Prometheus, was still pissed.

But back to powerful and cranky Zeus, the Zeus who was bored,
So bored, he looked down at the mortals and saw them crossing the ocean,
And Zeus, with his knowledge of disease, and immunization, and epidemics,
Mighty knowledgeable Zeus, he hatched a plan.

For you, O modern reader, this is where the counterfactual history begins,
Well, maybe it began a few lines earlier where I started talking about Zeus,
But here's where it really gets going.
Medicinal Zeus, he saw that smallpox was endemic among the Europeans,
And it was pretty nasty, what with the pox and the sores and the pus,
But they were used to it there, and it wasn't really all that bad
Once you got down to it.

Mighty medicinal Zeus, with his eyes of fire, he saw that the natives of America,
The noble savage, the tabula rasa, the untouched canvas,
They hadn't been exposed to smallpox, the dreaded disease,
And he knew in his heart that such a disease would kill millions.
Or maybe tens of millions, he wasn't quite sure, but it'd kill a heckuva lot.
(Zeus used words like heckuva, you bet, since he was a Minnesotan, then.)

In his boredom, his plan came to fruition, his wicked, evil plan,
But really, that depends on your point of view;
He didn't think it was wicked or evil at all, no, he was saving the natives,
Saving them from a painful death from smallpox,
Saving them from being exploited by European traders,
Saving them from ultimately having to run casinos and make billions in profits,
But even that was way down the line, and didn't really make up for all the heartache,
So even though this was just a prank on the Europeans because he was bored,
He still thought it was kind of a nice thing to do.

Zeus with his eyes of fire and his arms of lightning and his ass of thunder,
He reached down from the clouds with his fingers of mist,
Or maybe he just did all the work in his lab in the sky,
Either way, he altered the DNA of smallpox, making some minor changes,
A little bit here, a little bit there,
Swapping an A with a T or a C with a G, or some other combinations thereof
And as a result, creating zombiepox.

He left the Europeans, the fair-breathed and blonde-tongues Europeans immune,
Figuring the joke would be on them, ha, what a riot,
They thought they'd colonize a new continent and instead infect everyone,
Turning the rolling hills and creeping moss and towering forests into zombie homelands,
Wouldn't that be funny?

The blissful Europeans sailed on, and landed in Barbados, and Cuba, and Florida,
And Brazil, and Venezuela, and Mexico, and New York, which was once New Amsterdam,
But none of those places were called that then, no,
But they landed there anyway, so I guess their maps were still good enough.
They landed, and offered beads for land, or guns for whiskey,
Or killed them all, or converted them to the One True Faith,
Anyway, they did all the stuff they did in your history, the one you learned,
The one with Pocahontas and John Smith and Squanto,
With Plymouth Rock and Columbus and Cortez,
They did all that stuff too, those colonists, those men of arms and God,
Except this time, they also had zombiepox.

The Indians began dying, which was mostly cool with the Europeans,
Since, hey, now the land's all theirs,
No need for muskets, for bayonets, for the armies with the pain and the hurting,
The armies of Europe, with cannon, and sergeants, and sieges,
And the really cool plumed hats on the halberdiers,
You know, the guys with the big axes who stand around the Pope?
Those guys. They're snappy dressers.
But the Europeans were happy, and praised God for striking down the pagan,
And Zeus, snickering Zeus, he was waiting for the punchline,
His punchline, which was about to alleviate millennia of boredom,
This punchline: those Indians weren't staying dead.

It happened slowly, starting here, then there; the Indians clawed their way forth,
Digging through dirt, through loam, through soil,
Or clawing their way out of the closet if the bodies were stored there,
And some of them were, because a lot of people died at once,
And you can't bury everyone at once, since digging a grave takes effort.
So the bodies piled up, and then a week later, they reanimated,
They started attacking friends and family alike, these denizens of the grave,
But don't forget, some were denizens of the closet.

The zombie plague spread, north to Canada, even though it wasn't called Canada,
And south to Paraguay, even though it wasn't called Paraguay,
But I, your humble narrator, have to amend this story to fit within your world,
Your narrow, preconceived notions of geography,
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?
And what do you know about how zombies define their lands?
But I digress; the point is, they all turned into zombies, and right quick.

These zombies were dangerous, to be sure, these grey-skinned zombies,
They would come at you and moan, and the first few people who saw them said,
"Hey, uh, um," and then they were eaten, devoured arm, leg and tenderloin,
Which is apparently a delicacy in the zombie world,
Especially since the zombies prefer steak tartar, and other raw foods.
These zombies, these grey-skinned zombies, this horde of the undead
Roamed the great plains of America, which, as you may recall,
Was named after the cabin boy, the snot-nosed cabin boy,
The dear cabin boy, America Americus.

The English fled in terror, as did the French, and the Spanish;
The Portuguese said "Holy shit," or the equivalent thereof in Portuguese -
Don't ask me, I don't speak Portuguese,
But the terror spread, and the colonies disbanded, even the Dutch,
The Europeans, the fair-cheeked and blonde-chinned Europeans fled,
And the zombies took over.

It wasn't a complete dealbreaker, though, as the Europeans kept at it,
They'd land, build a stockade, add some cannon, and start chopping down trees,
Diverting rivers, clearing land, and doing all the traditional colonial stuff,
But those zombies, those grey-skinned zombies, they came, and came, and kept coming,
And they'd eat the colonists, and damn, but that sucked.

The zombie plague, though, didn't affect the Europeans, which was part of Zeus' plan,
Mighty Zeus, cranky Zeus, his ineffable plan to bring some amusement to his life,
The plague only affected the natives, and it affected pretty much all of them,
Except for a few who isolated themselves completely, like the Incas,
Those mountain-dwelling Incas,
Up in Machu Picchu and Monte Cassino and those places,
They decided enough was enough, and cut off contact with the lowlanders,
Refusing to trade, refusing to travel,
Even refusing visitation rights, which pissed off more than a few divorced Incan parents.
They were pretty upset, which is understandable, but they got over it soon,
Pretty much at the same time they realized that everyone outside their village was a zombie,
And they gave up on shopping for Christmas gifts then,
Since, really, zombies won't care if you spend a lot of time picking out something nice,
Something with thought put into it, not just a random present, or a gift certificate,
Which is even more of a copout than America Americus,
That snot-nosed boy.

So colonization halted, and Europe was pretty pissed, both generally and individually,
As there were a lot of people who expected to get rich and quick,
Since their last get-rich-quick schemes failed to get them rich, let alone quickly,
And this one was going to pan out, but the damn dirty zombies fouled up the deal,
So voices were raised, and fists clenched, and vows made that
"Something Must Be Done!"
And something was indeed done, and laws were passed, laws by Parliament,
Laws mandated by kings and queens,
Laws prohibiting zombies from holding public office,
Those grey-skinned zombies,
Prohibiting them from being on the streets of London after dark,
The thought being that Londoners, clear-eyed and weapon-toting Londoners,
Would be able to identify zombies during daylight and take care of matters themselves,
Even though no zombies came back across the Atlantic,
Since the zombies, those grey-skinned zombies, despite their inhuman strength,
Their inexorable pace,
Their rancid odor,
The grey-skinned zombies could not swim,
And Europe breathed a sigh of relief.

Years passed, and decades, and centuries too, and the New World was left to the zombies,
And Zeus laughed, because that was a pretty good joke, wasn't it?
He figured the Europeans would eventually overcome the zombies, and that'd be fun to watch,
But it'd also be pretty fun if the zombies got back across the ocean,
The blue, whitecapped ocean, full of sharks and water,
More water than sharks, though,
And if the zombies could only get across the ocean, then he could have some real fun,
But why rush things?
Over two hundred and fifty years passed, and father begat son,
and son begat grandson,
And grandson begat great-granddaughter, who didn't want to marry,
but grandson was adamant,
So great-granddaughter married, and begat great-great-grandson,
and the circle of life went on.

Even in the Americas, life went on, despite the zombie plague,
Self-sufficient villages still existed, and defended themselves against zombie raids,
And every now and then, the plague would infect another village,
And more zombies were created.
These zombies, unfortunately, did not decay like an ordinary corpse,
A maggot-infested, bloated, stinking corpse,
Like the corpses you'd normally get from a dead person,
These grey-skinned zombies took decades to decompose,
And by the time one fell apart, more had been created,
Which sucked, too. A lot of things sucked.

The zombies, the grey-skinned zombies, they were the zombies of yore,
The zombies of Romero,
The zombies that can only be killed by destroying the brain,
The zombies that you, O modern audience, knows and loves,
Or maybe fears, depending,
Since some of you, O modern readers, have posited that the zombies,
The grey-skinned zombies,
The inexorable horde, have posited that they represent the
inevitability of life,
And of death,
In that no matter how far you run, how much you struggle,
You will die,
And then get eaten by zombies.
Or maybe not, if the zombies are a metaphor, you know,
But this could also tie into the argument that zombies,
The flesh-eating baby-crunching zombies,
That the zombies are not the true enemy,
That despite their ceaseless hunger and tireless pursuit,
People should fear other people, and not the zombie,
For what does the zombie know of good and evil?
What does the zombie know of jealousy, of rage?

Nada.

So maybe the zombies are analogous to the certainty of death,
Or maybe they're a powerful statement on the risks man poses to himself,
Or maybe it's all about the communists,
Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with the pointing and the screaming,
But that's not the point, O reader, for these zombies are just zombies,
With no social commentary,
Just millions and millions of zombies hungering for human flesh,
Sweet, juicy, succulent human flesh,
Full of vitamins and minerals, good for a growing body,
But the zombie bodies don't grow, and they don't need to eat,
But eat they do, and it's sucks when it happens.

Book II - In Which We Meet Our Hero, Jonathan Brewer,
Who Has Yet To Slay A Zombie

Jonathan Brewer, tall Jonathan, clean-shaven Jonathan, was a blacksmith,
And a son, and a brother, and maybe an uncle, but we went over that before,
He was a blacksmith, and that meant he could swing a mean hammer,
And you'll see later on how smashing a zombie skull with a hammer works darn well.
Jonathan, brown-eyed, unmarried, brave Jonathan, he was quite a catch,
And the women of London fluttered their eyelashes,
And dropped their handkerchiefs,
And shouted "Tuppence a roll, guvna!"
But Jonathan, steady Jonathan, he ignored their pleas, and continued with his work,
Being the devoted and conscientious man he was,
Even though he was a little intrigued by the last proposal,
But no! He was a man of honor and his word,
Even though he hadn't given his word to anyone lately,
He still was determined to stay chaste.

He owned a shop, a small smithy, where he pounded horseshoes,
And other metal implements, such as plows, and scythes,
And occasionally a chastity belt,
But not the ones with metal spikes everywhere,
Other than just that once, but that was a special occasion.
His smithy was quite ordinary, much the same as any other smithy in the city;
Glowing forge, buckets of water, anvil, leather apron, embalmed zombie in the corner,
Which was a family heirloom, you see,
The head was smashed in quite thoroughly, but the taxidermist did a great job,
The one over on Market Street, tell him Jonathan sent you, he'll treat you right,
But the heirloom zombie, the pallid, grey-skinned heirloom zombie, loomed ominously,
Watching over Jonathan day and night,
Haunting him,
Reminding him of his father's achievements.

You see, Jonathan's father, William, was quite the zombie slayer.

Jonathan looked up, brave Jonathan, doubting Jonathan, and saw his father's zombie,
With the smashed skull, and the ragged fingernails, and don't forget the grey skin,
And thought, what has he accomplished? What has he done?
By the time his father was twenty-five, he had slain dozens of zombies,
Rescued a few damsels,
And even saved truth, justice, and the American way,
Even though it wasn't the American way, but the British way, and we've gone over this before,
And Jonathan felt inadequate.
All he had done in his twenty-three years was live in London,
Apart from some vacations to the Continent,
Europe, that is, not the Dark Continent of Africa, nor the Zombie Continent of the Americas,
For it was known as the Zombie Continent, and romanticized,
Which is pretty hard to do, because, you know, zombies aren't romantic,
But adventurers and treasure-hunters dreamed of the vast riches in the Zombie Continent,
Especially in the vaults of the zombie Aztecs,
Those grey-skinned zombie Aztecs, the human-sacrificing Aztecs,
Even though human sacrifice didn't translate to zombie sacrifice,
And it didn't even stay as human sacrifice,
Since the zombies, the human-eating zombies, they had no society, no culture, no religion
Just imagine.

Jonathan looked up again, raising his eyes, looking at the zombie,
And thought again, what can he do? He's just one man, one lonely man,
Though one tall, and brave, and clean-shaven man,
And a man, not a zombie, not a grey-skinned undead ghoul,
Which he hates.
That is, he hates the grey-skinned undead ghoul,
Not that he's a man, which he loves pretty much,
Well, I guess he loves his humanity,
Which isn't that much to ask of someone who grew up in a world full of zombies,
Always scared by his mother, "Clean your plate or the zombies will get you!"
And the zombies in the closet (see above),
Which scared the children of Europe,
The snot-nosed children of Europe,
And the idea of the zombie entered the popular consciousness.

By this time, all of the Europeans, the blonde-throated Europeans,
They knew of the zombies; after all, it had been a couple dozen decades,
Or a dozen score years,
Either way, people were used to them, despite the occasional scare,
And it was reflected in the styles of the day;
Shakespeare, floppy-hatted Shakespeare, bearded-chinned Shakespeare,
Even wrote of the zombies, not in his major plays, no,
But in his lesser plays, or his minor plays, actually, his bad plays,
Such as Zombiolanus, or The Merry Zombies of Windsor,
And the people of London, the long-necked people of London,
They attended his plays, and clapped, and dreamed of stringing up the zombie,
Even though hanging wouldn't kill a zombie,
It'd be therapeutic in the least.
Plus, the Londoners, the Thame-rivered Londoners, they could bludgeon a hanging zombie,
The hanging grey-skinned zombie,
They could bludgeon the zombie with a truncheon,
Or a bludgeon,
Or a bludgeoning truncheon,
Or any of the wide varieties of blunt weapons,
And it'd feel real good to bash that zombie.

But back to Jonathan, free-of-stubble Jonathan, he looked at that zombie a third time,
The stuffed zombie, the one above the mantle, not the one hanging in the town square,
And thought, how can he justify his existence? How can he live up to his father's example?
He cried, "Am i really important?"
And he used a lower-case I, you see, so, uh, he's really wrestling with the issue.
"What is the meaning of my life," asked Jonathan, in his smithy, surrounded by his life,
"Am I to do nothing more than make horseshoes, and plows, and scythes,
And the occasional chastity belt, the one with the metal spikes, but just that once?"
Falling to his knees, his firm, muscled knees, he put his head in his hands and sobbed,
For he had never slain a zombie,
Nor enjoyed the love of a good woman,
Nor slain a woman,
Nor enjoyed the love of a good zombie,
And growing up alone in London, well, it made a guy curious, and people talked,
And yeah, he experimented when he was in school, but so did everyone,
So Jonathan, aquiline-nosed Jonathan, sobbed.

Zeus, mighty Zeus, slightly less bored Zeus snickered from his mountaintop,
Because for no particular reason he had his eye on Jonathan,
Jonathan, the blacksmith of London, the descendant of the zombieslayer,
Well, maybe he had a particular reason, but Zeus wasn't about to share it,
Since he's a god, after all, even if he's only a Greek god,
Jealous and fallible, not omnipotent and omniscient,
But he was still a pretty cool guy, and could see a lot from up there,
And he saw Jonathan, stiff-backed Jonathan, and knew he was destined for greatness,
Not the greatness of a mass murderer,
Well, maybe the greatness of a mass murderer, if you count zombies,
Since before he died, Jonathan would kill more than his share,
Which could count as a mass murderer,
After all, that saying goes, kill one and you're a murderer,
Kill a thousand and you're a conqueror,
Kill a million and you're a god,
So I guess kill between one and one thousand and you're a mass murderer,
And Jonathan, soon-to-be zombie-slaying Jonathan,
He probably killed several hundred zombies in his lifetime,
So I guess he was destined for the greatness of a mass murderer after all,
And Zeus knew that.

As brown-eyed Jonathan sobbed, misty-minded Margaret Wells neared his shop,
Heard his sobbing, and thought, "Lo, is that strong-thewed Jonathan,
The blacksmith, the guy who has a thing for zombie women,
Which is kind of creepy, but maybe it's just a rumor,
Is that him, crying in his shop?" Long-haired Margaret, blonde-haired,
Blonde-haired like the Europeans spoken of before,
Since, coincidentally, as a Londoner,
She was also a European, and thus blonde-skinned and fair-livered,
Or something like that.

Margaret, misty-minded Margaret, she was a woman of no mean means,
Her father had passed, and her mother, and her brother, too,
Who was kind enough to make a fortune and die without an heir,
So she was pretty filthy rich, and boy, did she like it,
And misty-minded though she may be, she was wise sometimes,
Wise enough to see that her inheritance was not infinite,
That her investments, though wise, as wise as grey-eyed Athena,
Not grey-skinned zombies, mind you,
Her investments would not be enough to support her,
And since she still had her youth and her beauty,
Which, compared to the rest of the Londoners, and especially to zombies,
Was pretty impressive,
But then, it's not hard to look good when the competition is a ghoul,
Or has been eaten by a ghoul,
Regardless, she was determined to land herself a husband,
Preferably a rich, handsome husband,
Someone who could support her way of life,
Not that she was shallow, no, she'd marry for love,
Romantic love, platonic love, any kind of love, really,
As long as the guy still had money, piles and piles of money,
Yet the insightful observer will see that she's not marrying for money,
But for a shitload of money.

Jonathan, hammer-swinging Jonathan, he didn't have a shitload of money,
Not even a fuckton of money, but he had enough to get by, and live comfortably,
Which was good enough for him, but Margaret, dear, sweet, gold-digging Margaret,
That wasn't good enough for her, nowhere near, but I'm making her sound bad,
And she wasn't really all that bad, she just knew what she wanted,
And she wanted a rich husband, which Jonathan could never be,
But Jonathan knew people, and those people knew people,
And why would she close off those avenues when she needed to network,
After all, once she was rich, she could dump him like a bad habit,
But he didn't know that, and she didn't bother to tell anyone,
So they were pretty good friends.

Steeling herself to the sight of the stuffed zombie,
To the heirloom zombie on the wall of the smithy,
Which was pretty weird if you asked around, but no one really said too much,
Since William Brewer was a renowned zombie killer,
And it makes good business sense to advertise that in a semi-literate society,
Kind of like hanging out a shingle to advertise a law practice,
And since hanging out a zombie would only invite vandalism,
The heirloom zombie stayed inside, out of sight, out of mind,
Except for the people who entered the smithy,
At which point it became very much in sight, and in mind,
And that started to verge on creepiness.

Steeling herself again, since she did it a moment ago and then did nothing,
She entered the smithy, carefully avoiding the sight of the zombie,
The grey-skinned stuffed zombie, courtesy of the taxidermist on Market Street,
Who was really a nice mensch, he also ran a great deli,
But that's still beside the point,
The point being, Margaret looked away from the zombie,
And looked straight at Jonathan,
Tall, brown-eyed, snot-nosed Jonathan, clad in leather apron,
Hammer in hand,
Soon to be a zombie-smashing hammer, but neither of them knew that,
And Zeus may have known, but he wasn't telling anyone,
Especially not Margaret, who stood before Jonathan, and said,
"So, have you ever killed a zombie in the pale moonlight?"

Jonathan stood speechless.

"I always ask that of all my prospective husbands," misty-minded Margaret said,
Tossing her hair casually, almost flirtatiously,
But certainly not flirtatiously, since Jonathan wasn't rich,
She tossed her hair anyway, and Jonathan, tall, brown-eyed Jonathan,
He looked at brown-nosing Margaret, and said,
"What the living hell?"

Margaret, coarse-corsetted Margaret, sighed and stared,
Thinking, and with her verbose verbosity, said,
"You bloody idiot."

"Takes one to know one," retorted Jonathan,
Well-educated, well-bred Jonathan,
And yes, that was a little sarcastic, but only a little,
Since he was pretty well-bred, not noble in any sense of the term,
Well, I guess he acted noble, but not like nobility, in that he was a good guy,
Fed ducks, and gave money to charity and all that, but he wasn't upper class,
And his education was pretty good, but left some to be desired,
Since, after all, he was a blacksmith, and the son of a zombie slayer,
A famed zombie slayer,
A zombie slayer for the ages,
But he was a pretty ordinary guy,
So I wasn't all that sarcastic.

Margaret sighed again, and stared again, and with just as much verbosity,
The verbose verbosity of before,
Said, "I am looking for a man who can hunt zombies,"
But she used fewer words than that,
Even though I used that many to describe what she said, and could have used fewer,
But I'm trying to be descriptive here.

"A man who can hunt zombies," Jonathan repeated, and involuntarily,
Though with voluntary muscles, not the involuntary ones that control breathing,
And digestion,
And certain aspects of the male anatomy, which really is involuntary,
Despite what some women think,
Those nasty, shrieking harpies,
Not that your humble narrator is bitter, but c'mon, it's got a mind of its own,
And so with voluntary muscles but without conscious thought,
Jonathan looked up at the stuffed zombie,
And realized she meant him.

Margaret, impatient Margaret, sighed thrice,
"Yes," she said, omitting the obvious "You fool",
"Yes, I need a man who can hunt zombies, and since your father is dead,"
She said, crossing herself,
"God rest his soul, I come to you."

Jonathan looked around at his smithy, his life, his livelihood,
Looked at the zombie heirloom,
Looked at the hammer in his hand which was soon to smash some zombie skulls,
Though neither of them knew it,
Thought about his life in London, thought about his father,
Who disappeared mysteriously, and without a trace,
And was generally assumed dead,
Since zombie hunters who disappear generally are devoured and eaten,
And zombies don't leave too many traces,
He thought, and wondered what his father would have thought of him,
Whether he should leave his shop, and everything he knew,
And hunt zombies,
Those grey-skinned zombies,
Those unnatural ghouls,
Which kind of reminded him of Methodists, but that's beside the point,
And said,
"Uh, okay."

Book III - In Which A Zombie Mysteriously Attacks Jonathan On The Streets of London,
Which Normally Are Free of Zombies, And Thus It Is A Mysterious Attack,
And Not A Regular Attack, Which Would Be Expected By Thugs Or Ruffians,
And Not Zombies,
Which Are Mysterious

And lo, Jonathan, mighty-armed Jonathan, though he was of lean and hungry stature,
Since he hadn't had lunch, or breakfast, or elevensies,
And he had recently seen Julius Caesar, which featured the great speech of Marc Antony,
"I come to decapitate Caesar, not to bury him,
For the evil that men do live after them, especially if they're zombies,
While the decapitated are oft interr'd with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar,"
And yon Cassius had a lean and hungry look,
Though Jonathan just had a lean and hungry stature,
Which you probably have a good idea of by now,
Lo, Jonathan, mighty-armed Jonathan, stepped forth from his shop into the street,
The street of London,
Filled with Londoners,
Both alive and dead alike,
But mostly the alive ones,
In that the dead ones were in the occasional hearse, being taken to the cemetery,
Or the Thames for cheap dumping, depending on the cost of the funeral,
But fortunately, no undead, which meant no zombies,
Since they couldn't cross the Atlantic, as everyone knew,
And as Jonathan and Margaret both knew,
So it was kind of a surprise when a zombie lurched out of the shadows.

Lurched, the zombie did, with shambling, hesitant steps,
Not the Olympic sprinting zombie with which you, dear reader, may be familiar,
Not that the Londoners knew of the Olympics,
Well, they knew of the ancient Olympics, as they were all educated in the classics,
Moliere, Sartre, Blanc,
(They were all dead by then, right?)
But they didn't know of the modern Olympics,
And they certainly had no concept of a sprinting zombie,
But you do, and the point is, this zombie didn't sprint.

It lurched again, coming forward, slowly, steadily, almost off-balance,
Since did you know that a walk, a steady walk, is really nothing more than a controlled fall?
Zombies and humans alike fall forward, and only by virtue of their other foot,
Their glorious other foot,
Do they maintain their balance and proceed in a forward direction,
But the zombies do it a lot slower, since they're the risen dead,
Not to be mistaken with the risen Lord,
And oh boy, were there some theological ramifications of the living dead,
But that's for a later chapter.

So the zombie advanced, and Margaret screamed and clutched Jonathan's arm,
His right arm, his hammer arm,
Which meant he could not swing his hammer,
His soon-to-be zombie slaying hammer,
And he was pretty annoyed at that,
So Jonathan, brave Jonathan, despite the stream of urine running down his pants,
He cast wispy Margaret aside, stood before her, and boldly declared,
"You, sir!" pointing his hammer at the encroaching zombie,
"I demand you make your intentions known!"

The zombie stepped forward again, resolute, determined,
And moaned with vacant eyes,
Dead eyes,
Eyes that couldn't quite focus on Jonathan,
Which reminded him of that last night at the pub,
Which was pretty fun; there was this great girl there, and if you got her drunk,
Well-

Jonathan's reverie was interrupted by another scream,
And his breeding came to the fore,
Eugenics, though he be unaware,
His father's zombie-slaying genes,
And he swung his hammer, his mighty hammer, connecting solidly with the zombie,
The grey-skinned zombie,
Connecting solidly with the zombie's arm,
And he triumphantly shouted, "Ha-HA!"
Yet the zombie advanced,
And his triumphant shout faded,
While Margaret screamed, "The head! Hit the head!"

"Uh, right!" he quickly replied, and swung the hammer again,
Aiming at the zombie's temple,
That is, the temple by his forehead, as opposed to a religious structure,
Since, as discussed before, the zombies had no religion;
It was back up around the Aztecs if you want to check.

The hammer arced through the air, soaring, flying on wings of angels,
Or arms of blacksmiths,
And crunched into the zombie, shattering bone, splintering brain,
And squirting some goo onto Margaret, who, in her typical style,
Screamed again, this time something about incompetence,
How heroes aren't supposed to get zombie goo on the leading ladies,
Even though Margaret wasn't really the leading lady,
Despite her protests.

The zombie collapsed,
The grey-skinned, skull-caved zombie,
And Jonathan exulted in his triumph, for he was now a zombie slayer,
A position of some distinction in society,
For most zombie slayers were adventurers, jacks-of-all-trades,
Men who traveled to the Americas to prove themselves,
To be the first kid on their block with a confirmed kill,
Bold men, brave men,
Men with a fatality rate approaching that of, of,
Of something that dies really fast,
Because these amateur zombie slayers died really fast,
And those who lived, those who slayed zombies and returned to tell the tale,
They were pretty cool, and kids looked up to them,
And men bought them rounds at the pub, but they didn't have triumphal parades,
Which pissed some of them off,
Especially those who recently saw a performance of Julius Caesar,
And had their minds full of glories, of laurel wreaths, of riding in chariots,
Even though the guy whispering, "Remember, thou art mortal," would get old,
It'd still be pretty cool,
But zombie slayers didn't get those, and so, neither did Jonathan.

He still killed his first zombie, his first grey-skinned zombie,
And he was pretty damn proud of himself, and he preened,
Just a little,
Then a little more,
And he strutted around a bit,
In circles around the zombie, the dead zombie,
Well, the dead-again zombie, this time it was really dead,
Since the brain was destroyed, and that was the key part of slaying zombies,
Or you could burn them, but until the brain burned up, you had a zombie torch,
Running around, moaning, setting other things on fire,
And scaring the cat,
So it generally was more preferable to just bash their heads,
Or shoot them,
Or decapitate them,
Or other creative ways, but there you have it,
Jonathan Brewer killed a zombie.

Margaret, goo-splattered Margaret, got to her feet,
Brushed away the bits of zombie, of hammer-smashed zombie,
And looked sternly at Jonathan,
And said, in a firm voice,
"I fully expect you to do better than that when we get to America,"
For, as she was about to say, they were headed to the New World,
"For, you see," she said, "We are headed to the New World,
And I shall pay you well for your aid,
And you shall kill many zombies,
And grow famous,
And write a book,
And live off the proceeds,
But not live well enough for me to consider you as a husband,
So don't get your hopes up."

Jonathan shrugged, and wiped the head of his hammer,
His zombie-smashing hammer,
On the ragged clothes of the zombie at his feet,
The zombie that he had just smashed,
The zombie that probably would have killed itself,
Had it listened to Margaret's verbose verbosity for any length of time;
Jonathan, on the other hand, was used to her, and shrugged it off,
And shrugged a third time;
Departing to the New World would be a big step in his career,
He'd have to close his shop, of course,
He had no apprentice, and he rarely spoke to his siblings,
Or his nephews or nieces, if applicable, of whom he was unaware,
Again, see above.

He stood, hammer in hand, pondering his career options,
Of whether to stay in London and pound things with his hammer,
Or go to the Americas and pound things with his hammer,
But in London, the things he pounded generally didn't try to eat him,
Whereas in America, the things he pounded probably would try to eat him,
And that could be considered a dealbreaker for some people,
Specifically those people who don't like to be eaten,
Not that Jonathan was a big fan of it,
Being eaten and all,
But considering his father, and the pressure put upon himself,
Not only by himself but by society, since you know, people talked,
"Isn't that the son of William Brewer," they'd say, "the famous zombie hunter?
And he's just a blacksmith," they'd tsk behind their hands,
And Jonathan wouldn't be famous, and would die alone and unloved,
Except for the mechanical woman he was building,
But if he went to the Americas, there may be real women there,
And come to think of it, Margaret was a real woman,
But she just told him not to get his hopes up, so he dropped that line of thought,
And went back to thinking about being eaten by zombies,
And how that would suck,
And about smashing zombies with his hammer,
And how that would rock,
And he hummed to himself,
"If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer zombies in the morning,
I'd hammer zombies in the evening,
All over this land,"
And that decided it. He had his theme song, he had his hammer,
He was going to be a zombie hunter.

Book IV - In Which Margaret Explains Herself To Jonathan,
Who Didn't Really Pay Attention, Since He Was Still Happy About Killing A Zombie

Jonathan, Jonathan zombie-slayer, Jonathan the blacksmith,
Jonathan who suddenly wondered if he locked his shop,
Was on a boat, or was it a ship,
He didn't really know, he wasn't a nautical guy,
Even though he made various iron implements for a ship,
Or maybe for boats;
Either way, he was on board and under way,
With Margaret, moneyed Margaret, who spoke with honeyed words,
With words such as, "I'll give you a lot of money,"
And, "You'll be famous,"
And, "Put your pants back on,"
Which was really all because of a misunderstanding, heh, he could explain,
But she didn't want to hear it,
And he put them back on anyway, since she was financing the voyage,
And why rock the boat,
Or maybe ship.

The waves crested, the water roared, the sea dragons stayed hidden,
Thanks to the rock in Jonathan's shoe which he purchased,
Purchased from a traveling salesman,
A salesman of various and sundry goods, and services,
Though Jonathan didn't inquire as to the services,
But one of the goods caught his eye, that of a magic rock,
A rock that would keep away sea dragons;
He was skeptical at first, of course, as all rational men are,
Educated in the classics, he knew his Greek, and his Latin,
And knew that the hoi polloi were persona non grata,
Even though he sometimes mixed his Latin and his Greek,
And even though 'hoi' was the definite article anyway, he didn't need the 'the',
But that goes to show that he wasn't all that smart,
Though he was pretty smart,
So he was skeptical about the rock, and asked for a demonstration,
And the salesman, the traveling salesman, the wandering salesman,
Clad in clothes, like most salesmen, and most men in general,
The salesman said, "Well, do you see any sea dragons about?"
And Jonathan was convinced, so he bought the rock, and put it in his boot,
Figuring that was the best place to keep it,
Since a stone in the boot would keep one awake,
And he figured he needed to stay awake to fight zombies;
This made perfect sense to him.

Margaret stood next to him on the deck,
The swaying, wooden deck, the deck covered with vomitus of seasick sailors,
And seasick blacksmiths, of which there was at least one on board,
Meaning Jonathan, who wasn't feeling all that well,
And the stone in his boot bothered him,
And he still wondered if he locked the door to his shop,
And whether everything would be stolen by the time he got home,
If he got home,
And he dwelled on being eaten by zombies,
Or being captured by zombies and then being eaten,
Or being abandoned and eaten,
And he began to wonder, just what was that zombie doing in London,
And why was he going to the Americas with just a rich woman,
Though he had his hammer, his zombie-slaying hammer,
What the hell was going on?

Margaret stood next to him again, or maybe it was the same time,
Since it's hard to delineate when one stops and starts standing,
If one does nothing but stand,
Which she was doing, while Jonathan pondered,
On the nature of things,
De rerum natura,
Though he had never read Lucretius, but he heard of it,
And he pondered on zombies,
And she stood, which was the important thing,
And said,
"So I guess you're wondering what the hell was going on,
And what that zombie was doing in London,
And such,"
In reply, Jonathan looked at her, raised one eyebrow,
And said,
"Uh, yeah."

This, dear reader, is exposition,
In which I retell what Margaret tells Jonathan at this time,
Distilling it, crystallizing it,
Presenting the crux of the issue,
That being, there were a lot of zombies around,
Which everyone knows, but that's how she started,
Thinking that she'd start slow and build on that,
So she said there were a lot of zombies, and Jonathan nodded,
Since there had been a lot of zombies for well over two hundred years,
And it was pretty obvious.

Margaret explained that she needed a slayer,
A zombie slayer, to slay the zombies,
The grey-skinned zombies, the hordes of the underworld,
The stalkers of the night, the eaters of baby kittens,
And that an army would be much better, but she couldn't afford that,
Not if she wanted to support herself while she looked for a husband,
And a bodyguard would work just as well,
A brave, hammer-wielding bodyguard,
Preferably someone who had already killed a lot of zombies,
But those guys were expensive too,
So she picked Jonathan,
And nodded her head firmly.

"Uh, okay," Jonathan said with his usual determination,
His usual fierceness,
And didn't say what was really on his mind, since he wanted this job,
He didn't say that he was still unsure about why the two of them,
Strong-jawed Jonathan and thin-necked Margaret,
Why the two of them were going to the Americas,
Where there were zombies, a lot of zombies,
And just what she had in mind.

Before Margaret explained, I must explain,
Well, actually, this is well after she explained, but before you hear,
Before you hear her explanation, hear this:
This is written in dactylic hexameter,
Dactyls being a metrical foot of a stressed syllable,
Followed by an unstressed,
And then another,
Like camouflage,
Or holiday,
Or zombieking,
If that were a word,
But the point is, each of these lines is really made up of six feet,
Six metrical feet,
Each foot being a dactyl,
And if it doesn't look like that to you, blame the translator,
Who may have taken some liberties with the original text,
Sort of like Fitzgerald versus Dryden, in their translations of the Aeneid,
Fitzgerald, the looser, Dryden, the shoehorned heroic verse,
Dryden, who forced an English rhyme into every couplet,
Because the Latin prose rhymed,
Fortunately, this doesn't, so I'd be surprised if the translation,
The translation which you are reading, the translation before your eyes,
If this very translation is made up of rhyming couplets,
Though it wouldn't surprise me if the dactyls are long gone,
La da da, like that.

So Margaret, moneyed Margaret, misty-minded Margaret,
Margaret of the coarse corset, and the blonde liver,
She started talking about that zombie in London,
Which got Jonathan's attention, since, as he well knew,
There aren't any zombies in London,
Especially since there are laws against them,
Such as the laws prohibiting zombies from gathering in public places,
Or operating printing presses,
And so the zombie attack was a big surprise,
So Jonathan listened, and Margaret explained,
And said that she thought someone was trying to kill her,
Possibly by using a zombie,
Which on the surface seemed overly complex, since even this London,
This counterfactual London,
Still had thugs willing to kill for money, and to use a zombie for this,
A grey-skinned zombie,
Didn't make much sense.

Jonathan took this in, strong-toothed Jonathan, holding his hammer,
Briefly thinking about cutting a notch in the handle for each zombie,
Then discarding that idea, as he planned to kill a lot of zombies,
And a notch for each would destroy the handle,
The aged wood handle,
And leave him nothing but the head of the hammer,
Which wouldn't be that useful, heavy though it may be,
Since the handle is equally important when it comes to bashing zombies,
And to Zeus, mighty Zeus, who was still watching and waiting,
He thought that Jonathan made a good choice,
For Zeus knew that Jonathan was to slay many zombies,
Those zombies of the Americas,
And he'd need that hammer.

Hefting his hammer, he hmmed halliteratively,
Thought about the use of zombies as assassins,
Evaluating the difficulty of importing one from overseas,
And setting it loose in the streets of London,
The twisty little streets, all alike,
And about the problems of controlling a zombie,
Since they can't be controlled,
Or can they?

Margaret continued her explanation,
Her exposition, her telling of her tale,
And she began to drift into a few tangents,
Talking about her family, her brother,
Her father, and how he was an honorable businessman,
Never would do anything corrupt,
The only things under the table would be his legs,
And his feet, unless he propped them up on a chair,
And the rumors she heard about shady deals of his,
Why, those must have been started by a jilted associate,
Or someone who got the raw end of a deal,
A fair deal, she insisted, considering her father,
But all of those rumors,
And there were a lot of them,
Were just damned dirty lies.

But, well, she continued to explain,
And remember, this isn't verbatim,
She said that maybe there was a little truth to that,
That possibly, just possibly, her father had maybe bent a rule,
Just a little, or something equally minor,
That was just blown out of proportion, that's all it was,
Just a misunderstanding,
Yet Jonathan read between the lines,
Even though she was speaking, and not writing,
And began to deduce that maybe there was a problem with her father,
Her deceased father, who was wealthy, remember,
And maybe that problem carried over to her,
Which might explain that zombie in London;
Actually, it would explain an attempt on her life,
But it still wouldn't explain a zombie,
And he was involved, too, since he killed that zombie,
Which still gave him no small measure of pride,
But whoever sent that zombie, assuming someone did,
Would be pretty annoyed that he bashed its head in,
So he shuffled his feet and hid his hammer behind his back,
Just in case.

The ship sailed, the wind blew, the sails snapped in the breeze,
And Jonathan realized that maybe Margaret wasn't telling him everything,
That maybe there was something more to this than just killing zombies,
But considering that was all he was hired to do,
He was okay with it, and looked at Margaret,
Morose Margaret, who, don't forget, was a Londoner,
And a European,
With all the attributes apportioned thereunto,
So he said, "Uh, so, about the zombies,"
And was pretty proud about the skillful segue,
Even though it was pretty awkward.

"The zombies," she repeated, staring into the sea,
"The zombies, my father, business deals, sweet Lord, Jonathan,"
She continued,
"Jonathan, zombie-slaying Jonathan, I can't tell you everything,
For what if the zombies captured you,
With their clawing hands, and their fetid breath,
And made you talk? What then?" she asked,
Implying that he may crack under torture.

Indignantly he denied that, saying, "No!" and "Of course not!"
Also "Poppycock!" and then he giggled because he said cock,
And completely ignored the absurdity of zombies capturing someone,
Instead of eating them,
As zombies tend to do, quickly and ravenously
And he fell for her diversion, hook, line, and sinker,
Which gave her reason to grin, and keep all of the details to herself.

And time passed, and Margaret and Jonathan stood next to each other,
In the manner of two things that are near one another,
Like bookends on a bookcase, with no books between them,
But a little closer than that,
And she thought about her father, and what he had really done,
And since we're in her mind right now, we get to find out,
But remember, Jonathan is still blissfully unaware,
And blissful he is,
Dear, sweet Jonathan,
Playing with his hammer,
And humming his theme song,
While Margaret thought about her father,
And his involvement in a Haitian voodoo cult,
His funding of it, with his vast riches,
Riches that Margaret has inherited, and invested,
Riches on which she relies until she finds a husband,
But back to her father -- her father's riches,
The falling out he had with the founders of the cult,
His mysterious disappearance,
And then the zombie that attacked her and Jonathan in London;
It all started to come together.

Maybe, Margaret had thought, maybe in America, she can find an answer,
A good answer, too, one that will satisfy her,
Once that will put to rest all of the questions about her father,
About the Haitian voodoo cult,
About zombies, especially about zombies in London,
And about Jonathan, humming his theme song;
She watched the waves, and the clouds, and wondered just what the hell she was doing.

Book V - A Flashback, In Which Your Narrator Recounts The Events Of Margaret's Father,
His Business Dealings, His Coworkers, His Investments,
And The Haitian Voodoo Cult,
Can't Forget That

In this chapter, dear audience,
Audience of mine, audience reading this,
Or hearing this, if it's recited,
Or being subjected to this work in another format or medium,
Dear audience, this chapter will explain the history of Margaret Wells,
And her father, Herbert,
And what happened to him, and what happened to her,
And how the zombies got involved.

Herbert, honorable Herbert, was a merchant,
A man of business,
A man about town,
The town being London, and sometimes Paris, too,
And occasionally the few towns in the Caribbean,
On those islands that were cleared of zombies, those small islands,
The islands that would be great resort destinations,
If only there weren't zombies in the hemisphere;
He was a pretty rich guy.

He had a business, Herbert did,
A business involving importing goods,
And exporting goods,
And moving goods from one place to another,
Buying low, selling high,
Moving certain goods that may have happened to be legal in one place,
And illegal in another place,
But that was just on the side, really,
And he was a legitimate businessman;
After all, everyone with an import/export business is.
Couldn't be a front, no.

Herbert grew wealthy,
Wealthy like a businessman who has shady dealings,
Who smuggles things out of sight, out of mind,
Things like crown jewels,
Or criminals,
Or zombies,
Well, we'll get into that in a moment,
But he'd smuggle what it took to earn more cash,
Though he wouldn't tell his family, no,
They considered him a very honorable man,
A man above reproach,
A man who would never smuggle a zombie,
A grey-skinned zombie,
Telling themselves that their father played with puppies,
And fed ducks.

His business was innocent at first,
His ships carried legitimate cargo,
Really legitimate, that is, not "legitimate",
Like "legitimate business" above,
He was honest and carefree, and his soul soared,
On wings of eagles, on arms of blacksmiths,
He was wealthy, but not that wealthy,
And when someone asked him to smuggle this one tiny thing for him,
Just that once,
He began to have second thoughts about being honest,
And to have third and fourth thoughts about getting really rich,
Stinking filthy rich.

So Herbert smuggled one tiny thing, just that once,
And got paid pretty well for it, too,
Paid like people get paid for doing little things for criminal organizations,
Who try to hook people early, and then blackmail them into doing other things,
Which is pretty much what happened to Herbert;
He smuggled this, he smuggled that,
He smuggled a knick and a knack and a paddy whack,
But after smuggling a crate of stolen shillelaghs to Ireland,
His conscience began to nag at him,
Considering he was newly married, and had some children,
A son and a daughter,
And the astute observer will deduce that the daughter is Margaret,
Whom we have already met.

With a nagging conscience, Herbert told the criminal organization he was done,
He didn't want to smuggle any more,
He was done, he was out, he was going straight,
But that didn't really work out,
As can be expected,
And the mob made him a deal he couldn't refuse,
That being,
Keep working for them,
Or they'd kill him and his family,
And after he thought that over, he realized that there was a good side to the deal,
And a bad side,
The good side being, if he kept working for them, he'd stay alive,
And the bad side being, if he stopped working, he'd die,
Which would suck,
Considering he had no plans for death,
And had plans to go bowling the following weekend.

Thus Herbert didn't clear his name,
As he had intended,
Since clearing his name would broaden his horizons,
Allow him to do things,
Things like, not being hanged,
And not being jailed,
So those things had to go on the back burner,
On the to-do list,
And he kept himself busy with other matters,
Matters like smuggling contraband,
Moving things in and out of London,
And praying his family would never find out.

He laundered his money, cleaning it,
That is, by routing it through various other businesses,
Amending the books, playing with accounting,
And not actually physically washing the money,
As the joke is often made,
And this money was willed to his children, and given to them as gifts,
Dodging inheritance taxes, and setting them up for life,
Everybody wins, he thought,
Well, except him, if he's caught,
And his family, by extension; their money would be forfeit too,
So maybe once administration steps in, nobody wins,
And the whole smuggling thing may have been a bad call,
But that became moot,
Since some people became dead.

The dead people were alive first,
In that they were people, and not zombies,
Since it was still linguistically unclear whether zombies were alive,
And whether you could kill them,
Or if they were already dead,
And you just ... killed them again,
But the point, here, is that real people died,
And the criminal organization got a little antsy,
Worried, too, concerned that the authorities would catch onto them,
Considering that some of the dead people were found in the streets of London,
Which tends to draw attention,
Even in the London of that day.

The mob worried, and anguished, and angsted,
But not the typical teenage angst, with the white facepaint and the bad poetry,
"I am Azrael Lord of the Underworld,
My pain is eternal, and unappreciated,
I suffer in blackness,
I, too, cry,"
Not that angst, but the angst of the criminal,
Concerned that he may be caught,
May be punished,
May no longer have the disposable income for hookers and opium.

Herbert got a little nervous, too,
Given that the criminal organization was nervous,
And when momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy,
So he began looking even more for an out, for a way to get free of this,
And his gaze,
His figurative gaze, he wasn't literally looking at this at the time,
His gaze fell upon a group of worshippers in the New World,
A small religion, but growing,
A religion that offered salvation,
Not salvation of the soul, but salvation for his dilemma,
A religion that preached the purpose of a man is to love a woman,
And the purpose of a woman is to love a man,
And the purpose of a zombie is to eat brains,
It was a Haitian voodoo cult.

It started long ago, in the island of Hispaniola,
Where a priest turned to a priestess,
And said,
"Come on, baby, let's start to make,
Come on baby, let's make some zombies, oh yeah, oh yeah,
Make some zombies with all your might, yeah, yeah,"
Or something to that extent.

In Herbert's eyes, in his still-living eyes, in his non-zombie eyes,
He considered his options,
Those being, one, stay with the mob, which was getting unpredictable,
More so than it already was, since they were the mob and all,
Or two, the enemy of his enemy is his friend,
And to try to get in good with the cult,
And use them for protection,
Or manipulate them against the mob,
Or something, damnit, he was thinking on his feet here,
But one way or another, he was going to come out of this smelling like roses,
Like fresh, sweet-smelling roses, not the roses that stink,
Since a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet,
I guess he'd come out of this smelling like roses anyway,
That is, assuming his determination was enough,
And he sure hoped it was.

The Haitian voodoo cult was small at the time, but growing,
Gaining in worshippers, not just in zombies,
And the key part about this cult is that their religion incorporated zombies,
The zombies of the Americas,
It was probably a theological offshoot of premature Rapture theology,
And some itinerant preacher claiming that the end times had come,
That the dead would rise from the graves and ascend to heaven,
And that the trials and tribulations foretold,
Foretold in the Revelations of St John the Divine,
That the pain and anguish was here,
And the zombies walking the earth were an indication of this,
And some people bought it, since, well, it made some amount of sense,
And the cult grew.

What people didn't know, though,
Actually, some people knew, these were the people in the upper echelons of the cult,
Since they tend to know what's going on in cults, and so on,
What people didn't know, except for the people who knew,
Was that the cult had spent a great deal of time investigating zombies,
And researching them,
Determining just what it was that caused zombies to rise from the grave,
Or from the closet,
And though they had no concept of germ theory,
What with their poor optical equipment,
They could tell that Europeans weren't zombies,
And the natives of America were,
And maybe there was something to this;
They captured natives who were not infected,
And deliberately infected them, turning them into zombies,
Seeing what knowledge a zombie retained,
Learning what knowledge a zombie could learn,
And not much in either case, they determined.

Their zombie labs, their underground zombie labs,
Both underground in the sense of hidden from the public eye,
And physically below sea level,
Their zombie research continued unabated,
And the occasional breakthrough happened,
Such as a native that was immune to the zombie plague, despite exposure,
Despite repeated exposure, such as having him shake hands with a zombie,
A grey-skinned zombie,
Which didn't shake hands as much as stretch its arms to the native's neck,
And try to eat him,
Which the voodoo cultists strictly prohibited, since the native,
The immune native,
Was pretty unique and they wanted to keep him alive.
This guy's important, remember him, we'll get back to him later.

These cultists, these priests and priestesses,
These Haitian voodoo adherents and aficionados,
They were pretty scientific, by the standards of their day,
In their investigations of the zombie plague,
Investigating the onset of the disease, the duration of infection,
Contagion, death, and rising again, sometimes on the third day,
And in retrospect, they were a damned evil bunch,
What with their deliberate infection of natives,
And their regular creation of zombies,
But from Herbert's perspective,
Since he didn't know too much about the zombie stuff,
He just knew that the mob didn't like the cult,
From his perspective, his rather distant perspective,
They seemed like a good organization to counter the mob,
And he threw in his lot with them.

The voodoo cult, the Haitian zombie cult,
They could use a good English smuggler,
A man with nothing to lose and everything to gain,
Or so he told them; he actually had a lot to lose,
His money, his home, his wife, his children,
Everything the mob threatened to take away from him,
But the cult didn't need to know that, or so he said,
And his lot was thrown in with them.

Herbert, honorable Herbert, well, mostly honorable,
Honorable in his own mind,
Except for the stuff that wasn't, but he didn't dwell on that,
Since there was no point in it,
And, after all, he was rejecting that, turning against it,
Didn't that make him a better person,
Being someone who was tested by evil, who was tempted,
And who ultimately rejected it,
Wasn't that person stronger, more moral, better
Than a person who was never tested at all?
Wasn't rejection of temptation better than lack of temptation?
But then, Herbert thought, isn't temptation by its definition,
It's very definition,
A taint on something otherwise pure,
And that someone who has never been tested, a blissful innocent,
Wouldn't their faith be stronger, Herbert thought?

Herbert dwelled on that, on the philosophical question,
And it stayed in the back of his mind,
But he joined the cultists anyway,
Not telling the mob, of course,
Since they'd do something awful to him, and his family,
Maybe feed them to the sharks,
Or even to the Methodists,
And he worked for the mob,
And for the Haitian voodoo cult,
That cult of zombies,
The mob being blissfully unaware,
And cult using Herbert against the mob,
And Herbert suddenly wondering how he'd get clear of the cult,
Given their supernatural nature,
What with the zombies and all.
Maybe he could triple-cross people.
The Methodists weren't involved yet, after all.

Ultimately, Herbert disappeared,
After all, you, dear reader, shouldn't know all of the backstory,
Else the story would have no hold over you,
And the plight of Jonathan and Margaret would be uninteresting,
That strong-armed blacksmith, that young lad seeking adventure,
The soon-to-be zombie slayer, the son of the zombie slayer,
And that wistful woman, that rich woman, that golddigger,
That woman seeking a husband, but also seeking answers,
Seeking to learn what happened to her father,
And maybe her mother and brother, too, come to think of it,
She always thought they died in a very ordinary manner,
Everyone gets run over by a runaway carriage, that's a very proper way to die,
No questions there, but maybe she should ask questions,
But, dear reader,
Let it be,
Those words of wisdom,
Let it be.

Book VI - In Which Our Devoted Hero And Heroine Reach Haiti,
Which Is Called That Just So Everyone Gets A Good Idea Of Where It Is,
Since In This World It's All Of Hispaniola, Rather Than Just A Third,
And They Wonder About The Haitian Voodoo Cult, Of Which Jonathan
Is Still Unaware

Haiti, noble Haiti, heavily-wooded Haiti,
With the sprouting towns and cities, cleared of zombies,
Now populated with men, and women, and flowing commerce,
Sugarcane, molasses, rum, high technology,
Haiti was the place to be in the Caribbean,
More so than the continent, the zombie-infested continent,
The continent that didn't have sprouting towns and cities,
But rather the occasional heavily-fortified fort,
Fortifying the coast against zombies,
Trying to expand control inland, but failing miserably,
Again, due to the zombies,
But as stated, Haiti, lovely Haiti, had no zombies,
And they liked it that way.

Margaret and Jonathan stood on the deck of the ship again,
Side by side, like before, except this time a little closer together,
Not that you should read anything into that,
Since Jonathan was humming his theme song and playing with his hammer,
While Margaret dreamed of a rich husband,
A husband that was filthy rich,
A husband that could smash zombies like the best of them,
And wouldn't it be great if Jonathan were rich,
As he already had the zombie-smashing aspect down pat,
But since he wasn't, that eliminated him from contention,
So he'd just be a zombie-smashing bodyguard for her,
Which was more than okay in her mind.

Their ship neared Haiti, specifically, it neared a port,
The port of Port-au-Prince, which was settled by the French,
And still controlled by them, as was most of Haiti,
For the British had conquered and cleared zombies from the Antilles,
And Jamaica,
And Puerto Rico,
While the Spanish were working on Cuba,
Those determined Spanish,
Since Cuba was a pretty big place, it was tough to kill all the zombies,
But that didn't stop them from trying.

Port-au-Prince appeared in the distance, coming up over the horizon,
An indication of a rounded world,
But there were still some flat-earthers who denied that,
Who claimed that the world was shaped like a frisbee,
An item unknown to the people of this day,
Yet known to you, O audience,
And that the earth was curved on the surface, but ultimately flat,
But these guys were idiots, and everyone knew it, even back then.

The ship neared, and closed to the quay,
Swaying with the waves,
And the sailors flashed to attention, coiling ropes,
Or pulling them, or tying them,
Generally looking busy,
Doing the things that sailors do when ships come to dock,
Since their minds were occupied, of course,
Occupied by the things that occupy all sailors when they come to port,
Things like hookers,
And blow,
And opium, and alcohol, and tobacco,
But mostly the hookers.
Sailors like their hookers.

The captain of the ship, one Captain Smith,
A very unique name for a very unique man,
As Captain Smith was more than a archetype of a sailing captain,
He not only had the broad-rimmed hat, and the flintlock pistol,
And the rolling gait to his legs acquired from years at sea,
And not from what you'd expect, being a sailor and all,
Look, he just walks that way because of his sea legs,
Not his -- oh, forget it,
He really was just an archetype, completely as you'd expect,
Except not.

He approached Margaret Wells, the rich Londoner,
The woman terrified of zombies, though she deny it,
We all remember how she screamed at the zombie in London,
And her dependence on Jonathan to slay it,
How she was displayed as a helpless figure,
And if someday she started killing zombies,
Wouldn't that be great character development?

The captain approached her, and said,
"Ma'am," or maybe, "Miss," either way, he was deferential,
"We're at Haiti, you see," he continued,
"Port-au-Prince to be precise, and, ma'am,
We'd like to thank you for sailing with us,
And would like to ask you to please keep us in mind for all of your sailing needs,
Such as sailing to other places,
Or even sailing here again, from another place,
Should you end up there," and he took a breath,
For he was a pretty long-winded guy.

Margaret, the wealthy European, who in another time,
Another place,
May have been condemned as a colonist, or an imperialist,
Or an exploiter of the natives,
Using her money to keep the working classes down,
For what did she provide to society, what goods did she create,
What services did she offer,
She was a parasite, a filthy parasite of the upper class,
Draining the blood of the bourgeoisie,
The blood that oiled the machinery of capitalism,
Revolt! and power to the people!
Would be the cry,
But that would be some centuries off,
Since nobody wanted to try to organize the zombies,
What with their grey skin and their hunger for human flesh,
The workers of the world had no intention to unite anytime soon.

Margaret, though, she looked at the captain,
The stereotypical captain,
And thanked him for her service with profuse and flowery speech,
With her verbose verbosity, and her lugubrious language,
And the captain was quite pleased with himself,
For he got to talk to a real live woman,
Which doesn't happen much on board a ship, you have to make do,
Dressing up the first mate and all,
Which sometimes can backfire on you.

Jonathan watched this exchange, humming his theme song,
For he liked it, it had rhythm,
And he suddenly realized, he had music,
He had rhythm,
He didn't have his girl,
But really, who could ask for anything more,
Then he suddenly realized, he certainly could ask for anything more,
Such as no more zombies, since they were kind of scary,
And a lot of money, for he wouldn't mind having a lot of money;
Damnit, he could ask for anything more, and he would ask for more,
And he'd start by asking Margaret for more money,
He deserved a raise, he thought.

Jonathan, blissful Jonathan approached Margaret,
Rehearsing his speech in his mind,
For he wasn't confident in his ability to think on his feet,
He had a tendency to get tongue-tied, and forget what he was trying to say,
So he practiced it, and how he would walk up to her,
And say something about how nice Margaret looked,
To throw her off balance, he learned that from a pamphlet somewhere,
And say how hard he had been working, and how he was performing above expectations,
After all, hadn't he killed a zombie without even dying once,
And he deserves more money, and he'd state a price,
Far over what he would settle for,
Hoping that she would provide a counteroffer, and they could negotiate,
And ultimately, he'd end up with a higher salary than before,
Perfect for hookers and blow.

Jonathan, tongue-tied Jonathan approached Margaret,
And opened his mouth to speak,
In the tendency of men, who open the mouths prior to speaking,
But Margaret turned to face him,
Misty-minded Margaret, who wasn't all there, sometimes,
Except for her single-minded devotion to finding a rich husband,
She was always at her full faculties regarding that,
Margaret, stereotypically blonde Margaret,
Suddenly looked to Jonathan like someone different,
Like there was something there that wasn't there before,
If this were a less serious piece of work, I'd describe the angelic chorus,
The ray of light,
All of that, but since this isn't, Margaret just struck Jonathan in that way,
Not with her fist, but in the other way,
And Jonathan forgot what he was going to say.

"Yes, Jonathan, zombie-slaying Jonathan," Margaret asked,
"Is there something on your mind?" and thinking quickly,
In the way that he doesn't think quickly,
Jonathan replied, "Uh," and changed the subject,
And pointed at the city of Port-au-Prince,
Saying, "So, uh, this is where we are?"
And Margaret, impatient Margaret, sighed, and rolled her eyes,
And said, in a moment of Zen thought, "You are where you are."

Jonathan thought that was pretty cool.

The two of them debarked, and stood on the docks, looking at the city,
The French city, which had four French Quarters,
Being a city divided into four quarters, all of which are French,
And Margaret knew someone here, who used to work with her father,
And thought that'd be a good place to start,
For her father's notes and records at home in London mentioned a colleague,
A French colleague, in the French quarter of the French city,
A colleague named Francis,
Who may be able to further the plot.

Swiftly Margaret strode the streets,
Again, alliteratively,
And with determination Jonathan followed, keeping a tight grip on his hammer,
For he feared what would happen if they encountered a zombie,
Especially if he didn't have his hammer,
His zombie-slaying hammer,
Since he used it to slay zombies, and it follows that he would use it again,
Especially if he's going to slay between one and one thousand zombies;
See above, he'll have the greatness of a mass murderer,
But, come to think of it, perhaps that should be the greatness of a multiple murderer,
Given that a mass murderer kills lots of people in one place,
Like, say, a post office,
And a multiple murderer kills lots of people over time,
Like, say, someone who kills lots of people over time,
And since Jonathan and his zombie-slaying hammer would kill zombies individually,
His fame would be more like the fame of a multiple murderer,
Who takes pride in individual craftsmanship, no assembly lines here,
No mass production, no,
Jonathan, the blacksmith, the craftsman, he put a little bit of himself into his work,
And was not about to cut corners by killing zombies en masse,
But rather would bash them one at a time, thank you very much.

They strode the streets, these two, one with a hammer,
One without,
Jonathan being the one with a hammer, and Margaret without,
Yet Margaret led, for she had a purpose,
Walking like a woman possessed with a purpose,
Because, as stated, she had a purpose,
That purpose being to find her father's colleague Francis,
And ask him, what happened to her father,
And why are zombies attacking her,
And does he know any single guys who are really rich?
That last question was the most important one, of course,
Yet she wouldn't forget to ask the other two,
Being the dutiful daughter she was,
And also, being terrified of being eaten by zombies.

Through the streets they strode, side by side,
Closing in on Francis' place of business,
Which Margaret knew, thanks to asking a man in the street,
Who may have been intimidated by Jonathan and his hammer,
Though I have trouble imagining how intimidating he could be,
Especially if he's humming his theme song.
Regardless, they got directions to Francis' office,
And off they went, despite the fact that Jonathan,
Sweet Jonathan,
Was distracted by the French Quarter,
But most especially those ladies on the balconies with their beads;
He was kind of interested by that.

Shortly after, they arrived, standing outside his door,
His tall, wooden door, framed by a doorframe,
As doors tend to be, especially in the French Quarter,
And also in the other three French Quarters,
And above the door was a sign hanging out into the street,
Reading, "Francis S. Quire, Esq."
Margaret read the sign in her head, being the literate woman she is,
While Jonathan pretended not to notice her moving her lips.

Through the door they entered, quite swiftly, and also with purpose,
And the old triangle, it went jingle jangle,
Since Francis used it as a door chime, it was a pretty economical choice,
Much better than buying a new doorbell, what with the expense,
And the packaging, so wasteful, who needs all of it,
So he re-used a triangle from his schooldays, when he was in the band,
He played a mean triangle, Francis did,
With the ring and the ding and the nonny nonny hey,
And with a theme song in his head, Jonathan entered,
Followed by Margaret, who did not have a hammer.

Francis, the accountant, the businessman, the esquire,
Coincidentally named Francis S. Quire, heh, that's pretty good,
He sat behind his desk, which was in a side room,
Not the room that Jonathan and Margaret entered, but adjacent to it,
And behind him was a window, which was open,
Ominously open, as we shall soon see,
Or read, or hear, depending,
But Francis was an elderly man, aged in years,
Aged like a fine wine, or a cheese,
If we assume the wine or cheese has worked in accounting for decades,
In which case he's precisely like a wine or cheese.

Jonathan looked about, and was decidedly not at home,
As his collar was blue, not white,
Though it actually was a sort of dingy grey, to be honest and literal,
But he worked with his hands,
Though Francis technically worked with his hands, too, with quill and ink,
For some reason Jonathan's hand-working was considered to be somewhat lesser,
And the rage began to build in him, for he was an artist,
Hammering iron into shape,
And what did this parasite do, other than extract wealth from the sweat of his brow,
And the brow of other workers,
Damn it, this wasn't right, Jonathan thought, this wasn't fair,
But what could he do about it, since, after all, smashing Francis with a hammer,
A heavy, zombie-slaying hammer,
Would be counterproductive, as Jonathan would be caught, and jailed,
And could bash no more heads;
This would take some more thought.

Margaret stepped forth, and began speaking with Francis,
Jonathan paid little attention to this, for he was still fomenting revolution;
Margaret inquired as to Francis' health, how he was, how were the kids,
And to each Francis replied that he was healthy, he was doing well,
And there were no kids, she must be mistaken,
Much to her embarrassment,
But Margaret, swift-footed and swift-witted Margaret, she recovered quickly,
Changing the subject to her father, Herbert Wells,
And his mysterious disappearance, which to her was mysterious,
But perhaps to Francis was not mysterious,
And thus she asked, hoping for information,
Information of the sort that would clear up the mystery regarding her father.

This came as a bit of a surprise to Francis,
Given that he didn't know that Herbert was dead;
Rather, he thought Herbert had retired to the South Seas,
Quite odd, Francis thought, and he explained to Margaret,
Wistful Margaret, orphaned Margaret,
He explained that some years ago, Herbert had requested that Francis,
Tax-avoiding Francis,
He had requested that Francis sell his investments,
And transfer the funds to a certain Haitian religious group,
It all took place on this date, he said, and presented a piece of paper,
Containing the very order Francis spoke of, and signed by Herbert himself,
And Margaret was quite bewildered.

Her confusion lasted mere moments, however,
For though she be confused and misty-minded, she was also swift-witted sometimes,
As observed before,
And that date was months after her father's disappearance, and ostensible death,
And it seemed quite curious that he would sell his worldly goods,
(That is, except for the goods that he had already sold and transferred to her),
Even more curious that the funds would be transferred to a Haitian religious group,
For while it may be a faith-based charity, her zombie senses started tingling,
And she suspected that perhaps this transaction may not be wholly legal,
Possibly even quite illegal.

She asked, both quickly and swift-wittedly, of Francis where this letter came,
Thinking that she could trace it back, and uncover the mystery of her father,
And possibly even her mother and brother,
Unless, of course, that runaway carriage was just a horrible accident,
Which happened in London in those days,
But she could get that much-ballyhooed closure,
Come to peace with her missing father,
And maybe, just maybe, get a lot of money in the process,
Or maybe even a rich husband,
She kept her eyes open, you see.

This question is one that Francis likely could have answered quickly,
With few words, such as a name; a name would be very useful,
For Margaret could then ask that person where he or she got the letter,
And ultimately get to the source,
But unfortunately for her, and for Francis, he was unable to answer quickly,
For a zombie fell through the window behind him,
The ominous and foreboding window mentioned earlier,
And with a dull moan, the zombie clutched at Francis' head,
And his throat, and his face,
Really, any part of him that it could reach,
And rather than courteously answering Margaret's question,
Which she really would have liked to have had answered,
Francis instead screamed, and fought against the zombie,
Which moaned in response.

Margaret screamed, again something about incompetence,
Jarring Jonathan out of his reverie,
He was daydreaming, you see, imagining a world full of zombies,
All lining up to be smashed in the head,
And he was doing the smashing,
It was a good dream, and he wished it could come true;
Fortunately, Margaret's shouting got his attention,
And he saw the zombie in front of him,
The grey-skinned zombie,
The zombie trying to eat Francis,
And he realized that he had a chance to kill another zombie,
Which would give him a career total of two.

Jonathan leaped into action,
In the fashion of a heroic figure leaping into action,
And he brandished his hammer, and pointed it at the zombie,
Summoning up his courage, he shouted,
"You, sir!" and to his chagrin Francis turned his head,
Thinking he was being addressed,
And the zombie didn't turn his head,
Being a zombie and all,
But rather kept attacking Francis,
Poor, distracted Francis,
Who started to get mauled and eaten,
Which led to another scream about incompetence from Margaret.

Jonathan leaped into action again,
This time, actually leaping into the fray,
Swinging his hammer willy-nilly,
Back and forth,
Up and down,
All over this land,
Raining blows on the zombie,
And the occasional one on Francis, which was unintended,
And quite accidental, he was very apologetic after the fact,
But the fact remains, he was bashing the zombie quite feverishly,
And he done bashed it good.

With one strong blow, one strong blacksmithed-armed blow, the hammer came down,
Down onto the head of the zombie, the grey-skinned zombie,
The zombie that was trying to eat Francis,
The accountant, the colleague of Herbert,
The man with the information that Margaret wanted,
That was the man who was being eaten by the zombie,
And that was the zombie that was being bashed by Jonathan,
Bashed done good, it was, and the hammer came squarely down on the zombie's head,
Squishing it, like one would squish a watermelon with a large hammer,
Yet Jonathan, unlike those who would squish a watermelon with a large hammer,
Did not warn the first ten rows of the audience that they will get wet,
And Francis, and to a lesser extent Margaret, did get wet,
Which is an unfortunate side effect of bashing zombies in the head,
For their heads tend to squish when hit with hammers,
And squished heads tend to make a mess.

Jonathan stood triumphantly, holding his hammer high above his head,
As a ray of light came in through the window and framed him,
O conquering hero,
O zombie-slayer, man with a plan, and with a hammer,
A hammer that has now slain two zombies,
And soon to slay many more,
Jonathan was quite proud, and thought of strutting around in a circle,
Like the last time he killed a zombie,
For a celebration dance in the endzone would be something to speak of,
And would be a hallmark of his successful zombie slayings,
And people would say that he's fired up, he's in the game,
He's really motivated today,
But since he was standing behind a desk, in a very small area,
And there was a dead zombie at his feet,
And Francis, too,
There wasn't that much room for him to dance,
So instead he shook his hips a little, and waved his hammer in a circle,
Thinking that maybe he'd come up with a different dance,
A new dance for each zombie,
And that'd be pretty cool.

Margaret was less than appreciative of his dancing prowess,
As indicated by her first post-battle comment, that of,
"You dancing fool!"
And she pointed at the ground, not at the zombie,
But at the body beneath the zombie,
The body of Francis,
The dead body,
Of dead Francis,
Who died during the battle,
And suddenly Jonathan felt a little guilty,
For maybe he was a little too careless with his hammer,
The zombie-smashing hammer,
Which may have inadvertently become an accounting-slaying hammer,
Yet this concern was unfounded, for a quick investigation,
An investigation of the dead accountant's body, that is,
Not of the dead zombie's body,
The investigation revealed that the accountant had been quite severely mauled,
Which led Jonathan to believe the zombie was responsible,
As the hammer does not generally leave tooth and claw marks,
And the zombie, upon further review,
Was red in tooth and claw,
Most likely as a result of eating an accountant.

Margaret's comments continued, and ranged from,
"You moronic imbecile," to "Your cockamamie plans,"
And then she giggled because she said cock,
And Jonathan laughed a little too,
But they both settled down pretty quickly, since they were adults,
But mostly because there was a dead zombie at their feet,
And a dead man, too,
And it was again pretty strange how a zombie in a town free of zombies,
On an island free of zombies,
How that zombie attacked them,
Or more accurately, attacked the man who could help them,
Almost as if someone were trying to impede their progress,
Which was just silly, after all, for who could control zombies?

"We need to work quickly," Margaret said, now that she had settled down,
And Jonathan agreed, though he know not what he agreed to,
So he stood there, hammer in hand, looking imposing,
And somewhat threatening,
And hoped that another zombie would come in that window, for if it did,
He would bash it again, for he was ready,
He'd defend himself, and Margaret by extension,
Though she wasn't defending herself against zombies,
Or even defending Jonathan,
But rather rifling through stacks of papers,
And flipping through books,
And digging through drawers,
Looking for a ledger, a record, anything that could be of use,
Hoping against hope that she'd find some sort of mechanical tool,
A tool that would let her speak with the dead,
So she could ask Francis' corpse where that order originated,
But, failing that, she could ask Jonathan to quickly smith one,
Though she changed her mind on that quickly once she saw him,
Jonathan, zombie-slaying Jonathan,
Once she saw him wiggling his hips again and practicing another dance,
So she abandoned that train of thought entirely,
And just started looking through the papers.

Margaret found something, something useful, that may help her in her quest,
That is, she found Francis' log of daily activities,
For being an accountant, he was pretty meticulous about things such as that,
Not only did he log every transaction, but also the minutiae of daily life,
Including what he ate, and his bowel movements,
Which was kind of gross, but she read it anyway,
Hoping there would be something in there about her father,
Not in the bowel movements, but in the rest of the log,
And there was, O benevolent deity, there was!, and she exulted,
Given that she could now advance the plot,
Thanks to the note, the small note in the corner,
Which said that a man named Samuel Watson,
A military man, a man of means, and a man of muskets,
Had hand-delivered a note from her father,
On the day that Francis said he received that note,
And to her, it seemed that these were related,
And that this Samuel Watson, who delivered the note,
Possibly received it from her father,
Or received it from a man who received it from her father,
Or some derivation of that,
And that this was her lead, and she could investigate,
And maybe even resolve the zombie plot at the same time.

"To America!" she cried, for the log indicated that Samuel Watson,
The delivery boy, though he be a man,
Arrived from Fort Macquarie on the Atlantic coast,
Roughly around where modern-day Virginia is,
Though it wasn't called Virginia at the time,
And wait, what's this?
What's more, she flipped through the log a little further,
And found some suspicious things;
Glancing at Jonathan, who was still gyrating, she felt safe enough to research,
Despite the rapidly-cooling bodies of the zombie and of Francis,
And she began reading a little more in the log,
In the record of all of Francis' transactions,
Which may not have been a good idea for him to keep, since it had everything,
And I mean everything,
Including all of the illegal smuggling that he and Herbert had been doing,
Smuggling goods, smuggling services,
Smuggling hookers and blow,
Or opium, too,
And where they stored all of their goods,
Including in the storeroom at Fort Macquarie,
Which seemed somewhat intriguing.

Jonathan kept dancing, being the dancing fool he was,
Happy that he had killed a zombie, though a little sad he didn't save Francis,
And was a bit surprised when Margaret grabbed him by the arm,
His muscled, zombie-slaying, blacksmith arm,
And pulled him out the door, and down the street, saying,
"Jonathan, we have to go to America,"
And, "Jonathan, we have to get away from that crime scene,"
And, "Jonathan, keep your pants on,"
Which wasn't his fault, but his belt was loose, and it was slipping,
And his pants tended to fall down,
So he held them up with one hand,
And his hammer in the other,
His zombie-slaying hammer, which had slain two zombies,
Which was more than he had slain in his entire life,
So he was really on a roll,
Though he looked somewhat foolish stumbling through the streets,
The streets of Port-au-Prince,
Holding up his pants with his hand.

Margaret led them back to the docks,
Back to the ship which had carried them across the Atlantic,
And up the ramp, back onto the deck,
Which surprised the captain, who was still there,
Doing captainy things,
Unlike the sailors, who had abandoned the ship for the taverns,
To do sailory things,
And he greeted them warmly, asking if he could assist,
And Margaret, mildly-determined Margaret,
She politely requested that he raise anchor and sail to America,
The continent of zombies,
Of millions of zombies,
Of so many zombies they were uncountable,
Like grains of sand on the beach,
Or drops of water in the ocean,
Or zombies in America,
For that was a phrase used in the day to describe something uncountable,
And the captain,
Well,
He wasn't too pleased with the idea,
Since he was used to being alive,
And had gotten to like it,
Being alive,
And going to a continent full of zombies,
Of millions of grey-skinned, flesh-hungering zombies,
Was probably not conducive to continued life,
Which he said, in so many words,
Much to Margaret's dismay.

She tried another tactic, and rather than politely requesting,
She breezily bribed, and said that he would be rich,
Because she was rich, and had money to spare,
Which wasn't really all that accurate, while yes, she did have a lot of money,
She had budgeted it quite well for the next several years,
Given that she had no income and needed to maintain her way of life,
At least until she married someone filthy rich,
But she had the money, and maybe could give some of it to the captain,
And just tighten the corset for a few months, live a little more modestly,
But then, she thought that she'd rather die than go without her soy mocha latte,
And changed her mind, telling the captain that no,
She wouldn't bribe him,
But would pay him a fair rate,
And that Jonathan, zombie-slaying Jonathan,
Who had just slain another zombie, so he was on a hot streak,
He would defend the captain from zombies,
The kind of zombies that would eat the captain,
Who looked at Jonathan, and snickered a little,
Since Jonathan was again swinging his hips,
While holding his pants up with one hand,
And realized he could use a good laugh; his sailors weren't all that funny,
So he agreed,
He would take Margaret and Jonathan to Fort Macquarie,
Which wouldn't be all that dangerous to him, really,
Considering it was a fort full of soldiers,
A fort that had its own dock, a well-defended dock, no less,
So there was no danger to him or his ship,
And Jonathan, blissful Jonathan, dear, sweet Jonathan,
It has to be admitted that he was pretty funny to watch.

Lo, the captain agreed, and the bo'sun rounded up the sailors,
And the ship departed,
Departed the French Quarter, departed Port-au-Prince, departed Haiti,
And set sail for America, the land of zombies,
And far above, in the clouds,
Zeus looked down,
And snickered.

Book VII - In Which Jonathan And Margaret Arrive In America,
And Learn More About Her Father,
And A Little About The Cult,
And Get Attacked By Some Thousand Zombies,
More Than Jonathan Could Ever Defeat Alone,
Stay Tuned

The ship, and yes, it was a ship, not a boat,
The ship crossed the Caribbean, and sailed up the coast,
Up the peninsula of Florida, and past Georgia, and the Carolinas,
Even though they weren't called that,
And occasionally the lookout in the mast above would shout out,
"Zombies landward!"
Or a variant of that,
And people would crowd the railing, and point, and shout,
For there would be zombies landward, as indicated by the lookout,
Roaming the shores, moaning unintelligibly,
Most likely hungering for human flesh,
Which was a deduction from afar, as no one wanted to get close enough to find out,
Not even Jonathan, with his hammer,
Since ten thousand to one odds were pretty daunting.

Fort Macquarie, the isolated British outpost, lay on the coast,
Overlooking a small inlet with its own Plutonian shore,
The land had been cleared beyond the fort, nearly five hundred yards worth,
Before the rolling hills were covered by the trees,
Tall, silent sentinels, hiding the zombie menace,
The soldiers didn't like the trees much, which is why they cleared the land,
Which by now, was pockmarked with craters from the mortars and cannon in the fort,
All pointed inland, none towards the sea,
As they had no real concern that another European power would attack,
Since if they wanted to get killed by zombies themselves,
There was a lot of available land elsewhere.

The fort, with its wooden stockade, its towers, and its gate,
Was used as training grounds for anti-zombie military units,
Given that the zombies tended to attack periodically,
Drawn by the smell of human flesh,
The rich buttery taste,
And the soldiers, with musket and cannon,
Would stand on the wall and shoot the zombies,
Which, being zombies, tended to advance in a predictable way,
And those soldiers blew up a lot of zombies.

Now, gentle reader, you may think that these forts and muskets,
These weapons of iron and wood,
Would eventually depopulate the Americas of the zombie threat,
But they could only kill zombies so fast,
And the zombies kept making more zombies,
What with the infectious zombie plague and all,
So the concept of killing all the zombies was kind of a long-term plan,
Like something with compound interest,
Versus quarterly dividends;
Just like that.

Rosy-fingered Dawn brought another day, pink, hale and hearty,
Like a newborn babe, squalling as it is brought into this world,
Screaming, with that ear-piercing shriek,
The kind that wakes parents, and keeps them up all night,
Slowly driving them insane from lack of sleep,
And frustration, that ever-building frustration,
Until they finally snap, and throw a beer bottle at the referee,
Remember when daddy did that, sweetie? Remember?
But I digress.
Rosy-fingered Dawn brought another day, and their ship neared the fort.

Jonathan turned to Margaret, and with characteristic wit, said,
"Uh, what are we doing here, again?"
Margaret, ever-patient Margaret, except for her dealings with Jonathan,
Rolled her eyes skyward, as in supplication,
Begging mighty Zeus, or Jesus, really, whoever would answer,
Wishing for just a brief moment of intelligent conversation,
Or a rich husband,
And she replied, "Jonathan, bemused Jonathan,
I am here to find Samuel Watson,
And determine what he knows about my father, and about Francis,
Who is now dead, no thanks to you," she said with a pointed glare,
"And for you to kill more zombies, for that is why you are here,
And that is why I pay you, so don't lose that hammer," and she looked away,
Gazing at the fort, ever-growing in the distance,
Much in the same way she gazed at Port-de-Paix,
Which was a couple years ago -- she gazed at Port-au-Prince in a much different way.

The ship neared the dock, in the cove overlooked by the fort,
And the captain, the bowlegged captain, turned to Margaret and Jonathan,
Thanking them for their company, and praising Jonathan's wit,
Saying he should go into stand-up, or improv,
Which confused Jonathan, since he had no idea of what was going on,
And he was still looking for a belt, as holding up one's pants gets tiresome.
Closer to the dock the ship neared,
And docked, in the manner that ships dock with docks,
And Margaret and Jonathan debarked again, finding themselves on the continent,
The zombie continent,
And as this was Jonathan's first trip to America,
He thought it would be pretty funny to stick his hammer in the ground,
And say, "I claim this land for the Queen of England!"
So he did it, but no one else laughed, because it wasn't really that funny.

They were greeted at the dock by a number of soldiers, which was to be expected,
As the garrison was concerned about zombie invasion,
Even by ship, for though the zombies had no naval technology,
One can never be too sure when it comes to zombies,
Sneaky grey-skinned zombies,
Who would take any advantage they could find, if it meant they could eat,
Devouring hapless humans, cracking the bones, eating the marrow,
Those untrustworthy zombies would stab you in the back if they could
Or so the garrison thought,
They were kind of biased against zombies.

Margaret introduced herself, and introduced Jonathan as her bodyguard,
Casually pointing out that he had slain a few zombies in hand-to-hand combat,
And that he was a professional zombie-slayer,
Which gave Jonathan no small amount of pride, overhearing this,
Since it finally occured to him that since he was being paid,
And he was killing zombies,
And he was being paid to kill zombies,
That made him a professional zombie-slayer,
And made him feel all growed up. He was a big boy now.

She continued the introductions, explaining that she was here to meet with Samuel Watson,
The soldier, the messenger, the associate of Herbert Wells and Francis S. Quire,
And that she wouldn't mind meeting the commander of the outpost,
Given that she was a rich woman, albeit a civilian,
And wouldn't he appreciate the company,
Plus, he could meet a bona fide professional zombie-slayer,
And maybe get some tips for his troops,
Or so she said.

The lieutenant at the docks,
Or leftenant, actually, given that this was an British outpost,
Though they often look the same, there is a technical difference
That being, one is spelled l-i-e-u-t-e-n-a-n-t,
And the other, l-e-f-t-e-n-a-n-t,
Which is the more accurate one in this case,
As the officer at the docks was a leftenant,
And he agreed that the commandant would likely be delighted to dine with her,
And that the soldiers would be delighted to speak with Jonathan,
Provided he kept his pants on, and didn't dance too much,
And that he'd find Samuel Watson for her, right quickly, too.

Our two heroes thought this a reasonable deal, and they followed their escort,
Into the protection of the fort they went, two by two,
For Biblical allusion if nothing else,
Jonathan and Margaret side by side again, as they had been on the ship,
More than once, no less,
In fact, they had been side by side quite often in their adventures so far,
Going back to when they departed Jonathan's shop in London,
Which suddenly came to the forefront of his mind again,
Had he locked his shop?

He pondered that as he followed the soldiers,
Brave, red-coated soldiers,
Soldiers in training to defeat the zombie menace,
Soldiers of the 60th Royal Regiment,
Those who dreamed of someday being part of the famed Black Watch,
The 42nd Royal Highland Regiment of Foot,
Which earned its nickname not through a black tartan,
But through the emblem of the rotting zombie featured on its standard,
Earned from decades of fighting the zombie horde,
Such as its noble defense of the civilian withdrawal at St. Augustine in 1724,
Or its bold recapture of the zombie-infested town of Kingston in 1688,
Or its famed reinforcement of the embattled Fort Macquarie in 1756,
And lest you think that I just foreshadowed an attack on the fort,
An attack while Jonathan and Margaret were present,
Keep in mind it's only 1750,
So the Black Watch certainly did not come to the rescue here.
Not that I'm hinting at anything.

The escorts guided Jonathan and Margaret to a meeting hall,
One within the walls of the fort, of course,
As a meeting hall outside of the fort would be quite foolish,
Unless it were a zombie meeting hall, which the English had never seen;
Maybe the Spanish, they were still working on Cuba, perhaps they had seen one,
But the meeting halls with which the English were familiar were inside the fort,
And here they were told to wait, and wait they did,
But not for too long, for Samuel Watson soon arrived.

Samuel Watson was a tall man, a brave man, a clean-shaven man,
Possibly related to the tall, brave, clean-shaven Jonathan,
Though neither of them knew it,
Although come to think of it, isn't everyone related to a certain extent,
Fifth cousins or something, you have to go a ways back, but you'll get there,
Much like how thousands and thousands of people claim descent from Robert the Bruce,
Or William de Normandie,
Or Elvis,
Well, in the latter's case, they claimed that he was a descendent of them,
You should see how people amuse themselves in the afterlife.

Samuel Watson was still tall, brave, and clean-shaven, though,
And was dressed in a snappy uniform, with the red coat,
And the brass buttons,
And even some epaulets, for those who know what epaulets are,
If you don't, just pretend they're some nice decorations,
Since he was decorated pretty nicely.
He nodded his head at Jonathan, who waved his hammer back,
And bowed to Margaret, and kissed her hand, who did not wave a hammer back,
And inquired as to what services he could provide,
And how he could be of assistance.

With flashing eyes, Margaret explained what she knew about her father,
And about Francis,
Though she didn't mention Francis' untimely death, she was kind of embarrassed about that,
But she did say how her father had sold all of his goods,
And given the money to the Haitian voodoo cult,
And that the order came months after his disappearance,
And that Samuel Watson, the very man to whom she was speaking,
Had bore that note to Francis S. Quire,
Which led her to believe that perhaps he had seen her father,
Or had seen someone who had seen him,
Or had seen someone who had seen someone who had seen him,
Or some level of that; she wanted answers,
And she wanted him to provide them.

Mister Watson, Watson of unknown rank,
Though quite clearly a man in the service of the Queen,
Nodded thoughtfully, and rubbed his chin,
And hemming and hawing, he explained that no, he didn't know Herbert Wells,
Nor did he know anyone who knew Herbert Wells,
But that he had been minding his own business in London,
Or so he said,
When actually he had been drinking and carousing in a tavern in London,
And had made it known that he was soon to depart to the New World,
And Fort Macquarie in specific, with a layover in Haiti,
And a strange hooded man gave him a note, and a lot of money,
A shitload of money, in fact, and requested that he deliver the note,
And that was all he knew.

Margaret was a bit distracted by the shitload of money,
Which was to be expected, given her golddigging nature,
But she listened carefully to what Samuel had to say, and thought about it,
And wondered if he was telling the truth,
The whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
Or if he was leaving part of it out,
Since it seemed strange that a stranger would ask a strange task of him,
But perhaps the hooded man was part of the Haitian voodoo cult,
And perhaps it had already spread to London,
Which would explain the zombies in London, wouldn't it,
And perhaps her father was still alive in London,
Wouldn't that explain a lot?
Well, maybe not, but her mind was racing,
And you can't blame her if she made a few logical jumps here and there,
But she was a devoted daughter, and she wanted to find answers,
Along with a lot of money, and a husband.

Jonathan watched this exchange in silence,
And thought how nice it would be if Margaret were to find the answers she sought,
But moreover, how cool it would be if he could go back to London,
And kill zombies there,
And see if he locked his shop,
And kill even more zombies,
Since he could probably get the chicks now that he's a professional zombie slayer,
With the figurative notches in his hammer's handle,
No more mechanical women made in the smithy for him, no sir!
Only real live English women,
And maybe some French women,
And that Thai one he read about in the back of a pamphlet somewhere.

Samuel pondered a moment, and offered his condolences,
Wishing he could provide more assistance,
Such as a description of the hooded man, which would be useful,
Except the only description he could recall was that the man was hooded,
And strange,
And in a tavern in London, which doesn't really narrow things down.
He did remember that he was at the Monkey's Paw,
Just off Russell Street, past the Covent Garden Market,
And that may be a place to investigate, assuming she returned to London.

Margaret listened to this, and thought about taking ship back to England,
But then remembered that her father had stored goods at Fort Macquarie,
Or so Francis' logbook had indicated,
And that perhaps Samuel Watson knew more than he was letting on,
So she asked, in a subtle, roundabout way,
Whether her father had stored anything at Fort Macquarie,
And suddenly realized that she wasn't very subtle, but rather blunt,
And flushed quite thoroughly.

Taken aback by her forthrightness and her boldness, Samuel said,
"Miss, you are forthright, and bold," which is less redundant than it may seem,
For he hadn't said that he was taken aback,
Which is really beside the point,
The point being, he was impressed,
And he came clean,
Or, well, he came cleaner, and it was still up in the air whether he was completely honest,
But he did say that he had worked with her father before,
Which may explain why someone used him as a courier,
And that her father had stored goods at Fort Macquarie,
But that was long ago, back in the forgotten mists of time,
Or just a couple years ago, either way,
But he really had nothing more to say, except that she should possibly go to London,
And investigate the Monkey's Paw,
Just off Russell Street, past the Covent Garden Market,
Because that would likely advance the plot,
Hopefully in a way that made sense.

Margaret thanked him, and thought about it,
And thought some more, and then started thinking about zombies,
Because the zombies tended to be on her mind,
Likely as a result of being attacked by them on an alarmingly regular basis;
At this rate, she should be due for another zombie or two any minute now,
Which, coincidentally, was about to happen.

Jonathan and Samuel and Margaret, the three of them,
Were all suddenly started by a shout,
And a clanging alarm bell,
And more shouting, dozens of voices,
Calling out, "To the wall!" and "To arms!"
And notably, no calls of "Put your pants back on!"
Which reassured Jonathan, as he was a little nervous about that now,
But Samuel abandoned them, and rushed out the door,
Leaving Margaret and Jonathan by themselves,
All alone, the eye of the storm, with chaos raging around them,
And Jonathan, tall, brave, brown-eyed Jonathan,
Looked at Margaret, and said,
"Uh, since we're alone,"
And she quickly brushed past him into the courtyard,
Since he wasn't rich.

Jonathan followed, and the two of them quickly stood aside,
As swarms of soldiers swarmed past them in swarms,
All clutching muskets, except for those who did not,
All rushing to the wall, except those who did not,
All acting quite professionally, except those who did not,
Such as Jonathan, who waved his hammer, and cheered them on,
And thought about all the zombies he'd kill,
That is, if the zombies overpowered all of the soldiers,
And smashed through the gate, or scaled the wall,
Flowing over the stockade to devour everyone inside,
He'd kill a lot of zombies then,
Or so he thought.

In the distance, beyond the wall and over the hills,
Far out of sight of Jonathan and Margaret,
But not out of sight of us, O reader,
For we are omniscient in this world,
Or, at least, I am, and your omniscience is dependent on what I will tell you,
Such as this:
There were riders coming in from the treeline,
Skirmishers, men on horses,
Soldiers who ride out to look for zombies,
And then ride back shouting that zombies were coming,
Which would them be shot and exploded and killed,
Thus training the young soldiers in the 69th Royal Regiment,
Training them how to kill zombies,
How to march in straight lines,
How to point their muskets,
And why it is better not to be a sailor,
Though the men in the navy often claimed to be the best branch of service,
Given that there were absolutely no zombies in the Royal Navy, none at all,
And when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount,
More than they are prepared to admit,
But all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning,
And are a zombie,
They're to tell their captain immediately,
So that he can take every measure to hush the whole thing up.

But the skirmishers came riding,
Riding, riding,
The skirmishers came riding, up to the stockade gate,
Their musket-stocks a-twinkle,
Up to the stockade gate,
Which, conveniently, had been opened to them,
For that was part of the plan,
Though occasionally on these expeditions the gatekeepers played a joke,
And forgot to unbar the gate,
And let the skirmishers in,
Which led to much pounding on the gate and shouting,
Things like, "Let us in,"
And, "I order you to let us in,"
And "Oh god, they're eating me,"
Which was pretty funny to the soldiers at the gate,
Since they didn't get to ride horses.

The skirmishers entered the fort, and the gate closed behind them,
The heavy wooden bar falling into place,
And the walls were full of soldiers in neat rows,
Muskets held high, ready to be loaded, pointed, and discharged at the enemy,
Once the enemy were within range, of course,
Because these were trained soldiers,
Which is what Margaret said to Jonathan, who started to get a little nervous,
Since there were millions and millions of zombies on the continent,
Even though only a few thousand were probably nearby,
And he began to panic,
So Margaret said that these are trained soldiers, Jonathan,
They're here to protect you,
And he said quietly,
"It won't make any difference,"
Which caused them both to pause, since James Cameron hadn't made any movies yet,
Let alone ones about aliens.

The zombies began to filter from the treeline, some hundreds of yards away,
Off in the distance, well beyond the reach of muskets,
And cannon,
And mortar,
But the cannon and mortar were being prepared, with shouts, and men running around,
And gunpowder, and shells, and bombs,
As we continue the march of war
And the zombies came closer.

The zombies, the grey-skinned zombies, the unorganized mob grew closer,
Stumbling across the hills and dale,
Following the dusty trail,
Walking between shell craters, or over them, as the case may be,
As the zombies, the uneducated zombies continued their advance,
Caring not for what they walked on, or through, or in,
Not even the zombie who stepped in a steaming pile of horse manure hesitated,
Whereas a human would lift his foot, and sniff, and grimace,
And try to wipe the sole of his shoe on the grass,
Which would get the big chunks, yeah, but it'd still be pressed into the cracks,
And it'd dry, and stink, and everyone in the office would ask,
"Who stepped in horse shit?"
And the poor human, the horse-beshitted human, would hide his shoes,
Until he could get to the restroom and wash them off,
All the while praying no one would come in and ask why he's washing his shoes in the sink,
The zombies had no concern of that,
And they advanced, even through horseshit.

The mortars began to fire, and the cannon, and the shells streaked overhead,
Bombs bursting in air,
And when the smoke cleared,
The zombies were still there,
Scattered, admittedly, since the exploding bombs tended to toss them like rag dolls,
Willy-nilly,
Which is a phrase not used often enough,
Much like higgledy-piggledy, nowhere near as common as it should be,
And the zombies were tossed higgledy-piggledy,
But they got right up and kept advancing, those undead ghouls,
Except for those whose heads were squashed, or blown up, or pierced by shrapnel,
Those zombies stayed dead,
Or deader than before,
So the mortars and cannons were still pretty useful.

Four hundred yards out, and three hundred, and the zombies advanced,
And more salvos of shells sailed out,
Landing among the zombies, exploding with great fury,
Bringing personalized messages from the men inside the fort,
For during their downtime, when they were bored out of their mind,
They would write messages to the zombies on the shells,
Such as,
"Tally ho,"
And,
"Pip pip,"
And,
"Wear some goddamn pants,"
And these messages inscribed on the bombs were carried to the zombies,
Who did not read them,
Being zombies, who lack all faculties of thought, including literacy,
And critical reasoning,
Which, had they possessed it, may have encouraged them to try a different attack,
As the mindless frontal charge against a fortified position wasn't working too well for them,
And artillery of their own, or even crude siege machinery, would be of some use,
But the zombies instead kept up their regular mode of attack,
And the Europeans were pretty okay with that,
Since it made it easy for them to blow up the zombies.

Two hundred fifty yards, and the zombies kept coming,
Putting one foot in front of the other,
Or one hand in front of the other, for the zombies who lacked legs,
They moved a little slower than the bipedal zombies,
But they still had a job to do,
And that job was, eat human flesh,
And crush their enemies, and see them driven before them,
And hear the lamentations of their women,
Though that was more of a guideline than a rule,
As they pretty much just tried to eat human flesh.

On the walls of the fort, the British officers called out orders,
Such as, "Prime and load!"
Which the soldiers knew from years of training, and they worked quickly,
Placing their guns on half cock,
Snickering because they said cock,
Opening the firing pan, by pushing the frizzen forward,
Not backward, but forward, this is important,
Then taking a single cartridge out of a box on their right hips,
One box per man,
Dozens of cartridges per box,
And biting off the end, spitting it to the side,
Careful not to spit on another soldier, that tended to make them cranky,
And tapping a small amount of the powder into the pan,
And closing the frizzen, pushing it backwards,
Which is why it had to be pushed forward before,
And the musket stayed at half cock,
And they snickered again, because they said cock.

The soldiers then poured the remainder of the powder down the barrel,
The long metal barrel of their musket,
And followed it with the musket ball,
Not a rifle bullet, for, you see, rifling was not yet in widespread usage,
Which is why the soldiers fired en masse,
Hopefully, with enough muskets firing, some would shoot zombies in the head,
But that can't happen until the muskets are loaded,
So they continued loading,
Drawing the ramrod from the stock, and pushing the cartridge the length of the barrel,
Then withdrawing the ramrod from the barrel, maybe tapping it once or twice more first,
All of this taking less than fifteen seconds,
As these men were professionals,
Please, do not try this at home,
Mostly because you do not want zombies in your home.

The officers called out more orders, this time something different,
Shouting, "Make ready!"
Since the soldiers had already primed and loaded,
And the men ratcheted the hammers to full cock,
Yet no one laughed, since they were professionals, remember,
They'd only laugh once or twice,
Well, maybe three times, if they had a case of the giggles,
Which can be contagious, even if you're on a firing line,
With thousands of zombies attacking you,
One good joke, and you can completely lose it,
But not today, not now, no,
The soldiers kept their focus on the zombies, the advancing zombies,
But Zeus still snickered up above.

More mortar bombs and cannon shells streaked overhead,
Or erupted from the gun emplacements, in the towers spaced throughout,
The fearsome weapons of war blew up more zombies,
Kablooie,
Kersplat,
More and more zombies got schmucked,
And Jonathan and Margaret heard the explosions, and the artillery fire,
And thought, cool, maybe they'll kill all the zombies,
But then they remembered that killing a few thousand zombies would have little effect,
Given that there were a few million zombies,
But every little bit helps,
And Jonathan and Margaret stood off to the side, out of the way,
Staying out of sight,
Watching.

"PreSENT!" called out the officers,
Those men standing behind the soldiers,
The guys who bought their commissions, thinking that women love men in uniform,
Planning to spend a year or two in the service,
Then resign their commission, and swap war stories,
But then they were posted to the continent,
Where there were zombies,
A whole lot of zombies,
And their plan of one weekend a month and two weeks a year was kind of thrown off course,
Which sucked, it really did,
But they didn't gripe to their men, they were too professional,
Much as the soldiers professionally loaded their muskets,
The officers professionally griped amongst themselves,
And when they gave the order, the soldiers lowered their muskets at the zombies,
The encroaching mass of grey-skinned zombies,
The zombies that wanted to eat them, one and all,
And stood motionless, not one barrel wavering, awaiting the next command,
Secretly hoping the next command was, "Get the hell out of here! Run! Run!"

Another barrage of bombs, another cacophony of noise buffeted their ears,
The artillery let loose again, blowing up more zombies,
Who drew closer, ever closer, two hundred yards away,
And the officers shouted out, "Fire!"
Indicating that the soldiers should discharge their muskets,
As opposed to warning them of a conflagration within the fort,
For freedom of speech is curtailed within the military,
And while one cannot yell "Fire!" within a crowded theater,
One also cannot yell "Fire!" in regards to a fiery blaze,
Since the soldiers may misinterpret that and shoot you.

They shot at the zombies, however, the hundreds of soldiers on the walls,
And the top of the stockade disappeared in a cloud of white smoke,
And some zombies fell over,
Some zombie heads exploded like ripe watermelons,
Which seems to be the standard of measurement by which head-shaped things explode,
Much like information is measured in Libraries of Congress,
As in, this new book contains as much information as eighteen Libraries of Congress,
Or how weight is measured in Volkswagen Beetles,
As in, this asteroid weighs as much as thirty-two thousand Volkswagen Beetles,
And if you, O audience, has no idea what a Library of Congress is,
Or a Volkswagen Beetle,
Just roll with it, it's all good,
The important thing is, some soldiers killed some zombies,
But there were a lot of zombies left out there,
And they kept advancing on the fort,
Intent on feasting on the ripe human flesh inside,
While the soldiers inside the fort kept shooting the zombies,
Intent on not being feasted upon by the grey-skinned zombies.

The zombies came closer, and the soldiers fired again,
And again, volleys of musket fire, and mortars and cannons,
Arcing their projectiles in parabolic arcs,
Or they would be parabolic arcs if they were firing in a vacuum,
But the air resistance threw off the geometric symmetry,
Although in a predictable manner, which was nice,
For each time they fired a shell with the same amount of powder,
They could expect that it would land in roughly the same spot as before,
So they blew up lots of zombies that way,
And the hundreds of soldiers on the walls shot a lot of musket balls,
Most of which missed the zombies' heads,
But enough found their mark to kill a few more zombies,
Which was the ultimate goal of every volley.

Seventy-five yards, and a volley,
And fifty yards, and a volley,
And twenty-five yards, and the officers gave another order,
"Fix bayonets!"
Implying that the soldiers should attach their bayonets to their muskets,
As opposed to repairing them,
For if the muskets needed repair at this moment in time,
That soldier was pretty screwed,
Since though Jonathan was a blacksmith, and a talented one at that,
He had no time to fix a bayonet,
And was already swinging his hammer in the air, preparing to fight zombies,
So they were out of luck there anyway,
But fortunately, their bayonets were in good condition,
And each soldier, one by one down the line,
Slid their socketed bayonet over their musket barrel,
The socket bayonet being a great technological improvement over the plug bayonet,
Which plugged into the open barrel of the musket, hence the name.

The zombies reached the wall of the fort,
And their dull moan echoed throughout the stockade,
More of a moan than a groan,
Although a groan would be more accurate than calling it a shriek,
Which it was nowhere near,
Well, it was somewhat near,
In that both are vocalizations,
But it was a low, dull vocalization,
Like a moan,
And that echoed,
As did the dull thud of their fists against the gate,
For they could not open it from outside,
Being zombies,
And the gate being barred,
So they pounded again and again, futile but rhythmic,
And you could probably hum along to the bass beat,
If you ignored the fact that it was made by hideous undead ghouls,
Who would rather eat you than beatbox with you.

There were a lot of zombies,
So many, in fact, that they began to pile on top of one another at the base of the wall,
Stepping on the backs of their brethren,
Inadvertently forming a human ramp up to the top of the stockade,
Which in different circumstances would be pretty cool,
But the soldiers inside the fort didn't see it that way,
And they stabbed downwards with their bayonets,
Stabbity stab.

Soon, the zombies began to crest the wall,
Like a swarm of ants up a tree,
Or a swarm of soccer hooligans towards something easily destroyed,
Such as London,
And the inevitable wave of zombies crashed against the stockade wall,
And spilled over the top,
Leading to bloody hand-to-hand combat,
Which was only bloody on the side of the British soldiers,
As the zombies couldn't really bleed,
Although they did ooze ichor or goo if you smashed their heads with a hammer,
As Jonathan was well aware.

Margaret began to back up a little, somewhat apprehensive,
And she couldn't really be blamed, for the zombies kept coming over the wall,
Despite the reinforcements that came out of the barracks to replace fallen soldiers,
And to haul away the wounded,
And to offer encouragement,
Such as, "Stab him in the face,"
And, "Stab him again,"
And, "Oh god, we're all doomed,"
Which wasn't all that encouraging,
Though it was somewhat prescient.

Jonathan stepped back a pace or two as well, fingering his hammer,
Staring at the zombies over the wall,
Mentally trying to estimate how many there could be,
Assuming each zombie weighed roughly one hundred thirty pounds,
Allowing for some desiccation,
And would be about five foot seven, or so,
So, it'd take ... about that many,
Carry the two,
The remainder is .. about that, good,
Divide by pi,
And perhaps Jonathan's math was a little off,
Considering he came to an estimate of -e^i(sqrt(2))
It's likely he didn't get an accurate guess of the number of zombies,
But it was mostly irrelevant, since there were a lot of zombies anyway.

He saw Samuel Watson running through the courtyard, a stack of papers in hand,
Running into a small building near the back wall,
Then emerging, but without that stack of papers,
Only to sprint back to from where he came,
And emerge from there with another stack of papers;
He repeated this a few times, and Jonathan watched,
Wondering what was going on,
And Margaret began to get a little antsy,
Since the zombies were starting to come down the stairs as well.

Not all of the soldiers were dead, far from it,
But enough gaps in the line had formed that the zombies,
The grey-skinned zombies,
The undead ghouls that had crested the wall were filtering into the fort itself,
Where they were met by more soldiers, and another barrage of musket fire,
And bayonets, and stocks of muskets used as clubs,
There was carnage everywhere.

Jonathan suddenly realized he was needed,
And he raised his hammer, and shouted his battle cry,
And first checking his pants, to ensure they were tightly fastened around his waist,
He waded into the fray,
Swinging his hammer left, and right,
Doing his best to make sure he only hit zombies,
But sometimes it was hard, since there was a lot of confusion there,
But lo! One, and two zombies fell!
And Margaret, bold, confident, scared out of her wits Margaret,
She stood back, slowly inching further and further away,
Watching Jonathan slay zombies,
Watching Jonathan zombie-slayer,
Watching Jonathan shout his theme song as he laid about with his hammer,
Which probably unnerved a few of the British soldiers,
But that was a reasonably fair trade, since he was killing zombies.

Three, and four zombies died beneath his onslaught,
Or died again,
Or were incapacitated,
Damnit, linguistics still hadn't caught up to the undead,
Despite two and a half centuries of fighting them;
It was generally acknowledged that they were killed,
But since they were already dead, that was a sticky point,
Which more than once came up in a legal trial,
Where the defendant claimed he was not responsible for killing the victim,
In that the victim was clearly a zombie,
And thus could not have been killed,
It was pretty confusing all around,
But a good rule of thumb is that bashing a zombie in the head with a hammer,
A strong, blacksmith's hammer,
Counted as killing them,
So Jonathan had now killed six zombies, four of them in the last few minutes.

Samuel Watson rushed through the courtyard again, grabbing Margaret by the wrist,
Pulling her along, despite her protests,
Protests like, "Where are you taking me,"
And, "What about Jonathan,"
And, "You know, those pants are pretty nice,"
But Samuel ignored those, and pushed Margaret into the small building near the back wall,
The building where he had been ferrying papers,
And said that there was a tunnel out of the fort,
An underground tunnel, which led to the shore,
And at the exit of the tunnel was a longboat,
Perfect for a few people to use to escape,
Good enough to get them to the safety of the water,
And from there, to a nearby ship,
And Margaret thought that this was quite a useful idea,
Blonde-armed, blue-legged European that she was,
But wasn't about to leave without Jonathan,
Dear, sweet, zombie-slaying Jonathan.

By now, the walls had been completely abandoned,
Except for some zombies eating legs, or arms, or the occasional torso,
And the fight had moved to the center of the fort,
And Jonathan was in the middle of it, smashing about with his hammer,
By now, he was up to seventeen dead zombies,
That is, seventeen today alone, which gave him nineteen for the season,
Twelve of which were killed with one hit apiece,
Which is a remarkable bashing average, better than almost any other zombie slayer,
Good enough to get him into the professional leagues,
But he wasn't concerned with his statistics, he was a team player,
He was happy bashing zombies for the sake of bashing zombies,
Even though he was technically in a contract year,
Since Margaret had only hired him for a year,
And if he performed really well, he might snag a multiyear deal,
One with hammer endorsements.

He bashed zombies, and bashed them again,
But not the ones that were already bashed in the head,
For a good solid bash had already taken care of those,
And he slowly withdrew, as did the other soldiers, backing up towards the dock,
Suddenly wondering where Margaret was,
And whether he'd still get paid if she were to die;
He figured he probably wouldn't,
But maybe she had made arrangements with an accountant,
But maybe she had made arrangements with the dead accountant,
Which would make the whole matter moot,
So he decided right then that he would find Margaret,
Somewhere in this mass of zombie melee,
And rescue her,
Sweep her into his hands, and back to London, where she would be safe,
Yes, that was his plan, and he was sticking to it.

Margaret and Samuel watched Jonathan from the safety of their safe spot,
And shouted to him, but not too loudly, as they did not want to draw the attention of the zombies,
Since neither of them had a gun, let alone a hammer,
Not even a small ball-peen hammer, nothing,
And if the zombies came after them, well,
They'd have to jump in the tunnel, and close the trap door behind them,
And bar it, and escape, abandoning Jonathan to his fate,
And though Margaret was slightly tempted, since if he died,
She wouldn't have to pay him,
For some reason she didn't want him to die,
Especially through her own action, or omission of action,
And so she called to him, singing out across the field.

Jonathan saw her, and heard her, too, but couldn't quite make out what she was saying,
So he raised his hammer and waved, briefly, taking the time from the combat to acknowledge her,
And he smiled hesitantly, thinking that she was just cheering him on,
Which was nice of her, really, they could use the encouragement,
Since they were pretty much being slaughtered by the ghouls as they fought,
And if Margaret couldn't provide heavy firepower, why, she could still raise their spirits,
By chanting something like,
"We've got hammers, yes we do,
We've got hammers, how 'bout you?"
Or,
"Jonathan, Jonathan, he's our man,
If he can't do it, no one can!"
She wasn't chanting that, or anything remotely similar to that,
But Jonathan didn't know, so he made the best guess available,
And estimated that Margaret was shouting -e^i(sqrt(2)),
Which didn't make much sense to him,
But then, his math was kind of shaky.

Margaret muttered something about sheer incompetence,
And bloody single-mindedness,
And how this man was going to be the death of her,
But she raced out into the fray, dodging left, and right,
Avoiding outstretched zombie claws,
Not that they actually had claws, but that their fingers were claw-like,
Coming near to Jonathan and the small band of soldiers left alive,
And shouting to him to follow her,
At the same time, one of the surviving officers shouted an order for a fighting withdrawal,
Back to the docks, he said, quickly now,
And the soldiers began moving back, retreating in military style,
As opposed to the unprofessional panicked retreat of Jonathan,
Which was more abject screaming and flailing of arms,
And he followed Margaret back to the hidden escape hatch,
While the soldiers, finally, after suffering such heavy losses,
They broke ranks and fled,
And began to get eaten by zombies.

Then Private Steven, poor, cynical Steven was caught by a zombie,
Run down from behind, which seemed strange, given that he was human,
With the fleet-feet one would expect from a human,
And to be caught by a zombie from behind would imply that one runs slowly,
So slowly that one would be ineligible for military service,
Yet Steven was certainly in the military, which meant he could run not-slow,
And he was caught by a zombie from behind, which meant he couldn't run fast,
It's quite a dilemma. It's indisputable, though,
That he was caught by a zombie.

The zombie fell on him from behind, knocking him to the ground,
And Steven struggled, as one would expect,
Much in the same fashion that the recently deceased accountant Francis struggled,
Except Steven struggled in a more efficient way,
Due to his military training,
Yet the zombie was strong, and fierce,
And had that usual unnatural hunger for human flesh,
And it had the advantage that it was already dead, so struggling mattered little,
Only bashing the brain would help, and Steven really didn't have that leverage,
So the zombie wrapped its hands around Steven's neck,
The grey-skinned zombie,
And began bashing Steven's head into the ground,
Perhaps due to repeated exposure to zombies being killed by severe head trauma,
Perhaps because it was just a zombie and that's what zombies did,
Regardless, the zombie was bashing his head onto the ground.

Dawn's rosy fingers spread across the courtyard of the fort,
Showering both Steven and zombie alike with its light,
And all of the other brawling soldiers and zombies, too,
Except for the ones in shadow, which, by definition,
Were not in Dawn's rosy light,
And if a poet were to be watching this scene, he would be struck speechless,
Both by the beauty of the misty dawn,
And the savageness of the zombie attack,
And possibly he would have words to describe the juxtaposition,
The contrast in emotion,
But more likely,
He'd be screaming and running from the zombies,
Because it was mass carnage here.

Steven, cynical Steven struggled, and vainly struggled again,
Gasping for breath, trying to pull the fingers off his throat,
The fingers that were slowly crushing his trachea, digging between cartilage,
And in a brief moment of lucidity Steven recalled his schooling,
Recalled reading the Iliad as a boy,
And marveling at Homer's epic descriptions of how a spear would kill a man,
Detailing how the bronze point would penetrate the epidermis,
Then the muscle beneath,
Glancing off a rib, piercing the heart,
Leading to cardiac arrest, and death, while the spear,
The bronze-pointed spear of Achilleus, or Hector, or someone else,
Still quivered in the body of the dead Argive, or Trojan,
And Steven wondered if some future scribe would describe his death in that way,
Describing how the zombie mauled him until he died,
And with his last breath,
He cursed them both,
The murdering zombie and the opportunistic author,
Croaking out, "Rat bastards!" as he expired.

Samuel and Margaret and Jonathan did not witness this,
Nor did they witness the rest of the massacre of the garrison,
As they had long since gotten the fuck out of Dodge,
Down into the escape tunnel, barring the hatch behind them,
And raced the hundred yards, hoping that the exit would be clear of zombies,
Assuming that it would be, of course,
Given that all of the zombies were busy attacking the fort,
And having a zombie feast,
Seven courses, at least,
With a soup and a salad,
And all the drumsticks they could eat.

So the three of them escaped the fort,
The Massacre of Fort Macquarie,
Which dented the psyche of the British military,
And gave rise to some complaints at home,
Both on the streets and in the Houses of Parliament,
Claiming that the land reclamation projects on the American continent were futile,
That posting soldiers there was nothing but a death sentence,
That the zombies should be left to the French, or the Dutch,
Or even the Methodists,
But not good, God-fearing Anglicans,
Sinners in the hands of an angry zombie god,
A god who had risen on the third day,
Much like the zombies had,
It really shook some theological foundations,
But that's for a later chapter.

The three escaped, and reached the longboat of which Samuel spoke,
And Margaret watched as Jonathan and Samuel rowed the boat,
Jonathan humming, "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore"
For he had confused it with his theme song,
They're both kind of similar,
But to their delight, Captain Smith,
The archetypical Captain Smith, and his ship,
Or was it a boat,
Lay anchored offshore,
And none of the three of them questioned why he was still there,
But rather thought it was pretty convenient,
For they could head back to Europe, and England, and London,
And investigate the Monkey's Paw,
But their plans were interrupted by Jonathan's shriek,
A despondent shout, and tears came to his eyes,
And he nearly broke down sobbing,
Even though Margaret quickly sat next to him, and tried to comfort him,
And tell him he did all he could, and he killed many zombies,
Which just sent him into hysterical crying,
His body wracked with sobs,
And Margaret felt deep sympathy for Jonathan, who had tried to save the garrison,
Yet watched them die, one by one before him, and told him again,
He had killed many zombies, it wasn't his fault,
But Jonathan turned, and looked at her, and said,
"No, that's just it,
I forgot to do a dance after each one."

And Margaret slapped him.

Book VIII - In Which Zeus, Mighty Zeus, Puts Some Thought Into The Plague,
And How He Might Strike Down The Pride Of The Europeans,
Even Though They Weren't All That Prideful

In the clouds, far above,
Or perhaps on Mount Olympus, far away,
Which could still be in the clouds, far above,
If the clouds were low-hanging, and foggy,
With the norf wind bwowing,
And the souf wind bwowing,
And smog,
Hiding the spears and magic helmets, if any,
On Mount Olympus,
But in the clouds, in the distance,
Zeus watched from above,
And pondered.

He pondered heavily, thinking deeply,
Drawing in heavy breath after breath,
For Zeus was a heavy thinker, and a heavy thinker is a heavy breather,
At least among the Greek pantheon,
Ask Hephaestos if you don't believe me;
He was a pretty heavy breather, being a smith,
But not a heavy thinker,
Which indicates that if A therefore B,
It does not logically follow that if B therefore A,
And the Greek thinkers realized this, which is why their gods,
Their jealous, vindictive gods,
Tended to follow the laws of logic,
Despite the occasional illogical act,
Like the whole thing with Prometheus,
So Zeus sighed heavily, again,
And poured out another 40,
And sighed, for he was despondent,
And bored,
Boredz0r,
|30R3dz0r, no less,
And he wanted some action.

He turned to Hera, and winked at her,
And she looked at him, and stared,
And said, "What are you, drunk?"
Leaving him, and heading out with Heimdall,
Since, for some reason, the Norse pantheon was in town,
And she wanted to see how those Scandinavian men partied,
Little did she know, though, that Heimdall was ~~~~,
Which she could have noticed had she paid attention to the whole "rainbow bridge" thing,
Which was a pretty big giveaway,
Along with the tight leather pants,
But that's not for this story,
And Zeus was still pretty bored,
So he put on some ambient music,
Laid back, put up his feet,
Conjured up a stogie, and smoked that,
Hoping for an idea to strike.

He remembered the prank he pulled about two hundred fifty years prior with the zombiepox,
Which was pretty funny, although he wasn't able to milk it for all it was worth,
Since Hera, nagging harpy that she was,
Told him not to turn all of the humans into zombies, but only the native Americans,
Since if everyone were a zombie, then no one would worship them,
And it'd be a dreadful bore, with only the other gods to talk to,
But that gave Zeus an idea:
Since there were few worshippers of theirs left, there wasn't much point in killing everyone off,
Or turning them into zombies,
Because what would they lose, a couple dozen people here or there?
No great loss.
And though he'd feel kind of bad for some of the other gods,
Like Thor, he was a fun guy to drink with,
He wouldn't feel bad for all of the other gods,
Such as Janus, that two-faced bastard,
And Yahweh, that prick, he pretended he was the only god,
And who was he fooling,
Well, except for all of those Europeans,
Those self-centered, self-righteous Europeans,
Those bastards,
They were the ones spoiling all of his fun,
And it just wasn't fair, damnit,
And he started to get worked up about this.

Didn't anyone care about his feelings?
Didn't anyone care about his input?
Apparently not, those mortals, those pitiful humans,
Who thought they were better than him, with their sailing ships,
Or boats, whatever,
And their concept of medicine,
Faugh, it was nothing compared to his!
...which gave him yet another idea,
And he started digging through his notes,
Trying to find what he wrote down some centuries before when he edited the zombiepox,
Because he'd need those notes for what he was about to do,
And he giggled, just a little, because it was about time he'd get his revenge,
His vengeance on everyone for ignoring him,
Vengeance is his, he shall repay, saith Zeus,
Or something like that,
Oh boy, was this going to be something good.

He looked down on the world,
On the continents of the Americas, full of zombies,
And the occasional fort, and the rare city, and the few isolated native settlements,
And then he looked down on Europe, full of blonde-haired and blue-eyed Europeans,
I think I got that right, finally,
And how they weren't zombies, but rather had cities, and economy, and trade,
And universities, and music, and literature, and art,
And a whole bunch of bad stuff, too, don't get him wrong,
It wasn't a utopia down there,
But they had their act together, generally,
They were making money and making kids and making friends and making enemies,
Much like any society will do,
Except the bad ones, but we're not talking about those,
And Zeus did the godly equivalent of poking an anthill with a stick,
Well, it's kind of a stretch, but that's the mentality he had,
And the action wasn't equivalent in any way, but that's not the point,
The point is, he was bored, and frustrated, and no one was validating him,
So he was going to engage in some petty destruction.

The zombiepox, the genetically engineered pox, hadn't evolved in the past few centuries,
Which was part of the effect of divine tampering,
So things wouldn't get out of control, and he wouldn't be blamed for anything he didn't do,
But it was time for that to change,
So he reached down, rosy-fingered Zeus,
And tweaked the zombiepox in small ways,
Very minor ways,
Ways that were too small to be seen by the unaided human eye,
And since no one had good optics at the time,
His changes were invisible to the human eye,
Well, the changes in the genetic code, that is,
For the effects soon became visible to the human eye,
Such as,
Europeans turning into zombies,
Grey-skinned, blonde-haired zombies,
Which kind of caught their eye,
Since, holy shit, the plague can now infect them, too.

Zeus laughed, because now things would really heat up,
And the figurative anthill had been poked,
But it wasn't everywhere at once, just here and there,
He thought it'd be much more entertaining if the plague spread slowly,
A little bit here, and little bit there,
A few spots of outbreak,
Only transmitted by a bite,
The traditional method, though it wasn't traditional in this world,
Not yet at least,
But now a zombie could bite a man, and he could be infected by the new strain,
And he would bite another, and so on,
Which would lead to confusion, and denials, and government suppression,
And conspiracy theories and tinfoil hats,
Mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together in harmony,
That'd be enough to amuse him for some time,
That is, until the plague spread across the entire world,
Infecting everyone,
And turning them all into zombies, he'd be less amused then,
But it'd be a great prank to play on the other gods, so it'd still be funny,
Just a little.

Oh, and Zeus made one extra change to the genetic code,
Along with the swapping of Gs and Ts and Cs and As,
He made up some new amino acids, and mixed them in with the old,
And encoded G-N-I-R-R-E-H-D-E-R,
Leaving in there for future generations to decipher,
Just another prank of his, since, as I'm sure you recall,
He was bored, but this was going to clear things up.

Book IX - In Which Margaret And Jonathan And Samuel Reach London,
And Jonathan Is Introspective,
And Margaret Isn't

Captain Smith's ship sailed the ocean,
Full of sharks, and water,
And still more water than sharks, even though some more sharks had been born,
And some had died, but the total shark population was probably higher,
The water was more full of sharks than before,
Thankfully, no zombie sharks, as Zeus' plague wasn't edited in that way,
Though, had he thought about it, he might have done that, too,
Since he could have watched zombie sharks eat regular sharks,
Or maybe the zombie sharks would have just kept eating fish,
And seals,
And people,
Unless, bear with him, here, he made zombie sharks that only ate humans,
Or maybe only ate zombie humans,
Anyway, there's some new avenues for him to explore here,
And maybe he will once the whole human zombie plague is resolved.

Regardless, Captain Smith's ship sailed the ocean,
And being that it was in the middle of the ocean,
The passengers were blissfully unaware of Zeus' recent changes,
Unaware of the outbreak of zombie plague in some locations in the New World,
Of Europeans, healthy, hale Europeans, getting fever,
And chills,
And falling ill, and dying,
And being buried,
Then rising again on the third day,
And that just led to even more theological issues,
Which are beyond the scope of this chapter,
But the plague was spreading, fortunately not as fast as it spread from native to native,
Since it required zombies, zombies with the mutated strain, no less, to bite a victim,
The zombie plague spread among the Europeans a little slower than one would have expected,
And let's explain it by saying that Zeus wanted to prolong his amusement,
Yeah,
That sounds good.

Jonathan had settled, somewhat, after his breakdown on the longboat,
He convinced himself that he could make up the missing dances,
Which is what he was doing on most of the voyage,
He thought back to each of the zombies he killed at Fort Macquarie,
And there were about two dozen of them,
And he came up with a new dance for each, and he danced them all, in order,
Waving his hammer, wiggling his hips, strutting and fretting his hour upon the deck,
It is a dance danced by an idiot, some would say, full of sound and fury,
And also hip thrusts,
Signifying nothing,
Well, except for a dead zombie per dance.

Captain Smith and his shipmates watched Jonathan's dancing,
For that was their method of payment again, much like the trip from Haiti to the fort,
As Margaret had wisely explained to the captain that Jonathan,
Dear, sweet, dancing Jonathan,
Was heartbroken over his missed dancing opportunities, and would be making up for lost time,
And if they encouraged him, he'd spend more time on the dances, adding a flourish here,
And a foot-stomp there,
And a hey nonny nonny,
Enough entertainment to last them the entire trip back to London,
Which was fair enough payment for them, considering they were going back anyway,
Sick of dealing with zombies and all,
The goddamned grey-skinned zombies,
Those bitches,
Good thing there aren't any in London, what what?

Margaret spent most of the voyage talking to Samuel,
Trying to find out anything more about her father, or Francis,
Or the Haitian voodoo zombie cult, which was becoming more and more important to this,
And she didn't learn anything new, just recapped what she had learned before,
So she sighed, and realized that her quest was halfway over,
Go ahead, count the words, you're halfway to the end,
And are to be congratulated for lasting this far,
And not getting sick of the repetitive repetition,
And the running jokes,
And the zombies,
The gruyere-skinned zombies,
Without pants.

Samuel had little to say, except that he had worked with Francis, and Herbert,
And they had smuggled some things, but he hadn't worked with them for a while,
Rather, he was drinking in London, and drinking a hell of a lot,
Things like whisky, and lager, and gasoline,
And a man came up to him, a strange hooded man, and gave him money to deliver a note,
Which he delivered,
And that was that,
The plot's pretty bare-bones when you get down to it,
And contradictory in places,
But that's the fault of the translation.

Margaret thought about this,
Specifically about the note signed by her father,
Signing all of his wealth to the voodoo cult,
Signed after his disappearance,
Delivered to Samuel in London,
It got a little fishy, and required some investigation,
Which is why she was okay with heading back to London after such a short stay,
A few hours in Haiti, in the French Quarter,
Well, they were all French Quarters, but still,
And then a few hours at Fort Macquarie,
Don't forget about the weeks spent on the boat,
Or ship, whichever,
Come to think of it, every time she went ashore, she was attacked by zombies,
One in Port-au-Prince, and thousands in America,
At that pace, she should expect millions of zombies when she landed in London,
Which scared her for a minute or two,
Until she realized that she had been discussing mathematics with Jonathan earlier,
And that must have rubbed off on her.

The journey back to England took some time,
An indeterminate length of time, not because they had no calendar, or logbook,
Or way of marking time,
But because, uh, it's a mystery, that's right,
It just took them a while, and an uneventful while it was,
As there were no zombies on board, so Jonathan had nothing to smash,
Not that it prevented him from patrolling the ship regularly,
Checking in barrels, and casks, and crates,
And looking behind doors, and under hatches,
And in the lifeboats,
Especially in the lifeboats, since he didn't want to meet one in there if he had to flee,
Even though fleeing on a lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic is probably not a great idea,
But compared to being eaten by a zombie, it's not that bad of an idea,
So Jonathan checked them four times a day, to ensure that no zombies had sneaked aboard.

The ship sailed, and sailed, and came to England, and the Thames, and to East London,
Where Captain Smith deposited his passengers, and thanked them for their time,
And the amusement,
And asked Jonathan for one more dance, just for him, and his crew,
And Jonathan was more than happy to oblige,
Wiggling his hips, walking in a circle, windmilling his hammer,
Which was a great dance, up until the moment he almost brained Margaret,
Who screamed about incompetence again,
Forcing him to stop his dance, to the chagrin of all involved.

Margaret sighed, which she tended to do around Jonathan,
And told him that she had some affairs to attend to,
And inwardly cringed, for she ended a sentence with a preposition,
Something she tried never to do, for it may deter a prospective husband,
Such as a wealthy grammar professor,
She was keeping her options open,
But her affairs involved going to the Monkey's Paw, on Russell Street,
Slightly over one mile north of Parliament, in the Palace of Westminster,
On the banks of the Thames,
That may be something to remember later on.

She told Jonathan to go about his business, to check into his shop,
For he was at liberty for an hour or so, and that she was not in danger,
For she was in London, and she was with Samuel, who could protect her in any event,
Ta, take care, and she and Samuel turned and walked down the street,
Leaving Jonathan standing there, holding his hammer, feeling just a little rejected,
For hadn't he saved her life a few times? Didn't that count for anything?
He was a little miffed, but decided that now would be a great time to relax,
And see if his shop were still locked,
And if his father's heirloom zombie were still there,
Since oh boy, he was a real man now, a real zombie-slayer,
And he might no longer feel inadequate when looking at that zombie,
But that might have been because the zombie wasn't wearing pants.

Jonathan sighed, since that seemed the thing to do,
And returned to his shop, walking through the streets of London,
Swinging his hammer at his side, thinking about his father,
His mysteriously-vanished father, his father assumed dead,
For missing zombie-slayers are usually dead,
And how his father might approve of him, now, for he was more than just a blacksmith,
But a professional zombie-slayer, one of renown,
One who remembered to wear his pants, his linen pants,
Wasn't all that great,
And he got to his shop, and turned the handle,
Which turned, curse it, it wasn't locked,
And stepped inside.

His shop was much as he left it,
Forge in the corner, various tools on the walls and workbenches,
Heirloom zombie up above,
With its grey skin, ragged nails, caved-in skull,
And Jonathan noticed in the corner something he hadn't noticed before,
Well, he had noticed it before, it hadn't appeared while it was gone,
But it was something that never really caught his eye,
It was his father's hammer,
His large, two-handed sledgehammer,
Standing upright in the corner, leaning against the wall,
It's a good thing Jonathan didn't pay much attention to it before,
For he may have felt even more inadequate,
Comparing his hammer to his father's hammer,
His hammer was a one-hander, there wasn't enough room on the shaft for two hands,
While his father's hammer,
Well,
It was a hammer to write home about,
One that took two hands to swing,
One near the base of the shaft, the other near the head,
Sliding down to meet as the hammer is swung,
And if Freud had been born by this point,
He could have written a book about Jonathan, his father,
And their respective hammers.

Jonathan sat on his chair in his shop, in his former life,
And looked around at what used to be his,
It still was his, technically, but he had changed in the past few months,
Almost like a rite of passage,
Back when he was in London, he considered killing a zombie to be something glorious,
A way to pass from boy to man,
But now, now that he had killed a dozen or two zombies,
Smashing them with his hammer,
He felt strangely unfulfilled,
And asked to the unresponsive ceiling,
"When, Lord, when! When's gonna be my time?"
Until he had a momentary flash of insight,
And lost it,
Wait, no, there it was,
His time was here and now,
Carpe diem,
He'd translate 'seize the zombie' into Latin if he could,
But given that 'zombie' wasn't derived from Latin or Greek, he was out of luck,
Maybe he could talk to a scholar about that,
But it was up to him to make his own way in this world,
He couldn't wait for his father's approval, given that his father was gone,
Or missing, or dead,
Either way, he wouldn't provide any approval, and it was all up to Jonathan,
And his mighty hammer,
Even if it were a little less mighty than his father's.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in London,
Margaret and Samuel walked through the streets, chatting amiably,
Just to fill the time as they turned corners and stepped over drunks;
Margaret talked about how she was looking to find out what happened to her father,
And also to find a husband, she could never forget that,
Since the moment she let down her guard, she may let a great prospect get away,
Regretting that for the rest of her life, and while regretting that first prospect,
She may miss an even better prospect,
So it was important to her to keep thinking about husbands,
Rich husbands,
And ideally, rich old husbands who were at death's door.

Samuel listened carefully, and idly brushed a speck of dust off of his uniform,
And talked about his investments, and how he was expecting the pound to perform against the franc,
But most especially about how he was single,
Since he was a little smitten by Margaret, which was nice,
But mostly he saw how rich she was, and thought it'd be even nicer to have access to her money,
Under the pretense that he would provide for her and maintain her standard of living,
Marrying for love is all fine and good, but for an astute businessman like Samuel,
Who is willing to do things for money, like deliver notes from cultists to Haiti,
He was more interested in marrying for money,
Which may lead one to believe that he and Margaret would be suited to one another,
But the problem is, they each wanted to marry for the other person's money and keep their own,
So it wouldn't work out too well for them to marry each other,
Much like matter and antimatter,
Samuel and Margaret would explode in a burst of heat and light,
But neither of them knew that, so Samuel continued his conversation,
And Margaret continued listening,
Each thinking they could take advantage of the other.

They neared Covent Garden Market, and Russell Street,
And the Monkey's Paw,
Which was a curious name for a tavern in London of the day,
Not that it had anything to do with a mysterious monkey's paw that would grant wishes,
One wish per finger,
But that the founder of the Monkey's Paw had traveled abroad,
Down the coast of Africa,
Into the wild untamed lands of Paris,
Through the chaotic streets of Rome, that was an adventure, to be sure,
And somewhere on his voyages he found a monkey's paw,
Shriveled, dried, preserved,
And he figured it'd make a great name for a tavern,
Since doesn't everyone like to think of being desiccated and pickled when they drink alcohol?
Well, maybe not everyone, but enough people to give him a good living, at least,
Not a great living, no, he had to rent out his cellar for that,
Which was a pretty good cellar, too, not only was it accessible from the tavern's ground floor,
But also from a cellar door in the back alley, which opened to a flight of stairs,
Which led down, understandably, to the cellar,
And he had rented that out and ignored the noise from below, because his tenants paid well,
And he didn't ask what kind of tenants would choose to live in a rented cellar below a tavern,
But as long as their money was good, he didn't ask any questions.

Margaret and Samuel skipped through the streets, in the manner that proper adults don't skip,
It was more of a casual walk, but their hearts were light, and the mood was high,
For they were back in London, safe from the zombie threat,
Safe from the Haitian voodoo zombie cult,
Which made London the place to be in their eyes,
And they proceeded apace, to the Monkey's Paw,
And arriving there, entered thereon,
Both of them pausing inside the door to survey the surroundings.

The interior of the Monkey's Paw was definitely the interior,
As the exterior, by definition, was on the outside,
And the Monkey's Paw, not being a Klein bottle or a Moebius strip,
Had an inside and an outside,
And Samuel and Margaret were on the inside,
This being determined by passing through the door which separated the inside from the outside,
And once this was resolved, they looked further at the Monkey's Paw.

The tavern, or inn, or dive, which may be the more accurate term,
Was sorely in need of a cleaning,
Some chairs were overturned, tables were placed haphazardly around the room,
A surly man tended bar, and man he was, despite his grey-skin,
Which was likely a result of years of alcohol abuse,
And not zombie plague,
Which did not afflict the patrons of the tavern, either,
Of which there were some dozens, scattered throughout the room,
One fighting with another, a third breaking a chair over the back of a fourth,
Some more passed out on the floor or on tables, faces in puddles of beer and vomit,
Still clutching mugs in their hands,
And as Margaret suppressed an urge to retch,
Samuel smiled, and said, "It's just like home."

The two of them weaved their way through the carnage, and found an unoccupied table,
Or rather, a table occupied only by an unconscious man,
Who, when tipped to the side by Samuel, fell neatly into a neat pile on the floor,
Which amazed Samuel,
For most of the drunkards he had tipped over in his life were not that dexterous,
But that was only a momentary diversion, and he pulled a chair out for Margaret,
Inviting her to sit, and then seated himself, as a gentleman should,
Even in a tavern of such chaos and carnage,
And as he excused himself and stood to go to the bar to get a drink,
He recommended she duck, and quickly,
Which she did, to her benefit,
As a flying beer mug soared through the air and hit the wall behind her.

Margaret was quite put out with this location, yet suffered nobly through it,
For it was the only lead in her quest to find her father,
And Samuel could still be of assistance,
So she tried to primly cross her legs, which was surprisingly difficult,
As her feet were stuck to the floor,
Which did not please her at all, and she was even more put out by the time Samuel returned,
Sliding a mug of beer across the table to her, which irritated her even more,
For he hadn't even asked if she wanted anything, let alone what she would like,
How dare he, how DARE he try to assume he knew what she wanted?
That tore it, even if Samuel were rich, she would have nothing to do with him,
Well, except for the whole bit about finding her father,
And maybe he could help her find a husband, too, but he was out of the running,
And that was it.

She looked across the table at Samuel, the smug, self-confident man,
And said, "So, you led us here,"
And, "What do you propose we do now,"
And, "Nice pants,"
Which they were, in fact, much nicer than Jonathan's,
Not that it was much of a surprise, for Jonathan was only a blacksmith,
Not a rich man, no,
But maybe if he were rich, well, maybe,
Though she stopped thinking about that quickly, for she wanted to keep her mind on her work.

Samuel replied verbosely, with such verbose verbosity that it cannot be reproduced here,
Rather, I can summarize, and summarize I shall,
Samuel said that he was here, drinking, much like this,
With a girl, or two, or maybe more, he couldn't quite remember,
But he was boasting of his adventures, and his experiences,
And his repeated trips to Haiti, and all of the people he had worked with,
Perhaps in retrospect it wasn't the wisest thing, but he had had a few,
And was feeling no pain,
And after a while, a door over in the corner,
That door, the one that leads to the cellar,
It opened, and a man came out, dressed all in black, with a black hood,
Which normally would indicate a villain of some sort,
But Samuel had no idea of this man's alignment, given that he was quite drunk,
And the man, the hooded man in black, the man which would further the plot,
He asked Samuel if he would deliver a note to Haiti, and Francis in particular,
As he had said that he had known him,
At which point Samuel cursed the lack of proper nouns in that phrase,
And said yes, he did know Francis,
And was given a pile of money, and the rest of the story is history.

Margaret listened, and watched the door behind them,
The door to the cellar, the door through which they would soon travel,
The door which leads to another iteration of the concept of interior and exterior,
And watched some people come through that door, and sit in the tavern,
Which seemed quite curious, so she paid more attention to them than to Samuel,
Who was going off on a tangent, digressing into insensibility,
And you probably know what that's like.

She listened to the strangers, paying close attention to what they had to say,
Which was quite interesting, especially when she caught the word "zombie",
And "Parliament", and also "pants",
All of which interested her, but most especially the zombies in Parliament,
For though the jokes were often made that the elected representatives in the House of Commons,
That lower house,
Were as intelligent as zombies,
Or that the hereditary representatives in the House of Lords,
That upper house,
Were also as intelligent as zombies,
She was attuned to the mention of zombies, and it didn't sound like these men were joking,
Rather, it sounded like they were planning to send zombies to kill the Members of Parliament,
For some nefarious purpose,
And the implication was that they could control the zombies,
Give them orders, set them to a task,
Most likely a general task of "Eat this man,"
But this started to get a little creepy.

Samuel noticed she wasn't paying attention to him, which irritated him somewhat,
For he was quite a specimen, if he did say so himself,
But he was also intelligent enough to notice that she was eavesdropping,
So he did the same,
And also heard of the plot against Parliament,
The impending mass murder of MPs,
Or perhaps multiple murders, the conspirators weren't too clear on how the murders would take place,
Or why, precisely; the motive was unclear,
But the concept was sound,
And as Samuel's eyes met Margaret's across the table,
No bells sounded, no chimes roared, no angelic choirs chorused,
But they both realized that something must be done,
And prohibiting zombies from holding public office wouldn't quite do the trick.

Book X - In Which Jonathan Defeats Yet More Zombies,
And He And Margaret Uncover The Haitian Zombie Voodoo Cult,
And They Begin To See The Nefarious Scheme

Jonathan had left his shop, hammer in hand, leaving his father's hammer behind,
He didn't feel yet adequate enough to use it,
Plus, size isn't important, it's how you swing your hammer,
Or so everyone said,
And he walked through the streets towards the Monkey's Paw,
Thinking that it was about time he met up with Margaret and Samuel again,
Partially because he was concerned about Margaret,
Partially because he was jealous,
And partially because he wanted to kill more zombies,
And hanging around with her meant that he could kill a lot of zombies,
So that was a-ok in his mind.

He turned a corner, and heard a shout,
Or perhaps he heard a shout before he turned the corner,
But either way, once he was around the corner, he saw a man on a balcony,
Trying to lower himself down from the upper level, trying to reach the street,
Probably because there were three zombies in the process of smashing their way through the balcony door,
Smashy smashy,
Only mere yards away from him, their grasping fingers outstretched,
And Jonathan broke into a run, sprinting across the street,
Dodging the occasional carriage, for Londoners generally cared not about street crime,
And this looked nothing more than street crime to them,
Albeit zombie street crime,
But it was hard for them to identify the culprits as zombies, since they weren't used to them,
Whereas Jonathan had dealt with zombies quite extensively in the past few weeks and months,
And was ready to put his experience to use.

The man dropped from the balcony, falling into an untidy pile on the street,
Perhaps because he was not drunk,
And with a crash, the zombies broke through the balcony door,
And stumbled after their prey, falling off the edge of the balcony as well,
Having no concern for their health,
Being that they have none to speak of,
And proceeded to continue their pursuit of their target,
Who by now, was hiding behind Jonathan,
Brave Jonathan, tall Jonathan,
Who could hear battle music playing in his ears,
A triumphant orchestra, performing something perhaps composed by Howard Shore,
Or Hans Zimmer,
Or the 18th century equivalents,
But he was tall,
And brave,
And bold, and ready to kick some zombie ass.

They came at him, one at a time,
For that is what villains who outnumber heroes tend to do,
Rather than rush him all at once, which would seem to make more sense,
But perhaps the individual zombies lusted for glory,
And the acclaim they would receive for eating a famed zombie-slayer,
Or maybe they were just mindless undead ghouls,
Either way, they attacked him singly,
Which Jonathan accepted, for he really had no way of convincing them otherwise,
Not that he would rather fight them as a group, since this was much easier,
So he bashed the first zombie on the head,
And that zombie fell to the ground, twitching slightly,
Oozing just a little bit of goo,
But that zombie fell onto the side of the street, with his head in a gutter,
So the goo didn't make a mess;
That's how good Jonathan was getting at this.

The second zombie attacked, and the man hiding behind Jonathan clutched at his shirt,
Screaming, "Kill them!"
And, "They're trying to kill me!"
And, "I need to change my pants!"
Jonathan shrugged him off, as noble heroes are wont to do,
And swung his mighty hammer at the second zombie,
Swung his mighty hammer with his mighty blacksmith arms,
And his strong blacksmith torso,
He put his entire body into the swing, even his abdominal obliques,
Kind of like throwing a football on the run with your entire body twisting into the throw,
He put everything into this swing,
And caught the zombie squarely on the side of his neck,
And then rained some more blows, because he had time,
Considering the third zombie was only stumbling closer at the pace of, well, a zombie,
Landing another hit with his hammer on the zombie's arm,
And then head, causing that zombie to fall to the ground, dead,
Or deader than before.

The third zombie, were he a man, might have retreated,
Or maybe pulled a gun, considering his foe only had a hammer,
But since he was a zombie, he continued his singleminded attack,
Which raises the linguistic question, can something mindless be singleminded,
For they both seem to apply in this case,
But no matter: the zombie attacked,
And Jonathan took a brief moment to catch his breath,
And plan his three-way victory dance,
He'd put his right foot in,
And take his right foot out,
He'd put his right foot in,
And shake it all about,
Then he'd do his zombie dance and turn himself around,
That seemed like it might apply in this case.

The final zombie drew closer,
And a crowd drew around, since although they tended to ignore street crime,
They were always interested in street brawling,
Especially now that it was clear that some of the participants were zombies,
And though some ran away screaming about zombies,
Others cheered on Jonathan,
And one man even took bets,
Slips of paper waving in the crowd,
Which kind of annoyed Jonathan,
Since he thought he should have gotten better odds.

Once the last zombie was within reach,
Jonathan swung his mighty hammer with his mighty arm in a slow circle,
Looping the hammer overhead,
Building up to a great blow,
And the crowd began holding its breath, waiting for this master strike,
But Jonathan,
Tall, brave, easily-amused Jonathan,
He poked the zombie in the eyes with his other hand,
Offering a "Nyuk nyuk nyuk" as he did so,
And then bashed the zombie in the head with his hammer, as most expected,
Causing this one, like the other two, to expire on the streets of London,
With only a little zombie goo splattered around.

The crowd applauded politely, and began to disperse,
For their entertainment had ceased, and they assumed that Jonathan,
Mighty Jonathan,
Would take care of any remaining zombie threat in their fair city,
And, after all, they had better things to do than worry about the undead,
Such as invest in tulips,
But the man that Jonathan rescued, he did not flee,
He got to his feet, and thanked Jonathan profusely,
Introducing himself as Gustav Reinholdt,
A man of great renown, a politician's politician,
Even though he wasn't a politician, but rather a lobbyist, a go-between,
Someone who bought and sold influence in this fair city,
Well, he was a parasite, really, but that's beside the point.

Jonathan helped him to the side of the street, and tended to his wounds,
Which didn't take much time, as there weren't any,
And listened to the rest of Gustav's story, which he told in the first person.

"Upon hearing such grotesque thumping sounds,
I gripped a firebrand from the hearth,
And flung open the bedchamber to be greeting by some alarmingly visaged men,
Or perhaps former men. Their limpid sad flesh hung around their eyes and arms,
Decaying, falling in rotting heaps making me believe them either unfortunate creatures,
Known in the West Indies as 'zombi',
Or over-fed MPs limping with gout.
Pointing the firebrand fiercely,
In the menacing manner of my French ballet master I inquired to their intentions.
'You sirs,' I said, in a voice worthy of mighty Hercules,
'Make known your business or I shall see you horsewhipped!'
'Brains!' was their monosyllabic reply,
Which I daresay shed no light upon which House they represented.
I assumed Commons and swung my firebrand squarely into the neck of the foremost man;
Yet when it held fast without causing him to utter the slightest cry,
I realized my conclusion had been based upon false premises and made haste to the balcony."

He withdrew a handkerchief from his robe, and mopped his brow,
Removing both a small amount of sweat and no small amount of zombie goo,
And thanked Jonathan profusely again,
Promising him wealth,
Not a lot, mind you, but a little, at least,
He'd send a token of his gratitude to Jonathan's home,
Say, two hundred pounds, and he inquired whether that would be sufficient,
And Jonathan, poor Jonathan, though he be brave,
Was able to suppress any reaction on his face,
And though he recalled his plan to bargain with Margaret for a higher wage,
He agreed to this, calling it quite adequate,
And thanked Gustav for being in peril, and providing an opportunity for him to come to the rescue,
And to keep him in mind in any future zombie attacks.

Jonathan bowed politely, and waved his hammer, and did his three-way dance before he continued on,
Swinging his hips, and doing the hokey pokey,
And then he rushed to the Monkey's Paw, concerned about the zombies,
Concerned about the members of Parliament,
Although less concerned about them than one may suspect,
Since Jonathan, brave Jonathan, Jonathan who has now come into his own,
Wasn't all that fond of the government,
Not that he disliked it, no,
It was more of a benevolent disdain,
But he'd still save the MPs from being eaten by the undead,
Because he was that kind of guy.

He rushed, in the manner that a man rushes to save his friends from zombies,
And turned corners, and stepped over people asleep in the street,
Or were they zombies? -- he wasn't sure, but considering they weren't attacking him,
He felt that was a good indication that they were just asleep,
And didn't deserve to have their skull smashed in,
Which would be the proper course of action if they were zombies.

Instead, he reached the Monkey's Paw, and burst through the door,
Reaching the interior, from the exterior,
And he sheathed his hammer,
His goo-smeared zombie slaying hammer,
Which had a sheath, coincidentally,
And casually walked over to the table where Margaret and Samuel were,
And said,
"Uh, I killed some zombies,"
And felt that conveyed everything he wanted to say.

Margaret looked up at him, proud-willed Margaret, and smiled,
For Jonathan was here, which was good,
In that now she and Jonathan could investigate the cellar door,
A beautiful phrase in the English language, more beautiful than "sky",
According to a noted linguist, at least,
But now she and Jonathan could investigate, and maybe bring Samuel along, too,
Even though he was still talking himself up,
Not knowing that he never had a chance with Margaret anyway.

Margaret interrupted Samuel, long-winded Samuel,
And asked him to go talk to the bartender,
To the tavernkeeper,
To the proprietor,
To the guy behind the bar
And distract him,
And, actually, distract everyone,
Since Jonathan and Margaret needed to get through that door without being seen,
And the bartender would probably have something to say about that,
As would the men dressed all in black who exited that door earlier,
So it was all up to Samuel,
Tricksy Samuel,
Who got up, and started walking over to the bar,
While Jonathan and Margaret slowly sidled over to the cellar door,
Not walking directly towards it, no,
But headed in that general direction,
Ready to take advantage of a moment's distraction.

Samuel neared the bar, and taking a deep breath, stood upon it,
Which drew some attention, but not all,
And so he knew he would have to bring out the big guns, so to speak,
And really catch everyone's eyes,
So he dropped his pants,
His leg-covering pants,
And with them around his ankles, shuffled from side to side on the bar,
Singing,
"The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be
Ain't what she used to be,
Ain't what she used to be,"
Which definitely got everyone's attention,
Including the bartender,
Who shouted something about indecent exposure,
And maybe incompetence, too.

In the chaos that erupted,
Even though it wasn't all that chaotic, especially compared to how the tavern was earlier,
With the assorted brawl and the frequent unconsciousness, it was still a little chaotic,
And in that chaos,
Jonathan and Margaret opened the cellar door,
Pausing to acknowledge the beauty in the words,
And rushed through, and downstairs, 
Down to a landing, and then down again,
And found themselves somewhere where they didn't expect to find themselves.

"I think this is the headquarters of the Haitian voodoo zombie cult," Jonathan whispered,
And he was wrong,
Not that it wasn't the Haitian voodoo zombie cult,
But rather it wasn't the headquarters,
But rather just a base of operations,
He was pretty close, though,
And was quite impressed with his deduction,
Even though it was pretty obvious what it was,
What with the black-hooded men moving around,
And the printing press in the corner churning out pamphlets,
And the bubbling and churning chemistry equipment,
Beakers, test tubes, rubber hoses,
Lots of really advanced stuff,
Oh, and the zombies,
For there were zombies walking around,
And not eating the men in black,
But rather carrying this here,
And that there,
And now, turning to see Jonathan and Margaret,
Dropping what they were carrying, if anything,
And charging towards them, as fast as a zombie can charge,
Moaning something incomprehensible, but likely the zombie equivalent of "Buffet!"

Margaret screamed, of course,
And Jonathan drew his hammer from his holster,
And spun it around on his fingertip, and blew a little bit of goo off the head,
For he was in the zone,
And he was ready to defend the leading lady,
Who really was the leading lady, despite the comments earlier that she wasn't,
And come to think of it, he was starting to think of her in a different way,
Not just as an employer,
And not just as a filthy greedy gold-digger,
But maybe something more,
And he would have thought about that some more if it weren't for the zombies attacking,
And the cultists attacking,
Waving their hands and shouting something incomprehensible,
But more comprehensible than the zombie speech was.

One of the cultists stayed back, frantically trying to light a pistol,
A wheellock, it seemed, a crude, archaic pistol,
And pointed it at Jonathan and Margaret while the fuse slowly burned,
Shouting, "Don't move, or I'll shoot!"
Then waited for the fuse to burn a little more, and shouted,
"It'll take about thirty seconds, so don't move!"

One, two! One, two!
And through and through!
The zombie-slaying hammer went smashy smash,
And one zombie fell, then another,
Because Jonathan really was getting pretty good at this,
But the cultists were a little smarter than the zombies,
Still having living human brains,
Tasty, fleshy grey human brains,
And they attacked all at once, the half dozen of them,
Charging Jonathan, as fast as a human can charge,
Which is much faster than a zombie.

Margaret, swift-witted Margaret, did not have a hammer,
Nor a musket,
Not even a twelve-pounder cannon, which would have been really useful here,
But she was near to one of the bubbling chemistry sets,
Which was probably being used in an experiment to isolate the zombie virus,
Or bacterium,
Or whichever it was,
And use crude 18th century bioengineering technology to research it,
But she didn't know any of that,
So she grabbed a beaker, and threw it at the cultists, splashing it in their faces,
Which caused some of them to stop, and clutch at their eyes, and shriek,
Something about how they were melting,
Which was pretty accurate, since that vial contained sulfuric acid,
And not a zombiepox experiment.

Jonathan took advantage of this, and bashed the cultists with his hammer,
Bashing them strong, and bashing them good,
Even though the acid probably would have taken care of things,
He wasn't about to take any chances,
And plus, he wouldn't have to bash them in the heads,
What with them being human and not zombies,
So he extended his repertoire a little,
And bashed arms, and chests,
And once or twice on a hip or thigh,
Just to see what it was like, since he didn't get to do that often,
If at all.

The battle was short, and mostly sweet,
The zombies went down quickly, as Jonathan was getting skilled at this,
Much to Margaret's amazement,
And the cultists were easy to defeat, too,
Even that guy in the back with the wheellock pistol, still waiting for the gun to discharge,
So Jonathan walked up to him, and politely suggested that he purchase a flintlock,
Or maybe carry a hammer, such as this one,
Which he showed to the cultist, who seemed quite impressed by it,
Up until the point Jonathan bashed him in the head,
Then strutted around, and thrust his hips, and did the hokey pokey,
And turned himself about,
And waved his hammer, and rode an imaginary horse,
One hand in front holding invisible reins,
One hand behind slapping an invisible horse's rear,
It was a weird dance, but he liked it.

Margaret smiled, amused, and took a moment to watch Jonathan,
For his dancing was starting to get to her,
In a good way, though, he had rhythm, and if only he had a soundtrack,
Then he'd really be stylin',
Since he didn't, though, and since she wasn't about to act as his soundtrack,
She instead began sifting through the sheaves of paper,
And investigating the printing press,
And searching the pockets of the cultists,
Generally, rounding up any and all information that was available,
For right now, they were out of leads,
Other than waiting for more zombies to attack members of Parliament,
Which wasn't all that proactive of a plan.

Jonathan finished his dance, with a spin kick and a hip bump,
It was one for the ages,
One which would beat everyone else in a dance contest,
If he were in a dance contest,
Which he was not, for he was in the cellar of the Monkey's Paw,
Surrounded by dead zombies,
Or deader zombies, I suppose,
And dead cultists, and some that were unconscious,
Including the one with the pistol,
Since it was easier to knock him out than kill him,
And cleaner, too.

Margaret continued her searching, and searched quite thoroughly,
Not finding much of use, though,
Except the "to do" list in the inside pocket of one of the cultists,
Which read, to wit,
1, Create more zombies,
2, Send zombies to kill Parliament,
3, Turn William Brewer into a zombie,
Which kind of surprised her, since hey, that name looked familiar,
Wait a second, that's Jonathan's missing father,
Maybe she should let him know,
In a moment, she thought, and continued reading,
4, Milk, butter, bread,
By now it started to look like the cultists were writing down whatever came to mind,
Which is a pretty weak way to write, one must admit,
For the scribe could put anything down on paper,
And quality would suffer,
Not that you should read anything into that.

She shouted for Jonathan, who ceased his dancing,
His swaying, his gyrating, which would send teenage girls into hysterics,
Good hysterics, that is, with the throwing of undergarments and the screaming,
The mass hysteria, it would be, for he was getting that good at his dancing,
But Jonathan ceased his dancing,
And ran over to Margaret,
As best he could run, due to the bodies strewn about, and the hammer in his hand,
And Margaret said,
"Jonathan, calm down, I have something to say,"
And his heart leaped, and his spirit soared, because this could only be good,
And Margaret continued,
"Your father isn't dead,"
And Jonathan's heart leaped even more, and his spirit soared, and his bowels loosened,
For this was wonderful news!
His father was still alive!
He could talk to him about zombie slaying, and share tactics,
And how to kill certain types of zombies,
And talk about their favorite zombie kills,
It'd be a great father-son moment, the two of them could really bond,
And they could treat each other as an equal, which would be totally awesome,
K-Rad, no less,
So Jonathan started to wiggle his hips again in celebration,
Until Margaret finished her sentence,
"But he's a captive of the Haitian zombie voodoo cult,
And they're going to turn him into a zombie."

Jonathan broke down in sobs,
Falling to his knees, raising his arms above himself in supplication,
Begging almighty Zeus for pity and mercy,
Fearing that his father would become a zombie,
And they wouldn't be able to share their professional stories,
But rather, he may end up facing off against his father,
The zombie, the zombie-slaying zombie,
Though he probably wouldn't slay zombies once he became one,
But would rather eat humans, and perhaps even take vengeance on zombie-slaying humans,
Like his son,
Oh, man, this sucked,
Since Jonathan didn't want to have to fight his father,
If his father were a zombie,
Not like armwrestling his father, or something like that,
Where a young man can earn his father's respect,
Or demonstrate that he is no longer a boy, but a man,
But having to kill your father because he turned into a zombie,
That's a pretty bad way to resolve family differences,
And if Freud existed, he'd have a field day with this, too.

Good thing William Brewer wasn't a zombie yet.

Margaret tried to calm Jonathan, tried to soothe him,
Saying that his father can still be rescued, he's not a zombie yet,
After all, if he were, why would the list still have turning him into a zombie on it,
For a zombie couldn't be turned into a zombie, she said,
Trying to reach through Jonathan's tears,
Figuratively, of course,
For if she were literally reaching through his tears, why,
That may mean she were a zombie, going for his brain,
But since she only figuratively did it,
She was just comforting him,
But he kept sobbing and wailing, and bemoaning his father's fate,
That she slapped him again,
Thinking that if it worked before, it may work again,
And she scolded him, saying that her father was still missing,
And he had a chance to save his father, at least, and what did she have?
Nothing! Nothing at all!
So she was a little cranky,
Even though she was happy for him, but inside, where she didn't show it,
Deep inside, hidden by her pants.

Jonathan sniffled a little, and nodded,
For he could see her point, and he felt a little bad,
But not that much, since he was still upset about his father,
But he screwed his courage to the sticking place,
And stiffened his sinews,
And vowed to go once more unto the breach, dear friends,
Once more,
Or else fill the streets of London with its English dead,
Which may be the unfortunate outcome of a zombie outbreak,
Heh.

Margaret comforted him a little more, and looked again at the to-do list,
Which on the back, had even more writing on it,
Useful writing, too, unlike the whole milk, butter, bread incident earlier,
Writing such as an address,
An address such as a nearby tavern,
About a quarter mile away,
A nearby tavern called the Gibbon's Claw,
Which is a good indication that the English can be unimaginative,
At least when it comes to naming public houses,
And also, come to think of it, when it comes to food.

Jonathan's heart raced,
And leaped a little bit more,
For maybe this was an opportunity to save his father,
Just maybe, he could rescue him,
In a heroic scene, oh, wouldn't it be wonderful,
He'd smash his way through legions of zombies,
Bashing them with his hammer,
And break his father's chains, shattering them with blows from his hammer,
And then give his father's hammer to him,
Who would then lift it high, and vow that he would never be captured again,
And that he would slay many zombies,
Side by side with his son,
His noble son, his tall, brown-eyed, brave, strong-jawed, lantern-elbowed son,
His son, Jonathan, who was daydreaming a bit,
And when Margaret said that they should go to the Gibbon's Claw,
And quickly,
He suggested that she go there with Samuel,
For he could protect her,
And he'd run back to his shop to get his father's hammer.

She looked askance at him,
For she knew that he was a little jealous of the time she was spending with Samuel,
And if he was suggesting that the two of them go off alone,
Why,
Maybe he wasn't really all that interested after all,
Maybe he was just fixated on that stupid hammer and those stupid zombies,
Damnit, didn't anyone ask what she thought about things,
So she huffed a little, and stood up quickly, swishing her dress,
Or she would if she were wearing one; remember, she had pants on,
And she returned through the door leading to the common room of the Monkey's Paw,
Going from the interior of the cellar to the interior of the tavern,
Raising even more issues about the nature of exterior and interior,
While Jonathan,
Brave Jonathan,
Hammer-wielding Jonathan, father-rescuing Jonathan,
He turned, and ran at the cellar door leading outside,
And crashed into it, for it opened inward, not outward,
And after catching his breath and shaking the stars out of his eyes,
He unbarred the cellar door,
Opened it,
And disappeared into the night.

Book XI - In Which The Zombie Outbreak Spreads,
And Reaches Europe,
And Is Described Expositionally,
So No Time Has Passed For Our Intrepid Heroes

The new zombie plague,
Or I should say, the new variant of the zombie plague,
The mutated strain,
The edited strain,
Zeus' zombiepox version two,
Was introduced here and there in the New World,
So as to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Europeans to identify a Patient Zero,
If they even knew what that was, or anything about epidemiology,
Of which they knew very little,
So it was mostly just Zeus covering his ass,
Which he was good at.

At Fort Countrywide, on the Floridian peninsula, there was another zombie attack,
Nothing out of the ordinary for zombie attacks on forts,
Except this time, some of the European soldiers who repelled the attack were bitten,
Which previously was just an annoyance, not lethal in any way,
Except for the bites which were lethal, like the bites which took chunks out of a neck,
Or the bite into a brain,
Which was always crunchy and deadly,
These bites, even the bites that were just scratches,
Would become infected, much worse than a normal infection,
With little red lines traveling from the infected spot towards the heart,
Which is a general sign of infection,
Except this was a sign of zombie infection,
Which was really going to start to suck.

The soldiers that were bitten grew sick,
And ill, and feverish,
And eventually died,
Rather quickly, actually, depending on the bite,
And a few short hours after death,
Would arise as a grey-skinned zombie,
A goddamned dirty zombie,
A European zombie, no less, with the blonde and blue attributes one would expect,
Which hungered for human flesh,
Much like the ordinary, non-mutant zombies.

However, the Europeans did not know that their injured compatriots would zombify,
For they never had before,
And Zeus didn't tell them,
So they acted as usual, bandaging the wounds,
Treating them like normal,
And sending the grievously wounded back to England, rotating them out of the combat theater,
Putting them on medical ships with destinations in the Caribbean and the Continent.

These galleons and frigates that hosted the wounded sailed back, across the Atlantic,
And all was okay, until one of the zombie-bitten soldiers died on board,
And turned into a zombie,
Which came as a real surprise to everyone,
And it managed to bite a few people before it was killed,
Shot in the head, and in the torso a few times, and dumped overboard,
Which relieved all of the sailors and soldiers on board,
Until the newly-bitten men turned into zombies themselves,
And all heck broke loose,
Everything was higgledy-piggledy.

The ships continued to sail, though deserted,
Which is again a linguistic hurdle, for they weren't really deserted,
Or depopulated,
Or unmanned,
But perhaps unhumaned,
In that everyone aboard was now a zombie,
A grey-skinned, flesh-hungering zombie,
Which couldn't sail the ships themselves,
So they drifted across the Atlantic,
And it was really a stroke of luck that the ships beached themselves in England,
Or perhaps a lack of luck,
But it was a stroke of luck for the zombies,
Because now they had a whole lot of people to eat,
And that made them happy,
Or it would make them happy, if they were capable of happiness,
Or other human emotions,
Like appreciating the finer things in life, such as dance,
If only they appreciated dance, then maybe they'd wiggle their hips themselves.

One of the beached ships disgorged its zombie contents onto the rolling hills,
And the zombies began to wander, and spread,
Biting the people they found, and eating them a little, too,
And those dead people would arise again as zombies,
And the plague began to slowly spread through the countryside,
Not as fast as it would spread if an infected zombie were to reach a major city,
Like, say, London,
Which is why it was really unfortunate for the Londoners when a sick farmer,
Who had been bitten by a zombie,
Decided to visit his family in London,
And drove his cart there, riding on the bench behind his horses,
For when he died, which was right quick,
He turned into a zombie, as expected,
And bit a person here and there.

These bitten people turned into zombies,
Which resulted in some calls for the local law enforcement,
Which deployed, and saw that zombies were roaming the streets of their fair city,
So they killed the zombies,
Using their intrepid zombie-killing human instincts,
And told everyone who heard about it that it was just some local drunkards,
Nothing more,
That they grey skin was a skin condition brought on by the London fog,
Which seemed plausible enough,
And that the drunkards grew violent,
Which is why the police had to kill them with extreme prejudice,
That is, shooting them in the heads,
Which also seemed plausible enough to the Londoners,
So they mostly bought the story,
Except for the conspiracy theory buffs.

They began to spread the story of zombies in the city,
Which was mostly met with laughter,
For everyone knew that the only zombies were in the New World,
And only the native inhabitants of those sorry lands were susceptible to the plague,
It was God's will, or something to that extent,
But we won't mention the theological problems of the risen dead,
Even though we keep mentioning it,
The point is, the plague had reached London,
And was starting to spread.

Book XII - In Which Jonathan And Margaret Rescue William Brewer,
And Jonathan Has A Touching Reunion

Jonathan raced through the streets,
The infected streets of London, though he be unaware of the plague,
And reached his shop, and turned the handle,
Which turned, damnit, he forgot to lock it again,
Someday that'll come back to haunt him,
Not today, though, and he entered his shop,
Spied his father's hammer in the corner,
And grabbed it, hefting it over his shoulder,
And raced back out of his shop,
Without taking one final look at the life he was leaving behind,
Even if he wasn't really leaving it behind.

Through the streets he rushed, dreaming of the reunion with his father,
Dreading the reunion if his father was a zombie, 
Since that reunion would end with the death of either him,
Or his father,
Or both of them, if they managed some cataclysmic clash of wills,
And of hammers,
Both killing the other at the same time,
And then maybe the hammer blow would knock the zombie plague out of William's brain,
And with his dying breath, forgive his son, and thank him for saving him,
And expire, and Jonathan would die as well,
That sort of noble death appealed to Jonathan,
Which meant that if his father were a zombie,
And if they fought,
He'd need to hit him hard enough to de-zombify him,
Which would be pretty hard, as he had never managed it before,
And time it precisely right, so his father would disembowel him at the same time,
Or tear his arm off, or do something that would cause his death,
So they could die together,
That'd be something the bards could sing about,
That is, if his father really had turned into a zombie.

He neared the Gibbon's Claw, racing over the cobblestone streets,
Until a hand reached out from an alley as he passed,
And grabbed him, grabbing at his arm, and his garment,
Taking hold, and spinning him around due to his momentum,
Almost cracking the whip, were it a childhood game,
But this was no game -- zombies were afoot,
So he raised his hammer,
His own hammer, not his father's hammer, and prepared to strike,
But held his blow when he saw that it was Margaret,
Dear, sweet Margaret,
Standing in the alley with Samuel behind her.

"Jonathan," she hissed,
"Get in here," and she gestured to the alley,
And, "Fix your pants, they're falling down,"
Which they were, for his belt had loosened during the run,
And his trousers were in danger of falling around his ankles,
Which makes zombie-slaying difficult at best,
For mobility is limited,
And humility is maximized,
And no advantage can be gained thereto,
For zombies do not point and laugh at a man's nudity,
But rather, would kill him,
Not for his sin of exposing himself,
But for being a human,
A warm-blooded, fleshy human,
And though some people considered this a delayed form of punishment,
Of divine punishment,
Part of the expulsion from Eden,
The majority of people rejected that,
And just opined that people should kill the zombies,
Which often met with general approval.

Jonathan pulled his pants up, partially out of modesty,
And partially for an advantage in fighting zombies,
And stepped into the alley, being sure to keep tight hold on his hammer,
And his father's,
Powerful though it was, it was not his to use,
And during his hammer-holding, Margaret hissed again,
Saying that the Gibbon's Claw was nearby, just around the corner,
And this time, they were going to go in the back door,
Bashing it in,
Surprising the inhabitants,
And once inside, they'd figure out what they were doing next,
For no one present was really a tactical genius,
And they were making things up as they went along,
Which had worked so far, so, hey, why mess with a good thing.

Jonathan nodded, for this made sense,
He was always one to abide by the law of averages,
He flipped a coin, once, and it came up heads,
And on the second flip, heads again,
And on the third time, heads yet again,
So he kept it in his pocket, his lucky heads-flipping coin,
And that reinforced his notion of hot streaks,
And bashing things by the seat of your pants was a hot streak right now;
He liked it lots.

Samuel led them out the other end of the alley, and down a street,
A rather empty street, for there was no one present,
Not even a zombie,
And they worked their way around the back of the Gibbon's Claw,
Not once considering that the only reason they had to go there was an address on a slip of paper,
Not once considering that perhaps this was an uninvolved public house,
Without zombie cultists in the basement,
But such comparative thinking had no weight with them,
For Jonathan wanted to rescue his father,
And Margaret wanted to rescue his father, too, and hers if she could,
And Samuel, well, he was having fun,
He got to dance on the bar, which was his lifelong dream up to that point,
As he was a pretty unimaginative man,
And now, his lifelong dream was to visit the cellar of a public house,
So everything was coming up roses for Samuel.

Before them lay the cellar door,
Hinged on each side, aligned on a slant,
Leading into the basement of the Gibbon's Claw,
And not once did they consider the similarities between the Monkey's Paw,
And the Gibbon's Claw,
Other than observing how unimaginative people can be,
For perhaps this was a pattern,
And if the Gibbon's Claw held zombie cultists,
Haitian voodoo zombie cultists,
Perhaps they could deduce the names of their other bases of operations,
Like, such as, Orangutan's Law,
Or Gorilla's Saw,
If those places existed in London, they might be good places to investigate,
Not only for voodoo cultists,
But also for unimaginative barkeeps,
Who could be bashed on the head and told to come up with something more English,
Like, The Rose And Crown,
Or The Lion And Crown,
And other Crown-related themes.

Regardless, the cellar door to the Gibbon's Claw lay before them,
And Samuel leaned forward, and listened carefully,
Trying to determine if anything, or anyone, were inside,
Such as zombies,
Or cultists,
Or zombie cultists,
Or even just innocent people, who may be bashed on the head in the heat of combat,
And then buried in an unmarked grave, or dumped in the Thames,
Depending if they wanted to cover it up or not,
But Samuel heard nothing,
Even though there was activity in there,
For he was deaf in that ear,
And didn't think to use his good ear.

He pulled on the door handle, and pulled again,
And it did not open, even after he pulled a third time,
Which did consarn him muchly,
And he pouted off to the side for a moment, and asked Margaret if she could open it,
And despite her efforts, she could not,
And they both turned to Jonathan,
Mighty hammer-swinging Jonathan,
And implied that he could break it down.

He lifted his hammer, and hefted it in his hand,
Eyeing the door, estimating the best place to strike it,
When Margaret stopped him, and suggested that his hammer may be too small,
Not that the size of it matters, but, well, actually, yes, the size would matter,
And maybe he should use his father's hammer,
The giant two-handed sledge hammer,
And bash the door squarely in the middle.

Jonathan was a little shocked, and unnerved, and unsettled,
For he had his own hammer, which was not his father's hammer,
And taking up his father's hammer would mean many things,
Like,
He wouldn't be using his own hammer,
And he would be using his father's hammer,
And it would mean other things, too,
Hugely symbolic things,
Things beyond the scope of this work,
Things that one could write a thesis about,
Or,
Things about which one could write a thesis,
A doctoral thesis on self-identity in relation to one's father,
Especially if the two people involved are both zombie slayers,
Like Jonathan and William.

He sheathed his hammer, in his hammer-sheath that he had designed,
Which was more of a belt loop, really, but it did the job,
And picked up his father's hammer in both hands,
Feeling a thrill run down his spine,
A feeling of accomplishment, of trepidation,
Of finally coming into his own,
Of swinging a really big hammer,
A two-handed hammer,
Like this one.

His father's hammer was heavy in his hands,
Which was to be expected, considering its size,
This was a hammer that could drive railroad spikes,
And it would drive them, if only railroads were in use at the time,
But since they were not, it did not drive railroad spikes,
But rather, was about to be used to smash open a door.

Jonathan set it down, and spat on his palms,
And rubbed them together, to give him a better grip on the hammer,
Even though such a trick never really worked,
And Jonathan should have used a nice set of close-fitting gloves,
Such as those designed for people who swing hammers on a regular basis,
But as he had none of those, and only saliva,
And saliva to spare,
He spared some on his palms,
And on the surrounding environs,
For he spluttered a little,
And while Samuel grimaced, and wiped his sleeve across his brow,
And scuffed one shoe against his shin,
Margaret merely smiled,
For Jonathan was, well, Jonathan,
And that was almost enough.

He took up the hammer again, and got into position,
And offered a short prayer to any god listening,
And asked for his father's blessing,
And begged forgiveness from the owner of the cellar door,
And Margaret told him to get on with it, for he was talking out loud,
Much to his surprise and chagrin,
But he set his feet, and squared his shoulders, and drew up the hammer,
And brought it crashing down with a resounding thud,
And a small spray of splinters,
And a big dent in the middle,
Which lifted his soul, almost as much as his soul was lifted before,
Back when Margaret told him his father might still be alive,
So he raised the hammer yet again,
And swung it again,
Striking the door in the middle, nearly in the same spot as before,
Broadening the dent,
Deepening it, too,
And causing a few more splinters to fly,
Which caused Samuel to wipe his sleeve across his brow again,
And start trying to dig something out of his eye.

On the third strike, the symbolic third strike,
Though he wasn't quite sure of the symbolism, or of what it meant,
Of why a third hammerblow would mean anything to him, or to his father,
Or to the Haitian zombie voodoo cult,
Or to the members of Parliament who were marked for death,
Or marked for zombie attack at any rate,
The symbolism was much too deep for him,
And is left for future students to analyze, and debate,
And argue that Jonathan is really a metaphor for the Republic of Ireland,
And that the zombies really represent the forces of change,
And that there's a whole economic undertone to the work;
Jonathan knew none of this,
But on the third strike,
The door collapsed inwards,
Caved in from the force of Jonathan's swing,
And the weight of his father's mighty hammer.

He shouted in triumph, which annoyed Margaret for a moment,
For she wanted to keep the element of surprise, and his shout would clearly not help,
Until she realized that the people inside the cellar, if any,
Would have certainly heard the pounding on the door,
Or, failing that,
Would have heard the door fall apart,
And seen the remnants hanging on the hinges,
So she summoned up all her breath,
And shouted her war cry,
Which was, "Get in there, you idiots!"

Samuel rushed down the stairs, brandishing his cudgel,
Which he had picked up on the journey from the Monkey's Paw,
And had kept hidden up until now, for no particular reason,
And Jonathan followed, father's hammer in hand,
With Margaret trailing behind,
And they found themselves in the cellar of the Gibbon's Claw,
Again, in an outpost of the Haitian voodoo zombie cult,
Again, surrounded by zombies and cultists,
Again, with chemistry equipment bubbling, and a printing press churning,
Except this time, there was something different from before;
This time, there was a man chained to the wall,
Arms outstretched, manacles around his wrists,
And this man looked strangely familiar,
For it was William Brewer,
Jonathan's father,
Zombie-slayer extraordinaire.

Isn't that convenient.

Jonathan shouted again, and his father raised his head wearily,
For he had been captured by the zombie cult some months ago,
And fed little, only bread, and water, and the occasional cut of prime rib,
But it was always an end cut, so it was tough and overdone,
Never the thick juicy pink middle,
And always only a few ounces, never a generous piece,
So he had nurtured his hatred,
And his bitterness,
And developed an overpowering burning rage against the cult,
And against zombies,
And he vowed to break out, someday, and kill them all,
Which just made the cultists laugh, for who would rescue him,
And who would bring him a weapon with which to kill them all,
It'd just be way too coincidental to happen.

Samuel led the way into the fray, swinging his cudgel,
Charging into the legions of zombies,
Which is a pretty generous term,
Legions, that is,
For there were no more than three or four,
Plus an equivalent number of cultists,
While Jonathan and Samuel were outnumbered, the odds weren't too much against them,
Especially since Jonathan was pretty good at this slaying stuff,
As said repeatedly before,
And was probably equal to nearly a dozen zombies,
Which hasn't been said repeatedly before.

The zombies and cultists both charged, except for a few near the back,
And the charging zombies and cultists charged,
Meeting Jonathan and Samuel head-on in another cataclysmic clash,
Two armies meeting, two tidal waves breaking upon one another,
Even though it was just a couple zombies and cultists versus two guys,
The meeting was still climactic, because their hearts were pure,
Or some drek like that,
And the walls echoed with the cries of battle,
Of hammer and cudgel,
Of zombie moan and cultist curse,
Of Margaret screaming about incompetence,
Of William shouting for rescue, or encouraging his son on,
It was hard to make him out in the din.

The battle raged in heroic fashion,
Jonathan bashing zombies in zombie-slaying bashing fashion,
Samuel swinging his cudgel in the only fashion a cudgel can be swung,
And zombies and cultists falling before them,
In the fashion that zombies and cultists fall before the heroes,
Even though Samuel wasn't really a hero,
But just a character introduced to further the plot,
And further it he did.

The tides of battle shifted,
Partially because Jonathan and Samuel smashed a lot of zombies,
And partially because it was necessary for the tide of battle to shift to further the plot,
Since Samuel can't further the plot all by himself,
And one of the cultists who had held back from combat,
One of black-robed villains, with a hood over his face,
For that was the manner in which zombie cultists attired themselves,
One of the cultists in the back threw open a door,
And hid behind the opened door, using it as cover,
As zombies began to stream out into the cellar itself.

This didn't look good to Jonathan, zombie-slaying Jonathan,
Cultist-slaying Jonathan,
And it didn't look good to Samuel, either, or Margaret,
But it did look good to the cultists,
And they shouted out in triumph,
And Zeus, mighty Zeus, heard these shouts from afar,
And decided this may be interesting,
So he started to pay attention to the battle,
Though he became disappointed early when he saw that the zombies,
These grey-skinned zombies trying to eat Jonathan,
Were not carriers of the mutated strain of zombiepox,
And so he lost a little interest,
For he was mostly concerned about the spread of his new strain,
Which was the whole point of the exercise.

A shadow fell over Jonathan's heart, which grew heavy,
And no longer soared,
And he was a little despondent, and thought that he wouldn't survive the day,
And wouldn't become rich and famous, as Margaret had promised earlier,
And wouldn't write a book,
And wouldn't marry and have kids and a house in the country,
Far away from zombies,
All of these dreams were about to disappear,
Until his father shouted, "Jonathan!
To me!
And bring the hammer, you dunce!"

Jonathan's heart soared, just a little, since there were still a lot of zombies there,
But he saw the opportunity for heroism,
And drama,
And steeling himself, he stepped forward, swinging the hammer in broad swipes,
Semicircles, from one side to the other,
Then back again,
Bashing everything in his way, zombie and cultist alike,
But not Samuel or Margaret, for they wisely stayed behind him,
As Jonathan was not that discriminatory in his bashing,
He was pretty equal-opportunity about the whole thing.

He forced his way through the horde of zombies,
Killing some, incapacitating others,
Spraying zombie goo everywhichwhere, which was unsurprising,
Given the careless nature with which he swung his father's hammer,
And his strength derived from his youth,
And from being a blacksmith,
And from being his father's son,
There's something to that, you know,
But he closed in on his father, bashing as he went,
And when he reached him, shouted,
"Father," he shouted,
"I have come to rescue you," he shouted, for there were a lot of zombies moaning,
"And I have your hammer," he shouted again,
And shouting more, he shouted, "Why don't you have any pants?"

Jonathan's father William, the zombie-slayer, the chained man,
Drew on his reserves of strength, which he had kept in reserve these long months of captivity,
And shouted back,
"Free me, you nincompoop!"
Then giggled a little because he said poop,
I guess you see where Jonathan gets it from.

Jonathan set down his father's hammer, and leaned it against his thigh,
Taking a small breather in the midst of the chaos of the battle,
For the battle was still raging, but mostly on the other side of the cellar,
Where Samuel was backed into a corner, Margaret behind him,
Still screaming about incompetence,
But Jonathan was on this side of the cellar,
Where there were few zombies, thanks to his bashing,
And he spat on his hands again, and rubbed them together,
And eyed the chains holding his father in place,
Carefully evaluating their construction,
For, as a blacksmith,
He had an eye for such things,
Which suited him well at this point,
For he identified a weakness in each chain,
A weak link, to coin a phrase,
Where, if he were to smash it squarely with his hammer,
He would shatter the chain,
And free his father,
In accordance with the prophecy,
Though there wasn't a prophecy about it.

He raised the hammer, and his father looked at him confidently,
Trustingly,
Believing that his son, this man before him,
Would swing his hammer true,
And free him from his bondage, 
From his months of pain and torment,
Even though the only real torment was getting a bad cut of prime rib,
He still could taste freedom,
Which, to him, tasted of Hollandaise sauce,
And some eggs Benedict.

Jonathan swung his hammer,
But it was really his father's hammer, as his hammer was still at his side,
And there is more symbolism and interpretation here,
For Jonathan viewed his father's hammer as his own,
Referring to it as his hammer,
Though it still rightfully belonged to William,
And William hadn't bequeathed it yet to Jonathan,
And Jonathan had his hands all over it,
Again, if only Freud were around.

The hammer arced through the air,
In the manner that a bundt cake does,
And broke the chains, shattering them against the wall behind,
In the manner that a bundt cake doesn't,
And one arm was free! William was halfway to freedom,
And he could almost taste it,
The Hollandaise and the eggs,
And Jonathan swung the hammer again,
Shattering the other chain that held his father captive,
Destroying it utterly,
Releasing years of pent-up rage and frustration,
Of trying to live up to his father's standard,
An impossible task, but Jonathan tried,
And always fell short, at least in his own eyes,
So he had a lot of pent-up rage and frustration,
Much like his father did during his captivity,
So maybe that was hereditary, too.

William, Jonathan-begetting William,
Though the begetting took place over a score years ago,
William fell to his knees, free at last,
Free at last,
Thank Jonathan zombie-slayer,
He was free at last,
And he rubbed his wrists, which were still encircled by manacles,
Which Jonathan saw, and offered to break him free of those, too,
He felt he had good aim with the sledgehammer,
But William, ever-wise William, wise beyond his years,
Which was pretty wise, considering his years,
Declined the offer, and suggested that Jonathan kill zombies, instead,
But first, he asked for his hammer,
His sledgehammer,
For William Brewer was a zombie-slaying man,
Lord Lord,
William was a zombie-slaying man.

Jonathan dropped to one knee, and offered his father his hammer, 
Holding it up before him,
And William took it in both hands, and lifted it high,
And vowed that, so help him God,
He would never be captured again,
And that, after all,
Tomorrow is another day,
And that he would slay many zombies,
And this whole thing started to look like Jonathan's daydream,
Which was quite coincidental;
At some future time, Jonathan would look back on this,
And how he envisioned rescuing his father,
And how the rescue turned out to be just what he thought,
And he considered himself something of a seer,
Or a prophet,
Or a man-about-town,
Either way, he felt pretty good about it,
Even though it was just a coincidence.

He rose to his feet, and drew his hammer from his sheath,
And holding it in his right hand, and standing at his father's side,
They shouted jointly, "For King and Country!"
Which showed how much they knew, a Queen was currently ruling,
But one must cut them some slack, for William had been imprisoned for some time,
And Jonathan was, well, Jonathan,
The important thing is that they were reunited again,
And that there were zombies to slay,
And a fair maiden to rescue,
That being Margaret,
Who really wasn't a maiden,
But that was nobody's business but her own.
She was still pretty fair, though.

They stepped forward, jointly again, and began slaying zombies,
William with his hammer, Jonathan with his,
And though Jonathan had become quite experienced in zombie-slaying,
He was a rank amateur when compared to his father,
Who was performing feats of amazing brilliance,
Such as decapitating a zombie with a hammer,
Which is surprisingly difficult,
And decapitating two zombies at once with a hammer,
Which is even more difficult,
And Jonathan paused to admire his father's work, and to learn some pointers,
And he would have watched even more if it weren't for the zombie that fell on his back.

The zombie, the grey-skinned zombie of doom,
For the drums of doom were ringing in Jonathan's ears,
The drums of doom being that special kind of drums that ring,
Especially when doom is near,
And that doom was near for Jonathan, for he fell onto his knees,
And then onto his chest, with a zombie on his back,
And he hadn't seen Barbados,
So he must get out of this.

His hammer skittered out of reach across the floor,
And the zombie's hands began to close around his neck from behind,
Since, for some reason, this zombie chose not to devour him instantly,
Or to rip out his spine, or to gouge out his eyes,
Or to punch him in the kidney,
Which hurts a hell of a lot, and could have made Jonathan suffer pain while urinating,
No, that zombie opted to suffocate Jonathan,
To strangle him,
And so it tried, with hands around his neck,
Jonathan gasping for breath,
Samuel swinging his cudgel,
Margaret screaming, since she had nothing else to do,
And maybe if she found a certain pitch, the sonic vibrations would dissolve the zombies,
Hell, it was better than nothing, wasn't it?
But William, brave William, experienced William saw his son go down,
With the zombie clinging to him,
And spun in place, swinging his hammer with both hands,
As it was a two-handed hammer,
And bashed that zombie but good,
So good, in fact, that none of the zombie goo landed on Jonathan at all.

Jonathan rose to his feet, much as he did just a few minutes prior,
Since rising to his feet is something that he did quite well,
And recovered his hammer, and his eyes caught Margaret's from across the room,
For while she was still behind Samuel, clinging to his garments,
She was watching Jonathan the entire time,
Watching him rescue his father,
Watching his near-death experience,
And secretly praying that he wouldn't die,
Since not only was she starting to view him in a different way,
She also thought how great it would be to hire two zombie-slayers,
Especially if she could get a family rate.

Now that William had entered the melee, the outcome was no longer in doubt,
Barring any extra door which held back another horde of zombies,
And the remaining cultists fled,
And the remaining zombies got bashed in the head,
And hey, that rhymed,
But no one paid attention to that,
For Jonathan and William were having a heartfelt reunion,
Which, since they were men,
Was nothing more than William saying, "Uh, thanks,"
And Jonathan saying, "Uh, it was nothing,"
But both of them really meant it,
And it was a special moment that they shared.

Jonathan introduced his father to Margaret and Samuel,
And introduced Margaret and Samuel to his father,
By saying, "Father, this is Margaret, and this is Samuel,"
And, "Samuel, this is my father, and Margaret, this is my father,"
And since he was on a roll, he also introduced Margaret to Samuel,
Saying, "Margaret, this is Samuel,"
And, "Samuel, this is Margaret,"
And by this point Margaret tapped him on the shoulder,
And whispered quietly into his ear that he should check his pants,
Which were beginning to slip down again,
Despite his best efforts.

William, tall William, almost as tall as Jonathan,
So perhaps William, almost-tall William,
Stretched his arms,
And rested his hammer on the floor, and his hand on the handle,
And looked at Jonathan, who looked back,
And said to his son, "Son, Jonathan, son of mine,
Isn't there something we should do?"

Jonathan looked at his father, staring deep into his eyes,
Reading the mysteries which lay behind them,
And realizing the implications of slaying zombies with his father,
Nodded, and took a deep breath,
And the two of them launched into song,
Into a rendition of "Hammer Time!"
With Jonathan providing the backbeat.

Margaret took it in good humor, only groaning at the verse,
"Thank you for blessing me / with a big ham-mer and lots of zom-bies,"
And during the rest of the song, began searching the cellar,
With Samuel's aid,
For the two of them had little to do during Jonathan and William's musical number,
And if they were to segue into another song, they'd have even more time,
Let alone all the time once they started dancing,
So Margaret searched, and Samuel browsed,
Then they switched tasks,
And continued their search,
Until Margaret,
Fortuitous Margaret,
Found another slip of paper, 
This one not a shopping list,
Nor a laundry list,
But another to-do list,
And one that contained actual action items,
Things that the Haitian voodoo zombie cult could do to leverage their synergies,
And by proactively monitoring market trends,
Could implement empowered team dynamics in new paradigms,
And achieve total quality without sacrificing customer focus,
Basically, it was their Special Order 181,
Not that such a Special Order meant anything in this world,
For the American Civil War (and not the War of Northern Aggression,
And we won't get into that now, either)
Hadn't happened in this world,
And likely wouldn't, given the current state of America,
With all of the zombies.

This slip of paper detailed the Haitian voodoo zombie cults plans,
Their plans to assassinate Parliament,
Both Houses, Common and Lords,
And barring individual zombie assassin squads,
They would blow up Parliament,
With gunpowder, barrels of it,
Which had been conveniently stored beneath the Palace of Westminster,
Stacked one on top of another,
Buried in a storeroom in the back of the basement,
But enough to blow all of Parliament to Kingdom Come,
Which was pretty far away, one supposes,
And there'd be a big kerblooie,
Much bigger than the kerblooie when cannons shot at zombies in the New World,
No, this kerblooie would be quite fierce.

Margaret's face went pale, and she read the rest of the note,
Which was in regards to the Haitian zombie voodoo cult's biological warfare plans,
About how they had tried to breed zombies,
Which failed,
And how they had tried to isolate the zombie pox,
Which somewhat succeeded,
And how they had identified a new kind of zombie,
A zombie that could infect Europeans,
And while they couldn't control these zombies,
They could still kill off a bunch of Europeans,
So that was pretty okay with them,
And the note closed by addressing the native they had captured,
Who was immune to the zombie plague, both the original and the new,
And wasn't that curious, quite curious,
And he was kept captive in, in,
At this point, Jonathan and Samuel and William held their breath,
Waiting to hear the location,
For this was pretty important,
This immune native,
And Margaret paused, and took a breath, and said,
He's kept captive in, in,
But didn't finish,
For the paper was full, and it had run out of room,
And so the scribe, the cultist author,
Probably finished on another page.

That was a disappointment to them, to all four,
For that immune native sounded pretty interesting,
And potentially important,
But the whole part about Parliament exploding was pretty important too,
Since if Parliament blew up, well, there'd be a lot of chaos,
Which wouldn't be good for business,
Even though as a blacksmith, he may get some work in reconstructing Parliament,
Not any of the carpentry work, but he might end up subcontracting to someone,
So maybe it wouldn't be all bad if Parliament were to explode,
But he'd feel guilty about it,
And to Jonathan,
Zombie-slaying Jonathan,
That was enough for him to prepare himself to save Parliament,
For he was a hero,
And that is what heroes do,
And that is what the four of them were about to do,
Even if not all of them were heroes.

Book XIII - In Which Our Intrepid Adventurers Reach Parliament,
And Fight Zombies, And Save Parliament,
And If You Don't Want Spoilers, Don't Read The Chapter Headings

Jonathan and Margaret, and Samuel and William, the four of them departed the Gibbon's Claw,
Opting not to look for a Chimpanzee's Maw,
But instead, went straightaway to Parliament,
To the Palace of Westminster on the banks of the Thames,
Just a little south of them, past St. Martin's in-the-Fields,
Past Charing Cross,
Yes, past Scotland Yard, too,
Just on the other side of Westminster Bridge,
Lay the Palace of Westminster,
And the House of Commons,
And the House of Lords,
And some guards,
Who knew nothing about a zombie gunpowder plot,
And the effects that it may have on their future life,
Or lack thereof.

Samuel carried his cudgel, for lack of a better weapon,
And William carried his sledgehammer, for lack of a synonym,
And Jonathan and Margaret ran side by side,
As lovebirds would tend to run, if they were human,
And chasing down a zombie plot,
But run they did, with the others quickly behind,
And as they approached Parliament,
That bastion of law and justice,
A scream tore the night air,
Then another,
And a third,
All shouting about zombies.

William raised his hammer, for this is what he was born to do,
Slay zombies, that is, not raise hammers,
Though raising hammers was what he did most of his life, anyway,
And his son as well,
But that's beside the point,
He saw a group of people near a back door of Parliament,
Which was conveniently placed at the back,
And these people were bashing a figure on the ground,
With sticks and stones,
Which were breaking its bones,
And shouting names,
Which didn't hurt the man on the ground,
Zombie or not.

William sprinted over, with the other three in tow,
And saw the mob finish dispensing its justice,
Bludgeoning with truncheons,
As mobs tend to do,
And the victim, now that William had gotten closer,
Was clearly a zombie,
With grey skin,
And sunken eyes,
And other attributes of the living dead,
Or in this case, the dead dead,
And while he poked it with his hammer,
Just to make sure,
He asked of the mob where this zombie came from,
And what it was doing,
And where it was going,
And how many zombies must a man bash in the head,
Before you can call him a man,
Which was just a rhetorical question.

The mob murmured amongst itself, as mobs tend to do,
Until one man stepped forward,
Identified himself as Carl Buchheim, recently of Berlin,
And explained that the zombie had recently exited that back door,
And disturbed this peace-loving group of citizens,
Who were only enjoying the night air, thank you very much,
And not doing anything illegal,
Like rehearsing a subversive play,
And dressing up as highwaymen,
No, they weren't doing that at all,
But the zombie interrupted them nevertheless,
And they were quite put out,
For the zombie tried to eat their leading lady,
Who disagreed with the concept quite strongly,
And the rest of the group felt the need to take matters in hand,
So to speak,
Or to take bludgeons and truncheons in hand,
And resolve the matter.

William nodded sagely, for he understood what it meant to kill a zombie,
And to be interrupted by zombies,
For the past few years of his life were filled with little more than that,
And the past few months of Jonathan's life were much the same,
And father and son were more similar than they had ever been,
And the cat's in the cradle with the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon,
When ya killing zombies, dad,
I don't know when,
But we'll kill them together then, son,
You know we'll have a good time then,
And Jonathan and William shared another moment,
Though they didn't realize it.

Carl inquired as to the purpose of these four,
Who were bearing the marks of an epic battle with zombies,
That is, they all had a little goo on them, despite their best efforts,
And despite William's accuracy,
And who were at Parliament's back door late at night,
When only miscreants and zombies and actors would be around town,
Come now, what's their purpose?

Jonathan said, in his usual manner, "Uh,"
And before he could continue, Margaret brushed by him,
Patting him lightly on the shoulder, where no one could see,
And explained to Carl that they were also actors,
Though she was an actress,
And they were rehearsing a play about zombies,
Those grey-skinned devourers of all things good and holy,
And if zombies were nearby, say, in the basement and bowels of Parliament,
Why, that would be a perfect place for them to go,
And get some good first-hand research,
And primary sources,
And Jonathan nodded, as did William, and Samuel, all following her cue,
And Carl bought it,
Poetic, artistic Carl,
For that sounded pretty plausible,
And he was interested in that zombie play,
And promised to see it repeatedly as soon as it was performed.

The four intrepid heroes nodded, even though not all of them may have been heroes,
And filed singly through the door, into the basement of the Palace,
Into the darkest depths below, where zombies lurked,
And barrels of gunpowder lay,
And cultists, Haitian voodoo zombie cultists,
Prepared to destroy Parliament,
That noblest of structures,
That inanest of institutions,
That most beautiful of bordellos,
Parliament,
With that smooth tobacco smoke.

Jonathan led the way, with hammer in hand,
For he was quite used to having hammer in hand,
And it had proved useful, especially when they met zombies, or cultists,
Which they weren't at that moment, but an ounce of prevention and all that,
And they slowly moved through the rooms and halls below,
Carefully sniffing the air, trying to detect that telltale zombie stench,
Or the odor of a burning fuse,
Which would be their indication to get the holy hell out of there,
Because that place would then be about to blow.

Through the basements he weaved,
With Margaret and William and Samuel behind him,
None in front, for that would defeat the purpose of him leading,
And then Jonathan,
Brave Jonathan, zombie-slaying Jonathan,
Might no longer be the intrepid hero of our tale,
And we'd have to start all over from a different point of view,
And that's just silly,
Far too silly for anything like this.

One door, and then another, was inspected by Jonathan,
Nudging them open with his hammer, listening carefully,
Listening for the zombie moan, or the zombie stench,
Which sometimes was so thick you could hear it,
Which is a pretty thick stench,
Like the stench you get from the gyros from Holy Land in northeast?
Those are good, but the onions,
The biological warfare weapons-grade onions,
They can be pretty lethal,
So Jonathan listened for noxious zombies,
And sniffed for noxious zombies,
And he said "noxious" a few times, since he liked that word,
Almost as much as he liked bashing things with his hammer,
And singing his theme song,
And making up dances, which was a lot of fun,
Especially when he got his hips into it.

Suddenly, with a sudden start, Margaret stopped,
And tapped Jonathan on the shoulder,
This time in full view of everyone, she didn't care who saw,
And whispered to Jonathan, tall Jonathan,
That ahead, at the end of the hallway,
There was some light,
A flickering torch, or perhaps some other instrument that cast light,
But in a flickering manner,
So it could perhaps be a torch, or some candles,
Or maybe a fireplace,
Or even, she whispered, or even it could be a zombie set on fire,
Zombie flambé,
Which probably wouldn't taste that good, but it should be investigated,
And she whispered some encouragement into his ear as well,
Which stiffened his spirit,
And he became fierce.

Jonathan, hammer-wielding Jonathan, stream-of-consciousness Jonathan,
He boldly stepped forth, holding his hammer in front of him,
As if to defend himself against any zombie attack,
Which, conveniently, his hammer would do,
And his father was bringing up the rear, with his hammer held behind him,
As if to defend himself against any zombie attack,
Which, hopefully, his hammer would do,
And the two of them with their hammers surrounded Samuel and Margaret,
Fashionable Margaret and fated Samuel,
Samuel, who was not long for this world,
Though he didn't know it,
And if you don't want spoilers, you shouldn't have read that part either.

Blame it on the translation.

Closer to the flickering firelight they came,
Sneaking quietly, as quietly as could be managed,
For Jonathan's pants kept falling down, with a jingle and a jangle,
From all of the bells and whistles he kept in his pants,
Don't ask, he liked it that way,
But they still sneaked carefully up to the door,
And as they drew nearer, they could hear the zombie stench,
And smell the zombie noise,
And see, well, they couldn't see anything yet,
What with the door being closed,
But that was about to be remedied,
And our heroes were about to embark on an epic adventure,
More so than they already had been,
And Save Parliament,
Film at eleven.

Jonathan and William looked at each other,
Caught their respective eyes, and nodded silently,
Then remembered Samuel and his cudgel, and nodded at him, too,
Who nodded back, then nodded at Margaret,
Who nodded at Jonathan and Samuel,
Then remembered William, and nodded at him,
Who curtsied back to Margaret, for wasn't she polite,
Then he realized that he was a man,
So he tried to take back the curtsey, but it was too late,
It was all too late,
So he thought, hell with it,
And kicked the door open with a shout,
Causing no small amount of damage to the door itself,
But the frame suffered little, for the door was unlatched,
And ajar just a little,
Which is how the flickering firelight managed to reach the hallway,
Ha HA, not everything's contradictory in here!

Inside was a vision from their nightmares,
Perhaps not their worst nightmares, but a bad one nonetheless,
Like when you dream something really horrible, and you wake up,
Arms akimbo, legs tangled in your bedsheets,
And you'd only been asleep for five minutes, according to your clock,
Or your candle which you use to measure the passage of time,
If you have no clock,
And you wonder how you managed to dream so much in just five minutes,
And rather than falling asleep again, you ponder the nature of dreams,
And whether they are messages from the beyond,
Or perhaps something people tell themselves,
Like when Jonathan dreams about zombies, it's not a sign or an omen,
But rather, an indication of something unresolved,
Like the whole zombie plague,
It was a vision from that kind of nightmare.

There were zombies,
And there were cultists,
But there had been zombies and cultists at the Monkey's Paw,
And at the Gibbon's Claw,
And zombies in the streets of London,
And outside Jonathan's shop, o so long ago,
And in Haiti, in the French Quarter,
And at Fort Macquarie, which was no surprise to anyone,
So Jonathan and Margaret, and Samuel and William,
They had gotten pretty used to zombies,
And cultists, too,
So that part wasn't like a nightmare,
Even though there were a couple of each.

The nightmare part,
The really scary part,
Was the gunpowder, casks and casks of gunpowder,
Stacked neatly in stacks,
In neat stacks,
Around the walls of the room,
With zombies carrying more casks, and setting them into place,
Or as close as they could get, for the cultists needed to provide some help,
As zombies were a little shaky in the hand-eye coordination aspect,
And could only get the casks in the general location of where they should go,
Leaving the fine-tuning for the human humans,
Who resented it just a little.

There was a significant amount of gunpowder present,
Almost as much as Guy Fawkes had in 1605, thirty-six barrels,
The Haitian zombie voodoo cultists had only thirty-five,
Or perhaps thirty-four, or thirty-three,
They were stacked around, and it was hard to get a quick count,
And to estimate the hidden ones,
Mostly because the cultists started shouting, as did our heroes,
And the zombies,
The grey-skinned zombies,
They just moaned, those that still had vocal chords and diaphragms,
One diaphragm per zombie,
And those that didn't, didn't moan,
But there were barrels of gunpowder all around,
And it was pretty scary,
Especially since one of the cultists,
Upon seeing the entrance of our beloved foursome,
Lifted a firebrand in his hand,
And touched it to a fuse,
Which began to burn and spit with alarming alacrity,
And people began to shout a lot more.

Some of the cultists who had shouted at Jonathan and his hammer turned,
And saw the lit fuse,
And began to shout at their compatriot who had prematurely lit a fuse,
For they didn't intend to die in there, that's what the zombies were for,
And they were decidedly opposed to the idea of being blown up for the cause,
But the zombies, those disgusting ghouls of the netherworld,
They tended not to care,
Likely because they had no idea what a fuse was, or what gunpowder was,
And if they were caught in the fiery conflagration of the destruction of Parliament,
Also known as the big kerplooie,
They wouldn't care much,
For zombies cared little for anything.

Samuel was slightly alarmed by the lit fuse,
For since he was British, he kept a stiff upper lip, what ho, pip pip,
And so on,
And rarely let emotions show on his face,
Especially emotions like love,
Or happiness,
Or absolute pants-wetting terror of being blown up,
Which is what he was feeling right now,
So he allowed himself to display a slight indication of alarm,
Such as a raised hand,
And a comment,
"Excuse me, but would you mind terribly extinguishing that fuse?"
Which seemed to have no effect.

Jonathan and William,
Father and son,
Or son and father, depending on how you look at it,
Much like how the earth revolves around the sun,
Or the sun around the earth,
Depending upon your point of view,
Or, if you were on the surface of Mars,
You would say that both the earth and the sun,
That fiery orb of destruction,
That they both would orbit around Mars,
Though Mars was the initial indicator of a heliocentric system,
For as seen from Earth, Mars travels in a chaotic route,
Requiring epicycles upon epicycles for a geocentric view,
And all that Ptolemaic stuff was long gone, thanks to Copernicus,
And Galileo,
And Kepler,
And Bob,
Who was rather unappreciated in his time,
But he had a father,
And was a son,
And so, Jonathan and William,
Father and son,
Raised their hammers, and vowed revenge,
Both a little more concerned about the lit fuse than Samuel was.

Margaret, brave Margaret, who had really undergone a lot of character development,
She stood behind the hammer-wielding duo,
And behind Samuel, as well, who did not wield a hammer,
And she watched the imminent combat,
And evaluated the positions of the zombies, and of the cultists,
And got a good look at that fuse,
For she was starting to hatch a plan,
And that plan was, do something,
Something brave, something heroic,
Something worthy of a saga,
Or an edda,
Or an epic poem,
Or a made-for-TV movie,
She was going to do something great,
Mostly because she still hadn't picked up a weapon,
And was still kind of useless in a fight,
Which bothered Jonathan a little, in the back of his mind,
For why should he risk his life in every combat?
Just because he's getting paid? No, that wasn't enough,
For Margaret had become less of an employer and more of an equal,
And though their trials and tribulations, through the legions of zombies,
And the gallons of zombie goo,
They had become closer,
Their relationship more informal,
Which annoyed him a lot,
For if she wasn't going to be the aloof employer,
The least she could do was pick up a gun and shoot a zombie,
Or a hatchet, or anything,
For her shrieking wasn't really doing anything to hurt the zombies,
And he didn't even think about how he secretly wanted her to be kept safe,
For some reason, that never occurred to him,
And he was just bitter.

These four, these noble four, these four who would be sung of in song,
In singing songs,
They stepped forth, bravely, confidently, zombieslayingly,
And the battle was met,
Again,
In another cellar,
And Jonathan was getting kind of tired of this, too,
He thought back to Fort Macquarie,
Where the soldiers had muskets, and cannon, and mortar,
And how that would probably have been a lot of fun,
Blowing up zombies with explosives,
For while a hammer is nice and personal,
Very up close,
He wanted a little bit of change,
For variety is the spice of life, after all,
And it struck him,
The idea, that is, not a zombie,
That there were explosives all around,
And zombies all around,
And he could blow up zombies with explosives, as long as he let that fuse burn,
Which gave him such a grin,
For he'd get to watch zombies go kerplooie,
Then he realized,
Brave Jonathan, not too fast on his feet Jonathan,
He realized that he was surrounded by explosives,
And that he would likely blow up as well,
Which put a damper on the whole concept.

But the battle was met, as mentioned a moment ago,
And hammerblows rang,
And cries were shouted, and shouts cried,
And Samuel, brave Samuel, ill-fated Samuel,
He was in trouble but didn't know it,
He had little time to live but was unaware,
And he charged into the fray,
Swinging his cudgel willy-nilly,
Bashing at zombie and cultists alike,
Drawing all of their attention to him,
Both zombie and cultist alike,
Which gave Margaret her opening,
Swift-footed Margaret,
And she darted through the crowd,
Dodging zombie and cudgel alike,
And reached the fusey fuse,
Burning bright,
In the Parliament of the night,
For what fearful zombie hand,
Could light thy with a firebrand?

She stepped on the fuse, and smirked.

Jonathan whooped in triumph,
As did William,
Both of them while locked in mortal combat,
But Samuel,
Doomed Samuel,
He whooped in triumph as well,
But at a bad time, a very bad time,
For a zombie fell on him from behind,
Which is what a lot of zombies had done lately,
And Samuel shouted, as he stumbled to his knees,
"Kill it,"
And, "Get it off me,"
And, "Careful about the pants, they're new,"
Which they were, for he had purchased them very recently,
During a lull in the action,
And was quite fond of them.

Jonathan stopped his triumphal whooping,
And fought his way over to Samuel,
Still-human Samuel, but for how long,
And Jonathan feared for a brief moment that one of these zombies,
These horrible flesh-eating monsters,
Was one of the mutant strain that they had read about,
On the note in the Gibbon's Claw, one of the mutant strain that could infect Europeans,
But Jonathan, not always slow-witted Jonathan,
Remembered the rest of the note, that the Haitian voodoo zombie cult,
The nemesis,
Still could not control the mutant strain of zombies,
And the zombies that were present were being used to stack gunpowder,
Thus logically proving that the zombies could not be the variant,
Unless, well, the Haitian zombie voodoo cult had managed to find a way to control those,
But he didn't think about that,
For Jonathan tended not to think through problems all the way to the end,
Even when he wasn't being slow-witted,
But the point is, the zombie that was eating Samuel was a classic zombie,
A very ordinary zombie,
And so Jonathan could come to his aid without any fear for his life or limb,
Except for the ordinary fear involved in killing zombies,
Which was more than enough fear for Jonathan.

Jonathan bashed, and bashed, and bashed again,
Three times actually,
And reached Samuel, who by now was laying prone on the floor,
With a zombie atop him, clawing and biting and drooling,
For zombies tend to lack fine motor control, as observed earlier,
And that affects their capacity to limit drooling,
Along with their capacity to place casks of gunpowder in neat stacks,
But Samuel wasn't doing too well,
For the zombie had taken big chunks out of him,
The kind of chunks that without which make it difficult to live,
And Samuel, well, didn't.

Jonathan let a single tear roll down his cheek,
For he was still in combat, and could not grieve for his fallen companion,
Not yet, at least,
But he could have his revenge,
And he bonked that zombie with his hammer,
Quite solidly on the back of the head, I should add,
And the zombie, the bonked grey-skinned zombie,
Fell back and to the left,
Quite thoroughly deceased,
And Jonathan let another single tear roll down his cheek.

William, sledgehammer-swinging William, he finished the rest of them off,
For he was quite proficient in killing cultists and zombies while using few words,
Such as twenty-four words in those past two lines,
And with a crunch, the final zombie was schmucked,
And bashed, and de-gooified,
Which gave Jonathan license to fall to his knees,
And cradle Samuel's fallen body in his arms,
And sob,
And cry out, "Why, Lord, Why,"
And beg, "Take me instead, Lord,"
And ponder, "Hey, I wonder if those pants will fit me,"
But he sobbed, and danced not one whit,
And didn't even notice when soldiers burst into the room,
Weapons at the ready,
Demanding answers.

BOOK XIV - In Which Samuel Is Laid To Rest, And Jonathan Rewarded,
And The Zombie Plague Recognized,
Just In Time

Margaret and William had managed to explain themselves to the soldiers,
Who were understandably alarmed at the presence of zombies,
And cultists,
And gunpowder,
And most alarmed at the presence of all three together, in a basement in Parliament,
Beneath the House of Lords,
It was all too historic and memorable for them,
And they threatened to arrest the three anyway,
For disturbing the peace, and conspiracy to kerplooie Parliament,
Which had been against the law for quite some time,
And was generally frowned upon by the authorities.

Margaret, wealthy Margaret, she spoke softly and sweetly,
Telling them of the vile plots of the Haitian voodoo zombie cult,
And of their intention to blow up Parliament,
Kerplooie,
And of their attempts on the lives of several MPs,
And how Jonathan, here, had saved the life of one,
And was rewarded quite handsomely,
And now the three of them had saved the lives of many MPs,
Even though not a lot of them were in Parliament at the time,
But hint hint, anyway,
And the guards took her at her word,
Since she was a fast talker,
And a speed walker,
And a midnight cowboy,
Though she wasn't really the last one.

The authorities came to the scene of the crime,
For indeed it was a crime to bring gunpowder there,
And investigated thoroughly, and looked at the zombies,
And looked at the cultists,
And looked again at the zombies, then said,
"We need an expert on zombies,"
And, "If only William Brewer were still alive,"
And, "Has anyone called dibs on this guy's pants?"

Both Jonathan and William raised their hands,
Jonathan for the pants,
William to identify himself as the named zombie expert,
Which resulted in a buzz of activity,
Both among the investigators for the sudden reappearance of William Brewer,
And among the investigators for the creepiness of Jonathan taking a dead man's pants,
Even though he hadn't taken them yet,
Just idly wondered if they'd fit him,
And he'd have them laundered first, anyway,
He's not a savage,
Even though he's killed a lot of zombies,
And has lamented the death of his friend,
And suddenly remembered that he was behind in his dancing,
So he sheathed his hammer,
Straightened his waistcoat,
And began to shake his hips,
Swinging them from side to side,
Then jumping up,
And jumping back,
Yeah, he definitely had the knack

The investigators looked approvingly on the carnage,
And Jonathan's dancing, too,
And briefly spoke to William about the zombies, and the plague, 
And the Haitian voodoo zombie cult, and his captivity,
Those long months, with little prime rib to eat,
So depressing,
And while they talked, Margaret and Jonathan moved to the side,
And comforted one another over Samuel's death,
So Jonathan said, "I'm sorry he died,"
And, "I know he was important to you,"
And, "He did have good taste in pants,"
To which Margaret replied,
"What are you, drunk?"
And, "He was nice and all, but..."
And, "Still, those were good pants."

The chief investigator, a Mister Smith, left the group talking to William,
And, crossing the room carefully, stepping over zombie and cultist corpse alike,
Came to Jonathan, and praised him for his work,
Saying that his father had spoken very highly of him,
And along with Margaret's explanations of the voodoo Haitian zombie cult,
And that he would be rewarded for his endeavours,
And his struggles,
Mostly his zombie-bashing, but his moral struggles as well,
That the reward would be quite significant, both financially and socially,
For now he was a respected member of the community,
As are all zombie-slayers who save Parliament,
Which caused William's ears to perk up, and he eagerly awaited to see if his name would be called,
And if he would get a gigantic reward as well, and be a respected member of the community,
Then he remembered that he already was,
For he was a famed zombie-slayer,
So he relaxed, and decided to let his son have the glory,
And the wine,
And the women.

Speaking of, Margaret looked at Jonathan again, and thought about him,
About his dancing, about his zombie-slaying, about his good, strong heart,
And how it was a shame he wasn't rich, since he'd be a great husband,
But since she wasn't about to settle for a simpler life, it could never be so,
For Jonathan could not support her in the manner to which she was accustomed,
But wait -- he was rich now,
Or would be, as soon as the huge cash prizes from the MP he saved, 
And from the grateful government,
That age-old British government with its bias against being blown up,
As soon as those cash prizes were delivered, Jonathan would be rich,
Filthy rich,
And he could write that book she talked about earlier, about how he killed zombies,
And that book could go through dozens of printings, and be translated into hundreds of languages,
Including those African ones with the click in them,
Just imagine the royalties that would come pouring in from that,
And the speaking tours! Jonathan could hold symposia and conferences,
Discussing hand-to-hand zombie-slaying tactics,
The best way to swing a hammer, how to identify if a zombie is nearby,
The best pants to wear when slaying zombies for that fashionable aspect,
Margaret's heart soared, in the manner of catapulted bundt cakes,
And she realized that when Jonathan was rich,
Filthy rich,
They could be wed,
And best of all, she wouldn't have to pay for zombie protection any more,
Since she could talk him into doing it for free,
Or else he'd have to sleep on the couch.

Jonathan watched Margaret's train of thought,
Which wasn't too difficult, as she moved her lips while she thought,
And Jonathan,
Square-jawed Jonathan,
Could read lips to a certain extent,
Which was a talent that no one knew about,
Not even him, up until that moment,
So it came as a surprise to him,
Almost as much as finding out that Margaret thought of him in that way,
For he never quite saw that,
But this must be true, after all, it makes everything fit together,
It all makes sense now,
And Margaret watched him watching her,
And his train of thought,
And his moving lips, too,
Plus his pants, those fashionable pants,
So she asked him, "Jonathan,
Dear Jonathan, sweet Jonathan,
Jonathan, speaking not as your employer, but as Margaret Wells,
And only Margaret Wells,
I must say that I think it would be rather advisable,
Nay, very advisable,
If we were to join finances,
And lives,
And settle down together."

Jonathan replied, in his usual swift way,
"Uh," he said,
"Uh," he continued,
For he had never received a proposal before,
Let alone from his employer, which added a whole level of complexity to it,
And "Uh," he continued,
Until Margaret rolled her eyes heavenward,
And sighed in a long-suffering manner,
And said, "Kiss me, you oaf,"
To which he replied, "Uh, okay."
It was all very touching.

The chief investigator nodded approvingly,
For it was good for the zombie slayers of the town to be settled down,
As it gave them an attachment to the town,
And thus incentive not to destroy large swaths of London to defeat zombies,
After that incident where the zombie hunter Dwight set fire to Bethlehem Hospital,
Torching the entire structure, killing dozens, all to get just one zombie,
The government decided they would be better served by professionals who cared for the city,
And had an environmentalist outlook on their slaying procedures,
Such as, not poisoning the entire Thames to try to kill a zombie that fell in the river,
That was a really bad day.

Suddenly, without warning, a boy ran in,
Breathless, and out of breath, he raced up to the chief investigator,
Pausing to smirk at Margaret's predatory smile and Jonathan's bemused look,
He gasped, "Message for you, sir," before handing a slip of paper to Mister Smith, 
Who unfolded the paper,
Which had been folded neatly,
And read it quickly,
For he was able to read the written word quite quickly,
Especially when there were only a few words,
However, this note was quite extensive,
As will be indicated by his reaction,
Which was thus:

Mister Smith gasped as well, which was more surprising than the boy's gasp,
For the boy had recently run a great distance, while Mister Smith had not,
And Mister Smith gasped again, and read further, and gasped a third time,
For the note contained a warning of a zombie outbreak,
An outbreak of the mutant strain,
For Londoners, good God-fearing honest Londoners,
Were being attacked by zombies, and bitten,
And then dying and rising as zombies, and then attacking others,
It was quite horrific,
Especially since this was spreading somewhat rapidly,
And their vaunted European immunity was of no avail,
Which unnerved them all,
Especially those of them who did not want to turn into zombies.

Mister Smith took a deep breath, and steeled himself,
In the manner of someone about to ask a great boon of someone else,
And he turned to Jonathan, and William as well, and Margaret,
And asked if they could be of any assistance,
For they had more experience slaying zombies than most,
And he promised greater rewards,
Which would likely be very great, considering they would save the whole of London,
Nay, of all England,
Which is pretty big, compared to just saving a couple hundred people in Parliament,
And Margaret replied first, for she keyed on the phrase of "greater rewards",
And said that they would be honored to be of assistance, 
And they would be even more honored to accept a great reward,
For though Margaret had developed over the course of these adventures,
She was still a creature of comfort at heart.

Mister smith nodded approvingly again, and thanked the three of them,
Both for their volunteerism and their bravery,
And suggested that they first contact Doctor Jacques Orff,
Recently of Paris, where he had completed an in-depth study of onanism and infectious disease,
For he had been investigating the zombie plague, despite degenerative glaucoma,
And he might be able to provide some assistance in this matter,
Which suddenly rang a bell in Margaret's mind,
Figuratively, of course,
And she recalled the notes she had read at the voodoo zombie Haitian cult's base,
Which talked of a native immune to the plague,
Both the original and the new strain,
And she realized that perhaps this may be an answer,
But not the only answer, for she would still need Jonathan and William's assistance,
Since the existing zombies would need to be killed in a traditional manner.

She explained this quickly to Jonathan and William,
Saying that she would contact Dr Jacques Orff, and pursue that avenue of thought,
That line of research,
That branch of the plot,
While Jonathan and William, brave father and son team,
Would deploy to the site of the outbreak,
Hammers in hand, and smash zombies left and right, and front and back,
And reduce the zombie population, which would then reduce the exponential spread,
For if each zombie is an infecting vector, then,
Well, Margaret couldn't think through the math fast enough,
But the important thing was, they'd need to kill zombies,
And lots of them.

Jonathan agreed, as did William, for they would take any excuse to kill zombies,
Both of them having acquired a taste for it over the months and years,
Months for Jonathan, years for William,
And William still harbored some bitterness over his captivity,
And vowed revenge again, which caused Jonathan and Margaret to sigh and roll their eyes,
For he had said it a few times already, they got the idea, they understood,
Okay, he wanted to get his revenge, great, so go ahead and do it already,
Just saying it over and over doesn't change anything,
Just do it,
And William decided that he would, and vowed that he'd kill zombies,
Which just caused Margaret and Jonathan to both utter an arrrgh of despair,
And repeat, quit saying it, just do it!

So William picked up his hammer, and Jonathan picked up his, hefting it in one hand,
But William, brave, fatherly William, told Jonathan that that small hammer,
Jonathan's hammer,
Was not the right tool for the task at hand,
Not that there was anything wrong with it, but this called for a better weapon,
An heirloom weapon, Jonathan's grandfather's hammer,
A hammer forged to fight against evil, a hammer of the gods,
A hammer perfectly suited for a grand climactic battle against zombie hordes,
A hammer, William said, for today.

Jonathan thought that was pretty cool.

Margaret watched this touching moment,
This bond between father and son,
Tall William, brave Jonathan, preparing to kill grey-skinned zombies together,
And she sighed contentedly, happy for her future husband and future father-in-law,
Which was almost enough to make her forget about her father, Herbert,
Who was still missing, although he hadn't been mentioned lately,
And she still wanted to rescue him, wherever he may be,
But that was next on the to do list, after containing this zombie outbreak,
And talking to the good doctor Jacques Orff.

Jonathan looked around at the detritus of the battle, at the zombies and cultists,
At the gunpowder,
But especially at Samuel,
Poor deceased Samuel,
And he thought of his own mortality,
And his father's mortality,
And his fiancee's mortality,
For he suddenly had a family,
Impending family, in the case of Margaret, but it was on its way,
And he had a twinge of fear, for this may cost the life of himself,
Or of one of his loved ones,
Of whom two were present,
And losing one of those would reduce the number to one,
Which is only one away from zero,
And then he's back to where he started,
Making chastity belts in his forge with an heirloom zombie overhead.

Margaret declared that she would go to doctor Orff, and meet Jonathan and William at the shop,
At Jonathan's smithy,
For that was an ideal rendezvous point for the three of them,
As the distance from Parliament to the doctor's office was roughly equal,
As the crow flies,
To the distance from Parliament to William's weapons cache,
Let each of those distances equal x,
With the doctor's office being point a,
And William's cache being point b,
And Jonathan's shop, point c,
Which was coincidentally the same distance from both point a and point b,
Except the distance in this case was y, not x,
For it was a little shorter, and the map,
Seen from above,
Would appear to be a kite,
Not a rhombus, due to the sides of unequal length,
As x did not equal y,
To summarize, the Houses of Parliament, William's weapon cache,
Doctor Jacques Orff's offices, and Jonathan's smithy,
Together formed a planar convex quadrilateral,
Consisting of two adjacent sides of length x and the other two sides of length y,
But Jonathan wasn't aware of that,
For he was bad at math.

Margaret dashed out the door, as per her declaration,
And into the hallway and the basement of Parliament beyond,
Then into the night, unescorted, undefended,
Which may not have been the greatest idea, given the zombie outbreak,
But she was bold, and she was daring,
After all, hadn't she extinguished the burning fuse in the cellar,
The fuse that would have made all of Parliament explode in fiery destruction?
Damn right, she had,
And if she ran into a zombie on the way, why, she'd forcefully tell it off,
And maybe scream once or twice,
But she'd run right past it, she would,
And maybe trip it with her foot, and hope it would bash its head on the ground,
For she still was without a weapon,
Damnit.

Jonathan and William also dashed out the door, but a little more leisurely,
For they both had hammers, and William had a bit of girth,
Which was surprising, given his captivity,
But I guess it goes to show how true it is that, when exposed to starvation conditions,
The body will slow its metabolism,
Not quite entering a state of suspended animation,
Or hibernation,
But it would ration the body's stores of energy,
Which apparently is what happened to William,
For he still had a small gut,
And that slowed him down compared to Margaret,
Who, not being kept prisoner by a voodoo zombie Haitian cult,
Was not overweight,
And that made perfect sense to them.

BOOK XV - In Which Jonathan Receives A New Hammer,
And Margaret And The Doctor Discuss Epidemiology,
And The Zombie Impact Thereon,
And Realize Vaccination, Some Decades Before Edward Jenner,
But Just Go With It

Jonathan and William ran through the streets,
Dashing towards point b, as referenced above,
Where William had stored weapons, and equipment,
And various accoutrements of zombie slaying,
For he knew in his heart that zombie slaying was a dangerous business,
A business with danger comparable to stealing fire from the gods,
And giving it to men,
Which has caused Prometheus no end of pain,
And agony,
And anguish, too,
For he was still upset,
And William knew that, and compared its danger to his life of zombie slaying,
And so prepared a cache or two in strategic locations,
For times when he was on the run and needed equipment,
Or to hide from a zombie outbreak,
For some of his caches had reinforced bunkers,
With isolated containment systems and heavy steel doors,
And stand-alone air circulation,
They were all really cool, and he was kind of disappointed,
Brave, always-prepared William,
For he never had an opportunity to retreat to his bunker,
And stay there while the zombies ravaged the city,
Devouring human and human alike,
While he, wise William, stayed inside,
With his stockpile of supplies, and of whisky,
For any zombie siege requires whisky, and lots of it,
Some very nice single malts,
And in the back of his mind, he thought about taking a dive,
Deliberately throwing this zombie fight,
And letting the zombies take over London,
So he could hole up in his bunker, and make good use of it,
For he had spent a lot of money, and kind of resented that,
But then he remembered that the bunker had only room for one person,
Which didn't make much sense now, but for some reason he decided that when it was built,
And that meant there was no room for Margaret or Jonathan,
Let alone both of them,
And he didn't want them to turn into zombies,
And that decided that,
It was time to kill zombies.

They approached the cache,
Which was disguised in an attempt to deter curious Londoners from finding it,
Disguised in a very canny manner,
For it was off a side street, and down a flight of stairs to a cellar door,
With a sign overhead, which read,
"Brewer's Most Excruciatingly Painful Dentistry",
Based on the thought that painful dentistry would deter people,
And excruciatingly painful dentistry would be better,
And most excruciatingly painful dentistry would be even better still,
And though he thought of adding more superlatives and adjectives to that,
He felt it was good enough as is,
For it hadn't been discovered yet,
Which was a good indicator that no one had discovered it yet.

William patted his pockets, looking for the key,
Then realized that his keys were taken from him, back during his captivity,
When he was captured by the voodoo Haitian zombie cult,
And cursed, for he could not unlock the door,
And Jonathan, eager Jonathan,
He lowered his shoulder, and ran at the door,
Crashing soundly into it,
But causing no damage, for he was a mere human,
And this door was solid English oak,
Not flimsy Central American balsa wood,
And he shook his head from side to side, clearing the cobwebs from his mind,
And retreating a few steps, lowered his shoulder again,
And charged at the door, aiming at the same spot,
Crashing into it again, hoping it was weakened from the previous attempt,
But to no avail -- the stout door was stouter than the stout British upbringing of stout Jonathan,
And stouter than his shoulder, too, which is the important part,
And he fell backwards,
For the collision with the door was of an elastic sort,
And the kinetic energy that Jonathan imparted onto the door was returned to him,
Not wholly, but enough to knock him ass over teakettle,
Which caused him to fall on his ass.

William giggled a little bit, because Jonathan had an ass,
And then remembered that he hid a spare key to the bunker,
In case of emergency, or drunkenness,
Or emergency drunkenness,
Like those times when your best friend says that he's got this great date set up,
The woman's a total knockout, blonde and blue-eyed,
Coincidentally like most of the Europeans in this tale,
Except she won't go out unless her best friend comes with her,
So you need to go along as well,
O Wingman,
Which sounds promising, except then you find out the catch,
That your best friend's date's best friend,
That is, the person with whom you would be associating tonight,
Was recently released from Tower Prison where she spent the last six years in confinement,
As punishment for hacking apart her gentleman companion with a machete,
Coincidentally when she was on a double date,
And your only way out of that is to become roaring drunk,
So drunk that your friend would be too embarrassed to bring you along?
That kind of emergency drunkenness.

The spare key was hidden in a secret location,
Far from prying eyes,
And prying fingers,
Such as the fingers that would pry open locks,
Which is why the bunker was locked, and the key hidden,
For those prying eyes and prying fingers would find hidden keys,
And open locked locks,
Which would defeat the entire purpose of locking the bunker and hiding the key,
Which is why those prying eyes and fingers were deterred from visiting,
What with the whole dentistry sign,
So it worked out pretty well.

The secret location of the key was secret indeed,
For while it is often assumed that spare keys are hidden underneath welcome mats,
This was not the case,
For William was a wily man,
And hid the key someplace different,
In a location that, in his eyes, would never be found,
This key was hidden beneath the "God Bless This Mess" mat,
Which William had found at a local thrift shop,
Which specialised in hard to find oddities, and antiques,
And little kitchy items for around the bunker,
Like that mat,
And a matching set of salt and pepper shakers that looked like little kittens,
Those were just darling, absolutely darling,
But William wasn't in the market for those at the moment,
Since he had just purchased another set of salt and pepper shakers,
Except these looked like a small boy and girl,
And when they were placed on the table, they could be positioned just so,
So it looked like they were kissing each other on the cheek,
Which was to die for,
So he didn't buy the kitten shakers, just the mat,
And hid the key underneath that,
Although come to think of it, he could have hidden the key inside the salt shaker,
Or even the pepper shaker,
But then, the shaker would be inside the bunker on the table,
Which would defeat the purpose of having a spare key hidden outside,
That is, unless he placed the shaker outside,
But he'd need to hide the shaker because it would be rather conspicuous,
And people might look inside the shaker to find a spare key,
So maybe he could have hidden the shaker inside a larger shaker,
And that'd be somewhat sneaky,
But, no, better to go with the classics,
Even if the classic is slightly modified by the use of a different mat,
It'd probably be good enough.

So William lifted the mat, and retrieved the key,
Using that to unlock the door,
As opposed to using any other object, which likely would not have unlocked the door,
And unlocking the door with the key was more productive than Jonathan's bashing attempts,
For while he could bash zombies, and quite well, I might add,
Jonathan, broad-shouldered Jonathan could not bash down a stout oak door,
Which affected his self-esteem a little, for he had failed in front of his father,
But not in the eyes of his father,
Well, in the eyes of his father, because William was watching,
But not in the eyes of his father,
For William did not consider his failure to open the door a failure,
Even though it was a failure in the strict sense of the word,
William was a pretty forgiving guy in many respects.

They entered the bunker, and found themselves in a small room,
Lined on each side by cabinets, made of the same stout English oak,
Which caused Jonathan to wince a little, since there were a lot of them,
And he didn't want to have to try to bash each one of them down with his shoulder,
Already somewhat sore from his previous attempts,
But William, ever prescient William,
He told Jonathan not to worry,
And took a keyring hanging from a nail behind the door,
Which is a canny place to hide a keyring, since not everyone looks there,
On the inside of a door,
And you'll see it yourself when you're leaving, so you remember to put the keys back,
All in all, it's a nice idea,
So William took the keyring, and unlatched the cabinets,
One by one, working very quickly,
And opened them all,
Throwing open the cabinet doors, and sliding them up,
For they were hinged at the top, and on rollers, too,
So they could slide in beneath the top of the cabinet,
It was pretty slick; they were commissioned from a guy over on Holborn Hill,
He did great work, such as this,
Especially for people who needed jobs done quietly,
Like a zombie slayer who is building a bunker to be used in rare events,
Like apocalyptic mayhem.

Inside each of the cabinets was a selection of anti-zombie weaponry,
Such as hammers,
And more hammers,
And cutting implements,
Like knives, and swords,
And scissors,
The thought being, if you could give one to a zombie,
And have the scissors pointed up, not down,
And somehow entice the zombie to run,
Its natural shambling motion may cause it to trip, and fall,
And drive the scissors deep into its brain,
It was in this manner that William put his mother's admonition against running with scissors to good use,
Even though he never managed to kill a zombie in this way,
He could always hope.

Other cabinets held firearms, and explosives,
A few kegs of gunpowder, which bothered William a little,
For if he had been paying attention, and could have had Margaret distract Mister Smith,
He could have borrowed some of the kegs from the basement of Parliament,
And stored them here, in case of emergency,
But c'est la vie,
Que sera sera,
Life's a bitch and then you die,
And so on,
But William had no time to dwell on this, in any language,
For he and Jonathan had work to do,
So he reached into a cabinet and withdrew a hammer,
A shining hammer, fully four feet in length, including the handle,
With an ornately engraved head, inscribed with various zombie-slaying runes,
Which were actually completely fictitious, but neither Jonathan nor William knew that,
And the man who inscribed them was a con artist,
Who actually inscribed pro-zombie runes, for he had sympathies towards the undead,
But what he thought were pro-zombie runes were actually completely fictitious,
For the man who taught him those runes actually hated zombies,
And was conning the con artist,
This is a few levels deep, but the important thing is,
The hammer looked really cool.

William gave the hammer to Jonathan,
Making him vow to slay zombies with it,
For with this great power came great responsibility,
Such as, the responsibility to kill zombies,
And the responsibility not to kill people, unless they were zombies,
And the responsibility to wear pants,
Without which, you might be arrested for indecent exposure,
And scaring the children,
And it's difficult for you to slay zombies when locked in the local gaol,
Except if there were zombies in the holding cell with you,
You could kill those.

Jonathan accepted the hammer, and held it in his hands lightly,
Though it was in actuality quite heavy,
And gazed upon it adoringly, admiring every curve and swell of the hammer,
And, hefting it in his hands,
Vowed to slay zombies,
Many zombies,
Dozens of zombies,
And get his total up in the few hundreds,
For he was somewhere in the dozens now,
And felt optimistic about this whole thing.

William, opportunitistic William, intrepid and intriguing William,
He looked into another cabinet,
Moved some firearms around,
And withdrew a weapon, which was strange and foreign to Jonathan's eyes,
It looked like a flintlock musket,
But was much shorter than the standard long barrel he had often seen,
Most recently at the siege at Fort Macquarie,
No, this weapon was much shorter, about half the difference between a musket and a pistol,
And it had a much larger diameter to the barrel,
Almost two inches,
And the stock itself was shorter than expected,
Almost as if it had been cut off,
Sawed, it seemed,
And Jonathan, ever-curious Jonathan,
Said, "Uh, dad,"
And continued, "Um, what's that?"

William held up the weapon, the fearsome weapon of war,
The weapon which he was absentmindedly swiping with a soft silken cloth,
He held it up, looked at it carefully,
And said, "Jonathan, my son,
Dear Jonathan,
This is a flintlock shotte-gunne,
A fearsome weapon of war,
Which I will use to kill many zombies,
Especially the zombies who are out of range of a hammer,"
Though he used different words, that was generally what he said,
Generally.

Jonathan was quote impressed by the shotte-gunne,
And asked his father if he could have one, too,
But William sadly shook his head, for he only had the one,
As he had always worked alone before,
Bit of a shame, really, for it was a quite effective weapon,
Especially when it came to shooting zombies in the head,
For this was quite therapeutic, and often made a mess of the zombie's head,
Which was the ultimate goal, anyway,
But Jonathan could carry the extra powder and shot, for William could only carry so much,
And the shotte-gunne used up ammunition at a prodigious rate,
Most likely because William was trigger-happy.

William reached into another cabinet, and pulled out two broad-rimmed floppy leather hats,
One for him, one for Jonathan,
And said that all the cool zombie hunters wear these,
For it was the style at the time,
Along with the flowing black leather trench coat,
Of which he did not have any,
Much to their mutual dismay,
For they wanted to look their best when killing zombies,
Those grey-skinned bitches.

They armed themselves further, draping crucifixes around their necks,
And donning bandoliers of sharpened wooden stakes,
And tying pouches of garlic to their belts,
For though they were hunting zombies, not vampires,
It never hurt to be prepared,
For what would happen if they suddenly met a vampire on the streets of London,
Nearly one hundred and fifty years before Bram Stoker would write Dracula,
And create the modern perception of a vampire,
By fusing myth and legend into a semblance of a whole,
And spawning uncountable knockoffs and a genre known for bad literature,
Both on the silver screen and not,
So though they had no right to have the same concept of a vampire as a modern audience,
Hypothetically speaking, since only the Muse knows what audience may read this,
They still prepared for a vampire,
Or, if their worst nightmares were to come true,
A zombie vampire,
Which would need to be staked in the heart and the head simultaneously,
A tough job, to say the least.

They departed the bunker, William with shotte-gunne and Jonathan with hammer,
Elaborately inscribed hammer,
And the two of them rushed through the night to Jonathan's shop,
Hoping to meet Margaret there,
Praying she was still alive,
Fearing she had been turned into a zombie,
Which would be quite the downer,
Especially since Jonathan and Margaret had not legally wed,
And he would have no claim to her riches,
Not that he was marrying her for that,
But that if she were to die,
God forbid,
At least he could have something to assuage his grief.

While this father-son bonding was going on,
Margaret, pensive Margaret,
Blonde-haired and blue-eyed European Margaret,
She ran towards Doctor Jacques Orff's medical offices,
And his laboratories, for he kept those in the back room,
As he was quite the researcher of infectious diseases,
And he felt it best to do his small part in keeping those apart from the public,
Even though the back room had windows which opened onto the street behind,
He felt it wasn't his fault, he did his share, and it was the damned city planners,
Those high and mighty bureaucrats,
That allowed a street to pass near his laboratories.

Margaret arrived there quite promptly, and let herself in,
For she was in a rush,
And there were zombies roaming the streets of London,
And Mister Smith had advised her to contact the good doctor,
So she assumed she was expected,
And called out a hello when she entered the waiting room,
And a good evening,
And a warning that she was wearing pants,
So nobody should try anything funny.

Doctor Orff emerged from the back, wiping his hands with a towel,
Then casting it aside, for he had no need for it,
Now that his hands were dry,
And dry they were, and if they had been still wet,
He could have dried them on his white lab coat,
Which all doctors wore at the time,
Of course,
And introduced himself,
As Margeret did the same,
And the two of them discussed the weather, and how fine it was,
And wasn't the Thames such a delightful blue these days,
And other matters of little import,
For it was considered polite to get to the point in a rather oblique way,
And Margaret was nothing if not polite.

Eventually, over time, she managed to broach the subject of the zombie outbreak,
And of how it was affecting Europeans,
Good, honest, blonde-haired Europeans,
Which wasn't the way things had been for some centuries,
And everyone was quite put out about it,
And demanded answers,
And that things be done,
And muttered among themselves that the earlier decisions of the government,
Such as prohibiting zombies from holding public office,
That these decisions were having little effect,
As evidenced by the spreading plague,
So Margaret talked about that, and about how Mister Smith had recommended Doctor Orff,
And hinted at his research into infectious disease,
And sort of left things hanging there, waiting for his reply.

Jacques was quite adept at small talk, and at reading between the lines,
Which wasn't all that necessary right now, for Margaret was speaking very plainly,
And the zombie outbreak had distressed him as well,
For he had only heard about it mere hours earlier,
Shortly before Mister Smith had been notified,
And he had thought about what he could do,
Thought quite deeply, as a matter of fact,
And lamented that he had no way to protect the Londoners from the zombiepox,
Which was a shame, really,
For he had recently done extensive reseach into immunization,
In that manner he was quite ahead of his time,
And don't look too closely at the year in which these events took place,
And just go with it,
Yeah, immunizations and shotguns are kind of anachronistic,
But, uh, Zeus did it,
That's the excuse.

The immunizations to which Jacques referred were quite straightforward,
In that he theorized that cowpox and smallpox were similar,
Mostly because they had similar symptoms,
And they both had the word 'pox' in their names,
Which was close enough for him,
And he had taken samples from the pustules of a cowpox-infected dairy maid,
And smeared that on the mucous membranes of healthy people,
Then exposed them to smallpox,
And marvel of marvels, miracle of miracles, they did not die,
Which was a bit of a surprise to everyone,
Especially Doctor Orff,
For he had expected the people to die of smallpox,
As this whole thing was really just a bet with his good friend Edward Jenner,
Who in this counterfactual history, had been born some decades earlier,
Uh, it was Zeus' fault.

Margaret listened attentively,
Especially to Jacques' lament that he had no person who had zombiepox and was not a zombie,
For that person could be used to immunize others,
If the theory held,
And those others, if they did not turn into zombies themselves,
Well, it was kind of like reverse zombification when you thought about it,
Pretty cool, huh,
But Margaret interrupted Jacques at this moment,
And told him about the native she had read about in the voodoo zombie Haitian cult,
The native who was immune to the original strain of zombiepox,
And the recent strain, the one that infected Europeans,
Despite the best efforts of the cultists, this man was not infected,
And if this man could be found, couldn't he be used as a source,
As a way to inoculate anyone and everyone from the plague,
And Jacques nodded, and thought.

If Jacques and Margaret could find this man,
This savior of mankind, Jacques thought,
They could drain his blood, and save hundreds of thousands of people,
But Jacques paused,
For that was a little too symbolic for his tastes,
And he wouldn't really need that man's blood,
Not all of it, at least,
He could even make do with some saliva, likely,
And culture that in a petri dish,
Which Jacques also had in his lab, which was quite extensive for his time,
But the point remained, they had to find this man,
And free him,
And hope he wasn't dead,
And then take a stool sample,
If nothing else,
And save all of humanity.

Jacques quizzed Margaret, asking detailed questions,
Such as, where did she find out about this man,
And, where could this man be found,
And, did this man have any pants, for if not, he could bring some,
Jacques being quite concerned about modesty,
And Margaret, winsome Margaret, replied in the affirmative, and the negative,
And the confusatoriative,
For she had no idea if the man had any pants,
But assumed he would at least have a loincloth,
For that is how she imagined captive natives,
Clad in a loincloth, chained with arms outstretched on a wall,
Muscles rippling as he tried to free himself,
Carefully oiled down, hair tousled,
She sighed dreamily, then caught herself,
For there was work left to do,
Such as finding that dreamy, dreamy man,
But wait,
She remembered Jonathan,
And her growing fondness for him,
His theme song, his dancing,
Which was getting better, she had to admit,
And she regretfully put that mental image of the native in the back of her mind.

Jacques nudged Margaret, waking her from her reverie,
And asked her what now, what next,
Where to,
And other such questions,
Possibly involving pants,
And Margaret, bold, charge-taking Margaret,
Horse-beshitted Margaret, for she had stepped in some on the way over,
Which annoyed her a little,
Margaret said that she had arranged a rendezvous point with two zombie slayers,
Both quite experienced,
And that the good doctor should come with her,
And rendezvous with them at the rendezvous point,
And guide them to the spot of the nearby outbreak,
For, if their luck would hold,
And hold it might,
The native, the cure to all of this, might be located nearby,
And if their luck were even more lucky,
And if Zeus were to smile down upon them,
She might be able to find her father,
Herbert Wells,
Who was not forgotten,
Despite the occasional lapse in mentioning him.

Jacqued nodded firmly and decisively, for he was decisive,
And firm, too, when matters called for it,
And call for it they did,
For all of London was at risk,
And if London were to turn into a town infested with zombies,
Then Jacques would have fewer patients,
And his income would diminish significantly,
And his wife would be less than pleased, for she had married him with money in mind,
Come to think of it, she was like Margaret in many ways,
Except she was brunette,
With some blonde roots.

He asked Margaret to lead the way to the rendezvous point,
To Jonathan's shop,
The place where our tale of grief and woe began,
And where it may finish,
Or where it may begin to finish, if it doesn't finish there,
It all comes full circle,
Alpha and the omega,
Campbellian monomyth, his Hero With A Thousand Faces,
It was all very significant and symbolic,
For Jonathan and Margaret had departed their home,
Gone through trial and tribulation,
And returned again, to use their powers, what limited powers they had,
To save Truth, Justice, and the American Way,
Or the British way,
Either way.

Margaret agreed, and with Jacques in tow, they dashed through the streets,
In the manner that our heroes had been dashing and racing and rushing through streets,
For it was a rather easy way to travel unaccosted through London,
Except for the times when they were accosted by zombies,
But those were rather rare,
Well, not that rare in recent times,
But over the course of their lives, it was rare,
So the law of averages either dictated that they were on a hot streak,
And that zombies would continue to attack them,
Or it suggested that they were due,
That they should be able to race or rush or dash without problem,
And that they did -- they reached Jonathan's shop without incident,
Which confirmed their belief in the law of averages,
And the foolishness of hot streaks,
Come to think of it, Jonathan wasn't the only one who was bad at math.

The four of them met outside the shop,
Margaret with Jacques,
Jonathan with William,
Jacques with his doctorly accoutrements,
William with his shotte-gunne,
Jonathan with his hammer,
And Margaret still without a weapon,
Damnit,
She kept forgetting,
And cursed this quite openly,
But Jonathan, generous Jonathan,
Swooning Jonathan,
He drew his hammer from his sheath,
His own hammer, the hammer with which he had slain many zombies,
And offered it to Margaret,
Holding it forth,
Saying, "Take this, and smash zombies with it,
For this is my hammer which is given to you,"
To which Margaret replied,
"Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum,
Sed tantum dic verbo et sanabitur,"
Which surprised her, for she didn't know any Latin,
So she tried again,
And thanked Jonathan for this symbolic gift,
It was a very touching moment,
And their eyes met across the hammer,
And their hands touched,
And Jonathan leaned forward,
And Margaret tipped her chin up, and closed her eyes,
Again, all very touching,
But William cleared his throat quite loudly,
And hinted that there were zombies out there,
The kind of zombies that would kill them all,
And infect them,
And then they'd be zombies, too,
And end up killing and infecting more people,
And did they want that on their conscience?
He didn't.