Zombies On a Train:

When I was in elementary school, I used to write short stories about zombies. I wrote my tenth and final one, Zombie X, about zombies taking over the world. It’s kind of painful to admit how lame I was, but the last line in the story is “And in case you were wondering, Bill Clinton is a zombie.” If I had to guess, kids today are probably more sophisticated, and don’t even have time to make stupid jokes about the President, what with their twitters and blackberries and autism. At least I was cool enough to have the zombies win.

Anyway, I wrote Zombie X by hand, in pencil, complete with highlighter-enhanced illustrations. After I was finished, my neighbor across the street typed it up for me. I think it had something to do with submitting it to a writing contest. Unfortunately, the story was not award-winning material.

My family is no longer friends with the family across the street and I’ll probably never write anything that long by hand again. Thinking back, I’m surprised that zombies were the most lasting element out of all of it; though my younger self is not surprised at all.

*Special FX makeup by Asa Kawano (There are some brutal closeup shots on her site).