Zombie Bouillabaisse by Ruth J. Burroughs

She hated waiting on the other Zombies in the restaurant. Their pliant postures and self-deprecating jokes fogged the air with the stink of their cigarettes and the sharp alcohol scent of their highballs. The gin sloshed in their glasses as they awkwardly kissed up to their sleek vampire cousins.

The local blood blank dried up as her regular customers sucked down gallons of real blood in their bloody Mary drinks, night after night, year after year. Most of the toothy high rollers came in after a workout at the gym—buff, immortal and lean, while the Zombie sycophants hung on every word, every breath, every hiss, these pale and vain creatures spewed into the greasy atmosphere.

It chipped away at her self-image every time she looked at her decrepit Zombie skin and frayed hair in the mirror. It could never compare with the translucent, flawless skin of the ageless and celebrated vampire. Hers was nothing like their passionate and exciting lives. She felt she had no purpose, no meaning. But they did like her Zombie bouillabaisse which required the most recently caught fish, the swimming-dead. With practiced ease she heated up the shallots and vegetables on the sizzling hot metal surface. She poured the fabulous saffron flavored broth onto the hot sauce pan and crackling steam erupted with the fine aromas of screaming undead seafood.  

Although her vampire customers liked to blend the stew with their corpuscle gravy they raved about her cooking, all while they struggled into their sharp teeth.

But she wanted to be more than just a waitress cooking Zombie, despite her disintegrating body, which never ceased to fall apart and yet somehow stayed together.  That's why she had been taking those marine biology classes during the day and waitressing at night.

The day the call came she jumped up and down, squealing, and lost one of her limbs. It took quite a while to get it back on. She'd gotten the job down in Florida at Miami Seaqarium, training her assigned dolphin and killer whale.

The job was better than she could have hoped for, entertaining in the sun, swimming with her cetaceans and she still got to cook. Even the dolphin loved her bouillabaisse. Every day now she's a happy Zombie with a porpoise in life. . . .

Ms. Burroughs is an award winning artist and has shown some of her photographic work and sculptures in juried shows in Albany, New York. She is a painter, sculptor and photographer and was paid by the Hudson Valley Writers Guild to read poetry but read her science fiction instead . . . and was invited to read more at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's WRPI 91.5.

Inspired by Dodie Smith's Starlight Barking, the sequel to the more famous spotted dog book, she has been writing science fiction since the age of 13. She holds a B.S. in Studio Art from the College of St. Rose and works and lives near Ithaca, New York with her mutts, Quepette, Stubby and Grizzly.

Check here at Carpe Libris Writers Group for updates on Ruth's publications:

http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/ruth-j-burroughs/