by Brenna Watry



If you wish hard enough on a zombie, one of two things has been known to happen.

One: no matter how hard you’re sitting/standing/lying/stomping on said zombie, it will still possess enough motor power to tear you limb from limb and devour your brain before you can croak out any last wishes.

Two: you’ll squish it.

I looked down at what was left of the zombie beneath me.

“Madre de Dios! These were my last pair of clean pants.”

Its intestines were now a congealing jumble of fluid soaking into the back pockets of my combat pants.  Blood spatter was hard enough to get out of the wash.  Bile, fecal matter, and decaying skin were even worse.  The zombie itself was still twitching feebly, although it wouldn’t be able to get far now that the connection between its torso and legs had been squished.

“Mierda!”

“Hey, no swearing.”

A woman the size of my hand, missing an eyeball and dripping blood and gore, poked me in the nose.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked, flinching away.

She poked me again, half-decayed wings buzzing angrily.

“What did I say about swearing?  I’m your Zombie Fairy, Carlos.”

“Zombie Fairy?”

“You made a wish, didn’t you?”

“Sí…”  I eyed her uncertainly.  Sure, she had the wings and the tatty dress (now stained with all sorts of things I didn’t want to imagine) and even a wand, but I’d never heard of a “Zombie Fairy” before.  Nobody’s zombie wish had ever actually come true.

“So what, now that you’re here, do I get my three wishes or something?”

“Psh,” she scoffed.  “Do I look like a Zombie Genie?”

“How should I know?  Can I get a Zombie Genie instead?”

She was so offended she practically vibrated the other eye out of its socket.

“Zombie Genies cost extra.”

“Extra what?”

“Extra limbs.”

Being on the whole rather attached to my limbs, and particularly in the fine condition they were in, I said, “I’ll pass.”

“Thought you might.”

I ignored the barb.  “So if you’re my Zombie Fairy Godmother—”

She cut me off.  “Zombie Fairy Godmothers cost extra.”

“Extra limbs?” I asked dryly.

“Brains,” she said simply.  “The wishers usually sacrifice someone they particularly loathe.  It promotes survival of the fittest.”

“Oh,” I said.  “Does that happen often?”

“Not as often as baby sacrifices.”

If my eyes had gotten any wider, my own eyeballs might have started falling out.

“Dios. What do they do that for?”

“Zombie Rumplestiltskins.  Does your wish involve any sort of money, gold, and/or riches?  Because I’ll have to refer you to them, if so.”

“N-no.  Listen, how come I haven’t heard of any of this before?”

She shrugged like she didn’t care.  “We prefer to keep it on the down-low.  It’s bad publicity for humanity at large to know that the fairy population has been devastated by the zombie virus as well.  You might start killing us in a panic.  Then where would we all be?”

“Uh,” I said, slightly distracted by the halved zombie corpse beneath me, which was currently curling its head upward in a vain attempt to bite me in the crotch.  It looked like its head would fall off before it succeeded, but I was still slightly worried, so I fended it off with my finger against its forehead.

“Dead, that’s where,” the Zombie Fairy said, startling me back to attention.

“So, uh,” I said nervously, “are you, uh…”  I pointed vaguely toward my brain.

The Zombie Fairy snorted and nearly blew her nose off.

“Are you kidding me?  Human brains are revolting.  But get me some good, healthy fairy brains, and maybe I’ll slip you an extra wish or two.”  She wriggled her rotting eyebrows.

“I don’t know where to find any non-zombie fairies,” I said.  “I didn’t even believe fairies existed until just now.”

She folded her arms and shrugged dismissively.

“Sucks to be you, then. You want your wish or not?”

“Sí,” I said.  “That’s why I wished on a zombie.”

She rolled her remaining eye, then quickly reached up and popped it back into its socket before it could fall into the decomposing zombie beneath me, which was still groaning and pushing its head toward my crotch.

“All right, repeat after me: I—what’s your name again?”

“Carlos.  Carlos Esposito.”

“Good.”  She cleared her throat and started again.  “I, Carlos Esposito…”

“I, Carlos Esposito…”

“Do so solemnly—ack!”  An ax the size of my thumbnail smacked wetly into the Zombie Fairy’s chest.

“She’s wounded,” several squeaky voices cried from behind me.  “Get her!”

A small cadre of fairies streaked forward and achieved a midair dogpile on top of the Zombie Fairy, who was keening feebly and clawing at her attackers.  I sat stunned, watching until the last miniature limb dropped into the mess that was the zombie beneath me, who looked just as shocked.  He’d certainly stopped lunging for my crotch.

One of the new fairies straightened up, shaking blood off his tiny hands.

“Good job, team,” he said.  “Any casualties?”

“She bit Joby,” someone volunteered.

“No, she—” the fairy I assumed was Joby said, until the fairy standing next to him lopped his head off with a pin-sized sword.

“Any more casualties?” the lead fairy asked.  No one replied.  “Then let’s move out!”

“Hey, wait,” I said.

All the fairies stopped short and looked up at me in surprise.

“What do you want?” asked the fairy who had chopped off Joby’s head.

“The Zombie Fairy was going to give me a wish,” I said.  “Before you killed her, that is.”

The lead fairy shrugged.  “Sucks to be you, then.”  Then he and the others took off.

“Mierda,” I said.  “Stupid culo.  All I wanted was some clean clothes.  Is that too much to ask for these days?”

I stood up, ignoring the clammy way my pants now clung to my ass and shook the loop of intestine off my Converse.

The zombie, sensing freedom, tried to nip at my ankles, so I stomped its face in.  Then I stalked off, muttering, “I guess I could try un bebé.”






BRENNA WATRY is currently a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, studying Creative Writing, with an interest in eventually teaching. She has previously been published in The Copperfield Review and Sex and Murder Magazine. Her favorite stories are those that take a familiar genre, tale, or plot device, and give it a twist. Brenna lives in Colorado, where she is probably the only person there who neither skis, nor snowboards. For more of Brenna Watry, visit her blog at wordywatry.wordpress.com.