AN: This is the first fanfic I've ever written on my phone. To say I'm bored right now would be an understatement.
I don't own "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "The Room."
Claudette had never been inside the favorite flower shop of her now deceased almost-son-in-law Johnny. With her in charge of arranging his funeral, it only seemed fitting that the flowers should come from this store.
I'll be joining you soon my boy, Claudette thought, remembering her breast cancer (for the first time since she'd casually brought it up to her uninterested daughter Lisa the other day). Then she imagined with horror, stepping through the pearly gates of Heaven, and seeing the clouds roll apart to reveal the hideous, creepy and unhygienic angel of her daughter's revolting "future husband."
"Oh fuck me," Claudette said in her permanently conversational voice. She hoped that perhaps swearing might help her earn a ticket to Hell, so she wouldn't have to spend eternity strumming a harp next to that creep Johnny.
"Oh hi Customer," the woman behind the counter said, somehow, with even less emotion than Claudette.
"You must be Daisy," Claudette replied. "Johnny used to talk about you. Oh and there's 'Doggy,'" her gaze moved to the old silent bulldog sitting on the counter.
"Indeed," Daisy glanced around the flower shop, as if to check that they were alone. "Pardon me ma'am, but do you by any chance have a slutty daughter, a house full of framed silverware, and breast cancer?"
"In fact, I have all those things!" Claudette answered, with mild amusement at the funny coincidence. "Why, do you have some kind of flower discount for terminally ill aristocrats with bad taste?"
"Not exactly," Daisy explained with boredom, "but we do offer them free back-story info dumps about their past. How much did you know about your son in law, Claudette?"
"Only that he was from abroad, loved football, collected spoon art, and had money," Claudette replied.
"No," the flower seller shook her head. "Johnny wasn't from abroad. He is of your planet, your country. He was born right here in California. He's no alien; but I'll admit that my kind had an unfortunate hand in his unholy creation."
"Wait a minute, back up," Claudette said, with the worst acting she could manage. "Are you trying to tell me that you're an illegal alien?"
"No, I'm perfectly legal, thank you very much. I am a registered alien living on Earth with the permission of the Men in Black. They provided me with this robotic human body to project my voice through, since a talking pug would turn a few heads on this world."
Claudette glanced at the old bulldog, who stated up at her meaningfully. "Well, a talking dog," Claudette sighed. "How original. So, why are aliens living on Earth? Did something happen to your home planet, or are you just doing research on Earthlings for some novel you're writing?"
"We just like to watch you guys," the dog's puppet replied. "I've been living on Earth for decades. I've changed mouth-pieces a few times. My first was a blonde male who I used to make dramatic psychic predictions with. I still have the voice stored somewhere in these controls. Give me a minute,"
Claudette sighed impatiently, as the bulldog apparently licked its backside. "But what's any of this got to do with my blood spattered stiff of a son in law?"
The flower-selling prop spoke again, this time with a different voice; her voice was now male, and far more lively, sounding like an old radio announcer, or the narrator from a cheesy old black-and-white movie. "Johnny was born in 1959. Think Claudette. Did anything significant happen in 1959?"
"Well, if I remember right, that was the year Andy Warhol released his first famous spoon piece. And the year alleyway football was invented. Oh, and aliens attacked Earth, or something."
"Correct." Daisy (or rather, the alien dog speaking through "Daisy") said. "Aliens from the planet Glen'or-Glendaah launched 'Plan 9,' in which they reanimated human corpses to attack Earth. Lucky for you humans it turns out that dead bodies don't make the best soldiers. But unfortunately, they can still produce offspring with you. That night, a human woman named Paula was captured by a zombie named inspector Clay. Although Paula was married to an aviator, she had a thing for men with the personalities of dead corpses, and she and the dead man got jiggy. Nine months after the alien Mother Hubcap was decimated in the infamous paper mâché explosion, Paula gave birth to a hideous undead imp with insane hair. As soon as he cried out 'oh hai mommy!' she and her husband knew the child couldn't be his, for it had far too much emotion in its voice. But he didn't blame his wife for being unfaithful, because he didn't have enough of a personality to care."
By now Claudette was fast asleep, snoring loudly where she stood in the middle of the flower shop. In her sleep, she grumbled, "What a story, Doggy."
"BUT!" The woman/dog/alien said, shocking Claudette awake again. "Radiation from his undead father remained inside Johnny, and affected all around him. Some got cancer. Others experienced a decrease in IQ, an increase in sex drive, or both."
Claudette gasped as she worked out what the alien had just revealed. "You mean my daughter and Johnny were having sex while driving?! Were they at least wearing their seat belts?"
Daisy stared at Claudette. Finally, the human-like puppet spoke, as the dog in control turned away from Claudette. "You know, I was debating with myself, before you got here, whether or not to make you an offer. On the one hand, it would help you to cheat your death-by-cancer. The problem is, this second-life comes with a price: your IQ. But from the looks of things," the flower-seller's eyes traveled Claudette's blank face, "living with Johnny's already rendered that point moot."
"What do you mean?" Claudette blinked in bafflement. "I can cheat Death? I don't know how I feel about cheating. I've never cheated on anything in my life, not even Bingo. Cheating's a sin..." And then, a thought struck her. Were Claudette capable of expressing basic emotions, her face would have brightened. "If I do cheat on Death, then maybe I'll go to Hell! And be spared an eternity plucking at a golden jive stick next to Johnny's putrid spirit!"
"I'll take that as a yes," the human-puppet sighed, while the bulldog controlling it scratched its ear with a foot. "All right fellas, come on in!"
Three figures suddenly emerged from the thicket of flowers crowding the shop, and began closing in on Claudette, one slow, awkward step at a time. One looked like a massive bald zombie, his face permanently fixed in a bug-eyed grimace. The second was a sultry looking woman dressed like a slutty witch, with the longest fingers, pointiest eyebrows, and tiniest waist Claudette had ever seen on anyone outside "the Adams Family." The final figure looked like Dracula-the famous, Bela Lugosi Dracula, complete with the cape... or did he? One minute, Claudette was watching Bela Lugosi creep towards her; then she blinked, and suddenly he appeared to be a completely different man, a foot taller and thirty years younger, now holding the cape in front of his face, as if hoping no one would notice the change in actors.
Her mind racing, heart pounding, eyes bulging, Claudette cried out, "Who are these characters?"
"The Glen'or-Glendaahns aren't the only species with the ability to raise the dead," Daisy said sinisterly. "They're just the only ones stupid enough to try using them to take over a planet."
Claudette recoiled in disgust as the Dracula zombie-now Bela Lugosi again-stopped inches from her face. Wrinkling her nose at him, Claudette spat, "You smell like a dead person!"
"Why do you think I chose a flower store?" Daisy said. "Nature's air freshener!"
The zombie stared at Claudette behind his cape (now a 30-year-old American again). When Claudette realized he wasn't going to do anything else except stare dramatically, she turned to run, only to find herself faced with the other two zombies.
"Help!" Claudette cried.
"They are helping," Daisy reminded her. "Once you're un-dead, you'll be immune to cancer, and you'll never have to worry about sharing an afterlife with Johnny."
"Well, since you put it like that," Claudette mused, "let's get on with it."
The giant zombie and the zombie who looked like a female late-night horror host closed in on her with out-stretched arms, and then began making a strange gesture, as if imitating dipping-birds. All Claudette could fathom was that they were trying to "strangle" her, but didn't quite understand how strangulation worked. That was okay, Claudette wasn't sure either. She figured they could just skip all the technicalities, and jump right to her death scene.
Shrinking to the floor in an overly dramatized cringe that would have made William Shatner jealous, Claudette moaned, "Good bye to this stupid world..." Claudette felt her voice growing louder, stronger, angrier. "Stupid. Styupid, STYUPID!" She blinked. "What was that?"
"That is called emotion," Daisy said from behind the counter. "It's the last time you'll ever experience it."
"Good!" Claudette exclaimed. "It felt very odd. I don't think I like this 'emotion' stuff very much at all!"
"I think being a zombie will suit you well Claudette," Daisy assured her. "Joining the undead may very well be the greatest career move of your, er, career."
Claudette was no longer listening, for her eyes were now an empty white. The color had drained from her face, and her Marge Simpson-esque hair was now the same shade of blue as Marge Simpson's. Her fingers grew two extra knuckles, and were rising in front of her face, as she took on the customary zombie stance.
She followed the three other zombies out of the flower shop and into the street. San Franciscans threw the four zombies passing glances of bemusement as they hustled by (most of them saw weirder things in their home city than the undead, but the sight was still mildly interesting). Claudette stared back, now seeing the world through a beautiful new lens. She glanced down at her own designer suit, and found herself embarrassed to be wearing something so bland; she would have to ask Bela's alternate-self where he'd bought his cape. Her zombie-eyes moved to the Golden Gate Bridge, which she, Lisa, Johnny and their friends used to stare at for hours, and found herself now far more enchanted by the hubcaps on the tires of the cars that sped over the bridge.
Claudette wondered where they would go now. The other zombies turned to her and grunted, and she understood. They would go to their favorite hangout, the cemetery. The zombies grunted and groaned, stumbling down the streets of San Fransisco, frequently having to stop as one or more of the group was pancaked by the occasional car or bus and wait for him or her to regenerate and catch up. After a few days, they finally made it to the cemetery. Claudette was mildly surprised to see her daughter, Greg, Denny, and those two characters who'd barged into their house the other day to snog, all dressed in black and carrying matching umbrellas.
"That was a beautiful funeral," Lisa sniffled to Greg. "Johnny would have been proud, especially when you all played football over his casket in his honor."
"I just hope he likes the headstone we picked out," Greg said ruefully.
The zombies made their way into the cemetery, earning some disinterested looks from Lisa and the rest of the living, and Claudette instantly realized which headstone was Johnny's. No words were inscribed on the black polished marble; only an elegant carving of a kitchen spoon, surrounded by an elaborate Celtic border.
To Claudette's horror, the earth beneath the spoon-headstone began to tremble, and a hideous head emerged from the dirt, long black hair disheveled around his putrid wrinkled face. Zombie-Johnny unleashed a long groan, and began to sit up in the dirt. Claudette-zombie quickly delivered an angry kick to his ugly face, emitting a threatening growl, and sent zombie-Johnny back into his grave. Then she followed her three new comrades onward through the graveyard, into the heart of their new home.
My friend, you have just read this incident, based on sworn testimony. Can you prove that it didn't happen?
FIN
A/N: Actually, only the first half of this was written on a phone. The rest was finished at home on my computer.