Dammit all, where were the emus? Emus could eviscerate a zombie with one solid kick, and I'd coordinated several excellent operations of that kind.

The male humans were looking uncertainly at Zombie P and one another, Santana had her hands on her hips and was frowning at him, and Brittany pointed at my latest human staff member and said that sometimes he smells like vanilla.

"Lady, vanilla's not exactly on my mind now. We've got to get the zombie's head off."

"Would he like that? I think he wants pasta instead and we could take him to Breadstix."

"He also wants brains."

"People say that I don't have any brains but I think I do because sometimes I can hear the elf that cleans up my dirty dreams every six weeks. I wish he wouldn't because I like them."

Zombie P had almost grabbed my newest staff member who jumped out of the way just in time. "Brains! Pasta!"

"Hey, Zombie! Yeah, you!" I fluttered in front of him, performing the Killdeer Maneuver, also known as The Broken Wing Act. It didn't distract him from the humans. I had to get him away from them. If I could get him to chase me, that would work. "I always liked Domingo better!" That'd make him good and peeved.

Unfortunately, death doesn't make humans any smarter, so he wasn't able to understand me. I tried the Killdeer another time, and the zombie didn't even notice.

Unlike the humans, whose plan seemed to consist solely of standing there staring, I was turning over several different plans. But none of them would work until I could get him closer to the car. "Brittany, get in the nearest car and turn it on. Be ready to drive when I say so."

"Drive where?"

"Drive over him."

She pouted. "No. He's like a big zombie teddy bear."

"Who wants to eat peoples' brains!"

"One of my teddy bears wanted to eat brains but we told him that oatmeal was made of brains."

People say cuckoos are crazy?

I flew to Santana's shoulder and tried to talk to her but she just stared at me. Then I even tried the male humans. One of them tried to cup me protectively in his hands until I let him have it. I'd been saving it for my newest human but sometimes you can't always get what you want.

Why, oh, why, had I agreed to join a brigade whose sworn mission was to protect living beings against the dead? Couldn't we have omitted humans?

Zombie Luciano Pavarotti lunged again at one of the humans. This time, he got even closer. I saw another car coming and figured that I could use that instead. But I had to figure out how before the car passed entirely.

Know your enemy's weaknesses. That was key. I didn't have pasta and I didn't have a shotgun but I did have my voice.

I started to sing, launching right into "O sole mio." That caught the zombie's attention, as I'd hoped. I repeated the opening and he was looking right at me. There, get him into position, just right, just right. He opened his mouth but this time, instead of groaning for brains or pasta, he started singing along with me.

Not only that, but he stepped into the limousine's headlights as though they were a spotlight. Dammit, I'd miscalculated. Once a tenor starts singing, you have no hope of getting him out of the spotlight and into a pile of limbs on the ground unless you've got an opposable thumb and weigh more than an ounce. And sometimes not even then.

I couldn't believe it. One of the male humans actually walked right into grabbing range, but he was singing along. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I shrieked and was ready to try to dive bomb some sense into him.

But you know, maybe, just maybe, there's some sense in the humans. Or maybe it's instinct that somehow they inherited from back when they and we birds still shared some common ancestry. Because the zombie tenor just spread his arms out and grinned widely.

Another one of the human males walked over and joined in, after nudging another one of the humans and saying that it wasn't like they could have expected another chance to sing with Pavarotti. "We did practice Italian songs for international week," another said, his expression changing from dubious to devil-may-care.

"I don't know the words!" Brittany was in a state of panic. Note that talking to a bird didn't do it, encountering a zombie Luciano Pavarotti didn't do it, but this had her freaking out.

The other car drew up but I didn't really have a chance of getting it to swerve and hit the zombie. But really, humans, do you need to use your cell phones to film everything? On the other hand, probably it was fair enough that he'd want to have evidence, because otherwise he just might not be believed when he said that while he was driving wherever he was going, he saw a zombified Luciano Pavarotti singing Italian songs in the headlights of a limousine with a bunch of teenage boys and two girls in cheerleader outfits. Just guessing.

Epilogue

Brittany managed to convince Zombie Pavarotti that scrambled egg white was brains.

Using Brittany's translations from bird language, I became the agent for a concert tour of 12 Warblers and a Zombie Tenor. She was a demon bargainer for her share of the management fee, but then it's a hefty management fee, so works out all right in the end.

It was interruption from Convenient Coincidence Airlines that messed up Bird Net. Should have guessed. It's back up now.

Not that I needed it, but my new-found fame didn't hurt my talking the lady canaries into experiencing some Code Name Pavarotti sweet, sweet loving. That made the Warblers change my name to Casanova which was just as well because two Pavarottis would have made things confusing.

David's and Zombie Pavarotti's big number was "Anything you can do, I can do better," especially because David often changed the lyrics to be more zombie-appropriate.

Blaine sometimes had nightmares about the time that Zombie Pavarotti tried singing the lead of California Gurls. Kurt thought it was funny but never told anybody except me.

Richard, the Warbler whose hand I'd relieved myself on, told me that he forgave me because he knew that I was frightened and didn't do it on purpose. He actually thought I was apologizing when I sassed him about what he thinks of a bird in the hand now.

Zombie Pavarotti did like Breadstix. Fortunately for them, the profits from people coming in to eat in the hopes of watching him come in with the Warblers, Brittany, and Santana more than offset the losses from that all you can eat policy. The woman who quit coming because she thought they were really serving him human brains didn't matter because she was a rotten tipper.

Santana told Brittany that she could turn into a ladybug but she didn't feel like it because she thought the wings would itch.

AN: Thanks for reading, everybody! This was a blast to write so I hope you enjoyed it, too.

Happy New Year and may all the zombies you encounter be easily appeased and when you need an emu to show up, may you get either an emu, Brittany, or at least some Warblers.