Lorraine played Arlene, all those years ago. Lorraine stopped, but Arlene kept right on playing.
After the zombies swarmed the building, Arlene devoured most of her parents…they were hers, so she certainly deserved the best parts…and then simply wandered off into the night. And the night was filled with shambling, ravenous corpses, feasting upon the flesh of the living. But the undead knew she was one of them, so she was safe from their hunger. Her body held no warmth, no nourishing spark of life to entice the other zombies. That was the last the viewers ever saw of her.
But she needed food, for she was… and still is… always hungry. Deliriously hungry. For there is a deep black coldness within her that constantly needs filling. Sometimes, right after she has eaten, she actually feels alive again. Perhaps even better than alive. She felt that way after she ate her parents, and she wanted to feel it again. So she wandered through the woods, through the darkness, until she came to another farmhouse.
Now at this point, one might ask, “They never showed what happened to the little girl after she wandered off. Didn’t the police get her when they came and shot all the zombies’ brains out?”
Obviously not.
One might also wonder: “Fear-Farm of the Undead was only a movie, wasn’t it?”
Well, yes and no.
Lorraine Tyler’s father was one of the producers and stars of the movie, which was made on a shoe-string budget. The money her family put into that movie back then wouldn’t even buy a decent new car these days. Her father, mother and some of their friends wanted to make a movie, so they pooled their resources, found a few more investors and did it. And Lorraine got to play a little girl who gets bitten, turns into a zombie and eats her parents.
Lorraine went on to become a school teacher with a cool website selling Fear-Farm memorabilia. Teachers get time off during the summer, so she started going to conventions, meeting fans, doing a lot more to promote her memorabilia sideline. She did that for years. Made good money, too. Last year she made enough to buy a nice little vacation in Mexico.
People still watch that movie all the time. Still think about it. Fear-Farm of the Undead has spawned hundreds of knock-off versions, most of them released direct-to-video. And Lorraine has watched every one of them. Because she is also Arlene Schabowski, and wants to know what other zombies are doing.
Somewhere out there, it is always night, and a little dead girl who is also a living school teacher is always hungry.
Anyway. Back to that other farmhouse.
Arlene could hear cows mooing in the distance. The sound made her hungry. She crept up to the house and looked in the window, into a quaint, tidy living room, with knickknacks on little cherrywood tables and furniture draped with lace doilies. An old woman was sitting at her desk, reading some papers. She had long white hair and wore a dark gray housecoat. Of course, everything in that world is black and white or shades of gray, just like in the movie. The old woman must not have turned on the radio or the TV that day or night… she looked so peaceful, it was clear she had no idea what was going on.
The little dead girl went to the front door and knocked. The old woman called out, as cheery as can be, “Who is it?”
Now, none of the other zombies in that movie were able to talk. All they ever did was grunt and roar and squeal. But Arlene was able to think really hard and call upon the abilities of her other self, Lorraine. And she managed to rasp out the three-word phrase from the movie for which she is best known. She also says a four-word phrase early in the movie, but most folks don’t remember that. No, they only remember what she says just before she turns into a zombie: “Help me, Mommy.”
“Mommy? I’m nobody’s mommy!” the old woman cried. “Who’s out there? Is this some kind of a joke?” So saying, she threw open the door. “My God! Little girl, are you hurt? There’s blood all over you!”
Arlene held out her arms, just like she did before she killed her movie-mommy, who was played by her real-life mother. Again, she said, “Help me, Mommy.”
“Of course I’ll help you, you poor thing.” The old woman knelt before her. She must have had something wrong with her knees, because she winced with pain. “So tell me, who did this to you? Who?”
Her next few words were lost in a thick gurgle of black blood, because by then Arlene had her little teeth embedded in the old woman’s throat. And even though the dear old thing was past her prime, she was still full of warm, delicious, intoxicating life.