TITLE: The Zombie Ate My List
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: PG
POSTED: May 2, 2006
SUMMARY: What was making Earl more homesick than that one time he'd gotten sober in Mexico were the zombies
NOTES: Thea has a lot to answer for. Anyway, no spoilers for My Name is Earl beyond the premise. Post-movie for Shaun of the Dead.
DISCLAIMER: Read

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Earl was only in England because Mrs. Wallace's cousin Martha didn't have a phone and not even Joy could yell that loud. Although she sure had tried when Randy'd made the suggestion.

England wasn't anything like home. For one thing, the cars came at you from the wrong direction but just as fast. And then there was how half of the stuff looked the same, and seemed to do the same thing, but were called something different than what Earl was used to calling them; that had caused more than one moment of confusion and a rather memorable night in something that apparently wasn't always "jail." Mostly, though, what was making Earl more homesick than that one time he'd gotten sober in Mexico were the zombies.

"Is he a zombie if he's not actually eating anyone?"

"I'm pretty sure he still wants to eat us, Randy," Earl said, frowning at the heavy wooden door that kept shaking every time the loud and rotting guy inside thumped against it. Since the whole point of breaking into Martha's house was that they didn't have a key, hopefully zombies didn't know how to turn handles on now-unlocked doors. "The way his mouth was open like that, that lunge wasn't him looking for a hug."

Randy was looking at the door, too, but with a sad "the jukebox gave me the wrong song again" look.

Earl sighed, and asked, "What?"

"He sounded like he was trying to say something. Before you slammed the door in his face, I mean."

"Like, 'the woman you're trying to find was kind of small, thanks for being dinner'?"

"No." Randy scowled. "It started with an n, or something nnn-like. Maybe...'nnn-ello'? They're all really very polite here, unless they don't understand you. But I couldn't--"

"I thought I was through with salesmen."

Caught between confusion and, well, fear of being caught, Earl pasted on a smile and turned. The man standing at the bottom of the stairs looked like he was more irritated than about to go for the cops, though. And he didn't seem to notice how the thumping and groaning behind them just suddenly stopped.

"Hi," Earl tried. It couldn't hurt.

"Hello," the guy said nice enough, but the smile he gave them was as wide and fake theirs. "Either you're on the bottom rung of the salesman ladder, or you've gotten spectacularly lost on the way to Hyde Park and landed on my doorstep."

"Not Martha's doorstep?" Randy asked.

The guy's smile disappeared behind a pained grimace. "Do I look like a Martha?" Before Earl could step on Randy's foot to keep him quiet, the guy held up both hands and shook his head. "No, never mind, don't answer that." He let out a hard sigh, and said in a tired voice, "No, there aren't any women here anymore. Again. And it's definitely not Martha's."

"Oh." Earl just nodded, not really wanting to know if people usually thought the guy looked like a Martha. He did have red hair, and so did Martha Thompson, although hers probably came out of a bottle these days, but... "We're option B, then. The 'spectacularly lost' one. And--" There was a new thump-and-groan, and Earl took a deep breath to hide the wince. "...we should go get un-lost, so...sorry about that. Bye."

Earl grabbed Randy's arm and tried to pull him down the stairs, but Randy dug in and hissed, "Shouldn't we tell him?"

"Tell him what?" Earl muttered back, thinking "nothing, nothing, nothing" really loud, so maybe one of those words would beam into Randy's head.

"About the..." With absolutely no subtlety to go with his whispering, Randy jerked a thumb back at the door and the zombie guy thing behind the door.

"Oh."

They both turned again to look at the guy, who was now looking at them with the look that Earl had been trying to keep off of his face earlier; the one that said, "I'm not thinking about lying, no, not at all."

"That's just...I have a...big dog. Enormous." The guy's grin this time was even wider than Earl had ever seen from Joy, which was saying a hell of a lot. "He gets...restless. Since I'm at work all day and can't take him out on a walk. You know. Around the block."

Randy started nodding, and that didn't seem wrong or bad, so Earl didn't even think of stopping him until out came, "And it's not safe to have the zombie walk him."

The guy froze, and his eyes went wider than his mouth before he weakly said, "...what?"

"Randy!" Earl snapped. Because with Randy, there had never been any time when the "ix-nay on the ombie-zay" that he wanted to snap would've worked.

"He might loose bits of himself along the way," Randy said, like that totally made everything okay. "And the dog might think they're food that people were dropping for him, and he might eat them. Which would be gross. And it might make him sick."

The guy was just staring at them now. Earl tried another smile, but it didn't feel too smiley, so he let his mouth go on "ramble," because oh god, just keep talking, and maybe the guy wouldn't notice they were running away.

"Randy's kind of like a dog himself," he said, and he started inching them down the stairs. "He's got--"

"You-you saw Ed?"

Randy stopped one step up, jolting Earl to a halt that almost put him on his ass, and grinned happily at the guy. "The zombie has a name?"

"He..." The guy trailed off, and as his shoulders slumped, his sigh was the kind of sigh that Earl usually made when he wanted Darnell's pity and more fries. "It's a very, very long story that requires at least three pints to make sense."

With Randy tugging excitedly at his arm, Earl considered what he'd learned in the last few days, and considered Mrs. Wallace's place on The List, and made a decision.

"'Pints,' that's British for 'beer,' right?"

"Yes..." the guy said carefully.

"Well," Earl said, "if you can point us in Martha's direction before Thursday, we've got the money for those pints."

The guy raised an eyebrow. Next to Earl, Randy nodded real hard.

"Yep, it's always good to learn new stories," Earl explained. "Been a few years since we got the free sundaes at barbeque night, and this sounds like it's sure to be a winner."

"We should lock the door first, though," Randy said.

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