A/N: Hi! This is a silly little short story inspired by my mates taking the mickey out of me while discussing my now-defunct real zombie story project by asking me about vegetarian zombies. This is the result of that evening and some very understanding employers. I wrote the bulk of this on reception at my local recruitment agency and had a great deal of fun doing so. It's rather silly and nonsensical but I hope you at least smile in pity.

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Once upon a time, in a laboratory far far away, there lived a group of zombies. They had been created by an evil scientist who did all sorts of horrible experiments with dead bodies.

Even though the zombies were mindless dead beings with a taste for human flesh, one of them was very special. He was named ZX-101, but the other zombies called him Jeff.

Jeff was a very special zombie indeed, for in life he was what we call a vegetarian, that is someone who doesn't eat meat. And it seems that in death he was the same.

His friends were all fed choice cuts of fresh, lovely human meat, which they would immediately devour at every mealtime. Jeff always sat on the sidelines, eating nothing, but his friends didn't mind - more meat for them. As a joke one day, the evil scientist gave the zombies tofu to try. They would not even touch it, as it was not meat. But Jeff, however, loved tofu and instantly scoffed both his share and those of his friends.

After that day, his friends spoke to low moans behind his back, or what was left of it. They were worried about how unzombie-like Jeff was being and how he was giving them a bad codename. They decided something had to be done.

At first, they tried to force him to eat flesh, but he just ripped their various body parts off in his resistance. Eventually they moaned complainingly to the evil scientist who alone could understand the way they communicated. He moaned reassuringly, telling them that he would do something.

In the middle of the night the evil scientist grabbed Jeff and dragged him carefully out of the laboratory. Jeff moaned and wailed, but he did not struggle - his muscles were rotting and he could lose a limb doing that.

He was unceremoniously dumped in the street. He moaned for help. There was none. Jeff very slowly got to his feet and looked back to his home, standing under a streetlight, the only light in the dead of night. He moaned softly and shuffled slowly off into the unknown.

He'd beeen shuffling for a little while, closer to the centre of town, when he saw a young woman walking alone. He moaned excitedly. Life!

The woman heard him coming, dragging his feet towards her. She stood still, frozen. Good. Jeff had her attention. He raised his arms in a gesture of friendliness and moaned to her, explaining his situation. The woman screamed and ran away into the night, too fast for Jeff. He moaned quietly, almost a whimper. Why did she run away? He was only trying to be friendly.

Jeff was drawn by the tempting smells emanating from the town centre. He wandered around for hours and hours, trying to find something to eat. At last, he found the source of the scent that he had been searching for. A block of spoiled tofu out in the back alley behind the local sushi bar.

He practically ate the whole block at once. His ecstatic moaning drew the attention of two men nearby, carrying strange objects Jeff did not recognise from his living days. He stood as they approached and again raised his arms, explaining himself, when the men shouted and he he heard a loud noise. Something moving very fast had penetrated his abdomen, blowing away some rotting flesh. Another loud booming noise, this time something passed through his no longer beating heart. This did not slow Jeff down, but merely annoyed him. He was worried that the objects may damage the rest of his decomposing body. The men ran away, again too fast. Jeff stopped.

He was only trying to get help. He was not like his friends. He would not hurt the humans, but they could not understand him.

It was nearly dawn. Jeff was slowly walking along the silent streets, moaning softly to himself. If zombies could cry, that was what he was doing. He shuffled along, with his head down. Something big and loud was moving along behind him, a large metallic object, with bright lights and several humans inside. Jeff recognised it from his living days as a mode of transport. It slowed down as Jeff stopped to look. It pulled up beside him. A male human with long hair hung himself out the window and looked at Jeff.

'Hey dude!' he shouted. 'Need a ride?'

It had been a long time since Jeff had heard human speech. The evil scientist spoke to him only in his own language of moans. He found he could not remember what the words the man said meant. It was only when the man made gestures for him to get into the large van that Jeff finally understood. He let out a happy gurgle. Friends at last!

The other people in the van made room for him to sit. Jeff's rotting muscles and ligaments made it hard for him to climb inside, but he made it in the end. He sat, the door was shut and the van sped off into the sunrise.

Another long-haired man was sitting beside Jeff. He held his nose.

'Whoa, dude! When was the last time you had a bath? You smell, like, dead or something. You need to seriously lay off the patchouli.'

Jeff surveyed his surroundings with amazement and made no sound.

'Dude, did you hear me?' the second man asked.

'Maybe he doesn't speak English,' the driver said, the one who called out to Jeff in the first place. 'Maybe he's like from Bulgaria, or something. You going anywhere, dude?'

No answer.

'See, I told you he was from Bulgaria.'

'Dude, that's so cool. I've never met anyone from Bulgaria before.' He waved his hand in front of Jeff's face to get his attention. 'My name is Phoenix,' he said, placing his hand on his chest. 'Fee-nix.' He reached out to Jeff. 'Your name is...'

Phoenix could tell that Jeff couldn't understand. He tried again. 'Me, Phoenix. You are...'

Jeff was desperately hungry. He tried hard to remember how to ask for food. He made a sound that came out like 'Fuh.'

The driver looked at Phoenix incredulously. 'His name is Fuh?'

A woman who rode behind Phoenix and Jeff piped up, 'It's probably like a Bulgarian name or something. Probably means, like, starlight.'

'Yeah, Winter, you're probably right,' said Phoenix. 'We need to give him a new name, like, seriously.'

'I know.' Winter, a slender and pale girl with long blonde hair, looked ponderous.

'He looks like a traveller, a man of the wilderness. We should call him Forest.'

'Cool name,' said Phoenix. 'Hey, Forest!'

Jeff looked at him. He might not have understood his new name, but he knew Phoenix was talking to him. Phoenix tried again.

'Me, Phoenix.' He pointed at Jeff. 'You, Forest. For-rest.'

Jeff tried to get his rapidly fading tongue and lips working again.

'For-reh,' he said, his dry vocal chords grinding like rusty cogs.

'Hey, that's it, dude!'

The driver turned into their driveway at the edge of a farm, their commune. There were ten of them altogether, living in harmony with each other and the earth, away from civilisation. They had picked up Jeff on their way back from a lookout, where they had watched the sunrise.

Jeff was astounded. He had never seen so many people in his death, and all were so welcoming. He was introduced to people with vaguely familiar names such as Autumn, Rain, Liberty, Summer and Hunter, who all received him with open arms (and held noses). Winter tried to have him bathe in a stream, but it just made it worse. His flesh was starting to slough off in the current of the water and Jeff knew he had to hold onto it somehow. At least it got some of the maggots off.

As the commune settled for breakfast, Jeff was very excited. He could see tofu on the table! He reached for it, but the dark-haired girl named Autumn (carefully) smacked his hand away.

'No, Forest. Things aren't the same here as they are in Bulgaria. We must share.' She demonstrated by cutting the block into equal parts and giving a share to all. The cogs slowly turned in Jeff's mostly inactive mind. He was starting to remember more and more from his living days, even though most was a blur.

Jeff could feel something he had not known for a very long time in his still heart. He could not remember the word for it, but you and I know it's called happiness.

Meanwhile, back at the laboratory, the other zombies lived a quiet existence. Most zombies were a lot older than Jeff, so old in fact that their memories of him, much like the rest of their brains, were completely gone. But some still remembered him, including ZX – 130 and ZX – 126, otherwise known as Sally and Greg respectively. Sally moaned to Greg about the loss of Jeff. Sally was one of the few who didn’t want Jeff gone, they were friends. Greg too was fond of him, as was ZX – 118, or Simon.

Simon, Sally and Greg moaned secretly to the others. They needed to bring Jeff back, and that there was a mound of flesh waiting for them on the other side. The zombies were whipped up into a frenzy. They had a plan, and it wasn’t long until the evil scientist came with their lunch.

The evil scientist had experimented on them for so long he had them completely trained, or so he thought. They were ravenous when he came, which was his way of keeping them compliant, but he didn’t realise that they were just like that all the time. However, his methods and years of study were about to backfire horribly.
As soon as he came with the tray of meat, they turned and went in for the kill. He was completely overwhelmed as they swarmed, tearing chunks of flesh off and ripping him limb from limb. He worked alone, so his screams went unheard. When the feast was complete, the zombies left their unlocked enclosure and went wandering. Through sheer numbers they were able to push out into the streets. The search for Jeff was on.

Jeff was settling into commune life very well. The group kept him fed, dressed him in loose and comfortable clothes, and tried to help him keep his decomposition to a minimum, even though they thought he had some sort of an exotic disease. Jeff knew in his stationary heart he wouldn’t be able to move much longer. His flesh was loose and slowly sloughing off his slimy bones, his tendons and ligaments snapping, his cartilage melting away, his muscles stiff and breaking. Even though the group didn’t realise he was not simply a smelly Bulgarian tourist with a bad tan (his skin, largely intact, was quite grey), they tried to make him as comfortable as possible. Jeff was content. He had found a family with which he could live out his dying days.

He had no idea his other family was coming to get him.

Two weeks passed. Jeff spent most of his time sitting on some rather soft cushions, just simply watching the commune go about their daily business. He loved the simple existence of just being (you couldn’t really call it living in his case), a world he had forgotten. The city beneath the hill where the commune lay was deathly quiet, not that Jeff noticed. His aural nerves were slowly diminishing.

He could just hear strange noises on the wind, sounds he faintly recalled as familiar, a cacophony of roars, moans and screams, but he couldn’t be sure as he was going deaf.

He could hear Phoenix shouting, ‘Hey, Forest!’ as if muffled through a window. Jeff got up and stumbled over so he could hear better. He looked over and saw what was standing in the driveway, slowly opening the gate.

‘Hey, everybody!’ Phoenix cried. ‘Forest’s friends from Bulgaria are here!’

The zombies staggered into the commune where everyone was waiting to greet them. Winter brought them a big block of tofu, knowing how much Jeff liked it. The zombies looked at all the fresh meat around them. Jeff was shuffling down to them, moaning excitedly.

Greg looked at Winter, and then looked at the tofu. He instantly decided he’d much rather eat her instead. He bit her as the zombies took the rest of the commune by surprise. Jeff moaned desperately, trying to get them to stop eating his caretakers, but they didn’t hear him, too caught up in their bloodlust.

Jeff was absolutely devastated. When the last shred of meat was gone. He angrily shuffled to the zombies. They moaned excitedly, saying how much they missed him. He moaned back furiously, explaining that the commune were his friends. The zombies begged him to come back with them, but he was fuming. If he could scream and shout and swear, that’s what he was doing. The zombies were shocked by his outburst. Finally he moaned loudly and firmly at them to go away. Dejected, they turned around and slunk back down into the silent city below.

Jeff sat and waited, hoping the zombies left someone intact enough to rise again, so that he may have a companion that understood him and his lonely world. He waited for hours, and then that first moan came in the twilight as the lone reanimation entered their new existence. Winter sat up and looked around. She let out a small moan of bewilderment.

Jeff moaned happily and went to greet her in her newly dead state. She looked around at the bodies of her friends, confused. Jeff knew he couldn’t make her understand what happened, but he had a lot of teach her.

They were content to stay at the commune until the tofu ran out two days later, so Jeff led her down into the city, which had many more new undead inhabitants like Winter.

Jeff was overjoyed. Zombies everywhere, as far as the eye could see, the results of his friends’ search for him. There was not a human in sight. Jeff and Winter had a whole deadtime of friends to make, and then some.

Jeff and Winter, or Liz as he now called her, settled down behind the sushi bar, living on as much spoiled tofu and seaweed as they could eat and there they both happily spent their dying days.