Mathias Pinkerton liked his ladies like he liked his coffee. He didn’t. No, Mathias was a hardcore watcher of old time horror movies. If somebody asked him what kind of stuff he was into, he would just look into their eyes and stare. That strange stare of a man who is utterly devoid of life and as you gaze into their dark abyss, wondering when the madness would engulf you, he would probably wander off. He had that kind of personality where he was obsessed with something but absolutely nobody knew it. Probably because most people didn’t even know he existed. Yet something dramatic, horror-y, and quite zombie filled was about to change his routine life.

He lived in the basement of a two story house, belonging to a nice older married couple (The Bradshaws), in the middle of the Little Wimbledon suburbs. The aforementioned older couple did not actually know he was there, for they never discovered the fact that they owned a basement. How did they not see him when he would come up to use their bathroom, you ask? Their walls were entirely white, and Mathias Pinkerton and the sunlight had never been formally acquainted. Yes, Mr. Bradshaw occasionally wondered why the bathroom door was locked with seemingly no one inside it sometimes, and other times the cereal would pour itself into a bowl and float around (Their kitchen decorations and wallpaper were also of the white persuasion). There was also the matter of all the screaming coming from below the house, and the loud voices (he could swear he heard Boris Karloff one night) that sounded like an old 50’s movie. Instead of ever investigating the matter though, Mister Bradshaw just blamed communist poltergeists.

“Stupid commies think they can come to our great country and clog our toilets!” Robert shouted while walking into his kitchen, holding a dripping plunger. “If they wanted to live in my house so bad, all they had to do was die as capitalists!” Mister Bradshaw grumbled while pacing the floor back and forth in his (white)themed kitchen. He watched a bowl of sugar float up and tip a little over a slice of grapefruit. He eyed the grapefruit intently, in case it tried to show the other fruits the benefits of a socialist society.

“Well, I think you’re overreacting Robbie. The Pennertons and their ghost learned to be friends. Heck, he even holds a neighborhood poker night.” Said Mary, while watching their little black television.

“I would know Mary. I lost fifty dollars to that conniving Redskin!”

“Don’t be racist Robbie! The proper terms Indian.”

The grapefruit floated towards the t.v. and the channel changed to “Laff Central”.

“Now back to Harry the stand up comic!” A short man in a smart blue suit walked up to the front of the “Laff central presents” stage. “Thank you. I will now commence my performance with a little sketch I call ‘Artemis Monkey in the banana factory’.” The man then put on a bowler cap and threw banana peels all over the stage. “Boy, I sure hope I don’t slip on a banana peel today!”

“Typical communist humor. Give me a good ol’ fashioned redneck joke, thank you very much!” Robert said, while belching loudly. The slice of grapefruit looked at the TV screen unfavorably (“Whoops! Slipped on a banana peel!”) and floated out of the kitchen.

Mathias lifted up a trap door, and stepped down a flight of stairs leading into his basement. He placed the slice of grapefruit on a table filled with copies of “Fangoria” and went behind a large projector and flipped the on switch. He plopped down on his couch, (causing a small tremor. A hobby where you spend large amounts of time sitting in one place does not make you the most exercised type of person.) and grabbed a big bucket of popcorn from underneath the table. He spent countless hours of bliss just watching these old movies of his, and the indentation in the seat of his couch proved it. “Quickly! The Wolfman approaches!” He whispered. “Quickly! The Wolfman approaches!” said the scientist in the movie. He got unholy amounts of pleasure out of this. A figure in a horribly cheesy fur outfit came onscreen, scampered around a bit, and started killing a few people. The victims screamed loudly, monochrome blood flying across the screen.

The house straight across from Mathias was a three story mansion, creepy in its dark atmosphere. It had a large for sale sign on its front yard with a little box filled with pamphlets. A limousine slowed down by the house, and parked in its driveway. A bearded man wearing faded jeans and a cutoff t-shirt stepped out of the back of it and grabbed a pamphlet from the box. The bumper of his limo had a sticker saying “I Brake for Zombies”.