By Jana (aka Eerie Myst)

When my brother and I were kids, we used to have this babysitter named Debbie. She was a really nice lady who worked as a waitress at our grandparent's restaurant. Her husband, Mark, was a mortician and they lived in a parlor home. It was a nice yellow two story house with white trim, and a basement. They lived in the top story, the first story was the lobby and viewing room, and the basement was where the bodies were prepped and embalmed.

Debbie and Mark lived there quite comfortably with their two boys, Sean and Derik, who were about the same age as my brother, Neil, and I. We all had lots of fun together, the only thing that I hated was the smell of embalming fluid that permeated the place. The smell kind of reminded me of a hospital, only about ten times worse!

The night finally came that I had been dreading for so long, but that I knew was inevitable, my brother and I had to stay the night. Our parents had to go to a big party that our mom's work was throwing. The smell of the place wasn't the only reason I dreaded staying the night, as a matter of fact, the smell wasn't even my main concern. It was the dead bodies in the coolers down in the basement that freaked me out the most. My brother on the other hand, was just excited about getting to spend the night with Sean and Derik. He always thought that the whole dead bodies in the basement thing was pretty cool.

After we got to Debbie's house and started playing games and stuff, I thought to myself, "Well, maybe this isn't gonna be so bad after all". Pretty soon I forgot all about the dead bodies in the basement, and the strange smell of the embalming fluid.

Twister was the game of choice that night. It amazed me how uncoordinated boys are, but that was part of what made it so fun! I spent almost the whole time laughing. When one of them fell, the rest of us yelled, "DOG PILE!!" and piled on the kid who fell.

The time had finally come for us to all go to bed. We all camped out in the living room, that's always so much more fun than sleeping in a bedroom! We were laying out our blankets and pillows when we noticed a pretty heavy storm had started brewing. The wind was getting pretty strong outside, and we could hear the rain just starting to fall. Before long the rain was coming down in large drops and now it was being accented by thunder and lightning. We had all gathered at the sliding glass door that lead out to a rather large balcony, now dawning our pajamas, and watching large bolts of veiny whitish-blue lightning shoot across the night sky. The thunder was booming so hard the whole house shook!

After quite some time of watching this astounding display of Mother Nature, Debbie urged us to "try to get some sleep". We reluctantly obliged, shuffling to our designated sleeping areas, we climbed under our nice warm blankets. Debbie and Mark went off to bed while we laid there trying to contain our excitement. We kept quiet until we figured enough time had passed that the grownups would be asleep.

We started whispering about things like how cool it was that we all got to sleep out in the living room and how massive the storm was. Pretty soon we started making bets on weather or not one of those huge bolts of lightning was gonna hit the house, or at the very least one of the trees outside. Then the dreaded subject of the bodies down in the basement was brought up. Talking about dead bodies was bad enough, but to know that there were actually some down in the basement was just above and beyond creepy!

Sean had begun this unnerving subject by telling us that a body had been brought to the house just before Neil and I got there. "Yeah," Sean continued, "dad decided to put him in the fridge because he didn't want to mess with him tonight." "Him?", I said. "Did you get to see it?", Neil chimed in. Sean answered, "No, he was in one of those big black body bags, but my dad said 'him' so I figured it was a guy". Then Derik had to add in his two cents, as if I wasn't creeped out enough, and said, "Hey! I got an idea!" Neil and I looked at each other, we both knew what was coming next, "Do you guys wanna go down and check it out?" We all replied by shaking our heads, "Dad would KILL us!", Sean said. "Awww, come on you guys! He'll never even know! We'll just be real quiet. What? Are you guys a bunch of CHICKENS?!", Derik replied. As adults we all know that being called a chicken is just stupid, but as kids, this was always a very effective way to get other kids to do stuff that they knew darn well they were gonna get
There was enough light shinning in through the windows from the street lamps that we were able to make our way down stairs to the lobby without any interior lighting. Once we had made it through the door to the first floor, we couldn't see a damn thing! Luckily, Sean and Derik knew where all the light switches were, and which ones to turn on. Derik turned on a small lamp that sat on a table near the front door. It illuminated just enough of the room for us to see the next door that we had to go through before we could get to the basement door.

Sean switched on the lights that hung over head in the viewing room. There were no small lamps to turn on in this room, but the lighting wasn't bright enough to attract too much attention. The viewing room was beautifully decorated with cherrywood pews, antique tables accented with gold leafing sporadically lined the walls on either side of the room, and the carpeting was a lush burgundy.

We crept slowly toward the door to the basement, with each step I took toward the door, every fiber of my being told me to turn around and go back upstairs. But I didn't want to be labeled "the chicken", so I trudged on dreading what we might see down there in that cold, dark basement. As we came to the door Neil blurted out,"SHHH! I think I hear something!" in a panicked whisper. We all froze in our tracks, we didn't even breathe, we just stood there listening intently for any kind of movement. Nothing. We decided it was safe to proceed after a few minutes.

There was a debate on who should open the door as all of us had developed quite a yellow streak down our backs. Derik was elected because he was the one who had talked us into this in the first place. He slowly opened the heavy oak door, but before any of us stepped through the door Derik reached his hand in and flipped on the switch, flooding the entire basement with harsh fluorescent white light.

Derik peeked in through the door, making sure that the coast was clear, then signaled to us with a hand gesture to follow. We crept down the steps looking around at the sterile room where the bodies were prepped. The whole room was comprised of white walls and a white floor, with chrome metal accents. There was one long polished metal counter that ran along the wall with a huge deep sink, and three cabinets above it just to the left of us. To the right were two large metal cabinets that contained supplies, in the center of the room was a large metal table, and on the far wall there were five square metal doors where the refrigerators were. We stood beside the large metal table looking at it as if it were a monster that was preparing to eat us, no one would touch it.

Derik walked over to the refrigerator compartment on the far left, "I think he's in here", we all walked over to where he stood. He pulled up on the handle and began opening the door slowly at first, and a little faster when he realized nothing was going to jump out at him. I think this same thought comforted all of us. He grabbed the table and started to pull, "It's too heavy! Help me out here you guys!", Derik said, still using a hushed voice. We all lended a hand and began pulling, this guy weighed a ton!

There before us lay a very tall and muscular naked African American man. We began to giggle in unison at this sight, none of us had ever seen a naked man before. Derik grabbed a hand towel from the counter and covered the man's genitalia, apparently realizing how rude it was to stand there staring at the man in the buff. We all just stood there looking at him, he didn't look dead, he just looked like he was sleeping. He looked pretty young too, he had long dread locks that came to about his shoulders, and a goatee that was well kept. He had no hair on his body to speak of, and no scars of any kind. Something dawned on me just then, "Hey you guys, how do you think this guy died? I mean, he doesn't have any bullet holes or anything". The boys looked at me puzzled for a moment, then a look of thought passed over their faces as they started to examine the body more closely. Just then the lights went out.

"Hey! What's going on?!", Neil said. "I don't know!", Sean answered. "Derik! Did you do something?!", I asked. "No! I was standing right here with you guys, NERD!", Derik replied. "I wonder if the storm knocked out the power?", Sean said. "Probably, are there any flashlights down here?", Neil asked. "I don't know", Derik replied. "Too late to look now, let's just get out of here!", I said, almost in a panic.

It was pitch black in the basement now, so we had to do our best to move slowly, despite the fact that we were down in a dark basement with a dead guy, so we didn't knock anything over. I heard someone hit something metal, "Be careful!", I said. The boys in unison replied, "It wasn't me!" "It had to have been one of you because it wasn't me!" I was really starting to freak out now. Everyone just froze, we listened, scared out of our wits. There was a shuffling sound, like someone dragging their feet on the floor! We began to run, tripping, stumbling, and pushing each other. There was a low, deep moaning that accompanied those shuffling foot steps now. Running up the stairs still tripping and shoving each other, I was sure we were going to kill ourselves if the thing that followed didn't get us first! We flew through the door that lead out of the basement, and away from the moaning thing that shuffled in the dark. We slammed the door behind us, Derik fumbled for a way to lock the door, "There's no LOCK!". "What
We ran into Debbie and Mark's room. There was a great rush of jumbled explanations flying from our mouths all at the same time. "ALRIGHT!", Mark's booming voice created instant silence. He tried to turn on the light on the nightstand next to him with no luck. Debbie tried to turn her's on, "The power must be out". Mark continued, "Now just calm down, Derik, what happened?", Derik reiterated the experience. Mark and Debbie exchanged that look that parents do when their child has just told them a tall tale. Derik was able to see this exchange of disbelief from the light that trickled in through the window, and recognizing this glance said, "Seriously! I'm telling the truth!", we backed him up with a rigorous nodding of our heads.

Mark and Debbie climbed out of bed and headed for the kitchen, where Mark pulled out a large Mag light from beneath the sink. He turned on the light and headed toward the stairwell that lead to the front door, we all followed after. He began to unlock the door, "BANG! AAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!", we all screamed, the corpse had now found it's way to the front door! Mark quickly locked the door again, making sure to use the chain and the deadbolt for reassurance. We ran back up the stairs, Mark grabbed the phone and called the police, thank God it hadn't gone out with the power! Mark didn't tell the cops that he had "Night of the Living Dead" roaming around down stairs, he just told them that there was an "intruder".

We sat there in the dark waiting for the police to come, it didn't take very long, but it felt like forever! The lights finally came back on just in time to hear the cops bust through the front door. We could hear the thing down stairs moan again and attack the officers. It only took a few minutes for them to restrain it. They knocked on the door to let us know that it was safe now. Debbie told us to stay put while they went down and talked to the cops, by the time they made it back upstairs we had all passed out from exhaustion.

A couple of days had passed when Mark decided to call the police station to see if they had figured out why the guy had been declared dead when he wasn't. The detective that he spoke to told him that they had run some tests on the guy. Turns out they found some traces of Tetrodotoxin (the poisonous venom of the blow fish) in his system, along with a few other things . They had made some calls to some specialists that told them that the things that they had found in his system was generally linked to Voodoo Magik, used to make zombies. The detective apparently had found this information just as amusing as Mark did, until they told him that they were really quite serious. Although it was not common in this part of the states the practice of Voodoo Magik is alive and well, however, it doesn't turn people into flesh eating freaks like you see in the movies.

The poison mixed with the other ingredients (that shall remain nameless), doesn't actually kill the person, it just incapacitates them, and slows down their heart rate to a point that is undetectable. Due to the lack of oxygen to the brain, it begins to die. When they finally come to, only enough live brain tissue remains for them to carry out the simplest of tasks, they have no independent thought, hence, becoming a zombie.

After Mark was done relaying the unbelievable information that was told to him by the detective, we sat there utterly astonished! Mark ended up closing up shop, luckily he had set aside a rather large nest egg for a rainy day. He decided to go back to school to become a computer annalist. He just couldn't stomach the idea of going through anything like that again. Debbie, of course, was all for this decision. She had a heck of a time trying to explain all of this to my parents without sounding crazy, poor thing. Luckily children are pretty resiliant and it didn't adversely effect any of us. We all had great fun telling our friends about it at school, even though none of them believed us.... go figure.