Free Give Death A Chance by Alan Goldsher Page A

“He should know, y’know.”
    “He clearly doesn’t,” John snapped. “So fookin’ tell him. You know that crap better than I do.”
    Paul sighed. “Okay. In the summer of 1960, John and I were wandering around the Liverpool sewers…”
    “I fookin’ hate the sewers,” John mumbled.
    “And we ran across an undead bloke who called himself Slappy Pappy Happy Crappy…”
    “A fookin’ nutter, I say,” John mumbled.
    “But this Slappy fellow wasn’t the normal Zombie you found in the Liverpool underground. First of all, he was mutated, y’know, with Vampire teeth, and the gills of a fish…”
    “The fookin’ nutter could breathe on land and sea,” John mumbled.
    “And the hair of a hippie. I couldn’t help but stare, y’know, even though John was tugging on my shirt, trying to get me out of there…”
    “I fookin’ hate the sewers,” John mumbled.
    “So finally I said, ‘How long you been undead, mate?’ He smiled at me with those freaky teeth—which I saw were covered with blood, which was odd, because, as far as I knew, there weren’t any beings who had blood living down in the sewers—and said, ‘I ain’t undead, you Zombie arsehole. I’m a fookin’ Monster.’ Me and John laughed at that, y’know, because the thought of Monsters living in a sewer is ridiculous. Zombies, sure. Vampires, okay. Swamp Things, no doubt. Blobs, naturally. But Monsters? Bloody hell, Monsters don’t even exist.”
    “Turns out that Monsters did exist,” John mumbled.
    “And it turned out that Monsters could do damage to Zombies, even ones as strong as Johnny.”
    “Lots of damage,” John mumbled.
    “Erm, the Monster went after us—for no reason, mind you, we were being perfect gentlemen—and it wasn’t pretty.”
    “It was fookin’ ugly,” John mumbled.
    “Yeah, he ripped off both of our plonkers and stomped on them until they were as flat as shillings. And then he gave us both karate chops that knocked us out for a good long while…”
    “Four fookin’ hours to be exact,” John mumbled.
    “And when we got up, he was standing over us, saying over and over again, ‘You think that was bad? Wait’ll you meet the Little Monsters. You think that was bad? Wait’ll you meet the Little Monsters. You think that was bad? Wait’ll you meet the Little Monsters…”
    “And here we are, meeting the Little fookin’ Monsters,” John mumbled.
    I said, “Guys, Lady Gaga’s fans are mostly depressed and weird teenagers looking for somebody to tell them it’s okay to be depressed and weird. They won’t hurt you. Hell, they can’t hurt you.”
    Ringo said, “I don’t know, mate, depressed and weird teenagers can be goddamn dangerous.”
    “He’s right, y’know,” Paul said. “Especially if they have Monster powers.”
    I’d never seen the Beatles so cowed, and as awful as they’d made the last month of my life, their vulnerability was at once disconcerting and discouraging. If they couldn’t bring themselves to throw down with a poser like Lady Gaga, what hope did humanity have? So I said, “Listen, the fans don’t have Monster powers, and Gaga is just some rich girl who stumbled onto the zeitgeist. You can get what you want out of her with your plonkers tied behind your backs. I mean, you’re the Beatles, the goddamn Beatles, now go in there and take that last step to the Toppermost of the Poppermost!”
    They were silent for a moment, then George ripped off his New York Mets t-shirt, looked to the sky, and let loose with a Zombie moan that I’m certain was felt in the second balcony. John followed suit, and then Paul, and together, they created the kind of harmonic convergence that made Rubber Soul so damn timeless.
    Ringo pulled a handful of shuriken from his New York Islanders sweatpants and said, “Someone’s about to get their nineteenth nervous breakdown, and I think her name is Lady Stepchild Germaphobe Goo Goo.”
    “Wait—you’re leading us into battle with a Stones