Free It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies by Michael P. Spradlin

INTRODUCTION
    “Good King Wenceslas tastes great, we might as well eat Stephen.”
    It is universally acknowledged that there are very few literary pursuits which cannot be improved by the addition of Zombies, which are to the written word as cheesy goldfish crackers are to life in general; those little cheesy goldfish crackers also improve nearly everything. Don’t take my word for it—just bust out a bowl of cheesy goldfish crackers at the next funeral you attend and see if you don’t bring some smiles to the grieving. (Just to be safe, make it the funeral of some stranger on the off chance I’m wrong.)
    Imagine how much more compelling Hamlet might have been had his father not appeared on the battlements as a ghost but as a brain-eating Zombie. Likewise, how poignant the love story if sweet, damp Ophelia had returned from her drowning in the brook to lay a licking to Hamlet’s medulla oblongata. Think how much easier a time wives todaywould have getting their husbands to take them to the opera if Wagner had only included a few Zombies in his work. Or even a Zombie or two in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. (Wait. I’m not sure even Zombies would improve an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical). Even Charles Dickens seems to be overworked with ghosts and short of Zombies. Poor, rotting Tiny Tim having a nosh on Scrooge’s brain at the end of A Christmas Carol would surely warm the spirit as much as any Christmas goose. I mean, he had four ghosts in the story—couldn’t he have substituted at least one Zombie for a ghost? Come on, Chuck. ’Splain, please. Why is there no Zombie of Christmas Future?
    And while we’re on the subject of Christmas and ghosts and other undead things, I firmly believe it was only a matter of time until someone conceived a book of Zombie Christmas carols. And Michael Spradlin is the ideal guy to do it.
    And I can tell you why.
    A few years ago, it was the same Michael Spradlin, author of the book you now hold in your hands, who approached me one day to write a funny Christmas book. (He was totally violating the restraining order, but we’ll let that slide for now.) He got up in my grille and was all, “You know, you ought to write a funny Christmas book.” And I’m all, “What kind of funny Christmas book?” And he’s all, “I don’t know, how about maybe Christmas in Pine Cove or something?” (For the uninitiated, Pine Cove is the fictional California town where many of my novels are set.) So I’m all back at him, “’kay.” SoI sat down to write my own version of the cheery holiday tale (mainly because I really don’t like to write when I’m standing up). But I wanted my holiday novel to be different. I didn’t want your traditional Christmas story of happiness and peace on earth and goodwill toward men. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) But I pondered: How could I make my mine stand out? Then I remembered! What is it that makes every literary pursuit better? Zombies, of course! (See above.) Thus was born my novel The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (available wherever books are sold, I’m just sayin’). Really, I’m not lying. All because Michael Spradlin got in my grille about shaking up the world of Christmas literature, The Stupidest Angel , the cheesy goldfish cracker of holiday novels, was born.
    I was to later learn that this same Michael Spradlin, who is himself descended from a long line of the undead (think about it), had a deeper affinity for Zombies than I had even imagined. And now he has brought forth the world’s first Zombie Christmas carol songbook. Like collections of greatest hits you see on late-night television commercials, all the new soon-to-be classic Zombie holiday songs are here for you: “I Saw Mommy Chewing Santa Claus” “Zombie, the Snowman” “We Three Spleens” “Deck the Halls with Parts of Wally” and many more.
    So as you and your family enjoy these holiday-spiced tidbits of animated carrion,