June is a great month for marriages

Sgt. O'Leary tentatively poked around the bandage.

“Hey!” snapped the nurse, “Don’t touch that too much.  You want it to heal, don’t you?”

The sergeant dropped his hand to his side.  He looked at the nurse, “So how long do I have to wear this damn thing?  I have to give my daughter away Saturday.”

She didn’t look up from her clipboard as she spoke, “Well it’s still going to be there on Saturday if you ever want it to go away.”

Patrick looked around the room: sterile, white, dead.  It was depressing and bright, he felt dizzy.  Raising his hands to his face he closed his eyes and tried to not think about what just happened or all the paperwork it was going to require.  The nurse turned around to face him, clipboard still in hand, “Your blood work came back clean but the doctor still thought it would be best for you take an antibiotic.  Follow the directions on the bottle and make sure you change your bandage twice a day and clean it with alcohol, okay?”  She held out a prescription note.\

O’Leary looked up and took the note, nodding as he did.

“And to think, just before Debbie’s wedding.”

“I know, Margaret.  I just don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?  Let’s just go to bed.”

Margaret looked pretty good despite all the extra years her husband had put on her.  Her hair, previously a gorgeous dark brown, had picked up some salt over the years, but in his eyes she was still the same twenty two year old he had first met way back when.  “Patrick, you know I hate this: you go out all night and I can’t sleep a wink!  Twenty years of this and I’ve been worried for every single moment of it!  And now this?  Some psycho meth head takes a chomp out of your neck days before the wedding?”

Patrick sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his shoe.  “Margaret, I was a cop before we were married and you knew damn well what you were getting into.  I know that you worry but what am I supposed to do?  Either I tangle with that God damned meth head or he murders some innocent old lady.”

He looked back to see her back turned with hand on her face.  He stood and opened his arms to her, “Come here, Margie.”  She turned and fell into him, sobbing.  The good sergeant stumbled a little as he held her.

“Sir, I understand the importance of your daughter’s wedding-“

“Only daughter’s wedding,” O’Leary interrupted.

The smaller man took a breath, “Only daughter’s wedding, of course.  I understand the importance of it, but there’s nothing I can do.  Anything I could do would look much worse than that small bandage of yours.”  He was young for a tailor, and much smaller than O’Leary.  His stature paled in comparison to the wide-shouldered sergeant.  Intimidation, however, is nothing compared to a lack of recourse.  “The only thing I could suggest would be to wear a turtle neck under the shirt.  I have plenty to choose from and-“

“A turtle neck?  At a wedding?  I’d look like a damn fool!”  O’Leary took a step closer and was about to put a finger on the man’s chest when he felt faint, started to sweat.  He doubled over, took a step back and tried to regain some composure.  He straightened up some, “Fine, show,” he leaned over again slightly and put a hand to his face, “show me the damn turtle necks.”
 

Patrick poked around his bandages.

“Dad?  Are you going to be okay?”  Debbie looked a little harried, and a bit nervous, natural at a wedding rehearsal, but was glowing nonetheless.  She was petite, like her mother, with shocking red hair like Dr. Beverly Chrusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Debbie wore it longer, though, halfway down her back.

Patrick put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, “I’m fine, honey.  Is it time yet?”  He looked down the aisle past the bridal party couple slowly making their way down; he looked at Jonathan.  He was a fine man and a recent academy graduate who had started his police career in a nicer, and much slower, neighborhood than had Patrick.  “It’s a good move for marital harmony, thank the good Lord for that,” O’Leary thought.

“Just about, daddy.  Okay, let’s go!”\

This was the happiest Patrick would be in his life: taking his daughter down the aisle in a rehearsal for when he was supposed to take her down the aisle.  Granted, the rehearsal dinner was fun, but paying for everything takes out some of the zing.
 

It was odd that O’Leary tumbled so much in bed that night, but Margaret just attributed it to nerves.  In a way Patrick did too but, in another way, he was just repressing the truth.

 

He awoke the next morning feeling like he had drunk an entire bottle of bourbon on top of what he actually did drink.  He forced his legs out of bed and rubbed his face, “Sack up, son.  Its Debbie’s wedding day.  Time for your ‘A’ game.”

The big day was upon all of them.  Sgt. O’Leary was dressed in his tuxedo; he wasn’t the kind of man who would bring his career into his daughter’s wedding.  He thought it would be inappropriate to draw any attention from her and her husband.  That’s also why he vomited discreetly several minutes before the ceremony started.

There was only one problem: he also died discreetly.

His lifeless body sat there crumpled on the bathroom floor, his face on the rim of the toilet.

One of Jonathan’s groomsmen, Steve, found him there and gagged at the smell, “Good God,” the young man thought, “I didn’t think he drank that much last night.”  Steve dragged the poor, dead man up and out of the bathroom, and shoved the corpse onto its daughter.  “Sorry Debbie, this is how I found him.  You’re just going to have to make do.”  Steve was quickly off down the aisle with his accompanying bridesmaid, all the better to him.

Debbie frowned at the corpse just dumped upon her.  “Daddy?” she whispered.  The corpse emitted a guttural groan but didn’t look up.

The music changed, it was time to go.

Debbie dragged the poor sergeant’s corpse for a few steps until its feet started to work again.  One foot after another, the dead man started to shamble with her for a few feet and was starting to draw his own power as they slowly made their way down the aisle.  He leaned on her less with every step and she felt a bit better about her father as they got closer to the awaiting groom.

When the blushing bride had brought her corpse to the front she released it, as Jonathan beamed and outstretched his right hand for shaking.

Patrick’s corpse took that hand and pulled Jonathan close.  The younger man leaned in to hopefully hear some words of encouragement, waiting for his father in law’s mouth to reach his ear.

The zombie bit hard onto the ear and ripped back on it with the ferocity of Mike Tyson.  Jonathan screamed and jerked back with his upper body, but was still connected to the zombie by the right hand.  Jonathan’s back slammed against the pew and he tried to roll off as the father in law’s corpse rushed back in and sank his teeth into the young man’s neck.

About half of the people in the church quickly rose in shock as they watched the gruesome spectacle.  Debbie stood speechless as her own father, face dripping blood, let go of Jonathan’s hand and let him fall to the floor.  The corpse turned to her and she looked into its eyes: it seemed to look through her as it took a jagged step in her direction.

In anger Margaret yelled her husband’s name.  The former man’s body grabbed her daughter’s dress by the shoulder strap and yanked her upper body towards its descending mouth.  Margaret reached out instinctively as the zombie chomped on her daughter just below the jaw.  As the corpse drew back, blood spewed from her daughter’s jugular.

Margaret stopped and stood there, shocked as she drew her hand slowly to her mouth.  She was so preoccupied with her own horror that she never saw her would-be son in law before it was too late.