THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
by Noah Cicero
twenty-six
Frankie is working.
He is looking through test tubes.
He is also wearing the woman’s dance outfit he was wearing earlier.
Esmeralda comes downstairs, sits by him.
“How’s it going?” Says Esmeralda.
“I think I need one more thing. I need cells from a mammal’s lungs. If I could get a mammal’s lung’s cells then I could splice it with the maggot cells. Which would cause the lungs to enlarge.”
“Where could we get that?”
“I think from one of the undead.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, we have to get one and bring it down here and then cut out a piece of its lungs.”
“But isn’t their cells dead?”
“If you get a fresh one, the cells won’t be completely dead. And I’m assuming that whatever is making them come back from the dead has something fucked up about it that might help the transformation process in the maggot DNA.”
“Ah fuck, we all gonna die.”
“We can do it. We have to. It won’t be hard. We just have to rope one and tie it up.”
“All right. But you better stay because our and a lot of other’s only hope is you making those giant maggots.”