'Mr Letterbox, erm may I call you Henry? Please, take a seat!'

Henry wrestled his buttery fingers from the doctor's starstruck handshake, tried to re-attach them, gave up, and took the proffered chair.

'Thanks Doc, erm, may I call you erm, well, Doc? '

Doctor Sharma nearly broke his own ribs, laughing so hard at his idol's off the cuff bleedin' brilliant wit.

'Doc is fine, Sir, absolutely perfect in fact!' the doctor gushed. 'Now, my good fellow, er Henry, I suppose you know why we've asked you to come in today?'

'Not a bleedin' clue Doc!' Henry was momentarily distracted by the plastic model of a human lung on the desk, 'Me P. A. told me to come in. So 'ere I am! You need a celeb ward opening or something?'

'The vaccine, Henry, wonderful news, truly astonishing news!'

'Thought you were a fan Doc? Hate to tell you mate, but no bleedin' vaccine's gonna do me any bleedin' good. Not one tiny bit. You may not have heard, but I am a bit beyond catching bleedin' Covid!'

Letterbox held up the fingers of his right hand with his left, just to prove his bleedin' point.

'Ah, my dear fellow, but Covid was just the start!'

'Thought the bleedin' California zombie outbreak was the bleedin' start?'

'Tsk tsk Henry… Z word! Please, let me explain…. '

Forty-two minutes later, Henry allowed the doc another over-long and fingerless buttery handshake, and left the clinic, feeling confused and rather bleedin' scared!

An hour or so later Steve Swann blew out an enormous cloud of primo smoke, 'Henry, dude, that's freakin awesome news! Wow, man, how the heck did they come up with that then? Freakin' miracle, dude!'

Henry then gave his trademark 'time for a flashback sequence' look, realised that this was not actually a movie, and explained the whole bleedin' thing to a rather stoned Swann.

June 2020.

In a small windowless room in the bowels of the School of Nasty Tropical Medicine and Awful Diseases, at the University of North Westchestershireton, two junior researchers lit another joint and watched the evening pandemic briefing on the small TV.

Two rather undertakerish looking suits stood (at a safe distance) either side of a young guy who looked like he was wearing a suit three sizes too large for him. Like a kid playing dress-up in his granddad's bedroom.

The badly dressed 'kid' was actually the Minister responsible for the Department of Disturbing Public Emergency Briefings (& Stuff).

'.... So to recap, stay home, stay cool, save the NHS.'

The Minister looked (what he thought looked anyway) earnestly into camera four.

One of the undertakerish looking guys coughed nervously.

The Minister realised the autocue hadn't finished….

'And, very obviously, lives too, yes, save lives. Always a jolly good thing. To erm do. Yes? Yes! Now over to Professor Vann Damme to get a jolly good update on the development and, indeed, the magnificent roll out, of our wonderful British vaccine, Prof?'

The two junior researchers zoned out as the screen filled with twenty minutes of baffling diagrams and charts, each showing how brilliantly the government was dealing with the pandemic, how the brilliant government was giving vast contracts out to brilliant British Labs across the land (and even to Johnny Foreigner) to find a cure for this distinctly unBritish virus. We'd beat this little bugger of a germ with science, British ingenuity and cash. Billions. Hundreds and hundreds of billions.

The prof went on to assure 'certain British communities' that in no way shape or form did any of the current front-runner vaccines contain bacon, micro robots or birth control pills. Not even a bit, honest!

Her Majesty's Government wouldn't spend hundreds and hundreds of billions on Intravenous Pork, the Pill or robots that anyway didn't even exist, never mind mind-controlling nanobots, pure science fiction! Nothing to do with multi-trillionaire entrepreneurs at all.

Etc etc etc….

One of the junior researchers, however, had stopped listening at 'hundreds and hundreds of billions'.

Doctor Raj Sharma stood with the joint dangling from his lips, smiling at his colleague.

'Rammi, my dear fellow, we're going to be very, very rich!'

Steve Swann sat, joint dangling from his lips, trying to take in what Letterbox was recounting….

'So they, actually...with bacon?'

'Yup!'

'And the Pill?'

'Yup again!'

'And tiny, mind-controlling, robots?'

'Don't be bleedin' daft, Stevie boy, they don't bleedin' exist, they apparently used bleach, recommended by something called a Potus? '

'And it freakin worked?'

'No Steve, are you actually listening to what I'm bleedin' saying, the bloody stuff killed everything they injected it into, killed everything, apart from the bleedin' virus!'

'Ah… erm… sooo?'

August 2020

Doctor Sharma spoke carefully into the recorder,

'Batch 56494, SharmaRama Vaccine live test numb…'

The intern coughed, rolling up his left sleeve whilst tutting slightly, highlighting the doctor's social gaff, 'live'? Really?

'Note, strike 'live test' from record. SharmaRama Vaccine test on z….'

More furious tutting from the Undead intern, Z bomb, really?

'Testing SR Vaccine, subject is a 'person of undead status'.'

He paused for approval,

'Subject being given intramuscular injection to ascertain if disinfectant can be successfully substituted for household bleach. 5mg administered… Subject to be on stage 4 observations for 48 hours.'

Henry finished the totally uncinematic flashback.

'Two days later, Bob's your aunty's brother, a cure!'

'For Covid?'

'Jeeze Steve, stop smoking that stuff! No, you hippy pothead, did nowt for Corona, but, and this is a bleedin' big but, the stoner doc stumbled upon a cure for zombism!'

'Z word dude!'

'Shut up, Swann! Anyway, I've got a choice now ain't I?

'Do I get the bleedin' jab, the VacZine, they're calling it! Do I get jabbed and start bleedin' living again? Could be the end of my career mate, certainly the end of my Undead Rights charity work… '

'But Henry, to be alive again, dude!'

'Yeah, having to remember to breathe, feeling pain, goin' to the toilet, bleedin' missed all that.. Not!

Though it would be nice to have bits not falling off,'

He picked a finger up, using Swann's desk stapler to put it back on for the umpteenth time that day,

'Wouldn't mind that I suppose, but the day to day, being bleedin' alive, well... is a bloody drag mate!'

'No brainer for me, dude, but it's your erm… unlife… and possibly your freakin' awesome career too, though, Henry!'

So it was Henry Letterbox and Flamin' Crumpet Productions began a savage campaign, warning the undead world of the perils of the VacZine, spreading anti-vacZer propaganda, making up outrageous misinformation, and also making an awful lot of money from online videos in the process.

Doctor Sharma resigned without making hundreds of billions, (in fact, The Letterbox Institute successfully sued him for everything he owned, for breaches of Zombie Rights) and is now happily working for a Window fitting company in Hull.

March 2021.

Henry Letterbox locked the door of his favourite bathroom.

He took a deep breath, smelling the recently bleached porcelain. He unhitched his trousers, with perfectly attached fingers, and sat on the toilet. Opening the morning newspaper, he rubbed gently at his still-stinging arm.

This being alive thing was going to take some bleedin'g getting used to!

FWR

22.03.21 Front Page

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