Zombie Scalp No. 730

Iris is a short, smiley woman in her 20's who has the skill set and qualifications for engineering work but not the penis seemingly required to secure said work. She pays bills by (wo)manning a small goods stall at the market in town and this job sates her need for casual interaction in these socially distanced times. To sate her need to shoot people in the head, whilst distanced and anti-social, she moonlights as a zombie hunter. (She has begun to admit to herself that she is on the other spectrum.)

Much like the bubonic plague, the zombie virus that wreaked havoc in Central America during the 760's is still around. Whilst the plague's threat has been nullified by advances in medical science, contemporary outbreaks of the zombie virus are handled by modern firearms. Iris started out with a bow and arrows fletched with Quetzalcoatl feathers but soon adopted a pragmatic .22 rifle less likely to cause collateral murder. She invested later profits into a lever-action shotgun and four surveillance drones.

There is good money, or at least CatScript, in zombie scalps. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after a person has died, so a scalp detached from undead cranium will continue to grow hair. Depending on the individual scalped and the conditioner applied, this hair is indistinguishable from that of living east-Europeans. These scalps are known, by Marxist wig makers, as a "means of production".

Iris feels good after her first hunt in a month, relieved of that itch within shins that ransoms sleep for a counter-productive run. After swinging by home for a shower, tempeh burger and a touch of ruby lippy, she heads to Mamta's. Mamta works as a high school S.O. and this drives her to drink, so she opens granny flat as a speakeasy most Friday and Saturday nights. However, seeing the trajectory that she was on and deciding that wine snobbery is better than piss freakery, she opts for one bottle or six-pack of the better boozes that CatScript can buy. She trades rare drinks for unique items and unique items for rare drinks, spending the profits on that weekend's esoteric imbibing. It was through her pursuit of charcuterie that Mamta met Iris.

Iris enters with adrenalized smile, arms wide and a full-body bop that starts at the left heel: "She's got it. Yeah baby, she's got it."

"Interesting choice." Mamta, behind the bar, dries a beer glass. "But two blondes and a brunette is a classic."

Lobbing Coles bag of zombie scalps onto bar: "Speaking of. Three brunettes, two blondes, a redhead aaand an albino."

"Mm-hmm." Mamta pours a shot of monkey booze and chaser of Schweppes Sugar-Free Lemonade. "I can take the blondes and the red. Having trouble offloading the surplus of brunette. Shampooing them feels weird."

Monkey booze down and eyes watering: "What? How often do you find an albino zombie? You don't, but I do, and I doubt I could again."

"It's white. Kinda' defeats the purpose of a wig, doesn't it?"

"There's no melanin. Its pre-bleached, you could colour it anyway you want. And the sheen.”

Mamta concedes that there might be a market to an albino zombie scalp and takes on the financial risk. Iris can thus afford a few more Shinobi Firecrackers, slings some shit with the barkeep and takes a bus for a few drives through traffic (Thrill Drive 3 is a game). Thus emboldened to dodge traffic, she departs after haggling with Mamta for a spliff of El Dorado Green in  exchange for the raven-black scalp - on the condition that that Iris saves said reefer for home. The speakeasy is empty and Mamta dries a pint glass. A minute before a tall man bursts through the door, fists held in air and declaring:

"Got it bad, sooo baaad, I'm hot for teacher."

Mamta smirks: "Who has passed the trial of Mamta McDougal?"

The man glances around, grows unsure and lowers his hands: "Heeey. Do you know a guy called Henry?"

Smiling now: "You must be James, the husband."

"The ex."

James found Henry's stash/library of straight anal porn. People watch porn and masturbation happens within marriage, but the volume and frequency of Henry's consumption had a negative correlation to happenings in the marital bed. It felt, to James, like an affair.

They hastened the divorce by splitting the house. James got the wine cellar. A few weeks later, the laundry sink (both toilets fell on Henry's side) attested that James could not drink. He has instead been regifting or selling the ex's booze.

James: "So, I believe Henry bought a McMurdo Eiswein 2017 here. Do you give refunds?"

"Do you have the receipt?"

"Ummm?"

"I'm fucking with you. Do you know how CatScript works? It's all barter. Maybe was can make a trade?"

(The retailer will profit, of course.)

"How about a hair farm?" Mamta nods to the bag of zombie scalps, still on the bar. "I have a healthy albino here. Colour it however you want and, if you get bored with the wig, just wait for more to grow and dye another."

A squirm rises unseen up the right of James' right abdomen. Bored with lockdown and having failed to drink, James had tried to get into his ex's smut (the back shed fell on James' side). Although not aroused, he was struck by the milieu of thin pretences, the new generation of pizza deliveries and pipes needing cleaning: horny step-siblings, tits falling out of low-cut dresses, economic disparity. James found some premises unwholesome but others charming with a camp plot that winked at the audience: we all know that this is a porno.

Weeks passed and James got back into playing the piano or, rather, a Casio keyboard (the Yamaha Arius is in Henry's lounge room). With a Masters in Business, a covid-cocoon and a touch of divorce spite, a side-hustle struck James whilst improvising around the chords of "Grease Is The Word".

Live. Musical. Porn.

A night of theatre, comedy and song that would leave the audience dancing towards hastily booked motel rooms. James' mind collated expenses. Who can sing, act, dance and fuck? How many cameras? From which angles? Most relevantly: wigs, the costumes that distinguish characters and grant anonymity to the hot young things. It seemed financially knife-edge and James had grown despondent, but Zombie Scalp No. 730 offers  a new technology to cut just enough costs to make this enterprise viable...