A Slurry of Monsters

As my wife and I were walking through our cherry orchard the other day, inspecting the trees for blight, rust and urban sprawl, I caught a glimpse of a distant gathering of undead creatures. At first I thought they were zombies, but they could have been ghouls. They're hard to tell apart at a distance. Our orchard was planted on top of an Indian burial ground, so it's not uncommon for us to see various flavors of undead roaming amongst the trees in search of human flesh and a place to whizz. Well, technically it isn't so much a burial ground as it is a casino that collapsed due to God's punishment on immorality and a lack of sufficient sheer support. Efforts were made to rescue the trapped gamblers, but when their relatives were informed that the odds of anyone getting out alive were a million to one, they decided to take their chances elsewhere.

Anyway, now our orchard is plagued by the spirits and/or reanimated corpses of several hundred dead gamblers still trying to beat the odds.

I grabbed my wife's arm and whispered, "Look! A bunch of zombies!"

"A bunch of zombies?" She said disdainfully, barely glancing in the direction I pointed.

"Yeah, look! I think they're grazing...or something."

"I'm pretty sure it's not a 'bunch' of zombies," she said. "And zombies don't graze; they scavenge for carrion."

"What do you mean, it's not a bunch of zombies? There are like eight of them."

"No, I mean it's not called a 'bunch.' You know how it's a pride of lions, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows...."

"A trifling of meerkats," I added helpfully.

"Anyway, I think those are ghouls. They're not scavenging; they're menacing. Zombies scavenge; ghouls menace."

"That doesn't sound right," I said.

"Ok, you're the expert. It's not like I'm a fourth grade teacher or anything."

"Ok, ok," I said. "So what do you call a group of zombies?"

She thought for a moment. "A groan, I think."

"A groan of zombies? You're making that up."

"It's a groan of zombies and a chilling of ghouls. I think that's right."

"What about skeletons?"

"A rattle of skeletons."

"Poltegeists?"

"An annoyance of poltergeists."

"Mummies?"

"Tangle."

"Vampires?"

"Fang."

I thought for a while, trying to stump her. My wife's knowledge of the undead and cryptozoology is formidable. Finally I seized on one that I was sure she wouldn't know.

"What about sasquatches?" I said. "Tell me what a group of sasquatches is called, smarty pants."

She sighed and looked bored. "A blur of sasquatches," she said.

Damn, she's good, I thought.

"We should go," she said. "They look like they're menacing in this direction."

"Hey," I said, as they shambled closer. "I think that's just a bunch of drunk teenagers."

"A posse of drunk teenagers," she corrected.

"Still, they're menacing in this direction."

"Yes they are."

"How do you kill drunken teenagers again?" I asked. We didn't get many of those around here.

"Bullet to the brain," She said.

"Thank God," I said. "Beheading is a bitch."

We drew our sidearms and fired.