Scary Story

This is a true story. It’s the exact events that happened about 4 years ago, when we met at Pirates. It was 31^st October, wed, haloween. It was a meeting in the pigeon house. This is a lonely place in the dark, on it’s own. It was misty, eery the wind whistled around the house. People were more subdued than usual. If I had believed in ghosts I would have been scared.

Otherwise It seemed like just another toastmasters evening. I was quaffing beer after beer, while I listened to interminable motivational and inspiratinal speeches about hard done by toastmastrs and how they had overcome obstacles to achieve stuff. As usual, I was feeling more and more inadequate. Why didn’t I even want to overcome obstacles to achieve stuff? I only felt motivated to get another beer. The Toastmaster was a cc1, so a newbie, and without anyone noticing, she had lost control of the meeting. You know what happens if you don’t stop a toastmasters from speaking. That’s right. They can go on for ever. So things were draggin on a bit, well past 9pm.

Like any toastmaster, I am a pious, pompous and self-righteousness egoist. Well that’s what I thought. Sitting looking self important, enveloped in my sensitive culture, carefully listening for stuff that I could be offended by. On Wednesdays, My body is programmed to finish my 4^th beer at 9pm sharp, get up go home, and fall asleep at 9h30pm. So its no wonder that at 9h30, when they were still doing table topics, which is even more boring, if you can imagine that, than the speeches, and I fell asleep.

I woke with a start. The toastmaster was addressing me. Her voice seemed to have increased in tone a few notches. Unfortunately I had not heard what she had said, so I assumed I was the general evaluator. I rose to head for the podium. My legs were a bit wobbly at first due to the amount of beer, but i get used to it quickly. I was about to start that general evaluation speech I use every time, and so does everyone else. “I really enjoyed tonight. We started the evening with..blah ..blah ...blah.” when she said, you don’t have to go to the podium. We only want a few words for on a point.

SO instead I said what I said last time, “I really enjoyed ursula’s speech. The theme was fun. Thank you everyone, especially the visitors.” As my eyes scanned the audience, I noticed there was something different. The temperature had defonitely dropped a few degres ad there was a chill i the air. People had lost skin tone. Some had even lost sone skin. Bit more than that, some people were definitely not looking well. It seemed yvette had an eyeball missing. And peters arm was drooping awkwardly. And Ursula normally ok looking nose didn’t look ok anyemore. I sat down and looked at Bob next to me, and got a helluve fright. Bob was leaning towards me showing his teeth, and his gums and lips had vanished, and he was making an unpleasant growling noise. Uuuuhhhhhh. I leapt up in the nick of time. Then I thought that maybe he had mistaken me for Mari-Louise. But Mari-Louise wasn’t looking very attractive tobight, she only had a few strands of hair and her eyes were bloodhsot. Unusually i had combed my hair before coming, and now This seemed Possibly a mistake.

Everyone else was looking at me weirdly too. Hungrily. I casually headed for the door, pretending I needed another beer from the bar. It seemed everyone stoof up and began to follow. Thet could tell i was different. I was still a human. One particularly pious toastmaster made a lunge for me. Except they were really slow, seemingly dragging limbs behind them. And making a funny growling noise. Suddenly I realised. They were zombies and they were after me. They wanted to make me like them. Some of them were not half bad. I mean, being eaten by the likes of Yveytye, and mari louise is on a lot of people’s bucket lists. so I almost thought I should turn back. It would be the easy way out, being bitten by them, then becoming a zombie too. It might even be nice. But then I thought, but Colin and peter and bob were also there, that would just be weird. And i could end up looking like cathy. Or worse acting like cathy. So I ran. But it was a good feeling, being wanted so much. I felt a pang of jealousy when I saw some of them peel off and head for the barman, who obviously thought he was about to double the evenings turnover.

When I got home I thought how rough it must be to be a toastmaster zombie. I was grateful that at least I was a sane, normal, except super attractive, guy. I had escaped. I would never become a toastmasters zombie. They would have to settle for the barman.