So the other night I decided to stay up late and watch one of my favorite movies, Shaun of the Dead.  It’s not the kind of film that would normally pique my interest – it’s full of extremely gory zombie shenanigans, and if I can check the “violently graphic” box plus the “supernatural evil thingies” box, this generally removes a film from my Must Watch list.  Or even my Might Watch if Some Sort of Tragic Global Disaster Destroyed all the Other Movies Ever list.  

But Shaun of the Dead has many redeeming qualities.  The two principal actors, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, are hilariously funny and possibly one of the great comedy duos of all time.  The writing is brilliant (not something you can usually say about a horror movie) and a good deal of the film is spent in a somewhat dingy pub, which is pretty much how life in England goes.   (Minus the marauding zombies part, of course.)

However, despite all these wonderfully esteemable qualities, it nevertheless remains a bad idea to watch a movie about zombies just before bedtime.  Of course I dreamt about zombies, that was a given.  And then, around 5 in the morning, I was woken by a small noise.

It sounded like…a creak.  Like my dad’s office chair creaking.  Oh, well, he must have woken up early and decided to do something on the computer. 

But: there wasn’t any light from his computer screen coming through the door.  Our house being a little odd, my bedroom door has glass panels in it.  If somebody has the computer on, I will notice. 

And then, I heard it.  The ominous scamper of little feet pattering above my head on the roof. 

ZOMBIE FRUIT RATS!!!

That’s the lightning-fast conclusion I reached while I was still half-asleep.  It didn’t help that a few minutes later they started dropping things, discarded juniper berry pits or something, against the side of the house.  Now they were invading zombie fruit rats. 

Fortunately on this occasion I was not called upon to mount a defense of our home against hungry zombie rats, though due to my attentive movie watching the evening before I would have known exactly what to do.  If you too want to feel secure in your zombie defense capabilities, I suggest you go out and rent Shaun of the Dead right now. 

In the cold light of day one lingering question remains: since fruit rats are actually vegetarians, can they even become zombies?  I suppose that in the vast annals of children’s literature there is already a vampire bunny, so who can say where the limits lie?  I for one am glad that I know exactly what to do…just in case.