The Peanut Butter and Jelly Zombie

Simon Dodson lives with his three unruly roommates who chide him for his ‘cause of the week’ activism. Simon’s cause of the week is the Greninger Society a group dedicated to zombie rights. Enchanted by Lizbeth, Simon, now officially dubbed Curly, agrees to attend their meeting in the local public library and eventually to join their protest. Groggy one morning he agrees via text to meet Lizbeth for a scheme. They meet and under a shroud of secrecy obtain falsified documents to gain entrance into The Quarantine Zone, a section of Oakland, CA used to house zombies rather than kill them. The city wants to burn it to the ground; the Greninger Society protests the plan. Curly misses out on a lunch date with Lizbeth on account of being a vegetarian. To protest the inhumanity towards the zombie, highlight their humanity, and generally get attention Lizbeth strips nude in a crowded and visible section the Quarantine Zone. She is eaten, and Curly flees, winding up on foot and lost within the Quarantine Zone. A child zombie leads him to the exit, then bites his exposed hand, leaving Curly to be hauled off to an examination clinic within the zone to be studied and observed as he makes the transition to zombie-hood. Now a zombie with limited but present cognitive ability, Curly is released into the world at large, one chance to be a relatively well behaved zombie or risk being shot by the ZSP (Zombie Safety Patrol) or returned to the Quarantine Zone. Homeless, Curly wanders the city looking for shelter. Curly witnesses a man commit suicide by zombie, drunkenly taunting a group of them. He attempts to join the undead as they devour the man, but he fails. Try as he might, he finds himself a vegetarian zombie. Wandering through a grocery store, Curly discovers something he can eat, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They remind him of childhood. They fill a need and quell his hunger. Curly gains notoriety for his unique culinary choices. He is dubbed the Peanut Butter and Jelly zombie and even interviewed by a local news crew. In a sullen, defeated state. Curly decides to head back for the Quarantine Zone. Curly eventually finds the entrance to the Quarantine Zone, stumbling into a stand-off between city officials and a now incensed Greninger Society leading a picket line of zombies. Things quickly spiral into abject carnage as the riled up zombies attack the city officials and assembled bystanders. In the aftermath, Curly finds contentment in his zombie life. He is amused to see himself repeatedly on the televisions through storefront windows.