Story: Twenty-Two Zombies

Hi, my name is Eddy. I'm a goblin. Don't be afraid, though, I'm not a bad goblin. I might not be too pretty, but I'm still a good guy. You want to know who isn't a good guy? The king. That's right, the king of this land is worse on the inside than I am on the outside. He hates us goblins, and he banished us from the kingdom, so now we have to fend for ourselves in the wild. People hate us now because he has painted such a bad image of us. They think we are savages, but really we just do what we can to survive. If the king would stop putting such bad propaganda out about us, we might not be so hated.

So, my goblin friends and I have come up with a plan. We are going to force the king to stop making us out to be the bad guys! Now we are definitely no match for his army, there are only twenty-two of us left.. but we have a plan. After all, we do have some special goblin powers. You know, like being able to take over the body of a corpse. The corpse is basically a shield, even if it gets blown up we'll still be safe inside. So if we just keep jumping in corpses, we'll make it to the king. It's the perfect plan, really.

Here's what's gonna happen: My goblin friends and I are going to go to the cemetery and dig up as many bodies as possible. One-hundred should be a pretty good number. We're then going to wheel them away and stack them just outside the gates of the castle. Will people smell them? Maybe, but eh, who cares. That night, we are going to jump inside of the bodies. Twenty-two dead people are going to be walking towards the castle. You know what really scares those humans? That's right, twenty-two walking corpses. ZOMBIES! It'll be great. They'll try to kill us, yeah, but when they see that more bodies are coming and that we can't be killed, they'll just be scared and run for their lives.

Goblins in corpses

Now, once we make it in, we'll go straight to the king. Only about ten of us in corpses, though. The rest will sneak in as our regular, goblin selves and wait for the opportunity. The ten corpses are going to pretend to attack the king. BRAAAINS! It'll be hilarious. Then, when he really thinks it's all over for him, the eleven other goblins will come to the rescue! We'll "scare" the corpses off and save the day! Then we'll make the king a deal.

If he let's us back into the castle and treats us right, we'll keep those monster corpses away, but if not, we'll let them come back to finish him off! I have a feeling he will choose the first option. Well, I've got to go now, I think my twenty-one goblin friends are gathering to dig up some bodies. Wish us luck!

Author's Note: This story is based off of Twenty-Two Goblins translated by Arthur Ryder. In the original story, a king must go get a corpse from a tree. As he carries the corpse back, he notices it is talking and realizes there is a goblin inside. The goblin tells the king riddles, if the king gets the answer right, the goblin escapes and goes back to the tree, if the king gets the answer wrong he may keep walking. But, if the king knows the answer but does not say, his head will explode. So, there is really only one goblin but he tells twenty-two riddles. In my version, I made it to where there are twenty-two goblins trying to convince the king to let them back in the castle. I kept the king, the goblins, and their ability to get into a corpse but changed most everything else to make a funny little plan from one of the goblins perspectives.