SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A 78-year-old Mississippi man was pronounced dead on Wednesday by the Holmes County coroner, presumably as a result of cardiac arrest. Later that night, however, as morticians were preparing to embalm the body, the corpse reanimated. Employees at the funeral home said they were alerted to the resurrection when they heard movement, and then kicking, coming from within the body bag. Area residents called the incident a miracle. But science-minded Republicans attributed the cause to a curse against humanity by God for the ongoing spate of gay rights laws being passed across the country.

”Anybody who’s studied the most likely End of Days scenario, in context of consistent and universally accepted facts, recognizes that it begins with the dead rising,” said Dr. Nehemiah Goodman, a theological scientist. “And indisputable scientific evidence, as presented in the Holy Bible and spiritually nuanced literature and film, also tells us that that the American South is ground zero.”

Southern law expert Col. Goodman Joseph “Job” Jedediah Lawton-Cluff, Jr., Esq. has also focused his research on the walking dead. His doctoral thesis explored the social and legislative changes that would need to occur in a post-zombie outbreak environment to maintain and perpetuate the welfare of what he calls “the living minority.”

“Over the years, I’ve watched the nation’s majority become a minority under siege by certain types of monsters, so to speak,” said Lawton-Cluff. “But this ain’t anything so metaphorical. In my professional esteem, the zombie apocalypse is now upon us, and it started in Mississippi.”

When asked if conservative scientists suspected the cause to be a new strain of virus or secret government experiment, both Lawton-Cluff and Dr. Goodman scoffed.

“That’s just silly,” Dr. Goodman said. “The conspiratorial idea that a government-engineered disease could bring back the dead is the stuff of fiction. Our medical science has not risen to that level. The only scientifically valid explanation is the Lord’s wrath.”

Lawton-Cluff agreed. He blamed the divine imprecation on legalized gay marriage, along with the spread of liberal civil rights policies, abortion and socialist healthcare programs.

“These factors are, in my legal opinion, the primary offenses that led to the zombie plague now loosed upon Christendom,” He said. “God told us to behave. Clearly, we didn’t. Now the dead are rising. The minute a bunch of prideful hippie atheists allowed a Kenyan-born Muslim to become president of these United States, well, let’s just say all seven seals were broken faster than a starved, two-year-old Kentucky Saddler with his nuts chewed off in a corn shucker.”

The situation has slowly made its way into national headlines, prompting an emergency meeting in Arizona between conservative legislators and Gov. Jan Brewer. Representatives for the governor’s office revealed that lawmakers issued a “heartfelt and desperate” appeal Friday morning, imploring Gov. Brewer to consider reversing her veto of SB1062, the divisive anti-gay bill.

Religious leaders in Mississippi told reporters they had no idea whether the effects of the reanimation would last, or for how long.

"I don’t know how long he’s going to be here, but I know he’s back right now,” one minister said. “The doctors, they’re all looking into what might have took place. It’s pretty clear that God’s hand played a part. But it don’t take a doctor or a preacher to know that if the zombie starts getting uppity, pills and prayers ain’t going to save us -- only a bullet to the brain’ll put that abomination back in the ground for good.”

At the request of the state’s Republican officials and clergy, National Rifle Association (NRA) members active in the area have been mobilized to form an emergency “zombie dispatch, containment and sanitization” task force. More to come as the story develops.

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