Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion (36 page)

It’s probably best I don’t discuss the remainder of the footage, which could be best summarized in two words: snuff film.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
All four of us were in a horrible state after
Magical Mystery Tour
went belly-up. Ringo and George found their own ways to amuse themselves, which was lovely for them, but John and I needed something to occupy our minds, because had we become idle, bad things could’ve happened, y’know. Very bad things. Unspeakable things. So, erm, I shan’t speak of them.

There were days at the end of 1967 when John and I couldn’t be in the same room—we’d been together almost every day for ten years, and his scent was nauseating me more and more each week, and I’m sure my stink was getting to him too. George was off experimenting with more weirdo guitars; he’d developed something called a Hair-ison, which was a mandolin strung with strings fashioned from the pubic hair of his female victims. Nobody knew where the fook Ringo was, and it was a mess. With Eppy gone, the Beatles were like a barely functioning airplane flying over the Bermuda Triangle. One harsh gust of wind, and we would be done.

CHAPTER SEVEN

1968

GEORGE HARRISON:
I planned a trip to India to get a few Transcendental Meditation lessons with Maharishi. I invited the guys—I thought they’d benefit from it, plus it might keep us from becoming more splintered—but John didn’t want to go, because he was still on that “I’m afraid of losing my edge” kick. I insisted it would be impossible for any zombie to lose his edge, especially one as grouchy as he was. He yanked off my arm and beat me with it for about five minutes, then the lightbulb clicked on, and he said, “Oh. Hunh. You may have a point there, mate.”

I said, “I
know
I have a point. Besides, after what you did to Maharishi in Wales, he’ll probably tweak your lesson plan however you want it tweaked. I mean, the only extremities of his you didn’t tear off were his head and his plonker, and I think he’s gonna want those, so if you say ‘Jump,’ he’ll say, ‘How high?’”

John mumbled, “Something tells me that legless git won’t want to discuss jumping.”

JOHN LENNON:
Maha wasn’t the kind of cat who’d get an artificial limb—he’d rather display his wounds so everybody’d know he was at one with himself, or whatever—so when we pulled into his compound in Rishikesh, they had to wheel him over in this sharp little wagonlike thing, covered with diamonds and jewels, and being pushed by three of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen. I elbowed George and said, “That’s enough to make you wanna rip off your own limbs and chuck ’em in the garbage, eh?”

He rolled his eyes at me, then told Maha, “Thank you for welcoming us to your home. As a small token of my appreciation, I’d like to play you a song I’ve written especially for the occasion.” And then he pulled out that fookin’ skintar, and those gorgeous birds ran off to the hills, screaming like banshees.

Maha, who suddenly looked a little green himself, smiled and said, “That’s okay, my son. A tune is not necessary, as the songs of nature fill my soul. Besides, your positive vibes are powerful, very powerful, and that is enough for me.” Then, in a dead-on Liverpool accent, said, “Now put that smelly fookin’ piece of music-making machinery back into its case before I toss me curry.”

Don’t let anybody tell you that old Maha didn’t have a sense of humor.

RINGO STARR:
Paul and I got to Rishikesh a few days after John and George, and by the time we showed up, the two of them were already bored to tears. When we got to the compound, they were off under some tree, way away from the action, playing strip poker. They’d obviously been playing for a while, because they were both not only naked but also legless.

John looked up at Paul and said, “Macca, it’s so fookin’ dull here that I’m even glad to see you.”

Paul said, “Cheers, mate. But if you’re so bored, why don’t you do something productive?”

John said, “Like what?”

Paul said, “Oh, gosh, erm, I dunno, maybe write some songs or something.”

George said, “Not a bad suggestion. But I have a better idea.”

JOHN LENNON:
The irony is that I was always the guy who came up with those sorts of schemes. I never thought George had it in him.

RINGO STARR:
George was the most spiritual zombie I’d ever met, but when he laid his plan out for us, I realized there was a limit to a zombie’s spirituality.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
On one hand, I thought George’s idea was a horrible one that’d lead to bad press and bad juju, an’ that. But on the other hand, I was really, really hungry, y’know.

GEORGE HARRISON:
That American actress Mia Farrow was at the compound with us, as was her sister Prudence. Mia was a good egg and participated in all the activities and ate all of Maharishi’s shite food with us. Hell, she even joined us for a round of strip poker. Prudence, on the other hand, was always up in her room with the door locked, doing who knows what. So my idea was, let’s eat Prudence. But not just her brain:
everything.
Skin, bones, organs, muscles, eyeballs, the entire shebang.

Ringo said, “The brains I can understand, by why the whole thing?”

I said, “Because we can. Plus she’s a pill, and nobody’d miss her anyhow.”

JOHN LENNON:
Right at that moment, right when he suggested we make a meal out of dear Prudence, I couldn’t have been prouder of George Harold Harrison. My little boy had finally become a man.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
We decided to sneak into Prudence’s room in the dark of night, but truthfully, everybody at the compound was so wrapped up in their own heads that we could’ve wandered in there at high noon carrying signs that said PRUDENCE FARROW IS ABOUT TO BECOME OUR LUNCH, and nobody would’ve blinked an eye.

GEORGE HARRISON:
I hypnotized her first, so she never felt a thing. Just because she was an antisocial bore didn’t mean she deserved to die a painful death.

JOHN LENNON:
It wasn’t a big to-do. We butchered her, then called it a day. We were quite tidy about it, and we didn’t leave a single drop of blood or gristle in her room; after all, eating a fellow TM student isn’t the way a good TM houseguest should act, so the least we could do was be neat about it.

Our picnic was very civil. I got the drumsticks, George got the thighs and the wings, Paulie got the breasts.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
What can I tell you? I’m a tit man, y’know. Plus I’ve always been partial to white meat.

RINGO STARR:
It took everybody a full two days to realize that Prudence was even missing, and another two days for any of the Maharishi’s people to question us about it. Actually, they didn’t question
us
about it—they questioned
me
. And I ratted the lads out.

JOHN LENNON:
Yeah, Ringo went all Guy Fawkes on us, and they chucked the lot of us, but that was fine with me, because I was ready to get the fook out of there. That peace shit was getting on me last nerves.

The next day, we get to the Nagpur Airport, and guess which wally shows up out of nowhere?

ROD ARGENT:
I was still on the fence about my newfound zombie life. The powers were nice and all, but did they make up for my horrible scent, or the fact that my family and girlfriend shunned me? Yes and no. Eternity on Earth seemed like it would have its advantages, but it would’ve been nice to get a hug from my loved ones, you know? I think all mortals who become undead later in life have to deal with this sort of internal conflict.

The main thing that cheesed me off was that I wasn’t given any choice in the matter. It would’ve been nice had Ringo or Paul said, “Oi, Roddy, I know you’ve been trying to mess us up for the last five or six years, but as proven by your dreadful showing while we were shooting
Magical Mystery Tour,
no matter how much you train, no matter how many muscles you develop, and no matter how fast you might get, you don’t have a shot. So what say we zombify you and turn it into a fairer fight? You still won’t be able to take us because we outnumber you—plus we have a Ninja in the fold—but maybe, just maybe, if you score a point or two off of us, like maybe if you briefly remove John’s arm or throw George off a cliff, you’ll feel better about the whole thing.”

I probably would’ve told them no, then thrown in the towel and concentrated on my music. I mean, there’re only so many times you can get your face bashed in before you realize it’s time to call it quits. But they didn’t ask. They just did it. Thus, the battle continued.

The press covered the Beatles’ every move, so they were easy enough to track down in India. I thought that going after them in an unfamiliar airport would be something of an equalizer. Like launching an attack at, say, Abbey Road Studios would’ve been suicide … not that I could’ve actually died, but you get the point. Also, I wanted as many journos to capture it as possible; a few good newspaper articles would’ve boosted the Zombies’ record sales, and we needed all the help we could get.

They were flying a private plane, naturally, and they probably thought that taking their own aircraft would keep them safe. Little did they know that ol’ Roddy Argent was waiting for them on the tarmac.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
Argent looked pissed, and he had zombie powers now, and I was still feeling logy from having eaten Prudence Farrow’s sweet bristols, y’know, and I didn’t want any part of him, so after Rod issued his challenge, I flipped him the bird and got on the plane.

RINGO STARR:
I missed London like you wouldn’t believe, and I wanted to get home as fast as possible. Besides, I’d eaten nothing but Heinz baked beans for the last two weeks—no way I was touching that Indian shite—and I wasn’t in any shape to fight Rod. So I flipped him the bird and got on the plane.

GEORGE HARRISON:
I was hauling seven instruments: my skintar; my Hair-ison; my double-reeded plonker-phone; my toe-monica; my hi-head-hat; my nose flute; and my jaw harp. These were all delicate pieces, and I had zero urge to get involved with some pointless Mania with Rod Argent, so I gently put down everything I was holding, flipped him the double bird, and got on the plane.

JOHN LENNON:
Rod looked heartbroken when we didn’t accept his invitation to battle, so I walked over to him and said, “Listen, mate, we dig why you’ve always been upset with us. If four giant beetles started a band and sold a bunch of records based on a tenuous connection with us, I might get upset, too. But just because we’re zombies doesn’t mean you can’t be a Zombie. Besides, you’re a zombie now anyhow, so you might as well roll with it. We all wish you the best of luck, and you should probably know that if we ever see your face again, we’re going to rip it off and throw it into the Atlantic Ocean.” Then I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few thousand rupees, handed them over, and said, “Go buy yourself a first-class ticket home, mate. You’ve worked hard trying to kill us, and you deserve something special.”

And then I flipped him the bird and got on the plane.

ROD ARGENT:
All the fight went out of me. I went back to the terminal, bought my first-class seat, and never saw the Beatles again.