Especially in America, a seemingly unattainable standard of beauty had long been pushed by corporate interests. The goal had always been the same: sell more products and generate an ever-increasing profit margin.
People were, by and large, lazy.
A healthy diet and exercise would most likely bring the desired results, but that took time, dedication, patience, and hard work. Worse still, there was no guarantee of a bikini body in time for summer. Other methods, however, were always available for those willing to pay a premium.
Over the years, everything from fad diets to self-help books to appetite suppressants had been marketed as the latest breakthrough in the battle of the bulge. Most did little more than leave the buyer a pound heavier and appreciably less financially healthy.
Then came GLP-1s.
Originally intended for patients with Type 2 diabetes, glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs had an interesting side effect: dramatic weight loss.
The public immediately lost its collective mind.
The President himself jokingly referred to it during a press conference as “the fat shot drug,” which only accelerated demand. Overnight, social media influencers, actors, suburban yoga mothers, podcast health gurus, and emotionally unstable TikTok celebrities began treating prescription medication like fashion accessories.
For a while, diabetics struggled to obtain medically necessary doses because wealthy people wanted visible collarbones by Memorial Day.
That was when Sauvon-Plaxo entered the picture.
Sauvon Foods Ltd. had spent nearly thirty years attempting to synthesize a stable Lactobacillus bulgaricus enzyme similar to those found in traditional Bulgarian yogurt cultures. The company’s pharmaceutical wing believed the enzyme could enhance digestive efficiency when paired with GLP-1 medications.
The marketing campaign practically wrote itself.
“Twice the flavor. Twice the benefits.”
Simple.
Effective.
Apocalyptic.
At first, nobody noticed anything unusual beyond the standard side effects.
Bloating.
Gas.
Occasional cramping.
Social media users actually praised the symptoms.
“That means it’s WORKING,” one skeletal influencer declared while sipping a neon-green probiotic smoothie beside an infinity pool.
Within weeks, Sauvon-Plaxo stock prices tripled.
Then came the vomiting.
Feculent vomiting to be precise.
Emergency rooms initially believed it to be a viral outbreak. Patients arrived dehydrated, delirious, and pale gray around the lips. Many complained of severe abdominal pressure and described hearing “sloshing” noises inside their bodies.
One nurse in Phoenix wrote in her incident report:
"Patient expelled what appeared to be partially digested chili, blood, and an unknown black mucus under enough pressure to strike ceiling tiles."
The report went viral after someone leaked it online.
People laughed.
Some patients died on bathroom floors still clutching their phones.
Then the dead started walking.
Officially, Sauvon-Plaxo denied all allegations.
A company spokesman appeared on morning television smiling with the confidence only enormous wealth could produce.
“There is currently no evidence linking Sauvon products to what health authorities are describing as post-mortem ambulatory events.”
“Zombie outbreaks,” the interviewer clarified.
The spokesman blinked twice.
“Sauvon-Plaxo does not use that terminology.”
Meanwhile, cellphone footage from a luxury wellness retreat in Malibu showed three emaciated women in matching beige athleisure wear devouring a valet attendant beside a decorative koi pond.
The video accumulated forty million views before being removed for violating community guidelines.
Oddly enough, infection did not initially spread through bites.
That came later.
The primary transmission vector was fecal contamination.
Nobody wanted to say it publicly at first because it sounded too ridiculous, even by modern standards. Unfortunately, science remained science regardless of public embarrassment.
The infected suffered catastrophic gastrointestinal collapse.
Their digestive systems essentially liquefied.
Every hallway, sidewalk, rideshare vehicle, airport restroom, and shopping mall became a biological minefield of semi-sentient intestinal horror.
The Centers for Disease Control attempted to issue calm, professional guidelines.
AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH CONTAMINATED MATERIALS.
Unfortunately, modern society contained far more contaminated material enthusiasts than anyone had previously estimated.
Outbreaks occurred at underground fetish gatherings in Berlin, Manhattan, Hong Kong, Sao Palo, and Arlington, VA.
After that, containment became mathematically impossible.
Cable news continued trying to normalize events long after normalization had ceased to exist.
“Some experts believe the ambulatory infected may represent an evolutionary adaptation,” one anchor announced while distant screaming echoed somewhere off-camera.
Another network aired a segment titled:
FIVE FOODS TO AVOID DURING THE FECAL REANIMATION CRISIS
Number three was shellfish.
By then, entire cities already smelled like open septic tanks.
Airports shut down after infected passengers began collapsing mid-flight. Several aircraft experienced what federal investigators later described as “biohazard cabin depressurization events,” which was apparently bureaucratic language for dear God what happened in there?
Las Vegas fell in under forty-eight hours.
Atlantic City in less than thirty.
Nobody was entirely surprised.
The infected retained enough motor function to wander toward familiar habits and routines. Casinos filled almost immediately.
Security footage from the Bellagio showed hundreds of bloated, twitching corpses standing motionless around slot machines while foul brown fluids leaked steadily across expensive carpeting.
One continued pressing a button for nearly fourteen hours.
WINNER.
WINNER.
WINNER.
The machine never stopped announcing jackpots.
In New York, fitness influencers continued livestreaming through the early stages of infection.
One woman with eight million followers smiled weakly into the camera while sweat poured down her face.
“So, a lot of negativity online right now,” she said. “But honestly? I’ve lost twelve pounds this week.”
Something wet exploded behind her.
She ignored it.
“You guys really need to stop fearmongering.”
The livestream ended abruptly after viewers noticed a corpse slowly standing up in the background bathroom mirror.
Congress attempted hearings.
That lasted approximately six hours.
A number of Representatives from Red states leaked more than information.
While fewer in number, many of their Democratic colleagues displayed the same symptoms.
The Sauvon-Plaxo CEO testified remotely from a secured bunker somewhere in Switzerland.
“We remain committed to consumer wellness.”
Behind him, someone screamed continuously for nearly two full minutes.
The feed disconnected shortly afterward.
By autumn, entire sections of the country had become uninhabitable.
The infected did not rot in the traditional sense.
The altered bacterial cultures inside them continued functioning long after brain death, producing heat, pressure, and astonishing amounts of methane.
Sometimes they burst.
Nobody enjoyed learning that.
Entire neighborhoods learned to avoid enclosed spaces afterward.
Military units initially tried flamethrowers before discovering the resulting aerosolized contamination made things considerably worse.
One soldier later described it as:
“Like fighting demons inside a backed-up sewer line.”
Religious leaders attempted to interpret the events in different ways.
Some declared the outbreak divine punishment for vanity.
Others blamed pharmaceutical greed.
A televangelist in Texas insisted the infected could be cured through prayer until he was dragged screaming beneath his own church bus by a group of reanimated parishioners during a live broadcast.
That clip also went viral.
Briefly.
The internet itself became unreliable shortly afterward.
Curiously, rural areas survived longer than cities.
Older people - who distrusted pharmaceuticals, social media, and words like “biohacking” - fared surprisingly well.
An eighty-year-old woman in West Virginia appeared on a local radio call-in program one evening and summarized the situation more accurately than most scientists had managed.
“If God wanted people skinny that fast,” she said, “He’d have invented harder work.”
Then the station abruptly cut to static.
Nobody ever learned what happened there.
Months later, survivors still argued over where the true disaster began.
Some blamed the corporation.
Some blamed the FDA and regulators.
Some blamed Congress and lobbyists.
Some blamed influencers.
Others blamed ordinary human vanity.
But most secretly understood the truth.
The outbreak had started long before the first corpse twitched.
It had begun the moment people became willing to poison themselves for easier approval.
The dead were simply the final stage of consumption.
By winter, the remaining broadcasts mostly consisted of emergency alerts and prerecorded government instructions nobody obeyed anymore.
DO NOT ENGAGE THE INFECTED.
AVOID CONTAMINATED AREAS.
REPORT GASTROINTESTINAL IRREGULARITIES IMMEDIATELY.
In Pittsburgh, a tired-looking local news anchor stared into the camera while distant gunfire echoed somewhere beyond the studio walls.
“We are being told,” he said carefully, “that the situation remains fluid.”
Behind him, someone vomited violently.
The anchor closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, he looked less frightened than exhausted.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Fluid. That’s one word for it.”
The screen cut to static moments before something slammed against the studio door hard enough to crack the glass.
And somewhere out in the darkness beyond the failing cities, beyond the highways clogged with abandoned cars and smeared footprints, beyond the glowing fires and the smell of death and sewage, millions of bloated corpses continued shambling forward beneath the cold stars.
Hungry.
Groaning.
Dripping.
Plopping.
copyright notice © 2026 Michael C. Metzger
Big ol' ploppin' thanks to my wife, Marina. We were discussing zombies (as ya do) and we hit on this idea. After a few minutes, the basic idea for 'the plopping dead' was born. A few hours later, I had the outline and summary. And now YOU'VE READ IT. You should share it with someone who might dig it. And don't forget - there's plenty more where that came from. Click Below!
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