The Unrecognizable Dead (excerpt from novel in progress)

The dead came back to the city. They crawled out of the blood sewer. No one recognized them. Their faces were unfamiliar. They certainly looked and smelled dead.
The dead kept trying to pay for things with soiled money only they carried. They loved soda. They would stick their fingernails through the bottle and let a stream of the sugary fluid dribble onto the floor, occasionally lapping at it. Sometimes one of the dead would rap on your window and then point and silently mouth at you.
One of the dead brought a saxophone to a street corner, threw a hat down and tried to play. The mouthpiece tore his mouth to fragments and he never made a sound.
The dead gathered in a park and began to make ugly and sloppy sculptures from mud. The Mayor declared them a nuisance. He tried to corral them with sound trucks. They didn't move along but danced until their legs broke. The mayor then had them pushed by a bulldozer to an abandoned lot.