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With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d write something ghoul-forward to usher in this most frightening time of year. Maybe something terrifying about a chain-rattling ghost, eerie sounds coming from a deserted house, or a prolonged Xfinity outage. But as the days passed, nothing struck me as particularly amusing in this genre. So, I’ve been waiting for the cosmos to provide inspiration.

Serendipity did not disappoint and, in this case, came through with flying colors. Very dark colors.

I was driving past a well-regarded funeral home in East Norriton when I noticed a large sign posted by the road in front of their edifice. I did a double take and turned the car around to drive past again and verify that I had certainly misread the information. But no, the bold lettering was unmistakable.

“Walk-ins Welcome.”

I don’t know your experience, but I’ve only seen drive-ins to a funeral home, never a walk-in. I was immediately impressed with this organization’s daring endeavor to expand their business model beyond the grave to serve the undead. I don’t think they have any competition in this space whatsoever — they’ve cornered the market, and are slowly closing in, lurching forward, teeth gnashing … OK, maybe not that last part.

But you get my point: They are bravely reaching out to a nontraditional customer base, and one that’s very demanding to say the least. I expect they’ll transition to always-open operating hours to better serve both “night of” and “dawn of” new clients. I’d suggest they watch a few episodes of “The Walking Dead” to bone up on security needs, i.e. machetes, before throwing the doors wide open to these persnickety patrons.

Per their roadside notice, one of the new walk-in service offerings is “sick visits.” I don’t want to sound pedantic, but isn’t every zombie visit technically a sick visit? Many of these sick visits, no doubt, are related to arm or leg replacement if “World War Z” is a reliable reference. But what’s baffling to me is where in the world would a funeral home, of all places, find inventory to run such a service?

And since when did East Norriton became Zombieland? The Yunk, maybe. Possibly Conshy. But East Norriton? Maybe it’s because East Norriton is home to not one, but two Wawas that are usually very crowded. It’s a great place for those late, late night snacks. And by that I mean fingers, toes and other appendages. And now that I think about it, I’ve definitely witnessed a few of the walking dead at the Wa getting mango slushies at 2 a.m.

With all the worry about AI taking jobs, I think East Norriton employees should fear being replaced by the local undead. They’re the perfect employees. They don’t need to take breaks or require sleep. They don’t ask for benefits or expect remuneration. And there’s no need to waste valuable building space on a cafeteria.

Attrition of living employees might become an issue, however. “Has anyone seen Bob? He’s not answering his phone.”

Getting back to the roadside sign, curiosity got the better of me, and I hung around for a bit to see if I used to know any of the walk-in walking dead. Maybe a former zombie work colleague who everyone thought was lifeless on the job. Or a zombie boss who was never around.

After several minutes of zombie watching without any of the East Norriton undead appearing, I got bored, read the fine print on the sign, and learned it was actually for a doctor’s office located directly behind the funeral home.

It’s not clear if they plan to serve the living dead or not, but I’ll be optimistic that they won’t turn away a zombie in need. All things considered, Hippocrates’s “first, do no harm” maxim would be a pretty low bar.

As this wasn’t so very scary of a tale after all, let me end with something positively spine-tingling: Social Security may run out of funds by 2032! Yikes!

D.W. Palmer is a humorist from West Norriton and writes about the lighter side of the human experience. He fondly remembers a zombie boss who slept much of the working day.