by Nathan Allen
Shae rolled her eyes dramatically, an affectation that Miles believed she’d picked up from one of those teen TV shows she watched.
He was still having trouble adjusting to Shae’s recent shift in attitude. Up until about six months ago she was always so polite and friendly and easy to get along with. Now she alternated between sarcasm and sulkiness, and he was barely able to utter a single word without it leading to an argument. Even though he knew this was fairly normal teenage girl behaviour, it still irritated him.
He wondered if he was that bad when he was fifteen, constantly answering back and permanent chips on both shoulders. It was something he didn’t like to think about for too long, since he probably behaved worse.
“Can I have some money for lunch, then?” Shae held her hand out like a train conductor collecting tickets.
“Why don’t you pack your own lunch?”
“Why don’t you give me money to buy lunch?”
“Why don’t you pack your own lunch?”
“Why don’t you give me money to buy lunch?”
“We can keep this up for as long as you like Shae, but you won’t get a different answer.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s cheaper it’s healthier.”
“I’ll buy something from Aqua Bar.”
“The food from Aqua Bar is not cheap, and I don’t think it’s as healthy as they claim it is either.”
“Come on, Miles. You know I’m running late.”
“It’ll take you one minute to pack your lunch.”
“But there’s nothing in there for me to take.”
“I bought heaps of stuff from the supermarket the other day. Go and have a look in the fridge.”
Shae grumbled some more, then stomped over to the refrigerator.
“What?” she said, staring into the dimly-lit void. “There’s nothing in here.”
“There’s plenty in there for you to take.”
“Like what?”
“Like pizza scrolls, muffins, banana bread, and four tubs of that yoghurt you like.”
“Where? I don’t see any of that.”
“It’s right there in front of you. Try opening your eyes.”
“They’re. Not. In. Here.” Shae spoke as if she was attempting to communicate with a complete moron. “See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Miles went over and looked in the fridge. He found tofu, tempeh, wheat germ and quinoa, but the food he had bought days earlier had mysteriously vanished overnight.
“But ... it was in here yesterday,” he said.
“And now it’s today, I believe,” Shae said.
Miles was perplexed as to how so much food could simply disappear like that, but it didn’t take him long to develop a hypothesis. He lifted the lid of the rubbish bin, where he uncovered the evidence of last night’s banquet – Mars Bar wrappers, M&M packets, an empty cookie box, and what remained of the snacks he had purchased. Clea and her friends had struck again.
“So,” Shae said, a smug grin spread across her face. “Why don’t you give me some money so I can buy my lunch today?”
Miles fished a ten dollar note from his wallet, and Shae snatched it out of his hand.
“Remember, that’s for your lunch, not drugs,” he said.
“You’re hilarious.”
Shae tossed some books into her backpack and headed for the door.
“What time should I expect you home tonight?” Miles called out after her.
“Don’t know. I have a group meeting after school.”
For the past couple of years, Shae had been attending weekly support groups for people who had lost family members in undead attacks. Miles went along with her at first, but he soon decided they were a huge waste of time. The groups were mostly made up of people wallowing in their own self-pity, competing to see who could tell the most traumatic story. He thought even the name of the group was stupid; they had christened themselves the Victims of Tragedy Support Group. He wanted to tell them they’d never be able to move on with their lives if they insisted on labelling themselves as “victims”. “Survivors” would be much more empowering term. But these sad sacks didn’t seem to want to move on. They just wanted someone to feel sorry for them.
He stopped attending the meetings, but Shae thought they were helpful and so she kept on going. Miles supported her decision, although he dropped the occasional hint that maybe it was time to move on. He forgot that asking Shae to do something would almost guarantee that she’d do the opposite.
Unsurprisingly, Clea sided with Shae on the issue, and claimed that Miles’ aversion to any form of therapy was further proof that he was a closet Scientologist. Clea had been a fierce critic of the Church of Scientology ever since she read an explosive article about this “dangerous cult” in one of her celebrity magazines. Clea herself was a Buddhist, although the extent of her Buddhism only went so far as owning a Tibetan prayer flag and a thirty dollar red string bracelet, and occasionally beginning her sentences with, “As a Buddhist, I believe that ...”
“Call me or send a text so I know where you are, okay?” Miles said as Shae walked out the door.
Shae called out something in response, but Miles didn’t hear it over the sound of the door slamming shut.
The kitchen was still a mess from the previous night, so Miles emptied the garbage bin and scraped all the leftover food into a bowl. He used the largest mixing bowl he could find, and he only just managed to fit it all in. It was a lot of wasted food for a group of people who liked to complain about the level of rampant consumption in our throwaway consumerist society.
He also found a couple of McDonalds bags and Big Mac wrappers scattered behind the couch, which was surprising considering that most of the Zeroes were vegans or vegetarians. The only one who ate meat was Amoeba, and even he described himself as an “ethical carnivore”. An ethical carnivore was someone who only ate meat from animals that had died from natural causes. Miles had never heard of this before, and he was pretty certain it was something Amoeba had just made up.
He took the mountain of leftovers out to the backyard and fed it to the living, breathing waste disposal unit residing in his backyard.
Seeing Squealer the Pig in broad daylight was almost as confronting as encountering him in the dark. He was huge, almost coming up to Miles’ waist, and had more tattoos than a white rapper and a white supremacist combined. Nearly every square inch of his pigskin had been filled in with decorative ink, covering him from snout to hoof in religious iconography, angel wings, swastikas, dolphins, naked women and Chinese calligraphy.
“Good Lord, Clive.”
Miles turned and saw Mrs. Jensen, his eighty-four-year-old neighbour, peering over the fence.
Despite having known Miles since the age of six, Mrs. Jensen could never quite get his name right, and had recently started referring to him as “Clive”. Miles corrected her the first few times she said it, but he soon found it easier just to pretend to be Clive.
“I must say, that’s a strange-looking pig you have there. His skin has the most peculiar colours. Do you know what breed he is?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Miles replied. “He’s a hungry one, though.”
Squealer had a voracious appetite, and would happily eat anything put before him. He had even devoured all the mouldy lemons that had fallen from the tree in the backyard and had been lying on the ground for weeks.
“It’s a good idea getting a pig, Clive. Not only do they eat all you scraps, but they’re good for guarding your house too. And you need to be careful in this neighbourhood. You know, I saw a strange coloured man in the house next to mine last night. But it’s alright now. The police came around to take care of it.”
This was the third time Mrs. Jensen had reported this man to the police. Each time, he went to great lengths to explain that he had lived in that house for the past four years and was on friendly terms with Mrs. Jensen. He had even mowed her front nature strip on a number of occ
asions. But in recent weeks, she seemed to have no memory of ever meeting him. Miles was thankful that all he had to put up with was getting called “Clive” every now and then.
He returned to the house and found that Clea was awake. Or she was out of bed; he was unable to verify that she was actually conscious and alert. Her eyes were having trouble staying open for more than a second at a time. She had both elbows on the table, which propped up her hands, which propped up her head, which was clouded in a thick fog of pot smoke.
The Zeroes had celebrated long and hard into the night following yesterday’s rally – although it was unclear what exactly they were celebrating, since nothing was really achieved.
“Big night?” Miles asked.
“Hmmph,” Clea responded.
“I see you guys got a bit hungry there.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll replace it all next time I go shopping.”
“So how do you explain those McDonalds wrappers?”
Clea shrugged. “Well, we were still hungry.”
“I guess vegetarianism and anti-corporate beliefs aren’t all that important when the munchies strike.”
“So sue me. I had one Fillet O Fish.”
“I forgot, a fish is technically a vegetable, isn’t it?”
“It’s okay to eat fish occasionally. It’s not as bad as eating cows or sheep.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, the fish would have died eventually.”
“All animals die eventually, Clea.”
“In the wild, I mean. Fish get eaten by other, bigger fish. Like sharks, or ... pelicans. Sheep and chickens have no natural predators.”
“What about foxes? They eat chickens. And wolves attack sheep.”
“Be serious, Miles. That sort of thing only happens in fairytales.”
“Is that a joke, or are you still stoned?”
“Speaking of which, we have to do something about our creepy neighbour.”
Even in her semi-comatose stupor, Clea was still able to abruptly switch subjects when she felt she was losing an argument.
“What about our creepy neighbour?”
“I caught him looking through our windows last night.”
Miles sat up. “You mean he was on our property?”
“No. He was watching us from his place.”
“So he was inside his own house?”
“Yeah, but he could see right into my bedroom.”
“So keep your curtains closed.” Miles said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which it probably was.
“I shouldn’t have to live my life worried about perverts spying on me, Miles. Men need to be taught to respect a woman’s right to privacy.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
Clea must have woken up some more, because Miles could sense she was itching to climb up on her soap box and rail against some perceived injustice. He figured it was easier to agree with her rather than use logic.
He doubted there was any truth to her Peeping Tom claims, and it was probably just more weed-induced paranoia, like her repeated assertions that undercover agents were trying to infiltrate the Tribe of Zeroes and plant listening devices on them.
The house next door to theirs had remained vacant for almost two years after the previous occupants had an unfortunate encounter with an undead intruder. Once a property has been tainted with zombie blood it becomes a lot harder to rent or sell.
The current tenant appeared about eight months ago. Miles hardly ever saw him – he had once or twice glimpsed the overweight-bordering-on-obese man pottering around his backyard with his shirt off – but to this day, he would struggle to identify him in a police line-up.
Clea thought it was disturbing that they never saw or heard from him, but Miles said that was what made him the perfect neighbour. No pets, no loud music, no screaming kids. The house may as well be vacant. Clea said he could be a serial killer, since every time one was caught, neighbours described him as “a nice, quiet man who never caused any trouble and always paid his rent on time”. Miles said that if the guy was a serial killer they had nothing to worry about, since the neighbours always lived to tell the tale.
“By the way,” Clea said, pushing a beaded lock of hair off her face. “What are you doing hassling my friends when I’m not here?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Fabian said you basically kicked him out of the house the other day.”
“I did not kick him out of the house!” Miles protested. “I just asked why he was spending so much time here.”
He couldn’t believe that Fabian, the little puke, had complained to Clea about him like a whiny schoolkid running off to the teacher.
“Do you have a problem with me having friends around from time to time?”
“I wouldn’t mind if it was one or two nights a week, but it’s not, is it? Fabian’s basically been living here rent-free for the past two months.”
“That is such a first world problem.”
“We’re living in the first world, Clea. All of our problems are first world problems.”
“Fabian doesn’t have anywhere else to go. As a Buddhist, I thought the decent thing to do would be to let him stay here for a while. But if you feel that strongly about it, I can ask him to leave.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Miles said, quietly cursing himself for capitulating so readily. “He can stay a bit longer until he finds someplace else. Just ... try not to eat all the food from now on.”
“I said I would replace it, didn’t I?”
Miles had heard that one before, but whenever food was replaced it usually disappeared again a short time later. That was something he just had to learn to live with after allowing a bunch of caring, sharing hippies into his home. Things like property ownership and personal boundaries were nebulous concepts to them, while communal sharing and cooperation were wholeheartedly embraced. It was just a shame that this only ever went one-way, with the intruders taking advantage of Miles’ hospitality while providing little in return.
Chapter 9
The zombie shortage had been going on for well over a year now. Most people generally regarded this as a good thing, but there were two groups that were adversely affected. The first was the undead management and control industry, who relied on former humans as a source of revenue.
The other was the print media; they needed constant tales of death and destruction in order to boost their dwindling circulations. Good news was no news, as the saying went, and so every day their pages were filled with confected outrage and fabricated semi-fictional beat-ups that only occasionally bared any resemblance to the truth.
Occupying pages four through seven of today’s edition of The Daily Ink was the sad tale of Lucas, the young man Dead Rite had encountered the previous Friday night. The headline screamed “Another Young Life Cut Short”, and was accompanied by a photograph of Lucas as a cherubic, churchgoing sixteen-year-old. It was a deliberately manipulative image, one that was designed to elicit sympathy from the reader who was more likely to mourn the death of a naïve teenager than the scruffy, shaggy-haired booze hound he would later become.
Following on from the grief, anger and soul-searching of this latest zombie attack was coverage of Bernard Marlowe’s relentless electioneering. Marlowe, a one-time editor of this “news” paper, was deep into his campaign for Prime Minister, and he was given a helping hand from his former colleagues at every available opportunity. Articles endorsing his anti-zombie jihad were conveniently located adjacent to tragic stories of zombie attacks, so that even the most simple-minded of readers (and this publication certainly had many of those) could draw a link between the two without too much prodding or coercion.
For those that still needed to have it spelled out for them, a separate editorial lambasted the current administration for allowing the undead situation to spiral out of control, while anointing Marlowe as the one best equipped to protect our children from thi
s evil pandemic sweeping the globe. And whenever they were unable to come up with any genuine news, The Daily Ink would fill its the pages with countless media slags and professional opinion formers who had turned scapegoating the undead into an art form. Paying too much tax? Blame it on the undead. House repossessed? Blame it on the undead. Traffic chaos made you late for work? Somehow, via a six-degrees-of-separation kind of logic, these hateful hyperventilators found a way to convince their readers that every one of your problems could all be traced back to those wretched zombies.
The sad, boring truth was that zombie attacks were becoming less and less frequent, and cases like Lucas’s were few and far between. But the trash media weren’t about to let a small thing like facts get in the way of a good story and prevent them from hyping the threat to absurd proportions.
The Daily Ink even had its own colour-coded alert system on its front page, although how they measured the level of threat on any given day was never divulged. That day’s edition, the one that Miles flicked through as he killed time waiting around at Dead Rite, warned of an orange threat level. This corresponded to a medium threat; green was safest, and red signified that sales had slumped and a swift pick-me-up was required.
Some in the media actually seemed to pine for the days of the outbreak three years earlier, when the initial hysteria saw newspaper circulations and consumer spending soar to astronomical levels. They were now hellbent on returning to that level of fear; it was almost as if they were trying to wish the apocalypse into existence.
People don’t spend money when they’re happy and content. It’s no coincidence that the words “panic” and “buying” often appeared side-by-side.
Miles knew not to take any of what was within these pages seriously. He put The Daily Ink in the same category as professional wrestling; occasionally entertaining, and only the most dimwitted of people believed it was real. It was definitely a publication that made you feel stupider for having read it.
“Hey, Miles?” He looked up to see a coworker, Erin, settling into a chair opposite. “I need a guy’s opinion on something?”