The Infects

by Sean Beaudoin

  THE DUDE WAS AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, TALKing to his checkbook. A trio of uppity checks was insisting there weren’t enough of them to cover that month’s bills. Pretty soon, he’d start arguing with the pen, an extra-fine point with a snotty attitude. Nick was doing algebra homework. Or at least pretending to. Amanda was lying under the table, reading comics.

  It was a year after the Dude had been canned. His prototypes had gone into production with a new name, U Dip Itz, and a full regional marketing campaign. Self-dipping Bon-E-Less buffalo wings! A delicious and nutritious meal for the whole family in under five easy minutes! Moms love them because they’re loaded with calcium! Kids love them because they’re loaded with X-treme® flavor! The secret was that the wings were infused with barbecue sauce before cooking. With the application of heat, the sauce slowly leaked out through trademark micro-perforations. All the early test procedures had come back positive. The wings tasted delicious.

  But weeks before the unveiling, there had been a little glitch. When put in certain older convection ovens at too high a heat, the sauce in the U Dip Itz became volatile and failed to leak. Instead, the wings gushed. They swelled and bled. They looked like car wrecks. Like alien chests. Like Chixx stigmata. Children screamed. Fathers called lawyers. Moms in focus groups broke out in tears.

  Win Fuld was pissed.

  The rollout was canceled.

  The stock grant was canceled.

  Partner Dude was canceled.

  On his last day, the Dude brought home a file cabinet full of notes, a pink slip, a Hang In There, Baby! poster, and two dozen cases of prototypes.

  Amanda was the only one not buying it.

  She had no fear of U Dip Itz.

  In fact, she ate every last one down in the garage freezer, gobbling more than a thousand of them over six months.

  Two years later, the Dude had a full beard, talked to the Cuisinart, and insisted Nick get a job.

  His state check was late again.

  Co-pay had rolled over into you-pay.

  They needed rent.

  Bendover Dude made a call.

  On Nick’s first day, Win Fuld said, “Another Sole enters our midst, and with excellent timing! We are in dire need of strong young backs!”

  Nick wanted to say, “Are you high?”

  Instead he said, “Yes, sir.”

  U Dip Itz got revamped, became Chixx Nuggets. They’d been released to the public that fall and were a huge hit, which spurred a full sponsorship/marketing/merchandising deal with Fresh Bukket, now the tenth-largest fast-food franchise in the country, right behind Hot Doggity Dog, Scallop Scow, and Morty’s The Deep & The Fried.

  It did not go unnoticed that Chixx Nuggets were the exact same thing as U Dip Itz, but without the perforations.

  Who knew you could plagiarize chicken?

  Can’t Afford a Lawyer Dude gnashed and wept.

  Transitioning Off Scotch and Onto Paxil Dude muttered and gesticulated.

  Chronically Unemployed Which Is Different from Unemployable Dude didn’t come out of his room for a month.

  And then even when he finally did, he didn’t.

  They were all sitting in the kitchen, just another Thursday, when Nick heard the music.

  He thought the Dude had turned the TV up.

  Except the music was fast, chunky, distorted. It rocked.

  And the Dude hadn’t moved. The TV was the same, blurry and not making a sound. Nick stuck a finger deep in one ear, dug around, wiped it on his jeans, and flipped the page of his algebra book.

  Then another song came on, slow and heavy, a power ballad.

  Nick looked behind him. The porch door was closed and locked. He got up. No one was in the living room. Nothing was on.

  The music abruptly stopped.

  He shrugged, grabbed a spoon, jabbed it into the peanut-butter jar, and twirled it around until there was a small mountain lapping over the edges. He pressed a hole into the center like a volcano, scooped grape Smucker’s into it, and made sure to get the right amount of jelly and peanut butter with each bite.

  Sudden volume, full blast, an orchestra, a thousand strings, woodwinds, brass.

  Nick almost fell over.

  He wasn’t “hearing” the music.

  He was experiencing it.

  Direct current.

  A hallelujah chorus tore through the reedy soundbox of his head.

  It itched a tiny bit as it came, and he could almost “see” the notes, like subtitles floating by in cartoon script.

  Nick bent under the table. Amanda was sitting there, cross-legged, reading a copy of Burt Hurts Bernie III: The Healing. Huge ’80s headphones, unplugged, sat on her head. There was a tiny smirk on her face, but she didn’t look up.

  A bass ’n’ drums thang started. Boom-chicka-boom.

  Amanda nodded in time with the beat.

  Nodded. In time. With. The beat.

  Nick jerked the headphones from around her neck and put them on.

  Silence.

  “Ouch? Nick? What are you? Doing?”

  He dropped the headphones and closed his eyes and tried to think the music away. He concentrated, bearing down. Sweat ran from his armpits to his belt. He could almost feel a breach forming in the center of his skull.

  For a second there was nothing.

  Just a tiny little yip.

  Sort of like a brain fart.

  . . . e . . .

  Amanda went back to her comic, turned the page.

  And then manic jazz drums percussed around him, cymbals and triplets and snare.

  Nick walked to the other side of the table and read the comic over Amanda’s shoulder. Burt was in therapy and making progress getting past the effects of Bernie’s emotional cruelty. In the background of the drawings, Burt and Bernie had a radio playing. Little cartoon notes blipped out of the speaker.

  He heard the notes. Heard the background noise. Heard the static from the radio.

  “Amanda?”

  She pushed her glasses up her nose.

  “Yeah? Nick? What?”

  Her eyes were normal, no hint of understanding, of playing a joke.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Amanda pulled at the hem of her dress impatiently.

  “Hear what? Nick?”

  The music in his head swirled, Technicolor. It became multi-instrumental, shifted into other tempos, associations, atonal, snatches of pop, a girl from Ipanema. Gregorian, gamelan, alt-rock, alt-country, alt-alt, back in black. His brain flooded. It wasn’t just one song or image; it was thousands of them — quotes, ideas, keys, symbols, staffs, time signatures. They filled his cranium, made it ache, eyeballs bulging.

  A hot rush of letters rose and fell apart, reformed, grew again.

  And then stopped.

  Or at least petered out, remnants of notes dribbling from his ears.

  It scared the shit out of him, even as it faded.

  A week later, the mind-songs tapered off entirely.

  A month later, he couldn’t remember if it ever happened or if he’d imagined the whole thing.

  Something in Nick had been pressed down, and the coils had warmed up.

  But when the spring released, it was gone.

  And when he looked under the table again, Amanda was gone too.

  PETAL KICKED OPEN THE BASEMENT DOOR, white hair flaring, as if she’d been doing it for years.

  Total badass.

  The main room was quiet. They sped across the broken glass and took the stairs two at a time.

  Put leather pants and a push-up bra on your woman, she’s got a career in straight-to-cable.

  “Which one?”

  Nero tried the knob to 110 as yelling came from the other side.

  It was locked.

  Estrada and Sad Girl came out of 227, saw Petal, and kept their distance.

  Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t bite.

  “What’s going on in there?”

  “That musket fired at least once,” Nero said.
>
  “Lover’s spat?” Sad Girl guessed.

  “I hear moaning,” Estrada said. “Could be a good thing. Or maybe not.”

  Nero channeled a huge dose of Killsaw Williams and kicked the door.

  Which did nothing but hurt his foot.

  “That only works in the movies,” Joanjet said, staring at Petal. “How did she get loose?”

  “Does it really matter?” Nero asked.

  “Not anymore,” Estrada said.

  There was a long scream from within 110.

  Joanjet and Cupcake ran to one of the dressers in the hallway and tried to push it. Estrada and Nero grabbed either end. It was stuck.

  “Move,” Petal said, and then gave it a shove.

  The dresser slid four feet.

  “Whoa,” Estrada said.

  Petal shoved again. The dresser rammed open the door. In the far wall of the room was a hole just big enough to crawl through, made by a shotgun blast. Infect arms reached in up to the elbow, trying to widen it. Below the hole, pom-pom girls had formed a cheerleader pyramid and were moaning as other Infects climbed their backs.

  A ladder. Group approach to problem solving. Intelligence. Not good.

  Against the near wall, a naked War Pig wrestled with Counselor Bruce Leroy.

  Cold shrinkage + Zombie shrinkage = the kid gets a pass.

  Idle and Billy lay on top of each other in the corner where Bruce Leroy had tossed them.

  Raekwon was standing on the bed, trying to find a firing angle for Pacino.

  “Push him away!” she yelled.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” War Pig said. Bruce Leroy’s mouth opened and closed like a guillotine, snapping at soft neck, frenzied by the closeness of it. His eyes were blanks, chunks of his arms and chest and face missing, hair soaked and matted.

  War Pig swiveled his hips and kneed Bruce Leroy in the balls. No effect. Nero picked up a desk chair and swung it, hitting Bruce Leroy in the face. No effect. Raekwon fired the musket, which punched a hole like a submarine portal in Bruce Leroy’s chest. A little girl’s hand poked through, groped around, grabbed a hunk of fatty tissue, and then poked back out.

  “Shoot him again!”

  “That was my last shell!”

  Petal grabbed Bruce Leroy’s belt, lifted him over her head, and rammed him back through the hole. His body was yanked free and tossed to the ground by other Infects trying to pull themselves in. Some of the arms wore nice watches. Some bracelets. Some Silly Bandz. Some LIVE STRONGS. Some handcuffs. Some corsages. Some had razor scars. Some just had wiry hair.

  The boys beat them back with legs from the broken chair, cracking bone, tearing skin, until they finally fell away.

  War Pig turned and looked at Petal. “What is she doing here?”

  “Saving your ignorant ass,” Nero said.

  Raekwon stepped off the bed, put her face against War Pig’s chest, and covered him with a blanket.

  The room was quiet.

  “Why did they just go away?” Cupcake asked.

  “That’s what they do,” Idle said. “Run. Like bitches.”

  “They scared,” Billy said. “That’s all.”

  Swann leaned in through the hole, up to her torso, and screamed, a high-pitched noise that forced them all to cover their ears in pain. She grabbed Idle, bit a ham-size chunk out of his arm, and dragged him back through.

  “Patterson! Help!”

  Patterson?

  Billy grabbed his brother’s ankles, barely able to hang on. The Infects swarmed up the cheerleader pyramid and began to chew ravenously, digging into Idle’s face and neck and shoulders like an ear of corn. His screams were so manic and shrill they sounded fake.

  ZOMBRULE #21: When a zombie is about to bite, don’t scream and wave your hands in the air, exposing your vital parts. Do something smart, like jamming a jar of pickles or a rolled-up newspaper in its mouth.

  Idle’s body was jerked completely through. A blood mist hung suspended in the air. The momentum pulled Billy to the edge of the hole. He struggled as a dozen hands grabbed on. Exene, standing on the shoulders of another Infect, took a bite out of the crown of his head, like topping a coconut. Blood pulsed from the opening onto the Infects below, who raised their arms and luxuriated as if taking a hot shower. War Pig tried to grab Billy’s leg, but it was too late. Petal and Nero watched him disappear into the swirl of fists and mouths, then be carried away on outstretched hands like a trophy, the bloody mosh pit taking bites as they went.

  The cheerleader pyramid collapsed as hungry pom-pom girls gave up their support positions and tried to get a few mouthfuls of their own. Dozens of Infects fell hard into a squirming mass. Nero could swear they were laughing.

  Cupcake rocked back and forth, holding her knees to her chest. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. “Anymore.”

  “It’s okay,” Joanjet said, leaning over to comfort her.

  Cupcake threw off Joanjet’s arm, then got up, ran past Nero, and dove through the hole. She landed face-first in a sea of roiling Infects. They enveloped her. It sounded like a log stuck in the guts of a lawn mower.

  “What the hell did she do that for?” War Pig asked, shaking. His eyes blinked uncontrollably. Nero hustled everyone out of the room. Petal slammed the door and pushed a sofa against it, wedging it tightly against the far wall. It held for a minute, before hands began to reach through the crack and grab at the air.

  Joanjet leaned against a tapestry, head in her hands, sobbing. Petal rubbed her back. At first Joanjet let her, but then she looked up, pulled away, and ran down the hall. The door to one of the other rooms slammed.

  “Should we go after her?” Sad Girl asked.

  “Why?”

  There was no argument, no answer. They were all exhausted, spent, starving, numb.

  “I guess this is it,” Estrada said. “Shouldn’t someone say something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Something important. Like about society.”

  “Society blows.”

  “Or religion.”

  “If there was a God, there would be no zombies.”

  “Unless it’s a zombie god.”

  “Yeah,” War Pig said. “Maybe this is all supposed to happen.”

  “What a bunch of shit,” Nero said.

  “This isn’t supposed to happen,” Petal said, looking out the window. “And we’re not supposed to give up.”

  Below, Cupcake was happily spinning around the clearing.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s dancing.”

  It was true. Eyes wild. Flesh in her mouth.

  Covered in blood.

  Torn to shreds.

  Dancing.

  “That’s bullshit,” Raekwon said.

  The sofa fell away from the wall. Half an Infect came through, stuck, writhing and moaning.

  “We have to go outside,” Petal said, starting down the stairs.

  “Screw that,” War Pig said.

  “No, seriously. It’s the only way.”

  “Like we’re gonna listen to you?”

  “I’m listening,” Sad Girl said, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Me too,” said Estrada, running after her.

  More arms reached through the crack and shoved their way into the hall, several middle-aged women in bloody sweat suits, half a lacrosse team. A man in doctor’s scrubs and two policemen with chunks of flesh in their teeth. One had a disembodied hand in his leather holster where his gun used to be.

  War Pig turned, ready to fight.

  Raekwon stepped in front of him.

  “Don’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Raekwon held up her forearm.

  There was a bite in the center of it, blood already black and half-coagulated.

  “Oh, no,” War Pig said. “Oh, babe.”

  Raekwon nodded slowly, her breath already ragged. “I swear, I didn’t even feel it.”

  More Infects surged through the ga
p, knocking each other over, struggling to stand, roaring with hunger.

  “C’mon!” Nero said. “Now!”

  The first Infect made it to the end of the hall. It grabbed War Pig by the neck. He tossed it through the window and punched the next one in the face. With his other arm he picked Raekwon up like he was going to carry her over the threshold. The blanket fell away.

  “Go,” he said.

  Nero walked down a few more steps. The top of the stairs was now lined with Infects. Raekwon was starting to scream in pain.

  “Stay with me,” War Pig said as she nibbled at his shoulders like a baby. He didn’t stop her. He even shifted her weight to make her more comfortable. And then bulled down the hallway like a fullback, heading toward 237. Infects began to bite him along his sides and thighs.

  A few seconds later, Nero heard the other door slam.

  Then he turned and ran after Petal.

  IN THE BACK PANTRY WAS A HEAVY STEEL service door, welded shut. On top of the ancient icebox was a butter knife, eight screws, and a louvered exhaust duct. Freezing air poured through the hole in the wall. Nero climbed up and stuck his head through the metal housing. Petal, Sad Girl, and Estrada were sitting on the little A-frame roof that formed an alcove above the back steps. Below them, oblivious, were hundreds of Infects, pressed against the exterior of the lodge, pushing and shoving like travelers around a luggage carousel.

  “About time,” Petal whispered.

  “Warrior Pig?” Estrada asked. “No?”

  Nero scooped up handfuls of snow and shoved them in his mouth. “No.”

  The rear of the lodge was a mess. Garbage cans sat empty next to piles of metal and discarded tools. The clearing itself extended all the way to the edge of the cliff. In the distance, random Infects were stumbling around, moaning as if talking to themselves. There were a few football players, a chef, and a man in an expensive suit with the kind of glasses people who aren’t architects but want other people to think they’re architects wear. He had a chunk the size of a plum bitten out of his temple. You could almost make out the compressed gray maze of brain tucked away like a gift. Otherwise, he could have been waiting for a taxi.

  “We’re all going to jump at the same time,” Petal whispered as the Infects began to moan and sniff the air like dogs. “After that, stay together, and don’t look up. Okay? Look only at me.”