The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten

by Harrison Geillor

  “Alone?” the boy said. “Aren’t we supposed to be doing the buddy system?”

  “I’ll go,” Daniel said, happy for the chance to escape what was likely to be an uncomfortable situation.

  “No, I’ll take him in my truck.” Otto stood and stretched, his spine making unpleasant snapping sounds. “I’ve spent enough time with Mr. Levitt for one day.” They bundled up in their coats and scarves and tromped out, and Daniel reluctantly settled back down on the hard wooden bench against the wall. If he had some excuse, he could go… but where? And why? His wife was gone. His flock was scattered. Edsel would think less of him if he departed now, too.

  “So, Martin.” Edsel appeared to consider an invisible piece of lint on the leg of his pants for a moment before looking in at the prisoner. “Have you come to make a confession? Shall I send these men away to give us some privacy?”

  “No, no,” Levitt said. “No privacy necessary. These idiots never Mirandized me, so I could take credit for the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and none of it would be admissible in court.”

  “Oh, for heck,” Stevie Ray said, swiveling in his chair. “You’re under arrest for the murder of… several unidentified persons. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?”

  Daniel looked on wide-eyed. Reading him his rights! Just like in the movies!

  Levitt laughed, a sound that was no more human than the sound of a vacuum cleaner or the click of a gun being cocked. “I do. Shame my attorney is in Minneapolis, being eaten by the dead, so I guess I’ll have to go with the public defender. I still don’t need any privacy though. I doubt this will be going to trial.”

  “So you do want to confess?” Edsel seemed only mildly interested.

  “Not in the sacramental sense. Not yet. That can wait. I just wanted to talk to you, Father, about why I did all the terrible things I did.”

  “What terrible things were those?”

  “Murder. Violating the fifth commandment. Though it’s the sixth commandment for the other Christian denominations, it’s just you oddball Catholics and Lutherans who number things differently.”

  “Given that Catholicism was here first, I’d say everyone else is violating precedent.” Edsel sniffed. “So, murder? You think you’re interesting, Levitt? Murder isn’t interesting. It’s old, as old as Cain and Abel at least.”

  “Ah, but here’s the interesting part.” Levitt rose from his cell and leaned against the bars, close enough that he could have reached through and grabbed the toe of Edsel’s shoe, though Daniel couldn’t imagine a way he could do much damage with that. “The only reason I’m a murderer is because I’m a Catholic.”

  “Diddled by a priest, were you? Made you into the monster you are today? Also a familiar story, I’m sorry to say. I knew a young priest in Texas, and when I found out he was known to take the occasional liberty with an altar boy, I waited for him in a parking lot one night, hit him over the back of the head, and broke most of his teeth out with a pipe. So believe me. I sympathize. It’s no excuse for murder, though, and it’s still not interesting.”

  Levitt’s eyes widened, just a bit, and Daniel shivered. He hoped Edsel was lying, but who knew?

  “Sounds like you committed the sin of wrath, Father.”

  “Mmm,” Edsel said. “I did indeed. Fortunately, I confessed. Do you know who heard my confession?” Edsel leaned forward. “The priest who’d benefited from my impromptu oral surgery. He told me to say two Our Fathers, and he stepped carefully around me after that, and never touched another person, young or old, inappropriately again. Simple behavioral modification. And the cynics and secular humanists say people don’t change. Maybe you would have been a good man if there’d been somebody to punch you in the mouth every minute of your life.”

  “You’re misquoting Flannery O’Connor at me now? And quoting a character who was a serial killer at that?”

  “O’Connor was a devout and learned Catholic. One of my favorites.”

  Levitt waved his hand dismissively. “We’ve wandered off course. I wasn’t ‘diddled’ as you say. No priest ever touched me. But they taught me. They taught me that any sin could be forgiven, save one. Do you know the one?”

  “Was it being boring? That seems your worst sin at the moment.” Edsel yawned, pointedly.

  Levitt slammed his hand against the bars hard enough to make the cell door—which hadn’t been hung entirely right when it was first installed and tended to rattle and scrape a bit anyway—give a loud metal-on-metal clang. “You will listen to me.”

  “If you start saying something interesting I will,” Edsel said mildly.

  Levitt ground his teeth together. “The one unforgivable sin is suicide, because the sinner isn’t alive to repent. When I began having my… urges… I prayed for relief, and for release, and for guidance. I only saw one way out: killing myself. But I knew, if I killed myself, I would burn forever in the fires of perdition. Whereas if I gave into my urges—my God-given urges, certainly—and did the terrible things I so desperately wanted to do, and committed those sins, why, as long as I eventually repented, I could yet enter the kingdom of heaven. The choice was perfectly simple. I decided not to kill myself, and I started killing others instead. I would have been a sixteen-year-old suicide instead of a seventy-seven-year-old multiple murderer if I’d been raised outside the Holy Mother Church, Father. What do you think of that?”

  Edsel shrugged. “Sounds like the sort of theology I’d expect from a sixteen-year-old. Bit sad and pathetic to hear it emerging from the mouth of a man your age. You’ll burn in Hell anyway. You can’t be forgiven if you don’t repent, and you have to repent in your heart—it’s not enough to say the words. Don’t you agree, Pastor?”

  Daniel, who’d been mesmerized by the back-and-forth between the men, amazed by the almost palpable force of will each displayed, sat up a little straighter. “Ah, God is forgiving, but murder is a very serious sin, and…” He paused, considered prattling on with platitudes, then decided to speak his mind, for once. After all, the only people here to hear him were two Catholics and Stevie Ray, who didn’t seem to be listening. “Actually, I don’t think Mr. Levitt will go to Hell.”

  Edsel sighed. “Really. Because Hell’s a metaphor, is that it?”

  “Not at all. But it’s clear Mr. Levitt is a sociopath. He has no conscience or capacity for empathy, and acts only to gratify his own desires. It’s my own theory—this isn’t church doctrine, it’s just something I’ve come to believe myself—that such people lack immortal souls. They are human in body only, but empty inside, lacking the Divine spark. Mr. Levitt is no more human than a dog, and has no more soul than a dog, either. When dogs die, they don’t go to heaven, or Hell. They simply cease to exist. I think that’s what will happen to Mr. Levitt. There will be no immortality for him.”

  They both looked at him in silence for a moment, as did Stevie Ray, which was a bit embarrassing, but Daniel met all their gazes, or at least directed his own gaze to an eye-level point that could conceivably have included all of them.

  “You surprise me, Daniel.” Edsel’s voice had some humor in it. “I can’t say I agree with you, and I rather like the image of Martin here turning on a spit over a brimstone barbecue forever, but it shows a livelier mind than I would have credited you with. I think you’ve got a point, though, about bodies that are human in form only, lacking any soul—that’s a rather apt description of the zombies we’re contending with lately, don’t you think?”

  Before Daniel could answer, Edsel turned back to Mr. Levitt. “Is that all? Are you finished with your blistering high school-sophomore-level philosophical devastation of Catholicism?”

  “You’re as useless as every other priest in the world.” Levitt went back to his bunk. “Go on, then. I’ll call for you again when I’m sure I’m done killin
g, to take my confession, and hear me repent.”

  “You aren’t done killing now?” Daniel said. “You’ve been caught! You’re locked in a cell! You’ll be in prison soon.”

  Levitt laughed his coffee-grinder laugh again. “Lots of opportunities to kill in prison. But I don’t expect to see the inside of one of those. The dead have come back to life. It’s the end of the world. I think the due process of law is a thing of the past.”

  “In that, we’re agreed,” Edsel said. “It’s the end times. But just because the laws of man have fallen—”

  “Hey, I’m sitting right here,” Stevie Ray said.

  “—doesn’t mean the laws of God have fallen,” Edsel finished. “Justice will be served.” He leaned forward. “Because you see, Martin, I’m the only priest left hereabouts, and I have no intention whatever of hearing your confession when the time comes. Nor will I administer the last rites. I will simply let you die, unredeemed.”

  “Father Edsel!” Daniel said. “I know we have our differences, but we both believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and above all he taught forgiveness!”

  “I know,” Edsel said, voice heavy with regret. “I’ve never quite been able to elevate my personal behavior to match that of our Lord and Savior’s. It’s a failing in myself.”

  “Vaya con dios, Padre,” Levitt said, and laughed again, but Daniel thought the laugh lacked some of the knowingness and relish it had held before.

  17. Simulations

  and Shellfish

  Cafe Lo was pretty much deserted, which was unusual so close to the vicinity of dinnertime, but Otto supposed folks had other things on their minds than meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Julie Olafson was still behind the counter, sitting on a wooden stool, reading a paperback book. The only other customer was ancient old Emperor Torvald, who was apparently asleep at the counter, his head resting on his crossed arms, a cup of coffee untouched next to him.

  Julie looked up when the door opened. “There’s the dinner rush, then. What’ll it be, fellas?”

  “Just need a sandwich for, ah, police business,” Rufus said.

  Otto glanced up at the TV, which was still turned on, but just showing a blank blue screen now. He hated those blue screens. In his day, a dead TV showed you gray and white static. You knew where you were when it came to static. That damn blue was just altogether too tranquil.

  “You’re police now?”

  “Special deputies,” Rufus said. “You know. During the, uh, emergency.”

  “What emergency’s that? Tuna fish okay? Got lots of tuna fish.”

  “Sure, that’s fine,” Rufus said. “What do you mean, what emergency? The, you know. Zombies.” He did a little lurching dance-step sort of thing with his arms outstretched and his jaw sagging down. “There was a meeting at the community center about it, you didn’t go?”

  “Didn’t want to close the Cafe. Not that anybody came in. Zombies, is it? Otto, do you hear what your nephew’s saying over here? All zombies and secret policemen?”

  Otto tore his eyes away from the mesmerizing field of blue. “All true. Call over to the police if you don’t believe it. Saw it with my own eyes, anyway—dead people getting up and walking around.”

  “I’d never call you a liar…” Julie’s ice-blue eyes were cold and contemplative, and there was a distance about her that made her very alluring, like something beautiful and mysterious glittering off in the distance.

  If I were a younger man, he thought, then looked over at the younger man, Rufus, who was looking at Julie with an interest Otto was pretty sure he could identify. “Maybe we’d better fill you in.” He slid onto his usual stool.

  “Shouldn’t we get back to the station?” Rufus said. “With the food?”

  “I need a bite myself, and old man Levitt can by-God wait to eat.”

  Rufus winced, and Otto frowned. “What?”

  “I think he wishes you hadn’t mentioned Mr. Levitt.” Julie sounded only a tenth of a percent interested, but maybe a full percentage point amused.

  “Oh, heck, it won’t be any kind of secret for long anyway,” Otto grumbled, though he was embarrassed for blabbing police business. He hadn’t wanted to be any kind of a special deputy anyway.

  “Not if you keep telling people.” Rufus slid onto a stool, though, and locked eyes with Julie, and said, “Let me tell you what happened after we left here this morning.” He filled her in, telling the story in a pretty disorganized fashion, jumping back and forth all over the place and filling things in as they occurred to him. Rufus was the same way with telling jokes, which always annoyed Otto. As an expert joke teller, he found his nephew’s ineptness offensive—Otto was a salesman, and having a story of jokes at varying levels of cleanliness from off-white to downright blue was practically a job requirement—whereas Rufus always gave away the punch line early or forgot some crucial part of the set-up until the joke was done. He could even screw up a knock-knock joke.

  She seemed to follow it all right, though, sipping a cup of coffee, nodding here and there, asking the occasional intelligent question, not that she got much in the way of intelligent answers out of Rufus. Otto made a decision not to contribute, and he stuck to it, sticking by the old adage that it was better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it. Rufus was proving it plenty for the whole family.

  When Rufus finally finished—or not so much finished but ran down like an old-timey watch that needed winding and didn’t get it—Julie began methodically refilling sugar containers, speaking almost as if to herself. “Old man Levitt. Huh. They say it’s always the quiet ones, but he loves to talk. Never expect something like that to happen around here though. Serial killers I mean.”

  “The Midwest is full of them,” Rufus said, and why was Otto not surprised his nephew, who didn’t know anything about repairing carburetors, replacing water heaters, snaking drains, or pretty much any other manly art, would nonetheless know about serial killers. “There’s John Wayne Gacy, and Ed Gein, and that guy in Cleveland, the Butcher, and—”

  “But the thing about the zombies is more interesting,” Julie said, as if Rufus hadn’t spoken at all, which was a response to the boy that Otto would have to give a try himself. Then she reached out and brushed a lock of Rufus’s stupid hair out of his eyes, making him freeze, and giving Otto a sudden starburst of jealousy right in the middle of his chest. “Who do you think is right? Harry, who says we’ll make it through fine, or old man Levitt, who says we’re doomed?” She turned her head toward Otto, including him in the question too, and since Rufus was still apparently paralyzed at being touched halfway tenderly by an attractive young woman—though she was in her thirties so from Rufus’s point of view she’d be an older woman, and wasn’t getting older just a bitch all around?—Otto jumped into the breach.

  “Hard to say. It’s tough to get your mind around. Can’t really imagine the end of the world. Sort of thing you see in the kind of movies I don’t much like to watch. Doesn’t seem like something that could happen here.”

  “There were some scientists who did a study. Computer models.” Rufus was twisting a paper napkin in his hands, and his voice was serious and thoughtful in a way it wasn’t, usually. Otto wondered if Julie’s quiet seriousness was contagious. It would be nice if something like that was contagious, as opposed to just things like the Ebola virus and, he supposed, zombie-ism. “I read about them in this class I took, a class about zombies, you know how they were so popular a few years back, turning up in books and movies all the time, people doing zombie walks where they dressed up, all that. Well, this epidemiologist named Muntz or Bunz or Munz or something, he figured out that the way zombies work in movies is similar to the way infectious diseases spread—people get bitten by a zombie, turn into a zombie, and start biting other people. Just like spreading, I don’t know, an STD or a cold, only instead of sex or coughing, it’s biting.”

  He had the good grace to blush furiously and look down when he mentioned STDs, though Otto still
had to quell the urge to smack him upside the head. Talking like that in front of a woman. Talking like that in front of anybody. Talking like that at all. But he listened.

  “So Munz decided to sort of put the movies to the test, see if people—not like individual people, but society, the human race—could survive a zombie uprising. He got a team together and they made a computer model of a city with a million people, and dropped just one zombie into the simulation. Pretty much the classic zombie rules—you get bitten by a zombie, you turn into a zombie yourself within a day. Then they just let the program run.”

  “How’d it turn out?” Otto said.

  Rufus shook his head. “After seven days, ten at the outside, everybody in the city was either dead or a zombie.”

  They all pondered this. “Not such a good deal,” Otto allowed.

  “Munz tried some variations,” Rufus said. “Locking the zombies away, quarantining them—that didn’t work, either. It just added a few more days until the end of the world. So he worked in a cure for zombies, and that didn’t help a bunch, either, it only saved ten or fifteen percent of the living, but it wasn’t a permanent cure, since after you got cured you could get bitten again and turned back into a zombie.”

  “Doesn’t sound like there’s going to be a cure for this one anyway,” Julie said. “It’s not so much a disease as just getting up out of the grave, right? Unless you figure out a way to cure death, and in that case, we’ve got a whole bunch of other problems.”

  “Right.” Rufus nodded. “The researchers only found one winning strategy: all-out war. As soon as you see a zombie, you kill it. Systematically wipe them out. Bring in the army. Show no mercy. Burn ’em out. Which happens in the movies, too. Hell, in some of the George Romero movies, the military just nukes the center of the outbreak, killing the zombies and survivors and everybody else.”

  “Lake Woebegotten isn’t a city of a million people though,” Julie said. “We’re a lot smaller, and I think that works in our favor. And it sounds like we have been killing every zombie we see, right?”