The sun has moved so close to the horizon that the blue sky has shifted to orange. Many of the tourists have left, and those few that straggle seemed tired to the point of incoherence. They stagger around the edge of the Hopewell Rocks, eating the vestiges of the fried food they smuggled in earlier or laying on benches while children sit on the ground in front of them. The tide is imminent, but only Marie and I remain alert. Only Marie and I watch for what we know is coming.
When it arrives, it does so swiftly. Where once rocks covered the ground, a moment later there is only water. And it rises. Water fills the basin, foot after foot, deeper and deeper. The tide rushes in from the ocean. It’s the highest tide the world over. It beckons people from everywhere to witness its power. The inevitable tide coming in.
Marie has kicked off her black sandals, the simple act shaving inches from her height. She has both her arms wrapped around one of mine and is staring out at the steadily rising water. She’s like an anchor pulling me down. Do you see anything yet? she asks me, and I shake my head, afraid of what might come out if I open my mouth. How much longer do you think we’ll have to wait? Not long, I assure her, though I don’t know. How would I? I’ve refused to come to this spot all my life, this spot on the edge of a great darkness. That shadowy water continues to lap, the teenage lifeguard finally concerned less with the girls who walk by to stare at his athletic body, and more with checking the gates and fences to make sure the passages to the bottom are locked. The last thing anyone wants is for one to be left open accidentally. The last thing anyone but me wants, that is.
The sun is almost set, and the visitors to the Hopewell Rocks have completely gone. It’s a park full only with ghosts, the area surrounding the risen tide. Mushroom rocks look like small islands, floating in the ink just off the shore. The young lifeguard has gone, hurrying as the darkness crept in as fast as the water rose. Before he leaves he shoots the two of us a look that I can’t quite make out under his flopping denim hat, but one which I’m certain is fear. He wants to come over to us, wants to warn us that the park has closed and that we should leave. But he doesn’t. I like to think it’s my expression that keeps him away. My expression, and my glare. I suppose I’ll never know which.
Marie is lying on the bench by now, her elbow planted on the wooden slats, her wrist bent to support the weight of her head. She hasn’t worn her shoes for hours, and even in the long shadows I can see sand and pebbles stuck to her soles. She looks up at me. It’s almost time, she whispers, not out of secrecy – because no one is there to hear her – but of glee. It’s almost time. It is, I tell her, and try as I might I can’t muster up even a false smile. I’m too nervous. The thought of what’s to come jitters inside of me, shakes my bones and flesh, leaves me quivering. If Marie notices, she doesn’t mention it, but I’m already prepared with a lie about the chill of day’s end. I know it’s not true, and that even Marie is smart enough to know how warm it still is, but nevertheless I know she wants nothing more than to believe every word I say. It’s not one of her most becoming qualities.
The tide rushes in after six hours and thirteen minutes, and though I’m not wearing a watch I know exactly when the bay is at its fullest. I know this not by the light or the dark oily colour the water has turned. I know this not because I can see the tide lapping against the nearly submerged mushroom rocks. I know this because, from the rippling ocean water, I can see the first of the heads emerge.
Flesh so pale it is translucent, the bone beneath yellow and cracked. Marie is sitting up, her chin resting on her folded hands. I dare a moment to look at her wide open face, and wonder if the remaining light that surrounds us is coming from her beaming. The smile I make is unexpected. Genuine. They’re here! she squeals, and my smile falters. I can’t believe they’re here! I nod matter-of-factly.
There are two more heads rising from the water when I look back at the full basin, the first already sprouting an odd number of limbs attached to a decayed body. The thing is staggering towards us, the only two living souls for miles around, though how it can see us with its head cocked so far back is a mystery. I can smell it from where we’re sitting. It smells like tomorrow. More of the dead emerge from the water, refugees from the dark ocean, each one a promise of what’s to come. They’re us, I think. The rich, the poor, the strong, the weak. They are our heroes and our criminals. They are our loved ones and most hated enemies. They are me, they are Marie, they are the skinny lifeguard in his idiotic hat. They are our destiny, and they have come to us from the future, from beyond the passage with a message. It’s one no one but us will ever hear. It is why Marie and I are there, though each for a different reason – her to finally help her understand the death of her mother, me so I can finally put to rest the haunting terrors of my childhood. Neither of us speak about why, but we both know the truth. The dead walk to tell us what’s to come, their broken mouths moving without sound. The only noise they make is the rap of bone on gravel. It only intensifies as they get closer.
For the first time, I see a thin line of fear crack Marie’s reverie. There are nearly fifty corpses shambling towards us, swaying as they try to keep rotted limbs moving. If they lose momentum, I wonder if they’ll fall over. If they do, I doubt they’d ever right themselves. Between where we sit and the increasing mass is the metal gate the young lifeguard chained shut. More and more of the waterlogged dead are crowding it, pushing themselves against it. I can hear the metal screaming from the stress, but it’s holding for now. Fingerless arms reach through the bars, their soundless hungry screams echoing through my psyche. Marie is no longer sitting. She’s standing. Pacing. Looking at me, waiting for me to speak. Purposely, I say nothing. I’ll let her say what I know she’s been thinking.
There’s something wrong, she says. This isn’t—
It isn’t what?
This isn’t what I thought. This, these people. They aren’t right…
I snigger. How is it possible to be so naive?
They are exactly who they are supposed to be, I tell her with enough sternness I hope it’s the last she has to say on the subject. I don’t know why I continue to make the same mistakes. By now, I’d have thought I would have started listening. But that’s the trouble with talking to your past self. Nothing, no matter how hard you try, can be stopped. Especially not the inevitable.
The dead flesh is packed so tight against the iron gates that it’s only a matter of time. It’s clear from the way the metal buckles, the hinges scream. Those of the dead that first emerged are the first punished, as their putrefying corpses are pressed by the throng of emerging dead against the fence that pens them in. I can see upturned faces buckling against the metal bars, hear softened bones pop out of place as their lifeless bodies are pushed through the narrow gaps. Marie turns and buries her face in my chest while gripping my shirt tight in her hands. I can’t help but watch, mesmerized.
Hands grab the gate and start shaking, back and forth, harder and harder. So many hands, pulling and pushing. The accelerating sound ringing like a church bell across the lonely Hopewell grounds. I can’t take it anymore, Marie pleads, her face slick with so many tears. It was a mistake. I didn’t know. I never wanted to know. She’s heaving as she begs me, but I pull myself free from her terrified grip and stand up. It doesn’t matter, I tell her. It’s too late.
I start walking towards the locked fence.
I can’t hear Marie’s sobs any longer, not over the ruckus the dead are making. I wonder if she’s left, taken the keys and driven off into the night, leaving me without any means of transportation. Then I wonder if instead she’s watching me, waiting to see what I’ll do without her there. I worry about both these things long enough to realize I don’t really care. Let her watch. Let her watch as I lift the latches of the fence the dead are unable to operate on their own. Let me unleash the waves that come from that dark Atlantic Ocean onto the tourist attraction of the Hopewell Rocks. Let man’s future roll in to greet him, let man’s future become his present.
Make him his own past. Who we will be will soon replace who we are, and who we might once have been.
The dead, they don’t look at me as they stumble into the unchained night. And I smile. In six hours and thirteen minutes, the water will recede as quickly as it came, back out to the dark dead ocean. It will leave nothing behind but wet and desolate rocks the colour of sun-bleached bone.
KEZZIE OF BABYLON
Jamie Mason
You can’t call the RCMP when the zombies attack if you live on a grow-op. You just can’t. It doesn’t matter if the fucker shambles into your yard grunting and hissing and starts eating the dog – a call to the cops will only get you busted, even on Vancouver Island. Imagine a whole year’s effort cultivating bud wasted because some asshole climbed out of his grave and decided to trespass on your property and start killing and there’s nothing you can do about it (including call the cops) because the guy’s already dead. Fucking zombies. Fucking cops.
There were already zombies on the mainland, of course. The Parliamentary Subcommittee on Zombieism recommended formation of a special RCMP Zombie Response Unit after the Toronto infestation and as usual BC’s budget allocation came last (which meant the Island got its money last of all). No problem: West Coast zombies are different from the ones back East – slower, less resourceful, less of a menace to public safety. They don’t work well in groups. And the ones we got on the Island are actually pretty ineffective, to tell you the truth. You can see them coming a mile away and they have a tendency to get distracted easily. They aren’t very successful zombies.
So when Buzz dies, we bury him in the north field where we grow the best dope then head back to the farmhouse to get high (because that’s what Buzz would have wanted). The wolf follows us. Buzz hated that fucking wolf because it killed that one sheep (his big experiment in legitimate farming) but the wolf seemed to like Buzz. It would appear on the ridge above the commune when Buzz was out doing chores. Buzz would scream and chuck rocks at it until the wolf got tired and ambled away. Only to reappear a few weeks later to torment him again. Now it follows us, watching. Keeping to the ridge as we return to the farmhouse. Fucking wolf.
Just ignore it, Kezzie says. That’s Buzz’s spirit animal. Nobody, even Deacon, says anything because Kezzie with her wispy blond boy-hair and John Lennon glasses is leader and controls the dope supply so we all want her to like us. After a pause she glances at each of us in turn and quotes the Bible to reinforce her authority: For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world. Fucking Babylon, children, and don’t you forget it.
Kezzie likes the Bible. She believes part of it (the last book) is about her so she has memorized large chunks of it. Deacon says Kezzie is no different from that crazy Mormon sect up the road where men marry little girls and have more than one wife at a time. I never even had an opinion because I never read the Bible but I stole a copy from the drawer of a hotel room I help clean as a spot-labourer, got high and read the last book. It’s really sick – full of whores and monsters and killing. All about the end of the world, if you want to know the truth. Kezzie likes that shit enough to become an expert in it; since the zombie infestation her power over us has only grown.
So we convene in the front room and Indian Sarah puts a fire in the wood stove and Kezzie breaks out the dope and starts rolling joints the way she does – real slow, taking her time and talking all about herself the way she does. We’re her captive audience: me, Deacon, Indian Sarah, Rhonda, Rasta Bob and Tyler. But it’s strange without Buzz. So in honour of him, during a lull in Kezzie’s monologue, we begin talking conspiracy theories about the zombies.
Rasta Bob says it’s something in the ground water, mon, but Tyler (nah!) says it’s a government lab somewhere with a life-extension experiment gone wrong. Rhonda and me think it may be toxic contamination, and Kezzie? She sticks by her conviction that it’s God’s will. And soon Indian Sarah and Tyler start agreeing with her. After a time so does Rasta Bob. Rhonda stays quiet but you can tell from her facial twitches that she doesn’t agree. Neither do I.
It says in the Book, Kezzie mutters, that at the end of days the Dead will rise from their graves, Praise God. And Alleluia and the wrath of the Almighty shall be loosed upon the world. We’re living it now. The end of days. She tokes a joint to life then passes it.
And Deacon, in his sleeveless leather jacket and scraggly black beard, stays reserved as hell, giving up nothing. Nothing at all. Deacon plays his cards close (he is American, after all) – is quiet mostly while he watches Kezzie. But you can sense he’s plotting. So when the joint comes to him he holds it hostage and asks:
Kezzie, who’s to say it’s religious? Maybe it’s just crazy science gone wrong. Why does it always have to be God?
And in the silence of the record player’s needle hissing between Beatles songs and the tendrils of smoke wafting around the mildewed wood of the parlour, Rhonda and I exchange a glance. Deacon would give Kezzie the gears more often than he does but Kezzie – Canadian Kezzie – wears the gun. And we know from experience she won’t hesitate to use it. Not everybody is here because of Kezzie’s “gift.” Some of us just like the dope. And some of us, like Deacon, just don’t trust her.
Kezzie’s eyes slide towards Deacon, narrowing. And there fell a great star from heaven, she hisses, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the waters. And the waters became bitter and the people died. Is that you, Deacon? You and your skookum-big fake plastic nation, falling from the sky to contaminate the earth and poison the waters?
And because we all share the traditional Islander distrust of Americans, you can feel the support in the room shift back in Kezzie’s direction. In the breath-held hush while we await Deacon’s reply Rasta Bob, a slender Jamaican silhouette by the window, exclaims:
Look, mon! Here come Buzz!
∆ ∆ ∆
We dug a shallow grave and did not bury him in a box because Buzz said he wanted to fertilize the Earth.
So when he reappears, wandering in and out of the mangy clear-cut on the ridge above the commune partially hidden in the autumn fog, his presence seems strangely ordinary. I keep thinking about medieval peasants goofing up and burying family members alive and how they learned to wait a while, placing bodies in coffins with little bell mechanisms attached to cords that rested in the passenger’s hands. Of course – he must have been in a deep coma when we buried him, then awakened and clawed his way out. What else could it be? It’s funny how the word “zombie” – despite all the Emergency Preparedness Drills and “New Government” pronouncements – is still just a little too alien to spring immediately to mind.
Is it—? Kezzie half stands. Grips the butt of the Browning at her hip.
It. I pause. It is. See the dreads?
It’s Buzz, mon. (Rasta Bob’s voice is soft with wonder.) And now there be that fucking wolf!
Head lowered, shoulders hunched, the wolf stalks out of the fog. Its movements are slow – almost hesitant. Buzz pauses in his shambling trot and faces the beast. The wolf raises its snout. And begins backing away.
What the—? I pluck the telescope – the small fold-out one we use for star gazing – from its place on the sill and draw a bead on the wolf. He is definitely backpedalling – and fast. Eyes wide, hackles up. The way he might from an onrushing vehicle. I swing the telescope towards Buzz but he is a blur of movement then suddenly the room behind me is all:
What—
Hey, did he just—?
Ja rae!
I sweep the scope back and forth, its far end a swerving disk of daylight. The wolf’s chest, then face, fill the lens. Jaws wide, but not to bite: the creature screams in pain. I lift the scope as the first rivulets of its blood trickle down and… There’s Buzz, straddling the wolf’s back, clawed fingers gripping its forelegs, plunging forward to bury his face in its neck.
Buzz. But not Buzz.
∆ ∆ ∆
There comes a moment in a
ll disasters – like when the crew of the Titanic understood they really were going to hit that skookum-big iceberg, or when you realize halfway to the ground the ripcord you pulled just isn’t attached to your parachute anymore – that the full horror of your situation really dawns on you, hey? Buzz was back from the dead. That was bad enough. But it was only the beginning.
And behold, Kezzie whispers, daylight reflected in the little round mirrors of her specs, the graves were opened and Hell gave up the Dead, great and small, who were in them.
The Toronto infestation, like 9-11, reverberates in our memory – the newsbytes so deeply embedded as to be summoned by a glance. Standing frozen, recalling the headline horrors, all of us are thinking: So…it’s finally come to the Island.
The death screams of the wolf seep into the room. The turntable hisses, clicks…and then restarts “Piggies” from the Beatles’ White Album. For long minutes we watch the death struggle on the ridge above. And then…
Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction Page 10