by Jim Couper
The shock of what happened silenced the room until Abacus gleefully announced the obvious, “Daddy ate Uncle Albert.”
Mort had a question, “Ssssigarette?” He sounded like his mouth was already stuffed with tobacco, but Melody, the wide-eyed love of his life, understood and pointed to a side table. From between two dirty beer mugs he picked up a pack and his favorite lighter then remembered the rule about not smoking in the house.
As best he could, with little remaining in the way of lips, he kissed Melody on her pale cheek. Albert’s enzymes overflowed his mouth and dribbled down her neck and into the bra that held the little breasts Mort fondly remembered fondling.
Before going outside to light up he entered the bedroom and saw a closet of fresh clothes. His filthy, frayed shirt fell to the floor with buttons dropping from rotting remnants of material. As pants and underpants hit the carpet Mort caught a sideways glimpse of a figure coming at him: a horrid, filthy personification of evil sprung from a corner. Mort raised his arms in defence and the ogre raised its arms in offence. Mort backed away, tripped over his pants and fell onto the bed. The attacker simultaneously backed away and ducked out of sight. Oh, god, Mort thought as he stared at the cupboard's mirrored doors, what has become of me?
Bits of ribs showed where skin had rubbed away, his face could have belonged to a moth-eaten doll and between his legs he could discern only a small piece of purple, puffy legume and a sagging sac that would be pushed to hold a pair of peas.
In looking downwards his eyes fell to toenails and then moved to fingernails that looked longer than normal. He had heard they keep growing after death. All the better for abdomen opening, he thought. Hair supposedly kept growing too, but his light brown, close-cropped topping looked no longer than normal. Bald patches showed where bits of scalp went missing. Still, it appeared neat and orderly and a tuft in front, tinted red with blood, looked trendy and stylish.
Mort grabbed whatever his hands first fell upon in his closet: a pair of pink, plaid golf pants with an elastic waist and a purple Vancouver Canucks hockey sweater. Given how clumsily his hands moved he had made good choices.He strode passed his silent family and went outside.
The lighter flared up, burned the side of his thumb, turned the skin black and ignited the white stick. Watching cigarette smoke curl in front of his face brought back memories of failed efforts to quit. Now he felt no fear of cancer from the smouldering tobacco that wafted through his body and gave no pleasure whatsoever. Afterlife was just one big disappointment after another. Quitting wouldn’t be a problem this time.
Mort shuffled across the lawn, wiping Albert’s bile from his chin, being careful not to let drool drop onto his fresh sweater. Every step pained him, but he knew he couldn’t stay. Every pace put him farther from Melody, Calculus and Abacus. He should be saying goodnight to his children, reading them a story and then slipping into bed with his wife and impregnating her with the third child they dreamed of. Surely she would offer forgiveness; surely she would understand that dining on Uncle Albert, whoever he was, couldn’t be avoided: it was just nature.
Mort made a slow U-turn to beg forgiveness from Melody and heard sirens. Surely she hadn’t turned him in. She had vowed to stick with him for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do .... This was just a rough patch.
Mort’s head cleared enough that he saw a flaw in his plan to resume marriage. After the children were asleep and he joined Melody in bed he wouldn’t be able to satisfy her as he once had. He had little more than a stubby peanut to work with. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind, perhaps she wouldn’t hold it against him. She had always admired his equipment. Maybe a few sweet nothings, a little foreplay and then they’d both go happily to sleep in each other’s arms. Two children should be enough. Sirens grew louder, Mort’s reverie went south and a chunk of skin slid from his neck and vanished under his sweater. Reunification could come at another time. Now he had to flee from narrow-minded, intolerant bigots.
18
Despite Donald Sinclair’s absurd predictions, weird headgear and bizarre theories Jane Dougherty took a liking to him. A gentle manner, self-assurance and quiet, low-key demeanour were qualities she appreciated and seldom saw in men, especially the men she dealt with. Talking to him was like finding a tranquil oasis in a desert of trouble − how unfortunate his theories could not lead to a satisfying end. As much as she would like to believe him, a rubber cell would likely serve as his future home.
Jane could accept that humans did not live alone in the universe. But Sinclair believed, without a shred of proof, they were here now. Would Sinclair bring her a Martian draped over his arm? Would she then believe?
Had she not received so many reports identifying zombies, she would have laughed at that notion. It was all absurd: everything was absurd. The inconceivable outweighed the implausible, which superseded the impossible.
Every few minutes Jane eyed her ticking wall clock. She had agreed to meet Sinclair at 10 a.m. for an update. A few minutes before 10 the longest legs she had ever seen on a woman strode past her office. They stemmed from a bimbo body of the first order: frizzy blonde hair, lips afire, mascara applied with a paint roller and a severely unbuttoned blouse revealing two dolphin heads coming up for air.
A heavy knock shook her door then Sinclair stepped in and announced, “I’d like you to meet my partner, Joey. She just got here this morning.”
“Good morning Joey,” Dougherty said, and stuck out her calloused hand with broken fingernails. The buxom blonde shook with arm-wrestler authority and whispered a return greeting. Dougherty pushed back some unruly brown curls, licked her dry lips and got to the matter at hand, “Anything new?”
“This is it,” Sinclair answered and Jane assumed his pronoun referred to his partner. Before Jane could respond to the banal announcement he continued excitedly, “This is where and when it happens. The landing will be soon. I’m out there waiting for …”
A voice that sounded like a bag of firecrackers exploding in a locker interrupted him,
“He’s loony,” Joey cackled. “Stark raving out of his tree. He’s had this alien thing up his ass for a year now.”
“Hold on,” Sinclair countered, apparently habituated to the voice. “You know as well as anyone that things aren’t always what they seem. Sometimes ...”
“No, they ain’t,” Joey interrupted again with a double negative that made sense. “We’ve got a horde of goddam zombies chewing people up and you see aliens. Get over it. These ain’t no zombie aliens. Things are just as they seem and that ain’t no goddam good.”
“I admit the theory isn’t holding up as well as it might, but there is still time. Imagine …”
“Imagine yourself in a padded cell.” The voice from hell yelled louder than necessary and accentuated what Jane thought, but wouldn’t say. It continued, “... and the key to your cell is on its way to the bottom of the ocean and …”
“Enough!” Jane declared loudly. “We don’t have time for bickering. Do you have anything new to tell me?”
“OK. Back off Joey,” Sinclair ordered sternly then continued. “Yes. There’s an outer space radio antenna not far from here. It receives alien communications and directs them into the ground. That’s what reanimates the un-living. Other places where similar slaughters have occurred also have radio antennae. We’re onto something here, something we should have seen years ago. This supports the alien theory.”
“My ass!” Joey’s oral fingernails scratched across a blackboard, “A nearby antenna does not support a theory of alien invasion. Yes, the antenna could be directing some sort of energy into the ground. Who knows what kind of energy, but there sure ain’t no reason to believe it’s directed by Martians. You got little green men in your pants.”
As Sinclair’s lips formed the beginning of his retort Jane again interrupted, “Stop! Which of you is in charge?”
Sinclair replied, “I have seniority. I’ve been here longest.”
Joey’s ca
ckle came next, “I’ve got the smarts and I’m gonna be advanced out of this department to do something worthwhile.”
“I’ve always found saving lives worthwhile,” Jane said. “Even indirectly. But that isn’t up for discussion. What do you know about zombies? Is it possible? Here in Peachland. Can such things exist?”
Sinclair pushed his chair back excitedly. Its wooden legs scraped along the floor matching Joey’s voice and obliterating whatever she said, allowing him to start unimpeded.
“How much do you want to know?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “The first zombies were seen in Africa and then they went to Haiti with the slaves and were incorporated into the vodun religion which became voodoo. The reanimated worked in fields as slaves, as drones. They were slaves of slaves, so to speak. Zombies came before religion so it tries to explain them. Necromancy, blackest of the black arts, dates back thousands of years and is all about raising the dead. Bokor − hoodoo priests − raised the dead with a potent powder. Those zombies had no speech, no memory, no feelings and no personality: perfect slaves. Norse berserkers and Arab hashshashins both fought wars using revenant soldiers. A researcher named Seabrook – he became an alcoholic, went insane and killed himself − wrote a book with stories of zombies in both Africa and Haiti.
"Now here’s something interesting," Donald continued. "Vampires, man-made monsters and aliens all have a base in literature with seminal volumes such as Dracula, War of the Worlds and Frankenstein forming the backbone of beliefs. Zombies, on the other hand, stem from an oral tradition. Getting back to the Bokor ...”
“What a messed-up rat’s nest,” Joey interrupted. “What came first, chicken or egg? Who cares? The point is zombies have evolved from drones into flesh-eating, brain-sucking monsters and they are right here in this town.”
“Have you two reported to Colonel Mayhew?” Jane asked, sensing the outbreak of another verbal duel. “And thanks for the zombie history. Maybe another time you can give me more details.”
Sinclair responded first, “Yes we’ve checked in. Mayhew scoffed at the theory, but told us to give him a full written report that he promised to read carefully. We have a one week deadline.”
Joey hissed slightly more quietly, “That guy’s another nutbar. If he’d stop being sorry for swearing, or not swearing, or whatever, and get on with it he might get something done.”
“Have you visited the Dominion Radio Observatory?”
“Would go right now, but we have a report to do for May,” Sinclair answered.
“It should be part of the report. Go check it out and let me know what you find. Good luck.”
After they left Jane called the morgue and learned nothing unusual had happened with bodies in storage there. None had sat up and talked or gone for a walk. Apparently if you got eaten by a zombie, or whatever, you died and in the morgue’s cold storage you stayed dead. At least during the day. No one worked the night shift to see if the dead banged on their steel drawers.
A return call came from the chief health inspector and Jane wanted to know what it would take to get an order requiring that all dead be cremated. She learned it was unprecedented territory. Religious beliefs were guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and Freedoms and death rites were usually religious.
“What about encasing them in cement with rebar?” Jane asked.
“Cement just isn’t holding for some reason. We’ve had basements collapse. We’ve got a cease-work order for a building under construction because of cement problems.”
“OK, can you make steel coffins and weld them shut?”
“If the surviving family agrees, we could. Who would pay for it?”
“Who cares who pays? This is a national emergency. Just do it.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just blast whatever you find walking the streets or coming out of a cemetery?”
“Too late for that,” Jane said. “We missed our calling, didn’t see them coming. The army’s in charge now. I hope they use restraint with their shooting because we sure don’t need stray bullets and bazookas going through our houses and hitting people. Right now we need steel and iron. Something to make sure dead bodies stay put ... if this zombie thing has any truth. Will you do that?”
“Sounds reasonable. It will take a few days to put it all together, but it can be done.” With a smile that Jane could hear in his voice, the health inspector added, “And I’ll make sure we have a good supply of wooden stakes.”
“That’s how you kill vampires. These guys, you maybe have to shoot in the head, or behead or put in a wood chopper.”
“I’ll order a guillotine,” he said, ending the conversation.
Vampires had been waiting thousands of years for the apocalypse, or as they called it, the third coming. Dozens had been prematurely awakened and needed blood. On more than one occasion a reawakened had accosted a local, dragged him into bushes and sucked to the last drop: not acceptable behaviour. Resources had to be properly managed and a body drained could not be recycled.
The flesh eaters made human resource management difficult and made normal vampire life next to impossible. It was ironic that vampires experienced their much anticipated third coming at a time zombies were having their second coming − one that they neither enjoyed nor appreciated. The undead depleted resources at a horrendous rate, giving no thought to ecology or global warming. Because of them people no longer walked the streets or went out at night. Hookers and call girls didn’t answer the call. When the anthropophagists struck, viable bodies went to waste. With so many soldiers on the streets the vamps couldn’t get a sip in edgewise and the soldiers themselves didn’t volunteer as donors. They stuck together like members of a stingy church choir on Sunday morning, with no offerings.
Night prowling became modus operandi of thirsty leeches. Normally cautious, they broke into unsecure houses and drank more deeply than normal. People woke feeling sick; not remembering the previous day. Most doors stayed locked and windows had metal bars. Many times vamps broke into houses and found them empty: owners had fled to cottages, homes of friends in other cities and long-awaited Icelandic vacations. Other homes had become so well secured that a bank would have been easier to get into, had money been the need.
A blood bank made a better break-in target and vamps worked hard at getting one of their kind a job as a security guard at Red Cross. Unfortunately vamps didn’t enjoy working and when they did take a job they proved lazy and irresponsible. Good references were difficult to come by, thus their resumes short and job prospects bleak. However, living for eternity produced excellent retirement opportunities. Long term investments nearly always paid off as did the prudent collecting of art and coins.
Living beyond suspicion for century after century required the constant invention of new identities, thus vamps had expertise in obtaining false birth certificates, social insurance numbers and drivers’ licences. Some people would accuse them of fraud and forgery while others would appreciate they had little choice if they didn’t want to be celebrated as oldest war vet, oldest pensioner or oldest car operator. A drivers’ licence awarded the same year as the invention of the car and a birth certificate dated 1526 were sure giveaways. Vampires enjoyed publicity as mice enjoyed cats.
Shotguns, handguns, machineguns and even potato guns presented no danger to the vamps whose self-repairing superblood could mend all but a broken heart. With a stoic reserve garnered over centuries, their hearts seldom broke. Severed arteries and veins self-healed, as did their big pumpers, even when pierced with small projectiles. More serious cardiac penetration from wooden stakes, metal stakes or plastic stakes spilled far too much blood and the impaled vamp vanished for all time. Garlic, silver bullets, mirrors and crosses annoyed them to no end and caused rashes, but didn’t kill.
Several leeches had discovered the pleasures of stun guns and tasers and made a point of jumping in front of them at any opportunity. Victor worried this might became an addiction problem. Addiction to blood was problematic enough.
The big danger, when vamps prowled for blood, came from home-made zombie traps that, almost overnight, had become the in thing in backyard decor. They consisted of six-foot-deep holes in the ground with camouflaged tarps over top. Zombie steps on tarp, tarp and zombie go into hole, springs pull edges of tarp into air, zombie hangs in tarp, alarm sounds, homeowner goes out with hatchet, homeowner forgets that zombies rarely travel alone and homeowner gets eaten.
Vampires carried the latest Swiss Army-multi-tools and when they fell into a zombie trap they cut through the tarp and sped away. Exceptions occurred when the homeowner heard the alarm and raced into his yard with axe in hand and started chopping before the vamp could cut free or talk his way out of it. A merciless beating, at minimum, would befall the captive before the homeowner became aware that an average, well-dressed citizen had managed to get at the wrong end of his axe. At the maximum, an axe might chop through the chest and spell the end of prowling vamp. Most males had a steel plate sewn into their jackets to prevent such a mishap and women wore bras with woven stainless steel cups, however a big axe swung by a manic homeowner could do a lot of damage.