You go, girl! Good luck with dinner; doubt there’s much left.
Zees fell into several distinct groups when it came to hunting and feeding. Oftentimes, the ones who made the kill were happy with the “quick cuts” of flesh — the tits, the asses, the balls and guts and cheeks — not to mention the quaffs of blood. They’d move off and the next crew would move in. These were the folks who were happy with a length of intestine, part of a liver, maybe a lung or two. These were relatively portable items, and the Team 2 Zees were often seen just outside a kill zone, enjoying their haul sitting on their haunches. Team 3 was even more patient. They took the time to find things like an appendix, tracheas (tough but long-lasting treats), maybe a uterus or some endocrine-system selects: pancreas, thymus glands and the like.
Team 4, which was in action now and of which Tim suspected Marilyn was a member, worked on even harder stuff. The alpha member of Team 4 usually got the head, the main goal of which was to reach the brain. By this time, the eyes, nose, lips and ears were mostly gone, as well as the cheeks and scalp. But Team 4 members knew the brain could be accessed from the bottom, once the spinal column had been ripped out and all. They would spend hours working on it, and there was risk in doing so since hunters might show up or other Zees could butt in for a piece of the action.
Tim had never had brain, but he guessed there was something to it, given Team 4’s perseverance. As he watched Marilyn report for duty, the head of the rifle hero was in the possession of another Zee — a woman with long nails and tiny hands who was doggedly scraping at the base of the skull looking for paydirt. Marilyn homed in on a spinal column lying against the wheel of the truck. She grabbed it hungrily and started working the spaces between the vertebrae, sucking and gnawing at whatever was in there. Then she’d whack the spinal column against the ground, pick up what fell off and start crunching discs in her teeth.
Tim felt a spike of pride at her skill.
And Marilyn here, she’s a spinal expert. Something of a surgeon, in fact.
Oh really? What hospital does she work at?
Tim would have to work on the answer to that one.
Chapter 5. Remember
Now that his belly was full of guard and hero parts, he felt more relaxed than he had in days … or weeks or whatever this time period was being segmented into. Days blended into nights, dawn came and looked indistinguishable from dusk — except for the level of squealer activity. Since the Zees were always half frozen and slow moving by the time the sun was struggling up over the horizon, the humans thought it a fine time to be active in extermination activities.
Tim was sure to stay out of range of the upper-story 30.06 — especially in those early morning hours. And on the morning after the big kill and his second meeting with Zombie Marilyn Monroe, he was still up on the hill a hundred yards or so from the house.
I haven’t left this place in a long time. Why is that?
The white house and barn, the two sheds, the various different-colored vehicles in the driveway — they’d all become part of his visual landscape as surely as the filthy black jeans and checked shirt he wore as uniform. It was also true that the same general population of Zees hung around the place day after day, hoping, it seemed, for a different set of circumstances to arise. Wasn’t there some saying about that being the definition of madness? But, then, it had happened yesterday, the different set of circumstances.
Having four of their number plunge into a field of Zees and perish had an obvious effect on the remaining squealers in the house. This morning, every weapon in the house was being deployed against the shuffling, freezing mob of drooling idiots, and Tim watched from the crook of his tree as they toppled one after another. Shouts of triumph and encouragement rang from the upper windows, and Tim thought again about what to him was a bizarre lack of survival instinct on the part of the lesser Zees. They had hunger, which drove them with rigid discipline and yielded success despite their many shortcomings. But why wouldn’t they know to step out of harm’s way?
But, then, that wasn’t entirely true either. Looking down at the crowd milling around the house, he noticed some Zees who might be viewed as being more cautious or furtive. A gaggle of them was standing on the other side of the garage, out of the line of fire. Occasionally, and seemingly taken in turns, they would peer around the structure to see what was up. Twice that morning, Tim saw a garage-peeping Zee get his head blown off.
What was that old saw about curiosity? And cats, was it? Like odd little winds that came from no particular direction, scraps of human memory floated into Tim’s consciousness and floated out again. True, they were often clichés or bits of old songs lodged in his long-term memory, but they were connections to his former self. He wanted to grab at them, stuff them back into his brain, but they proved elusive.
Wait. Curiosity killed the cat. That was it! Tim grunted in glee, rocked back and forth on his feet and looked around to see if Marilyn could somehow share in his triumph. Stepping out from behind his tree, he described a slow circle in the mud to find her. When his rotation brought him in line with the house, he realized his mistake and started shuffling back to safety, but not fast enough. A bullet caught him in the side of the head, ripping off part of his right ear lobe and dropping him to the ground. He scrabbled back behind the tree and felt the damage.
Yep, missing part of an ear, and an ugly furrow along the right side that didn’t seem too terribly deep. What was left of his brain was still functioning, and he tried it out internally.
Curiosity killed the cat. And almost killed Tim.
The impulse and mechanism to laugh came and went, and then here was Marilyn, limping past him and directly into the killing field — as if she had a breakfast date with the squealers.
Tim struggled to his feet, feeling his new bullet wound pound inside his head as he fought for balance, hanging onto the tree. The first shot missed Marilyn and caught him in the left arm.
Just winged. Stupid silly Marilyn.
He grabbed Marilyn by the arm and dragged her behind the tree. She gave a zombie snarl and fought him, but only for a moment. He grabbed her head with both hands, looked in her stupid, dumb-ass dead eyes, and shook his head “no” over and over. Then he pointed to the new wound in his arm and shook his head some more.
Of all the zombie flicks in the world, why’d she have to wander into mine?
Marilyn seemed to take the upbraiding in stride as she segued back into her favorite activity: staring at the sky.
She wasn’t alone in that occupation. Many of the Zees spent their down-time — that is, the time in between chasing and eating squealers and/or being pursued or killed by same — with mindless staring. Some found solace in the sky, others were happy to look at a tree or a mound of dirt or even their own fingers. Many Zee driveways were not making it all the way to the road, and it occurred to Tim that the only reason the Zee revolution was even partly successful at all was due to sheer numbers. If some smart Zee came along and led them, maybe they could really make a go of it.
But that wasn’t Tim. And besides, even if he’d wanted to, it looked like he’d have his hands full just getting one Zee moving in a particular direction. Because a plan was forming in his mind, and even though the reasons behind it were based on just the faintest palimpsest of memory, there wasn’t much else to hang his hat on at the moment. He could stand around this fucking white house and wait to get shot in the head or just freeze solid when winter set in, or he could try to do something to … to improve his situation. Somehow, having a partner in all this seemed integral to the mission, and even if sex appeared to be out of the question, if he had to pick a Zee to tag along, why not the cutest one? Certainly better than the ghoul twitching in the field with a pitchfork stuck in his back, or that other fucked-up chick down by the grain silo with a shotgun hole in her middle so big you could see daylight out the other side.
This place was wasted, and getting colder by the day. There was a word creeping into the periphery of T
im’s mind, and it was getting stronger and stronger so that he could almost make it out — like a car coming toward him on the highway he’d soon know the make and model of. Fuck. Well, it’d come to him soon if he kept focusing on it. For now, it was time to move. They had full bellies and the sleet that was falling earlier had slowed to a slight drizzle. He put his hand in Marilyn’s and she didn’t resist when he started gently tugging her.
But which way? Which way would be warmer, or have the most promise of fresh squealers — maybe even a pocket of live ones who hadn’t yet been surrounded?
And then the word that was evading him crept in: South.
Chapter 6. Walking
“South” meant the same to Tim as “warm,” and with thick clouds scudding across the sky and frost on the ground every morning, he intuited a simple fact: The Zees weren’t going to last long out here. He’d already seen his first stiff: A guy in hospital scrubs who’d had his legs shot off — frozen to the ground like a statue. It was, in fact, the first time Tim had seen the Zees pay much attention to one of their fallen kin. The frozen surgeon had a circle of Zees surrounding him that morning, seemingly marveling at his petrified, skyward-looking face. Tim figured with no legs, he wasn’t able to keep moving enough to prevent himself from freezing, and he wondered if the Zees who were looking at him — from a safe distance of a few feet — would take it as some sort of cautionary tale.
Marilyn should see this. But where the hell was she?
A moment ago, he’d seen her standing and looking at the fast-moving clouds. But now she was nowhere to be found. Tim turned to take one last look at the frozen doctor just as one of the idiots in the house got off a lucky shot and hit the Zee-sicle right in the head. The guy’s skull actually split right down the middle, the two parts shearing off in near-perfect halves — one side still stuck to the spinal column as the left side of the guy’s face fell to the ground with a sickly thud. Tim half hoped the head half would shatter into a million pieces, like a glass vase, but it just rolled to one side and stopped to show a near-perfect cutaway view of the brain and skull. Falling to the side with no neck to support it anymore was the doctor’s stethoscope.
All the Zees surrounding him moaned low and stepped back a few paces. Another shot rang out, and an ugly chick in a waitress getup took a slug in the chest. She fell forward on top of the partly headless guy, and the group of Zees moaned again, took another step back, then started shuffling randomly, bumping into one another as more shots kicked up frozen dirt around them.
The phrase “Check, please!” popped into Tim’s mind, and he double-shuffled back behind his tree. There, he found Marilyn, sitting on the ground looking even more dead and cold than she had earlier. Was she giving up? She’d stopped looking at the sky, her head had fallen to her chest and, finally, her platinum wig had fallen off to reveal short, mousy brown hair.
Tim kicked her gently and she stirred. He tugged at her shoulder, then shook her until she looked up and managed a pathetic snarl.
That’s my girl. Get pissed! Get that zombie mojo going!
He tugged more at her, tried to get a hand under an armpit to give her a lift. But he had no strength in his arms anymore. She was going to need to get her dead ass up on her own. Tim moved a few feet away, grunted, and gave Marilyn a “let’s go” wave. She gave him a fixed stare and, to his surprise, started to attempt getting to her feet. Now he could help her if she was going to help herself. He got his hands under her arms and lifted with all his strength. After a few tries and with the help of the tree, they got her standing. Tim walked a few steps and gave her the “let’s go” gesture again. Again, a weak snarl from Marilyn, but somewhere in those dead blue eyes he saw the tiniest spark of purpose.
She wanted to live. Or, if this wasn’t exactly living, she wasn’t ready to call it completely quits yet. With a soft moan, she put one foot in front of the other, then again, until she was shuffling ever so slowly behind Tim. Looking constantly over his shoulder, he kept beckoning and she kept moving. Before long, they were out of sight of the white house and the 30.06, moving through hilly, heavily treed terrain.
Now, he wondered, which way was south? As a concept, it meant “warmer,” but in practice, every direction looked more or less the same. Tim couldn’t even recall how many directions there were; it certainly seemed as if the possibilities were endless. There was nothing for it, really, than to just start walking and hope either it turned out to be a lucky guess or they came across something … some kind of clue.
As they moved away from the farmhouse, the number of Zees thinned out. Here and there they saw a dead one, or the evidence of a Zee-on-squealer encounter: dark blood stains on the ground, bits of clothing and hair, maybe a cell phone or some jewelry and not much else. As food supplies dwindled, the Zees were in waste-not, want-not mode.
Tim was hoping that, even after a short time shuffling “south” they’d start to notice a warming trend, but instead a cold wind came up right on their backs and a driving rain pelted them. Even so, didn’t many winds come from the north? So if it was at their backs, maybe they were, somehow, headed south. Tim pressed on, oddly cheered by the foul weather — even if he had no way to communicate his new-found hope to his partner.
It had only been a short time of walking, but already Tim was tired of the constant coaxing of Marilyn. Finally, he put his arm around her shoulder and walked with her, exerting a gentle but constant pressure on the poor, fucked-up former woman to keep her going. In truth, Tim doubted she’d make it very far. She appeared very weak, she had multiple gunshot wounds, her ass was torn up (which he assumed was affecting her locomotion — wasn’t your ass basically part of your legs?) and it had been a day or two since she’d had anyone’s spine to suck on.
We need to find some fresh squealer.
But where? All they saw around them were the occasional Zees – many of which were in as bad or worse shape as Marilyn. As the day wore on, the rain and wind backed off and the sun moved slowly up in the sky to warm things slightly. Tim could feel his own body respond with what seemed like added strength, and they came out of the woods into some kind of neighborhood. As they walked, they saw more carnage from the cold night before. Zees were lying every which way on the ground, across shrubs, against abandoned vehicles. Some appeared cold and finished, like frozen doctor guy, but most of them were still moaning, groaning and twitching, their pale purple tongues lolling out of their mouths as if hoping some random squealer would wander by and bleed on them.
Ultimately, Tim was hoping to come to a road, one of those bigger ones that had signs that told things like south and … what was the other one? North. There had to be one around here, with all these houses and streets. He hoped when the time came, he’d be able to tell one symbol from another. Somehow, he thought he would.
So Tim’s shopping list had his mind focused on three things: squealer, highway, south. At the same time, as the day wore on and he contemplated another cold night, he began to wonder if there was any chance they could find some kind of shelter. He really didn’t think Marilyn would make it another night out in the cold.
Ever since whatever happened happened, it had been pretty clearly established that Zees were on the outside while squealers stayed inside. Yes, the more adventurous ones came out to kill Zees, and Tim was sure some of the more ambitious Zees had managed to infiltrate some houses to dine on the contents therein.
That’s what we need. A house the Zees have already been to.
Tim knew once all the squealers had been eaten in a particular house, no Zee would stick around inside. They were too focused on finding more meat and too stupid to appreciate the benefit of shelter. So he started looking closely at each house they passed. Most appeared abandoned, their owners long gone in the (probably mistaken) assumption that somewhere other than here had to be better vis-à-vis Zee infestation. He had an eye out for open doors, smears of blood around the threshold, signs of a battle, bones.
He didn’t have to look
far. The sun was nearly setting when he saw a small, cottage-like house that fit the bill. There was the requisite smashed car against a tree, blackened and charred. Dry, blackened blood everywhere on the side of the house, in the grass and on surrounding trees. Hanging open was the front door, as well as a smashed screen door. The scene was cold: Whatever had happened here had taken place some time ago, and no other Zees appeared in the vicinity.
He guided Marilyn in the direction of the bloody front door, and they got as far as the first of three low steps when he stopped.
Zees can’t climb stairs. Can they?
As a higher Zee, Tim figured he’d have no problem, but when he approached the first step himself, he found he lacked utterly the ability or knowledge to navigate it. But how hard could it be? Surely it simply meant lifting one foot, placing it on the step, then lifting the other and placing it there as well. He was able to do that first thing, but when he lifted his second foot to complete the process, he toppled backwards, falling onto a viscera-coated tricycle in the walkway.
He thought he heard the slightest suggestion of a chuckle issue from Marilyn, but when he glanced up at her face, it was frozen in its usual mask of simmering malevolence.
This is bullshit. Not going to get very far in this world if you can’t figure out how to climb stairs.
He tried again, and again, getting to the point where at least he wasn’t falling down but, nevertheless, still reeling backwards in a struggle to maintain balance after every failure. After about the tenth try, he had a mini revelation: He put his hand on one of the hand rails and made it up the first step, then the second and the third until he was standing triumphantly on the front porch. He beckoned to Marilyn, trying to impart with convoluted hand gestures how she ought to employ this newly learned technique to climb stairs. But she’d found a 10-inch section of someone’s spinal cord, and she was eagerly exploring it with her mouth to find bits of whatever she could consume.
Zombie Road Trip Page 3