A pretty good setup, all in all. And we were going to flick it up. (I tried to contain my nervous excitement at this idea, but it was hard.)
I watched as Rock Star and Mario staggered closer to the cellar doors. Rock Star regarded them cautiously, as if looking for an opening, or-more intriguingly-trying to remember what they were. Mario dropped awkwardly to his knees and began to paw at them, like a dog trying to open a door. He made no progress. These doors were bolted from the inside. But this fact-perhaps unknown, or, more likely, irrelevant to Mario-did not deter him in his pawing. Before long, I started to hear voices from inside the bunker. I crept closer and listened.
"Do you hear that?" It was a young woman, possibly just a girl. "Wait? Do you hear that? Do you hear that? Seriously ..."
Then another voice-also a young woman: "Omigod, yes. Is it an animal, d'you think? It's digging like an animal."
First voice: "Do you think it's one of tliem?"
Other voice: "Omigod. Omigod. Omigod. Seriously ..."
This conversation amused me deeply. Soon, I was smiling from ear to ear.
I moved closer, until I was almost next to Mario.
First voice: "Omigod, when the fuck is Chet going to get back?!"
Other voice: "We never should have come with hint. We should have gone to Columbus. I can't take this much longer."
First voice: "Look, maybe it's just an animal-an animal that smells your Doritos or something."
The girls stopped talking. One of them seemed to be weeping. It was a plaintive sound, and made me think of an animal caught in a trap. (Indeed, that might have been close to the truth of the situation.) I walked over to the well and inspected it. There was water in the bucket. I picked it up and took a long drink, using my swallowing muscles for the first time in days. It felt good, like flexing a limb that's been in a cast for a while.
I returned to the bunker doors and gently moved Mario out of the way. He seemed more confused than annoyed, pawing the air awkwardly.
"Hello, there!" I shouted into the doors. "Is anybody there? Is there anybody inside?"
A stunned silence from the young women. The crying was hushed.
"Look," I said, going for an Academy Award-worthy performance, "my name is Peter Mellor. I'm lost and I need some help. I was going to my girlfriend's house, and I ran out of gas. I'm unarmed, and there are zombies out here. Please-can I come in? I'm just a nice, middle-aged man."
Again, no answer.
"Please," I tried again. "You're not going to let me die out here, are you?"
I heard indistinct mumbling from within. They were discussing it. Behind me, Mario, Rock Star, and Hunter cast impatient glances at the doors. I moved as if patting an invisible dog just behind me, encouraging them to be patient. Then I heard the sound of padlocks being unfastened.
"Oh, thank you," I said. "Oh God, thank you so much."
The unfastening continued, and the door opened a crack. Then a hunting rifle extended out of it to greet me. Its barrel was shaking.
"Hello?" one of the girls said tentatively.
"Yes ... hello," I said. I moved myself directly in front of the opening, hoping to block their view of the motley crew behind me.
"Back up some," the girl said nervously.
"Sure thing," I said. I pulled my hat down over my eyes and stood right in front of the gun. I raised both of my arms at the elbows, like a person in a holdup.
The storm-cellar door opened wider, and a second, identical gun barrel extended out and trained on me. Also shaking.
"I'm unarmed," I said (honestly, I noted). "I don't have any weapons.
"Okay," one of them said. "Is someone with you? I can see something behind you."
"There are zombies, and they're very close," I said (ever truthful). "Can you please let me in? I don't want to get eaten." There was a pause, then more whispering. Nothing happened for a full thirty seconds. They were trying to figure out what to do next. (I was glad I was not actually in danger of being eaten by zombies, because this indecisive pair would almost certainly have doomed me.) The zombies behind me had regained their foci, and were almost at my back. I had to act fast.
"Here," I said, advancing toward the gun barrels. "I'm going to head right toward your guns. They're pointed right at my heart, see? You're safe. If I do anything wrong, you can shoot me dead."
I reached for one of the trembling barrels, and gripped it with my fingertips. I pulled it to the center of my chest. Then, with my other hand, I gripped the second barrel and made the same adjustment.
"See, right at my heart," I said. "Now, can you just open up the doors a little? Obviously, I'm not going to try anything."
Another pause. Then one of the two storm-cellar doors opened completely, and I was confronted with two frightened-looking sorority girls (one of them actually wearing a pink sweatshirt inscribed with Greek letters). The closer of the girls (in the pink sweatshirt) took a step toward me. Then my compatriots spilled forward over my shoulders.
"Omigod, zombies!" Pink Sweatshirt said.
In that instant, I tightened my grip on the rifle barrels and held them fast to the center of my chest. Pink Sweatshirt screamed. The other girl-standing beside her, but lower in the bunker-pulled the trigger of her weapon. The slug jolted me, but I kept my grip tight on the guns.
Fortunately for us zombies, so did they.
The girls screamed and pulled back hard, but did not drop their weapons until it was too late. As desperately as they pulled, my grip was always stronger. In an instant, Mario, Rock Star, and Hunter were upon them.
Their shrieks were unbelievable.
In my period of aspiring to be a "good" zombie, I would have tried to excuse or reconcile our consumption of those two young women as a kind of self-defense. They had pointed guns at us. They (or, more likely, "Chet") had set up some kind of trip wire device to foil or kill us. And we? Well ... We were just doing what came naturally, weren't we?
But I was past making such excuses. The moment those girls' brains touched my tongue, it felt right. It felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. The universe made sense. (And if, by someone's estimation, what I was doing was "wrong," thenbelieve you me-I did not want to be right.)
Also, that morning I learned that zombies aren't very good at sharing. They're greedy and pushy and shovey. Luckily, I was faster and more nimble than the other three, and enjoyed the lion's share of the brains at our banquet-leaving the others to chew on skin and guts. (For this selfishness, I felt absolutely no guilt. After all, I'd been the architect of our little operation.)
When we were done, and there was nothing left to chew or swallow, I explored the inside of the little bunker. There were crates of food, generators, and bottles of water (to supplement the well, I supposed). There were also stacks and stacks of women's fitness magazines. A small TV/DVD player was connected to a generator, and stacks of DVDs were piled next to it. The entire interior smelled of a dusky perfume. It turned my stomach.
I took one of their rifles and a heavy Maglite finished in a dull red metal. I shouldered the weapon, and stuck the flashlight through my belt loop. That was all I took.
And we got out of there before Chet could come back.
That night a full, rich moon rose over the Ohio plains. I howled at it out of pure joy, in love with my existence. It felt good. It felt better than good. We wandered north, drunk on murder and brains, and hungry for more.
As we walked, I replayed our encounter with the sorority girls in my mind with an almost pornographic salaciousness. It had not, by any stretch, been a fair fight. We'd "won" because I had not played by the rules, and it occurred to me that my ability to do this was going to be a very powerful thing.
In the animal kingdom-and don't ask me how I remembered this-it takes only a tiny variation to make one animal vastly superior to the others around it. A giraffe with a neck just a few inches longer than its friends' can feast while those around it starve. A gazelle that's just slightly faster t
han the rest of the herd will never have to worry about being caught by lions. Whenever an animal can see better, move faster, or think more quickly than the others-even if it's just to a tiny degree-it will always have an enormous advantage.
As a zombie, this idea applied to me. But my powers were not just a slight advantage. I was off the damn chart. If I'd just been a little faster or slightly smarter than an average zombie, I'd have been at the top of the "food chain" for sure. If I'd been able to surprise humans just by being able to speak, or just by using tools, or not walking straight into the path of concussion grenades, then I'd be the most talented zombie out there-the Michael Jordan of zombies, or whatever. But it wasn't just that I was able to read signs or run a little bit. I could do all of these things. And most problematic of all-for the humans-was the fact that I was aware.
Any animal can think-at least a little bit-but humans excel because they understand that other things are thinking too. When an animal encounters a hungry tiger in the forest, it has two options: fight or flight. (And when you're faced with a tiger, both of these choices are pretty lousy and usually get you eaten.) A human, on the other hand, when surprised by a tiger, understands that the tiger is thinking too. That the tiger has needs and wants. The tiger needs food. It wants a nice dinner, and wants it with the least effort possible. Sure, a human's first instinct night-like an animal's-be fight or flight, but a human will also understand the tiger. This may, for example, lead a threatened human to reason: "Gee ... If I give this tiger the rabbit I just caught, and then back away slowly, maybe the tiger will eat the rabbit instead of me, and I'll live to fight another day." The ability to notice that other things are thinking too has allowed humans, despite a marked lack of claws and fangs, to dominate all other animals for thousands of years.
And humans also dominate because they categorize. They are list-makers. They are stereotype-bestowers. They are racists, and species-ists, and genus-ists. Able to recognize and "know" a thing because they have seen others like it, humans are masters of the split decision.
"Those things can fly."
"Those things are poisonous."
"These are good eatin'."
Humans react quickly because they assume that the things they encounter are probably similar to other things they've encountered before. Living by stereotype-especially in dangerous situations-is what comes naturally to a human.
As a zombie, I knew I would be subject to this "instant stereotyping" by every human who met me. And all of the stereotypes about me would be negative (dull-witted, slow, unable to move evasively when subjected to artillery fire). More important, all of them would be wrong.
When I was on the attack, I was going to be a complete surprise to humans. I was going to break all of their rules. Everything they thought they knew about me would be incorrect. I would be like a lion that could fly, an eagle that could breathe fire, or a shark that could walk on land. I was going to have my teeth in their brains while they were still protesting "Wait a minute! Zombies can't do tha-
But I could. And I would.
I would take their prejudice and use it against them.
The night drew on and a mist descended. We traversed a swampy, snow-covered fen and found a lonely state highway on the other side. It was barren and dark. We followed it. West, I think. After a few miles, a sign confirmed we were on State Highway 36.
We walked until just before dawn, when I saw a figure in the distance silhouetted against the moon. I stopped my little herd to observe it at a distance. Something about the figure's shape was ... familiar. It was ovoid. Vaguely female. And, most important, unarmed.
I conducted my little party toward the figure. When we drew within fifty yards, it, likewise, began to move in our direction. Its gait betrayed it as a zombie, even though it was no more than a silhouette. (This was more than the slow, falling-forward step and outstretched arms. Unlike humans, zombies move with supreme self-assurance. There is no caution. Nothing is tentative. Zombies don't doubt themselves, or second-guess what they're doing. Zombies are confident. It is, perhaps, an idiotic confidence, but a confidence nonetheless. [Many humans could stand to adopt the confidence of a zombie.]) Even before I hit it in the face with the Maglite, I could tell the zombie was-or had been-Matilda.
It stood to reason, I supposed. She had been killed in the shootout at the house, but only hit in the chest. Her brain was unharmed. No reason she shouldn't reanimate.
"What's up, Matilda?" I said jocularly, as we met. "Fancy meeting you again. Are you here to enlist?" She looked at me absently, her dead eyes squinting in the glare of the Maglite. (Somewhere along the way, she had lost her not helmet.) The other zombies gathered around, waiting patiently.
I shone the flashlight over her, noting some blood around her mouth. Perhaps she had already fed. (Perhaps on the bearded man in the "Frogs" jacket, or on some other unlucky soul.) I also noted with a wince that her shirt had been ripped away, and two grossly distended breasts now swayed pendulously in front of her with each stumbling step forward.
"Yikes," I said, averting my eyes. "I don't dig those dugs."
I chuckled, and looked to the mustachioed zombie next to me.
"Get it, Mario? Dig dugs? `Dig-Dug'? C'mon, dude ... It's a video-game reference."
I nudged Mario's ribs, and he managed a little moan.
"Just bustin' your balls," I said to the Matilda-zombie. "I don't think we have much in the way of recruiting standards."
Rock Star gnashed his teeth, and Mario groaned again.
"Well, that's a quorum," I said. "Welcome aboard."
I took Matilda's hand and gently turned her. Together, the five of us headed west.
My band was steadily growing.
Two days of nothing. Silence. Frost.
Walking. So much walking. Yet never a muscle ache-never a shin splint. Not so much as a sore toe assailed us.
We walked and walked. We were like machines.
I became bored with the tedium of Highway 36 after the first day, and turned us once more into the pastures, empty farmland, and small tracts of forest that covered the countryside. It was wild and interesting, but-alas-abandoned. My adolescent desperation and hunger began to grow. I wanted so desperately to feed again soon, but we found no one-living, dead, or undead. It was a world of emptiness. Empty houses. Empty trails. Even an empty hunting lodge, picked clean and bolted shut.
Then, as dawn broke on the third day, a sound.
We were plodding through snowy muck, following the side of an old-growth forest that edged a cornfield, when I began to discern a mechanical din on the wind. It was distant, but nonetheless real. I stopped walking and listened closely to the sound. It went whop whop-whop. It was a chopping sound. And it was getting louder. At first, I pictured a car with a flat tire racing frantically along a barren highway. Then the source drew closer, and I recognized it for what it was. A helicopter. An approaching helicopter.
There was almost no time to act. I considered attempting to hide my band of zombies (or at least myself) in the forest of giant buckeyes and maples. But I knew it would be a challenge to get the other zombies to plunge in in pursuit of nothing. This difficulty aside, I also had to grant-if I was honest-that I was curious about the helicopter. We'd encountered nothing and no one for two whole days. I sort of wanted to see it.
Then it crested the horizon and shot out over the forest-and I saw that it was a military helicopter.
I was ready to flee anew.
The military was about attacking and killing hostile, murderous things ... like groups of zombies. Yet, observing the craft more closely, my alarm began to melt away. There were no missile launchers or mounted guns on this machine. Neither were there turrets or bomb-bay doors. It was an observation helicopter-small, army-green, and bearing a single white star.
As I stood and watched, the other zombies-perhaps interpreting my hesitation as a cue to change direction-spilled past me out into the field, where they made very conspicuous targets. After a
moment, the helicopter appeared to notice the little zombie parade. It visibly changed course, and began a wide circle back toward our position.
"Well, fuck," I said hoarsely. "I guess we're making new friends." I decided that unless one of the pilots wanted to roll down a window and take a potshot at us, we were probably safe. I remembered my own rifle-taken off the sorority girls-as I studied the helicopter. Hell, I thought, I've got more firepower than it does.
I cautiously followed my compatriots out into the field and watched the helicopter hover above us. It drifted over slowly, and took up a steady position about fifty yards away from where we were standing. I could see two men-soldiers-in the cockpit. They were chatting. Smiling. One of them appeared to be making notes on a clipboard. From time to time, this note-taking soldier pulled a pair of binoculars to his face and observed us through them. Then he took more notes.
After few minutes of this, I began to feel uncomfortable-like I was an animal in a zoo, or a freak on display in an old-timey carnival. It was like these soldiers were on zombie safari, and I was supposed to be some sort of exotic beast for them to document. I hated this thought. I was nobody's zoo animal, I reminded myself. I was a proud, All-American zombie.
I suddenly wanted to eat the helicopter soldiers with a furious intensity. (I understood that this was not practically possible, but the desire was there.) That would show them! I wracked my brain for a way to get at them, but they were hovering just out of reach. What was I gonna do, shoot them down with my sorority girl's rifle? I was no marksman. It'd be dumb luck if I hit anything at all. I hated to admit it, but these smiling, floating men were safe.
And still looking at me.
Impetuously, I gave them the finger. Just one firm digit, raised firm and high. I let it linger there defiantly, and I glared over it at the helicopter. Sit and spin, boys. Sit and spin.
I might as well have fired off an RPG.
The helicopter swiveled crazily on its axis. The soldiers' heads turned back and forth, and they gestured frantically. Their lazy-safari smiles fell away, and were replaced by masks of incredulity. The one with the clipboard trained his binoculars on me looking again and again, as if he could not believe what he was seeing.
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