Amid all the banality of the (mostly) gray days, there were still more weird things to see. More things that made no sense. More things I can't-to this day-explain.
When crossing a muddy patch by a farmhouse outside of a town called Bangs, we heard rock music playing on a loudspeaker in some nearby woods. It was "Don't Stop Believin"' by Journey. I stopped and listened for a bit, absently tapping my foot in time to the music. Was it a signal from humans to other humans? Was it a lure for zombies? Just a guy rockin' out in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? I decided not to investigate. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the music ceased. As we were walking away, I thought I heard it cue up again for a split second, but then it was gone.
On a different day, this time close to Sparta, we watched as a farmer-far in the distance-stood on the top of his silo and pulled live cats out of a burlap sack, dropping them to their deaths below. (I thought about stopping to eat his brain, but reckoned that a silo would be pretty defensible, especially if the farmer was armed with something other than cats. I drew a bead on him with my M16, just for fun, but decided in the end to walk away. The cats continued to rain down as we did so. More and more of them. Soon, it was almost beyond crediting. How many cats could you fit in a burlap sack? We didn't stick around to find out, but the answer, apparently, is: A lot.)
Other things were not insane or beyond explanation. Other things made perfect sense. Ghost towns. Abandoned homes and abandoned farms. Houses that were burned or looted or both. Piles of burned corpses that were, on closer inspection, actually dead zombies, each one shot carefully through the forehead.
In addition to the piled-up dead ones, we periodically saw signs of giant zombie conglomerates, like our own; trampled swaths in the fields where large groups of zombies had passed through, their slow, unanimous treads leaving deep indentations in the mud. Other, smaller swaths showed places where human gangs had passed, leaving food wrappers, apple cores, and shell casings. My hunch about this-this landscape, this world, this endless combathad been right. Both sides were improving. Getting better.
What humans needed to do to survive a zombie apocalypse was move carefully and fight effectively (against zombies, but also against other humans). The humans who weren't "good" at this were mostly dead by now. They'd been claimed in the first few weeks of the outbreak. The humans that were still around were more dangerous. More crafty. The survivors. (But being a crafty, violent survivor didn't necessarily mean you were a well-adjusted person.)
On the zombie side, the "improved" survivors would include zombies like me-who might be able to think a little-and zombies who had, out of sheer luck, massed into large, unstoppable groups. Individual or "loner" zombies who made easy target practice had been brought down by humans early in the game. But huge groups of zombies-who might be able to overturn a car, break down a hastily improvised barricade, or exhaust somebody's supply of ammunition-were more difficult to fuck up. Most humans thought twice before risking an engagement with a large zombie group.
Things were definitely getting more lethal out here, not less. As the weeks crept on, this would only continue. Soon, only the largest zombie armies and the most well-armed, clever humans were going to be left.
There was no doubt about it. Things were gonna get even more interesting.
I was at the head of my battalion of zombies-now swelled to perhaps four hundred and fifty in number-and we were crawling along Township Road 213 near Marengo, closing in on Highway 71 (and its purported Green Zone), when I began to see thick plumes of greasy black smoke wafting up into the morning air in the distance. They appeared to be coining from the base of a far-off water tower, perhaps a mile ahead of us, inside Marengo proper. The burn was unhealthy. It was like the smoke from an industrial or tire fire-not like somebody burning leaves. Not organic. (Maybe, I conjectured, someone was trying to burn down the water tower in just another act of madness.)
We were close to the Green Zone now. So very close. According to the map I'd copied, Marengo was right next to the highway. We approached the village warily, eschewing the main roads and cutting through fields instead. Part of me wanted to ignore the smoke entirely. (What if it was a trap, or a signal between groups of humans?) My goal was to reach Highway 71 and learn the extent of the Green Zone, not to be discovered. Unless the smoke was from an unwise cookout being held by delicious humans, I was hardly inclined to investigate it.
But as we neared the edges of Marengo, I found I could discern the source of the smoke, even from a distance, and I had to admit, I was intrigued by what I saw: A military helicopter had crashed into the legs of the water tower. (It was, I later learned, an AH-64 Apache.) This was not the kind of innocent-looking, observational craft I'd flipped off and shot at before. This one had missiles mounted under the wings and large, circular cannons like giant Gatling guns. It was the kind of helicopter that, when operational, could fuck up a big group of zombies with ease.
Now, however, it seemed in less than a position to do that. While the craft appeared more or less intact, it rested at an odd angle within the legs of the tower, and plumes of smoke continued to spill out of its engine. (It looked very heavy, and I was impressed that the legs of the water tower had not simply given way beneath its weight.) The helicopter's blades were still and its motors silent, but I thought I glimpsed a quivering movement within the cockpit.
Curiosity got the best of me, and I directed my zombie battalion toward the smoking wreck. I soon got a completely clear view, and saw that the helicopter was hanging about five feet off of the ground. When the wind picked up, it rocked back and forth and the girders of the tower groaned. If the pilots were alive, it was a precarious situation for them (even without the four hundred and fifty zombies milling about below).
"It's like a pinata," I said to the Turk. "We just smack it around until some people fall out." I mimed hitting a pinata with a stick, using my M16. The Turk seemed to know what I meant. He walked over and began pawing at the base of the helicopter with his fingertips. A few other zombies joined him. The helicopter began to sway.
Then I heard a voice coming from inside the body of the craft. A pilot talking into a radio. I motioned to the Turk to stop his banging, and pushed the other zombies off. Then I cupped my ear to the hull and listened.
"This is Lafayette Zero Six; come in, please," the pilot said. "This is Lafayette Zero Six; do you copy? I'm half a click outside of the Green Zone in Marengo. I'm in the center of the town, underneath the water tower. Total instrument failure. Gunner is ... I think he's dead. Looks like I've already got a pretty good crowd of moving cadavers. Request evac. Request evac. Do you copy?"
I'd heard enough.
Half a click from the "Green Zone." That could only mean Interstate 71. The map with the pushpins had been right. This was just as I had hoped. The helicopter pilot's words had piqued my curiosity. (Hearing anybody's words did. As a zombie, I was accustomed to traveling for days in dead silence, with only my own quips and had puns to keep me company.)
Here was a human who was not only talking, but talking about the Green Zone. I decided I wanted to know more about what was going on, even if it meant letting the man live for a while. I stepped away from the belly of the suspended helicopter and began, carefully, to climb the network of girders that comprised the legs of the water tower. The helicopter continued to sway and wheeze in the wind.
Like all zombies, I was not adept at climbing. Only by careful contortions and gentle shifts of my weight was I able to make my way upward through the girders. Really, it was very slow going. It took five minutes for me to climb five feet. When I was more or less level with the craft, I approached the cockpit from behind so the pilot would not see me. The glass around it looked impenetrable, but I drew one of my heavy revolvers anyway. Moving as furtively as possible, I edged around the side of the helicopter and peered inside. There were two seats in the nose of the machine. The front seat contained a man who was unmoving and slumped forward against his controls. Unconscious
or dead. Likely dead.
The rear seat-the one closer to me-contained a young man in a pilot's uniform who was still very much alive. He looked perhaps twenty, Caucasian, and had a gaunt face with a lower lip that frumped forward, making him look sad. He didn't appear to be armed. I decided to take my chances.
"Hey," I shouted, rapping on the window with the butt of my gun. "Hello there!"
The man spun around wildly-shocked to see someone up in the girders-and looked me up and down.
"I've got some questions about Highway 71," I said. "We can do this the easy way or the hard-" I stopped mid-sentence because the young man had turned white and pressed himself against the far side of the cockpit, as if attempting to flatten himself. He stared at me with terrified eyes, his mouth agape. You would have thought he'd never seen a zombie before.
I mean, I wasn't about to win any beauty pageants, but as zombies go, I wasn't all that bad. There were no holes in my face. All of my limbs were present. I still had my skin and hair and both eyes. Even my teeth were still intact. I doubted seriously that I could be the first zombie this pilot had seen. (Maybe he was only used to regarding them from the air at great distances, or perhaps it was the fact that I was talking and holding a gun.)
The pilot's face was the very picture of terror, and yet he refused to look away from me. He edged his hand over to a button on his control panel and depressed it, never once dropping his gaze, his hand visibly trembling.
"This is Lafayette Zero Six," the young man began. He spoke slowly and soberly, as if every syllable were absolutely vital.
"Repeat: This is Lafayette Zero Six. I'm half a click east of the Green Zone in Marengo. I'm staring at the Colonel. Repeat. I am staring at the Colonel. He is on the other side of the glass, talking to me. The Colonel is standing right here, talking to me. Request ...
He dropped the radio button for a moment, then brought his hand back to it.
"Request air strike."
I didn't completely understand what was going on, but felt proud that I was being called a colonel. (It was almost a general, wasn't it?)
I tapped on the window again.
"Seriously," I said raspily. "Let's have a little chat."
The pilot released his radio button, but he remained flattened with terror.
"C'mon," I said. "Talk to me, kid. It'll kill time while we wait for the air strike. I know you can hear me."
He looked at me, still very afraid. I had the feeling his radio was dead. Nobody was talking back to him, and there was surely no air strike coming. Yet that's not to say I felt it was a completely safe situation. Many things could happen, and scared humans usually got violent. Also, I didn't want to stand on the water-tower girders any longer than I had to. I put my gun back in the holster and steadied myself against the gently swaying helicopter.
"Look, I'm not gonna eat you ... but you've got to talk to me," I told him. "I can't think of a better deal for you than that. I'll let you live if you talk to me." My logic appealed to the pilot. He was about to give. I could see it in his eyes.
"Or," I continued, "if you like, my guys and I can rock this bird back and forth until you fall to the ground, and then it's four hundred and fifty against one, give or take. Up here, you've got much better odds. Trust me. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'. You know ... again.
"What do you want to know?" he finally asked, the fright making his voice almost as hoarse as mine.
"Okay, so the Green Zone-that's the highway, right?" I asked. "That's 71?"
"Yes," he said. His reply was confused and slightly contemptuous, like I'd asked him to confirm that water was wet.
"And the Green Zone," I continued, "it runs from Columbus to Cleveland? And those cities-they're also part of the Green Zone?"
"Of course," he said. "Everybody knows that. What are you asking me that for?"
I decided to try a new line.
"Okay, next question," I said. "Who is `the Colonel'? You were just talking about him on your radio. Is that me?"
"Look, why are you making me tell you things you already know?" he stammered, still clearly terrified. "What kind of game are you playing here? Is this like Saw or some shit?"
"Just tell me," I said sternly. "I'm letting you live, aren't I? Now tell me ... who is `the Colonel'?"
"You are, of course," he said.
This assertion confused me. But a moment later, as I absently reached to adjust the brim of my hat, I instantly understood what the soldier was telling me.
He had not said "the Colonel." He had said "the Kernel." He was referencing the Cedar Rapids Kernels hat that I'd worn since the first day of my reanimation.
"Okay," I said to the frightened soldier. "Like we agreed, I'm gonna let you live."
"Okay," the scared soldier answered.
"But first, you're going to do one thing more," I continued. "You're going to tell me everything you know about the Kernel."
Apparently, I was famous.
Not good famous, like George Washington famous or Bruce Springsteen famous (or even Britney Spears famous).
I was had famous. Maybe a better word is "infamous." Like Keyser Soze, or Bigfoot, or Benedict Arnold. My fame (or infamy) had begun when observational helicopters had first recorded me.
Pilots had brought back wild tales and shaky photographs of a zombie they claimed had gestured and communicated like a human. At first, their peers and superiors had not believed the pilots, but corroborating reports began to trickle in from different sources. Civilians communicating over radio said things about a talking zombie in a Kernels hat. Eyewitnesses who had made it to the Green Zone recalled having seen a large group of zombies headed by a gun-toting zombie who was talking to himself. (Bad puns, as they recalled.) The one constant in all the reports-always-was a red-and-blue Cedar Rapids Kernels baseball cap.
"The Kernel" became the name jocularly assigned to me by the military pilots who patrolled the edges of the Green Zone near Knox County. Whether I existed for real, or was only a fairy tale, was the subject of some heated debates.
True, there were a handful of hastily snapped aerial photographs featuring a zombie in a Cedar Rapids Kernels hat who appeared to be holding a gun or giving the finger. These had been circulated widely and posted in many of the pilots' lounges. However, a zombie with a gun in his hand did not mean a zombie with full sentience, and the military higher-ups were loath to acknowledge the Kernel as a phenomenon worth pursuing. (At least, officially.) Yet interest could not be repressed among the army helicopter pilots and National Guard soldiers who ran missions in and around the area.
The facts, such as they were, became speculations that soon transformed themselves into something approaching mythology. Just as soldiers in the Iraq wars had turned camel spiders into two-foot monsters that could bite off half your face as you slept, the airmen in rural Ohio soon turned the Kernel into an undead criminal mastermind of epic proportions.
It was said that the Kernel liked to sneak into the Green Zone late at night, slip into a tent, and eat the brain of just one sleeping soldier, leaving the others to find their dead comrade the next morning. Some pilots claimed that on dark and stormy nights they had seen the Kernel piloting a phantom helicopter (or even an airplane), like some sort of zombie foo fighter. Others still said the Kernel commanded an army of zombies, and ruled over them like a god-or that he was not like a god, but u'as the God of Zombies. (He had risen from his grave after exactly three days, and would someday lead his zombie followers to a promised land.)
Many of the things said about the Kernel could not possibly be true-or at least, could not possibly be true concurrently-and in a way, these irreconcilable contradictions made him more of a bogeyman and less of a real, tactile threat to be feared. The Kernel could sometimes be invoked as a humorous specter. A googly-eyed bogeyman. A caricature.
"Don't let the Kernel get you," soldiers along the Columbus/ Cleveland Green Zone might say to one another before going out on patrol.
I -was a myth. A
monster of the Ohio backwoods. Like the New Jersey Devil, but for Knox County. And yet I was plainly not a legend at all, but a real flesh-and-blood zombie. I was standing right here, before this shaky young pilot. I was talking to him.
The pilot-his name was Carson, his flight suit said-took a full half-hour to finish telling me about myself. (I suspected he genuinely believed the air strike was on the way, and that he was succeeding in keeping me fixed until it struck.) His sentences were long and wandering, and delivered with the machine-gun cadence of a man on a speedy drug.
"One last thing," I said, when he had finished. "Your friend there ... I need you to give him to me."
"What?" the pilot said.
"Look," I told him, "it's one thing for me to climb down and leave you in peace, but the other zombies can smell you. I'm going to need your friend's body to lure them away. Let's just hope he died recently enough that they're still interested in his brain."
"No way," the pilot said. "If I open the window you'll shoot me.
"You'll have to trust me," I told him.
"No," the pilot said again.
"I'm not going to eat you or shoot you," I insisted. "I just want to pull your buddy's body out through the hatch."
"No," he said a third time.
"You're armed, too, aren't you?" I asked him.
He nodded.
"Well, pull out your gun and point it at me," I said. "If I try anything, you can shoot me dead. You'll be the guy who killed the Kernel. But I need your help, and I think you need me too. Think about what'll happen to you if I don't lead these zombies away. Sooner or later, the wind is going to blow you down from these girders. You should survive the fall just fine, but when you do hit that ground ... Well, do you want a crowd of zombies waiting for you, or do you want to hop out into an empty Marengo with no zombies and jog a half-mile back to the Green Zone?"
There was a pause as Carson considered it.
"I'll shoot you in the head if you try anything," he said, taking a handgun from his belt and leveling it at me through the glass.
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