by Robin Becker
Zombies would die in the process. That’s collateral damage. Ask any president or general. Study any war or revolution. Soldiers die. Innocents die. Winner takes all.
Operation Zombie Shield. I mapped it out, and like the best of plans, it was simple: The next time a newbie entered the cage, we would storm, en bloc, and shuffle out the door. Less-developed zombies concentrated in the front, in the back, and on the periphery; those with some cognition clumped in the middle, with the core group-Eve, Joan, Brad, Guts, and myself-snug in the center, protected, hopefully, by the mindless multitude surrounding us.
I showed the plans to the zombies who could focus on paper. They were crude drawings, stick-figure pictures even a child could understand. We also pantomimed the scene, with Guts playing the newbie and Joan a guard.
That Guts was a ham, a natural actor. His layers of reality were believable and complex-he “acted” more zombielike than he actually was: The light went out of his eyes, replaced by an exquisite expression of blankness. After the performance, his sparkle returned, just like that. The kid deserved an Oscar-or at least a Golden Globe.
Brad and I played peripheral zombies and I made sure to grab the walkie-talkie, represented by a cow bone, out of Joan’s hand and throw it across the cage. It was essential to sever the military’s line of communication, if only briefly. Every second would count.
I didn’t know if the plan was communicated. The zombies were at least entertained by our performance, watching us like it was the Fourth of July and we were a fireworks display.
Oh! The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men (an’ zombies).
Gang aft agley.
That’s Zombie Robert Burns, by the way. His poetic apology to a field mouse he accidentally ran over with a plow. The poor rodent was chewed up and spit out. I hoped things would fare better for us.
JOAN, MY FIRST mate, Zombie Army’s five-star general, our own personal Florence Night-in-hell, Joan had a bone to pick with Operation Zombie Shield. Joan had developed her own ideas.
As a matter of fact, Joan had a valid point.
Give these stench-wenches an inch…and they’ll bite off your festering prick.
This was how we communicated: Joan pointed to my drawing of Ros bringing in a new prisoner and shook her head no. I shrugged my shoulders and raised my hands, palms up in the classic “Wha’?” gesture. Joan tapped her head with her finger, setting loose a large scabby piece of her temple, which she kicked aside with her nurse’s shoe-no longer white, now rusted with blood.
With Guts playing Ros, Joan got down on all fours and lumbered around. She winced as her knee touched the cold steel floor of our moving cage and I felt a sympathetic twinge in my shoulder.
“Moooaaah,” she moaned.
She was imitating a cow. Lord, she looked ugly doing it. Her conical breasts pointed straight down like stalactites. What had she been like in life? Was she married? With children? I imagined her as a brusque woman, bustling, efficient, and single. Suitors found her torpedo boobs intimidating. If not the breasts themselves then most certainly the bra, with its reinforcements, dominatrix straps and hooks, and impossibly large, pointy cups. Think Madonna circa 1992 but without the irony. You could poke an eye out with those things.
I made up a life for Joan: She was a woman whose career consumed her, filling the void of her loneliness. She lived near the hospital in an undecorated but immaculate one-room walk-up. She looked down on doctors, seeing them as bland faces with stethoscopes wielded like whips, and anyway, her diagnoses came quicker and more accurately than theirs, because she listened to patients. She expressed her disdain by dropping the definite article when referring to doctors, as in “Doctor will examine you shortly.”
As in, zombie will eat your brains shortly. Would you like a magazine while you wait?
It was obvious Saint Joan wanted us to attack and make our escape when the guards ushered in our next meal, not the next prisoner of war.
I shook my head no.
She tapped her wristwatch and spread her arms wide like she was telling a fish tale. And I’ll say it again: She had a point.
The cage was full-at overcapacity, federal-prison levels of occupancy-and the guards hadn’t brought in a newbie for days. In fact, we’d been moving for a solid day, which was unusual. I nodded at her and tapped my head, indicating I’d think about it. She wagged her finger at me, then pointed to Eve’s belly-which was ready to pop. Eve was looking corpsier than ever and her stomach was moving, the zombino within writhing like an alien about to explode.
Eve could not have the baby in captivity. No child of mine would be born a slave.
Saint Joan was right. We had to escape immediately. Whichever came first: cow or zombie. I had to set us free.
Move over, Moses. Step aside, Joseph Smith. There was a new prophet in town.
Pharaoh, let my people go!
CHAPTER NINE
JUST A FEW short hours after my conversation with Joan, there was a commotion. Ros and Guil were whooping and laughing; superior officers came rushing down from the front of the line. A high-ranking general arrived by helicopter. I inched toward the bars, Guts following close behind. The dead stepped aside for us; such was my influence.
America ’s favorite daytime television talk-show host stood outside our cage, trapped in the corpse catcher. Although her neck was in the steel encasement and her arms and legs were shackled, her head was left uncovered. She had the complexion of the undead and her lips were cracked and coated with dried blood, but her hair was coiffed to perfection, not a strand out of place.
We must be near Chicago, I thought. Stein’s home base.
Lucy had been a fan of her show and I’d seen it once or twice, rolling my eyes as she nattered on about chemical peels or health care reform, Tom Cruise or her favorite scented soap. Both the president of the United States and the winner of the Westminster dog show had been on her couch, and as far as I could tell, she treated them with equal importance. Lucy thought she was a woman of the people, a hero. A self-made Queen of All Media.
The Queen was currently biting at the air, snarling and foaming; through it all, she still looked regal.
“Watch out, sir,” Ros said to the general, “she’s a fighter.”
“You think I can’t handle a zombie, soldier?” the general asked Ros.
“No, sir.” Ros gulped.
The general thrust back his shoulders. He had a crew cut and his uniform was pressed and clean-too clean for the dirty business of rounding up zombies. His medals shone in the sun.
“What did you say?” he asked.
Here was our chance: Take one smug officer who lives at his desk, put him to the test in the field, and watch him fuck up.
“I said no but I meant yes, sir. At least I think I meant yes.”
“He meant you can,” Guil put in, “handle a zombie.”
“Right,” Ros said. “Absolutely, you can absolutely handle a zombie, sir. Just please, sir, don’t get too close. You have to be careful of their spit. It’s toxic. Sir.”
“Son, I’ve been handling zombies since before you were born.”
“With all due respect,” Guil said, “that’s impossible, sir.” He took off his helmet. His black hair was knotted against his head, as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks.
The general waved his hand at our cage. “If not zombies per se, then gooks, A-rabs. Same difference. Enemies. Insurgents.”
“Yes, sir. Just be careful. Zombies are a new breed.”
Our brains, I realized as I watched Guil comb his fingers through his hair and replace his helmet. We needed to protect our brains. It was the only way to escape unscathed. I nudged Guts and pointed to the helmet, then mimed putting it on my head. He nodded.
“Not so important now, are you?” an infantryman said, and threw a rock at the Queen. It hit her in the head and she turned toward the soldier, barking like a dog. The corpse catchers held tight to their poles, one at each limb like she was being drawn and quart
ered.
“Get back to your station,” Ros said, “before I kick your ass back. We’ll have none of that here.”
“I hate zombie bitches,” the young man muttered as he walked away, “especially black zombie bitches. Excuse me, African-American zombie bitches.”
I rubbed Guts’s shoulder in sympathy. Racism and sexism are ugly enough without adding zombism to the mix.
Oh, hateful, hateful humans.
“Sorry for that, sir,” Ros said to the general. “The men have been under a lot of pressure lately. Everyone has.”
“It’s to be expected,” the general said, “during wartime. They’re only human.” The general pointed to the Queen. “And she’s not.”
“Woo-hoo!” one of the corpse catchers said. “But what a catch! Are they gonna give us a commendation or what? Maybe get interviewed on TV.”
“I watched her show every day with my mom,” another said, shaking his head. “And to see her like this, it just breaks my heart.”
“Where’d you find her?” the general asked.
“Over by the train station.”
“We didn’t know who it was at first. She had her face stuck in a dog. All we could see was her dress and that hair.”
“Stuckey was gonna go ahead and shoot, but I thought the hair looked familiar.”
“I fired in the air,” Stuckey said. “She looked up and I got a good look at her face. Even with the dog fetus hanging outta her mouth, I recognized her. Ha! Crazy goddamn world.”
“Mooaaahhhh!” said the Queen.
“Better corral her,” Guil said.
“Negative,” the general said. “I’ve ordered a photographer, should be touching down any minute, and I intend to corral this particular zombie myself. Take some souvenir pictures. For the wife, the papers, posterity, that sort of thing.”
“Like Abu Ghraib?” Ros asked.
“You’re in dangerous territory, soldier.”
I found myself liking Ros more and more. Cheeky bastard.
GUTS AND I rushed back to Joan, Eve, and Brad. We had to mobilize the crew before the photographer arrived. We had to execute my plan.
I stood in the center of the cage, Guts on my shoulders, the hockey mask protecting my injury from his little leg. And Guts, the star, the natural born leader, he laid out the plan, gesturing with his hands for the dumb zombies one last time.
To hold their interest, I threw out bits of brain I’d stored in my professor pockets. Saint Joan did her part, walking among them, caressing bite sites, securing bandages, sealing up holes. She was a born healer. I spied Brad and Eve mingling with the masses, holding hands. Young undead in love; I’d lost her to him.
No matter. I had a people to save. Freedom to secure.
We heard the whir of a helicopter and I made my way back to the bars. The photographer ducked under the chopper’s blades; she was in her twenties, with short bushy hair and wire-framed glasses. Touched with the beauty of youth, she was chunky in all the right places, like a thick cut of chuck roast-the strips of fat are the tastiest part.
The general held out his hand for the corpse catcher’s pole while the photographer read her light meter and lined up angles. She had both a thirty-five-millimeter and a digital camera and she started snapping away, her thighs pressing against her khakis like trussed-up turkeys.
She turned her lens on the cage. Instinctively I smiled. She brought the camera down to her waist and we made eye contact. I winked.
“General,” she said, “I think that zombie just smiled and winked at me.”
“Nonsense,” Ros said.
“A trick of the light,” said Guil.
“It’s what you want to see,” Ros said.
“A projection,” Guil said. “Like anthropomorphism.”
I backed away from the bars and took my place in the center of the group. Guts scurried around our legs, positioning zombie elbows, fingers, and hands on bite sites. We had to be connected. We had to throb as one.
Saint Joan was next to me. My knee touched her knee and her hand was on my shoulder. We tingled, an army of red ants itching for a fight.
The door opened to let in the newbie and we moved forward in tight formation.
“Is this normal?” the general asked.
The camera clicked in rapid succession.
“What the fuck?” Guil said.
“Who bandaged them?” the general asked. “Is that SOP?”
We advanced. Guil fired at us.
I heard the squawk of a walkie-talkie and Guts ran forward like a sprite, revealing his true superpower: He moved with the speed and agility of a human. When he returned, he handed me the device and I turned it off. How he wrested it from the guard, I’ll never know.
We moved forward, slow and sure. Methodical monsters. Zombies fell in front of me, shot in the head. We stepped on them. They made a soft carpet.
“I can’t control her!” the general said. “I’m losing her!”
The general dropped the long pole with a clank. The Queen of All Media picked it up, wielding it like nunchakus. She swung, missing the general but ramming the remaining three corpse catchers. The men fell down.
“Shoot her!” someone yelled.
“Negative! Hold your fire!” the general said. “That’s our prized catch. She is to be taken alive. That’s an order!”
“Actually,” Ros said, “I believe undead is the word you’re looking for.”
“I’ve had enough out of you!” the general yelled.
The Queen was free. With a pole in each hand, she knocked down Ros and Guil. Their guns clattered to the ground. Guts sprinted up, kicked the walkie-talkies and guns out of reach, and removed Ros’s helmet. The general fired and hit Guts in the back, but the urchin barely flinched. The general fired again and hit Ros in the arm. The soldier rolled in pain. Guts ran back to my side and presented me with the helmet, which I immediately donned. It had a Blink-182 sticker on it.
Brad Pitt Zombie, inspired, perhaps, by the bravery of Guts, stumbled forward and removed Guil’s helmet. Someone shot Brad in the head and his brains exploded in a star-spangled display of gore. Guil ran for cover.
“Noooooooooah!” Eve moaned. It was the closest to language I’d heard from her, such was her grief.
Emboldened by the protection of my brains, I grabbed Guil’s helmet out of Brad’s stiff arms and gave it to Joan, my second in command. Ros was lying on the ground a few feet away, shot and helpless, and, Lord forgive me, the timing was all wrong, my attention should have been on the melee and the escape, but the urge, the urge, the urge, always the procreant urge…I bit him on top of the head, scalping him.
Ah, creamy nougat of live human flesh, I adore thee. A thousand times better than cow or rabbit. Ros screamed. Guil ran to his side.
“Shoot me,” Ros said, clutching his friend’s collar.
“How could I?”
“Death is not anything. Death is not…,” Ros said.
“Life?”
“Death is the absence of presence. But living death is…”
“The presence of absence?” Guil said.
“But do I want to die?”
“Why would you?”
“Perhaps life as a zombie is better than no life at all,” Ros said.
“Roger that.”
The photographer ran away, her sweet fat untasted. The general fired aimlessly, pointlessly, until he ran out of bullets, stopped to reload, and was attacked by the hive. The general had read the script. He knew his part: corpulent, arrogant, dinner.
I took a few moments to chew on Ros’s hairy head while listening to him and Guil prattle. Gunshots whizzed around me. Humans emitted their death shrieks. In the distance reinforcements were running toward us, firing away.
“Wait with me, old friend,” Ros said. “The future.”
“The future?”
“It’s murky.”
“It always is.”
The Queen snuck up behind the babbling pair and bit Guil in the
neck, making it official: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were undead.
Oh, gotta love those allusions.
Stringy veins hung from the Queen’s mouth like bean sprouts. I looked into her eyes; no one was home.
I left the three of them and pushed my way through the feeding frenzy surrounding the general. Zombies fell away, bowing as I marched past, paying homage to their liberator.
I was commanding as much respect as Jesus Christ on Palm Sunday. Wrap your juicy brains around that.
The general’s head was cracked open, brains exposed, helmet on the ground next to him. I grabbed a fistful of the gray matter and stuck it in my pockets. I also extracted his liver and a layer of blubber from his stomach-who knew when we’d feed again?
I gathered my family and bestowed the general’s helmet on Eve, securing the straps underneath her weak chin. Only Guts was left unprotected.
The reinforcements were almost upon us. The Queen stepped between us and them, waving her arms like Vishnu, the poles still attached. Destroyer. Preserver. She stopped them in their tracks.
“Holy shit, bro, is that who I think it is?”
She swung those steel octopus arms and knocked a few soldiers down.
They shot her in the head, and she fell to the ground.
Even the great tumble.
As for us, we ran, shambled, hobbled away. A bullet pinged off my helmet but did no damage. We looked at the road ahead of us. We didn’t dare turn around and look back.
CHAPTER TEN
AT A REST stop near DeKalb, we spotted two young humans looting a Kum and Go. I felt sorry for the critters; they couldn’t have been more than ten and they were completely vulnerable. The easiest of prey, they might as well have been wrapped in plastic in the meat department of your local grocery store. No weapons, no strength, no adult protection; it’s a wonder they were still alive. The girl clutched a package of Zingers; the boy held a Twinkie.
No bell dinged as we entered the store; the electricity was out. Joan locked the door behind us. The kids tried to run, but we circled them like cavemen; on my signal, we attacked.