Brains: A Zombie Memoir

by Robin Becker

  If only I had some capital and a supplier, I could open a Brains Superstore in that strip mall. Good location, plenty of customers. BrainsMart, I’d call it. Or BrainSmart. How about Old Brainy? Brains R Us. I could go on, but why bother?

  Beyond the mall was a scrubby little field, and beyond that a scrubby suburb of cookie-cutter McMansions and McTown Houses. That’s where we headed. From there, we’d continue east, through fields and subdivisions, away from the highway with its teeming masses. Even if we were to encounter an edible human on the main road, the competition would be keen.

  “Hunhhhhhm,” Saint Joan gurgled. She was struggling with Eve, trying to lift the insentient Mother Zombie off the snow. There were rust-colored ice crystals hanging off Eve’s stump and her entire back was frozen solid like a side of beef hanging on a meat hook. Joan showed me her shoulders; the rope had burned through her nurse’s uniform and was making headway into her flesh.

  “Stupid zombie,” Ros said, pointing at Eve where she lay on the snow. “Stupid zombie,” he repeated, pointing at Kapotas, who was at least standing on his own but leaning forward on his peg leg as if about to fall, his arms hanging at his sides. The blue embroidery thread on his neck was unraveling.

  Nothing lasts forever. Not even zombies.

  I nodded. If I had any breath, I would’ve exhaled a plume of steam in the cold air.

  “Undead weight,” Ros said. “Slowing us down.”

  Guts pelted Ros with a snowball, hitting him on his metal head.

  “Why you little…,” Ros said, and took off after the rascal.

  Poor Ros. Our speedy Gutsy Gonzalez ran circles around him. Because Ros, despite his amazing ability-pull his string and watch him talk!-traveled at zombie speed. Ros stretched his arms out, thumbs together in the classic throttling position-Homer Simpson about to choke Bart-and shuffled a few inches through the snow. Guts hit him with another snowball, square in the face.

  Sitting in his red plastic sled, Isaac clapped his devil hands.

  Rosebud, I thought. Red wheelbarrow. All of it necessary.

  Ros had a point about Kapotas and Eve, but I couldn’t abandon the mother of the child. Not yet.

  We heard a caw, and a pair of crows flew overhead, dwarfing the snowbirds and cardinals we had been seeing. Annie drew her pistol, aimed, shot twice, and the crows thumped to the ground. Everyone clapped her on the back. Our sharpshooter. Not consumptive Annabel Lee but Annie Oakley, Queen of the Dead Midwest. I pointed at Guts, then in the direction of the felled birds, and he jogged off to fetch them.

  “Love that kid,” Ros said. He looked at Annie. “You too,” he said.

  Guts returned with the birds. They were scrawny and underfed, but we ate them, feathers, feet, bones, beaks, eyes-everything. Zombies are like Indians; no part of the animal is wasted.

  “Mooooaaaauah,” Kapotas moaned, grabbing for the pebble-sized heart speared on Isaac’s fingernail. Before he could reach it, however, Guts sprang to action and tackled Kapotas, who went down like a meat mannequin. Guts perched on the sculptor’s barrel chest, restraining him while munching on a crow’s foot.

  “Needs salt,” Ros said, iridescent black feathers hanging from his mouth. “And brains.”

  What a joker he was, a regular Groucho Marx.

  After the meal, we headed toward the subdivision. Kapotas remained on the ground and I didn’t coax him up. If he rose on his own, we wouldn’t prevent him from coming with us; we weren’t cruel. But he didn’t. He just lolled right where Guts tackled him, staring up at the sun and moaning. Saint Joan looked back at him, and if she were capable of nuanced expression, I’d say her face was wistful. She was, after all, a healer.

  “Good riddance,” Ros said. “Bad rubbish.” He pointed at Eve, who was walking backward, being pulled by me. “Her next.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  OURS WERE THE only footprints on the snow-covered asphalt, and the trail we left behind was dragging and heavy as if we were skiing, not walking. We passed the subdivision’s sentries: two concrete lions atop two concrete pillars with the word KING’S etched in one and COURT in the other.

  King’s Court was a typical housing development-all the trees had been razed to pour foundations and only a few homeowners had bothered to plant new ones. The houses were a combination of aluminum siding and brick, with a maximum of three floor plans to choose from. There were no sidewalks or corner stores, but there were basketball hoops in driveways, plastic play sets in backyards, and two-car garages. Inside the houses we found Berber and shag carpets, linoleum kitchens with faux-granite countertops, and more bathrooms than necessary.

  We wandered up and down Bishop Lane and Queen Street, through Knight’s Crossing and Crown Drive, zombies on a giant chessboard of middle-class mediocrity. We ransacked the houses, hoping for a whiff of human or pet and searching for supplies.

  In a two-story Tudor on Pawn Way, Joan found an all-terrain stroller for Isaac. It was one of those trendy carriages, a three-wheeler with a Gore-tex awning and shock absorbers. Designed for the active mother trying to lose that baby weight, it used to cost more than a beat-up station wagon. It was free now.

  Guts lifted Isaac from his sled and strapped him into the stroller, fussing over the baby like a mother hen.

  Although Isaac could walk, he preferred not to and I didn’t blame him. Like free will, walking is overrated. Plus, the tot wasn’t very good at it, wobbling around like a drunken devil, and we all enjoyed coddling and protecting him.

  We believed Isaac was the future.

  There was movement at the end of the cul-de-sac, a human scurrying from Rubbermaid trash can to Ford Focus like a wild animal. We picked up the scent, bite sites tingling, and convened in the middle of the street.

  Everyone except Eve, that is. She took off after the creature, arms raised, helmet on sideways, the ear protector covering her left eye. Ros was right: Eve was a liability. Her presence did not contribute to our cause; in fact, she undermined our credibility. It was like allowing a convicted rapist to join NOW. I had to face the facts: She was incapable of learning. A mindless sheep.

  We let Eve go on her stupid march. With hand gestures and nods we planned our own attack.

  “Looks like a child,” Ros said. “Feral.”

  Saint Joan nodded. Guts jumped up and down, clapping his hands and rubbing his duct-taped belly.

  That Guts, the pixie, he was no longer black; he no longer bore the cross of his race. Annie, Ros, and Joan were no longer white, and neither was I. In zombiehood, race is erased. Brothers and sisters of the brain, we are gray, the ultimate race, a nation of nations. We are completely homogeneous. As a society we would be quite peaceful; all of the differences we used to fight over-religion, race, oil, the economy-are wiped out. We are a single unit, a focused target audience, a marketer’s dream.

  If we were five zombies with consciousness, how many more of us existed? One out of every hundred? Out of a thousand? Ten thousand? How many in total? Enough for a revolution, that much I knew.

  A gunshot rang out. We looked at Annie; her guns were holstered.

  Eve was walking down the street like a crippled cowboy in a western. The Great Brain Robbery. A Fistful of Viscera. The Quick and the Undead. The Good, the Bad, and the Zombie. Another few paces and she might turn and shoot, spurs twinkling and jingling.

  There was another shot, and this time I heard it ping Eve’s helmet. She continued walking, totally unaware.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid zombie,” Ros said.

  We took cover in a garage. Next to a weed whacker was a pile of dog bones, matted fur still stuck to them. Ros picked up a rib-it had been a big dog, maybe a German shepherd judging from the hair-and gnawed on it. He handed Isaac a piece.

  “Reverse situation here,” he said. “Me chewing on a dog bone. Like a dog. With his bone.” He crunched. “Crazy goddamn world.”

  I bent down and put my arm around Guts. I poked his tummy, pointed at the wagon in the corner-a classic Red Flye
r-then shook my finger, which flopped and wiggled, held on by nothing more than Krazy Glue, at Eve.

  “Jesus,” Ros said. “Captain wants the kid to save her. Lovestruck fool.”

  I shook my fist at Ros. He stuck his tongue out at me. It looked like sloughed snake skin.

  Saint Joan tightened the helmet straps under Guts’s chin. The urchin looked like a Pound Puppy plushie; his eyes were milky and plastic, the lashes caked with dirt and soot in such a way that they separated, appearing lush and long, like Tammy Faye Bakker eyelashes.

  I gave him a little push and he was off.

  “Suicide mission,” Ros said once Guts was out of earshot, halfway down the street, running as fast as he could, the little red wagon wheels squeaking.

  Eve didn’t even turn at the clatter. In her defense, she only had the one ear. Guts took bullets to his guts, his chest; nothing slowed him down. It was like the Iraq War footage we all saw on television before the zombie outbreak-the intrepid American soldier in the new urban battlefield, executing a daring guerrilla mission, dodging enemy fire, kicking down doors, searching for insurgents.

  I suppose that war’s over. Guess what? Zombies won.

  In no time Guts reached Eve and rammed the wagon into the backs of her knees, causing her to fall into it. He turned and trotted toward us, Eve spilling over the sides of the wagon, her feet and stump scraping the street. The shots stopped.

  I imagined triumphant music. “Pomp and Circumstance” or something military. Guts made a victory fist and pumped it in the air. I reimagined the scene in slow motion.

  To put the brains on the icing on the cake, the sniper made an error: He poked his head out the window of a three-story brick monstrosity.

  We knew exactly where he was. Which house, which window. We knew his ball cap was green and he sported a full, dark beard. The man was trapped in a suburban nightmare. And this was no metaphorical trap like before the epidemic. As in: Oh! The tragedy of being owned by your possessions! Cry for me because I am rich yet my soul is poor! Please. This time it was literal. There was no exit.

  Of course, everything is literal now. The metaphor is as dead as I am.

  And I didn’t want to eat Green Cap Sniper. Allow me to rephrase that: I very much wanted to eat Green Cap Sniper. I was horny for his brains. If I was Zombie Verlaine, then he was Rimbaud.

  But-and here’s the delicate turn, my narrative’s volta -he was worth more to us alive.

  According to the history books, that’s what Che Guevara-revolutionary Christ figure, beret-wearing silkscreen on a thousand T-shirts-that’s what he told the CIA before they shot him, before they cut off his hands postmortem. Not that it mattered.

  There’s nothing new under the sun.

  I communicated my plan to the gang, pantomiming the attack on Green Cap, mimicking a feeding, then shaking my head no. Vehemently. Ros agreed.

  “Muzzle her,” he said, jerking a thumb at Eve, who was still sprawled in the wagon, lowing in the alto range.

  I got in the car and acted human. I adjusted my pretend ball cap and put my hands on the steering wheel at six and nine o’clock. Guts hopped in the passenger side. The keys were in the cup holder and I thought, What the heck, maybe we don’t need Green Cap. After all I’ve learned in my new incarnation, maybe I can drive. It was a Crown Victoria, an old person’s car, fully automatic, designed to float like a boat and guzzle gas as if the oil supply were endless.

  I picked up the keys, located the right one, and tried to fit it in the slot. I jabbed at the ignition a few times, but the task seemed impossible, the level of coordination beyond me. I gave myself a pep talk: You can do it, professor!

  Nothing happened. The keys fell out of my hands and slipped underneath the gas pedal. Guts and I just sat there in the garage like two kids playing Sunday Afternoon Drive.

  The separation was complete: physical and spiritual; mind and body; thought and action. I was the living dead embodiment of Cartesian dualism: Though my soul was housed in my body, my body was divorced from my soul.

  Ros pointed at me and squealed. The sound was otherworldly-a rabid pig with emphysema, a demon gloating over murders and wars, a cannibal with a baby at the end of his spear, Donald Sutherland in the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  Saint Joan covered her mouth with her hand, hiding her rotten teeth, putrid tongue, and obvious glee at my incompetence.

  Humans call it laughing, but zombies don’t have a name for it. We don’t have a name for anything.

  I got out of the car and held the door open for Ros. Let him try it, if he’s so smart.

  Ros climbed in. And sat there. And continued to sit there. Impotent, like me.

  “Can’t,” he gurgled.

  As a human, I would have said something cutting to demonstrate my superiority. But I’m a compassionate zombie. My anger drained away and I was flooded with pity. Our poor dumb species. We’d never make it.

  “Joan?” Ros said.

  I looked at Joan and she shook her head, waving her hands in a gesture of adamant protest. I walked over to her, intending to escort her to the vehicle, when my shoulder began tingling, and everyone, Annie, Guts, Ros, Joan, even Eve, perked up, alert and poised. Stiff as lawn statuary.

  Green Cap Sniper was approaching.

  Eve headed straight for the brains, as steadfast as a pimp targeting a runaway. Guts sprang forward and closed the garage door in her face. Eve walked right into it, clawing at the barrier and moaning.

  Part of me admired Eve. Her behavior was classic Romero zombie and there’s something to be said for tradition. Like a woman who stays home to raise the kids, she was old-school.

  “Muzzle her,” Ros repeated, and I nodded.

  Saint Joan grabbed the garden hose and tied Eve up. She removed Eve’s helmet and gave it to Annie. Guts took Isaac out of his stroller and they stood facing the garage door, holding hands.

  “Lock and load,” Ros said, looking at Annie.

  Corn-fed and flaxen-haired Ros’s dialogue was straight out of Die Hard with a Vengeance. I imagined he was that star quarterback in high school who got drunk on weekends and popped the head cheerleader’s cherry, the kid who sailed through algebra and Beowulf on his beefy good looks. After graduation, he joined the military to keep America free.

  “Don’t eat the human,” Ros reminded everyone. We were standing in formation, lined up for battle. “Everyone ready?” he said. “Let’s roll.”

  The only thing I rolled was my eyes. If all language is fossil poetry, as Emerson claimed, then Ros was burning fossil fuel faster than a jet engine. Rehashing tired movie clichés, not an original thought in his head.

  Annie’s gun was drawn and cocked, her finger on the trigger. I nodded at Guts and he opened the garage door.

  Green Cap was in the driveway, feet planted a foot apart, rifle drawn in a defensive posture. Isaac crawled toward his legs, but Guts grabbed the devil child by the seat of his onesie. Eve was writhing on the floor, the garden hose coiled around her like a snake. Saint Joan clutched her doctor’s bag and moaned, a plaintive wail filled with such longing I almost gave in to desire myself.

  “What the fuck,” Green Cap said.

  Imagine you haven’t eaten in a week and your favorite dish-fried chicken or foie gras, beef Wellington or beef tacos-is in front of you. Or you’ve been crawling across the Sahara for three days, sun pouring down on your bald spot, sand in your teeth and eyes, and you can’t even sweat anymore, you’re that dry, and the lake in front of you is not a mirage but an oasis.

  And you can’t eat or drink. Verboten.

  “Brains,” Ros said. It was the truest thing anyone has ever said.

  Green Cap sighted with his rifle but before he could squeeze the trigger, Annie shot it out of his hand.

  “Jesus,” Green Cap said.

  Here I am, I thought, resurrected and full of grace.

  Green Cap took a step backward. It was fight-or-flight time, and it looked like he was going to fly.r />
  Ros cleared his throat; it sounded like the glub of the Loch Ness Monster, a creature whose existence I’m currently rethinking. Because if zombies exist, why not Nessie?

  “We come in peace,” Ros said.

  Annie and Joan inched toward Green Cap, each step painfully slow, stroke victims learning to walk again. Annie brandished a rope, lasso-style. Guts tucked Isaac back into his pram.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Green Cap said, and turned and ran. Guts followed suit, and the chase was on.

  What a miracle Guts was. He dove for Green Cap’s feet and tackled him before they reached the cul-de-sac.

  And poor Guts. Longing illuminated his urchin’s face, but he could only sit on top of the human until the rest of us reached them. No biting, no touching, like a lap dance.

  Green Cap was thin; he probably hadn’t eaten a Hot Pocket in days. He looked like Paul Bunyan. His hair was long and matted underneath the John Deere cap and his beard was wild and woolly. He was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, a down vest, and Timberland work boots. He was a survivor, all right. Who knew how many of us he’d fought off? Hundreds, at least.

  He punched Guts in the face. He wrapped his hands around Guts’s neck and choked him, trying to poke his thumbs into our little guy’s eyes. Guts bared his teeth, snapping at Green Cap’s thumbs.

  And one small bite is all it takes…

  “Don’t do it,” Ros warned him.

  “This can’t be happening,” Green Cap said. He let go of Guts’s neck and propped himself up on his elbows, ignoring the adorable zomboy perched on his chest. He watched us approach. By now, we were halfway down the driveway. “Are you all zombies?” he asked.

  “We like brains,” Ros admitted.

  “Is this really happening?” Green Cap asked.

  “You better believe it,” Ros said.

  “Why are you talking?” Green Cap asked.

  “Why are you?”

  Green Cap rested his head on the concrete. “Then it’s over,” he mumbled, “if they can think.”