Zombie, Illinois

by Scott Kenemore

  Maybe, in some weird way, you love her even more.

  I don’t know how this next part happens. I mean, from what I’ve heard, if civilization is going to come back, it’s going to start in cities and spread outward. People are saying we’ve reverted back to Medieval times. What they mean is that in cities there’s still law and order. Courts. Police. An army. A government. Out in the countryside though—where the army can’t reach—it’s just lawless. Every man for himself. It’s also where all the libertarian survivalists fled, and they didn’t like government to begin with.

  There’s going to be a lot of resistance to bringing the countryside back under federal or state control. The “countryside”— by which I mean any Illinois county with a population of less than 100,000—is going to have to be resettled inch by inch. People will have to become pioneers all over again. Instead of taking over the country from American Indians, they’re going to have to reclaim it from people who want to shoot their own food and not pay taxes. So be it. Civilization has faced worse. It has won before, and it will win again.eventually. (But for the time being, I’m staying in Chicago.)

  I’m pleased that Washington, D.C. understands this as well. You must, after all, if you rolled in to save the mayor like that. By not just letting bandits and criminals take over the city, you insisted that laws matter even if zombies have broken out. Maybe especially when zombies have broken out.

  Anyway, nobody will tell you this, but you did something good. We appreciate it. Whether or not people know it, you just saved Chicago from itself.

  Mogk and Szuter? Are you kidding? What you’re doing warms my heart. Seriously.

  Providing this deposition has been a real pleasure. I hope you understand that. And like I told the prosecutors before, I’ll testify in court if you need me to. I love the fact that there are still zombies in the streets some places, and we’re going to have a trial. That’s how we bring civilization back! As long as we still have court systems, Mogk and Szuter should get a trial. That will be justice. They “disappeared” so many people. We should show them that we don’t do that. That’s not how you play the game. We should lead by example.

  I don’t even know if I can write about all this, you know? At least, not in an article. I mean, newspaper reporters aren’t supposed to make the news. They aren’t supposed to put themselves in their stories. But I was personally present for so much of what happened that it’d be strange if I did an article about how the mayor escaped being murdered and got to safety, and I omitted myself. Not that the papers will be publishing for a while. Maybe a book deal won’t be out of the question though, when the publishers in New York come back.

  So, has this helped? I hope it has.

  Mack and Maria’s stories should line up with mine and fill in any holes. I still have Jessy Knowlton’s notes if you need them.

  You just get Mogk and Szuter and their cronies like Shawn Michael—and hell, make sure Burge Wheeler gets some extra years tacked on—and you’ll have done something good. That’s what I’m convinced of.

  Even in a zombie apocalypse, you can find a way to do the right thing.

  Did this fix Illinois? What a question! Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s a pretty corrupt state.

  I feel like what this did was hit the reset button. Now we get to start over. Now people have seen why it’s not cool to have i ncompetent, corrupt politicians who can’t handle a crisis and only promote their friends. Now we will want people in charge who actually know what they’re doing.

  At least I hope we will.

  No promises.

  I mean, after all, this is Illinois.

  Leopold Mack

  This has not been easy. Dictating my story from a cot in your infirmary has certainly been a challenge, but so are most things worth doing. I’ve managed it, haven’t I?

  I apologize if my testimony has, at times, strayed to the i nformal. I communicate much more clearly when I can write something down. I’ve said things to you I wouldn’t normally say. What do they call it? “Free-associating?” Yes. For some of this, I’ve merely been free-associating.

  Your doctor says I’m lucky to be alive. Said he’s never seen somebody lose so much blood and not die, and that counts what he saw in Iraq.

  And I think he’s right. I think I am very lucky.

  But not just because I didn’t pass away.

  So that should just about cover what I wanted to tell you. I don’t know if I think it will do much good—your prosecution of the aldermen—but maybe it can serve as an example. Show people that Chicago might have been one way before zombies, but now it has changed. The old ways are gone. Now there are new and better ways. New and better people.

  I didn’t think much of our mayor when I first met him, but I remember him dragging me to safety after I got shot. There was a moment at the end when he got his courage up to charge out of that house and help. Maybe he can keep that momentum going, if you know what I mean. I hope to God he does right for this city. I hope there is some more good in him. Maybe it’s hidden

  deep inside. Maybe it just needs to be nurtured, and it will grow.

  As for me, I need to get well enough to get back home. Back

  to The Church of Heaven’s God in Christ Lord Jesus. That’s my

  only concern. The people in South Shore need me. But I think,

  even more than that, I need them.

  Right before the military showed up—when I was dying in that bedroom watching the mayor watch me—I didn’t know if my life had been well spent. (Honestly, I thought maybe it had been wasted trying to improve neighborhoods that can never improve.)

  Then I got here, and I started to hear the stories. You know the ones, I’m sure. That the south side of Chicago did the best during the outbreak. That it had things like block clubs and community groups and church groups and neighbors who actually knew one another. That it had been depending on itself for so long, that doing so in a zombie outbreak came naturally.

  What we were able to accomplish at my church was the rule, not the exception. When the rest of the city relied on electronics that didn’t work and policemen who weren’t there, we relied on each other. We looked out for one another. And it worked.

  That’s something good. Something damn good. And I think if I helped to make that happen, then maybe I haven’t wasted my life after all.

  Now, when communities around the country—or, my Lord, around the world—are trying to figure out what they need to s urvive—are looking for a model to follow—they look to the south side of Chicago. They ask, “What is South Shore doing right?” and “How can we be like them?”

  It all feels like a dream, doesn’t it? But it’s real.

  I swear to God, it’s all real.

  Maria Ramirez

  All anyone talks about now is what’ll be the next thing to return. Like, when will the newspapers start printing again? When will they have TV shows that aren’t just news broadcasts? When will they clear the last of the zombies from the subway tunnels and get the El up and running?

  But nobody is talking about punk rock.

  What the fuck, right?

  We need to get this town’s punk scene back on track, ASAP. That’s my project. You guys and my dad sound like you have all the boring logistical bullshit covered. Now we gotta get about to rocking.

  That’s why I’m organizing an outdoor punk show in Millennium Park as my first order of business. Are there still zombies in Millennium Park, hiding in the landscaping and submerged in the fountains? Probably. Will that make going to a punk show there even more dangerous and exciting? I damn sure hope so.

  Seriously, just think . . . the first punk rock show in New Chicago. A mosh pit that might have a zombie or two mixed in. A bunch of survivors who have all this pent-up zombie killing energy and need to cut loose. Talk about excitement. And Strawberry Brite Vagina Dentata to headline, with all members present and accounted for? Hell to the fucking yeah! That’s the best part of all.

  I mean
, I don’t know what else I can tell you at this point, really. You know pretty much everything. At least, everything I was there for.

  I don’t know what Ben and Mack said, but I’m not particularly worried about Marja Mogk. You guys are going to take care of her. That will be that, and then we can forget about her forever.

  At the end of the day, if you look at what she did—what she actually did—it was boring. Uninspired. It takes nothing to decide to murder your way up the food chain, you know? To kill people and take power when the lights go out? Any idiot could do that.

  Do I want her to go to jail? Sure. She deserves to. So do Igor Szuter and Shawn Michael and everybody else who was involved. But I don’t, you know, want to think about Marja ever again. She’s just a murderer, and there’s nothing to that.

  All the worst things are boring. Murder is the worst of the worst things, so it is also the most boring.

  Oh, okay.. .and speaking of things coming back . . . did I mention that beer is back? Finally!

  It’s back in a few places, at least. Ben says he knows a guy with a hookup. He asked if he could take me sometime. (I’m still going, but that part was creeper-y. Not the asking, but the way he did it. “Take me.” Like, “May I take you, Madame?” What’s up with that? Whatever.)

  Ben is nice. A little serious, but nice.

  He’s no Stewart Copeland, but we’ll see what happens.

  Author’s Note

  I have tried to portray the geography of Illinois with something approaching accuracy. However, amateur spelunkers should note that Chicago’s coal tunnels terminate just west of the Loop and do not—to my certain knowledge—extend as far as Oak Park.