ZOMBIE BOOKS

by Gnarly, Bart

  “Ki…” he began, but I was already to the door. “Stop,” he ordered as I walked out. If he wanted my attention he would have to call my name.

  At the break room table I found Wood sitting by himself, looking guilty. “Where is everybody?” I snapped.

  “Kitchen,” he replied.

  “C’mon,” I said, and marched down the hall to the lunch room.

  I found Dave and Duck playing cards. Molly was whispering hurriedly in Sissy’s ear across the room. I came in and said in a loud voice, “Excuse me.” Wood slid in behind me and walked over to Molly and Sissy. I cleared my throat and began:

  “My name is Kyle Moore, and Cheney is my home.” At the mention of my real name, Duck and Molly both gave shocked expressions. It’s the type of look that says, “Are you about to do what I think you are about to do?” Wood gave a little smile like he was about to witness something forbidden. Sissy only stared at me, clearly still upset by what her mother had just told her. Dave didn’t even look up from his cards.

  “Before all of this,” I continued, “I was a nobody. I dropped out of high school and took a job working fast food. It was that or be expelled for fighting. I wasn’t respected. My parents were disappointed in me. I had no car, no girlfriend, and no way out of Cheney. I spent my days wandering this horrid little town and spent my nights stealing beer from my dad and drinking with my friends. Now they’re all dead. My friends are gone, and I watched my family get ambushed and murdered.” It was the first time I had said the words out loud, and they came in wavy, emotional notes. I felt good, and riding that feeling I picked up some steam. “They were not murdered by zombies. They were murdered by people like you and me. Just scared people who were looking for supplies and a way to live. They shot my mother, my father, and my brother, then stole all of our provisions. I watched the whole thing happen from the house. I was the last to leave, and the only one to live.” At the last word, I stopped breathing for a moment while a sensation found the light.

  I suddenly felt guilty. Like I should have died with them, or instead of them. I was the loser. My brother was the smartest kid I ever knew. My mother and father…

  Oh god. It should have been me.

  The tear came without permission, and my lip wouldn’t stay still regardless of how hard clenched my jaw. Molly covered her mouth with a hand. Duck took of his hat. Even Dave was looking at me now. Sissy was openly crying. Her expression had melted into one of sympathy and compassion. She had become more of an angel in that moment than ever before. Her appearance made my efforts to hold back any tears a fruitless endeavor. I began to sob freely, no longer caring what the group would think or do.

  “I was the loser,” I confessed. “I should have been the one to die.”

  “No,” said several of the people in the room.

  I showed them my palm and went on, “It’s okay. I know that in the last life, I was worth less than any one of them. But I have resolved to not waste this gift.” I looked into Sissy’s eyes and continued, “I have found something that I didn’t think was possible in this wasted world. And I will be a man that would have made my parent’s proud of their legacy.” I looked into the eyes of the people in the room. They all seemed a little uncomfortable; a little ill at ease. “I’m not asking anyone to share anything they don’t want to, but I refuse to ignore who I was, or the sacrifices that were made for me.”

  “Stuart,” said a voice not one of us recognized. It took a moment for my mind to process that it was Dave who had spoken. Molly gasped out loud and stared, visibly stunned by what she had just heard.

  “Hello, Stuart,” I replied.

  That night as I held Sissy, our warm bodies pressed together and her shuddering breath on my ear, I knew that I had something I was willing to live and die for. She called me Kyle, and whispered her name in my ear. I was in love, and no one was going to keep that from me.

  ◊◊◊

  I trained hard every day. Quickly, I became proficient with the snare Wood had made for me. After my little speech in the lunch room, he and I had spent a lot more time with one another. He still didn’t share his name, but I didn’t ask him to. I told him that I just couldn’t live like that, without a past. He told me he liked his new name, and tried to not think too much of all he had seen and been through. I asked Wood how old he was and he just shrugged. “Does it matter?” he asked. I guessed him to be older than twenty-five but not quite thirty, but who knows? Nothing seems to be what it really is around here.

  Peter thought I wasn’t ready for catching real zombies, so Wood made a makeshift head, neck, and shoulders for me. He would bob the hand-held training dummy and I would snag it with the catchpole. The better I got, the trickier he would be. One afternoon, training in the storage room, I began to get frustrated with Wood. Instead of bobbing and weaving as normal, it looked to me like he was just working hard to avoid my snare. He was moving faster than ever, and I couldn’t snag the dummy for all of my best efforts. Finally, my emotions got the best of me.

  “Dammit, Wood!” I yelled. “Stop messin’ around. No zombie moves like that!”

  “And how the hell would you know?” came the commanding voice from the stairwell. I turned to see Peter descending the last flight. “Wood has snagged dozens of zombies,” he continued, “and last time I checked you haven’t tried to get even one yet. He’s training you to stay alive, not trying to make you feel good.” Days after the lunch room incident and Peter still refused to call me by my name. He had been there of course, standing in the hallway the whole time. He heard it all. The only thing the incident seemed to accomplish with Peter was to make him act sour around me. “You know what a fresh zombie is capable of? What an intact, hungry zombie will do to you? Or do to get to you? Trust me. You aren’t anywhere ready to face a zombie in the open.” He looked up from me and said, “Keep up the good work, Wood.”

  Wood nodded in response, but apologized when Peter was gone. “I was just trying to up your game,” he explained. “I didn’t see Peter come down.”

  “It’s cool,” I reassured him. “Do they really move like that, though? Really?” I was still feeling a bit skeptical.

  “An intact, hungry zombie can do everything we can. They will anticipate, duck, weave, avoid, or just plow through your defense and crash you to the ground. They’re unpredictable, fearless, and completely ruthless. A hungry zombie will carve a hole in a house to get the resident inside, or walk for miles just to help another deady eat you. Every time I encounter one, they do something I’ve never seen before.”

  “Do you think they are learning?” I asked, horrified by my own question.

  “God, I hope not,” Wood replied, real fear in his voice.

  “So what if I can’t snag him with the pole?”

  “Ever considered the net?” he suggested.

  I took up the zombie net in my left hand, and the catchpole in my right. “Net me, and catch me,” Wood instructed.

  It was awkward tossing the net left-handed, but Wood showed me his technique and after several dozen tries the sweeping motion began to feel more natural. “Net’ em and catch’ em,” he said happily, after I started to show proficiency.

  “Net’ em and catch’ em,” I repeated.

  So we trained.

  And trained.

  And trained.

  We trained until Wood couldn’t get away. We trained until I never lost.

  I spent my off-time with Sissy, my training with Duck and Wood, and then would go back to Sissy in the evenings. Molly clearly disagreed with our actions, but what could she do? Sissy was an adult who could do what she wished, and Molly had no control over me. So long as I wasn’t endangering the group, they had no reason to kick me out.

  Peter didn’t see it that way. I could tell by his look. But if I kept training and helping around the mill, he wouldn’t say anything about it to either me or Sissy.

  As for Sissy, I never used her name. She wanted to be called Sissy by me and the rest of the group, and I
obeyed her request. Every day we seemed to become more attached.

  Then one night, while we all sat together eating dinner, Peter stood and addressed the group.

  “A new horde has moved into Cheney. Tomorrow, we go hunting.” He looked down at me and said, “All of us.” Looking back to the group, Peter continued, “Molly and Sissy will mind the truck. The rest of us will operate on a basic search and destroy. One team will be Duck and I, and the other will be you three,” he announced, pointing at Wood, Stuart, and I.

  Still refusing to use real names, Pete? I mused humorlessly. He reluctantly called Stuart by his real name, but only when he was forced to. Maybe it was because Stuart and Peter were of a similar age, and I was young enough to be either one’s kid, but he never used my real name. In fact, he stopped calling me by any title all together. Peter just talked at me. It was an arrangement that gave me issues at first, but eventually I became proud of the fact, as though I held some power over him.

  “Wood, Stuart, and Kyle,” I sang in a provoking manner. “Killin’ zombies.” Wood smiled uncomfortably and Stuart did nothing.

  “We leave tomorrow after breakfast.” With that, Peter left the room.

  ◊◊◊

  The truck was a big delivery van with a roll-up on the back and a loading door on the side of the box. Molly and Peter occupied the front while the rest of us piled in the back. Benches had been installed toward the front and a chain-link divider split the cargo area. “Zombie cage,” Duck had explained. “Trap’ em and toss’ em in the cage. Then Peter gets the bastards. The ones we don’t kill that is.”

  The horde had been seen at the south side of town, and it was figured they numbered around two dozen. “Too many to face in the open,” Peter advised, “So we are going to corral the ones we can and kill the stragglers. We’ll lure them in and Molly will trap them with the van. Then we’ll rope them and eliminate all but a few. Those we’ll bring back to the mill for later.” The comment made Duck laugh, but the rest of us rode in silence.

  A few miles out, the boys all exited the truck and Sissy joined her mother in the front seat. Peter and Duck took the left flank and Wood, Stuart and I took the right. Molly rolled behind us about twenty yards off. I kept glancing back to Sissy, trying to give her reassuring looks. She would smile weakly, but I could see that she was scared. I had seen her fight, and knew she could defend herself if she needed to, but in her eyes shone the light of a scared little girl. She had seen horrible things, I was certain, and she feared seeing them again. I adjusted my grip on the catchpole and doubled my resolve to keep her safe.

  It wasn’t long before we saw our first zombie. They hunt by smell, and seven people make for a rather fragrant buffet. The first was roped and bludgeoned before I had time to react. I just stood there and watched Duck and Stuart do their thing. “Watch the rear!” Peter had ordered when he saw me staring slack-jawed. “There are more out here,” he snapped, clearly tense.

  A group of four arrived. Duck roped one while Wood and I netted two others. Stuart played batting practice on the fourth before he went to work on mine. Duck finished off his and Peter eliminated Wood’s. I was starting to feel more confident.

  That was my first mistake.

  I spotted a zombie coming around a corner. “I got this,” I holler and make my way ahead.

  “Wait,” Peter ordered. I gave him an irritated look, offended that he didn’t trust me to nab another one on my own. “There’s rarely ever only one. Wait.”

  Sure enough, another followed.

  Then another.

  And another.

  It quickly became clear that the horde had found us.

  “To the van!” Wood screamed, but it was immediately apparent that the option was impossible. Another large group appeared behind the van.

  “Flee!” Peter yelled.

  At the command, Molly put the van in reverse and slammed it into the zombies behind her. We scattered and looked for high ground. The van flew down the drive and crashed into the other half of the horde, as I cut down an alley. It wouldn’t kill the zombies, hitting them with the truck, but it would slow them down. I mounted a dumpster, and climbed a pipe to the roof. Once there, I got a good assessment of the scene.

  No less than forty zombies were crowding the street. Stuart was swinging his bat wildly. Peter and Duck were boarding themselves in a shop. Wood was missing. The truck kept moving up and down the drive, leaving mangled zombies in its wake.

  Stuart went to a knee suddenly, bit from behind, and was swarmed.

  The truck lost control and crashed into a power pole.

  A zombie came staggering into the street, holding a leg that was wearing Wood’s shoe.

  How did this go so wrong?

  How did this happen?

  Zombies began to pound the truck.

  Sissy.

  I had to do something.

  I found a safe route and made my way around the building. I found Wood’s club, bloodied and abandoned. In a rage, I bashed every zombie I encountered as I cut a path to the truck. Most were hobbling pretty badly at that point, but some were faster than I imagined possible. I crashed them all, one after then next, until I reached Sissy’s door. She opened it, and I pulled her out forcefully. Then I yelled for her to run to the mill. When I looked back, a zombie was breaking the glass on the driver’s door. A hand came through the window, and I turned my back on her mother.

  More zombies were coming.

  I chased the fleeing frame of Sissy, just praying that we made it back alive.

  She screamed.

  I pumped my legs with all I had.

  I would not lose her.

  She was dodging a slow shuffler cutting off her path. I reached her and blasted the zombie with the bat.

  “My mother?!?” she yelped.

  “She’s gone, I said. “We have to go!”

  “No!” she screamed in response, and tore off back toward the truck.

  I pursed, but my heart was failing. A hundred zombies were pouring into the street.

  We were all dead.

  WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE, BUT NOT WHAT WE MAY BE.

  W. Shakespeare

  Hamlet

  CHAPTER 6

  The Tale of Stuart Giesler

  For as long as I can remember, I had wanted to be a father. Something within me, some primal need or biological instinct told me that I needed a child. There are those who feel they were placed on this planet for a special purpose. Men who do great things. Women who accomplish much. From youth, I surveyed as much of existence as I could and it was clear what moved me the most. I wanted to hold a baby girl in my arms, one that I helped bring into this world, and for that child to grow to love me and call me father.

  You may think it strange that a man would desire such a thing. So often the most we hear of the desires of men amount to shallow pleasures and solitude. As my uncle used to say, “If you can’t shoot it, drive it, or fuck it, then who cares?”

  Well, I have never really blended well with my peers.

  I was a large boy in school. Not large in the sense of fat, but large in the sense that while I was proportionately balanced, I have always been substantially bigger than my peers. Huge, is the word I hear most often.

  Think it’s difficult being a small boy who’s uncoordinated? Try being a massive kid who doesn’t even like sports or violence for that matter. When you’re six feet tall in the eighth grade and everyone’s calling for you to play football and basketball and all you want to do is sit with the girls and talk about life, school, and the other kids, well, that’s when people start thinking you’re weird. But I didn’t really care. While I was too big to be harassed about it, I was too passive to be invited to hang out with any male friends either. I didn’t have a desire to be with them anyway. Boys only seemed bent on proving themselves. I had no need to be some David’s Goliath.

  So I divided my time between girls and solitude. To me, the arrangement was perfect. Alone, I could allow my thoughts to wan
der freely, and the girls always looked to me as some mythical creature. I was the gentle giant; the kind ogre; the loving troll. I towered over them, and they accepted me for who I was. They never seemed to see me as more, though. I was never relationship material. The girls of middle school and high school thought of me as a peer and not as a romantic possibility. When they began to talk of boyfriends, first kisses, and love, I had to smile and be excited for them when in reality I hated that by all appearances, I would not be sharing with them any of my firsts in the foreseeable future.

  Oh, they tried to set me up with girls, but it became clear that my friends knew very little about me. They picked large, hard girls. Ones that picked fights and stole lunches. Girls from dysfunctional homes who distrusted males. In a word, the most masculine females they could find. I politely refused each suggestion, until eventually they stopped making them altogether.

  I was a soft heart, who was hoping for my other half.

  And then there was Penny.

  I met Penny in high school. I was a junior, and she was a sophomore who had just moved from out of state. Her father was in parts unknown, and her mother had become unable to care for her and had shipped her to live with an aunt. I later found out that she and her mother had fought terribly for months straight, until the day came that Penny declared she never wanted to see her mother again. A week later, her things were packed and her mother moved her out. At the time, I felt that her mother must be a very hard woman to export her child in such a way. Penny had a little sister, who was allowed to stay, and this fact was not lost on Penny, who felt that she must be the bad child since her mother clearly didn’t want her anymore. Not knowing any of this when I met her for the first time, all I saw was a very small, extremely cute 10th grader with close-cropped hair and a mischievous smile.

  I was hooked.

  I spent every moment I could with her. She tolerated me at first since I was the only boy she knew and I had a car. When she began to confide in me about her past, Penny found an attentive ear and a sympathetic heart. Slowly, she began to trust me, and desire me as much as I did her. When I graduated, I stayed in town an extra year so that we could still be together. The summer she graduated, I proposed. Much to the displeasure of her mother, she said yes, and we were married only a few months later.