Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown

by Stephen Bills

  Chapter Twenty-Three: We Want YOU for the Zombie Army

  In the town square, Norm preached. A hundred undead listened to his every word, though how much they obeyed was another matter. After all, he wasn’t the only street philosopher and it was the nature of the crowd that some would wander off to listen to someone else, but Norm’s crowd was very distracted right now. Many were turning their heads and some on the far left lumbered off to join a passing crowd.

  This was more than another preacher. Something was happening. Something important.

  Norm lurched forward and the crowd parted for him. He passed Gladys’s group, who were listening to her philosophy of zombie romance – sexless intimacy, love beyond physicality, a relationship of minds – and rushed toward the setting sun.

  And heard the baby’s faint cry.

  So that was what they were heading for. A niggling thought in the back of Norm’s mind told him he should find out what the baby was thinking, but he ignored it: the brainlust worked by sight. If he could stop the horde before they saw the humans, he might be able to save them.

  Norm recognised a desperate face in the crowd and called out, Rowena, don’t! Dave was right, you don’t need to do this to be a real zombie!

  Rowena reached the house’s doorway, which twenty undead were attempting pour through at once. Dave starved to death, she said. Don’t try to stop me, Norm.

  From within the house came the muted thwack and klb of body parts detaching and landing.

  Do you really want to kill an innocent person? Norm asked, pressing in beside her.

  It’s the only way! If she still could, Norm thought Rowena would be crying.

  Just turn back. Norm faced the horde that had surrounded him. All of you! Return to your lives!

  Shove off, brainless! a zombie shouted behind him, but the crowd was too tight around him for Norm to take his advice; it pushed him into the house. Through room after room he yelled that they could still save themselves, that it wasn’t too late, that life was valuable, that humans didn’t need to die for zombies to be. Some argued with him and with each other.

  Debate raged, but the tide swept them all on regardless.

  The bedroom’s cheap plywood door had buckled from the weight of zombies shoving themselves against it. Now zombies fell onto the bed that had been put against the door as a barricade. In the back corner of the bedroom, a shape swung at the approaching masses and behind him, another shape whimpered. In its arms, the baby cried: a beacon.

  The sight of the humans triggered something animal within Norm. His mouth watered as he was shoved onto the bed. Warmth coursed through him at the thought of the tender flesh. He struggled against it, seeking the usual cool senselessness of undeath, but all the smells and tastes he’d forgotten after thirty-three days of zombity now assailed him, so vibrant and real… like he’d been sleepwalking and now he was awake.

  Norm reminded himself that these humans were good people – that this wasn’t their fault – but his legs weren’t listening to him. He saw his stump of a left arm wriggle toward the humans.

  The human shouted and swung his plank of wood. It thunked against flesh, dislodged arms, felled zombies. There were now only five of them between Norm and the man, who was very good at battering everything that came near him. Which, soon, would be Norm.

  Which was just so unfair, to have come this far only to fail so close to the brains.

  No, he didn’t mean that! He didn’t want their brains.

  Except he did, and everything else was a lie.

  The two men in front of Norm fell to a sideways swipe of the two-by-four. Norm was right in front of the brain – that wondrous brain, which would taste of its owner’s thoughts, hopes, experiences, desires, dreams – but Norm had only one stump of an arm and his teeth to attack with. The sensible part of Norm’s mind knew that he’d never penetrate the skull and that he’d get beaten to death for his pointless attempt. That he was about to die and all he could do was watch.

  At least, that’s what should have happened.

  Instead, Rowena launched herself at the man, pinning him against the wall and leaving the path clear to the woman.

  Norm had tried. He’d really tried. On Jim’s advice, he’d even taken a piece of fruit, but he couldn’t swallow it: his throat had vomited it out. The burning, bitter aftertaste still lingered hours later.

  But now, brains. Juicy chicken breast, spiced lamb, and char-grilled beef danced on his tastebuds, the merest promises of what awaited him. There was nothing that could stop him.

  The crowd surged and Norm, his legs weak with desire and malnutrition, toppled forward. In the weightless instant, Norm knew where he would land, but couldn’t change his course; he couldn’t even close his mouth. He fell, seemingly forever, toward the woman’s breasts…

  And the wailing baby.

  Norm’s teeth tore through cartilage and sank into the pink brilliance of the baby’s brain. Its cry died.

  The horde stopped pushing. As one, with a breath like sandpaper, it inhaled.

  Then everyone shouted at once.

  He did it!

  What happened?

  How’s it taste?

  Eyes closed, Norm crumpled to the carpet. Here was their Chosen One, the brain eater. Here, on the floor, with his latest kill dripping down his chin. The baby killer.

  Norm struggled to his feet and regarded the fuzzed faces: these were zombies who believed that brains were the ultimate reason for being; that they would never be complete without them. The horde stared at him with reverence, their white eyes wide. Whatever he did now would be remembered forever.

  Very slowly, Norm turned his head aside and opened his mouth. The baby’s brain landed on the carpet with a splott. It tasted like ash.

  There was no bliss. No rush of information. No revelation. There was, as always, only nothing.

  Norm looked at the little baby, still held in its mother’s arms. Its eyes were closed; that was his only consolation. At least it looked at peace. The Three-God knew there was no peace left in this world. Maybe it could find respite in the next.

  Dully, Norm noticed the thick bites on the mother’s neck and head. Her eyes clouded over and the baby’s corpse dropped from her shaking arms.

  Norm shoved his way from the room, trying not to hear the whispers.

  What happened?

  He got it.

  Where’s he going?

  Is there any more?

  Norm jostled through the questioning crowd, which now filled the whole house, and emerged in the night. The gritty taste of baby stuck in his mouth and he wiped it with the stump of his arm.

  Norm! Gladys said, worried. What happened?

  She was so thin. How long until they were both dead, really dead, gone forever? Not soon enough. Never soon enough, now.

  Norm shook his head. Gladys noticed the fresh blood on his face. I’m sorry, Norm. I know you did what you could to stop them.

  He didn’t want to tell her, he really didn’t, but if he didn’t someone else would. I killed the baby.

  Revulsion flickered across Gladys’s distorted face. Her mouth both snarled and drooped; her bulging eye roamed away from him. After a moment, though, it roamed back. That must have been awful for you.

  If he could, Norm would have cried and held her and pretended everything was all right for a moment. But he couldn’t cry, didn’t have any hands to hold her, and there were a hundred zombies – both brainers and brainless – watching him for guidance. They wanted to be complete, to be whole like him, and now Norm had to tell them they never would be.

  No more killing, he said. Tell everyone! Brains make no difference! No more killing!

  More killin’! shouted another voice. It arrived not in Norm’s mind, but right at the base of his spine. It’s time the world rememberered the forgotten God!

  A path cleared between Norm and Harold Brown. Every zombie there stared from one to the other. For a day-old convert, Harold looked terrible. His skin
hung off in great patches. His barman’s apron was coated in blood and full of bullet-holes. His hair had fallen out and now his scalp was red where patches of skin remained and pearly where his skull was visible.

  The rotting barman leered with eyes that had started to sag and deflate and teeth that were grey and dangling. What about you, old timer? he asked Norm. Got a civility mind?

  Hundreds of eyes were on them. If Norm said yes, everyone would follow. The ones who had just seen him eat the brain would think this was a sign. The one who’d been listening to him preach would trust his judgement. Everyone else would be swept up in the flow.

  In the second it took to realise this, Harold had run to him, arms splayed at his sides, mouth open, ready to taste Norm’s indecision. He stopped before feasting to sniff Norm’s bald scalp.

  I’m with you, Norm said.