by Josiah Upton
The speaker above the keypad crackles to life. “Not so loudly. The neighbors might hear you.”
I march towards his voice and push the red button, threatening to crush it under my thumb. Saliva flies onto the keypad as I speak in a hushed growl. “Then you'd better let me in, or I'll eat every last one of them, and write your address on their walls in blood. Open, NOW!”
An immediate click is heard within the steel door, and I rip it open and stomp inside, slamming it shut behind me. I'm standing at the top of the stairs for less than five seconds before I let out an unrestrained howl down into the darkness. And when I run out of breath and the echoes settle into the walls, I inhale deeply and let out another one.
Gibbs calls my name from the other stairway, but I don't answer to that anymore. Humans have names. Even pets have names. I am neither. I see the note hanging next to the door, and I tear it down before its question fills my eyes, ripping it to shreds. “I am not Zaul Jarreux!” I scream at it, at Gibbs. “I am not a normal human! I am a MONSTER!”
I scramble down the stairs and across the basement floor, throwing the fridge door open and pulling everything off the shelves. Before long the containers are torn apart and their raw and bloody contents are shoved into my mouth. I devour all of it. Then I move to my mirror. I tear off my wig and all my clothes, and scrape the makeup off my face. I look like nature mockingly intended me to look. Except my eyes are too human. I try to remove my contact lenses, but that requires too much patience and control. I smash my fist into the mirror, the cracks distorting my image even further. Good.
“Zaul...”
The name travels from the kitchen and down the stairs to me. I follow it, knocking over anything in my way. My footsteps echo loudly as I stomp up the stairs, but not loud enough. I put more force into each one, feeling the wood groan and creak like it's about to snap. I arrive at the top, greeted with the sight of Gibbs in his motorized wheelchair.
“Who is this Zaul?” I snarl at him, slamming my fists onto the metal gate. “Is he a human? If you're looking for humans, there aren't any down here. If there were, I would have eaten them all.”
“No you wouldn't.” His voice betrays no emotion. I hate him for it.
“SHUT-UP!” I bark. “I am an undead monster. It's in my nature. It's in my sick blood to eat the flesh of the living.”
“And is that what you did today? Did you feed on the living while you were out among them?” I did not. I had plenty of chances, but I never took them. I can't say this to him, though, because that would make him right. So I don't say anything. “That's what I thought, Zaul. You're no more a monster than a lion or a crocodile. And even they would eat a human, if they had the chance.” He turns his chair and starts to wheel away. I can't let him win this, not that easily.
“You're wrong,” I call after him. “The only thing that stopped me were those drugs, and it's all out of me. The Prisoner inside is free now, and in control. Nothing would stop him from feasting.”
Gibbs halts and slowly rotates to face me. “The Prisoner inside you? And who would that be?”
“My true nature. The darkness that cries for flesh and skin, to ravage and to devour and destroy. The only thing that's kept him locked down is that disgusting Mortetine, and I refuse to take it anymore. I'm done pretending to be a human. My Prisoner and I are now one and the same.”
“Is that so?” Motors whir as Gibbs comes within just a few feet of the steel gate between us. “You know, for an unspeakable horror, your Prisoner has a pretty decent vocabulary. And he's able to state his case quite clearly and logically. That doesn't sound like a monster to me.”
I hate him. I hate the things he says, the sense he makes. I hate that he might be right. But my mind is resolute – I am not giving up. I'm not going back to drugs and makeup and costumes and lies and constant restraint. I show this to Gibbs by baring my teeth, snapping them at him. He seems unfazed. Instead of backing down, he braces his remaining hand on the dining table, and pushes himself up from his wheelchair. In the past four years I've never seen Gibbs out of that thing. But here he is, standing on his one weak and shaky leg.
“Let me speak to this Prisoner in a language I think he'll understand.” He hobbles closer to the gate, and wraps his fingers around one of the bars. They're close enough to snap at. The Prisoner that I claim is loose bids that I feed his needs, demanding authority over my mouth and teeth. But I don't move. Gibbs lets go of the bar, and slides his arm in between them, leaning forward so that his hand is just under my nose.
My body starts to tremble. Never would I imagine a human willingly offering their flesh as a sacrifice to my Hunger. Gibbs knows what my unholy nature craves. I try to read his disfigured face from under the sunglasses, but I see nothing. He must be insane. “Go ahead. If you are such an uncontrollable fiend, then feed. It's what you've denied yourself for the last four years. If you're tired of living that way, then end it all right here.”
This taunt makes the Prisoner thrash and snarl against the final gate within. He's foaming at the mouth, clawing at his own skin until black blood is pooling underneath him. Never have I felt his presence so mercilessly. His Hunger spreads to every fiber of my being, overtaking all other faculties. My vision is so blurry that I'm practically blind, and all I can smell is the flesh just under my nose. If I give in, it's all over.
But I can't do it. No matter how close I am to the edge, I never give complete control to my Prisoner. His prey is always just out of his claw's reach. He will remain behind his cell bars. Is this the product of repetitive living, keeping him under lock and key for so long? Answering that handwritten question for so long that I actually believe it, even when everything else inside of me breaks down? Or does my refusal to surrender come from something else? I don't know. But this means that Gibbs was right.
“You see, Zaul? The Prisoner, the Mortetine – they're not in control. You are. And you have been for quite some time. Do you really think I would let you out if you weren't ready? Would I send you to school, just to terrorize innocent students?”
“But it's not just that,” I argue. “This has been the worst day of my horrible life. You sent me out on a drug dealing errand with Caesar Ortega – do you have any idea how psychotic that man is? How much he hates things like me? I had a gun pointed at me more than once!”
“Zaul...”
“No, I'm not done yet. Then, just as I'm about to escape that madman's house, it starts raining!” I find a tiny balled-up remnant of makeup on my face, and flick it at him between the gate bars. “What was I supposed to do, look like this at the bus stop? A bus stop which, by the way, is right across from both Colorado Territorial and the APA Headquarters! And the time between buses was two hours – what were you thinking? I got unbelievably lucky and hitched a ride with Caesar's neighbor, but it turns out he works for the agency. I was trapped in a Jeep with an APA employee for forty-five minutes!”
“Zaul, I know.”
I'm not sure I heard that quite right. “You... know? What do you mean, you 'know'?”
“Caesar, the rain, the bus times, the APA Headquarters – I knew all about that before I sent you to Cañon City.”
“But if you knew, then why...”
“Today was a training exercise. When you told me you needed more Mortetine, I thought it was the perfect opportunity for this lesson.”
“And what lesson would that be?” I growl.
“The world outside isn't like it is down there.” Gibbs points down the stairs, into the dark of my basement. The only place I've known for so many years. “It's not safe or predictable. You can't control every circumstance or outcome. If you're really going to be human, then you need to adapt to the situations as they come, without warning or preparation.”
Rage boils inside of me. Everything I experienced today, all those close calls, the agonizing temptations, was just a training exercise. It seems more like a suicide mission to me. I lunge at the gate, and Gibbs falls back into his wheelchair.
“There was a high possibility of failure, and you intentionally sent me toward that failure. Didn't you? DIDN'T YOU!”
“No, Zaul. No. I knew you could make it through today, you were ready. You just had to find that out for yourself. And that's not something you could have learned while trapped down there. You needed to do this.”
“Why do I need to do anything?!” I snarl, pushing away from the gate. “What's the point of it all? Why does something like me need to be somebody like them?” Gibbs is quiet, not looking at me. Anytime I start seeking answers to the purpose of my life and my training, he turns into an unyielding brick wall. I want to smash through that wall. I need to know. “Why are my parents doing this to me? Why can't I see them, or talk to them?” Silence. “You better answer me, or I swear I'll never leave this basement again!”
Mechanics hum as Gibbs swivels his chair away from me, facing the faint sunlight sneaking in through the kitchen curtains. Like all the times before, he won't answer me. Regardless of what I can learn in school, books I might read, I will always be in the dark on my own origin. All I have is my name, and I'm not even sure if that's real. My mind is trapped in darkness. I start walking down the stairs, to place my body in it as well.
“They're paying me to keep you safe,” Gibbs's raspy voice calls out to me. “That's all I can tell you.”
I pause a few steps down from the gate. I won't face him. “That's not good enough for me.”
Chapter 12
I spend the remaining hours of the day lying in my bed. There's not much else to do down here. I flip through a few musty old magazines, glimpses of life one hundred years ago. The people that wrote these words, that took these photographs – did they ever imagine that an undead creature's eyes would fall on them? I turn to a page of a curvy woman, much of her skin exposed, with a small description of red and white female underwear. I obviously can't smell her, but the imagery is enough to rouse my Prisoner's Lust. I've dealt with him enough today, I don't want to hear his sick moans any more. I turn another page.
I come to a picture of a small child, grinning widely as he holds a colorful object over his head, victorious. I think it's something called a “toy”, I've found a few laying around down here. I'm not exactly sure what their purpose is, so I've stored them neatly in the basement corner. Beneath the child is an empty box, and shiny paper strewn across the carpeted floor. There's an indoor tree standing behind him, with lights and other confusing things hanging from it. Bizarre. Other pictures in the magazine look like this, with the name “Merry Christmas” posted here and there within the text. I don't know who that is.
But my eyes focus on what is next to the tree. A man and woman in sleepwear, arms wrapped around each other as they smile at the child. His parents. They are all happy, and happy together, enjoying each others company. As if their smiles would disappear if the others were gone. I suppose this is the love that I've read so much about, but have never experienced. It's described as good and positive and attractive, but I don't see how. Seeing displays of it only makes me feel bad and negative and ugly. I throw the magazine across the room.
I've walked down this life's dark corridor with a silent Gibbs leading the way, and the Prisoner ever hounding me from the rear. There has been no explanation or purpose to it. But worst of all, there's been no light. No warmth. The only shred of happiness I find is in the flesh and blood of a deceased pig, or from the occasional glimmer of intrigue induced by the image of an ancient car. And after today, I don't think I care about that anymore.
This life is empty. No hope of obtaining what I saw in that picture. The two people that are supposed to supply me with that, my parents, are nowhere to be seen. All they can offer is silent safety from a distance. They must not want me in their lives, a monstrous freak for a son. I don't think anyone would want me in their lives. I would only ruin it. I have no light or warmth to offer the world, and can expect to receive none in return. So I'm not going out there again. I lie silently in my bed, with no intention of leaving it.
In time I fall asleep. I've heard that the first Reanimates never slept, just shambled around endlessly until they found food. Maybe just stood mindlessly still until a whiff of the living tickled their nose. I for one am grateful their Hybrid descendants need sleep. And I don't have any dreams or nightmares, just nothingness. A window of black, a temporary escape from the darkness of when I'm awake. Many times I wish I would just stay in this state. When I sleep, my Prisoner sleeps.
I awake anyway. I have no windows, so I don't know what time it is. My slumber is broken by Gibbs's voice calling me. I don't answer. I'm done with all of that. I roll over on the small bed and place a pillow over my head. But I can still hear him, he won't shut-up. “WHAT?!?!” I growl at the stairs.
“You have a delivery.”
A delivery? More food. He must have known I ate everything in the fridge during my fit of frenzy, and this is the replacement. He thinks that we're back on schedule, that I've changed my mind and am willing to cooperate. He's wrong. I spring out of bed and stomp up the stairs, with every intention of devouring it all right in front of him. But I don't find the usual insulated box of pig remains at the top, just my backpack that I left in Dr. Grest's car. I am confused. “How did you get this?”
“I was wondering the same thing.” Gibbs wheels over to a coffee machine on the counter and pours himself a cup. My nose wrinkles. I look in the direction of where the sunlight usually enters the kitchen, but it's dark. He comes back to the gate, motioning at my backpack with his wrist stump. “I found it on the front porch. Though I'm not sure why you would, I guessed that you had left it there when you came home. But then, I found this under it.” He sets down his mug and lifts a folded sheet of paper from his lap, waving it in the air. “It's a note, addressed to you. Apparently you left your backpack in someone's Jeep. I assume this is the same Jeep belonging to that APA worker?”
“Let me see that.”
“No,” he snaps, slapping the note onto the table. “Your makeup and a large amount of Mortetine were inside that backpack, and you just left it in a stranger's car? Someone who works for the APA? What were you thinking?!?!”
“Why do you care?” I counter. “You sent me out there, and my only options of return were a bus stop in the rain or a ride from a stranger. It's obvious caution wasn't on your mind when you made that decision.”
“The way you got home was how you improvised under pressure. That was the lesson you needed to learn. Leaving your bag in that Jeep, however, was just a careless mistake! You jeopardized everything! How do we know that it wasn't searched? How do we know this 'Genny' won't tell her co-workers about it, if she saw what was inside?”
I didn't mention anything about Genny to Gibbs, so how does he know her name?
She wrote the note. She left me a message. That strange, unidentifiable feeling stirs in me. “The APA worker who drove me here was named Gordon. Genny is his daughter, he was picking her up from school. I need to see that note.”
“She's a student at your school...”
“IT'S MINE, GIVE IT TO ME!”
My savage bellow echoes throughout the house, touching walls and rooms that I've never visited or seen. Gibbs is pressing himself deeply into his wheelchair, surprised by my outburst. He's heard growls and screams and shrieks before, many too incomprehensible to be considered human, but none ever seemed to affect him. Is his reaction because of how brutally possessive I was just now? Demanding not food from a bloody pig carcass, but a mere piece of paper? A moment passes as he eases up, and finally slips the note between the steel bars. I snatch it off the ground and quickly unfold it.
Zaul,
You left this in the Jeep. I figured you need it. Once again, I'm sorry for how rude I was. I can be a little strange. But, and I hope you don't take offense to this, it seems you're a little strange, too. I hope you feel well enough to go back to school tomorrow.
Genny
I read the note over and over, like there's some s
ort of hidden meaning to be found in it. I would probably reread the words all night, but Gibbs breaks the repetitive process. “This Genny, is she a friend of yours?”
A friend – one more thing that is foreign to me. I'm not sure what defines it. It's something social, and the idea of a social Hybrid Reanimate is laughable. I continue reading as I speak. “No. Well, I don't think so.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
My eyes lift from the paper to Gibbs. “Why?”
He goes over to the coffee machine again, pouring more into his cup. I don't remember him taking a drink from it in the first place. “Human social interaction is a complicated thing. Right now you need to focus on blending in at school, not making friends. It's not part of your training yet, and you're not ready. Is this understood?”
I look back down at the note, at the scrawling script that Genny took the time to write me. Concern for my well being, hopes that I return to school, mention of a shared strangeness... Is this what friendship looks like? The idea excites me. Puts something inside that wasn't there before. Maybe a friend could offer that light and warmth missing from my life. And, perhaps, an opportunity to defy Gibbs's wishes. If I'm going to live this lie, it's going to be on my terms. I decide what's best for me, not invisible parents or a bitter man bound to a wheelchair. After all, he did say that I was in control. I intend to claim that control. I grab my backpack and walk downstairs.
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
Chapter 13
The act of waking from a deep sleep is never a graceful one. When I do, my muscles constrict and I thrash around in my bed, letting out guttural moans and yelps. This lasts for a few minutes before I realize where I am. I think it's a permanent side effect from my Hybrid Reanimate transformation, when I awoke from the dead a totally different creature. Maybe when I fall asleep my body believes it will finally stay dead this time. But every time it's proven wrong, and it cries in protest and confusion at the abnormality. Nothing that was once dead should ever rise again.
