Zombies: The Recent Dead

by Paula Guran

  Never fun.

  The engine turned over with a zapping scream, matched with a cry from Dogwood, who began punching the dashboard and swearing. He seemed to have the situation in hand, and my attention was drawn back to the walls of the bleak settlement that was doing everything wrong.

  Poor, misguided, uncomprehending wretches. Trapped in a new world they didn’t understand, and much of which wanted to consume their living flesh. A very bad scene today, fear in the air, yet another apocalypse the Minister and I had to witness. The acid hummed, spat and whispered that perhaps this was no accident. Were we the karmically-invested sin eaters of an entire way of life?

  Troubling thought, but I doubted it. We didn’t really know these people, not even Chantal.

  Chantal.

  My eyes narrowed as a conclusion formed, even if I wasn’t completely conscious of it at the time. Chantal was a crystalline example of this community. Misguided, unheeding, desperately human, and seeking a means to continue that state. She had a face, particularly in comparison to everyone else the Minister and I had dealt with here, all of whom realistically had been total dicks.

  She had a face and a name even if we didn’t know her, and she deserved another chance. By extension, so did the rest of them.

  I clambered around to the back of the jeep and rooted around for tools, spooking the Minister. He brandished a pair of pliers at me from the floor and weaved dangerous, eerie patterns in the air with the shining points, like a crab signaling territory over lake mud.

  These people were organized. There were two sorts of tire-iron, and right where they should be, rather than under the seats or taped to the bodywork. I grabbed the longer one that was unimpeded by a cross-piece, and set out at an angle that would bring me towards the thickening tide of zombies while keeping me visible to the watchers above.

  The chattering of the idiot guns was still keeping them far enough back that it was a long walk in the afternoon sun, any moment expecting a stray round. The acid wave hit and broke over me en route, melting the ground into a thick stodgy soup and staining the sky with strobing neon torment. An endless staticky hiss filled the world, like a bad recording of surf on a stony eternal shore. The zombies seemed to join the soup, reminding me of the ghastly visions which beset me when Chantal lead us into that trap.

  For a moment I contemplated going back and ceasing my rebellion against The Fear, soured by memory of that betrayal. But no! I would be holy Teflon to that ugliness, and refuse to soften my resolve.

  The lecherous, biting gunfire laughter stopped altogether as I neared and singled out one particular zombie, which at least suggested they’d noticed me and cared. I was touched. Then they started up again, to chew away at the fringes some distance from me.

  I focused on my target as the viscous world lurched, bubbled and sang.

  You can’t trust the dead. For every staggering Romero-brand which saps your caution, you’ll find another one fresh enough to run screaming or throw something. Or one dried by desert winds into staggering carnivorous cordwood, seemingly harmless till they get close enough to release the crossbow tension in twisted tendons like steel cables and rip you in half. And then occasionally you find a zombie with activated Augments and implants. If you’re wary you have a very bad day. If you’re not wary you probably don’t get a chance to have a bad day.

  Even if you’re ripped or Twisted, there are few guarantees. Not when you’re up close and personal, and particularly not when they can smell flesh on the wind.

  The one I’d singled out was dry and old, but lively enough. His stiffened leathery skin—all in patches—creased into a frown as he neared me, aware I was there but not what I was. I steeled myself and held out an arm before the creature, watching its rotting nostrils flex in and out, wuffling around and searching for this weird thing I was. Those horrible nostrils! They unfurled slowly like miniature elephant trunks on the hunt, or seemed to, sparking thrills of nauseous horror. I didn’t move except to turn back to the walls and balconies where binoculars winked.

  Backing a safe distance away from the hideous, duel-elephant thing, I pointed and roared, “See? No bitey!”

  At the noise, all the zombies recalibrated to me, until the settlement fired again and refocused them on the walls. With luck, the villagers finally noticed that part of the pattern. I moved back to the zombie I’d initially targeted and smacked it in the skull with the tire-iron till it stopped moving. The body smelled like opening a bag of jerky which has started to turn—dry, salty and corrupt. It took me back to that god-awful bar in Terra Haute, with gleaming soiled gems of teeth and enamel fragments in the urinal, but I forced the memory down and decided to drive the point home to these people. After all, they were woefully behind the times.

  I spent five or ten minutes running through this forest of corpses and played the Minister’s games. I pushed them over like tipping humanoid cows, danced around before them, safe in their confusion, and even tied one’s shoelaces together to leave it stumbling and crawling. Nothing without risk, but I was high on superiority.

  Puffed by my Heroic Exertions, I moved back toward the settlement to see results. People with rifles were watching me, one with binoculars. Chantal was also in evidence with that group. As I watched, one of the armed figures turned to the man with the binoculars and spoke.

  Instantly, I knew what was said, like a voice from over my shoulder stating in a reasonable tone, “Maybe we should shoot him?”

  Paranoia gripped me in a cold, thorny fist. A finger lanced out at Chantal.

  “Her!” I screamed. It took a second or two for the sound to hit the balconies. “Indeed! She’s seen it! Ask her!”

  Already she was engaged in conversation with Official Looking People, perhaps to deny knowing me. It was hard to say. But it can be very hard to stop talking when acid is at the wheel, words tumbling out despite my terror that I was only making things worse.

  “The police station! Full of glorious drugs to keep you safe! More than you need! And stop shooting at them!”

  People on the move, either towards their miraculous drug cache or to come get us.

  It was Time to Leave.

  I ran back towards the jeep, finding the engine running and the Minister strapped securely into the passenger seat, grinning alarmingly and showing bright teeth. His eyes held mine, inhuman intensity and mirth unblinking in shining white orbs. I’d seen that stare. Hell, I’ve stared that stare, and it is a noted harbinger of nothing good. No matter, I thought. A problem for another time, and we had many miles to travel yet.

  Climbing into the driver’s seat, I made sure that the supplies were actually in the car. Dumping the soiled tire-iron in the back, I floored it, sending us towards more comprehensible climes in a cloud of dust—or would do, as soon as I figured out where we were. Chantal had mentioned Jackson, but was this another Unfortunate Lie?

  I considered the situation as we drove into the golden heat of the late afternoon sun. The growl of the engine thrummed through the very ground until the sky itself coruscated to its tone before the two of us, a pair of Chemical Saints, mission accomplished and returning home—as soon as we found it.

  Warily, I also kept an eye on the Minister as he savaged open the packaging on a Meal Ready-to-Eat with his fractal blade.

  It was serrated, you see.

  All the way down.

  About the Author

  Kevin Veale has had fiction published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. He is a Ph.D. student in media studies at the University of Auckland, and lives in New Zealand.

  Story Notes

  Welcome to the gonzo zombie story. To me, this Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-style zombie defense is highly (pun intended) appealing and makes perfect sense: transcend human body chemistry and melt your cerebrum to avoid the mindless brain-eating walking dead. Beats barbed-wire, dwindling ammo, and imposed militaristic discipline any day.

  But hey, that’s me. You might feel differently. Of course, I lived throu
gh the seventies and even remember some of it.

  The Things He Said

  Michael Marshall Smith

  My father said something to me this one time. In fact he said a lot of things to me, over the years, and many of them weren’t what you’d call helpful, or polite—or loving, come to that. But in the last couple months I’ve found myself thinking back over a lot of them, and often find they had a grain of truth. I consider what he said in the new light of things and move on, and then they’re done. This one thing, though, has kept coming back to me. It’s not very original, but I can’t help that. He was not an especially original man.

  What he said was, you had to take care of yourself, first and foremost and always, because there wasn’t no one else in the world who was going to do it for you. Look after Number One, was how he put it.

  About this he was absolutely right. Of that I have no doubt.

  I start every day to a schedule. Live the whole day by it, actually. I don’t know if it makes much difference in the wider scheme of things, but having a set of tasks certainly helps the day kick off more positively. It gets you over that hump.

  I wake around 6:00 pm, or a little earlier. So far that has meant the dawn has either been here, or coming. As the weeks go by it will mean a period of darkness after waking, a time spent waiting in the cabin. It will not make a great deal of difference apart from that.

  I wash with the can of water I set aside the night before, and eat whatever I put next to it. The washing is not strictly necessary but, again, I have always found it a good way to greet the day. You wash after a period of work, after all, and what else is a night of sleep, if not work, or a journey at least?

  You wash, and the day starts, a day marked off from what has gone before. In the meantime I have another can of water heating over a fire. The chimney is blocked up and the doors and windows are sealed overnight against the cold, so the fire must of necessity be small. That’s fine all I need is to make enough water for a cup of coffee.

  I take this with me when I open the cabin and step outside, which will generally be at about 6:20 am. I live within an area that is in the shade of mountains, and largely forested. Though the cabin itself is obscured by trees, from my door I have a good view down over the ten or so acres between it and the next thicker stretch of woods. I tend to sit there on the stoop a couple minutes, sipping my coffee, looking around. You can’t always see what you’re looking for, though, which is why I do what I do next.

  I leave the door open behind me and walk a distance which is about three hundred yards in length—I measured it with strides when I set it up—made of four unequal sides. This contains the cabin and my shed, and a few trees, and is bounded by wires. I call them wires, but really they’re lengths of fishing line, connected between a series of trees. The fact that I’m there checking them, on schedule, means they’re very likely to be in place, but I check them anyway. First, to make sure none of them need re-fixing because of wind—but also that there’s no sign something came close without actually tripping them.

  I walk them all slowly, looking carefully at where they’re attached to the trees, and checking the ground on the other side for signs anything got that far, and then stopped—either by accident or because they saw the wires. This is a good, slow, task for that time in the morning, wakes you up nice and easy. I once met a woman who’d been in therapy—hired a vacation cottage over near Elum for half a summer, a long time ago this was—and it seemed like the big thing she’d learned was to ignore everything she thought in the first hour of the day. That’s when the negative stuff will try to bring you down, she said, and she was right about that, if not much else. You come back from the night with your head and soul empty, and bad things try to fill you up. There’s a lot to get exercised about, if you let it. But if you’ve got a task, something to fill your head and move your limbs, by the time you’ve finished it the day has begun and you’re onto the next thing. You’re over that hump, like I said.

  When that job’s finished, I go back to the cabin and have the second cup of coffee, which I keep kind-of warm by laying my breakfast plate over the top of the mug while I’m outside. I’ll have put the fire out before checking the wires, so there’s no more hot water for the moment. I used to have one of those vacuum flasks and that was great, but it got broken. I’m on the lookout for a replacement. No luck yet. The colder it gets, the more that’s going to become a real priority.

  I’ll drink this second cup planning what I’m going to do that day. I could do this the night before, but usually I don’t. It’s what I do between 7:30 and 8:00 am. It’s in the schedule.

  Most days, the next thing is going into the woods. I used to have a vegetable patch behind the cabin, but the soil here isn’t that great and it was always kind of hit-and-miss. After the thing, it would also be too much of a clue that someone is living here.

  There’s plenty to find out in the woods, if you know what to look for. Wild versions of the vegetables in stores, other plants that don’t actually taste so good but give you some of the green stuff you need. Sometimes you’ll even see something you can kill to eat—a rabbit or a deer, that kind of thing—but not often. With time I assume I may see more, but for now stocks are low. With winter coming on, it’s going to get a little harder for all this stuff. Maybe a lot harder.

  We’ll see. No point in worrying about it now. Worry don’t get nothing but worry, as my father also used to say.

  Maybe a couple hours spent out in the woods, then I carry back what I’ve found and store it in the shed. I’ll check on the things already waiting, see what stage they’re at when it comes to eating. The hanging process is very important. While I’m there I’ll check the walls and roof are still sound and the canvas I’ve layered around the inside is still water-tight. As close to air-tight as possible, too.

  I don’t know if there are bears in these parts any more—I’ve lived here forty years, man and boy, and I haven’t seen one in a long time, nor wolves either—but you may as well be sure. One of them catches a scent of food, and they’re bound to come have a look-see, blundering through the wires and screwing up all that stuff. Fixing it would throw the schedule right out. I’m joking, mainly, but you know, it really would be kind of a pain, and my stock of fishing wire is not inexhaustible.

  It’s important to live within your means, within what you know you can replace. A long game way of life, as my father used to say. I had someone living here with me for a while, and it was kind of nice, but she found it hard to understand the importance of these things, of playing that long game. Her name was Ramona, and she came from over Noqualmi way. The arrangement didn’t last long. Less then ten days, in fact. Even so, I did miss her a little after she walked out the door. But things are simpler again now she’s gone.

  Time’ll be about 10:30 am by then, maybe 11:00, and I’m ready for a third cup of coffee. So I go back to the cabin, shut and seal up all the doors and windows again, and light the fire. Do the same as when I get up, is make two cups, cover one to keep it semi-warm for later. I’ll check around the inside of the cabin while the water’s heating, making sure everything’s in good shape. It’s a simple house. No electricity—lines don’t come out this far—and no running water.

  I got a septic tank under the house I put in ten years back, and I get drinking and washing water from the well. There’s not much to go wrong and it doesn’t need checking every day. But if something’s on the schedule then it gets done, and if it gets done, then you know it’s done, and it’s not something you have to worry about.

  I go back outside, leaving the door open behind me again, and check the exterior of the house. That does need an eye kept on it. The worse the weather gets, the more there’ll be a little of this or that needs doing. That’s okay. I’ve got tools, and I know how to use them. I was a handyman before the thing and I am, therefore, kind of handy. I’m glad about that now. Probably a lot of people thought being computer programmers or bankers or TV stars was a better
deal, the real cool beans. It’s likely by now they may have changed their minds. I’ll check the shingles on the roof, make sure the joints between the logs are still tight. I do not mess with any of the grasses or bushes that lie in the area within the wires, or outside either. I like them the way they are.

  Now, it’s about mid-day. I’ll fill half an hour with my sculpturing, then. There’s a patch of ground about a hundred yards the other side of the wires on the eastside of the house, where I’m arranging rocks. There’s a central area where they’re piled up higher, and around that they’re just strewn to look natural. You might think this is a weird thing to do for someone who won’t have a vegetable patch in case someone sees it, but I’m very careful with the rocks. Spent a long time studying on how the natural formations look around here. Spent even longer walking back from distant points with just the right kind of rocks. I was born right on this hillside. I know the area better’n probably anyone. The way I’m working it, the central area is going to look like just another outcrop, and the stuff around, like it just fell off and has been laying there for years.

  It passes the time, anyway.

  I eat my meal around 1:00 pm. Kind of late, but otherwise the afternoon can feel a little long. I eat what I left over from supper the night before. Saves a fire. Although leaving the door open when I’m around the property disperses most of the smoke, letting it out slowly, a portion is always going to linger in the cabin, I guess. If it’s been a still day, then when I wake up the next morning my chest can feel kind of clotted. Better than having it all shoot up the chimney, but it’s still not a perfect system. It could be improved. I’m thinking about it, in my spare time, which occurs between 1:30 and 2:00 pm.

  The afternoons are where the schedule becomes a tad more freeform. It depends on what my needs are. At first, after the thing, I would walk out to stock up on whatever I could find in the local towns. There’s two within reasonable foot distance—Elum, which is about six miles away, and Noqualmi, a little further in the other direction. But those were both real small towns, and there’s really nothing left there now. Stores, houses, they’re all empty and stripped even if not actually burned down. This left me in a bit of a spot for a while, but then, when I was walking back through the woods from Noqualmi empty-handed one afternoon, I spied a little gully I didn’t think I knew. Walked up it, and realized there might be other sources I hadn’t yet found. Felt dumb for not thinking of it before, in fact.