“No.” Gwen was adamant. “The zombie slayer was a real man. Bear killed millions of zombies. Millions.”
“So if the stories of the zombie slayer are true—”
“I’m not saying all the stories are true,” Gwen interrupted Anthony. “I mean, some of them are pretty crazy.”
“—but if some of them are true, then some of the other people in the myths are…”
“What? Real people? Yes.”
“The Black Angel?” asked Riley.
“The Black Angel was a real woman. Her name was Tris. But let me tell you—she was no angel.”
“An angel of death…” Riley said.
“Yeah, that definitely. But she was one pain in the ass, believe me.”
“So these were actual people?” Anthony couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
“What happened to them?” asked Riley.
“As far as I know, they’re still out there somewhere.”
Riley and Anthony thought of what the man in the pub had told them.
Gwen looked at Anthony, and when she noticed he had noticed she spoke again. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I just…you look so much like…”
“How’d my father—my biological father—how’d Harris die?”
Gwen didn’t see any use in lying to them about that.
“Bear killed him.”
“Why?” Anthony sounded angry.
“He’d turned. He was a zombie.”
“Oh…”
“Mickey’s alive. God, what I’d do to see him one more time, before…” Gwen’s eyes looked very tired as she asked, “Tell me more about him, please?”
* * *
Someone in New Harmony with a sick sense of humor, an interest in cinema history, or some combination of the two had named the zombie George. It had stuck. George was tethered to a pole across from the hospital where Mickey convalesced. George did not sleep, and spent much of its days and nights testing the limits of the wire’s length and strength, shuffling as far as it could in one direction then another.
Though George did not know its name was George, it had come to recognize the sound people made when they called out the word—“There’s George.” “Hey, look at George.” “What’s going on with George today?”—and it had some rudimentary recognition that they were referring to itself. When people stood there talking about George, it would walk to the end of its wire, trying to reach them, wishing to eat them. When people stood there looking quietly and did not talk about George, it did the same thing, still wanting to eat them.
George did not recognize itself as a zombie. It had no remembrance of its past life as a human being, or the circumstances that resulted in its current undead state. Its days were marked by a complete existential ignorance. George was not bothered by the weather, by extremes of heat and cold. Neither snow nor rain nor hail bothered George. If the elevated radiation levels suffusing the globe had any impact on George and its kind, no one had been able to discern what that impact might be.
An orange, cautionary circle had been painted around the radius that George’s wire allowed it to roam. The circle was meant to keep people back and away from the zombie. George would not have been able to eat anyone even if it had been off its wire. The zombie’s hands had been removed long ago, as had all of its teeth. A speculum pulled George’s toothless mouth wide open and kept it that way. The speculum was permanently welded to George’s head via screws fused through the sides of its skull. In the past, George would wag its tongue at spectators and passers by. The sight had been deemed too disturbing, so they had removed George’s tongue.
George remembered none of this. George had no way of knowing that, even if it managed to apprehend someone or something with the nubs ending at its wrists, it would not be able to bite them without teeth, or through the stainless steel gear welded to its head.
George served a purpose in New Harmony. George was a reminder of the threat humanity had faced. Children were being born who might never—or so it was hoped—have to face Zed in the wild. George or another zombie like it was the closest a whole new generation of boys and girls had ever been to the undead.
Despite the signs warning them not to, sometimes little children would try and feed George. They would come as close as they dared, with George straining against his wire, reaching out towards them with its stumps, and the children would toss bread or candies at the zombie. The braver ones would actually try to hand George something to eat. Sometimes George managed not to completely fumble whatever was handed to it, and secured the morsel between the two stumps at the ends of its arms.
Of course George could not eat whatever had been handed to it. George would stare at the children, whatever adults were with them, and it wanted to eat them all. When the kids went away, George would eventually drop the bread, or whatever it had been presented with, pick it up and look it over until it dropped it again.
George had no sense of history—its own or others. Its medulla and cerebellum recognized that fire was bad. Fire was dangerous. However, it did not cognize fire with terms or labels such as bad or dangerous. George’s ability to conceptualize abstract ideas was extremely limited. It just had a natural aversion to open flame, sensing it could cause harm. George lacked an inner voice.
It spent much of its days in a state that would have bored any human being to death. One of George’s most common activities was attempting to capture the flies which landed on its body. George could not do this because it was too slow and the flies were too fast. In actuality, the flies, which had grown fat and torpid off George’s rotten flesh, were quite slow for flies. But George had no hands with which to catch them, even if it had been dexterous enough. Fortunately for the zombie, its frustration was short-lived. When there were no humans around, it was almost always engaged in attempting to catch flies.
“Mommy, my teacher said zombies used to be us.” A little girl and her mother stood together in the eventide, looking at George.
“Well, Betsey, your teacher’s right. They were us once.”
George shuffled to the end of its wire and stretched out its stumps, reaching futilely for the girl and her parent. Maybe they were heading home from somewhere. These concerns were beyond George. All it comprehended was that the food was just standing there.
“Mommy, Timmy at school said zombies don’t die.”
“That’s not true.”
“Timmy said zombies can’t die because they’re dead already.”
“Don’t listen to Timmy. He’s just being silly, honey.”
Humans like this girl and her mother often stopped by to consider George and talk about it. George had no idea that they were talking about themselves and their species when they talked about it and its state. It was not self-aware, had no conception of a theory of mind, and would not have recognized such in human beings or any other animal if it had. George tried to reach the food, but the food was always out of reach.
“Mommy, will Timmy die one day?”
“Yes.”
“Will you die one day?”
“Yes.”
“Mommy? Will I die one day?”
“Yes.”
People came by at night and liked to mess with George. Usually they were kids, and usually they just dressed George up in weird costumes. They put various outfits on it, and the zombie was pretty much powerless to stop them. And so it was that, several times a year, an employee from the Department of Public Works would get a call from some citizen of New Harmony who clung to some out-dated notion of propriety. And then that employee would have to head out to where George was tethered outside the hospital and have to change George, stripping the French Maid or cheerleader outfits off it.
Pranksters thought it was especially funny to dress George like a woman. George had no idea they were dressing it like a woman, and would not have cared if it did. When they dressed it, the only recognition George harbored was just how close
the food was, and it would strain against its wire and speculum with no effective way of attaining that food.
“Mommy, do you think he gets cold at night?”
“No. It doesn’t get cold.”
Other people came and took pictures with George. Many were visitors from far off parts of New Harmony, parts where zombies like George were not kept. George did not understand what they were doing when they stood on either side of it, while a third stood in front of them all with a camera and took their picture, nor did it understand or even wonder what they did with the pictures. Photography, like nearly every other subject under the sun, was beyond George’s grasp. All it thought about while they posed with it was the proximity of the food.
“Mommy? When I die, am I going to become a zombie?”
“No. Mommy would never let that happen.”
The little girl and her mother stood there silently for awhile after that, until the little girl remarked, “I feel bad for it, mommy.”
A curly-haired man stood awkwardly for some time at the periphery of the area where George was kept. Perhaps the mother and daughter thought he was waiting for a bus or the arrival of a friend. Perhaps neither of them had noticed the man. But George had seen the man, though the man did not interest George.
The man had been standing there, picking at his knuckles, and glancing up anxiously from time to time. George could sense that the man was not food. He looked like the other food that came and went, like the girl and her mother standing there, but George knew the man was not something it would eat. It had no idea why, but this lack of understanding caused George no consternation whatsoever.
When the man worked up his nerve, he walked quickly up to George, glancing left and right, muttering to himself.
He passed the girl and her mother, who had been getting ready to leave.
“Mommy, where’s that man going?”
George made no move for the man. It did not see him as food. It did not understand what was in the man’s hand.
“Mommy, is that a—”
“Don’t look, Betsey!”
When Gary raised the hammer and cracked George in the skull, the zombie jerked its head back and looked at him. The man had hit George in the head with a hammer. George did not know why the man had done that. George did not know that the thing in the man’s hand was called a hammer. The man hit George in the head a second time, swinging the hammer wildly.
“Mommy!”
George turned and shuffled away from the man. It did not want to eat the man, and it did not want to get hit in the head again. Gary followed George, repeatedly hammering at the zombie. Some of his blows connected with George’s head, but most missed and landed on George’s stooped shoulders.
George moaned, passed its pole, and walked as far as the wire would allow it in the opposite direction. Gary followed George the whole way, bludgeoning it in the head.
“Help! Somebody help! He’s crazy!”
George went down. It landed on its chest and stomach and rolled itself over onto its back then sat up. The man hovered over it. He swung the hammer so frenziedly, he missed George and fell down himself. Before the man could get up and club George any further, three uniformed members of Public Security swooped in and gathered him up.
“Come on Betsey. Let’s get out of here…”
The man screamed at the three uniformed men and cried the whole time.
“Nazis! I hate these guys! I fucking hate these guys!”
The woman had her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and she ushered her away.
“Nazis! Get off me! Nazis!”
The man who had come after George did not like to be touched.
“Take it easy there, pal…”
George did not know that the man did not like to be touched. George had no idea why the man had attacked it. George looked at the man and knew he was not food, but the three men carting the man away, they were. A small crowd of people had gathered around the scene to watch. George looked at them and thought it was surrounded by food.
The hammer was just lying there on the concrete. Its striking face was stained where it had hit George’s head.
The zombie stood up. It raised its arms, aiming the nubs at the ends of its wrists towards the nearest person as it stumbled after her. She was well outside the orange circle circumscribed around George’s area. The wire went taut around George’s neck, pulling the zombie up short. The food was so close, yet so far away.
This, if it had been capable of understanding irony, was the story of its undead life.
* * *
Though it was a dark and chilly autumn night, inside the dance hall was warm and packed with dancing bodies. The speakers blared out songs almost fifty years old. The crowd was largely young—mostly men and women in their late teens through mid-twenties—but there were pockets of those in their thirties and forties. The outfits ranged from leg warmers and sweaters over miniskirts to acid washed jeans, from stretchy pants to shirts and coats with more shirts over the coats. The layered look wasn’t meant to fend off the fall air outdoors. It was 80s night. Layered and messy chic were the order of the evening. Electric blue eye shadow and huge earrings were ubiquitous. Hair was poofed up, and there was no shortage of wigs.
Everyone was rocking down the electric avenue with Eddy Grant.
Evan was under the lights, amidst the press of bodies, dancing. An hour earlier he had gone up to one of the many bars, knocked back a gin, and popped down two E tabs from one of the bowls-full on the bar. He was feeling the MDMA now. The emotions washed over him. Evan normally didn’t like large crowds like this one, but tonight he felt alert, peaceful, and euphoric. He took comfort from the press of bodies.
Anthony and Riley appeared out of the crowd next to him. Anthony wore a light blue t-shirt under a faux-Armani jacket and white, linen pants over imitation Converse Chuck Taylors. Anthony still sported his beanie, which looked out of place, but made Evan happy because he had foregone his own. Riley, in Evan’s estimation, looked radiant in an 80s retro way. She wore a red jumpsuit with batwing sleeves. Cinched around her waist was an oversized, neon yellow patent-leather belt. Her eyes and cheeks were highly made up.
“Anthony! Rye!” Evan hugged both of them while he danced. Electricity coursed through his body as he did so.
“Ev!” Riley was happy to see her brother’s friend. Evan was decked out in mid-length Jams surfer shorts with a multi-colored Baja hoodie pullover. The pullover had a huge front center pocket and two thick open ropes on the neck. It was split up either side, and Evan had no shirt on underneath.
“Watch this!” Ev started popping and locking, snapping his knees, chest, shoulders and wrists in and forward, completely out of synch with the music.
“Whoa!” Anthony called out as Evan danced the tick. “He’s feeling no pain.”
“We’re all set for tomorrow, Anthony,” Evan said when he’d finished and was dancing in place once again. Gary Numan’s Cars blasted from the speakers. “I spoke to Diego’s cousin. He’s got access to a chopper tomorrow afternoon. He’ll let us off a couple hundred clicks into the Outlands.”
“It’s not going to be a problem?”
“Nah! Diego owes me one.”
“Awesome!” Anthony looked happy. This made Evan happier. “Now all we need to do is put together some packs and supplies.”
“Done.” Evan looked triumphant. He was dancing with his hands up over his head.
“Ev, you’re the best!” Riley called out. Evan’s moves and the sway of the crowd around them were infectious. Riley danced to the music too.
Troi came out of the mass clutching two cocktails. She wore an oversized cut-off top over stretch stirrup pants and laced granny boots that reached to her upper calves. The sleeves on her top were rolled up, and jelly bracelets covered her forearms. Troi’s face was heavy with eye shadow and blush. Long, dangly earrings hung from her ears. She had her hair pulled back into a side ponytail, secured with a banana clip. Troi handed o
ne of the Purple Chongos to Riley. They clinked glasses and giggled when some of the gin-cranberry-grape-and orange juice spilled out onto the floor.
Anthony nursed his Cuba Libre. He hadn’t popped any E or whatever else was available at the bars. He wanted to keep a relatively clear mind, because he had a lot to think about.
The opening chords of the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Tuff Enuff made Evan hoot and holler.
Anthony looked up to one of the several flat screens on the walls. A muscular black man with a Mohawk, and what looked like a few kilograms of gold chains around his neck, picked another man up and threw him in slow motion.
Two Madonna-wannabes had sandwiched Evan. They pulled his hoodie back and ran their hands over his abs, oohing and aahing. Evan looked like he was in heaven.
“Hey, that’s our man!” Troi laughed as she and Riley stepped closer to Evan and the other two women moved back into the crowd. Anthony thought the smile on Evan’s face was a mile wide.
The Mohawked man on the screen and his friends were shooting everything up and blowing it all to hell, but no one seemed to be getting killed.
When The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me flooded over the house system, Evan turned his zonked-out attention completely to Riley. Some guy with a mullet wig and a pointy bustier tried to dance with her. Evan bodily interposed himself between the two of them.
“Thanks!” Riley yelled over the music and noise.
“Don’t mention it.”
They danced together, mouthing parts of the song at one another. Evan was flying high and wondered if Riley was feeling for him what he was feeling for her. When Don’t You Want Me faded into Animotion’s Obsession, Evan could have kissed the D.J.
Anthony was on his third rum and coke when he had to go to the bathroom. As he waited on the line outside the men’s room, a couple passing recognized him and stopped.
“Hey, teach!” It was Jermaine and Tricia from his class. It took Anthony a second to recognize them, because they were all—himself included—out of context, what with his two students
sporting 80s couture, and Anthony feeling the effects of the rum.
Resurrection (Eden Book 3) Page 10
