Zombies of the Gene Pool

by Sharyn McCrumb

  This was one of Surn's good days. He had talked briefly, and he seemed to understand the purpose of the journey. Lorien hoped that things would go well over the weekend. She didn't want Mr. Surn to be hurt or embarrassed by the experience. She hoped that it would please him to see his old friends again.

  "Sit here in this nice plastic chair, and I'll go and see about the bags." Lorien's face assumed an expression of sternness. "You won't wander off, will you?"

  Smiling, he shook his head. "Not in Tennessee," he said carefully.

  "All right, then. I'll be back as soon as I can." She hoped that she had brought enough money for the trip. They had Surn's Visa and American Express cards, and two hundred dollars in cash for cab fares and tips. That ought to do it. It had to, because Surn couldn't remember the automatic teller code to get cash with his credit card, and she didn't want to draw too much attention to them by asking for help.

  "I have to be crazy to think I can pull this off," thought Lorien. "But what an opportunity-for both of us!" She had purchased a new wardrobe for the reunion, reasoning that people would be more likely to accept her as Surn's assistant if she were not wearing jeans and sandals. Since Lorien had never met an employee of anyone famous, she wasn't sure what sort of attire was required, but she decided that if she copied the style of the woman vice-president at Mr. Surn's bank, she ought to succeed in looking both respectable and businesslike. She had even had her hair done for the occasion. Catching sight of herself in a restaurant mirror, Lorien touched her newly styled tresses and frowned. "I look just like Marilyn Quayle," she muttered to herself.

  Brendan Surn was a good deal more casually dressed, because as a famous Californian he was not even expected to own a tie. Lorien had studied the pictures on the book jackets of Surn's novels, and she had packed a "representative selection" of similar attire, adding his silver NASA jacket, a gift from the astronauts, in case it was chilly in Tennessee.

  So far things seemed to be going well. Perhaps the Piracetam was working. Someone at the health food store had mentioned that the drug was used in Europe for Alzheimer's patients and

  people with memory problems, so Lorien ordered some. It wouldn't hurt to try, she reasoned. She wasn't sure if there had been any improvement. Sometimes he seemed fine and sometimes not, but she kept up the dosage in hopes that long-term effects would be more noticeable. If he didn't get any worse, that would be enough.

  Brendan had done a couple of short telephone interviews concerning the reunion, and he had sounded fine. Lorien thought it odd that a man who couldn't remember how to turn on the stove could talk knowledgeably about literature, but she supposed that the things that would stay with him longest were the things that he cared about, not necessarily the simplest things he knew. She hoped that this meant he would remember the old days at the Fan Farm. If not, she could cover for him by staying close and changing the subject if things got awkward. There was only one problem Lorien Williams had not worked out: What happens if someone offers Brendan Surn big money to write another book? And what if he agrees to do it?

  Managing Surn's business affairs and his laundry were one thing, but Lorien was not at all sure that she was up to writing a best-seller.

  While George Woodard talked about his teaching job and the next issue of Alluvial, speculated on the content of the next Star Trek movie (and whether there would be one), and lamented his health, Jay Omega probed under the Concord's hood for signs of trouble. The possibilities were legion. Woodard's engine looked like he had just followed an Exxon tanker through a mud hole. Disaster Lad indeed, thought Jay Omega, but immediately he felt ashamed of himself for this harsh judgment. Surely, he told himself, if George Woodard could have afforded the maintenance on this car, he could also have afforded to trade it in for a newer model. A few moments of study told him what the trouble was.

  "It's your battery cables," he announced, fingering the wires barnacled with white corrosion at the terminals.

  Behind him the conversation continued unabated. In Woodard's eagerness to discuss old times, he had apparently forgotten his car, his mechanical difficulties, and his new acquaintance. Not that it mattered. Fixing the car would take three minutes and required no assistance from the owner. Jay went back to his own car to get the wet rag and wire brush he would need to clean the battery terminals.

  As he went past them, George Woodard called out, "Found the trouble, have you? I hope it's not expensive."

  "I can fix it for nothing," said Jay Omega.

  Bunzie hated people who accepted telephone calls on airplanes, which was unfortunate, because it was a practice that Ruben Mistral indulged in quite a bit. At the moment he was conferring with his office to reschedule meetings and to see who had left messages in reply to his messages. While he had his secretary on the line, he asked how the final arrangements for the reunion had gone. The response was reassuring. The chartered plane had taken off from LaGuardia at six, and the two hotels had declared themselves ready for the reunion and the editorial contingent.

  Bunzie wondered what the reunion would be like, aside from all the hype. Did he really have anything in common with those guys anymore? It. had been so long since he had talked about anything besides business that he wasn't sure he could carry on an ordinary conversation. And what if the guys were worse than boring-what if they didn't like him? Suppose they resented him for going Hollywood? Bunzie figured he had enough enemies throwing negative ions at him without inviting rejection from old friends. For one stifling moment he felt like faking an excuse not to attend and going home. But the plane full of book people had already left New York, and it was unthinkable that the auction should go on without him. The gang stood to make some nice money off this stunt, and it had been his doing. How could he think they'd dislike him?

  Besides, he thought, these guys were his friends when he was broke and nobody. They had liked him then. There was even more reason to like him now. It was going to be all right.

  Bunzie leaned back in his seat, watching the clouds roll by. Now maybe he could sit back and enjoy his friends and let the business take care of itself. He told Ruben Mistral to take the weekend off, and went back to reading the in-flight magazine.

  Chapter 7

  … One family returns every year on Memorial Day to row out and sink a wreath on what they think is the ancestral burial plot. But one of the older boys admits that he thinks an aging uncle confused the spot with his favorite fishing hole and they have for years been honoring a living channel cat.

  – DON JOHNSON "The Mayor of Butler"

  "I wonder how it's going," said Marion for the third time. "The reunion? Fine," said Jay Omega, spearing another forkful of barbecue. "Are you going to eat that last hush puppy, because if not-"

  After the rescue of George Woodard from the Welcome Center parking lot, Jay had returned to the Mountaineer Lodge, leaving Erik Giles to go off to his private reunion party while he and Marion drove off in search of a decent restaurant. He wasn't entirely convinced that they had found one, but Marion insisted that it would be wonderful, and as far as the food was concerned, she was right. He wasn't too sure about the ambience.

  The Lakecrest Cafe, as the place was called, sat on a mound of clay too small to be termed a hill, with its back to the narrow shore of Breedlove Lake. Marion had declared that the restaurant's name was either a reassurance for customers or a neon prayer that the lake's crest should go no higher than the bottom of the slope even during the spring runoffs. She conceded that it might also be a message to hydroelectric-happy Tennessee bureaucrats: the lake stops here.

  The wooden building was at least thirty years old, and sported a rusting thermometer advertising Coca-Cola, fading posters from last year's fair, and a gravel parking lot full of pickup trucks, which, according to Marion, guaranteed the best food around. Jay muttered something about cholera, but she shushed him, and they went in.

  Once inside, Jay's apprehensions began to subside. The green tile floor was well scrubbed, and the pine b
ooths were free of graffiti. Fresh wildflowers sat on red gingham tablecloths, and the jukebox was playing quiet country songs at a reasonable volume.

  As they slid into the corner booth, Marion laughed at his evident relief. "What did you expect?" she asked.

  Jay pantomimed the strumming of a banjo and hummed a few bars of Dueling Banjos, the theme from Deliverance.

  "Honestly, Jay! What if someone sees you? Anyway, I thought you were a little more sophisticated than that. Wait until I tell Jean and Betty in Appalachian Studies that I found another Deliverance sucker."

  Jay pretended to be studying the menu, but Marion saw him blush.

  She went on. "Everybody has seen that movie, and from the way they've reacted to it, you'd think it was a documentary, but it wasn't. It was an allegory. The author, James Dickey, is a poet. Talking to someone from Appalachia about Deliverance is like talking about Moby Dick to a member of Greenpeace. In both cases, you're confusing symbolism with reality." Marion waved her hand to indicate the rest of the cafe. "Do you see anybody in here who looks like one of those caricatures in Deliverance?"

  Jay swallowed the last bit of hush puppy. "Well, there's a guy coming toward us…" He nodded toward a large bearded man in jeans and a Charlie Daniels T-shirt. He looked like a cross between a linebacker and a bear.

  Marion turned to look at him and her lips twitched but she said nothing.

  "Don't worry, Marion!" whispered Jay. "I'll handle this."

  "Howdy," said the man, easing into the booth beside Marion. "Did you all come for the show?"

  "No," said Marion. "Is there one?"

  "Well, most Thursday nights a few of us get together to do a little pickin'. Have a few beers." He eyed Jay Omega, who was noticeably paler. "Not too awful many knife fights, though," he added.

  "We don't want any trouble," said Jay carefully.

  Marion looked solemn. "What's a barbarian like you doing in a nice place like this?"

  Jay's jaw dropped. "Marion!" he hissed.

  She continued her scolding as if he had not spoken. "I mean, we come all the way from southwest Virginia, hoping for a little decent barbecue or some down-home cooking, and what do we find trashing up the place? A goddamned Joyce scholar!" She threw a hush puppy at him.

  The bearded man grinned. "Shoot, Marion! What'd you wanna give the game away for? I really had your friend going there, and you know I just love Deliverance suckers!"

  "Very funny, Tobe. What if somebody believed in that hillbilly act of yours? You could be perpetuating a stereotype, you know."

  The big man sighed. "I reckon I could come in here in a Savile Row suit and a rep tie, and some people would still think the mountains were full of savages."

  Jay Omega continued to look puzzled. "Is this the floor show?" he asked.

  They laughed at his dismay. "Jay, may I present Tobias J. Crawford of the English department at East Tennessee State University."

  "And one of the best clawhammer banjo players in these parts," Dr. Crawford added without a trace of modesty. "A bunch of us old boys from around here get together Thursday nights to play at the Lakecrest. Straight bluegrass. No ballad singing, dulcimer playing, academic storytelling, or Scottish country dancing allowed. Nobody in the group answers to 'Doc,' and the lawyer who plays bass has to tell people he's a truck driver."

  Jay blinked. "You're another English professor?"

  "That's right," nodded Crawford. "The woods are full of 'em in tourist season. Mostly they're backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, but a few of them are running around with tape recorders trying to pick up an authentic mountain folk song." He grinned. "I once gave a fellow from Carmel, California a bluegrass rendition of 'Because I Could Not Stop for Death,' and told him it was a Child ballad that my great-great-great-grandpappy had brought over from England. He's probably tried to publish it in a journal somewhere by now."

  Marion nodded. " 'Because I Could Not Stop for Death.' Very good. And I suppose you sang it to the tune of 'The Yellow Rose of Texas'?"

  "Oh, sure. You can sing quite a few of Emily Dickinson's poems to the tune of 'The Yellow Rose of Texas.' "

  To Jay Omega's further dismay, the two English scholars proceeded to demonstrate this literary discovery, amid giggles and spoons tapped on beer mugs for percussion. When the tribute to Emily Dickinson was finished, Marion wiped her eyes and attempted to speak. "You should see Tobe at an MLA conference!" she said between gasps. "But it was mean of him to scare you like that. Tobe, this is James Owens Mega, an electrical engineer who writes science fiction."

  Crawford stuck out his hand. "Sorry to startle you," he said, "but when I saw you mime that banjo imitation, I knew you were discussing Deliverance, so I figured I'd come on over. We get pretty tired of that hillbilly crap."

  Jay smiled. "I know what you mean. I have stereotypes of my own to contend with."

  "Jay is the author of Bimbos of the Death Sun," Marion explained.

  Tobe Crawford nodded. "That would take some effort to live down, I expect. Science fiction? Are you connected with that reunion going on in Wall Hollow?"

  "Yes. Do you know Erik Giles from my department? It turns out that he was C. A. Stormcock, the author of The Golden Gain, who was one of the Lanthanides back in the fifties. He was invited back for the reunion, and because his health is not good we came with him."

  Dr. Crawford looked interested. "Has the reunion started yet? There's been a ton of publicity about it. Newspapers, local television. I even saw an article that said A Current Affair was coming in to film it."

  "I believe that's true," said Marion. "Did you see the interview with Mistral in People magazine?"

  Tobe Crawford shook his head. "I get my news from the National Inquirer" he said solemnly.

  Marion made a face at him. "That's right! Make English professors look bad too, while you're at it! Anyway, I wouldn't expect a Joyce scholar to understand a complex field like science fiction, but these writers are very important in their genre, so all this publicity is to be expected."

  "I hear that all sorts of movie types will be there. Have you seen any of those guys yet?"

  "The Lanthanides are here, but all the business people arrive tomorrow." Marion gave Tobe Crawford a stern look. "I hope you're not thinking of taking your mountain man act on the road. Anyhow, I haven't seen any gullible city slickers. Tonight the writers are having a private party, so we haven't even met them yet."

  "I've met them, but it was a long time ago," said Tobe.

  "At a science fiction convention?"

  "No. I remember when that bunch lived at Dugger's farm. I was just a kid then, so I didn't know any of them very well, but people used to think they were strange. I worked Saturdays in my uncle Bob Mclnturf's store, stocking shelves and sweeping up, and they used to come in every now and then to buy groceries. I figure that time capsule they buried was the pickle jar I gave them."

  "Did they tell you what it was for?"

  "Not that I recall. We didn't pay much attention to them, on account of them being so odd and keeping to themselves like they did. We knew Dugger's people, of course, and Jim Conyers is a good old boy-for a lawyer-but back then, people kept shy of them. I remember they set off some fireworks one time that damn near started a forest fire. Folks around here were about ready to run them off."

  "I think they've mellowed since then," said Jay Omega. "I didn't realize that you came from this part of east Tennessee, Tobe," said Marion. "So people here didn't know that the Lanthanides buried a time capsule?"

  "Nobody would have cared. Those guys weren't famous back when I was a kid, so no one was particularly interested in what went on out there, as long as they didn't burn down the mountain." He grinned wolfishly. "A time capsule, huh? Too bad James Joyce didn't bury one of those."

  Marion gave him an acid smile. "He'd probably have dumped a box of Scrabble tiles into the canister and let it go at that."

  Jay had begun to be afraid that the evening was going to degenerate into an English
professors' version of sniper warfare. In his desperation to think of a new topic for discussion, he said, "You're the first local person we've met so far. What do you think of the drawdown?"

  Tobias Crawford looked sad. "People hated that lake when they put it in. One old fellow compared the TVA's taking of our valley to the expulsion of the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. When they announced the drawdown, I thought we'd all be thankful to see that lake gone, even for a couple of weeks, but now I don't know. It sure has dredged up a lot of memories."

  "I wonder how it's going at the reunion," said Marion again. "Imagine-all the titans of science fiction in one little village!"

  "Well, if they're as great as you say they are, I reckon they picked the right place to get together," said Tobe Crawford. "What do you mean?"

  "Wall Hollow. Haven't you heard how it got its name?" Marion shook her head.

  "Okay, I'll give you a hint. The present name of the town is a local corruption of the original. The town was settled in the early eighteenth century by German immigrants. Try saying it out loud. Wall Hollow."

  "Wall Hollow," Marion repeated thoughtfully. "German…"

  "Valhalla," said Jay Omega. "The home of the immortals."

  Erik Giles had been reluctant to go to the reunion. For a long time he sat in his room, debating over whether or not to wear casual clothes instead of his white suit, whether or not to wear a tie, whether or not to improvise a name tag to spare himself embarrassment. And what if the others had changed so much that he failed to recognize them? Would that be a social blunder? In the end, hunger and boredom drove him out of his solitary bedroom, sporting a hand-lettered name tag drawn on a page of the nightstand note pad. He had folded it over his shirt pocket and secured it in place with the clip of his ballpoint pen. "Erik Giles, Ph.D.," the sign said, and in smaller letters beneath it he had written "Stormy." Fortified by that social insurance, the professor followed the arrows to the Laurel Room and steeled himself for the encounters to come.