Zombies of the Gene Pool

by Sharyn McCrumb

  It was a quiet party in a small banquet room. A photo mural of the lake in autumn adorned one wall, and the addition of chintz loveseats and potted plants instead of tables converted the space from banquet hall to salon. Soft canned music flowed from hidden speakers as an unobtrusive waitress glided about the room, retrieving empty glasses and offering hors d'oeuvres.

  Thankful to go unnoticed, Erik Giles stood in the doorway studying the guests. The most familiar face was that of George Woodard, hunched over a little plate of appetizers, with a cup of punch balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. He had changed from his Star Trek T-shirt to a brown turtleneck and polyester pants, and his black hair, grown long on one side and combed across the top of his head, shone like the surface of a bowling ball. Standing near George was a plump, pleasant-looking woman with braided hair and a medieval gown of green and gold. She was talking to a florid fellow in a wrinkled beige jacket and an open shirt. Giles caught a glimpse of the gold medallion around the man's neck and correctly deduced that this must be the host of the party, "Bunzie" Mistral. The young man hovering at Bunzie's elbow was either a relative of someone in the group or, more probably, one of the Mistral minions, on hand to see that things went smoothly.

  Turning his attention to the far end of the room, Giles found Brendan Surn-by now a household face-standing beside the lake mural with a secretarial young woman in a navy blazer and skirt. Surely not a wife, thought Erik Giles. She doesn't look expensive enough to be the great man's consort. Perhaps she was another one of the staff. The two of them were talking quietly with a lean, distinguished-looking man who was quite well preserved for sixty, but more conservatively dressed than Surn or Mistral. Definitely not a movie person. Erik Giles tried to remember who else was coming. It took him another few minutes to remember Dugger's quiet boyhood friend Jim… O'Connor? Conrad. Ah, he had it now. Conyers. Jim Conyers. And the plump woman in white linen at his side must be the fiancee of long ago -Barbara. He had met her a couple of times, years ago, but he could remember nothing about her. There probably wasn't much to remember.

  Giles took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be so difficult, he told himself. He had a pretty good idea who everyone was already, and if any gaffes were made, there was no one important around to observe it. Things were going to go well, he thought, if only he could manage to be kind about his old acquaintances' follies, and if he weren't too overbearing about his own scholarly importance. He straightened his name tag, squared his shoulders, and strode purposefully into the room.

  Ever the genial host, Bunzie hurried to greet him, enfolding him in a bear hug, which Giles supposed to be the Hollywood equivalent of a cordial nod. He noticed that as Bunzie pulled out of the embrace, he sneaked a look at the name tag. "Stormy! Stormy! Stormy!" he intoned. "Great to see you again, kid!" Turning to the assembled guests, Bunzie announced, "Look, folks! It's Dr. Erik Giles-complete with name tag! And how about you, Stormy? Recognize the old gang?"

  "I think so, yes," said Giles, edging away from his host. "How have you been, er-Reuben?" He pronounced it with the accent on the first syllable, the way Bunzie had said it in the old days, before he became the fashionable "Ruben," accent on the second syllable, Mistral.

  "It's still Bunzie," grinned Mistral. "Especially to family. And we're family, aren't we? Boy, when I think of those wonderful times we had back on the farm."

  "It would have been nice to have central heating," said Giles.

  "Well, Dugger could afford it now, couldn't he? After we sell this anthology for a bundle…"

  "Poor Dugger. I wish he were alive to see this. He could have bought another farm somewhere. And wouldn't Curtis Phillips love to see his name coupled with Lovecraft's in scholarly articles?" Erik Giles looked around the room. "This is a reminder of what we've lost, isn't it? Curtis, Deddingfield, Dale Dugger? Intimations of our own mortality."

  "You forgot Pat Malone," said Bunzie.

  Giles shrugged. "I don't miss Pat. He was a cynical pain in the ass."

  Bunzie's smile was all-forgiving. "Poor old Pat. Such an idealist! He was trying to be sophisticated, that's all. But he was a great mind, and in his own way, he thought the world of us."

  "Well, perhaps." Erik Giles didn't want to beatify a departed nuisance, but it would have been rude to disagree. He shook Bunzie's hand. "Good to see you again."

  He made his way toward Brendan Surn, the farthest point in the room from the effusive Bunzie and the limpet Woodard.

  As he approached them, Brendan Surn turned his attention from the Conyers couple, his face lighting up in a warm smile. "Hello, Peter!" he called out. "They told me you weren't coming."

  The little mudhen secretary looked stricken. "Mr. Surn!" she gasped. "This is Erik Giles. You remember. Mr. Mistral was telling us that he's a college professor now."

  Brendan Surn looked blank for a moment, but then he put out his hand and smiled again. "Erik Giles. Of course. In that white suit of yours, my next guess might have been Mark Twain."

  They all laughed merrily to cover the awkward moment. Then the secretary offered her hand to Giles. "I'm Lorien Williams, Dr. Giles. I'm Mr. Surn's assistant."

  "Lorien?" echoed Giles.

  She blushed. "I was born in the sixties, when my parents were heavily into Tolkien. And before you ask, no, I don't have a brother named Gandalf. Anyway, it's an honor to meet you. And you know Mr. and Mrs. Conyers, of course. We were just talking about the movie version of Starwind Rising,"

  "Er-yes," said Giles, trying to remember a movie he had seen once ten years ago. "Too bad they had to leave out so many of the subplots, but I suppose a nine-hundred-page book presents many problems for screenwriters."

  "So you live over in Virginia now?" said Barbara Conyers, who was the family conversationalist.

  "Yes. I teach at the university. I don't get over this way very often."

  "Jim and I still live in Elizabethton. Jim is semiretired now from his law practice, and we have a little nursery of trees and bedding plants. I've always loved working with flowers. And our daughter Carol lives over in Johnson City. Her husband is at the university, and they have two little ones, Andrew, who is four, and Amy Allison, two-and-a-half."

  Giles turned to Lorien Williams. "Is this your first trip to east Tennessee?"

  She nodded. "First trip east of Idaho. There are a lot of trees here. In California I get homesick for trees sometimes."

  "You should see the country when the lake is full," said Barbara. "Especially in June when the mountain laurel is in bloom. It's about the prettiest place on earth then."

  "I find it interesting to see the valley exposed again after all these years." Giles nodded toward the mural of Breedlove Lake.

  "I know," said Barbara earnestly. "It's strange, isn't it? Like digging up an old grave. I swear Jim's been having nightmares about the whole thing. He wakes up sometimes of a night in a cold sweat. He talks about water running down the walls."

  Conyers frowned. "Probably indigestion," he grunted.

  Barbara chattered on. "Still, I guess it's a good thing they did decide to drain the lake, because otherwise, you all would never have been able to recover your stories, would you?"

  Lorien Williams nodded excitedly. "Isn't it wonderful about the time capsule? After all these years, new stories from Peter Deddingfield and Curtis Phillips! I've read everything they ever wrote."

  Jim Conyers looked solemn. "I don't care much for myself. Barb and I are happy as we are, but maybe after all these years Dugger will finally get something published. Wish he could have been around to enjoy it."

  Barbara sighed. "He would have been so proud of all his friends. They've all become so famous." Giles' frown reminded her that this was too sweeping an accolade. "And even the ones who aren't celebrities are doing real well," she amended. A glance in George Woodard's direction suggested that she knew better, but was going to leave it at that anyhow.

  A new voice chimed in. "I wonder what Pat Malone would have thought of all th
is hoopla."

  Giles turned to see the woman in medieval dress smiling up at him. There were lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, but she had an appealing air of youthfulness about her.

  "Angela Arbroath, Stormy," she said, offering him a much be-ringed hand. "I published Archangel. Remember?"

  "Yes, of course," said Giles hastily, giving her an awkward peck on the cheek. "Archangel. Quite a nice little magazine, as I recall."

  Angela blushed. "Well, it wasn't a patch on Alluvial, of course, but Pat Malone was a much better editor than I was. And of course, he could offer articles by Surn and Deddingfield. You wouldn't believe how much Alluvial sells for today."

  Giles gave her a mirthless smile. "One dollar per issue, I believe."

  "Oh. Of course. George still publishes something called that, doesn't he?" She paused for a moment, trying to think of something kind to say about that. Finally she blurted out, "Well, you certainly are looking well, Erik!"

  "And you haven't changed a bit," he assured her. "And of course you were here the weekend we decided to put that time capsule together. You even sent us back a story, didn't you?"

  "That I did," grinned Angela. "And if Bunzie is the magician he thinks he is, it'll keep me in my old age."

  "Do you remember what you wrote?" asked Barbara Conyers.

  "Not really. Something with a woman protagonist, I think, to annoy the guys. In most of their early works the women were like cheeseburgers-they were either trophies or dessert."

  Erik Giles laughed. "Remind me to introduce you to Marion Farley," he said. "I believe you two are soul mates."

  It was nearly ten o'clock. The supply of hors d'oeuvres had dwindled to a few selections that nobody wanted, and the champagne had been abandoned in favor of decaffeinated coffee, but the talking was louder and more animated than before, and frequently punctuated with laughter. As the reunion rekindled their memories of each other, the Lanthanides had pulled the couches close together, and they all sat around in a circle, arguing about subjects they hadn't cared about in decades.

  None of these subjects concerned science fiction, science, or literature in general. In the years since the dissolution of the Fan Farm, they had resolved all their uncertainties about those subjects to their own satisfaction, and they were past the need to discuss such matters. What still rankled was the personal issues.

  "I didn't know that was moonshine you kept in that mason jar in the bathroom. And anyway, it took the paint off my brush, didn't it?" After all these years, Woodard was still stung by Bunzie's old grievance. "Besides," he added petulantly, "I probably saved your life by using it up. Drinking that stuff can make you go blind. It gives you lead poisoning, I believe."

  Giles laughed. "Speaking of that sort of lead poisoning, remember that issue of Alluvial that Curtis and Pat Malone put out when they were stinking drunk? 'An Interview with Cthulu.' And they filched a couple of love poems that Deddingfield wrote to Earlene Riley and put those in. I thought the post office was going to send the feds in after us when that issue went through the mails. Remember the verse about 'Your succulent nipples spark fusion in my teeming loins…' Ugh! And Deddingfield wasn't even embarrassed. He swore he wrote it from memory!" Hearing a silence instead of indulgent laughter, Giles looked up to see shamefaced smiles on the faces of the others. George Woodard had turned scarlet, and seemed intent upon a petit-four.

  Finally Conyers said quietly, "Well, Peter always was an old lying hound, wasn't he?"

  Erik remembered that George Woodard referred to his wife as Earlene. A glance at Woodard's red face told him that it was the same girl. Girl! She must be sixty now. They had met her at an East Coast S-F convention. He wondered if she still attended them.

  To break the silence, Angela said, "Do you remember how much Dale hated Erik's jazz records! Pat told me that Dale wrote a story once contending that jazz was the sound of alien invaders fine-tuning their spaceships' engines."

  Erik Giles looked puzzled. "I can't remember having any special fondness for jazz. Well, perhaps I did. I fancied myself a bohemian in those days."

  "I remember you used to argue incessantly about whose turn it was to do the dishes," said Brendan Surn.

  "We were always arguing incessantly about something," said Bunzie. "That's what adolescent intellectuals do. Bicker. Protest. Whine. Censure. But we laughed a lot, too."

  "Dissent is the sign of an active and inquisitive mind," said George Woodard, for whom bickering had remained a way of life. "In Alluvial I welcome disagreement from freethinking individuals, exercising their First Amendment rights. Speaking of Alluvial, I'm planning to write this up in a forthcoming issue, and I'd welcome some guest columns. How about you, Angela?"

  Angela looked away. "I'm not sure I have the time, George. I'll see. Okay?"

  "I guess we ought to talk about the reason we're all here," said Bunzie, drawing a well-scribbled index card out of his hip pocket. "The business part of this reunion starts tomorrow. I thought we'd begin with an introductory meeting here at our hotel. Jim, I think you agreed to give the media people some background on Wall Hollow and the construction of the lake?"

  "Yes. I did some research, and I can answer anything that isn't an engineering question. History, facts and figures, local legends, and so on."

  "Good! Colorful anecdotes will make good copy for feature stories. I leave it to you." Bunzie consulted his notes. "After the introduction here, we will make our way down the hill, where several small motorboats will be waiting to take us to Dugger's farm. Expect to pose for pictures during this process. We have boots for all of you."

  Tentatively, Lorien Williams raised her hand. "Excuse me, but how can boats get around out there if there is nothing left but mud?"

  Bunzie's smile was intended to make her feel at ease. "Good question, Lori!" he beamed. "You know, the best thing we could have used would have been those hovercraft things they use in the swamps of the Everglades. What do they call them? Whatever. Anyway-" He shrugged. "Try to find those swamp boats in east Tennessee. Try to find a bagel. But rowboats they got. So we rented a couple, complete with outboard motors and navigators. The boats will stay in the original channel."

  Jim Conyers felt the need to translate. "When they drain the lake, Miss Williams, the water doesn't go away entirely. The Wa-tauga River simply returns to its original banks and flows through the valley just as it did before the lake was formed. We will travel on the river."

  "But once we get to the farm, we slog it out on foot," said Bunzie, wagging a playful finger. "So don't forget your boots!"

  Taking the silence that followed for assent, Bunzie resumed his lecture. "Now, as to the time capsule itself. That's the real reason for our being here, and we don't want to disappoint all those editors who have come in search of treasure, do we? Does anybody remember any landmarks that might still be standing, to help us in locating it?"

  Jim Conyers was tired. Ten o'clock was usually his bedtime, since he got up at five. But Barbara seemed to be enjoying herself, so he stayed. All the talk was making him sleepy, though. It seemed to him that all the Lanthanides ever did was talk aimlessly and wait around for something to happen. He had forgotten that feeling of waiting; he'd always had it at Dugger's farm. Everybody seemed to be killing time, waiting for something, and while they waited they talked, but nobody ever seemed to know what they were waiting for, and nobody ever tried to make anything happen. And, as far as he could tell, nothing much ever did happen at the Fan Farm. Except a lot of feuds between one another over trivialities. They could sulk for three days over a magazine cover that one liked and the other didn't. Finally, everybody just got tired of sniping at everybody else, and one by one, they left.

  Now, thirty-five years later, here they were again, the dearest of old friends, remembering Wall Hollow as if it had been a paradise of sweet accord. The feuds were forgotten. He wondered if dredging up the past would bring the old enmities to the surface again. Perhaps not. If their lives did not touch at
any point, what could there be left to quarrel over?

  He studied the aging Lanthanides. Bunzie still seemed amiable and enthusiastic, but the lines about his mouth and an occasional sharp look at his assistant suggested that he could also be a demanding tyrant. And Giles had come to the reunion, but he seemed embarrassed to be reminded of his youthful foray into fandom. Jim didn't know what to make of Surn. He seemed like the patriarch of the reunion, but his detachment could mean anything. Angela Arbroath seemed happy, and Jim figured that was good enough. He expected less from women, and he knew it, but he told himself that his generation couldn't change the way it saw the world, and it saw women as lesser beings. He hadn't expected much of Angela, and he had not been disappointed.

  Only Woodard had not changed. He had grown older without growing up, still living for his fanzine and his pen pals as if there were no other goals in life to aspire to. At least the others who had stayed in science fiction had gone on to bigger accomplishments: novels, films, and in Surn's case a Medal of Freedom from the President. But for George it was still 1954. Jim sighed at the waste. By rights, Woodard ought to be allowed to live an extra fifty years, so he'd have time to do something if he ever emerged from his cocoon.

  "Have you seen the lake?" Lorien Williams was asking Bunzie.

  "Not lately!" said Bunzie, laughing loudest at his own joke.

  "It looks like a giant hog wallow right now," said Angela. "That mud must be knee deep out there. How are you all going to get around in it?"

  "Small boats in the wettest parts," Bunzie told her. "And after that, wading boots. I brought a case of them, all sizes."

  "A lot of people are upset about this drawdown," said Barbara, leaning forward confidentially to impart the local point of view. "You know, they didn't move all the graves when the TVA made the lake back in the fifties, and some people are afraid that there'll be bodies floating in the mud when the water recedes."

  Angela Arbroath gasped. "Where is Dugger buried?"

  "Somewhere else. The lake was already here by that time," Jim told her.