Zombies of the Gene Pool

by Sharyn McCrumb

  He was still pondering that waking nightmare when he heard footsteps on the path above him, coupled with the sound of rhododendron branches being brushed aside. The crickets fell silent. At last the figure stepped out from the shadows of the trees, and Jay could see the dark, emaciated figure of Pat Malone wending his way carefully over the rocks and coming toward him.

  "You couldn't sleep, either," he called out softly to Malone.

  The older man shrugged. "No. You're the young engineer, aren't you? I thought there would be a lot of sleepless people tonight, but I wasn't expecting one of them to be you."

  Jay Omega sat down on the concrete ramp that had been a boat dock. Now it lay two hundred yards up from the shallows of the receding lake. "My sleeplessness wasn't on your account," he told Malone. "I was contemplating my own mortality, I guess."

  "You could always come back from the dead," came the reply from the shadows. "I did."

  "It's odd that you should turn up. I was just wondering what you had been doing for the last thirty years," said Jay. He explained his feelings about the other Lanthanides, and his own unwillingness to become like any of them in succeeding decades. "I had hoped that your life turned out happier than theirs," he concluded, straining in the darkness for a glimpse at Pat Malone's expression.

  The responding voice was grim. "Was I any better off than they were? Not in the sense you mean, perhaps. I had to be somebody else, that's all. Tonight feels like a kind of resurrection for me. I'm not sure that I care for it, but I had to come."

  "The others didn't seem pleased to see you," Jay remarked. "I wondered about that."

  Malone laughed. "You wondered? Didn't you ever read my little mimeographed masterpiece called The Last Fandango? I drummed myself out of the hobby once and for all in that, and along the way I made some very unpleasant but true observations about certain prominent jerks in fandom. The more perceptive of the Lanthanides might assume that I was here to do more of the same."

  "Are you?"

  "I wouldn't be Pat Malone if I didn't. I am legend."

  Jay was puzzled. "We were talking about you tonight," he said. "We all wondered what you have been doing for the last thirty years. You never said."

  "Yes, I did. I told you that I had become somebody else. Come to think of it, they all did that, didn't they? But I'm not sure I like the people they turned into. Mistral who is somebody with a capital S. And your professor friend, who is trying to live down his years in fandom. But even the silliest of them-Woodard- came to terms with the real world when it came down to raising kids and making a living, but he trades on his youthful associations to impress neofans. George Woodard: a big-name fan! Some idealists, huh?"

  "All except Curtis Phillips," said Jay Omega.

  "Yes, I guess that's what happens to people who don't conform. They get locked up. But Curtis was more free than any of them, I think. He got to keep on being himself."

  "And you didn't?"

  "I could have. But I didn't want to end up like Curtis, so I traded my freedom for-" He seemed to think about it. "For respectability. A different kind of freedom."

  Jay thought he understood. "I know. I faced that as a teenager. You have to conform to make money, and in our society, having money is the only way to keep yourself really free. So I became an electrical engineer instead of a journalism major, and now I can afford to do some writing, because-"

  Pat Malone began to walk away. "I must go," he called back as he disappeared up the path into the darkness. "You weren't at all who I expected. Go to bed."

  "Who ever you-" Jay's words echoed in the hollow stillness. Malone was gone. Go to bed, mused Jay. I suppose my elders have spoken. As he headed back toward the lodge, he was surprised to find himself yawning. "Tomorrow," he said aloud, "I will wonder if I dreamed this."

  Chapter 10

  Where fuggheadedness is the norm, no one can be blamed for falling into occasional fuggheaded lapses. But constant association with fuggheads inures us. Our threshold of receptivity for fuggheadedness becomes dangerously high. It takes a titanic and overwhelming piece of asininity to rise above the background and strike us… I'd been away from fans too long, I guess. My fuggheadedness threshold was extremely low-too low to protect me.

  – FRANCIS TOWNER LANEY Fan-Dango 21

  At ten o'clock in the morning-the late hour being a concession to the long commute from Johnson City-the Lanthan-ides reunion officially began, with a coffee-and-doughnuts briefing in the Mountaineer Lodge conference room. A gaggle of sleepy editors and journalists was herded in to the meeting, where a smiling and surprisingly un-jet-lagged Ruben Mistral greeted them personally and steered them toward a sympathetic waitress, who was dispensing the coffee.

  Two dozen metal folding chairs had been set up facing a varnished pine lectern, and in the front row sat George Woodard, looking like a mud slide in his khaki safari outfit. He had a lap full of doughnuts, and a cup of milky coffee wedged precariously between his knees. Iridescent flakes of doughnut glaze clung to the corners of his mouth, and his black hair, lank and oily, lay in a collapsed wave across his forehead. He looked more subdued than usual, daunted perhaps by lack of sleep, the presence of reporters, and the aura of show biz emanating from the ringmasters of the show. He had been hoping for a better breakfast, at the reunion's expense, but failing that and with the prospect of lunch uncertain, he had stocked up on greasy, sugar-encrusted doughnuts as his only sustenance. They did not sit well on his already upset stomach.

  Geoff, minion of Ruben Mistral, seemed to be hosting the briefing, and he had chosen to reflect this authority by masquerading as Indiana Jones. He sported a battered fedora, khaki vest and pants, and even a stubble of beard over his weak chin, as a tacit reminder of the rigors of the day's expedition. He had omitted the Indiana Jones trademark bullwhip and pistol as a concession to the solemnity of the occasion.

  Beside him, cordial to the milling crowd of editors, journalists, and well-wishers, but not courting them, was Ruben Mistral, resplendent in a button-down linen Basile shirt, yellow pleated trousers, and alligator loafers, the latter being evocative of the valley's current swampy condition but hardly appropriate for traversing it. He was drinking his coffee out of a Royal Doulton porcelain cup in the teal and gold Carlyle pattern. He searched the crowd for the missing Lanthanides, and spotted Erik Giles and Angela Arbroath talking to their two professor friends. Con-yers and his wife were chatting with a young woman in jeans and a Villager shirt, probably a local reporter. Where were the others? A glance at his Rolex told him that it was time to start the briefing.

  For an instant, Mistral considered sending George Woodard in search of the stragglers-he was certainly expendable-but this was a task that required efficiency and speed, both of which were well out of Woodard's range of abilities. Geoff was doing the technical part of the spiel, so he couldn't be spared. He looked around for another minion and finally decided to draft one.

  A moment later, a jovial Bunzie-like Ruben Mistral appeared at Giles' elbow. "Good morning, kids!" he beamed. "We'll be ready to get underway in just a moment, but not everybody is here yet."

  He hesitated for effect, and then brightened as if inspiration had just visited. "I wonder if I could ask a favor. It would certainly speed things up if someone would go after our missing comrades. That is, Brendan Surn and-" a faint expression of distaste punctuated his request "-and, of course, Pat Malone. What a guy! We resurrect the time capsule, and Pat comes back from the dead. Would you mind locating them and bringing them to our little briefing?" He turned his cold smile briefly on Jay Omega, and then, reconsidering, he directed his gaze at the person he considered to be of lowest rank in the foursome. "How about it, dolling?" he said, placing a fatherly hand on Marion's shoulder.

  Dr. Marion Farley, who had flunked people for less, managed an expressionless "I'd be happy to" and left the room.

  "That's good," said Mistral, glancing at his watch again. "Look at the time! I think I'd better start anyway. The first par
t is just background. They won't miss much." He hurried back to the lectern to call the meeting to order.

  "Ladies and gentlemen. And editors…" He waited for the polite laughter before continuing. "I want to welcome all of you to Wall Hollow, Tennessee. The year is 1954. Geez, I wish it was. Gas was eighteen cents a gallon back then. Anyhow, before I introduce my fellow Lanthanides, I'm going to turn Sarah Ashley loose on you to talk about money and percentages, and all that stuff we writers just don't understand." The groan in the audience was presumably from Mistral's editor, who knew better. "Then I'm going to turn the program over to my associate, Geoffrey L. Duke, who will fill you reporters in on the engineering details of this endeavor. After that, we hit the boats!"

  Even when she was seething, Marion was efficient. First she checked the restaurant to see if the absentees were finishing up a leisurely breakfast. They weren't. Then, after obtaining the missing Lanthanides' room numbers from an intimidated young receptionist, Marion attempted to commandeer the desk phone, but before she could pick it up, it rang. In the interests of time Marion decided to take the more direct approach of going after them personally. Since both Surn's and Malone's rooms were on the second floor, she decided that taking the elevator up one flight would be faster than waiting for the desk clerk's phone.

  She was a bit annoyed at missing the introductory remarks from Mistral, but she was pleased at having kept her temper. Marion was fond of saying that women Ph.D.s do not have to strive for humility: it hunts them down on a regular basis.

  Since Brendan Surn's room number put him closest to the elevator, Marion tried him first. She tapped lightly on the great man's door, wondering if she would now be mistaken for a chambermaid. "Mr. Surn! The Lanthanides reunion is about to start!"

  After several moments the door opened and Lorien Williams peered out with a worried frown. "Is it nine o'clock already?"

  Marion was relieved to see that she was dressed, as was Brendan Surn, who had also come over to the door. They both wore blue sweatsuits and new white running shoes. Marion refused to allow herself even to think any snide remarks about Brendan Surn. He looked tired. "It's a little past nine now," Marion told them. "Would you like me to show you the way? They're serving coffee and doughnuts there if you haven't had breakfast yet."

  "That will be all right," said Surn, reaching for the door.

  "I'll get the room key," murmured Lorien.

  "There's one other missing person," said Marion. "Pat Malone. You haven't seen him, have you?"

  "Pat Malone is dead," said Brendan Surn in his gentle way, as if reminding her of an obscure current event.

  Lorien Williams hurried over and took him by the arm. "No, Brendan," she said. "It's Peter Deddingfield you're thinking of that's dead. And Curtis Phillips. We saw Mr. Malone last night, remember?"

  Marion took a deep breath. "I'll just go and find Pat Malone, then. Someone at the desk will show you to the conference room." She turned and fled down the hall, and her cheeks were wet.

  Geoffrey Duke had taken his place at the lectern in the conference room and was giving background information to the press. Behind him were two enlarged black-and-white photos, labeled

  "Wall Hollow 1954" and "Wall Hollow Today." They were taken from the same spot on a mountainside overlooking the valley. The first picture looked like a calendar illustration of a New England town. It showed a small village of white houses and a steepled country church nestled among the oak trees in a green valley. It conjured up images of Norman Rockwell paintings and old Frank Capra movies.

  The second photograph was hardly recognizable as the same spot. The two main roads of the village were still visible, outlining the dimensions of the town, but only a few of the stone buildings remained standing, surrounded by craters marking the sites of the houses, and the blackened skeletons of oak trees. The scene, a study in mud and desolation, evoked comparisons with disaster photos: bomb sites, and towns laid waste by hurricanes. People would study the first picture of Wall Hollow, glance at the second, and then look away at nothing for a few moments before they went back to what they were doing.

  Geoffrey Duke consulted his notes on the technical aspects of the drawdown, and called the conference to order. After a few words of welcome, he plunged into his well of statistics. "Breed-love Lake has a water surface area of sixty-six thousand acres, extending sixteen miles upstream," he said to the furiously scribbling reporters. "The dam, which is three hundred and eighteen feet high, is thirteen hundred feet thick at the base and produces fifty thousand kilowatts of power with its two generators."

  "How did they construct the dam?" asked the Times reporter.

  "They selected a deep, narrow mountain gorge and filled it with three million cubic yards of dirt and rock. The dam's core is one million four hundred eighty-four thousand and seven hundred cubic yards of compacted clay, surrounded on either side by two million cubic yards of rock."

  "Where'd they get all that rock?"

  Geoff was ready for that question. "Three quarries near the construction site. They loosen the rock with coyote tunnel blasts using Nitramon."

  "Using what?"

  "It's a brand name for ammonium nitrate. Dupont. Digging and loading the blast tunnels took weeks."

  "What about the people in the valley?" asked Sarah Ashley. "Did they just get kicked off their land?"

  "No. The TVA bought the town for thirty-five thousand dollars."

  Murmurs of disbelief came from the crowd. "What if people didn't want to sell?"

  Geoff shrugged. "That was too bad, I guess."

  "How many people were relocated?" asked another journalist, who was trying to calculate how much each family received.

  Geoff consulted his notes. "More than a hundred early on in the project. Seven hundred and sixty-three at the closing of the dam. Eighty-five percent relocated in the east Tennessee counties of Carter and Johnson. Five percent left the state. Including, of course, most of the Lanthanides."

  Bunzie whistled a few bars of "California, Here I Come" and waved for Geoff to continue.

  "The drawdown, which began six weeks ago for the purpose of repairing the dam, was effected by opening the sluice gates-"

  Jay Omega was sitting in a front row seat beside Erik Giles. "I wonder what's keeping Marion," he murmured.

  "I don't know. She may be dawdling on purpose to miss this technical spiel," Giles suggested. "I'm surprised that Malone isn't here, though."

  "I doubt if he'll miss the boat," said Jay Omega. "He seemed very keen on the reunion."

  Erik Giles grunted. "Are you familiar with the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty?" he asked.

  "Sort of," said Jay. "Why?"

  "Pat Malone reminds me of the bad fairy at the christening."

  In the second-floor hallway of the Mountaineer Lodge, Marion knocked again. "Mr. Malone!" she said, more loudly this time. "Are you awake? The reunion sent me to get you!" She put her ear to the door, straining to catch the sound of the shower or the television. All was silent. Marion began to become concerned. After all, she told herself, they are rather elderly. As she straightened up, trying to decide what to do next, she caught sight of the maid, pushing her cleaning cart around the corner by the elevator.

  "I hope I'm not about to make an idiot of myself," Marion muttered, hurrying to intercept her.

  A few moments and several explanations later, the chambermaid, muttering, "I'm not real sure we ought to do this," used her passkey to unlock the door of Pat Malone's room. As the door swung open, Marion called out, "Mr. Malone! Are you all right?"

  An instant later they could see that he wasn't. The smell of vomit and voided bowels reached them and made them draw back, even before Marion saw the stiffening form of the room's occupant, sprawled across the sill of the bathroom. "You call," she said, nudging the maid out of shock, "I'll see if there's anything to be done for him."

  While the maid was spluttering into the telephone, attempting to make the front desk understand the situation, Marion knel
t beside the body of the recently resurrected Pat Malone. His eyes stared up at her, sightless, with the same glare that had so daunted the Lanthanides at last night's reception. Steeling herself for the sensation of touching dead flesh, Marion reached for his wrist, confirming the absence of a pulse. This time, she thought to herself, there could be no doubt of the death of Pat Malone. This time he wasn't coming back.

  Bunzie was in the midst of telling his highly romanticized version of the burying of the time capsule to a captive audience. Each time he mentioned one of his fellow Lanthanides, he prefaced the name with superlatives: the late, great Dale Dugger, the macabre genius Curtis Phillips, and the literary legend Brendan Surn. The more perceptive of the journalists might have noticed that Ruben Mistral did not really discuss any of the stories actually put into the time capsule by himself and his comrades, but perhaps they did not notice this omission, since Mistral was a charming and well-polished speaker. He seemed to be winding down the litany of reminiscences when a balding man in a dark suit appeared at the door and motioned for Mistral's attention.

  The ever alert Geoff Duke hurried to the back of the room to confer with the hotel employee. "What is it?" he hissed, grasping the man's elbow and propelling him out of earshot. "We're in the middle of our presentation here."

  The hotel clerk was a study in unruffled dignity. "We thought you ought to be notified, sir. One of your party has passed away."

  "Oh, shit!" murmured Geoff, caught off guard by the news. "I was afraid one of those old geezers might croak from the excitement…" His voice trailed off when he caught the disapproving glint in the listener's eye. "I mean, what a shock. I can't believe it. What a complete tragedy. Which one of them?" His mind was furiously manipulating publicity options concerning the untimely demise of the literary legend Brendan Surn. Perhaps a cremation and hasty burial in the mire of the ruined farm in place of the time capsule? Visions of Newsweek photos danced in his head. He wondered if he could safely paraphrase the Gettysburg Address in the eulogy: But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. His hustler's reverie was cut short by the hotel manager's reply.