Zombie Angst

by Jim Couper

  The first volunteer had barely entered the school when Doogie waved his hand indicating Mort and two others could have their way with him. Like snorting hyenas the three fell into a mindless bloodfest. They elbowed, tugged at kidneys and pulled apart a pancreas that lost its superb juices to the floor. Sated, with the euphoria gone and the pleasure spasms diminished like fog in a morning breeze, Mort licked his ragged, split lips, looked at his bloodstained clothes and wanted to weep in shame and self-pity. What madness had gripped him, he wondered? What crazy cannibalistic carnage controlled his life? The answer came quickly: he behaved as those from the grave must behave. Re-creation had rules that stretched beyond his understanding. Did this second life represent an improvement over the eternal blackness he had previously inhabited? Resurrection's only pleasure came with eating. Otherwise he droned through secondlife caring little one way or the other if alive or otherwise. If only he could hold his children and wrap Melody in his arms there might be a life to live. He wanted to go home; he wanted to go to school and teach addition and subtraction. Two is the square root of four, four is the square root of sixteen, six teens form the hypothesis of the right triangle.

  Mort longed to listen to music on his old radio, wash his car, wash the dishes, clean the eaves, shampoo his hair, move his bowels. Rarely had he taken pleasure in life's simplest activities. Those unappreciated pleasures disappeared like solved algebraic equations erased from a whiteboard. He could not reach back and retrieve them. What he would give to mow his lawn on a sunny autumn day, smell cut grass and throw clippings on the compost heap. How could he have considered that a chore? Gladly he would sacrifice his remaining zombiedom, whatever that was, for a day with his family: a day of going to the library, hoeing the garden, returning Malady’s beer bottles, buying groceries, changing a diaper, telling a bedtime story.

  The sound of clashing teeth and slurping fluids emerged from a corner and ended the reverie as Doogie directed three full-bodies to dine on an elderly volunteer who accepted his fate without complaint. Heady shuffled to the front, but Doogie shouted "No," and slapped the back of her head as if she were a disobedient dog. A bit of scalp slopped to her shoulder and some brain dribbled onto her sock.

  39

  Despite the loss of lives and the never ending standoff at the school, the people of Peachland desperately wanted to celebrate the victory. Several valiant volunteers had given their lives and now only one lady remained hostage and one policeman remained unaccounted for. Hungry zombies would soon want to make another exchange and, with that done, the school could be razed and the invasion from hell would be over. No one in the surrounding countryside had recently vanished. It appeared the enemy had made the strategic error of gathering all its forces in the same place at the same time. What could you expect from zombies!

  Since early October the town had been under siege and before month’s end it would be over. The townsfolk could get back to raking leaves, preparing their pools for winter, playing outdoors with their children and watching television without fear of an announcement or breaking news.

  In her own bed Jane slept fitfully, woke well before sun-up and spent time catching up on police deskwork. Crime had come to a standstill. Not so much as a looter, drunk driver or shoplifter dotted her blotter. Patrolling streets, introducing new officers to routines, standing guard at the school and forwarding calls about suspected prowlers kept her busy 16 hours a day. In theory this was army work, but as long as she was busy she had little time to think about Jesse and suffer the pain that accompanied such thoughts.

  In a motel room that had once been a favorite with smokers Donald slept restlessly. He heard bulldozers clearing the remains of Jesse’s house and worried about the survival of Jane’s best friend.

  Every 30 minutes Jane tried Jesse’s phone. Eventually she decided there was no point in leaving the same “Me Jane, you call,” message over and over. Worrying about him kept her awake; worrying about everything kept her awake. The playing field of worry covered thousands of acres and there was nowhere to hide. She moved from office to home to schoolyard and found no comfort.

  Dozens of plans to invade the school and free Jesse bounced through her head until ultimately they hit the same brick wall: his phone worked, he would use it if he could. If he had lost it he would have found a way to communicate, to signal or to simply run from the school. Tears streamed over her emotional brick wall, etching the soft sandstone of her face. She prayed the enemy had tied him up and locked him in a room, holding him for future negotiation. The hope was as slight as it was unrealistic.

  At 6 p.m. daylight shone through her car window and Doogie's voice announced that a hostage would be released in exchange for three more volunteers, two of whom must be large. The Colonel countered that he had exhausted the supply of large volunteers and only one or two ill and aged remained willing. Doogie said the Colonel himself was big enough and he should volunteer. The Colonel responded that if Doogie would accept one elderly volunteer plus himself, he would go. A gasp followed by a murmur spread through the crowd like ripples from a rock tossed onto a still pond.

  Doogie agreed and the Colonel muttered a swear word without apology. The exchange went smoothly and the army boss plus a senior citizen immediately got what they expected at the hands of nine ravenous zombies. One died a hero rather than as a disease-wracked invalid fading away on a hospital bed. The second entered the annals of warfare as an example of heroic action far beyond the call of duty. Colonel Mayhew-Shostakovich died with a dignified salute and lips muttering “muck you, sorry.”

  As soon as the superintendent of education's plodding steps took her from lawn to pavement and into the hands of medics, Mayhew’s last order was executed. Fragmentation mortars and high explosive mortars struck 22 different parts of the school. For 10 minutes smoke clung to the still air and a haunting silence accompanied it. Soldiers, teachers, police and other officials rubbed their eyes at the memory of lost comrades and then they reigned in emotions. As smoke drifted off and revealed the rubble a mixture of applause and hearty cheers arose. Never did they think that anyone but students would celebrate the destruction of a school. Backs were slapped, high-fives exchanged and hugs given. The worst moments in Canadian homicide history ended as quickly and as well as anyone could hope.

  Military police stepped forward as the public rushed to walk among the hot ruins while Peachland’s fire department doused smouldering ashes.

  Jane and Donald questioned the new commander about why the zombies would release the last hostage, knowing they would be left defenceless. The new chief, a young man with a positive attitude, replied that zombies had probably reached their best-before date and were going to die anyway. Perhaps painfully slowly. Their decision made the inevitable more bearable. A tidal wave of sorrow, for the loss of Jesse, again hit Jane’s dam of stoicism and forced her to turn away and drop the argument. Donald took her place. He found the speculation interesting and questioned how the new leader knew so much about the undead’s life expectancy and where he had learned it.

  "What would you do? Put tea and cupcakes out on the lawn and have a party for them?" the commander challenged.

  "I'd at least check for zombie parts in the ashes instead of congratulating myself."

  "What do you think those muckers are doing?" The new boss pointed to three soldiers half-heartedly poking in the damp, smouldering rubble with the barrels of their rifles.

  “Let me know what they find. I suggest you don’t base actions on conjecture about zombie thought and mortality. I’ve been down a similar road and it has forks and potholes you can’t see.” With that Donald grabbed a rake and a hoe that naïve citizens had intended to use to fight zombies and shouted to Jane, “Take one of these, we’ve got to do some investigating.”

  Donald thought that giving Jane something to do would help her deal with her worry and sorrow. As well, the half-hearted probing by the soldiers, in the school’s wreckage, didn’t satisfy him at all. He led Jane to where
the kids had been held hostage and started dragging his rake through the ashes, pulling over bricks and cement.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  “Zombie remains. I’m not convinced they were in the school. It shouldn’t be that easy. We should find bones, skulls, bits of clothes … something to show they died when the mortars hit.”

  Jane said, “It doesn’t make sense. It would be suicide. Maybe they dug graves in the school basement and they’re waiting to rise again.”

  For 30 minutes Jane and Donald poked through ashes and found charred lumber, bits of desks, broken glass and assorted classroom items. They found no human remains, human or inhuman. At a spot where a chimney had fallen Jane sighted a fragment of blue cloth beneath the bricks and shouted to Donald, “I think I see some denim.”

  They both pulled aside bricks and as they cleared them bits of burned human leg appeared, covered with fragments of jeans.

  “Let’s try the other end,” Jane suggested and they moved towards where an upper torso should be. More clearing of rubble unveiled a charred, mutilated chest from which chunks of flesh had been blown. Jane pushed broken bricks from the head area and long bony fingers grabbed her leg. The body shot upright with a mouthful of gleaming white teeth and patches of dark curly hair.

  “That’s Jesse!” Donald shouted and Jane nodded, unable to voice her emotions.

  “Brain,” hissed Jesse.

  The rake Donald used to probe the rubble had a thick ash handle that broke as he whacked it over the long arm that held Jane. She recoiled as much as she could with her ankle in a bear trap. Bricks from the fallen chimney held the bottom half of Jesse in place. Jane struggled to retreat, but a mouth-snapping Jesse held her tight. Donald grabbed her waist and pulled. The body came out of the ground like a carrot tugged upwards in spring. Everything below the navel separated.

  “Get over here,” Jane shouted to the soldiers as she squirmed to keep the teeth from sinking into her foot. The two that poked in the ashes came running. One carried a shovel, the perfect tool for the job at hand. Donald grabbed it, severed Jesse’s arm and then laid into the handsome head like he was splitting firewood. Ears, chin, teeth and the outcropping of curly hair vacated the head, but did nothing to diminish its determination to eat. Remaining teeth snapped closed on air.

  Donald whacked the thin scorched neck. It took 20 of his most ferocious blows to break the spine, trachea, oesophagus and assorted vessels and muscles that kept the head bobbing atop the neck. When he finished, a pulp that no longer resembled Jesse’s well-proportioned head lay next to his body. Jane fell back, panting, emotionally depleted, ready to throw up or pass out. She had no time for either.

  “Take care of that body,” she ordered a female soldier. “That man’s a hero.”

  “That’s a zombie. I’m not going near it,” the soldier replied.

  “That’s Corporal Jesse Nesterinko and you’ll treat him with the utmost respect. I repeat, he’s a hero: he’s no longer a zombie. We’ll stay here while you go and get two bags, one for head and one for body. Tell your new commander to arrange a proper funeral for this brave man. He’ll get medals.”

  “Do you want to keep the arm?” the male private asked with the slightest touch of sarcasm. Jane looked puzzled until he pointed to her ankle. Fingers and a forearm went with her wherever she stepped. Donald carefully unwound the five digits and placed the appendage next to the body.

  Within a garage zombies stood shoulder to shoulder. If anyone had walked past, a stench and a mob of angry flies, would have alerted them to the presence of an alien force. Exploding mortars had rattled the basement of the school and dust and debris filled the space that housed machinery that kept children and teachers warm in the winter. Mort and Doogie heard explosions and felt implosions as they shuffled through their tunnel. The passage started in the school, led slowly upwards and emerged inside an old wooden double garage 150 yards from the school. An apartment building and a grove of oak trees hid it.

  40

  On the highest ridge, where snowflakes created pearly patches that would quilt together and blanket the whole valley by January, the Sasquatch pair impatiently paced, disturbed by what they saw below. They felt oneness with the pale, hairless bipeds who drove cars, built homes and battled each other for financial superiority. Although the mountain dwellers had no use for that kind of daily skirmish, they respected the fact the bottom dwellers had created a clever game with complex rules. Nearly everyone played.

  The short-livers did their best to protect the land while protecting themselves from the harshness that the planet hurled at them. They couldn't run, they couldn't fight and without the protectors they created for themselves – clothes, houses, heat, fast food – they couldn’t survive winter winds and summer rays. When humans got lost in the woods the Sasquatch would invisibly help them with firewood, berries and a pathway that led to help. They couldn't help them with bad investments or computer viruses.

  The mess below extended far beyond wandering into the woods with no sense of direction. The most horrid, merciless anthropophagi the planet had ever known chewed its way through Peachland and had sights set on the entire Valley and then the province and the country and perhaps the world.

  As they paced, the polar pair made plan after plan to help the Valley folk and every plan came to the same conclusion: there were too many of the enemy and there were only two of them. Lending a hand without visible presence, when outnumbered hundreds-to-one, could not happen. The only thing that made sense was to plant placards warning the townsfolk, “The end is nigh.” Unfortunately they had neither placards nor paint and their spelling skills were suspect. The Sasquatch paced, worried and formulated more plans that, if executed, would do little or no good.

  The chilly, dank interior of Vladimir's Bar now reeked of smoke despite the fact they had never allowed smoking. The vamps’ sensitive nostrils despised the unpleasant odor of cigarettes. Taking down their No Smoking signs could have improved business by 50 percent, but would have offended their good taste.

  Water still dripped from the bar’s old ceiling while an odor far worse than stale cigarette smoke rose from the cellar. At exactly 6 p.m. Veronica strode into the tavern dressed in her usual tight, black leather with low blouse revealing quivering cleavage.

  “The time has come to take action,” she declared without preamble or introduction to the subject. “We can no longer waste away. Tonight the streets are awash with blood donors. In these troubled times discretion and secretiveness go out the window. Tonight we drink. We drink till we are sated, till we overflow, till the cows come home. That’s my plan. Basically, I have no plan. Drink or die. Don’t be cowards, don’t be afraid of the future because without blood the future does not arrive. We are vampires, we dress as vampires, we act as vampires. We take a pint from every person in town and they all wake up numb and dumb. They won’t know what hit them and won’t remember a thing. In 30 minutes, when darkness sets in, we go out and do it. Phone those not present and tell them to get themselves into town and fill up.”

  Doogie cracked open the heavy wooden doors of the garage and ordered, “Spread oot, eat your hearts oot. Stay in toown. I will find yoou. Eat big then bury bodies.”

  Pushing, shoving and bumping into each other, the revenant mass oozed through the double doors and went in all directions. They first encountered a couple of drably dressed adults accompanying a pair of kids with scarred, scabby faces who moved with the unmistakable gait of junior zombies. Mort wondered if some newly-arisen had been added to the tribe, but the parents had no zombie characteristics: no distinctive smell that indicated origins beneath the earth. Mort and four cohorts stumbled towards them. The parents showed no fear and the children’s faces lit up with glee. That lasted until the four zombies knocked the adults to the ground and emptied them. For dessert they lunged towards the terrorized children, but had to get around Mort who stood stiffly in their way. The kids, suddenly propelled by fear, ran off at a sp
eed zombies could only dream of.

  Mort’s heart recoiled as he imagined children being ripped to a shadow of their former selves, although a mouthful of tender young pancreas would surely have made his day. The idea of tasting baby brain intrigued him, but the cries of kids would have horrified and shamed him. Never again would he be a zombie, he vowed, and wondered what control he had. How could he stop himself from rising and eating if instinct rather than intellect controlled the essence of his being? A trace of a smile smudged across Mort’s macabre visage. This new ability to imagine and speculate intrigued him. He could make pictures in his head, he could imagine a future. A picture is worth a thousand turds. A stitch in time saves a dime.

  Veronica eyed an adult couple that herded a gaggle of oddly-dressed children clutching bags. She moved quietly behind them and, without a care about who might be watching, spiked her teeth into the woman’s neck. The mother quivered then sagged like a potato sac emptied of its contents. Victor did the same to the man and, after draining much of his blood, felt young, restless and full of life. As an elixir, nothing compared to a river of fresh blood rushing through the body, sweeping away logjams of plaque and fat. He felt as if he had taken a double dose of a drug he had seen advertised on TV although he didn’t know exactly what Viagra did.