I, Zombie

by Al Ewing

  I wheel around, aiming a kick to the half-face of Kid Werewolf, then lunge, driving the candlestick up through the roof of its mouth and into the brain - then ducking down as the claws swipe the air where I was. My heart's pounding. The adrenaline's flowing. The fear is... not gone, but changed. The situation is almost impossible but not hopeless. I feel stronger, faster than I've been in years. I've got silver on my side.

  There's a dark joy flowing through me. Like I'm close to the threshold of something, and if I just survive this, I can find it.

  I've never felt this alive.

  I vault back, describing a lazy arc through the air as claws rake above and below, listening to the sound of flesh falling off bone as the Beautiful Boy shrivels and falls into a thousand slippery pieces out of my field of vision.

  Something's changed. Maybe it's the reset button they pushed in me, or the long rest my body's had.

  Maybe it's that I'm the last of my kind. Maybe, on some deep, buried level, far underneath the surface of my head, I know I'm playing for all the marbles.

  Whatever it is - I've never been this good. Never.

  They can't touch me. The four wolves have sores and boils on their hands from where I've smacked them with the candelabras. Without even thinking about it, I reach out and grab hold of another to replace the one that's buried in the skull of Scrappy-Doo. One of the remaining wolves lunges - a big red-eyed, scraggy-haired sonovabitch - and I swipe the candelabras together at neck height, crushing his windpipe. Just before his neck disintegrates and sends his head tumbling, I lift my foot and kick it into his face, sending myself backwards into a somersault. At the top of the arc, I flick the big heavy silver antiques like sai swords, watching as they bury in two hairy chests and yellow eyes flicker out like streetlamps...

  It's beautiful.

  It's poetry.

  The stench of rotting wolfmeat is heavy in the air, and it's just me and the last of the wolves. He's dripping saliva, snarling with his red eyes blazing like searchlights, and I've got no silver to hand. But I don't care.

  I feel strong. Strong and hungry. I could eat for hours. I could tear through that wolf in a second.

  I feel like... like Satan on the day of the Apocalypse.

  Does that make me a bad person?

  Does that make me a monster?

  Come on, you little bastard.

  Make the first move.

  I dare you.

  There's a long moment of silence before it leaps. This is the same kind of nightmare I ran until my muscles ached to get away from. The same beast that was making me piss myself in fear less than a minute ago. And I'm grabbing its paws and swinging it around, using its momentum against it while it snaps and snarls.

  What is this? An emergency boost? Some dormant skill kicking in?

  What's in the saddle here?

  The wolf goes flying, slow-motion into the skeleton of one of its brothers. There's a candelabra still lodged in the eye socket of the grinning wolf-skull, and the wolf's shoulder comes down on it hard. Impaled on silver.

  Thank you, long-dead interior decorator. Thank you for being so stupid.

  As the wolf howls, I let go of time and let it flow about me like the cloak of some mighty warrior. Then I grab another of the silver sticks and walk over, nice and slow, taking my time.

  It thrashes, snarls and spits. It must be in agony.

  I feel dark and terrible. I feel sadistic. I feel like a scorpion in the jungle, like some terrifying killer insect. I feel evil and damned.

  I feel more like a monster than I ever have before.

  And it feels good.

  That's right, you Universal reject. You've met your match now.

  I grin, staring him down, taking a good long look into those pain-wracked red eyes, that snapping muzzle.

  Then I smash its brains in.

  That should be the end of it. That should be me out the door and racing towards the sunlight, but I stay, breathing in rotting wolf-flesh, just feeling stronger and stronger.

  I read once in a book somewhere that the Bocor, the voodoo priest, the maker of zombies, could get the Loa, the god who'd given him patronage, to wear him like a coat, ride him like an animal, control him. That's what it feels like now. Like I'm being ridden.

  Like something much stronger and older and more powerful than I am is whispering in my ear, an insect Loa telling me that wolves need to be controlled if they're going to all attack at once like that. Controlled by a superior mind. A superior brain.

  Did I deduce that?

  Or did I just smell it?

  I feel like I'm devolving, like I'm reducing to my basic essence, my core, like this terrible, wonderful machine that I am is moving into some kind of overdrive and my carefully nurtured consciousness cannot keep up. Like I'm sliding slowly into avatism.

  I feel like there's something primal hatching in the centre of my mind, some awful desire to kill and eat and feed on my prey. I feel like an insect. I feel like a killer. I feel like a monster.

  I am a hungry monster in a dark castle and somewhere there is food...

  Somewhere...

  brains

  ...I'm walking. Running. Lurching forward, ridden by my personal Loa, by the wonderful, terrible Insect Intelligence buried in the heart of me and, oh God, I'm so hungry, and this was where I was being led all along, this was what it was always about, the door smashing and splintering, thick oak but breaking against my dead fists, a terrifying red light burning into my eyes and then I'm through, inside some sort of airlock, some sort of trap-box, electronic voices screaming and wailing in my ears - intruder detected - and I can't even remember how I got here but I can't focus on anything except the

  brains

  and I must have blacked out for a second because the trap is sprung and the floor's swung out from underneath me and I can feel my feet splashing in acid, burning and melting and reforming as soon as they do. I'm wading forward like I'm wading through a swamp, dissolving and reforming. I didn't even know I could do something like that, but I don't care, I'm so close to the goal now that my mouth is watering. So close to that one thing I was put here for. I can smell it. My thoughts feel strange. Alien. Insectile. Nothing seems to matter, not the machine guns opening up, not the bullets tearing into flesh that heals as soon as they pass through, not the thick steel door to the room beyond. Nothing's going to stop me. Nothing's going to stop me from getting at the

  brains

  I'm barely conscious. Hands smashing at the second door. Denting the steel. Punching through. Grabbing. Tearing. So close. Can't think about anything

  except

  BRAAAAINNNNNSSS

  And suddenly I'm inside the room. I'm trying to keep my thoughts clear. Trying not to think about that thing floating there with his big beach ball head, with the tender brain inside. I'm trying not to let that dark, sadistic insect part of me get any more of a hold on me, because I'm afraid of what it's doing to me. I'm afraid that this might be my last chance to get away, to get clear of this beach-ball-head man before something terrible happens, that this might be my last to chance to leave without grabbing hold of him and tearing his skull open and eating his delicious, succulent, moist—

  It's not going to happen, John.

  Oh God. Oh God that never made a thing like me.

  He's in my head.

  Yes, John. I'm inside your mind. I commissioned a lot of research on you, and I do believe it's paid off. I really do think I can affect you, John. In fact, I think I can kill you.

  He's in my head. He's got me right where he wants me. Did he lead me here?

  I need to think -

  I'll do your thinking for you, John. Don't worry. I'll try not to make this hurt too much.

  No, no, get out, get out, get out -

  Don't struggle, John. This is for the best.

  Get out! Get out of my head!

  What the hell are you?

  I'm Mister Smith, John.

  Prepare for psychic annihilation.<
br />
  CHAPTER NINE

  Playback

  There's a little man sitting in my head.

  A little man ripping and tearing and biting at the walls of my mind, plunging hooks into my sense of self and yanking out pieces, flaying my preconceived notions with barbed wire, slashing and tearing, damaging, killing me from the outside in, boring his way into me like an oilman drilling for a big strike.

  And deep down inside there's an opposite force, something down deep at the bottom of my brain, some terrible insect monster that's wearing me like a coat, controlling me, moving my limbs and sending me crashing forward, raging, attacking, hungry for the unspeakable.

  And everything I always thought I was is stuck in the middle.

  I don't know how much more of this I can take.

  It's all going to be over soon, John. Don't worry.

  I can hear him in my head.

  He's reaching into my head and yanking out wires. I can feel lights going off on the switchboard of my self, a dark void starting to open up. I've heard the word 'soul-destroying' a number of times, but I never really thought about what it meant before. Now I know.

  Listen: six years ago I went to the park.

  It was a beautiful autumn day, and the leaves on the trees were a riot of burning red, orange and gold. There were couples picnicking with hampers straight out of a picture-book, kids throwing balls and sticks for healthy dogs to catch and bring back, tails wagging. There was just enough cloud to keep the sun from being oppressive, and just enough wind to let you appreciate what a warm September day it was.

  I stood on a hill, looking out at the people smiling and laughing and holding each other, and I felt like I belonged in the world. I felt like there was a place for me. I sat on the grass and stayed there for hours, just people-watching, seeing the world go by. That was when I decided I didn't want to be a killer anymore.

  How long ago was that? Eight years? Four?

  I went to... I think it was a fairground... in the summer...

  Gone. Destroyed. Nothing left now, John Doe. Nothing left to do but die.

  Let go, John, let yourself end and fall into pieces.

  You are the enemy of all that is, John Doe. End and die.

  That was the happiest day of my life...

  What was I saying?

  No, it's gone. Got to concentrate. I'm fighting a war on three fronts here. Every chunk this freak takes out of me opens me up to that yawning hunger at the core of me. I don't want to give in to that. I don't want to become nothing but hunger.

  You are nothing but hunger, John. Don't fool yourself. All I'm doing is stripping away your illusions so I can crush the real you and end your threat forever.

  Die, John. Roll over and die.

  Jesus Christ, will you shut up for a second?

  There's him yammering in my head, almost but not quite masking the alien insect thoughts down deep in the centre of my psyche, the ones that want me to tear and eat and feed... and then on top of all that, there are the chairs.

  The ones flying at my face.

  It's really hard to deal with total evisceration on the psychic plane when there's a massive leather armchair flying directly into your sternum. Slowing time doesn't help - no, John, none of your little time-tricks now. I can control my perception of time as well as you can, so no matter what speed you're seeing things at, I'll be right there seeing them with you. You can't escape me, John.

  He's right.

  The heavy armchair slams into me, sending me crashing across the room and into the wall, pinned like a bug under somebody's thumb. That giant head turns to look at me, eyes glowing, not showing the slightest strain. Telekinesis - he can crush me like a cockroach without lifting a finger.

  As if I didn't have enough on my mind.

  The chair catches light, along with the floor beneath my feet and my hair and skin. Pyrokinesis - telekinetic acceleration of molecules to make things ignite. It hits me - he's not heating the desk. He's heating me, and everything I touch is going up as a result - my skin's got to be three hundred degrees right now. And I'm taking it. And deep down underneath, in the dark part of myself I don't want to acknowledge...

  ...I'm loving it.

  Does that make me a bad person?

  Does that make me a monster?

  What kind of person am I?

  Whatever I am, I'm a little too resilient to go up in flames just yet, but it's a matter of time - he's going to keep turning up the heat until I melt. Now I know how a lobster in a pot feels.

  All this on top of the sharp claws scrabbling inside my head, tearing and scratching at my thoughts and memories. I can't just lie here and die - pinned to a wall by an animated armchair and roasted like chicken. It's too stupid a way to go.

  I ball my fists and slam them against the blazing wood, smashing and battering at it like a madman. My hands rise and fall, rise and fall, thrashing like one of the wolves, letting the hunger underneath take control, letting it turn me into an animal. Into a biting insect. Into what it wants. The chair creaks and splinters - the combined pressure from the telekinesis, the fire and this little workout splitting the wood, great cracks that slowly travel through the structure until the whole thing bursts apart into component parts. I fight my way free of a drowning sea of wood, leather, foam stuffing, fire and fume - and I'm right back where I started, with a slight difference in temperature of about five hundred degrees. The whole room's going up.

  How very aggressive of you, John. Well, there's more where that came from.

  That's when the desk levitates up from the floor and starts a suicide run towards me.

  This isn't funny. That thing's got to be solid mahogany - it's not going to burn easy and if it hits, it's goodnight Vienna, or as close as I can get anyway. I can feel him tugging and tearing at all the little pieces of me like he's yanking out clumps of my hair, but I can't worry about that now. I need to let go of all conscious thought - do this on pure instinct -

  The desk flies towards me, one ton of mahogany that could crush me like a beetle under a boot -

  - and then I step -

  - jump -

  - what -

  - vault over the desk as it passes noiselessly underneath me -

  - wait -

  - and then as it smashes into the wall, I'm reaching out and grabbing hold of that big-headed little bastard by one half-shrunken ear and drawing my fist back and then -

  - AAAAAHHH!

  I can hear him inside my mind, and for once it feels good. That poke in the face seems to have broken his concentration - the dome-headed freak can't be used to direct physical pain if he's squirrelled away in here, especially not having his nose pulped by a solid right cross...

  That... makes two of us.

  Let's see how you like it.

  I stagger backwards. Something just smashed into my face and smashed my nose down like a pancake.

  Then something does it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  A constant cracking of bone, like the beat of a drum, the pain fresh and alive every time - crack, crack, crack - and the worst part is, it's not even my nose.

  That's right, John. But every blow you give me, I'm going to give you back a thousand times - that's if you ever reach me again. It's not only tables and chairs I can move, John.

  I feel something grabbing hold of me - like a giant hand with a hundred fingers, squeezing from all directions, then hurling me towards the wood-panelled wall. He's got me in the grip of his mind - tearing my thoughts, delivering the sensation of a broken nose a thousand times a second, and slamming me around the room like a kid smashing his sister's favourite doll.

  I'm pinballing off the walls... the ceiling... the floor... I can't get my bearings -

  And now you're out of reach, let's show you just how hot I can make things for you...

  There's something that feels like a rush of air, and suddenly everything gets very hot, very quickly. He was only testing before - now he rea
lly means business. I can smell flesh - my own flesh - cooking like bacon, charring and burning... flames start to spring from my arms and legs. I can feel my face burning, my eyeballs bursting and running down my cheeks...

  Die, John. Die! DIE!

  Don't listen to him. Don't panic. I can get through this. Whatever I am is stopping me from burning up completely, and I can still... see, somehow. I know where he is in the room. I can smell him, even above the burning flesh and the melting fat of my own blazing body.

  It's his brain. It's like a beacon.

  What is he?

  Would you really like to know, John?

  Don't listen to him - just break free of his grip -

  Yes, I think I will tell you. I think drowning in my memories will probably stop you struggling free while I burn you to ooze... yes, yes, I think you should know my story intimately.

  And suddenly I'm somewhere else. Somewhere warm and safe, protected by darkness and fluids. Sensations come to me, muffled, from beyond the soft organic walls of where I am.

  The year is 1839.

  The year is 1839. The biophysicist Herr Doktor Emil Klugefleisher has made his home in London after being forced to flee his native Germany due to circumstances unknown. He is the toast of the scientific community for his theories on the development of the human brain, taking Galvani's theories of bioelectricity in bold new directions and experimenting to alter the mental capabilities of rats and apes in utero, albeit with little practical success. There is even talk of his being accepted into the Royal Society.

  All of his work threatens to crumble into dust when his maid, Eliza Smith, reveals to him that she is pregnant and that he is the father. In an instant Herr Doktor foresees his whole reputation wiped out at a stroke by the scandal. The answer is obvious - the girl must vanish. Klugefleisher considers simply strangling her and dropping her body into the Thames, but the action seems rash. He reconsiders. His basement laboratory is soundproofed, and he is in need of a human test subject, after all. Why not kill two birds with one stone?