He knew which boards not to step on because they would creak. Someone had closed the front door and kitchen window, yet moonlight shone through a fair number of cracks, lighting his way across the floor and touching the dough on the counter, where Mama had left it that morning. It had risen in a bulbous shape. Its stale smell mocked what it might have been.
With the slightest moan, the door to Mama and Papa’s room objected to opening. Papa stirred enough that Thomas halted with the door half open. Moonlight shown into the room through the open window, illuminating the bed. Outside, crickets chirped. Papa lay on the far side, his back to Mama. She lay on the very edge closest to Thomas, beneath the covers, eyes closed. Otherwise, her expression had not changed from when he’d last seen her alive.
No, something about her had changed.
Was it the moonlight?
Holding his breath, he pushed the door open the rest of the way, and stepped to the bed. He stood there for several moments, just looking down at his dead mother, wondering how she’d reached this point. Had she envisioned dying like this, then lying in bed with her living husband?
What had changed about her?
Or had he, Thomas, changed? He felt different. Like part of him had gone missing. His conscience. Or his guide. Or his taskmaster.
How strange to lose Mama. She’d been there his whole life, telling him what to do, directing him. No matter how old he got, what knowledge he gained, she always knew better, and always made sure he knew that she knew. She always knew what he should be doing, and what he was actually doing.
And now she’d died. For him, a hole had appeared where a person had always existed.
He realized why she looked different. It was not the moonlight.
She was at peace.
Free from the selfishness of those around her.
With the muscles of her face relaxed and pale in the moonlight, the lines of worry had disappeared. Yes, her face sagged, with the cheeks and jowls flattened, the mouth unnaturally wide, but more than anything her nose and her lips and her cheeks looked calm. Serene. He’d never seen her look like that before. She’d always been there telling him to get to work on the farm. Weed this field. Plant this crop. Harvest this grain.
Well, it wouldn’t happen anymore. She’d died, and he would see to it that she didn’t come back.
He started at the thought, at its anger and how hard he gripped her fingers. He shouldn’t think like that about Mama, even if she did treat him like everyone else’s slave.
Just like she treated herself.
That made him pause. She worked harder to take care of her family than anyone he’d ever seen. And she expected the same from him. She’d wanted him to be like her, to serve the family day in and day out. She’d encouraged him to get the gift of a green thumb. Why? So that he could spend his days slaving away for the family who took advantage of his—and her—efforts.
But Charles and Papa—she let them do whatever they wanted, whether it was buy some cockamamie horse or sit on the porch from sun up to sun down, giving some fake excuse about a failed petition for a blessing. Yet Papa lived, and the one who’d served her entire life had died.
Well, that was fair. She probably didn’t want to live, and Papa wanted to. Wanted to mooch as long as possible.
Thomas stood there a long time, ignoring the occasional creak from the house as it cooled. Charles’s snoring from the other room. Papa’s occasional snort. He crouched and reached under the covers, took her hand in his, and remembered a time he’d been sick, when only five or six.
She’d sat in bed with him, holding him. She cradled him in her arms and told him he needed to be strong, so that he could help the family. So that he could protect them. Then she’d taught him another of those little rhymes that made no sense. There were probably half a dozen of them. This couplet went like this:
A year for a mile and a day for a day
The buzzer in the center creates the way
There in the dark, he whispered the words to her. He didn’t know why. She couldn’t hear, and saying them wouldn’t bring her back. And he didn’t want her to come back, anyway.
Did he? Was that really why he refused to let the others resurrect her? Was it for her, or for him?
He didn’t dare answer the question.
Another poem came to mind. It somehow seemed to fit her life’s sacrifice, and seemingly what she’d wanted of him:
I give my days and burn them away
To protect the shape that beneath me lay
He stood there, thinking that. Mama was dead, yet he wouldn’t give his days to bring her back.
Finally, he stopped stalling—for that was what he was doing. Once he took her out of the bed and house, and carried her up to the grave and buried her, she would be gone forever. Despite everything, he hated the idea.
He pulled her out from beneath the covers and hefted her into his arms like a small child, then turned and carried her out of the room. Out the front door, into the cool night and moonlight. Down the steps. Around the house. A hundred yards up the field.
And that was when he noticed, two hundred yards up the ridge, where the field ended, the figure of a man.
Watching him.
I understand that when zombies are first raised they’re very intelligent things. But as their brains rot they become dumber and dumber. At times I thought my husband might secretly be a zombie. Really, my life might have been easier if that were true.
Chapter 11: Home invader
Thomas stopped.
Who was it?
The figure up at the top of the ridge took one step to the side, and tilted its head. The moonlight illuminated little more than its shape, so it looked just like a gray man standing against the blackness of the hills behind it. Its eyes didn’t even glint.
Was it David, out checking on the reservoir for some reason? Maybe a vagabond? Charles? Mr. Milne? Franky?
All the names passed through Thomas’s head, and he rejected them all with his heart—which had pounded nonstop since he’d re-entered the house that night. But now it had practically stopped. His mouth went dry. The pit in his stomach from not eating all day long seemed to widen into an endless abyss.
Nothing moved. Not even the air. No clouds churned in the clear sky. No crickets chirped.
Thomas tried to speak. To call out to the figure, but no sound came out. Only a quiet rush of air. He shifted his boots in the dirt.
He could not take Mama back to the house. He dared not.
Yet, he did not want to get any closer to this figure. It hadn’t moved for nearly a full minute. Just regarded him. He couldn’t see its face or its eyes, but knew with certainty that it looked at him, waited for him to do something.
He would have to take Mama somewhere else.
A dozen places crossed his mind as he stood there. The barn. The pile of dirt. David’s house. He could just walk away. Get as far as he could in the night. That was all that mattered—he just had to get her away. If he went missing with her, it was just as well.
St. George. He would carry her to St. George in the night, and find a place to hide her there. Further away was better than close anyway.
His decision made, he began to turn. Maybe the figure would leave him alone if he left it alone.
It made a noise. Something between a grunt and a moan. The sound flowed down the field like a sea of liquid ice that, when it hit Thomas, froze him to the ground. Coldness penetrated his heels and ascended his legs to his hips and spine, crawled up his back and into his head. Cold feelers shot out into his brain in a thousand directions. He knew who the figure was.
No. What it was.
A zombie.
Mr. Brady had set a zombie to watch the farm during the night.
It took a step toward Thomas.
“Miss Sadie,” it said. It had a coarse voice, like frozen rocks grinding together.
He didn’t know a lot about zombies. Just what he’d heard in stories as a kid—and he didn’t
know how much of it was true. Zombies might or might not talk—this one clearly did. They might shamble or sprint. They might only leave you alone once they’d eaten your brains—or when you decapitated them or otherwise badly injured them. In one story—probably circulated by Moabite sympathizers—the zombies had baked blueberry muffins, churned the butter, and turned beds down at night.
He doubted this one was interested in any of that.
He needed to run. He needed to get away, or he would die, and in the morning his family would find his remains scattered all over the farm. And his Mama’s.
“Miss Sadie isn’t here,” he said.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t get his legs to work. He had to get back to the house. Mama suddenly felt heavy in his arms.
The zombie took another step toward him. “Miss Sadie.”
“She’s gone. Left this morning.”
He managed to take a step backward, nearly tripping on a ridge of dirt.
The zombie started forward.
And it didn’t shamble. It sprinted.
Thomas turned and began to run. He had a hundred yards to go before he reached the house, and between the dead weight in his arms and the unevenness of the ground, he stumbled often. He heard the zombie’s feet pounding in the dirt, the rustle of its clothes—but that was all. No heavy breathing. No grunting. Just the footsteps getting closer and closer.
He made it to the hard-packed dirt near the chicken coops before the zombie reached him.
* * *
It grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him clean off his feet. His chest compressed as his back hit the hard ground and Mama flopped against him. The air rushed from his lungs.
The hens, disturbed, began to cluck. Inside the house, Stanley barked. For an instant, the zombie loomed over Thomas, just a dark figure against the sky. It stunk far worse than Mama.
“Miss Sadie,” it said.
It plucked Mama from his arms, slung her over its shoulder, and started back up the field. Gasping, Thomas rolled to his knees and stood.
Should he let it take her? It clearly had mistaken her for Miss Sadie—an error no living creature could possibly make, but apparently zombies weren’t particularly adept at telling ragged old women from vigorous young ladies—and if it took her, his problem was solved. She would be gone and his family couldn’t bring her back to life.
Yet, it was a zombie. What would it do to her? She might be dead, but she was still Mama. It was still her shell, and it deserved respect even in death.
Still struggling for breath, he started forward, quite certain he needed some kind of shotgun or blade to take down a zombie, but not knowing where he would get one. He could get a rifle from inside—where Stanley had started to go bonkers with barking—but the zombie was moving fast, and gaining speed. How quickly would it get up into the wilds, and how hard would it be to find?
That’s my body, Thomas. You get that back. You at least owe me that respect.
Thomas started to run after the zombie.
But only a dozen paces into the field—before Thomas had even reached the first furrow—it stopped. Thomas did the same.
“Miss Sadie,” it said. “Miss Sadie?”
It held her like Thomas had, across both arms, like a small child or bride. Her head lolled back, and one arm dangled down. It lifted the arm that held her torso, moving her toward its face, and at the same time bent its head down to peer closely at Mama’s features.
Thomas started to back up.
The zombie dropped her. Just threw her down into the dirt with a thud, and turned back to Thomas.
“Miss Sadie.”
It started toward him.
He turned and ran. He only had twenty feet before he reached the house, and fortunately, at that moment, the back door to the house opened. Charles appeared in his nightshirt—bright in the moonlight against the otherwise dark wood. Stanley darted out of the house between Charles’s legs.
Opening the door for Thomas in that moment was the nicest thing Charles had ever done for him—even if he’d done it on accident.
“What’s all this noise?” Charles said.
“Out of the way!” Thomas said. “Stanley, back in the house!”
But Stanley ran past Thomas, snarling and barking, clueless that he’d made a very poor choice. Charles leaped out of the way as Thomas dove into the house and turned just in time to see the zombie kick Stanley. The dog yelped and rolled away, and that was all Thomas saw before he slammed the door shut and threw all his weight against it.
“What’s going on?” Charles said.
In the bed, Franky snorted and rolled over.
The zombie collided with the door, pushing it open several inches before Thomas could slam it shut again.
“Zombie,” he said.
In the near darkness, Thomas couldn’t see details of anything, but he could imagine the dumbfounded look on Charles’s face.
The zombie hit the door again, and again it opened. For a second, moonlight darted into the room, then extinguished as Thomas slammed the door shut.
“Get over here and help!”
The zombie pushed again, this time groaning as it did. It forced the door open far enough that it could squeeze one arm inside. It flailed and grasped for something, anything, and ended up grabbing Thomas’s shoulder. Its touch sent a shiver down his spine, and he felt his hold on the door failing.
But Charles arrived and tossed his body against the door. It slammed against the arm and moonlight sticking through it, and stayed open four inches. The zombie, its arm pinned, didn’t even cry out. Naturally. Zombies didn’t feel pain.
Thomas remembered his knife. He wore it at his belt at all times, and usually forgot it was there. But now, with Charles helping him hold the door shut against the strength of the zombie, he could draw it.
He had it out in a heartbeat, and brought the blade down on the zombie’s arm, right above the elbow.
He wouldn’t have thought it possible to cut through an entire arm—bone and all—with a knife. At least, not in one swipe. But zombie bone must have been soft, because the blade sliced clean through the arm.
The hand released his shoulder and the entire limb dropped to the floor. A rotten smell ballooned into the room. The zombie’s weight fell away from the door, which banged shut at the brothers’ weight.
Thomas braced himself for the zombie throwing itself against the door again, but instead the next attack came from the opposite side of the room.
Papa appeared in the doorway, dressed in a white night shirt.
“Mama’s gone!”
Thomas didn’t know what to do. Was the zombie going around the front of the house? It could no doubt force its way through the front door. Or the kitchen window. Or Clara May’s. Or through the open window to Mama and Papa’s room.
“What?” Charles said.
“Quiet!” Thomas said. He thought he could hear Stanley barking, maybe even fighting the zombie.
“Mama’s gone!” Papa said.
“How can she be gone?” Charles said. “You were in bed with her.”
“She’s gone. God bless her soul.”
“Shut up!” Thomas said.
Blood thundered in his ears. Outside, Stanley yelped. Off on the side of the house.
“It’s going to the front!” Thomas said.
He disengaged from the door and sprinted past Papa—more like shoved him out of the way. He fell back into the kitchen, onto his rear, and Thomas leaped over him.
Moonlight still filtered in through the cracks in the walls, just as it had ten minutes before, when Thomas had crept through here in ignorant bliss of what the night held in store for him. Hopefully Stanley hadn’t taken any serious wounds. Outside, he still barked.
Should Thomas go for the door, or into Papa’s room to shut the window? For that matter, did he make sure the wooden lever that held it shut was turned? Not that it would matter much. A child could open it from the outside without much effort.
<
br /> The entire house—always a real joy to begin with—suddenly felt inadequate on an entirely new level. Someday, when Thomas built his own house, he would make sure to zombie-proof it.
He decided to go for the window in Mama and Papa’s room. That was the greatest danger. He dodged to the right, toward the room.
He shouted back over his shoulder. “Don’t let it in the front door!”
As he entered Mama and Papa’s room, Charles came out of their room and jumped over Papa. Clara May appeared in the doorway to her room, eyes wide with fright.
When Thomas looked forward again, the zombie was already climbing through the window. It had one leg, its head, and its remaining arm inside. By Thomas’s reckoning, that was well over half way inside. The moonlight limned its shape.
“In here!” Thomas said.
He lunged, bringing the knife over his head, toward the zombie’s face. It raised its hand to defend itself, and the blade stuck into its palm. Thomas’s momentum carried him into its body, and it fell back through the window—all except for its leg, which remained hooked over the windowsill. Its head thumped on the porch, but it still didn’t cry out.
Thomas pushed back from the wall and lifted the zombie’s leg up—then shoved it out of the window. The zombie’s body folded as the leg flipped over it. Thomas leaned out, reached to the side for the handle of the shutter, and pulled the shutter around to close it with a thunk. With a flick of his wrist, he turned the length of wood that held it shut, and couldn’t stop himself from laughing. That little length of wood, held in place with a rusty nail, would do nothing to hold the window shut if the zombie decided to try and open it.
Which it did.
It stood. Thomas could track its movement by how it blocked the moonlight that should have filtered in between the shutter and the body of the house. It stood, letting out a single moan, and shoved its fingers in the crack. Thomas tried to slam his fist into the fingers, to crush them, but the zombie was too fast.
Keep Mama Dead Page 9
