by Max Brooks
At least it was easier to track the ghouls by the glow of my torchlit tree. Maybe it wasn’t a total waste after all, I thought, not realizing how right I was. As the night wore on, I noticed that no zombies—or any mobs, for that matter—spawned anywhere near the circle of light. They materialized everywhere else; in the forest, the meadow, by the lagoon—even on the beaches, from what little coastline I could see—but never close to the luminous tree.
“Can mobs only spawn in darkness?” I asked myself, but got an unexpected answer from the back bunker door. Rotted fists were knocking loudly, accompanied by hostile groans.
“Delivery!” I called, walking back down the tunnel and over to the beachside exit. Sure enough, a zombie was pounding on the thin wooden barrier. “You just stay there,” I said, marveling at how different this moment was from the first time a ghoul had tried to break in. “This’ll be no different than ordering pizza.”
I shouldn’t have said that last word, because it reminded me of what real food tasted like. Pizza…lo Mein…chicken tikka masala…I don’t know what my particular preferences were back home, but at that moment they all sounded good.
Lost in culinary memories, salivating at every dish my species had to offer, I heard the standard, high-pitched barks of a burning zombie. Dawn had broken, and the undead assailant was now seconds from death.
“If that ain’t ironic,” I told the smoldering somnambulist, “and here you were trying to eat me.” A few seconds later, I was gagging down my decomposing breakfast.
Be grateful for what you have, I reminded myself through gulps of blessed milk. And I had a lot to be grateful for, because by the last swallow, I found my body completely healed. My bruises were gone, my headache faded, and my ankle took its full weight without any complaint. Even my breath smelled sweet and normal again, which was another irony if you think about the putrefaction it had just been filled with.
“Be grateful,” I said, trying and failing to forget the memories of human cuisine.
Cheese enchiladas, French fries and ketchup, blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a side of bacon…
“I gotta get some real food,” I said, walking over to the little garden. No luck there. The new seedlings were barely a mini-cube higher than they’d been the day before.
“Ugh,” I groaned, wincing at the memory of yesterday’s disaster. Where would I be if I hadn’t bungled it so badly? Would breakfast have been a bowl of wheat-based cereal instead of a mouthful of zombie-o’s?
“Don’t dwell on your mistakes,” I said, forcing myself back to the present. “Learn from them.”
And learn from them I did, because studying the garden showed me that the seeds planted right next to the sea were growing faster than the others.
I was right! I thought excitedly. I was right about water, just not about how to use it.
“Don’t put water on the seeds,” I said, wishing I could smack my head, “bring it next to them!” It was so simple, so easy. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
Whipping out my shovel, I dug a trench alongside the seeds. Water came flowing in, but, in the bizarre physics of this world, didn’t fill all the way up. I got out my bucket, scooped up a cube of seawater, and dumped it on the back of the ditch…and learned yet another quirky world rule. If you have two cubes of water and you put them three blocks apart, the space in between becomes an entirely new cube of water. And not just temporarily. You can take out that new cube, and the next one after it, and the next one after that until you’ve got enough to make a lake. Just two starter cubes can probably make a whole ocean. The point is, in this world, water makes water.
Why am I obsessing over this small, odd, boring little factoid? Because later on in this story, that little factoid will end up saving my life.
But back to the here and now.
Watching the trench fill to the top, I remembered a tale about an impatient amphibian trying his hand at gardening. In the spirit of that tale, I bellowed, “Seeds, start growing!”
Chuckling at my own wit, or, rather, quoting someone else’s, I still knew that I had to wait a bit to try combining wheat with wheat. And that was assuming, again, that this was wheat.
Patience, I told myself, trying not to think about how many more meals of zombie flesh I’d have to choke down. Patience.
Something splashed off to my right. I looked up and saw a squid.
“Ya know,” I called out to the eight-armed sea monster, “there’s another thing on this island, or, rather, swimming next to it, that I haven’t tried to eat yet!”
I was feeling pretty confident by this point. I had my strength—and more important, my hyper-healing—back. I was jonesing for some new challenges, especially when the reward might be a decent-tasting meal.
Grabbing my axe, I shouted, “Calamari time!” and jumped into the water. Sensing what was coming, the squid began to jet away. “Yeah, that’s right!” I called after it. “I used to be afraid of you, remember?”
My octo-prey stopped just below the surface, allowing me to take a swing. I stopped to raise my axe, and promptly sank. Silently laughing—yes, I’m sure it was laughing—my seafood lunch moved away.
“Come back!” I called, swimming after it again. “Get back here and get in my furnace!”
I followed the squid around the southern shore of the island, trying to swim and swing at the same time. In case you haven’t realized yet, it can’t be done. Just like this world wouldn’t let me rub my head while patting my stomach, it wouldn’t let me do anything while swimming except swim. I finally came to this realization after about five tragically comical minutes, which ended with the squid jetting into the deep.
“Don’t say it,” I said, floundering ashore and into the judgmental gaze of Moo. “I know I gotta make another boat.” Which I did. I then used that boat to go after a whole group of squid, hacking at the water and getting myself all twisted around. I can’t blame the rules of the world this time. Technically, I guess it’s doable. For all I know you’ve done it yourself. But me? I’m just glad nobody was there to see how ridiculous I looked. Well, almost nobody.
“Moo!” called my cow critic from the beach.
“Yeah, well why don’t you come out here and try it?” I called back, realizing a second later that she’d actually been trying to warn me. Looking up, I saw that not only was I getting farther and farther out to sea, but night was barely minutes away.
“Tomorrow,” I promised Moo, gliding back to land. “I’ll give it another try.”
She just snorted back.
“No, I will!” I insisted, knowing that she was right. Stamping back to my observation bubble, I realized that the whole idea of boat fishing was over. I needed something else, another method or maybe an entirely different tool.
As the sun surrendered to the stars, I tried to think of some way to snag a squid. Ideas were hard to come by that night. I found my mind wandering, unable to stay on task. I drifted from memories of my time on the island to observations through the window, to hazy recollections of my past world. They weren’t anything specific, just sense memories of my eyes burning, my fingers cramping, and my bottom going numb from too much sitting. What did it all mean? And why now? It was like some kind of fog had settled in my brain that I hadn’t seen building until now.
“Gotta think,” I said, wishing I could rub my temples.
That was when a skeleton clacked out of the woods, driving home how truly loopy I was getting.
“A bow!” I exclaimed, looking down at the arrow in my belt. “Why didn’t I think of this before?”
I’d been so keen on recovering one for so long. Why had it slipped my mind until now? Fortunately, the skeleton had shown itself only a minute or so before dawn; and even more fortunately I recovered both its bow and another arrow.
“Now you’ll see!” I boasted to Moo, who was breakfasting with the two sheep. “Baa,” called the black sheep, which I named Flint.
“Right, thanks,” I nodded. “Gotta practice.”
“You guys ready for this?” I asked my animal audience. “Witness the master at work!” As a vote of no confidence, they continued to graze with their backsides to me. “Just wait,” I said, walking out to the beach. “One calamari entrée comin’ right up!”
I spotted the closest squid about a dozen or so blocks out to sea, drew back the bowstring, and took careful aim.
WHP whistled the arrow, streaking in a shallow arc.
“Ha!” I cried, as the missile struck its target. I watched the squid flash red, vanish in a puff of smoke, turn into a small black organ-looking thing, and then sink right out of sight.
I won’t tell you the word I shouted. I’m not proud of it, but I should win some kind of prize for making one syllable last a good five seconds.
“Frrph,” snorted Moo from behind my back as if to say, “What were you thinking? How did you not have a recovery plan?”
“I don’t know,” I said, only now seeing solutions. “I should have tied something to the arrow, or found a way to make a net or…or even waited till a squid was closer to shore! But why didn’t I think of it till now?”
I started pacing. “Idiot!” I grunted, wishing this world would let me hit myself. “Stupid, stupid idiot!”
“Moo!” interrupted my stern friend, forcing me to stop and face her.
“You’re right,” I said. “When looking for solutions, beating yourself up isn’t one.”
“Moo,” replied the cow, as if to say, “That’s better.”
“I know I’m not an idiot,” I said, calmly raising my hands, “but something is wrong with me, like my brain’s only working part-time.”
I started pacing again, more out of contemplation than anger. “It’s not like panic or hunger. It’s something new. Well, not new, actually. I’ve felt it coming on for a while, but now that I’m well-fed and not scared out of my wits, I can see this mental mud for what it is.” I could feel anxiety rising, the last thing I needed right now.
“Any ideas?” I asked the animals. “Any hints about what’s causing it?” Moo, along with Flint and Cloud, the white sheep, just looked at me.
“I don’t have any either,” I said, checking the setting sun, “and that’s what really worries me.”
Plodding back to my underground hideout, I tried to refocus my mind on fishing. I looked down at the pathetic little piece of spider silk in my pack. Just one try at the crafting table told me I couldn’t tie it to an arrow. Likewise, I wasn’t going to get a net out of a single strand. I’d need another length of spider silk, or…
I looked up from the crafting table, through my wall-sized window to the sheep grazing in the darkened meadow.
Wool!
“That’s what those shears were for!” I shouted to them. “They’re for collecting wool!”
Reenergized by this new theory, I began chanting the Way of the Five P’s. Shears meant more iron, which meant more mining, which meant more torches and a pickaxe. Fighting through thickening thoughts, I still managed to plan, prepare, and prioritize clearly enough to get myself back down into the spiral staircase and looking for more iron.
I’m not sure how long it took. I was having trouble keeping track of time. When I found enough iron to smelt into a pair of shears and bring them out to my sheep peeps, it might have been a day and a half later.
“Don’t worry,” I said nervously, holding the U-shaped cutter next to Flint, “this won’t hurt.”
Please don’t hurt, I prayed.
SNIP went the shiny metal blades, slicing three blocks of black wool. “Yes, sir, yes, sir, three blocks full.”
“Baa,” responded my unhurt, but now very naked, friend.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured Flint, “it’ll grow back.”
Please grow back, I prayed, running the wool back to my observation room.
Had I been as sharp as the shears, crafting might have taken a few minutes. But my ever-dimming wits stretched the process into the early evening. Wool with spider silk, wool with sticks, wool with wool…by the time I’d moved on to wool with wood planks, the sun was long gone. That turned out to be a good thing actually, because placing the three wool blocks above three planks created the cure for my cloudy brain.
It was a bed. Nothing fancy, mind you, but still amazing to look at. The wood planks had transformed themselves into a four-legged frame. The black wool somehow became a white sheet, a red blanket, and a soft white pillow. Placing this new piece of furniture in the bunker, I did something I hadn’t done since first waking up in this world. I yawned.
I need to rest, I thought. Why didn’t I think of this before?
Because I need to rest. Duh.
I still didn’t feel physically tired, which was probably why I hadn’t given sack time much thought. I’d also been so distracted with immediate needs like food and healing and not getting killed by monsters that I’d never considered my mind’s need for slumber. Now, climbing into the little bed, resting my head on the pillow, and pulling the covers up to my neck, I gave another long-overdue yawn.
That’s what those memories must have meant, was my last thought; cramped fingers, burning eyes, numb bum. They were memories of a sleepless night. But doing what? A job? Homework? A hobby? What had I been doing that kept me up so late?
“Tomorrow,” I yawned, as the world faded to black. “I’ll figure it all out tomorrow, ’cause nothing clears the mind like a good night’s slee…”
I’d be lying if I said I remembered my dream, or even if I had any, but waking up the next morning confirmed what a good night’s sleep could do for my mind. Imagine walking through fog, not so thick that you can’t see your hand in front of your face, but just thick enough to blot out the landscape. That’d been me for so many sleepless days and nights. Now the fog had lifted and I could finally see where I was going.
Back to fishing, I thought, grabbing my shears. Back to trying to make a net.
“Hey Cloud,” I said to the white sheep. “How’d you sleep? Do you sleep? Apparently I do, and it’s really gotten the wheels turning. In fact”—I snipped off three fluffy cubes—“I was thinking that the only piece of the missing net puzzle is more wool.”
Spying Flint a few paces away, I was relieved to see that his—or her?—beautiful black coat had grown back. “No problem if this doesn’t work,” I said, shearing off two more soft dark blocks and carrying them all to the forest-side crafting table, “because I just woke up with a backup plan.”
Less than a minute and several wool-on-wool combinations later, I saw that the fishing net idea was out. “And that backup plan is,” I told the sheep, “drumroll please…a fishing pole!”
“Baa,” said Flint, who went back to eating grass.
“I know,” I said. “Duh! The most obvious tool. What a difference a few Z’s make.”
Crafting a quartet of sticks, I placed them and the wool on the crafting table. While mixing and matching came up with nothing, my recharged brain was already on to a backup-backup plan.
“So wool doesn’t work,” I said, reaching for the length of spider silk in my pack. When that didn’t work either, I moved on to the next logical step. And that’s when my enthusiasm cooled.
“Maybe this world just won’t let me make a fishing pole,” I warily told the sheep, “and I’m kinda hoping that’s true.” An icy ball began growing in my stomach. “ ’Cause if it’s not, then the only other option is getting another length of spider silk.”
“Moo.” The sound made me jump.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I told Moo angrily.
“Moo,” she retorted, telling me not to change the subject.
“It won’t be that dangerous,” I said, holding up my bow.
“We know they’re docile in daylight, so if I can pick one off at a safe distance…”
She snorted.
“I gotta try,” I protested, holding up a handful of zombie flesh. “I can’t keep living on this stuff.”
“Moo,” argued the cow, reminding me about the garden.
“Well, that’s still a long way off,” I said, “and we still don’t know if I can eat it.”
“Moo,” questioned Moo, seeing that I wasn’t telling her the whole story.
“No, I guess it’s not just about food,” I admitted, as thoughts and feelings rose from deep down in my gut. “It’s about…courage.”
Looking down at my shoes, I suddenly felt a twinge of shame. “I’ve been…afraid…of those mobs…always running from them, always thinking about what they can do to me.”
“Baa,” said Flint with a healthy dose of common sense.
“Yes, I know I should be afraid of them,” I conceded. “If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be alive. I get that fear’s a survival instinct, and I don’t want to ever ignore it.”
I looked down at the bow again, then up to my friends. “But I can’t be a prisoner of it either. I need to know that if I have to fight I can, that I can control my fear instead of it always controlling me.” I motioned to Disappointment Hill. “If I don’t, I’ll be cowering in a hole forever and that might be surviving, but it’s not living.”
Moo let out a low, resigned “moo.” She knew I was making sense, even if that sense put me right in harm’s way.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I answered, looking at the late morning sun. “I wish I had come to this conclusion last night. At least then I could have found a spider first thing this morning, instead of having to wait for one tomorrow.”
Nothing is worse than waiting, counting the seconds, drenched in anxiety. Do you know the difference between anxiety and fear? I didn’t until that day.
Fear is a real, present, right-in-your-face threat. Anxiety comes from a potential—or in this case, future—threat. Fear can be conquered. Anxiety has to be endured. And that’s what I did. Walking around the island, talking to Moo or the other animals, going over in my mind how I’d kill the spider, all the while enduring wave after wave of mouth-drying, jaw-clenching anxiety.
