by Gnarly, Bart
I lead the zombie by the neck to a harness rig nearby. Now the tricky part. I hold the critter in place while Peter wheels around me and fastens the chains on its wrists and ankles. There is a lot of room for error and the chances of a bite are at their highest while we are pinning one down. If I let up even a little or if Peter inadvertently gets too close to the head, one of us will spend the afternoon destroying the other. “An’ frankly,” Peter likes to joke, “killin’ you from a chair would be a pain in the ass.”
Peter had told me that he used to just fasten them by the elbows. Back when everyone was still at the mill and Peter could walk, he and two others found that elbow control was all you really needed to keep a zombie in place. They didn’t seem to realize their feet were good for anything except walking. They would scratch at the air with impotent fingers and bite at nothing like a crazy person. That was until they caged and strapped one that was freshly dead.
“That som’bitch jumped and flipped and twirled like a gah damn ballerina every time one of us opened the door.” Every time he would share the story Peter would sweat and shake a little at the memory. “More than once I was certain I was going to come downstairs and find the rotting asshole runnin’ free. In the end I only tried one thing with him.”
“What was that?” I had asked, clearly taking the bait he was leaving.
“I put Dave on him,” the man replied simply.
Dave was probably the most affected person I had met post-outbreak or any time in my life. Driven to silence by the horrors he had witnessed, Dave was known for the violence he would exhibit by murdering zombies.
“Dave suited up, only because we made him do it, and he clubbed that damn zombie to his heart’s content. Ah hell,” Peter remembers with an unsteady sigh, “There was blood, and filth, and viscera all over the place when he was done. The arms were still strapped in. Just the arms, mind you. Ol’ Dave had bashed the body clean off them, and pummeled the head to the point I swore he was going to smash it into the torso. In a way,” Peter laughs darkly, “he did. There wasn’t much left above the chest after he was through. Just a messy smear and some very battered shoulders. If you looked, you could find some pieces of skull, but not many and no large parts. I remember Wood asking afterwards, ‘Where the hell are all the teeth?’ and sure as shit they were nowhere. Never did find them. How does a man bash something ‘til the gah damn teeth disappear? Well,” he would say in a resolved tone, “that was Dave. When we told him to stop, Dave just kept swingin’ that club of his. We yelled, but he either couldn’t hear us or didn’t care. I got the feelin’ that if anyone stepped between Dave and his prey, they were going to see the flash of his club. In the end, he either got bored, too winded, or felt that enough damage had been done. Wordlessly, Dave spit at the corpse and walked away.
“After focusing mostly on the head and torso, the results were hard to look at, but kind of funny at the same time. The legs were left totally alone you see, so it looked like some guy had swallowed a stick of dynamite. Arms and head blown off, and stomach blasted out. Since the deady’s head and guts where flung all around the walls and floor in a radius of a dozen feet or more, the visual was just about perfect. Then the fuggin’ thing’s legs started moving.” The laugh comes like a coughing fit as he tries to remember the incident without remembering how it made him feel at the time. “We all jumped at that one! It started kicking like crazy and we kind of wished Dave was still in the room to finish the thing off. In the end, I let it kick until it was done. We cleaned up the gore, and disposed of everything else, but stuffed the twitching body in a corner and checked on it regularly.”
I remember Peter telling me this story for the first time. He had rubbed his eyes thoroughly before looking back up at me and breathing the words, “Nine days. How the hell does something twitch for nine days? And you didn’t see this, kid. The thing was destroyed from the waist up. How the hell did it… I don’t know. But nine days passed before whatever was in its system had either run out or quit. No head. No spine. No organs. Nine gah damn days.”
The incident had left its mark on Peter. He had helped capture and contain a dozen zombies before that one, and never had feared their escape. This one, though it never broke its bonds, made Peter painfully aware that he had grossly underestimated the power of a single zombie. Before the Dave experiment, Peter was sure his methods were sufficient. That one encounter left him riddled with doubt that would cast a shadow over every subsequent meeting with the undead. Nothing was safe enough. Before, he tied them with straps, now chains. The idea was that the less leverage they could manage, the less likely they were to pull themselves free of their bonds, so we would stretch the arms and legs out as far as we could. Joints would strain and pop as we cinched them to the rack. Peter says that he had considered running pipe between the connection points. “Crammin’ a pipe between their feet and attached to the chain would restrict them even more, and one runnin’ behind the shoulders to connect the hands would jus’ about do them completely.” In the end though, chaining them to an iron gate that Wood had mounted to the wall seemed like more than enough for one zombie. “Bastards still freak me out, though.”
That would be the reason he never kept them alive for long. He’d say it was because every moment he wasn’t killing them was a moment wasted, but we all knew the truth. Even now, when it’s just Peter and me in the mill, he can’t sleep if there’s a living, moving, moaning zombie in the cage. Some nights we stay up until dawn, cutting, pulling, burning, stabbing, shooting, and disassembling the bodies of the undead.
I thought the practice would freak me out.
I thought I might shrink back from the sight of violence against a human, even if it was zombified now.
I thought I would never be able to cram a blade into the flesh of one, with its eyes on me, just to see how it dies.
I thought my inner humanity would shine through.
Apparently that died while I wasn’t paying attention.
At some moments I would catch Peter looking at me on the mill floor, in the office, at the kitchen table, and I would see something in his eyes that was difficult to read. His countenance was a mix of curiosity, wonder, and unease. It was as though my eager willingness to assist him in finding the most effect method of killing zombies yielded a combination of relief and concern. He hated that I felt nothing for the creatures, but was relieved that I showed capability and control. I was able to separate myself from the task, and perform horrid deeds on the once-humans without losing composure or nerve. For Peter, I don’t think he really got over the idea that the creatures were once human.
Maybe if the shufflers looked more like Hollywood zombies, and less like people who have the flu, Peter would have felt better about destroying them.
He would watch silently as I marked off targets on the naked chest of a zombie. Male, female, it didn’t matter to me. They were less than cattle. You could eat cattle. There was nothing appealing, endearing, or attractive about them. My actions matched my feelings in both coolness and sterility. Peter would write notes as I inserted a spike into each mark one at a time, gauging the effectiveness of the strike.
They never died.
Then I would flay them.
I would cut open a struggling zombie like plunging a straw in a juice box, only feeling less satisfied with the zombie. And all the while, Peter would look on, silent more often than not.
Ever since he was confined to the wheelchair, I had to go and gather zombies on my own. Never more than one at a time, I would try to isolate and snare a zombie close to the mill then drag it back and cage it up while we prepared. Peter was clearly uncomfortable with the practice, but saw no other option. Since the last big wave of zombies had flowed through the town we had not seen another living person in Cheney.
There was no help.
No one was coming.
As far as we knew we were alone. The work had to continue.
One night, during what was probably my fourth or fifth zomb
ie capture, something happened that changed Peter forever. In his mind had always been a question of the level of consciousness of the creatures. Did they have memories? Did they feel? You could shoot and stab them all day, and they just kept coming, but did they experience pain in any capacity?
Peter’s fear was that zombies were humans, confined and aware within an autonomous shell. In their minds, they could feel and hurt and long and suffer, but the virus controlled their actions and made them killing machines. They were prisoners in their own bodies, and victims to a will that is not their own. When he killed them, he would do it kindly, almost affectionately, and the process never took long.
I felt no such responsibility to the creatures.
After he was confined to his chair, his preoccupation became almost religious. Before, he merely entertained the thought of healthy mind trapped in a broken and distorted frame. Now the hope became a passion: He had to believe that even if a person was confined in a terrible state, they were still a person of value. He would say as much, and I would look at his legs, healed in a twisted mess, and know his real motivation. He believed there may be more, and on a cool fall night, Peter got all the proof he would ever need.
I had caught a ripe one; a zombie who had only very recently transformed. It was active and powerful, fervent in its attempts to strip me of my life and flesh. He used to be a young male, probably twenty-eight or nine, and was full of piss and vinegar. My catchpole was just long enough to keep me out of reach as he struggled against the noose. His fingers crawled through the air as he bellowed and grunted, trying to grab me. The zombie’s efforts were so terrifying and hysterical that I laughed as my heart skipped and shuddered. I had never been as close to death as I was with him, and he had been such an easy snare.
I had been perched on our old van, still burned-out and crashed downtown. The deady had walked up, sniffing the air and searching for me. Before he figured out where I was, I had looped him, and then the fun began. He fought so hard I would have sworn he was half bull. I twice thought he was going to drag me to the ground and he nearly had me convinced that I couldn’t get him back to the cage. When we finally did make it back to the mill, Peter looked at me as though I had wrangled the Devil himself. We decided to skip the cage and immediately chain him up, which so far was the smartest choice we had made. Looking back, there was a perfectly good chance that he would have destroyed the cage and eaten us both.
The Devil himself.
He fought the bonds and tried desperately to get those teeth of his around whichever of us was dumb enough to get too close. All of his struggling was for naught, though. Once Peter had him chained and bound, I lifted the noose from his neck and stepped back to admire our prize.
He was a lion.
He was a shark.
He was a killer.
He was ours.
I looked at Peter with a wide smile, and found the man visibly shaken by the mere existence of this zombie. Was he reminded of the last fighter? I didn’t know, and to be blunt, I didn’t care. I felt like a big game hunter. I had captured a live rhino, and now it was time for the kill.
For the last few zombies we had been experimenting with torso punctures and small, calculated wounds. Now it was time to try the same techniques elsewhere. I selected my homemade spear and laid the point to the right of the zombie’s Adam’s apple. He growled, bit, and flexed against the chains and I sank the blade into his neck.
Then he did something that gave us both pause.
He spoke.
“Ow,” he grunted.
Not really a word. More of a sound in truth, but neither Peter nor I had heard anything like it from a dead-head.
“What?” Peter asked in a quaking voice.
The zombie growled and glared at us with the point of the spear still lodged firmly in his neck.
So I gave the spear a twist.
“Ow,” he repeated. “Eat.”
“My god,” Peter replied. “You can talk.”
“Eat,” he replied. “Ow.”
I pulled my spear from the zombie’s neck, and it seemed to Peter that the creature became more relaxed. The wound was already filling with jelly and very little blood had leaked out.
“Eat,” the zombie repeated.
“What was your name?” Peter asked in an airy voice. I shot him a look of disbelief.
We’re interviewing them now?
“Eat. Ow.”
I rammed the spear just under the chin and to the left of the esophagus. The creature roared and thrashed against its bonds, and Peter called for me to stop.
“Can’t you see?” he asked. “Can’t you see that he feels that? That he’s still alive in there? That he’s trapped?” Peter looked from me to the zombie, and asked me to remove my spear from its resting point.
“Ow,” the zombie says again.
“It’s broken,” I protest, refusing to withdraw the spear. “It’s not a person, Peter. It’s not alive. It can’t feel. It’s dead.”
“You don’t know that!” Peter roared, and the zombie answered with one of its own. “These are the actions and words of someone who is thinking, and feeling, and alive. He’s sick!” Peter insists, extending a hand at the zombie.
And that was all it took.
The zombie yanked so hard against the chain that it broke its own hand. Thumb flailing loosely he grabbed Peter by the shirt and dragged him, chair and all, to his mouth. Despite my screams, the zombie stuffed Peter’s shoulder in its mouth and took away a bloody chunk of meat. Peter railed and cried. I jammed the spear into the zombie’s eye. Our undead captive twisted his head, wiggling the spear around in its own socket and loosening the weapon enough to reach and bite Peter’s neck.
I knew he was dead. Both of them were. The one in chains and the one in the chair.
Peter was about to test his own theory, and he knew it.
“No,” he sputtered, his life dumping out of his neck and a new one filling the hole. “No.”
Of all the methods we had tried, fire was the only real way to stop a zombie. You could smash them to nothing, but any piece left over could still contaminate you. Fire was the only purifier.
I lifted my spear and took aim at Peter’s eye. The zombie latched down again on my friend and mentor’s neck while he stared at me and mouthed a single word.
“Yes.”
I rammed the point into his skull, and the life within him faded. The zombie looked up at me with a drunken grin.
How could Peter think this thing was alive? Or capable of ever being a human again?
The first rule in disposing of a zombie: Destroy the head. A bite is the most common way to transfer the virus, and without it, every other attempt to attack you is rendered weak and ineffective. I acquired my long sledge, and caved-in the zombie’s face with a single wild blow.
Then I did the same to Peter.
It was necessary, I told myself. He would come back. He would try to kill and eat me. He was already dead. The zombie struggled and Peter’s body dropped in a heap.
I broke the zombie’s arms at the elbows and left the legs intact. This made it so that the creature couldn’t grab me, but I could still walk it around.
Was this decision cruel or practical? If you answered the latter, I could use a good partner these days.
I dragged Peter’s remains to a fenced gravel area behind the mill before walking the zombie out. I put them together and then took the sledge to the zombie’s right knee, just to make it easier to keep him in place. I poured the kerosene, and put the torch to them both. Their meat crackled and popped under the flame. The light in the sky faded under a fire fueled by the body of the only human left in my life.
My parents.
My brother.
Wood and Duck.
Dave and Molly.
Sissy.
Peter.
Alone in the world, I warmed myself by the fire as an autumnal wind blew over me.
That night, I lay in my bed but didn’t sleep. I
thought I had regressed to Dave’s level: Silent, cold, and murderous. Something within me had died. Only long after the sun rose did I follow suit. I didn’t eat. I didn’t change my clothes. I strapped on a helmet and grabbed a club. The sadness needed to leave me.
Then I took a walk.
Finding a zombie when you want one is an effort in endless frustration. I screamed. I called. I cut myself.
Nothing.
I broke windows and pounded cars.
Nothing.
I set a fire and screamed myself hoarse.
Finally…
Mercifully…
A zombie came shuffling down 1st Street. I ran to meet it. It was a slow one with a bad leg. I cracked it in the head and the creature was down before it could even fight back. I bashed and clobbered the zombie until it had no moving parts. Invigorated by the kill, I continued my search.
I moved to a field just outside of town. I figured I could more easily lure a zombie from a more open position. Peter had a theory that the zombies hunted by smell and not by sight. That in mind, I stood tall on a hill so my scent would be more easily carried by the breeze.
I yelled.
I pounded the Earth.
And my efforts were rewarded.
Three zombies approached me.
I had never confronted more than one at a time, but I had seen Dave do it before. Bash bash bash, right? I stepped into the first one and swung for the fences. His head collapsed under my club and dark bits of brain decorated the grass. The second and third came at me simultaneously. I plowed one in the neck, and then pushed the other away.
Dumb move.
The zombie grabbed my extended arm and stuffed my hand in its mouth.
Pain.
Burning.
Swinging club.
Battered zombies.
Bloody grass.
No left pinkie.
Half of a left ring finger.
The ridge of the hand: Mangled.
I could feel the death flowing through me.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Back to the mill.
