Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (72 page)

“
Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of another day, and will you continue to watch over my loving son and elderly mother, amen . . .”

Guess on the day he took Gram, Jesus weren’t listening. Or maybe he just decided to say “Sorry, Hattie, but no, not today, but thanks for the amen anyway.” See, Ma, she takes her praying pretty serious. And she takes the words of any man who stands at the Sunday pulpit just as serious. So Reverend Whitecastle’s words bore considerable weight that day.

She ran to get her bible, read a passage to me with Gram still sitting there on her throne. “
‘Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
That’s John 4:14, Gilbert, just like the Reverend said.”

“Ma, I don’t get what you’re trying to––”

“Her soul’s still in this room with us, Gilbert. You know that, don’t you? Reverend Whitecastle says the soul thrives near water, just like when someone is baptized. Water keeps the soul and its life force fresh, he says. It gives life––
eternal
life!”

“We have to keep your Gram’s soul here, Gilbert. We do that, and it’s like keepin’ Gran’ma alive. Do you understand what I’m tellin’ you?”

I sure didn’t, no m’am. But I weren’t about to tell Ma that. Instead I just smiled as best I could, nodded my head like some bobble doll as if she made perfect sense.

For weeks following Gram’s passing, the bathroom was off limits. Mom got us a bucket to do our daily business because Gran’ma now had exclusive rights to our porcelain appliance. The kitchen sink and some large sponges provided our showering needs. I thought it was kind of crazy myself, but I had no problem avoiding the bathroom considering what I knew was sitting on the pot. Ma made the proper excuses for Gram’s absence at church. An old woman gets sick and ornery, and no one much questions that sort of thing.

By the second week, though, there was an awful lot of stink coming from our bathroom. That liver and onions stench filled the whole house, though Ma just pretended there weren’t nothing to be concerned with. But I knew the candles she lit now had more to do with that reek than her conversations with Jesus. Both of us learned to keep visitors stalled on the other side of our front door, and I knew time wasn’t far off when a downwind whiff of Gran’ma would find its way into our neighbors’ nostrils.

But Ma, she kept acting like the world had set itself right, even spent time talking with Gram inside our bathroom, though for my part I wasn’t yet ready to share my day at school with her. That is, not until curiosity got the better of me. See, it weren’t as if I thought talking with Gram would mean much or would make me feel better. But after a couple of weeks some part of me—some dark part I’m not even sure I fully understand—but some part of me had to see how Gran’ma was holding up. I waited ’till late night when Ma was asleep to have my visit.

I’m sorry, Gran’ma, I don’t mean to shame you or anything like that. But your smell was so god awful I felt tears in my eyes. That liver stench had gone rancid, like someone had cooked your flesh inside a big oven then thrown in last week’s garbage for seasoning. But what I seen of you still perched on our crapper was even worse…

Gram’s tongue was hanging out like some overheated dog’s. Something was eating her from the inside, some filthy creatures that maybe started with her intestines then worked their way out to her flesh. Gram’s flesh weren’t all that attractive to begin with ’cause she was so old. But now her face resembled a wax candle already melted, and she had dozens of fresh wounds leaking this cheeze-like goo. Her nose and ears was oozing that stuff, and something black hung from her nose too. Then it moved and I saw it was this huge fly. It disappeared inside her nostril, and at that same moment another one flew out of her ear. A whole bunch of them lighted in her hair too. How so many got into our bathroom and inside Gram I haven’t a clue. Maybe a whole nest of insects was crawling around inside her soul. Reverend Whitecastle never said a word to Ma about them flesh-eating flies. I started feeling a little sick.

“
Jesus, Gran’ma…oh, Jesus….”

Then I vomited.

I managed to clean up my mess without Ma being the wiser, but I told myself this weren’t a real good situation and that Ma had best be made aware of that. I tried telling her it was just plain craziness to keep pretending Gram were still alive and kicking, when she must’ve knew that what sat inside our bathroom stopped being my Gran’ma weeks ago. I told her what she was doing weren’t anything the law would completely understand either, and if that smell got any worse pretty soon the whole neighborhood would be at our door. But Ma, she wouldn’t hear any of it.

“‘
Water welling up to eternal life
,’ Gilbert,” she kept saying as if this was all the explanation she needed. And then an idea occurred to me…

I don’t believe that toilet had been flushed even once since Gran’ma passed. Maybe Ma needed to watch that holy water gone down the bowl to realize it weren’t doing no good for anyone’s soul inside our house. Lately Ma had taken to surrounding Gran’ma with about a hundred candles as if our bathroom had transformed itself into some kind of shrine. I guess to Ma that’s exactly what it was, although I’ve been to outhouses that smelled better.

I didn’t much feel like reliving my experience of several weeks past, but I really had no choice. Ma was in the bathroom talking to Gram when I joined her, and let me tell you what I saw was something I don’t care to remember. Ma, she turns to me all smiles, and says, “I’m so happy you decided to join us, Gilbert. Don’t be afraid…”

That seemed easy for Ma to say, although Gran’ma’s smell now was downright gaseous, and it hung thick in the air as if some huge sick animal had broken wind inside our bathroom. It stank so much I covered my nose, but the insects crawlin’ all over Gran’ma clearly were loving that rotted egg stench. Them carrion flies now was joined by maggots, the kind I seen dining on roadkill near the Dairy Queen. There must have been dozens of the fat suckers, their mouth hooks having their fill of chunks of skin, their slime-drenched bodies all bloated with human flesh like it was fast food. There was beetles too, plus some wasps and other bugs I couldn’t name, and even more was coming up through the toilet’s exposed wall pipe as if someone had rang a damn dinner bell. But the way Gram
looked…

In just another week’s time, she had changed, and it weren’t for the better. Parts of Gram seemed to have busted open and it made her look fatter than I’d ever seen her. Whatever foul liquid she’d had inside was leaking out so bad her cheeks seemed torn sacks, and her gums must’ve loosened because the few teeth she claimed as her own now littered the floor. I think a couple of her fingernails was down there too. Them bugs all around her skin, they must’ve laid eggs inside her or something, ’cause about a hundred crawling creatures was all over her, burrowing in and out through split flesh. Them maggots was all bunched together on her chin as if they was enjoying a family feast. Fat as Gran’ma now was, it seemed any moment she might bust open and deflate like some pus-drenched balloon. I could picture an army of about a million bugs crawling through her flesh to say howdy.

“
Ma, this is too awful. Too awful…”

“
Jesus, Ma! Jesus!”

And then the most terrible thing happened. At first I felt certain I didn’t really hear anything, that somehow my mind was playing some nasty trick on me. But no, I heard it. Ma heard it too––this liquid sound of something hitting the water in the bowl under Gram. The sound was familiar and unmistakable. It was also impossible.

Gran’ma . . . she was peeing!

[I got you good this time, didn’t I, boy?]

I couldn’t believe it. Ma was on her knees screaming praises to Jesus because Gran’ma was having a piddle! This weren’t no miracle to me. Gran’ma’s corpse relieving itself was plain craziness. I couldn’t explain what I heard, not in a million years. But I’m certain Jesus played no part in it. No m’am, this seemed the work of something nobody sane would call holy. But when I looked back at Gran’ma the craziness reached a whole new level. Just like the day I found her, a long strip of toilet paper was again in Gran’ma’s hand!

I feared I may woof my dinner like the last time, but then we was interrupted by the sound of our front doorbell. Ma seemed in no condition to talk, so it was up to me to put on my most convincing happy face, and I knew that weren’t going to be easy ’cause I looked like death itself. But the last thing we needed was some pesky neighbor asking questions, so I splashed water on my face and headed to answer the bell that now was ringing like mad.

That woman sniffed the air like some forest animal picking up a scent. Then she scrunched her face so she resembled a human prune. “That odor is awful, Gilbert. I can smell it clear across the yard in my kitchen. What is it smells so unpleasant here?”

“Septic tank. I think its busted. Burst open the other night and just stinks to high heaven, like Ma says. We got a man coming to fix it in the morning. Ma was going to apologize to you, but she’s --”

“––not feeling well. Yes, you told me.” Mrs. Winfried’s eyebrow shot up and she looked at me hard. “That’s one powerful stink for a septic tank, Gilbert.” Poking her head through the door she sniffed some more. “That smell is coming from inside your house. ’Less you have your septic tank in your parlor I doubt that’s what’s causing this smell, Gilbert.” She gave me that look again.

I stood firm, not letting her set one foot further. “Ma’s been pretty sick and I think I may have caught something too, Mrs. Winfried. Some kind of flu. I just whoopsed my dinner not ten minutes ago.”

“Your grandmother. She’s sick too?”

“Just awful, both Ma and Gram. But I’ll tell them you was here.” I managed to shut the door, but I didn’t hear Mrs. Winfried’s footsteps on our path for another two minutes. I knew that woman weren’t buying a thing I told her, that when she visited again she would be bringing some friends. I had to tell Ma we hadn’t much time to decide ’bout what to do with Gram. But Ma, she had one more surprise waiting for me when I found her still in our bathroom with Gram’s remains.

“I told you we’d seen a miracle today, Gilbert. And that’s just what’s here.”

I couldn’t speak. My eyes was seeing something my brain couldn’t begin to grasp. Gran’ma…she was standing up, rocking to the left, then to the right, but on her feet, yes m’am. She was looking at me and smiling with none of her teeth left, but smiling just the same. Her granny pants was still down at her ankles and there was some grey mold all over her butt where she’d been sitting these past few weeks. More sticky green and yellow gunk was oozing from her to the floor, but Mom didn’t seem to mind any of that. She didn’t even seem to notice none of them bugs still crawling all over Gram’s face and arms, sucking out the last of her juices.

“
Ma…oh, Jesus, Ma… It ain’t so…it can’t be so…”

“It is so, Gilbert. Your Gram seems a little unsteady on her feet. Will you run and get her walker for me?”

I’d heard somewhere that when you’re dead your muscles harden. Sometimes, with all that stuff drying up inside, a dead person will seem to move, and there have even been cases of bodies popping out of their coffins. It seemed a stretch, but it was also an explanation.

“This ain’t right, Ma. I mean, it just ain’t––it ain’t
natural!”

Gram did seem a little wobbly on her feet. She always was unsteady standing in one place for too long. But I wasn’t feeling very steady myself.

“Maybe we better get your Gram cleaned up first, don’t you think, Gilbert? Will you help me get her into the tub so’s we can wash some of this gunk off her?”

I didn’t know what else to do. I reached under Gram’s arms with Ma. She weren’t heavy, as if whatever had been inside her had got all chewed out and nothing remained ’cept her shriveled flesh. Lifting her was like hauling someone made of straw, and I feared she might even fall apart in my hands, but getting her into the tub weren’t hard at all. Ma pulled the plastic curtain and turned on the shower. She looked at me and smiled, every tooth in her mouth on display.

Next day––wouldn’t you know it?––that old bat Mrs. Winfried knocked at our back door while we was having dinner. And just like I suspected she had maybe three or four neighbors right behind her when Ma went and greeted her. For a moment Mrs. Winfried just looked at Ma kind of quizzical, studied her face really hard as if trying to read something concealed in it. But Ma, she was good at hiding stuff behind her smile.