Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (75 page)

Later, he would boastfully write about this incident to the soft-spoken, courtly gentlemen who published his books. He said to the German officer, “What a mistake you made, brother.”

And then I shot that smug prick. I just shot him before anyone could tell me I shouldn’t. I let him have three in the belly, just like that, real quick, from maybe a foot away.

Say what you want, maybe they were no supermen, but they weren’t any pantywaists, either. Three in the belly, PowPowPow, and he’s still standing there, and damned if he isn’t dead but doesn’t know it, but he is pretty surprised and serves him right, too.

Then everyone else, all the Americans and a Brit or two are yelling and pissing around like they don’t know whether to shit, go blind, or order breakfast, and here’s this dead kraut swaying on his feet, and maybe I’m even thinking I’m in a kettle of bad soup, but the hell with it.

But have to do it right, you know, arrogant krautkopf or not. So I put the gun to his head and I let him have it, bang! And his brains come squirting right out his nose, gray and pink, and, you know, it looks pretty funny, so someone yells, “Gesundheit!” And that’s it, brother. That’s all she wrote and we’ve got us one guaranteed dead Nazi.

VIII

A rose is a rose is a rose

The dead are the dead are the dead except when

they aren’t and how do you like it

let’s talk and

Who is on first

I know what I know and I am afraid and I am afraid

IX


HOMAGE TO SPAIN

1.

An Old Man’s Luck

The dusty old man sat on the river bank. He wore steel rimmed spectacles. He had already traveled twelve kilometers and he was very tired. He thought it would be a while before he could go on.

That is what he told Adam Nichols.

Adam Nichols told him he had to cross the pontoon bridge. He really must and soon. When the shelling came, this would not be a good place to stay. The old man in the steel rimmed spectacles thanked Adam Nichols for his concern. He was a very polite old man. The reason he had stayed behind was to take care of the animals in his village. He smiled because saying “his village” made him feel good. There were three goats, two cats, and six doves. When he had no other choice and really had to leave, he opened the door to the doves’ cage and let them fly. He was not too worried about the cats, really, the old man told Adam Nichols; cats are always all right. Cats had luck. Goats were another thing. Goats were a little stupid and sweet and so they had not much luck.

It was just too bad about the goats, the old man said. It was a sad thing.

Adam agreed. But the old man had to move along. He really should.

The old man said thank you. He was grateful for the concern. But he did not think he could go on just yet. He was very tired and he was 76 years old.

He asked a question. Did Adam truly think the cats would be all right?

Yes, Adam said, we both know cats have luck.

Adam thought they had a lot more luck than the sweet and stupid goats, and 76-year-old men who can go no farther than twelve kilometers when there is going to be shelling.

2.

Hunters In The Morning Fog

Miguel woke him. They used to call him Miguelito but the older Miguel had been shot right through the heart, a very clean shot, and so now this one was Miguel. The sun had just come up and there was fog with cold pufflike clouds near to the ground. “Your rifle,” Miguel said. “We are going hunting.”

“Hey,” Adam Nichols said, “what the hell?” He wanted coffee or to go back to sleep.

“Just come,” Miguel said.

There were five of them, Pilar, who was as tough as any man, and Antonio, and Jordan, the American college professor, and Miguel, who used to be Miguelito, and Adam Nichols. They went out to the field. Yesterday it was a battlefield. The day before that it had just been a green, flat field. Some of the dead lay here and there. Not all of the dead were still. Some were already up and some were now rising, though most lay properly still and dead. Those who were up mostly staggered about like drunks. Some had their arms out in front of them like Boris Karloff in the
Frankenstein
movie. They did not look frightening. They looked stupid. But they were frightening even if they did not look frightening because they were supposed to be dead.

“Say, what the hell?” Adam Nichols asked. His mouth was dry.

“It happens sometimes,” Pilar said. “That is what I have heard. It appears to be so, though this is the first time I personally have seen it.”

Pilar shrugged. “The dead do not always stay dead. They come back sometimes. What they do then is quite sickening. It is revolting and disgusting. When they come back, they are cannibals. They wish to eat living people. And if they bite you, they cause a sickness, and then you die, and then after that, you become like them and you wish to eat living people. We have to shoot them. A bullet in the head, that is what stops them. It’s not so bad, you know. It’s not like they are really alive.”

“I don’t go for this,” Adam said.

“Don’t talk so much,” Pilar said. “I like you very much,
Americano
, but don’t talk so much.”

She put her rifle to her shoulder. It was an old ’03 Springfield. It had plenty of stopping power. Pilar was a good shot. She fired and one of the living dead went down with the middle of his face punched in.

“Come on,” Pilar said, commanding. “We stay together. We don’t let any of these things get too close. That is what they are. Things. They aren’t strong, but if there are too many, then it can be trouble.”

“I don’t think I like this,” Adam Nichols said. “I don’t think I like it at all.”

“I am sorry, but what you like and what you dislike is not all that important, if you will forgive my saying so,” Miguel said. “What does matter is that you are a good shot. You are one of our best shots. So, if you please, shoot some of these unfortunate dead people.”

Antonio and Pilar and Jordan and Miguel and Adam Nichols shot the living dead as the hunting party walked through the puffy clouds of fog that lay on the field. Adam felt like his brain was the flywheel in a clock about to go out of control. He remembered shooting black squirrels when he was a boy. Sometimes you shot a black squirrel and it fell down and then when you went to pick it up it tried to bite you and you had to shoot it again or smash its head with a rock or the stock of your rifle. He tried to make himself think this was just like shooting black squirrels. He tried to make himself think it was even easier, really, because dead people moved a lot slower than black squirrels. It was hard to shoot a squirrel skittering up a tree. It was not so hard to shoot a dead man walking like a tired drunk toward you.

Then Adam saw the old man who had sat by the pontoon bridge the other day. The old man’s steel rimmed spectacles hung from one ear. They were unshattered. He looked quite silly, like something in a Chaplin film. Much of his chest had been torn open and bones stuck out at crazy angles. There were wettish tubular like things wrapped about the protruding bones of his chest.

Come, old man,
Adam Nichols thought
. Come with your chest burst apart and your terrible appetite. Come with the mindless brute insistence that makes you continue. Come to the bullet that will give you at least the lie of a dignified ending. Come unto me, old man. Come unto me.

“You let him draw too close,” Miguel said. “Shoot him now.”

Come, old man,
Adam Nichols thought.
Come, because I am your luck. Come because I am all the luck you are ever going to have.

Adam pulled the trigger. It was a fine shot. It took off the top of the old man’s head. His glasses flew up and he flew back and lay on the fogheavy ground.

“Good shot,” Jordan said.

“No,” Adam said, “just good luck.”

3.

In A Hole In The Mountain

It is not true that every man in Spain is named Paco, but it is true that if you call “Paco!” on the street of any city in Spain, you will have many more than one “Que’” in response.

It was with a Paco that Adam Nichols found himself hiding from the fascist patrols. Paco’s advanced age and formidable mustache made him look
Gitano
. Paco was a good fighter, and a good Spaniard, but not such a good communist. He said he was too old to have politics, but not too old to kill fascists.

Adam Nichols was now a communist because of some papers he had signed. Now he blew up things. For three months, he had been to a special school in Russia to learn demolitions. Adam Nichols was old enough now to know his talents. He was good at teaching young people to speak Spanish, and so for a while he had been a bored and boring high school teacher of Spanish in Oak Park, Illinois. Blowing up things and killing fascists was much more interesting, so he had gone to Spain.

There were other reasons, too. He seldom let himself ponder these.

The previous day, Adam Nichols had blown up a railroad trestle that certain military leaders had agreed was important, and, except for old Paco, the comrades who had made possible this act of demolition were all dead. The fascists were seeking the man who had destroyed the trestle. But Paco knew how to hide.

Where Paco and Adam were hiding was too small to be a cave. It was just a hole in a mountain side. It was hard to spot unless you knew just what you were looking for.

It was dark in the hole. Paco and Adam could not build a fire. But it was safe to talk if you talked in the same low embarrassed way you did in the confessional. Because they were so close, there were times when Adam could almost feel that Paco was breathing for him and that he was breathing for Paco. A moment came to Adam Nichols that made him think,
This is very much like being lovers,
but then he decided it was not so. He would never be as close with a lover as he was now with Paco.

After many hours of being with Paco in the close dark, Adam said, “Paco, there is something I wish to ask thee.” Adam Nichols spoke in the most formal Spanish. It was what was needed.

Gravely, though he was not a serious man, Paco said, “Then ask, but remember, Comrade, I am an aged man, and do not mistake age for wisdom.” Paco chuckled. He was pleased he had remembered to say “comrade.” Sometimes he forgot. It was hard to be a good communist.

“I need to speak of what I have seen. Of abomination. Of horror. Of impossibility.”

“Art thou speaking of war?”

“
Si’ “

“Then dost thou speak of courage, too?” Paco asked. “Of decency? Or selfsacrifice?”

“No,
Viejo
,” Adam Nichols said. “Of these things, much has been said and much written. Courage, decency, selfsacrifice are to be found in peace or war. Stupidity, greed, arrogance are to be found in peace or war. But I wish to speak with thee of that which I have seen only during time of war. It is madness. It is what cannot be.”

“
Verdad.
I have seen this. No. I think I have seen this. Years ago, a long time back, in that which was my first war, I thought I saw it. It was in that war, Paco
Viejo,
that I think I became a little crazy. And now I think I have seen in it in this war. There were others with me when we went to kill the dead. They would not talk of it, after. After, we all got drunk and made loud toasts which were vows of silence.” Adam Nichols was silent for a time. Then he said again, “Do the dead walk?”

“Thou hast good eyes, Comrade Adam. Thou shootest well. Together we have been in battle. Thou dost not become crazy. What thou hast seen, thou hast seen truly.”

Adam Nichols was quiet. He remembered when he was a young man and his heart was broken by a love gone wrong and the loss of well holding arms and a smile that was for no one else but him. He felt worse now, filled with sorrow and fear both, and with his realizing the world was such a serious place. He said, “It is a horrible thing when the dead walk.”

“
Verdad.”

“Perhaps.” Paco sighed. His sigh seemed to move the darkness in waves. “Years ago, I knew a priest. He was not a fascist priest. He was a nice man. The money in his plate did not go to buy candlesticks. He built a motion picture theater for his village. He knew that you need to laugh on Saturdays more than you need stained glass windows. The movies he showed were very good movies. Buster Keaton. Harold Lloyd. Joe Bonomo. John Gilbert. KoKo the Klown and Betty Boop cartoons. This priest did not give a damn for politics, he told me. He gave a damn about people. And that is the reason, I believe, that he stopped being a priest. He had some money. He had three women who loved him and were content to share him. I think he was all right, this priest.