Dead Men (and Women) Walking (15 page)

“
Veronica,” Mrs.
Finklestein purrs, “glad you could make it.” Notice there’s no
mention of Veronica being later than Hammer and me. Of course,
Veronica barely acknowledges her.

“
Good,” Mrs. Finklestein
says to the assembled group, pretending like nothing’s happened,
“Now that we’re all here we can begin.”

Veronica takes an empty
chair directly across the circle from me. She’s wearing a black
leather mini-skirt, black leather jacket with no blouse, and is
carrying her favorite black leather backpack. What can I say? She’s
got her own sense of style. She drops the backpack by her feet and
the thing hits the floor like a ton of bricks. Just like a woman,
always packing too much.

She catches me staring at
her and I give her my best ‘good ole boy’ grin. She sticks her
tongue out at me – that moist, pink, luscious tongue. It’s still
coated with the blood of her last meal. Oh, yeah, she’s been eating
flesh. I knew it the moment she walked in. There’s something about
a zombie who’s been doing what comes natural. They don’t slink.
They don’t slobber. They hold themselves proud. Of course,
Veronica’s ahead of the game cause she got an admirer down at the
coroner’s office. Perv lets her pick at the fresh meat when it
comes in.
No violation of her probation
there
.

“
Robert?” Mrs.
Finklestein’s high-pitch whine cuts through my thoughts. “Why don’t
you start us off tonight? What have you done this week to break the
old habits?” So the witch wasn’t going to let my comments slide.
She was getting revenge by making me take the floor. Well, that’s
ok cause this week I knew what I wanted to say.

Standing up I smooth out the folds
of my overcoat and straighten my hair. I look around at the circle
and take inventory: Mrs. Finklestein, Hoskins, Jackson, the newbie
Patricia (she still picks her scabs and leaves bits of herself on
the floor every week), Amos, Veronica, Raul, Johnson, Shirley,
Hammer, Mike, and me. The gang is all here.

“
Well, Mrs. Finklestein,” I
say in my best school-boy voice, “I had a good week. I figured out
how to break all my old habits.”

To my surprise, Mrs.
Finklestein actually looks interested. “You did? How wonderful!
Please, please, tell us how you did it.”

I had their
attention.

“
Well, I was thinking about
our situation – the fact that we’re all zombies – and about how we
all got to be zombies in different ways. Me and Hammer, we’re the
result of a military experiment gone bad, Hoskins works at the
nuclear plant, Veronica was just too bad for Hell, you had a pact
with the devil, and Jackson’s wife put a voodoo curse on
him.”

“
That’s right,” the old
black man cried out. “But I got her back. I cooked her up in pot of
jambalaya and served her with some nice fried okra. Yes, I
did!”

“
Anyway,” I shout so as to
not lose the floor, “what I realized this week is that zombies are
being made all the time. We’re part of the natural order of
things.”

Mrs. Finklestein starts to
look like she is losing hope that I had anything inspirational to
say. “Yes, Robert, that’s true. But how does knowing our origins
help in breaking our old habits?”

“
It doesn’t,” I say
honestly. “But it does help put things in perspective. See, there
have always been zombies and there will always be zombies. The fact
that the government lets us exist only goes to show that they’ve
given up trying to wipe us out. Instead, they dog tag us and find
ways of taking advantage of our undead status. Me and Hammer, we do
side jobs for the military. Hoskins has been inside so many nuclear
reactors that he’s been categorized as hazardous waste.”

“
Just get to the point,
will ya!” Veronica shouts with exasperation.

“
Patience,” I say holding
up a finger, “is a virtue.” Veronica answers me by holding up a
finger of her own. God, I love that woman.

“
Anyway,” I continue, “that
got me wondering why we’re the bad guys? How come we’re the
monsters? Is it because we like to eat human flesh? No, cause
that’s been going on since people had pots to put their neighbors
in. Is it cause we’re undead? No, like I said, they found ways of
using that too. Nope, the reason people fear us is cause we’re
undead, we like to eat human flesh, and we like to eat it while
it’s still wriggling.” Several members of the support group were
now sitting up in their chairs. The mere mention of eating flesh
made their mouths water.

Mrs. Finklestein must have
noticed the change too cause she’s quick to react. “Yes, Robert,
all this is true. So what is it that you realized?”

I smile. “That there’s a way
to eat our proverbial cake and have it too.”

Patricia looks up from a
particularly nasty scab she’s been picking and frowns. “Is he
talking about pastry or flesh?”

“
What I’m talking about,”
and this is when I sweep back the folds of my coat and pull out my
sawed-off shotgun, “is cannibalism.” I let off with both barrels
and blow Patricia’s head clean off. Wet gobs of chewy brains fly in
all directions and I don’t know what’s got their attention more –
my smoking gun or all that available meat.

“
What’s the meaning of
this?” Mrs. Finklestein shouts as she jumps to her feet.

“
The meaning of this,” I
say as I expertly reload the gun, “is that I’ve found the ultimate
solution. People fear us cause we eat people. But what if we didn’t
eat living people? What if we only ate un-living people? It’s not
like they’d object, would they?” I fire the gun into Raul’s chest
leaving a bowling ball-sized hole. He looks dumbly at the ragged
edges of flesh and starts to pick at it himself.

“
That’s insane,” Mrs.
Finklestein says with only the slightest quiver of fear in her
voice. “How does that help society?”

“
It doesn’t,” I say with a
smile, “but it helps me. Oh, and Hammer too.” I look back and the
big man is up on his feet – grinning.

“
Hey, you jerk!” Veronica
shouts. “What about me?”

“
And you too, baby. I
wasn’t forgetting about you.”

“
Better not forget about
me,” she snarls back. She then reaches down into her backpack and
pulls out a couple of butcher knives – long and razor sharp. She
leaps upon Mike and with a couple of quick swipes severs his head.
Blood spurts everywhere and she immediately grabs the torso and
begins to suck down the juices moaning with the pleasure of a fresh
kill.

“
You can’t do this,” Mrs.
Finklestein says as she realizes the simplicity of my plan. She
starts to slowly back up towards the window. “We’re members of
society. We have jobs. I know the Governor.”

“
Oh, but I can,” I tell
her. “See, Hammer and I have already spoken to some folks we know
in the Federal Government and they’re all for it. Like I told you,
new zombies are being made all the time. Our numbers are starting
to grow and it’s causing concern. So me and Hammer, we made them a
suggestion they couldn’t resist and we got ourselves the first two
licenses ever issued to hunt zombies. It’s seasonal of course. Just
to thin out the herd and prevent starvation.” I hear a scream
behind me and I turn to spot Hammer ripping Jackson’s head off with
his bare hands. Poor fool thought he could get past my partner in
the midst of all the confusion. When I turn back, Mrs. Finklestein
is making a run for the windows so I blow off her left leg. It’s
like watching a tower of jello hitting the ground.

“
Hey,” Hammer yells to me,
spitting out bits of Jackson as he speaks. Boy never did learn to
cover his mouth when he’s chewing. “You promised I could eat
her!”

I look down at Mrs.
Finklestein’s quivering body. Hoskins has already retrieved her
severed leg and was happily caressing the limb as he gibbered to
himself. It’d been years since the old boy had gotten any leg.
“Don’t worry,” I call over my shoulder, “there’s more than enough
to go around.” I reload my gun.

Surveying the room I see
that not everybody is opposed to my plan. Amos and Shirley are
sitting side-by-side happily sharing Patricia’s remains. They shyly
hold up fistfuls of bloody rib bones and nod their heads towards
me. I nod back. My license only lets me bag 2 zombies a month so
technically I’m done. But we could still put Mrs. Finklestein down
as one of Hammer’s kills. I walk over to the quivering mound that
is Mrs. Finklestein and put the barrel of my gun to the base of her
skull. The fat woman turns her terrified eyes towards
me.

“
Robert,” she sputters,
“you must resist the old urges. You must break the old habits.
Zombies are people too.” She actually looks hopeful that she can
reason with me.

“
No, Mrs. Finklestein,” I
say, “that’s where you got it wrong. Zombies aren’t people. Zombies
eat people.” Then I pull the trigger. It is perhaps the most
satisfying kill I’ve ever made. Of course, I have to retrieve the
head for Hammer. He was very insistent before the hunt began that
he get to eat Mrs. Finklestein’s brain. And you know Hammer, ain’t
nobody going to change his mind – once it’s been made.

By Jennifer
Schoonover

"You gonna marry me now,
right, Cyrus?"

I remember sittin' in the
loft—air so thick you were drownin' and the hay ridin' into my
ass—thinking, over my dead body. Now, ten months later, that'un's
exactly what it's gonna be.

Momma told me once that if'n
I was gonna marry or breed, do it with a woman offa the mountain,
an' above all else, stay away from the LeConte gals, 'cause despite
bein' cousins, they was bad news. Now, Lolly LeConte was one of the
prettiest gals I'd ever seen and she was after me like a flea onna
dog. Oh, there'd been rumors, I suppose, but when she leaned over
and showed me her goods and looked at me with those big swamp-green
eyes, well… next thing I know I'm in her daddy's tobacco barn
seein' heaven.

She waited six weeks before
tellin' me she was in the family way. I figgered it wasn't like we
were in the old days—hell, this here's the twentieth century and
she can go about her own way and she'd be all right. I'd give her
money, food, whatever she needed, but there ain't no way I was
gonna marry her. Then she told her pa.

Donny LeConte was a big man,
but more'n that. He was the seventh of the seventh and had been
born with a death mask on his face. He could speak to the trees and
could tell you why your crops died or your horse was ailin'. And,
Lord, he could talk to ghosts and they'd lissen. He gave me a
chance to set things right, holding my coondog by the scruff as I
looked out from my window, Momma standin' behind me with her prayer
beads cryin'. And as he tore my dog apart, I still swore I'd never
marry her. Later, the 'lectric and phone was gone, and town bein'
too far away, me and momma figgered on holin' up with a shotgun and
a batch a chicken in the house to wait 'em out. That night we hear
noises and shufflin' outside…

I never thought he'd take my
momma, his own sister n'law. But that mornin' she was gone, blood
and swampwater mixin' with the eggs still cookin' on the stove.
That night looking outa my window, I seen her, standin' next to
Granddaddy and Uncle Arnie, who had a bad day with a chainsaw nigh
on two years ago. Nearly a dozen of 'em circlin' the house, starin'
up at me with those damned milky eyes. Tried shootin' 'em a couple
of times, but they paid it no mind. And seein' my pappy dead five
years this past Christmas with his face half gone was 'nough to
keep me screamin' for hours up in the attic. They was waitin' for
something…

Then a couple weeks ago,
Lottie joined 'em, holding a gray-green gurgling infant to one
breast, her innards pourin' out from between her legs. 'Parrently,
I'm a daddy after all.

Soon as the moon went down
this evenin' I knew they was coming, only this time, I hear them
tear down the back door. I went up to the attic where I've been
hidin' out with my momma's prayer beads. The last chicken was et
four days ago and I'm tired. I can hear them in the house comin' up
the stairs. I guess it's finally time to meet the
in-laws….

Emily M. Z.
Carlyle

Nick met Mr. Birnbaum on the
stairs. “Good evening, Mr. Birnbaum,” he said. He was known in his
apartment building as a polite, well brought-up young
man.

Mr. Birnbaum didn’t talk,
but his smile was sufficient response. It didn’t scare Nick the way
it did some of the neighbors’ smaller kids. “Dad sent me down to
the store for some milk.” He deliberately wouldn’t mention the
other person his father had him run errands for. “Is there anything
I can get you?” he asked, although he knew zombies don’t
eat.

Mr. Birnbaum’s head seemed
about to roll right off of his shoulders when he shook it – he was
quite old. Nick said goodnight then and went on his way, feeling
vaguely triumphant. His father didn’t like him talking to the
Birnbaums.

“
Zombies are vile and
nasty,” he had a habit of saying. “And they smell bad.”

“
Mr. Birnbaum doesn’t,”
Nick would retort. “He buys more deodorants and air-fresheners than
anyone I know. He alone probably keeps some cosmetics factory in
Asia in business.”