She stood in the center of the crowded cage, resplendent in a knee-length white dress, white stockings, white shoes, and a white cap perched jauntily on her gray bun. In her hand she carried a doctor’s bag.
A simulacrum of a nurse; I didn’t even know they wore those uniforms anymore. Of course, hers was torn at the shoulder and her stockings were stained with blood and a piece of finger clung to her bun, but that gave her the patina of a war nurse. Like Whitman.
She turned in a circle, assessing the scene, searching, I realized later, for the most critically wounded among us. And she found him: Brad Pitt Zombie. He was leaning against the wall, his cheek ripped open, revealing a bone to die for.
I felt guilty. My blow had been intended to “kill” a fellow zombie. But he simply wanted his evening meal just as I did. He was not my oppressor; humans were.
And didn’t we all learn to share in kindergarten?
The nurse pulled a needle, thread, and swatches of fabric out of her bag. I walked over to her, Eve close behind me.
Her name tag said JOAN. A fitting name for a leader and a saint.
Joan stood next to Brad Pitt Zombie, so close that her Nurse Ratched breast touched his arm. Her bitten knee poked through her stocking; it was patched with suede. I bent down and touched it, rubbing the fabric; it was creamy and soft.
I dared to look up at her and my heart almost began beating again from sheer joy. Because her eyes were a miracle. Divine. The eyes of Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa. Botticelli’s Venus rising out of the ocean. There was light in them, a positive glow, a corona of higher cognitive function.
Brains! The woman had brains.
She cupped my chin and nodded. I grabbed her hand and kissed it, and she patted my head before turning her attention back to her patient.
Hallelujah! I would have wept, if zombies had tears.
I sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Joan work. She coaxed Brad into a sitting position by caressing his primary bite site, which was on his still-firm bicep. With her other hand, she pressed on his shoulder and he sat, docile as a baby lamb, while she worked her magic.
Her skill was immediately apparent, her fingers more adroit than most surgeons’, let alone us uncoordinated zombies. She selected a black leather patch and sewed it onto Brad’s cheek with an attention to aesthetics. Although the final result resembled some new S &M trend more than a post-op bandage, it would prolong Brad’s living death.
Joan was a stout zombie with a curvy, matronly figure. A meaty hourglass shape. She was in her mid-fifties, I guessed, with what they call a handsome face-a square mannish chin, a prominent Mediterranean nose, and the puke-green skin of the not-so-recently turned.
It was love at first sight, and I worried the guards might recognize her as a threat, but they were intent on the horizon. What’s more, the crush of corpses at the bars gave us privacy. The perimeter of our prison was at least two undead deep.
In my professor pocket, I had saved a brain treat. I wished I had a silver platter to put it on for her. She deserved better than my outstretched palm. Eve grabbed for the brains with her good hand and I slapped her away. Joan seized the golf-ball-sized chunk and swallowed it in one gulp.
“Mooooaaah,” she said, licking her fingers. In zombish, that means thank you.
JOAN CARRIED RESURRECTION in her bag. Amongst the buttons and needles, leather and linen, there was rebirth and life, survival and hope. All three of the fates were in there too, weaving us into existence: Clotho spinning the threads, Lachesis measuring the length of our lives, and Atropos cutting the thread at the time of death.
Add a fourth fate to the classic trio: Saint Joan, old crone, spinster extraordinaire, sitting on her thanatopsis throne creating destiny for zombies.
My shoulder, once mere bone, was transformed.
When Joan rubbed her fingertips in circles on my scapula, it felt good and I understood how she rendered Brad passive. It was the most sensual experience I’d had since my transformation and I couldn’t wait to touch Eve on her thigh.
After examining my wound, Joan put her finger to her lips and rested her chin on her thumb. I knew the pose well-it connotes critical thinking. Problem solving and decision making. Cogitation.
Together, we could help our people. We might even change the world.
Joan opened her magic bag and pulled out a hockey mask. A Jason Voorhees Friday the 13th mask. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, what can you do? A slight smile crossed her lips.
O Captain! my captain! You have a sense of humor.
The mask was made of hard, sturdy plastic, the kind that is supposed to glow in the dark but rarely does. She wrapped the elastic straps underneath my armpit and sewed them into the flesh with string for good measure. My shoulder was secure and protected, and once I put my shirt and tweed jacket back on, it looked almost normal.
Jason on my shoulder was better than an angel. A monster on a monster, the hockey mask confirmed that our historical moment was unprecedented: Legend had become reality, fiction was finally fact.
Yes, Virginia, there really are zombies. Like Jason Voorhees, they rise from the dead.
JOAN COULDN’T TALK and neither could she read. I showed her my notes and she shook her head. Poor old gal. Illiterate zombie.
We devised a language, however, a signifying system of “natural” signs. Our communication was simple and childish: A pat on the tummy meant hunger. Nods and shrugs meant yes, no, I don’t know, or whatever, depending on context. Making a gun with our hands meant Ros or Guil and making a cradle with our arms meant Eve or the baby. We scissored our fingers to indicate running or walking. And we tapped each other’s shoulders to point out particularly idiotic zombies, the ones engaged in mindless repetitive actions like bashing their heads on the floor. A few of these unfortunates had eaten their own fingers, which resulted in horrible indigestion. They lay clutching their abdomens, vomiting up rivers of goo.
At least Joan could decipher diagrams, pictograms, and caricatures. These codes and signs held meaning for her. A drawing of a bull meant bull; a stick figure meant human; a slumped or lopsided figure meant zombie. I showed Joan a newspaper photo I’d found of Stein back at the Travel Center and she exhibited all the outward signs of comprehension. A thoughtful nod, a meaningful look, arms akimbo.
That was how I planned our escape. In pictures. I prayed I wouldn’t run out of paper.
Saint Joan was like Jesus among the lepers; there were simply too many for her to heal. And some weren’t worth it. With my help, she selected a choice group. Apostles, you could call them. We left the ones clutching the bars alone-we needed them to shield us from the guards, and anyway, they were thoughtless thugs, nothing more than meat-seeking missiles.
Our core group was small: Eve, Joan, Brad, and me.
And then came Guts.
Joan was examining Eve, pressing her hands and putting her ear on Eve’s stomach. She must have heard or felt something, because she gave me the thumbs-up. Eve’s primary bite site, her thigh, was in good shape as well. I tried to indicate to Joan that it was I who had bitten Eve and that I attempted to keep the wound small and contained in order to prolong her living death. I pantomimed the biting action, but the nuances were lost, and I don’t know what Joan thought of our relationship.
Eve’s wrist was a much more serious injury. To this day I regret losing control.
Joan was wrapping Eve’s bones in gauze when Guts separated himself from the herd. His round brown face was spotted with scabs and pus like severe chicken pox, but his eyes were wide and white, not filmed over with the yellow mucus of the unseeing undead. He was only as tall as my waist; he would never get any taller.