ONE LAST RADIO scan before we left: “Comfortably Numb” was still playing on DJ Smoke-a-J’s station. It’d been on repeat since he was eaten one windy fall day. His demise was broadcast live; we all gathered round the radio like they had in the 1940s, listening.
“They’re at the gates,” DJ Smoke had said. “The monsters are at the gates! I’m surrounded. Hello, is there anybody out there? Can anybody hear me? If you’re listening, if there are any humans left, I just wanna say…” He paused and took a shaky breath. “Aw, fuck it. It’s for the best, actually. Humanity pretty much sucked, didn’t it? Yeah. War, greed, murder, genocide, rape, starvation, child molestation, envy, sloth…all those deadly sins from that Brad Pitt movie. Spoiler alert: That’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in the box! Hell, Hollywood ’s tame compared to reality.
“I’ma go open the doors. Why not let the demons in? At least I know them-they’re my neighbors, my family, even my boss is out there. Like it or not, those zombies are us, our true selves. The veil has been stripped away and underneath we are cannibals. Fine Young Cannibals. I never liked that band.
“And those are my parting words in this life-an unsupported opinion of a band no one’s cared about since 1990. How banal and trivial. How fitting.
“Here goes nothing. Bye-bye, cruel world.”
“Comfortably Numb” came on, doomed to repeat for eternity-or until the signal is interrupted, whichever comes first. DJ Smoke left the mic on, and underneath the strains of Pink Floyd, we heard his screams, along with the slurps, rips, moans, and gurgles of a feed. It made us envious and greedy, gluttonous and lustful.
For brains. Whine it, scream it, say it with need, sarcasm, in a cuddly voice, in the voice of Vincent Price, the voice of Scooby-Doo-any way you slice it, any adverb you attach to it, it remains brains. The object of my desire.
Ros walked into the garage, singing: “There is no pain, you are a zombie. A distant ship, Smoke eaten by zombies.”
He was as tuneful as a corpse. I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Ready to go, captain,” he croaked. “Nurse and Annie, check. Two little boys, check. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, secure, leashed, docile.”
Ros’s speech had improved in our time at the Garden of Eden. I still don’t know how he pushed air through his diaphragm, but then again I don’t know how I became a brain-crazed, constipated, self-aware zombie either.
We’ve all got our mysteries.
It’s the age-old philosophical question: Why zombies? Or, rather, why not not zombies? Why not nothingness? Why is there something instead of nothing?
I turned the dial. Squawks and screeches. I tuned in to the government station.
It was the same old speech we’d heard a million times: Arm your-selves, vigilantes, martial law, shoot ’em in the head and burn ’em. Another endless loop. Hamster wheels in hamster wheels.
Ros picked up the mic and spoke into it. “Attention,” he said. “I am a zombie. Who can talk. There is a group of us and we are heading for Chicago. Smart zombies, if you hear this, go north. We’ll find you. Over and out.”
He put down the mic. “Think that got out?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Help some, maybe.”
According to Kapotas’s AAA maps, Chicago was a little over eighty miles to the east. There were six inches of snow on the ground and more coming down, but we’d make it. We left Paradise at nightfall, determined to gain our rightful place in the world.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PICTURE AN AERIAL view, white everywhere, as thick as television snow. The moon is distant and cold, and the stars are sharp as daggers. A small posse of ragtag zombies appears on the left of the scene, trudging to the right. They are a smudge of dirt in the pristine white, a speck of dark in the light. Climbers on Everest. Ring around the collar.
Zoom in: Ros, Annie, Joan, Guts, and I form the nucleus; Kapotas and Eve are attached by ropes, circling us like electrons or tentacles; and Guts is pulling Isaac on a red plastic Wal-Mart sled.
We are a rainbow of decay: Khmer Rouge red, Baghdad blue, gangrene green, bruised-apple brown.
We were shuffling down State Highway 72, a two-lane road running parallel with I-90. Motorcycle helmets, shopping carts, and Converse All-Stars. An Amish carriage lay on its side, the door open and its dark interior exposed.
It was as silent as the beginning of the world.
And in the beginning was the word and the word was brains.
Ros began to sing “Silent Night.”
Annie joined in: “Arrrooomphaugh,” she sang.
I put my arm around her. “Oooaaampher,” I gurgled.
Joan, Guts, and Isaac raised their voices too-even Kapotas and Eve. We sang to the darkened sky. A chorus of moans and bleats and bubbling vowels, howling at the moon. A pack of wild dogs answered from across the prairie.
God was blessing us. God is blessing us every one.
WE WALKED ALL night, and in the morning we sat on top of a station wagon like turtles lined up on a log, watching the sunrise.
Zombies have at least one distinct advantage over the living: We’re as sensitive as frogs, awake to subtle chemical changes in the atmosphere. It’s an adaptation that counterbalances our many failures in communication and mobility, and aids immeasurably in the hunt.
That’s how we knew there was a group of humans at least a mile off. They were hurrying toward us, headed west and away from Chicago. Their aroma preceded them.
The core group-Ros, Joan, Annie, Guts, and I-lumbered off the car and closed ranks. Eve and Kapotas began to move forward, pulling on the ropes like rabid dogs.
“Hooray!” Ros said. “Breakfast.”
I counted with my fingers.
“How many?” Ros said. “Good question.”
Annie released the safeties on her weapons, Ros tightened his bulletproof vest, and Joan knelt down to mother Guts, adjusting his helmet and straightening his clothes.
But there were only five of us-seven if you counted Eve and Kapotas. And I didn’t. They’d be useless in a real battle. Nothing more than cannon fodder.
Ros raised his fist. “Charge!” he said.
I grabbed his shoulder. There weren’t enough helmets to go around and Ros’s metal head, while it offered some protection, wasn’t bulletproof. If we charged, we’d lose.
I looked around for a place to hide, figuring we could lie in wait for the humans, see how many there were, what weapons they carried, and then ambush them…or not.
There was a structure up the road. I pointed to it and crouched down, twisting my neck to the left and right, pretending to be a hunter in a deer stand.
“Got it,” Ros said. “Recon.”
We scuffled toward the structure. Eve’s mouth twitched in an approximation of a smile; she understood we were heading for meat. I gave Guts a push on his bony back. He handed Isaac’s rope to me and zoomed ahead.
It was a homemade fruit stand, pieced together with cheap two-by-fours. Nails hadn’t been hammered in straight and stuck out at odd angles. The lumber was rotting, the wood flaking and peeling in spots, and there were empty fruit crates scattered around. A hand-lettered sign out front read FRIED PIES.
By the time the rest of us reached it, Guts was already inside, rooting around in the trash. He found a Matchbox car-a fire engine covered with dirt-and vroomed it on the snow. Ros creaked down and sat cross-legged next to the imp, playing make-believe with him.
“Next is hide-and-seek,” Ros said. “Understand?”
Guts rolled his truck up and down Ros’s arm and nodded.
I parked Isaac behind the fruit stand and herded the rest there as well, then trundled around to the front to check out the view. It was important that no one be visible from the road.