Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology (53 page)
- �You are a new being,� he told me, �just begun today. Just this instant. How can you judge yourself harshly, when you have done nothing in this new life? There is nothing to judge. How can you know your limitations, when you have yet to test them? You...
- I want to believe him.
- This place is considerably different than it was. More permanent. Less nomadic. They have constructed shelters, which are crude and primitive, but far more substantial than anything that stood here in the past. They are no longer a transient tribe. Th...
- Most of the people here (I think there are more than twenty of us) carry guns. I wondered briefly how the others had come by theirs, but that thought threatened to make me remember how I came by my own. I was able to curtail such thoughts just before ...
- Maybe, one day, I will let myself remember. Some day when I feel stronger than I do now. Some day when I feel stronger than I can ever imagine myself feeling.
- Hoagie and several others set out this morning on a hunting expedition. I asked him what they hunted around here, but for reasons I cannot begin to fathom he became uncharacteristically brusque.
- �Meat. Food. Anything that�ll give us the strength to survive another day. Anything whose death will help preserve us so that, maybe someday, some of us will have survived long enough to see the end of this.�
- His manner disturbed me. I had never seen him so agitated. But, true to form, when he saw that I was taken aback by the tone of his response, he smiled and softened. It was a sad smile, world-weary and resigned, but I couldn�t remember the last time I...
- �Thought for the day,� he said: �All the rules have changed. Everything you ever knew is wrong. All mores have been abolished. Never confuse mores with morals.�
- He smiled at me again, but this time there was a grimness about the smile that made it impossible for me even to try to return it.
- I am confused again. But I suppose that, with all that Hoagie has been through in the past few weeks, I shouldn�t expect to understand his every action and gesture.
- I leave this place at dawn, though there is nowhere in this world that I can go.
- I am weak. A coward. I have proven this in everything I�ve done. I don�t know where to go. I am not even strong enough to maintain my own resolve.
- If I stay. If I choose, even, to eat with them. Am I choosing, out of some reserve of strength, to adapt; or more simply, out of weakness, choosing not to die?
- Are such distinctions real, or am I merely tormenting myself as Hoagie insists?
- Morals? Mores? Are any distinctions ever real? Do we ever, really, encounter any choices we are capable of making?
- It has been days since I could bring myself to write. I see, now, that it serves no purpose. Probably never did.
- Alot like my life, that way.
- I see this now as the journal of a dying man, as dictated to his murderer. Cause of death: betrayals. First his betrayals of others, finally his betrayal of himself. The fogs have lifted completely. I can now see all of it. It is only by the grace of ...
- Excuse me: that he has lasted this long. This is an obituary, I must remember to keep it impersonal.
- His betrayal of the woman�leaving as he did, when he could have stayed and saved at least her� wounded him severely. His betrayal of the preacher �again in leaving when there was something yet that needed to be done, one final favor begged but never g...
- But he was finished off by his betrayal of himself, ironically, in not leaving when he should have.
- As further irony his cause of death will be assumed, by others, to be starvation. And all because of the betrayal that he refuses to commit.
- Let his epitaph read:
- WEAKNESS
- brought him to death�s door
- STRENGTH
- gained him entry.
- I thought I would not write again, but there is no more solid solace to be had this night.
- Hoagie is dead.
- A hunting trip. One got up behind him somehow. Tore most of the back of his neck away before the others shot it.
- He died before they got him back to camp.
- I asked them, angrily I must admit, why they had brought him back. I implied, all indiscreetly, that they intended to make a meal of him, as well as of the beast that killed him.
- Harrison slapped me hard for that. Several others hit me even harder with their eyes.
- Can�t say as I blame them. I was not the only one who loved the man, nor the only one who relied upon his love.
- �We are not cannibals,� I was told. And, though I wouldn�t admit it at the time, I understand the distinction.
- They have not put him down yet. Have not immobilized him. They have a ritual, it seems, in which they must wait for him to rise before they shoot him. I suppose that this is done in the hope that he will not rise, making the shooting unnecessary.
- I understand this on a gut level, though pragmatically it seems a needless extension of the anxiety.
- They have been courteous enough to grant my request for the vigil. All of it. Though I gather that this sort of thing is usually done in shifts.
- I can�t really explain why I want to be the one that finally puts him down, except to say that I feel I owe him this much, at least. Owe it to the preacher and the woman and myself.
- I guess that I still have something to prove. That I am not all weakness and betrayal. That I can, at least once, do right by those who have done right by me.
- The camp sleeps. Only the perimeter guards and I remain awake.
- I am waiting.
- It should not be long now.
- Twenty-four hours since his death, and the vigil continues.
- It is amazing.
- I allowed Harrison to relieve me at dawn, but made him promise me the watch again tonight, if it is necessary.
- I pray that it is. If anyone that I have ever known deserves to rest in peace, then it is Hoagie. Tomorrow at dawn we will bury him, regardless.
- Harrison tells me that Hoagie might not rise. That this happened once before, in the days just preceding my arrival. The man had died in a similar manner, but he never rose or walked again. They buried him not far from here, and his grave lies undistu...
- Mojo, who claims he is a reincarnation of some famous Aztec shaman, says that ingesting the spirits of one�s enemies frees you from their power after death. That the habit of eating the ghouls has protected Hoagie from the �demons of the other world� ...
- He also claims that such protection can be had simply by eating their hearts.
- I don�t buy that, any more than any of Mojo�s other stories, but it makes me think.
- I am thinking of something I once said to Hoagie about viruses, infections and contagion. I am thinking about acquired immunities and built-up tolerances. About vaccines and anti-bodies. Life-saving poisons.
- I am not a biologist, but it makes more sense to me than voodoo.
- I am also thinking about coincidences. About rare, but natural, immunities. Wondering how likely it might be to have two such cases in so small a community. I have heard of and witnessed no cases like this anywhere else, but my experience�statisticall...
- I am also learning how to pray.
- We buried Hoagie this morning.
- At his wake I broke my fast.
- I understand, now, what he was trying to tell me about choices, but for me it is not continuing life that seems so important. It is the chance to refuse to rise again, after my inevitable death.
- That is my determination.
- My choice.
- I am willing to make the necessary compromise.
- The stew gagged me, though the meat was made as inconspicuous as possible. Harrison tells me that that is a common first reaction. He also says that the stew is less strong when fresh.
- I am getting better at prayer.
- It occurs to me that word of this possible cure must get out. Perhaps, with this information as a starting point, some vaccine might be distilled or manufactured.
- But how to get the word out? To whom? Who is left to utilize or broadcast this information?
- Government trains still run, so some portion of the government must remain, at least, semifunctional. Clearly the military still exists, but what else?
- The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta should have been a priority, but were they quick enough to save it? If not, some other facility? If so, where?
- I will not leave here on a wild-goose chase, not knowing where to go, or what my chances of getting there might be.
- If there is any chance at all, it is the trains themselves. The men on the trains, or certainly their superiors, would know what options were available. They can best get this information to a place where it might do some good.
- I will give them the entire journal. As much of my story as I have down, to convince them of my earnestness. To show them some portion of what I have been through.
- I have need of it no more.
- I am becoming whole again.
- My mind is clear.
- They shot him dead.
- He made the mistake of callin out to them guys bout what he got and how important it was for them to take it. Tried to run right up long side that train and hand it right up to them.
- They shot him dead at twenty yards.
- I was watchin.
- Its to bad to cause I liked him. Never even got to tell him I was sorry bout hittin him that time. So I picked the watch I thought hed come up on.
- I was right.
- So ether hes wrong bout that immuzation stuff he was talkin bout, or he didnt eat with us long enuff.
- Im glad if he had to come up he come up on my shift tho. Someway its easier when you liked a guy. You dont want no body else puttin him back down. You want to do it yourself.
- Got to talk to him that way to. Got to say my sorrys. Told him Id rite his obit here and get his goddam book on the next train thru some goddam way.
- You get a funny feelin like that. That somthin in the guy can still here you. Like maybe itll help some-ways.
- Ill be more earful than him tho. Ill toss it on the train from cover somewhere.
- Aint gonna let them shoot me dead.
- Not whiles I got a choice.
- 1. The Good Parts BY LES DANIELS
- 1. Less Than Zombie By Douglas E. Winter
- Like Pavlov�s Dogs
- By Steven R. Boyett
- (Tucson)�Official groundbreaking ceremonies were held Monday morning in a tent 60 miles northwest of Tucson, to mark the beginning of construction on Ecosphere�a self-contained �mini-Earth� environment that may prove a vital step in mankind�s eventual...
- Budgeted at a �modest� $30 million, according to project director Dr. William Newhall of the University of Arizona Ecological Sciences division, Ecosphere will be a completely self-sufficient, 5-million-cubic-feet ecological station. The station will ...
- �Ecosphere will be a sort of model of our planet,� says chief botanist Marly Tsung. �We�ll have a little of everything��including several thousand types of trees, plants, animals, fish, birds, insects, and even different kinds of soil.
- If all goes well after Ecosphere is constructed and stocked, eight �Ecosphereans� will bid goodbye to the outside world and enter the station�s airlock, and they will remain as working residents of this model Earth for two years.
- Designed to reproduce and maintain the delicate balance of the Earth�s ecosystem in the midst of a hostile environment�presently the Arizona desert, but conceivably Mars by the end of the century� Ecosphere will also serve as an experiment in how futu...
- (turn to page 16D)
- Saxophone
- By Nicholas Royle
- My baby left me,
- She left me for a cow,
- But I don�t give a flying fuck,
- She�s gone radioactive now,
- Yeah, my baby left me,
- Left me for a six-tittied cow.
- 1. Dead Giveaway BY BRIAN HODGE
- 1. Jerry�s Kids Meet Wormboy BY DAVID J. SCHOW
- Eat Me
- BY ROBERT R. McCAMMON