Robin Becker - Brains - A Zombie Memoir

I heard violins swelling as Joan rose to her knees; we all winced when her suede-covered bite site hit the deck. She put her hands on the rail and hoisted herself up to stand on the bow-a matron, a caretaker, everyone’s mother. And without a doubt, a zombie.

She flashed the humans the peace sign.

“Identify yourself,” Davis said.

She pointed to my sign. WE ARE YOU.

Somewhere on shore, a bazooka discharged, followed by a smattering of bullets. The boat rocked and Joan almost lost her footing.

“Hold your fire!” Davis yelled.

What a coward I was, hiding from the humans, cowering behind the wooden planks of the boat like a child under the covers, afraid of the dark. Joan looked down at me and this time she did crack a smile. The clouds shifted or the sun moved or the earth tilted and a halo formed behind her head.

From her nurse’s pocket she removed a handgun, stuck it in her mouth, and blew her brains out. Her eyes never left mine.

Saint Joan, sacrificial lamb, she was stronger than we were. She refused to be captured by the enemy; she remained the mistress of her own fate.

Ros and I wailed; we ululated like Middle Eastern women whose children have been killed by taxis. Joan and the handgun and my sign fell to the deck.

“Get Stein,” I heard Davis bark. “Now!”

My stomach jumped at the mention of our creator. I felt Lucy’s sweet meat moving inside me. And Pete’s brain in my bowels and my boss’s pudgy flesh and A. J. Riley’s bullet-ridden cerebellum. Every human I’d munched on, all the entrails I’d savored, they were a part of me now, as integral as my own intellect.

Ros clutched my sleeve. “Stein?” he said. “Pete said he was dead.”

The stern hit the bottom of the harbor. The boat stopped sinking and settled. There wasn’t much separating us physically from the humans now: the bow, twenty feet of water, and the pier. Ontologically, there was a chasm: beating hearts, digestive tracts, and sexual reproduction; architecture, Hello Kitty, and barbecue pork rinds.

But under the right conditions, zombies have something humans will never have: eternity. And at that moment, we had hope.

Howard Stein was coming in our greatest hour of need. He was a man of reason. A scientist. Surely he believed in Enlightenment ideals. Surely he’d help his creation.

“What should we do?” Ros asked.

I held my hand up, palm facing Ros, the traffic cop’s signal to wait.

“I should try to talk to them,” he said.

I shook my head no.

“But once they know I can speak, they can’t kill us.”

I didn’t trust the military. I remembered Hurricane Katrina. Those Americans could speak. In fact, those Americans held up signs just as I had. Stranded on rooftops, the floodwater rising. Help us, the signs said. Save us.

“Can they?” Ros asked, rubbing his hands together, worrying them. “Would they?”

I put my hand on Ros’s shoulder and nodded.

Tuskegee, Guantánamo, the crucifixion.

Ros stood up and saluted. “Private Drake, reporting for duty, sir!” he shouted, his voice deep and wavering, an underwater tuba.

Drake? To me, he’ll always be Rosencrantz.

“Stand down, private,” Davis said into the bullhorn. “Get back on deck.”

Ros slumped next to me. “They don’t care,” he said.

A helicopter circled us. I looked through my binoculars at it and saw someone looking back. The hunter and the hunted; the gaze and its object; exhibitionist and voyeur-I didn’t know which one I was anymore.

“Wish I still had on my uniform,” Ros said. “That would show them.”

I grabbed my sign; it was wet and limp, the letters blurry but still legible. I held it up for the men in the helicopter.

WE ARE YOU. That statement should end all wars: Christian vs. Muslim; White vs. Black; North vs. South; Bear vs. Shark. Us vs. Them.

Zombie vs. Man.

The helicopter hovered for a moment, then angled left and flew away. The first streaks of red appeared in the clouds, bathing Joan’s splattered brains in crimson. Behind the skyscrapers, the sun was setting.

I took out paper and a pen. It was time to finish my masterpiece.

THE STARS LIT the sky like so many dynamos. The electric glow of Chicago was lost to the postapocalyptic power-plant shutdown; the lap of the water lulled Ros into near-catatonia. He was drooling in the bright moonlight, his vacant eyes closed in an imitation of sleep.

As for me, I worked on my treatise: A Vindication of the Rights of the Post-Living.

Because this was America, the City on the Hill, where everyone’s inalienable rights were endowed by their creator. And my creator was on his way.

Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream!

I saw the boat approaching and my shoulder tingled, but I ignored them both, intent on scribbling the letters and words that represent the greatest concepts we can imagine: democracy, truth, equality.

“Hellooo?” a voice called. “This is Dr. Stein. Are you friend or foe?”

Ros stirred and tried to stand but I blocked him with my arm.

“Friend,” Ros said.

“Man or zombie?”

“Zombie.”

“Can you be both?”

Ros stood up, turned on a sloppy dime, and saluted. “Private Dennis Drake, reporting for duty.”

“Mother of God,” another voice said, and I heard guns being cocked.

“No need to overreact, gentlemen,” Stein said. “I don’t expect any trouble from these zombies.”

I gathered my courage, tucked away my document, and made my stand next to Ros. Dr. Stein was perched on the bow of a sightseeing boat, the kind that takes visitors on sunset tours around the lake. He was surrounded by men with guns. A cane rested between his legs like a third limb, both his hands gripping the top. His hair and beard were long and white. He looked like Walt Whitman or Father Time.

I held the sign in front of me like a life preserver. A light shone on it.

“We are you,” Stein read, and chuckled. “I suppose you are.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ros.

“And who are you, exactly?” Stein asked.

“Just me and the captain left, sir.”

I threw my shoulders back and nodded at Stein, looked him square in the eye, communicating that we were both men of letters, rational, well-bred.

“There were more?” Stein asked.

“All dead.”

“But you’re dead, aren’t you, Dennis?”

“Just a little.” Ros looked at me. His eyes were hungry, desperate. “Pete said you were dead,” he continued, licking his lips with his dry stick of a tongue.

“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. The more recent myths have me turned into the king of zombies. I’ve also been thrown from a fire escape and eaten by infected dogs.” Stein paused. “Who’s Pete?” he asked.

“Nobody. Anymore.”

“For someone just a little bit dead, you’re in remarkable shape. Do you have a doctor? A caregiver? Someone responsible for your upkeep?”

“Nurse. She shot herself in the head.”

Stein bowed his head in sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.

Ros pulled me down behind the railing. “Help me,” he whispered. His eyes were yellowing like an old newspaper. He curled into a fetal position. “Brains,” he whined.

I put my sign aside and embraced Ros. My brother-in-arms. My only friend.

Stein tapped on the boat.

“Private Drake,” he called, “can I assist you in any way?”

Ros stood up, clicking his heels together. “Brains!” he wailed, and buried his face in his hands.

“There, there,” Stein said. “It’s not your fault. This should calm your stomach. For now.”

He threw Ros a calf’s liver and Ros shoved the whole thing in his mouth. Blood dripped on my head, and the killer inside me roared.