Derek Goodman - The Reanimation of Edward Schuett

As much as she relished the memories of the place, however, Rae’s melancholy only grew at the sight of the place outside of peak hours. The sky was dreary and threatened to drop a drizzling rain on the muddy open space within the stadium, making the lonely, depressed feel of the place even worse. On the main field area several stages were set up on the sides complete with posts to tie zeds to, where they would be whipped or have their flakey flesh pealed from their bodies, or sometimes just plain shot. A couple of motorcycles were parked off to the side with chains attached to a hook at the back. Rae remembered the awe she had felt when she had first seen them in action. Four chains from four separate motorcycles would be attacked to a zed’s individual limbs, and then the motorcycles would race away from the zed, ripping the zombie into four pieces. If the motorcycles were fast enough they could sometimes pull all four limbs off at once, leaving a fifth piece behind in the form of a powerless torso. Sometimes the zed had been tougher than it looked, and the motorcycles would spin their wheels in the mud as they tried to pull it apart. The zombies in these cases would usually give a peculiar high pitched moan, much to the cheers and laughter of the audience.

Some people who came to the show would even pay extra to shoot their own zombies. Kids that did this were given special badges and ribbons as souvenirs. Rae still had all of hers stashed away in a box in her closet.

There were many other ways here to destroy zeds for the amusement of a humanity that wanted revenge for what the zombies had done, but Rae couldn’t look at them anymore for now. It was all just a reminder that people were forgetting. Her parents had taught her to never forget and never forgive these things, but others apparently hadn’t learned the same lessons. Times were changing, and probably not for the better.

Apparently more than just the times were changing, though. At least one zombie had gone through something, and it was time to stop reminiscing and find out what the hell was happening.

Rae walked past the rows of seats until she got to an exit marked with signs saying “Employees Only,” and she went through to find herself a dingy, dimly lit corridor. She could hear voices down the hall and followed them, not entirely sure she was going in the right direction until she also heard the moans of zombies. She continued following them past a couple of offices until she found herself in a wide open room full of cages. There were over a hundred cages in here, each one big enough for a single zombie, but only about fifteen were occupied. As she walked passed them a couple of the zombies charged her with their hands out to grab at her, only to hit the bars and stumble stupidly back. Rae looked at each one but none of them appeared to be the mysterious Edward Schuett. She tried to see if any of them were the other zeds she had seen in Ringo’s truck, but that was a lost cause. All zombies looked the same to her.

Beyond all the cages there was a loading dock, and here Rae found Ringo in a quiet conversation with someone behind a nearby desk. The man behind the desk was counting out a stack of bills, and Ringo stared at the money with a bemused look on his face.

“Are you sure that’s all you can give me?” Ringo said. “I brought in four. How many people actually bring in that many at a time anymore?”

“Not many. You’re still one of the best, Ringo,” the man behind the desk said. “But we can’t pay more money than we have.”

“What the hell ever happened to supply and demand? Supply is way down these days.”

“And so is demand. I’m sorry. Really I am. We’re all struggling lately. But this is the best I can do.”

“Yeah, well, just see how long I keep this up at prices like this,” Ringo said.

“If you stop that will be a shame, no doubt in that, but I’m serious. I can’t do anything else for you.”

Ringo sighed and grabbed his cash, and that was when he noticed Rae standing a few feet away. The man behind the desk noticed, too, and he stood up.

“Sorry lady, I don’t know how you got back here but we don’t allow people to bring in their own weapons any—”

“She’s with Merton Security,” Ringo said quietly.

“Oh,” the man said, “well, of course. Welcome. How can I—”

“I’m actually here to talk to him,” Rae said, pointing at Ringo. “Probably want to do it in private, right, Ringo?”

Rae didn’t exactly like her job, but as she sat there watching Ringo fidget like a kid who had just been caught playing with his parents’ semi-automatic, she had to think there were times where it was worth it.

She followed Ringo out of the loading dock and back to his truck, where he reached in and pulled a pouch of tobacco and some papers from his glove compartment. He offered some to Rae, and they both rolled a cigarette on the hood of his truck while they talked.

“So I would guess you’re here to talk about the one weird zombie I picked up.”

“Edward,” Rae said. “He said his name was Edward.”

“Yep, that he did,” Ringo said. He put his finished cigarette in his mouth and lit it, then lit Rae’s. “Christ, a zed isn’t supposed to have a name.”

“Not supposed to talk, either,” Rae said.

“I’ve got to tell you, I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m going to do with it. I thought at first maybe I could sell it somewhere special, like as part of a freak show or something. But I’m the one who’s freaking out here. These things aren’t supposed to happen.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I tried to contact one of those zombie experts, even.”

Ringo didn’t look too happy about that. “I don’t think that’s really your place. The damned thing is mine, and anything like that is shit I should be doing myself.”

“In the event that thing is really sentient and conscious,” Rae said, “I don’t think you have any right to be calling it yours.”

“I’m the one who caught it, so it’s mine. Jesus, don’t go trying to act like it actually has feelings or a soul or anything.”

Rae thought as she took a long drag on her cigarette, then spoke. “And how do you know it doesn’t have a soul?”

“It’s a fucking zombie, that’s how. It died. Its soul is gone.”

“I’d usually be more than happy to agree to that, but just playing Devil’s advocate here. Did you happen to notice if it was breathing again?”

Ringo leaned against his truck and was silent for several seconds. When he spoke again his voice was quiet. “Yeah, I kind of did.”

“And if it’s breathing, then maybe it has a heartbeat. And it certainly seems to be able to think. So yeah, it was dead. But by any definition I guess it’s alive again. And if it’s alive, then maybe it has a soul.”

Ringo shook his head and flicked his cigarette away, noticing too late that he had only been half done with it. “I will never believe that those things could possibly have souls. They kill. They go up to people that look just like them and eat them. How can you possibly say that something that destroys something so close to its own kind could ever have a soul?”

Rae took another long drag and blew a cloud of smoke into the air, thinking about what Ringo said. His words made a certain amount of sense, she supposed, but she wasn’t sure if his logic was infallible. She had two gut instincts warring inside her. One fell in line with the words her parents had always said, all the things about how the only good zed was one with a bullet hole through its brain. The other kept coming back to that pleading look that had been on Edward’s face.

“Okay, so maybe most zombies don’t have souls,” Rae said. “But this other one is different. Even if it doesn’t have a soul, it’s still a living, thinking creature. And I can’t let you just keep it locked up in…um, where do you even have it right now?”