How they got into this mess...
The crackling of the gravel driveway interrupted Lisa's train of thought as the truck turned off the winding dirt road and came to a stop. "We'll be safe here," said Speedy as he turned off the engine. Lisa wasn't so sure. The stacks of firewood in front of the house reminded her of the second little pig. Walls of sticks wouldn't stand up long against the big bad zombies.
The headlights turned off, and they were pitched into darkness. "That's strange," said Speedy. He turned the headlights back on. Darkness from Speedy's house was bad. His family might have turned off the lights to avoid attention, like a house on halloween that didn't have candy, but it didn't seem too likely.
Speedy got out of the truck. The night was getting colder. The house was isolated, which could be an advantage or a disadvantage. They'd be safe if the zombies stayed in town, but once they wandered up the mountain, the only escape route would be gone.
Speedy went towards the house, and Helen got out of her side of the truck. Lisa sat as still as possible with her hands gripping the hilt of the baseball bat. Had zombies already come up this way? There was a radio in the truck, but nobody else had mentioned it, and she wasn't sure she could handle the news right then. She couldn't stop thinking how, without her medicine, a seizure could come any second and that coming off antidepressants made her a risk to the others. Some people couldn't handle it. They jumped off bridges or set themselves on fire. She held herself still and said nothing.
"Hello?" shouted Helen at the house. It wasn't the smartest thing to do under the circumstances.
"Aqui estoy!" chimed Speedy as he walked forward.
Lisa stuck her head out of the truck. "Would you guys be quiet?" she whispered. Their irresponsible behavior was putting her life in danger.
Helen shrugged. "There's nobody here."
"No," said Speedy. "Deben ser aqui." He went to the door, speaking Spanish faster than Lisa could identify, and threw it open. "Dónde están?" he called inside. Lisa opened the truck door and ran across the gravel, thanking God she hadn't worn heels to work that day.
She grabbed Speedy's shoulder. "There could be zombies in there," she whispered.
Speedy shook his head. "No, my family should be here." He flipped the light switch, but nothing turned on. "What happened?" He wandered into the house, the gun hanging loosely from his hand, his face flashing between confusion, fear and sadness. Lisa wondered if she'd looked like that when her bank was filled with bodies.
The truck's headlights lit the room from an odd angle, and Lisa had trouble separating substance from silhouette. She traced an eerie shadow on the wall to a lamp near the window. Next to that was a couch, and as she followed its line of sight across the room to the television, she realized she was standing in someone's living room. It should have felt familiar, but it didn't. There was a doorway to the next room, but the headlights didn't show what was past it.
"Do you have a flashlight?" whispered Lisa.
Speedy shook his head.
"Any guns? Weapons?" she said.
"No," said Speedy. "I don't think so."
Helen crowded into the doorway behind Lisa. "We can use this," she said and pulled a cell phone out of her purse.
Lisa stared at her coworker. "Did you have that the entire time?"
Helen frowned. "It's only for emergencies."
"What do you think this is?" said Lisa, raising her voice more than she expected. She regained control. "We can call for help."
Helen shook her head. "There's no signal out here." She pressed a button on the phone, and the screen lit up. "I meant this." She held the phone in the air, and the light from the screen reached into the next room. "I use it when I can't find my keys."
Speedy turned and wandered into the newly lit room. Helen went behind him with the cell phone held high. Lisa had no choice but to follow. Her eyes went wide to absorb the dim light, she held out her hands for reassurance and her feet shuffled forward.
The next room was a kitchen, and her mind started listing all the supplies they didn't have: food, water, barricades, weapons, medicine. She started thinking about her prescriptions, but she almost crashed into the counter when the cell phone light went out.
"Sorry," said Helen. "It doesn't stay on very long." She pushed a button on the phone and the screen lit up again.
Lisa felt the pit of her stomach tense. Even when the phone was lit, she could barely see. If there were zombies here, she might bump into them before she saw them. She tried to scan the room, but Helen kept waving the phone back and forth, giving no sense of their surroundings.
Speedy was already wandering through the next door. Helen went with, so Lisa followed them into a narrow hallway.
"Where are we going, Speedy?" whispered Lisa, but Speedy didn't answer. He poked his head into every door they passed. The scent of scrubbing bubbles identified one room as a bathroom, but other than that, Lisa couldn't be sure. She ran her hand along the wall, never sure when it would disappear into an open doorway. "Speedy," she tried again, "at least point the gun. You don't know what's here." The light went out. Helen turned it on again. Speedy walked faster to the end of the hall.
He opened the final door, and Lisa craned her neck to see inside, the baseball bat ready to strike. Speedy went in, and Lisa saw the room in flickers of Helen's waving phone. At first, she thought she was losing her sense of scale, but when she saw the silhouettes of plastic unicorns on the table, it explained the little pink dresser and the child-sized mattress.
"Clara," said Speedy, his voice hoarse with pain. Helen pointed her phone at him, his turbulent expression now frozen in panic. Lisa realized he was looking right at her. "Where's my niece?" he said. "What happened to her?"
Lisa's mind conjured a dozen tragic possibilities, but all she could say was, "I don't know."
"You know about these things," he shouted and took a step closer. Lisa started to panic, and for an instant, nothing seemed real. Her lungs pulled a short reflexive breath, and she looked into Speedy's sad eyes. "Why don't you tell me?" he pleaded.
Lisa barely knew where she was at that point, let alone where anyone else was. The silence dragged on, but she couldn't look into those eyes and be the one to tell him his family might be dead. It was too much. Speedy's face became more desperate until Lisa was saved by the crackling of the gravel driveway outside. The zombies had arrived.
Speedy did exactly what not to do, he ran out of the room and stomped down the hall shouting, "Aqui estoy."
Lisa ran after him, navigating the unfamiliar hallway by touch. "Quiet," she whispered as loudly as she could. "I'll help you find your family, just don't go out there." Behind her, the cell phone light flashed across every surface, calling even more attention to their presence.
They reached the kitchen as the phone light went out. Lisa stopped. The headlights were gone, and the only light left was a sliver of moonlight through the tiny window. There were footsteps in front of them, and Lisa didn't know if they were Speedy's or not. There was a glint of something metal, and Lisa raised the bat.
Helen's phone lit up, and Lisa found herself face to face with another woman and a long curved sword ready to strike. Was she human? There wasn't time to be sure. She swung the bat.
"Wait!" shouted Speedy.
Lisa checked her swing, and the bat missed the woman, hitting the sword away.
"Goddamnit!" shouted the woman. "What the hell are you doing here, Speedy?"
"I live here," said Speedy. Lisa examined the bat and found that a chip had been taken out of it by this woman's sword.
"And who the hell is this?" barked the woman, pointing at Lisa.
"Who the hell are you?" Lisa barked back. Her heart was pounding, and excitement had replaced her fear.
"She knows about zombies," said Speedy, then he presented the woman with the sword. "This is Farah, Kaveh's sister."
Lisa felt good to have an enemy she could see, but this woman wasn't a zombie. She pushed back her excitement and lowered the bat, watching Farah keep an eye on her.
"Where's everyone else?" asked Farah.
Speedy's eyes wandered around, as if his family would suddenly appear. Lisa spoke for him, "We don't know."
Farah shook her head. "Let's get out of here. We'll be safe at my house." Lisa wasn't so sure.
For a second, Kaveh thought he'd died and gone to gastronomic heaven, but he hadn't gone anywhere. It was only the brains he'd eaten that were heavenly.
He put the now empty head in a nearby trash can and went back to his cart. He was wandering the hallways of the Ute Hotel, his rigid legs staggering across the thin blue carpet. The cart he'd stolen from housekeeping kept him steady and held his growing collection.
"Oh, Jesus, get back!" came a scream from down the hall, followed by a long moan. A dozen zombies filed into the hallway from the rooms where they'd been feeding. The hotel was a honeycomb of human activity. Every time Kaveh thought it was clear, another room would open up, and the scene would repeat.
When Kaveh had followed the increasing moans to the broken door of room 313, the other zombies were already inside. He left his cart and climbed through the door. He watched his fellow zombies tearing at the body of a hotel guest, eating whatever they could get their hands on, but they avoided the head. The zombies treated it like garnish, pushing it around their collective plate until it was the only thing left. Kaveh moved in and scooped it up. The others were stupid, not selfish, and they had their own portions. Kaveh left the room and added this new head to the collection on his cart.
He pushed the cart down the hall, looking for the ice machine on this floor so he could keep the brains fresh, knowing the best ingredients made the best meals. He called out as he went. With concentration, he could modulate the moan that came from his throat into a word. The word was brains. He called it out at the top of his voice, trying to interest the others in the food he enjoyed so much, but none of them cared. He stretched the word, hawking his wares, still sounding like the moan that attracted other zombies to a fresh kill, but he was the only brain-loving zombie he could find.
A handful of zombies wandered out of a suite, blocking Kaveh's route down the hallway. He recognized Mister Shankly among them, a familiar face in a crowd of rotted features. The zombified bank manager ignored him just like the others, but Kaveh had seen this man eat brains before. He grabbed the manager by the shoulder and pulled him over to the cart.
With a cleaver, he opened a fresh skull and held it under the manager's nose. No reaction. He tore out a handful of the soft juicy brain and offered it up, but the manager started to wander away. It wasn't working. If he had herbs and spices, Kaveh thought, his prowess as a chef might increase the appeal. Would a dash of cumin be enough to change anyone's mind? It didn't matter. None of the hotel rooms came with kitchens.
Frustrated, Kaveh put the brains in his own mouth and tried to satisfy himself with the rapture of cuisine. Delicious. The taste awoke his senses and sent thoughts flashing through his mind.
With every brain he ate, Kaveh remembered parts of his own life and the life of the person whose brains they'd been. This brain had come from New Mexico on a business trip. He closed his eyes and savored the unfolding layers of experience, a christmas with his parents as a child, that win at the track, the faces of friends the man would never see again. Kaveh ate more, recalling some lost love, but he wasn't sure if it was his own or his meal's. He thought of Lisa, with her beautiful eyes, and how she'd been kind to him when he was dying, eventually.
He reached again for the open skull, but it was gone. He opened his eyes and saw it in Mister Shankly's hands, his nose buried in the cranial cavity.
Kaveh saw his chance. He concentrated to speak, forcing words through his decomposing larynx. He encouraged the manager to remember, told him he could think again if he tried. The two hadn't liked each other when they were alive, but in death, they might have been the only friends each other would have, so Kaveh watched closely, begging the spiteful manager to respond, even to hate him. At least that would be something.
Mister Shankly raised the empty head, having finished the last of the brain, and looked at its face. Was that a sign? Did he know what he was, what he'd done? Kaveh waited.
The manager turned the head sideways and unceremoniously tore its nose off with his teeth. Then he ate the cheek and mouth, the empty consumption of a mindless zombie. It hadn't worked.
More brains. Kaveh went back to the cart, rushing to open another skull. All those years of cooking the American imitation of Indian food, he'd had Speedy's help. He'd never had a deeper wish for an ally, but Speedy was probably with Lisa, hiding somewhere Kaveh would never find them. He turned around with the open skull to find an empty hallway. He was truly alone.
There was only one other person he could turn to. He didn't like it, but it was all he could think of. He had to find Farah. He would go to his sister's house, and she would help him feed his people.
To be continued... in Chapter 6 - Return of the Zombi
Brain-eating zombies. Flesh-eating zombies. What's the difference? Keep an eye on your diet with this new food pyramid.
