Zombie Killer Read online

his voice sounded broken and caught in the air, as if he hadn’t done much talking lately.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m not hurt. I kept away from him. ‘Till now.”

  “And you weren’t bit?” he asked.

  “No, I stayed away.” He looked her over clinically, verifying her words, and then grunted his satisfaction.

  He looked up at the gray sky and pushed his hair off his forehead. “It’s gonna rain hard, we’d better get back to my place and get inside.” He turned and walked out the driveway to the street, stopping and waiting briefly, then starting to walk to the left. He paused again. “You need help getting up?” he asked.

  “No, I can come,” she said, standing slowly. She was sore and thirsty, and very tired. But she didn’t say anything; she just stood up and followed the stranger.

  They walked silently on the road a few blocks, to an open area with old-growth trees lining asphalt streets, streets that formed a triangle. There were faint white lines visible along the edges where cars once parked. Up a large tree was a covered platform surrounded by a railed terrace enclosing a solid-looking tree house, about ten feet off the ground. Beneath it, Jack pulled a rope and an attic ladder dropped down, springs creaking. He unfolded it and ascended, followed by Jill. Once they were up, he retrieved the ladder. The rain began beating on the roof almost as soon as they were inside.

  “We’re unconnected to the ground up here; I hung the whole thing from cables. They used to be power lines. Nothing can get up here unless it can pull on the cord. And once we’re up here I can pull the rope up through the hole and there’s nothing hanging down. Like this, see? Nothing can get up here now, not even people.” Jack stood looking at her expectantly.

  “I see,” she said, not having anything else to say. She knew she looked tired, but he didn’t seem to notice that.

  “I told you that so you wouldn’t worry. We’re safe here. You want something to drink?” He walked over to a sink.

  “Yes, please. You have water?”

  “I use rainwater in the summer,” he said, filling a glass. “It’s so stormy the barrels are always full. Tastes a little funny, but you get used to it.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking the glass he offered. The water was tepid and faintly brown, but satisfied her thirst well. She held it out for a refill.

  “Winter’s a little trickier. There’s water around, but some of it’s old, and you have to be careful drinking old water – worms and stuff. Sometimes I strain it from the Venetian pool over there,” he indicated the direction with his head, “then boil it and that works pretty well.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Jill, trying to hold up her end of the conversation.

  “Jack,” he said. “Jack Phillips.” He stood there for a while, just looking at her.

  “That’s funny, my name’s Jill Scott. You know, Jack and Jill …”

  “Yeah,” he said, and he turned away to walk further into the house. “Do you need something to eat too?” he called back.

  “That would be nice,” she said, following him. He was a difficult person to talk to, and she could tell he felt awkward.

  “I don’t have much, but I made some chicken jerky, it’s pretty good. Doesn’t satisfy hunger though, it’s more of a pre-emptive. Hmm, why don’t I have more to eat? I got some vegetables here somewhere …”

  “The chicken jerky will do,” she said. “I can’t exactly expect a hot meal, can I?”

  “I could make a hot meal. I brought a pizza oven up here, a wood-fired one. It took me over two weeks to get it here, but I did.”

  “I could go for a pizza,” she said.

  He looked hurt. “I can’t really make pizza, it’s just the oven. I use the oven for cooking and drying things, because it’s wood-fired, that’s all. I only keep a pot of stew on it cooking. I figure if it stays hot it can’t go off, right?”

  “I’m not sure about that …,” she said.

  “Well, none of it’s killed me yet,” he said. “Don’t have any stew today though. Just the jerky.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  Jack took a plate and placed grey strips of dried meat on it, along with some sesame crackers from a packet he opened. He began to put the crackers in a curve trying to make it look nicer, but they slid around on the plate. He dug around on a wire shelf, found a can of cheese whiz, and used it to spray them into place. “Hey, looks like a feast, right?” he said, bringing it to her at the table by the railing. He set it down and she looked at the odd collection of items.

  “Wonderful,” she said, and she was hungry enough to be truly grateful. She ate ravenously, and asked him for more. He duplicated the meal, and after that, she finally felt full. He even found a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in his larder, and although they were speckled white with age, she thought they were a delicious dessert. After the rain stopped she looked over the railing at diffused pink sunlight casting faint shadows from the lush greenness of the Banyan trees, and she thought it was pleasant, even beautiful, like rose-colored light on an emerald jewel. She hadn’t had an opportunity to look over the treetops from this height.

  “It can be nice here, can’t it?” she said. “Especially after a rain. It’s like God has washed the world clean,”

  He looked over. “Yeah, when you don’t think that it’s crawling with zombies. Pretty on the outside though. Like people.”

  Although unnerved by his blunt way of speaking, she persisted in pursuing conversation. “So you think people are just pretty on the outside? Is that right?” she asked.

  “Well, I’m just going by what I remember. It’s been a while since I was around any people – live people, at least. It seems like people were always trying to put on a good face, look good, and nobody cared much about what they were like inside. I’m not saying I’m any better than anyone else is, mind you. I’m not. I’m just not fooling myself about it, that’s all.”

  “You mean you let yourself be ugly inside?” she asked, and began to feel like she should be afraid of this man. After all, what kind of things was he capable of, having survived this long?

  “Well, I’ve been alone a while and … ah, we’re just talking crap. I hate talking crap. I can’t believe it, five minutes with the first person I’ve seen in years, and I’m talking crap. Unbelievable.” He waved away the thought, the entire conversation, turned and began walking further into the tree house. “You sleep in the bed. I’ll take the couch.” She was surprised to hear that there was both a bed and a couch here, as they seemed rather civilized for Jack. She was about to thank him for his courtesy when they heard a tree-crashing noise down below, and they both rushed back over to the railed side. Down below they saw a barrel-shaped zombie thrashing in the bushes, unable to right itself. Jack shook his head at the sight.

  “That damned stupid jerk. I’m happy to leave him walking around, but there’s a place on the sidewalk where the banyan root has pushed it up, and sometimes he trips and falls. Zombies are ridiculous, they can fall a thousand times in the same place, and then fall the thousand and first time too. Come on; let’s go help the poor bastard out of there.”

  “What?” asked the startled Jill, “Help get him out? Can’t you just go down and kill it? Or just leave it there?”

  “Could you sleep with that thing moaning and thrashing around down there?”

  “Okay then, kill it. You seem pretty good at that.”

  “Can’t. That’s a special zombie,” he said, as he headed to the ladder.

  “Special? What makes that one so special?

  “He used to be my father.”

  The wind whistled past again, blowing leaves down and around amid the weeds as Jack walked quickly over to Fat Zombie, Jill reluctantly in tow. The body was lying in the bushes between two woody stalks, trapped at the bottom of a V-shape. It was easy to see how he had stumbled on the uneven sidewalk nearby and fallen over sideways. A living thing would have found the position painful. Fat Zombie thrashed because he instinctively didn’t
like being trapped.

  “Come on, you take his hands,” said Jack, indicating Jill should take up a position in front of the zombie.

  “You’re kidding, right? Is he safe? I mean, he’s your father, right? Does he know that?”

  “Nope. Watch yourself, don’t get bit. If you do, I’ll have to kill you. He’s dangerous, so just don’t get bit. Now grab his hands.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” said Jill. She was moving up to Fat Zombie warily, and he was still now, watching her approach with red, rheumy eyes. It was the closest she had ever stood to a zombie, and she studied it warily. He was covered in bloodless sores, holes torn by branches or crumbling ruins, there was a gray-blue tint to his skin, and he smelled strange, like compost. She searched the face for a family resemblance to Jack and found two – the nose and eyes were the same. Jack must have gotten his mouth from his mother.

  Jack had gone around behind the creature and was turned around, ready to brace himself back-to-back against the thing and push using his legs. It was a strange plan, but somewhere Jill felt sympathy for this man trying to help his father, even when the father was gone. What about her own husband, was he somewhere walking, a compost-smelling animated corpse which bore the face she had loved, indeed still loved? Could she walk away, or kill him, if he were in trouble? Wouldn’t she care for his body as she would a grave or an urn? What was a zombie but a moving tombstone?