bloodthirsty monster I wouldn’t either. How else could I live with myself?”
“We aren’t monsters,” I said. “Not any more than you are.”
She scoffed loudly. “You’re abominations. God’s wrath. You’re the punishment we endure for our sins. You’re the revelation. The death of all that is and ever was.”
I shook my head wearily. “You and Mrs. Kushner would have a hell of a debate. But you’re barking up the wrong tree, lady. We’re better than you. That’s why we’re taking over the world. We’re the top of the food chain. It just happens to be that you’re our food source. It’s nothing personal. Just nature. That’s why it’s called natural selection.”
“You know so much about the ideas that we invented,” she said with a scowl. “But you have no idea what you really are.”
“We’re not really that different from you. We’re just a little deader. I used to be you once. Now I’m better. Stronger. Immortal. If I did believe in God – which I don’t – I would say that he was on our side. He improved humans, took away their weaknesses and the fear of death. Humans are the predecessors to the new race. You’re just the monkeys that weren’t clever enough to figure out how to build a fire.”
“God help us if you’re the future of this world,” she said evenly.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I retorted.
She dipped her head to the side and sighed. “What are you going to do with us?”
I looked up at her. I could see her naked body under the blanket. She was bone-thin and pasty, a walking skeleton. She was not very appetizing. “They’re probably going to use you for fodder.”
“What?” she uttered with shock. “What does that mean?”
“We’ll eat you,” I said simply.
Her eyes went wide and her skin blanched to match the color of her eyeballs. “Then why torture me like this? Why lock me away? For fun?”
I laughed. “No. They wanted you to breed.”
“Breed?” she gasped, aghast.
“Yes,” I said. “If you had bred with the man, we would have kept you alive for years. Humans are a valuable commodity nowadays. We need to get as many as we can by whatever means we can.”
“That’s horrible!”
“That’s life. It’s the way it is. Anyway, you’ve given up. Stopped eating. That means you have no will to live, right?”
She shook her head imperceptibly. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I was just tired of letting you monsters kick me around. I wanted out. I didn’t know you were trying to get me to ... This is sick!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, closing my eyes and putting my hand to my temple to massage my throbbing head. “You aren’t cooperating, so you’re better as a food source than you are for breeding. Sorry. That’s just the way it is. If you hadn’t been so stubborn, you could have lived for years.”
“In this cell.”
“It’s not so bad. It’s a roof over your head, food, water. Plenty of hums are worse off.”
“Being forced to have sex against my will and bring a child into this world only to have it taken from me and used to feed you creatures?” she added incredulously.
“Yeah. It could be worse.”
“How?” she demanded.
“You could be dead.”
“I’d rather be.”
“Not if you knew what death was like.”
“And you do?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I mean real death. Not whatever the hell you things are.”
“So do I. I was dead once. I was killed. And I became a Stiff. I was really dead then. No thought. No reason.”
“You remember being –“
“No. I don’t. That’s what death is. It’s nothing. Emptiness. Your mind is empty. You’re nothing. Just a shell. If you had any idea what death really is, you’d be grateful for the chance we’re offering you to live.”
The human rolled her eyes. “Thank you so much for taking away my dignity and my life and treating me like cattle.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
She scrunched her face. “If I don’t eat. If I don’t go along with you and do what you say. You’re going to eat me?”
“Your brain,” I said. “The other stuff isn’t important. It doesn’t keep us going. The Stiffs only eat it because they don’t know the difference. They smell blood, feel flesh and muscle and organs, and it seems like a brain. It’s just instinct. We know better than to fill our stomachs unnecessarily. But we’ll use the rest of you the best we can. Your organs probably for Stiff bait for the trackers, your bones for weapons. Stuff like that.”
“That’s terrible.”
I shrugged. “Not really. You only think so because it’s your hide that’s being skinned.”
“But I’m intelligent! I’m human! How can you – I’m a living, thinking being.”
“It’s not personal,” I repeated. “It’s just the way it is. You used to do the same thing to cows and chickens and pigs. And they had brains just like you do. So don’t try to get all preachy on me. You needed to eat them to survive and you didn’t make any bones about it. Well, we need you. And that’s just the way it is.”
The woman dropped her head against a bar of the cell. She was sobbing. “I don’t want to die,” she mumbled.
“None of us do,” I replied. It was a tricky business, this living. In a perfect world, everyone would live without having to kill anyone else. But that wasn’t the way the world worked. And if God existed – and he didn’t – then he had made it that way, and he had intended for us to kill each other in order to survive. And that being the case, what kind of God was he? It was sick. It’s a sick world. And God had made it that way. What a bastard. It was better – and might I add more logical – to believe that a sick, twisted prick like that didn’t exist. The world was too screwed up for Gods and saviors.
The woman turned her eyes up toward me. “I think I’m ready to eat now.”
I looked up. My face was stretched long and my eyes were spread open, unblinking. I shook away my surprise and nodded my head slowly. She didn’t want to die. That meant living as long as you could, under whatever circumstances you had to. It made sense. It always had to me. It was the first lesson they taught you in zombie school – the importance of survival over everything else. I was just surprised she had realized it. Maybe there was hope for humans after all.
I stood and went to the front of the barn. I picked up the empty bowl I had left there earlier that evening and filled it with the human feed. I carried it back to the stall.
“Stand back,” I said.
The woman shook her head. “Please,” she moaned. “I’m so tired. And hungry.”
I sighed. Keeping my eyes pinned to her face, I slowly pushed my arm through the slats of the cage and dropped the bowl onto the tabletop. I pulled away quickly and the woman drew her blanket with one hand around her form as if suddenly embarrassed.
“Don’t worry,” I said sardonically, “you aren’t my type. I like a girl with a little more meat on her bones.”
She shot me an icy glare.
“Go on,” I said. “If you want to eat, eat.”
She shuffled her hands inside the blanket. Then, holding the blanket closed with one hand, she reached out to the bowl and scooped out a handful of feed. She began nibbling it from her hand slowly. I sat back on my stool and watched her carefully as she slowly ate the cold stew out of the bowl. Maybe I was a better breeder than a tracker after all. Hopefully my success with the woman would earn me some grace tomorrow when I offered some sort of excuse for what had happened to my arm.
Trevor returned a few minutes later, carrying a roll of gauze and a pail of water. “This is all I have,” he said as he came to me.
With a washcloth he drew from inside the pail he cleaned my wound and my arm, which was caked with thick, dried blood. Then he wrapped my arm. At least it would help absorb any blood that did ooze out until I got it patched.
“Your
mentor is gonna flip,” he said as he finished securing the bandage.
“I know,” I sighed.
“This was just all the Stiffs? How’d you even get out of the horde if you were bit? You know what they say. Once bitten ...”
“Twice died. I know. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”
He nodded. He reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of brain. “This should tide you over until then.”
I gladly slurped it down. My brain felt calmer already, like it had laid down to rest after having done jumping jacks all night. “Thanks,” I said.
“Come on, you can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the floor.”
He began leading me back to the farmhouse, and I paused and gazed back at the woman as she silently ate from the bowl I had given her. I frowned, thinking of the girl and how she had been willing to sacrifice her life rather than become a zombie, like me. Humans can be so dumb. They don’t even realize that living isn’t about whether your heart beats or your cells still multiply. It’s all in the mind. If they could see that, then they would realize becoming a Wake is the best thing that could ever happen to you. They had no idea what it meant to be alive.
I turned and followed Trevor out of the barn.
I guess it’s true. You don’t know what you’ve got until its gone. No wonder life meant so much to zombies.
18. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
“Get up,” a voice whispered at me. I turned over in bed. I felt totally incapable of drawing myself out of bed even if I wanted to, which I didn’t. If I could, I would have stayed in bed all day, hiding my troubles under the covers with me. Actually,