she finally submitted to having her stall cleaned. Her bucket had been overflowing then, she was dirty and dry-mouthed (Mrs. Kushner had taken away her water privileges until she obeyed), and her stall was swarming with flies. Mrs. Kushner took all afternoon to clean the stall thoroughly. When the man came, he obeyed instantly, following the woman’s example. Humans were much easier to tame in numbers. They so freely followed each other without question. Alone they were obstinate and shrewd. Together they were mindless and malicious, like Stiffs.
I brought the cups to the closed trough in the back of the barn. I slid open the lid and ducked the cups inside filling them to the top with water. I crept carefully back to the stall and placed each cup on the table, watching to make sure the humans weren’t prepping to attack as I did. You always had to watch humans. I followed the same procedure for their bowls, returning to a second trough, which held a sort of food mix that provided nourishment and protein. It was developed in zone G and then moved to all the other towns to feed communities’ human stock. Most humans hated the taste of it. I can tell you it didn’t smell all too good, but human food was on a low list of our priorities, I guess. It got the job done. That’s all that mattered.
I returned to the humans’ stall and placed the bowls on the table. I stepped away and watched, waiting for them to get their dishes and start eating. It was Trevor’s job to feed the humans every morning and night, but he was usually too anxious to stay around and watch them eat. Mrs. Kushner thought the woman might not be eating her food anymore, because it seemed like she was getting sicker and sicker. That wasn’t a good sign. When a human stopped eating, it usually meant they stopped caring, and were no longer viable for breeding. That’s when they became fodder.
I waited. The humans didn’t move from where they sat. The man looked up toward me, my figure shadowed behind the bars of the stall, and then toward the woman uncertainly.
I cleared my throat. “Time to eat.” We weren’t really supposed to talk to the humans unless to give them specific instructions. We learned early in school that humans could play mind games to try to gain sympathy. But we had to always remember that only Wakes could be trusted. Humans would do anything to escape.
The woman didn’t budge. The man continued to stare at her uncertainly. I cleared my throat again.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Uhm, woman? It’s time to eat. Can you wake her up?” I looked to the man hopefully.
He looked at me and then back in the woman’s direction without speaking.
I waited.
“Go away,” the woman’s cracked, raspy voice returned.
I considered what to do next. I should have probably gone to tell Mrs. Kushner the humans weren’t cooperating. I didn’t.
“If you aren’t hungry,” I began after a few moments of silence, “I’ll just take this food back then.”
I reached my hands into the bars to pick up the bowls.
“No, no, no, don’t do that!” the man shot up from his place in the stall. I recoiled instantly, making sure to keep my distance from him. The last thing we needed was for him to accidentally get infected by me and be zombified.
“The woman has to eat too,” I said clearly.
“She will,” the man assured.
I exhaled, my breath fogging up the plate of my helmet for a moment. I sucked in air in the direction of the fog to help clear it. “I need to see her.”
The man looked to the woman. “Come on,” he urged with his head.
The woman didn’t respond. She lay on the bed unmoving, facing the wall.
The man went to her and reached for her arm. “If you don’t eat then neither of us do,” he said.
She swung her arm away from his grasp and moved closer to the wall.
“We’ll both starve,” the man hissed.
“So starve,” she mumbled, staying close to the wall.
The man clenched his fists. He turned from her to face the wall of the cage. “She won’t eat,” he said. “It’s not my fault.”
I nodded. I had to tell Mrs. Kushner. I reached into the bars and picked up a bowl. One human, one bowl. That was the rule. I stepped back. “Eat,” I instructed.
The man went forward and picked up his bowl, throwing back his head and swallowing the soup down with loud, slurping gulps. He finished the bowl in less than two minutes. I nodded. I returned back to the troughs and dumped the food from the woman’s bowl back inside, sealing both containers again. I returned to the stall and dropped her empty bowl inside.
The man stood at the table, drinking from his cup of water. I let the woman’s cup stay. Humans needed water. They couldn’t live without it. I left the barn, locking the chains to the doors behind me.
Mrs. Kushner was right. The woman was stubborn. I didn’t see how she would ever breed. And if she didn’t, that meant she was only good for one thing.
I went back to the farmhouse to tell Trevor’s mentor the bad news.
10. ZOMBIES AFTER DARK
Mrs. Kushner was not pleased. First she scolded Trevor for not watching the humans eat. Second, she berated herself for trusting her apprentice to watch the humans eat. Then she grumbled about the stubbornness of the woman, declaring that she had half a mind to go out there and prep her for fodder herself right then and there. Then she calmed herself, after a brief téte-á-téte with the picture of zombie Jesus that hung on the living room wall, and decided that the thing to do was to have a conversation with the woman in the morning. She would remove the man from the stall after his feeding and determine if the woman was still viable for breeding. In years past she probably wouldn’t have been accepted as a breeding candidate in the first place, but the standards were lower now since humans were so much harder to come by. And the woman was young enough that she could be bred for twenty or twenty-five years before being used for fodder. It was a worthy gamble, but so far it hadn’t paid off.
Mrs. Kushner put herself to bed early. The distress of the evening’s revelation had made her anxious and frazzled. That was good for Trevor and me. We didn’t have to wait until curfew to sneak out. After his mentor went upstairs, we waited until we were sure Mrs. Kushner was asleep. Her snores were a dead giveaway. She sounded like a hungry Stiff confronting a group of helpless humans. The sound would be horrid if we weren’t zombies ourselves. We were pretty used to the guttural sound of the undead.
We crept out of the farm and began the trek into town. It was a little after 9:00 when we left. The roads were quiet. They always were in this area. Once we got into town there would be a lot more zombies out, especially on a Friday night. Occasionally zombie patrol would come out and check licenses. Any Wake without an Advanced license was immediately escorted back to his mentor. It was best not to draw attention to yourself.
We lurked down the streets into town. Only the sound of flies buzzing and the occasionally howl of a dog could be heard. Zombies didn’t generally keep pets. Animals had a tendency to gnaw at us and it was just too inconvenient. Once in a while a stray dog would find its way inside Revenant, though.
The streets were dark. There were no street lamps. Anyway, we didn’t need light. The virus that had caused humans to become zombies enhanced us in every way. We had really good vision. We could see things humans couldn’t, and that was especially helpful in the dark. It was sort of like seeing things in slow motion. Things the average human eye couldn’t recognize we could see clearly. At night it allowed us to differentiate shades of darkness, so that we could see everything. Where humans could only see a black veil of nothing, zombies saw dark layers of buildings and figures. It was actually pretty cool. It’s another reason I highly recommend becoming a zombie. The advantages just keep piling up, don’t they, Joe?
Buildings were scarce around the farm. Only a few structures dotted the sides of the road we were walking down, most of them abandoned with no Wakes having taken claim of them. It was fifteen minutes until we reached Square 3, the most urban community in zone A. Little buildings sat all around us. Almost everythi
ng was closed, but some Wakes still milled around in the city streets, talking. It was still pretty empty. Zone A always was, even in the main part of town. The action was found in zone C. That’s where everyone went to escape the monotony of every day zombie life.
Trevor and I usually went there every Friday night. I would head to Trevor’s, telling my mentor we would be studying together, and then he and I would sneak out after Trevor’s mentor fell asleep. We could usually find something to do keep us entertained for at least one night in zone C, although lately even that had become repetitive. Marching from square 1 to square 3, and riding into zone C every week was beginning to feel like a military drill. I had the routine down cold. I could do Friday nights in my sleep if I wanted to.
We headed for the bus stop. There were a few Wakes hanging around it. Most of them were kids we knew from school. We saw them there a lot of the time, waiting to get to zone C. The bus came every half hour until curfew, and then every hour until morning.
The bus came a little after 9:30. The Wake driving didn’t even look at as us as we boarded. He certainly wasn’t going to card us. Trevor and I sat in the back of the bus and passed the time by sharing school stories and complaining about our teachers and the schoolwork. We bumped along the road, darkness filling the interior of the bus. It was about forty minutes