Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown

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  Norm saw the old man’s mouth move, but he couldn’t hear anything. Nothing at all. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered but his appetite, the need to taste how Samuel saw the world. It was everything.

  Again Norm shouted that he was sorry, but his father didn’t seem to hear him.

  Then Norm heard a cork pop and Samuel’s head burst. His corpse toppled down the steps onto the dirt. Norm followed close behind, but with Samuel’s brain gone, reason washed back into Norm like a cool stream extinguishing the fires of his hunger.

  His father had shot himself. Why? Why kill himself rather than Norm?

  Oh well. Samuel was gone; no point whining about it. Best get on with things.

  First, leave the cellar and find a doctor. Norm staggered up the steps and stopped at the door to the house. It was a door, wasn’t it? Even when it was shut? Of course it was. Samuel wasn’t the kind of man who built his staircases leading to walls.

  How could Norm have gone his whole life without thinking about this? Why had he wasted so much time on useless things like taxation, or reading, or women? He hadn’t even been any good at them.

  Now, what had he been doing?

  The door! That was right. He had to open the door. Norm felt for the doorknob, but his fingers wouldn’t close on its smooth roundness. He tried again and again: with his elbow, his stump, his wrist, his mouth, his armpit. Nothing made the doorknob turn. Frustrated, he punched the cellar door with his remaining arm.

  Oh well. Nothing to be done about it. Norm went back to contemplating the tricky door-wall problem while he waited for someone to come along. He had all the time in the world.