Bill looks sad standing among the zombies.
For most of us men, our wedding day is the happiest day of our lives, but not for Bill. Being a wild man before the farm, he has a different sense of things.
“Who will be his bride? Who? Who? Who will be his bride? Who? Who?” the crowd chants.
A zombie onstage raises a scythe. This is the sign for everyone to shut up, so everyone shuts up.
We drop to our knees.
A second wave of zombies sweeps forward from behind. They push through the crowd, grabbing at the females, feeling them up and down, seeking potential brides for Bill.
A few minutes later, six females are dragged to the stage. Some go willingly. After all, getting married and having a child is one of the only things you can do as a farm animal. It’s a reprieve from the typical boredom and misery. Other women are dragged by their limbs or hair. Not every woman wants to get knocked up and cart around another life in a bloated belly. They know they cannot fight. Everyone’s helpless in their own way, but they fight anyhow.
I look at Bill. Will I wear a frown when I stand up there tomorrow? I doubt it. With Pym as my chosen bride, I’ll beam a golden smile and welcome her into my arms. I’ll feel like the goddamn sun itself.
And then I notice Pym standing onstage. She’s among the six candidates for bride.
The crowd picks up their chant again: “Who will be his bride? Who? Who?”
Please not Pym. Please. Please.
The Decision
The crowd goes quiet as the zombies inspect the six candidates one by one. Four look pretty much alike: skin tinged brown with filth, sunken eyes, greasy hair down past slumped shoulders, decrepit muscles twitching in arms and legs as thin as carrots, and bulbous sponges of coagulated blood and grime between their legs. Only Pym and one other girl stand out. Pym because she’s beautiful.
The other girl because she looks more like a giant bird than a human being.
The zombies pass over the four look-alikes rather quickly. They sprawl them on their backs and perform routine bridal checks, shoving fingers in all their holes and worse.
They slap the bird woman around a bit. I suppose she would arouse anger in anyone, living or dead.
I close my eyes when they lay Pym down on the stage.
My gnarled fingernails dig ridges into my flesh. I feel my palms open up and start to bleed. I feel as if I’ll throw up.
The crowd cheers, signifying that the zombies have selected a bride.
When I look up at the stage, Bill and Pym are embracing.
My face a flurry of tears, I flee the bridal lottery, feeling like my heart has been gashed wide open by a colossal pitchfork. Those stupid dead people had to go and offer my bride to Bill.
Running back to my hole, I shit myself out of sadness.
How wretched! How pitiful!
What the fuck!
I throw myself down into my hole and claw at the walls, hoping to bury myself alive.
Kill Bill
A little while later, Bill comes calling.
“Stay out of my fucking hole,” I shout up to him. I’m exhausted from digging, although I hardly made any impact on the hard-packed walls.
“Let me come down. I want a word with you.”
“Shouldn’t you be off marrying what’s-her-name? Preparing to cream her with your sausage?”
“Oh come on, don’t say that. Let me come down. I’m still the same old Bill. Good, reliable Bill. You trust me, remember?”
“Fine.”
Bill climbs down into my hole. We sit face to face. He flinches at the sight or smell of me, perhaps both, but he’s too kind to say anything and feigns indifference. I stare at him with the cold eyes of a dead person.
“My life is ruined,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Why do you feel that way?”
“You’re not sorry. If you were sorry, you would refuse to marry her. You would kill yourself or let them kill you, whatever it took, to prevent the marriage.”
“My life is over tomorrow anyway, so—”
“So end it a day early, you selfish prig.”
“Me selfish? Consider your words, Grieves. You’re telling me I’m supposed to sacrifice my life so that you can feel a little bit happier.”
“Why should you get the angel? I’m the one who loves her. With my luck, I’ll end up with that bird girl.”
“Marriage has nothing to do with love in this prison camp. It does in the free world, it does in City, but here, marriage is an obligatory death sentence. One night of stranger-fucking and in the morning a man must march grinning to his grave. The zombies were once like you and me. They know the weaknesses and hungers that drive the living flesh. They exploit us on every front.”
“I don’t care who or what they exploit. All I want is Pym.”
“If it makes you feel any better, your love for Pym is safe. Pym means nothing to me. I’ll enjoy her body tonight, but to me she’s no different than any of the candidates. And sure as I stand here, I’ll impregnate her. If I don’t, they’ll harvest her for being infertile. I assure you, though, your love for her is safe. She may be my bride, but I do not love anything about her.”
“For her sake, I wish that you did.”
“And for yours, I wish that you didn’t. Love is unnatural for cattle. Even if Pym was chosen as your bride, your heart would be broken when you learned that she did not reciprocate your feelings. Pym, like myself and all others in this place, is incapable of loving anyone.”
“That’s not true. I love her and she loves me. We have always loved one another. Since we were children.”
“You are alone in your feelings.”
I want to show him Pym’s letter, which proves that I am not alone, but Pym and I have never spoken to anyone about our love, not since the thrashing we received from some fellow children years ago after they found us kissing.“I must be off. Should I expect to see you there tonight?”
I spit in his face and turn on my side.
“Very well,” he says. “It was good knowing you, Grieves. You’re a good person, even if you sometimes act or feel to the contrary.”
He climbs out of my hole.
Good man, that Bill.
The Farewell Crackup
I go to the wedding, if for no other reason than to soak up the sunbeams of Pym’s smile one last time as I offer her the picture I drew.
Before I go, I put on my only pair of clothes, the ones I intended to save for my wedding. I want Pym to see me wearing something nice. And since she’ll not be my wife, I no longer care if my clothes are dirty tomorrow.
Robbie dances circles around me as I come toward the wedding congregation. “Your mother was looking for you,” he says. “She wants you to sit beside her at the wedding feast.”
“Tell her I’m offering a gift to the bride and will meet up with her later.”
“A gift? What is it? Can I see?”
“Go away, you retard!”
I find Bill and Pym sitting at the head of a table on which zombies are stacking headless corpses specially barbecued for the occasion. The couple looks as if they are going to be sick.
“Grieves!” Bill leaps from his chair when he sees me, visibly relieved to have a center of focus that isn’t barbecued human.
Pym, however, ignores me.
“Congratulations to both of you,” I say, then narrowing my gaze on Pym, “I have a present for the bride, if she’s willing to accept.”
“Why of course she’ll accept. Won’t you my dear?” Bill says.Pym fixes a blank stare on him. “Just because we’re getting married doesn’t make me your dear.”
“Duly noted,” Bill nods.