I fall to my knees.
My mother is among the six candidates.
The zombies grab me beneath the arms and lift me up.
They loosen their hold and I collapse again. They pick me up and maintain their hold this time, forcing me to bear witness.
“Who will be his bride? Who? Who?” the crowd chants.
“Wait, there must be some mistake!” I shout, but remain unheard.
Please not my mother. Please. Please.
The crowd goes quiet as the zombies inspect the six candidates one by one. Four look pretty much alike: skin tinged brown from 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 my mother and one other girl stand out. My mother because she’s so old. The other girl because she looks more like an emaciated pig than a human being.
The dead people pass over the four lookalikes rather quickly. They sprawl them on their backs and perform routine bridal checks, shoving fingers in their holes and the like.
They slap the pig woman around a bit. For a moment I think, Yeah, slap the little pig bitch around. Kill her. Then I stop myself and feel bad. That pig might be my bride.
The crowd cheers as my mother and I are pushed together by the zombies around us. We are forced to embrace in a fashion that can only mean one thing.
Someone in the crowd laughs, then the whole crowd joins in. Ronnie is in the front row. He’s the only one who isn’t laughing. I look away from him, ashamed. I force my eyes to look beyond the crowd. Their scorn is the least of the horror. I think I see Pym parting from the crowd, walking away, but I can’t be sure it’s her.
My face a flurry of tears, I tear away from my mother and dive off the stage. People in the crowd punch me as I push through them, struggling to escape.
How wretched! How pitiful!
What the fuck!
Sitting in a Field of Tall Dead Grass, Waiting for the Bad Thing to Come
“Is it right to marry your mother?” Ronnie asks.
“No, it isn’t right. It’s unspeakable. What did I do to deserve this?”
“And if it’s your son… by your mother… that makes your son your brother. And your brother your son.”
“Yes, Ronnie, yes it does.”
“She’s old too. This will be her last child, won’t it?
They’ll take her brains soon as the baby is out, leaving the poor boy all alone. You don’t have to worry, though. I’ll care for him real good. I’ll treat him special. As my brother and my son. Just like you would do. And if it’s a girl, well, I’ll take care of her too.”
“That’s kind of you. Now would you please mind fucking off. My life is almost up and I’ve got better things to do than make small talk with a retard.”
Ronnie runs off.
I sigh, relieved.
I try to make a list of all the people I want to say goodbye to before the zombies lock my mother and I in the wedding tower tonight. I fail to come up with a single name. Bill is dead, Pym as good as dead, and my mother my bride.
What the fuck.
In childhood I never left Pym’s side. Then after her first marriage, I spent all my time either hiding away in my hole dreaming about her, or else getting an education from Bill. It’s easy to forget how alone you are when the days pass endless and you are unwanted. Now I wish to call it all back and do my whole life over, but it’s too late.
I could hide if I wanted, but the farm is too small.
They would find me before I even had a chance to starve, so when the wedding bells ring, I get up and make my way back to the farm center, wondering if I’m strong enough to endure the torment and humiliation I’ve been dealt.
First Tacos, Last Meal
The dead fill the trough with barbecued headless humans.
They unload several barrels of fermented blood from their helicopters, then they fly off. A few zombies remain behind to make sure we’re brought to the wedding tower after the ceremony, for the wedding tower remains locked at all times. Only the dead hold the key.
My mother and I sit at the head of the trough. A mustachioed man presents me with the traditional wedding plate of brain. According to custom, every man is offered a meal of brain on his wedding day. I’ve been given brain tacos. I’ve always wanted to eat a taco. I lick my lips and pick one of them up.
“Congratulations,” the mustachioed man says, slapping me on the back and knocking the taco out of my hand.
“Thanks,” I say, stifling my irritation as I try to remember who he is.
He says, “My wedding is tomorrow, so I thought, you know, maybe you could give me some pointers.”
“Pointers on what?”
“Getting married.”
“You should ask a female about that. I’ve never been married before.”
I hope my mother will interrupt our conversation so I can eat my last meal in peace, but she’s too busy chatting with the man sitting next to her.
The mustachioed man waves his hand, dismissing me cheerfully and blushing red in the cheeks. “Oh, I don’t mean the wedding wedding. I mean after the wedding.
The good part.”
“The good part?”
“What you do, like, in the wedding tower.”
I look at him blank-faced. The man awaits my answer, twisting the corners of his mustache into hairy spirals.
“You mean sex,” I say.
“Sure, whatever you want to call it.”
A woman with lank, muddy blonde hair sidles up to us. “Oh hey, look at these fantastic tacos,” she says.
“I was thinking the same thing,” the mustachioed man says, squeezing the woman’s shoulder.
The mustachioed man lifts my tray of brain tacos. He and the muddy blonde walk away together.
I’ve always wanted to eat a taco. Now I will never know what they taste like.
I suppose even on a death farm, there is someone worth stealing tacos for, even if those tacos are a sad man’s last meal.
Ceremony
My mother and I follow the procession of cattle to the wedding tower, where the ceremony is set to take place.
The base of the wedding tower is lit by flaming torches. The torches flicker in the hot breeze. Up in the highest window, I see the faint glimmer of the light that never goes out.
A dead person stands against the wall of the wedding tower, which is the single permanent structure on the farm, built up against the outer wall.
The zombie’s jaw hangs slack, barely connected by two rotting tendons. A big, tattered book is open in his hands.
Dead people believe that if they don’t read out of this book at marriage ceremonies, the married couple will not produce a child with worthy brains. Like reading to plants, Bill once remarked. He never told me what he meant by that. The people in the crowd press close together despite the sweltering heat of late afternoon. They look well-fed, bleary-eyed, and contented. They’re waiting to see the happy couple off into the wedding tower before returning to feast and drink until dawn.
This is my sixteenth wedding season, my last.
The crowd pushes my mother and I forward, into an aisle that parts the crowd and leads up to the zombie with the book.
The aisle is lined with human skulls broken at the top.
My mother looks happy. She smiles and nods as she takes my arm and urges me forward.
My legs are jelly. I am shaking all over.
This is so wrong.
When we stop before the zombie with the book, he begins reading but the words are just a jumble of lisps and grunts. I cannot understand the words he is saying.