Trapped in a transition period between death and rebirth they retained different levels of intelligence but were limited by overwhelming instincts. Instinctively, they knew enough to stay out of the sun. It was a simple matter of self-preservation, for the tropical sun could speed their decay. The instinct to devour the living was strong in them as well, but only when they were exposed to temptation. Nathan was sure of that after his experiences with Buck and the pilot. He was also certain that as long as temptation was absent up to the very point that the feeding frenzy took control, the dead of Grimes Island could still function at a level that separated them from the gut-buckets. Oh, they functioned at different sub-levels as he’d seen with Kara North, the pilot, and Buck, but in some cases, they functioned just as well as the living.
Perhaps something in human flesh, once devoured, triggered the change in behavior. Maybe something in the blood. Or perhaps it was the very act of cannibalism. Nathan didn’t know the cause, didn’t much care.
His wounded shoulder was scarlet-purple and swollen. Five days had passed since Buck had attacked him, and he couldn’t decide if the bite was worse or better. Just to be safe, he’d injected himself with antibiotics, but he didn’t know if his first aid made the slightest difference.
He didn’t know if he was alive, or dead, or somewhere in between.
To clarify his thoughts, he noted his symptoms on the legal pad he’d hidden in his desk after the plane crash. Many were perplexing. He wished that he could consult with a scientist or a doctor, but his first attempt at stateside communications had proved fruitless, and soon he was afraid to communicate with anyone. He didn’t relish the idea of ending up as a science project in some lab, and he didn’t want an extermination squad invading Grimes Island, either.
The thing that bothered him most was that his heart was still beating. He couldn’t understand how that was possible until he remembered that Buck’s heart had been beating when he’d shot him—Nathan had felt it pounding against his own chest as they wrestled on the floor—and he was certain that Buck had been dead. Looking at his wounded shoulder, remembering the fire in Buck’s eyes when he’d attacked, Nathan was positive of that. There were other symptoms, as well.
He couldn’t eat. Every evening he cooked some fried chicken, even though the smell made him gag and the oily feel of it made him shiver. Last night he’d forced himself to eat two breasts and a thigh, and he’d spent the next five hours coiled in a cramped ball on the kitchen floor before finally surrendering to the urge to vomit. And he couldn’t keep down Pepsi or Jose Cuervo either. The Cuervo Gold was especially bad; it burned his throat and made him miserable for hours. He did suck ice cubes, but only to keep his throat comfortable. And he’d started snorting the cocaine that Ronnie’s mule had brought in, but only because he was afraid to sleep.
Cocaine. Maybe that was the problem. They said that cocaine killed the appetite, didn’t they? And he’d started using the stuff at about the same time that he’d stopped eating. But five days without food… God, that was a long time. So it had to be more than just the cocaine. Didn’t it?
He closed his eyes and thought about hunger, about food. He tried to picture the most appetizing banquet imaginable.
Nothing came to him for the longest time. Then he saw Kara North’s mangled hand. The pilot’s severed arm. Buck’s ruined head.
His gut roiled.
He opened his eyes.
The facts seemed irrefutable, but somehow Nathan couldn’t bring himself to leave the compound or, conversely, let the Grimesgirls enter. They were on the beach every night, enjoying themselves, tempting him. Miss November and Miss February sang love songs, serenading Nathan from the wrong side of the glass-encrusted walls. He watched them, smiling his wry smile on the outside, inside despising his cowardice.
He was bored, but he didn’t risk watching television, either. If the networks had returned to the airwaves, he would certainly find himself looking straight into the eyes of living, breathing people, and while he seriously doubted that such a stimulus could trigger the feeding frenzy, he didn’t want to expose himself, just to be on the safe side.
He didn’t want to lose what he had.
So he snorted cocaine and wrote during the day. At night, he watched them. They all came to the beach now, even Teddy Ching. He had no legs; that’s why he’d taken so long to cross the island. But Teddy didn’t let that stop him. He dragged himself along, eagerly pursuing the Grimesgirls, his exposed spine wiggling as happily and uncontrollably as a puppy’s tail. Three cameras were strung around his neck, and he often propped himself against the base of a manchineel tree and photographed the girls as they frolicked on the beach below.
More than anything, Nathan wished that he could develop those pictures. His Grimesgirls were still beautiful. Miss July, her stomach so firm, so empty above a perfect heart-shaped trim. Miss May, her skinless forehead camouflaged with a wreath of bougainvillea and orchids. The rounded breasts of Miss April, sunset bruised and shadowed, the nipples so swollen. The sunken yellow hollows beneath Miss August’s eyes, hot dry circles, twin suns peering from her face with all the power of that wonderful month.
Twin suns in the middle of the night.
She walks in beauty, like the night… in beauty, like the night… of cloudless climes and… starry skies and all that’s best of dark and bright…
And all that’s best of dark and bright…
Nathan couldn’t remember the rest of it. He wrote the words on his yellow pad, over and over, but he couldn’t remember. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them the sea was hard with the flat light of morning.
He hurried inside long before the sunshine kissed the balcony.
The beach was deserted.
PRAIRIE
by Brian Evenson
Brian Evenson is the author of the books Altmann’s Tongue, Contagion, Dark Property, and Father of Lies, among others. In 2005, his collection, The Wavering Knife, won the International Horror Guild Award. Two years later, his novel The Open Curtain was also a finalist, as well as for the Edgar Award. In addition to his own fiction, Evenson has translated the work of others into English, including the novel Electric Flesh by Claro (from the original French). A media tie-in novel, Aliens: No Exit, will be released around the same time as this volume, and Evenson has a new short story collection due out in 2009, called Fugue State.
This story, which originally appeared in the magazine The Silver Web, was inspired by Cabeza de Vaca’s sixteenth century account of crossing North America after being shipwrecked, and Werner Herzog’s movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God which, Evenson says, has a brilliant, mad ending. He says he was interested, too, in thinking about how certain places seem to have a dark but magical quality to them. How zombies entered into it is a mystery, however.
Early evening, still distant from the prairie, we encountered a man with skin flayed half-free of his back. He allowed us to inspect that portion of him, and we saw the underskin, purpled and creased with folds that in their convolution resembled the human brain.