And then all but the last of them was gone. I could tell even as I stepped inside. I walked through the house as quickly as I could and found it, the bird Wendy had rescued from our backyard what seemed so long ago. It looked sad, shivering from the cold or fear in its cage, which had been set atop the kitchen counter, which might have been why it had been spared. I went to it, kicking aside the mangled, empty cages littering the floor. I gently lifted it out of its cage and looked it in the eyes.
“Can you fly yet?” I asked. “Your wing all better yet?”
Then I put it back in its cage. I carried it to my father’s hardware store and broke in through the back door. I grabbed some twine and some washers and a gas can and some scissors and a water hose and some rags, and then I walked all the way back to the animal house, stopping every so often to siphon off some gasoline from parked cars along the way.
When I got to the house, I set myself to work. I lined up a trip wire, tying off washers at the end of it to alert me when the trip wire had been tripped, and then I stacked the cages in a tight circle around the middle of the living room, into the center of which I placed that small bird in its small cage. I set the cage open just a crack, just enough so that if that bird got curious or scared, if it nudged that door, it would nudge the door open, and then I left.
I waited outside. Then I fell asleep. I dreamt the creature had followed me home. That it had waited for me, watched me enter the animal house, listened for my despairing cry, and then waited so it could follow me, thinking maybe I had another houseful of easily picked morsels for it to eat. It followed me, and as Wendy opened the door to greet me, the creature lunged at her, and in my dream, I pushed her aside and let the thing take hold of my arm, and for a moment, I was happy, or not happy, happy isn’t the right word for what I felt, and not content, either, but I was satisfied, I was prepared, this was something I had prepared for, and even above the pain and the sight of my own blood and the sharpness of the monster’s teeth, this fact stood out in my mind, and for the moment I was able to ignore the rest, ignore the rest just long enough to take that blade and shove it deep into that beast’s head or through its neck, feeling like some modern Beowulf or knight, shoving it deep and then twisting it around and then slipping it out and pushing that knife back in, again and again and again until long past the point the animal had let go of my arm, had stopped moving entirely, and lay cradled in my bloodied lap, looking no more threatening than any other big dog or German shepherd. And then I woke up, and then I turned to Wendy only to realize I hadn’t gone home yet. The dream was fresh in my mind, so fresh that I had to clench and unclench my fist to make sure I didn’t have a knife with me, hadn’t picked it up somehow while I slept. I tried to go back to sleep, and then the washers started rattling and jerking every which way. I jumped up and ran to the house carrying the gas can, and I did a quick sprint around the house, splashing gasoline around the front of the house and on the front porch and around the back and the sides and then to the front again. Then I soaked some rags, and I wondered why I hadn’t prepared this stuff beforehand, but I heard a commotion going on inside still and hoped it would last. When the rags were soaked, I kicked open the door, and down the hall I could see the little bird flying and flapping like mad, a second or two above the wall of cages I’d built, and then it would tire, or be knocked from the tenuous perch it had found as that thing scrambled to get at it.
Then the wall of cages was knocked cleanly to the floor, and I saw a blur of dark reddish brown fur, and then it was gone after the bird again, and I stopped watching, cast that can stuffed with rags into the middle of that melee, and then closed the door and lit a match and then lit the trail of gasoline I’d laid on fire.
I watched everything burn. I stood there and watched. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. For the fire to spread? I hadn’t come prepared to do anything about stopping a spreading fire. For someone to call the fire or police department? If that’s what I was hoping for or feared would happen, the neighbors disappointed me, for no one was called, or if called, no one came. For some signal of the beast, of its suffering, its death, its escape? After a while, as the flames consumed the house, I realized it was pointless and dangerous and foolish to stand there, and so I decided to walk back home, back to Wendy.
As I walked, all I could think of was my dream. All I could imagine was our front door torn open, the house wrecked beyond repair, and Wendy gone, stolen away, or maybe there, maybe the beast would have left her there, but only the ruined mess of her. And soon I wasn’t walking. Soon I was running. I couldn’t hear anything but my feet slapping against the sidewalk, couldn’t feel anything but the blood pounding in my ears, and by the time I stopped, I was wheezing and weak-kneed and my head and my shoulders ached, and, light-headed, I doubled over. But the house was fine. The door was fine, and inside the house was normal. Everything was normal. Wendy was there sleeping, peaceful and quiet on our makeshift bed, and I watched her sleep for ten minutes, for thirty minutes. I watched her sleep and I thought about what I could do for her and what I could do for myself, and for the baby if there was a baby, and then I pulled the scissors out of my back pocket and held them clenched in my fist. I walked back outside and set myself up on the front steps with those scissors and I waited, and while I waited, I considered all the different, painful administrations I might perform with those scissors on any creature, man or beast, that might try to push past me.
All of Me
The zombie in me would like to make a few things clear.
The zombie in me would like to make it clear that there is no zombie in me, per se. Would like to make it known that there is only me, in fact, and that all of me is zombie.
That’s what the zombie in me says every day, what he whispers in my ear every morning when I wake up, what he whispers as I apply the makeup I need to use every morning to bind my face-flesh together, what he whispers as I button my shirt and tie my tie. The zombie’s voice in my head is a near constant.
The zombie in me says other things as well.
“Bite her face,” for example, when I say hello to the receptionist, Barbara, as I walk past her desk on my way to my cubicle.
“Break his neck,” also, is something the zombie in me says, most often in reference to my boss, Keith, though in truth the zombie in me bears no ill will toward Keith. The comment, in other words, shouldn’t be taken personally, shouldn’t imply any personal animosity toward Keith.
Or Barbara, for that matter, with whom I eat lunch quite often, by which I mean, with whom I’ve sat in the cafeteria while she eats lunch, as I do not eat — at least, not what is served in the cafeteria.
For one, the food served in the cafeteria is very fatty and greasy and bland.
And secondly, none of it is human flesh.
As a matter of fact, I rather like Barbara. She smells like shampoo, even at the end of the day. And in the summer, when I walk past her desk on Mondays, I can always smell the lingering scent of suntan lotion coming off her skin, which reminds me of the beach, which is a place I haven’t been to in quite some time. When I smell the suntan lotion on her or when I smell the shampoo on her, my impulses are torn, for the briefest of moments, between biting her face and kissing her neck. And then, before I can do either, I say, “Good morning, Barbara” or “Have a nice night, Barbara” and make quickly for my cubicle or the stairs.