2. Books in the Shitter

RIVER ZOMBIES, EPISODE 2: During the apocalypse, nostalgia is a liability.

When the zombies came, they came from the rivers. These are the memoirs of Jack Gray, who fought for survival and sanity during an absurd apocalypse. If you’re new to Jack’s story, please consider starting with the first episode.

As after each attack, the field across the street became a crematorium and we lit the stacks of zombie remains after sunset. We had concluded that burning them wasn’t necessary to keep them down, but it stopped the birds and the flies from coming. And after enough drinking the pyre became beautiful.

On my recently repainted front porch, Kyle and I lounged in a pair of squeaky wicker rockers. We had found the matching set on our last salvage mission along with a bottle of 30-year-old Scotch and some well preserved cigars. Wrapped in our summer bath robes, we rocked in our rockers, complimented the whiskey, and criticized the cigars. It wasn’t long before the pyre became beautiful.

“Never thought I’d get used to that smell,” Kyle sighed. “A lot of blue in the flames tonight.”

I shrugged, “Lead burns blue.”

“Yep,” Kyle laughed, “that it does.”

I pondered that for a moment and then became concerned about our ammunition supply as one does when whiskey takes hold. When do we need to go find more? We should go soon or we’ll be making spears and everyone will be cutting their fingers trying to whittle the tips. Will we have enough bandages? How are we on basic medical supplies? Fuel for the generators? Holy shit! Do we have enough toilet paper?

Kyle slapped my arm, “I’m talking to you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was taking inventory.”

“I said I have an idea. I think that when we sit together like this — after a long day of killing and stacking — that we should try to think of something positive about the current state of the world.”

I poured another drink. “Why do you always have to find a way to be an asshole?”

“Just for that you get to go first.”

“Pointless.”

“Your fatalism,” Kyle groaned. “If you think it ain’t worth fighting then why do you aim so carefully when they come? Next time just walk out into them. Let them tear you apart.”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admitted. “My son and my wife —”

“Bullshit!” Kyle puffed. “Don’t use your family as an excuse for being afraid to die. Look at me. I got nobody. No family. I’m in that house next door all by myself, but I fight because I don’t want to die. There ain’t nothing after this life. I know it. You know it. In the middle of the zombie apocalypse life is worth living. Now we are going to sit here and think about something positive among all this suffering and if you don’t participate I’m going to punch you. Really hard.”

“Okay,” I relented, “if it will shut you up.”

I drank some more and stared at the fire in the killing field. I could only think about those things that I missed. During the end of the world I counted nostalgia as a weakness. Kyle knew that, and I had this overwhelming feeling that he was trying to trap me. Then it came to me — something positive — but I was saved from voicing my thoughts.

”Did you see that?” I asked. “To the left of the fire?”

Kyle leaned forward and squinted.

“Movement!” my wife called down from our front balcony. “Four hundred yards at ten o’clock.”

“What is it?” I stood up and tried to make it out.

“Unclear,” Betty yelled. Then her voice broke over the radios, “Sentry East; Gray House.”

“East. Go ahead, Gray.”

While Betty checked with the tower I called my dog, “Mina! Come here, girl!”

Mina lumbered through the front door onto the porch. She squealed a wide pit bull yawn, flexed the muscles beneath her blue-gray coat, and snorted her hello, “What is it?”

“There’s something out in the field, left of the fire,” I explained.

“Gray House; Sentry East,” the radio crackled. “I got nothing, Betty. It’s past me if it’s out there.”

Betty came to the porch loading a shotgun. A bandolier of 12-gauge shells was sashed over her cotton pajamas and her blue hair was set in curlers. “What do you think?” she asked. “A straggler?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “When was the last time we saw one at night?”

“And when the hell have we ever seen just one?” Kyle grunted.

“Mina,” I said to my dog, “go around the right side of the fire. Use the light to mask your approach and see if you can get behind it. Find out what it is and report back. Do not engage.”

I sat back down in my rocker and poured another whiskey.

“What are you doing?” Betty judged.

“Waiting,” I said. “I’m a bit drunk. Kyle, too. You don’t want us handling guns right now.”

Kyle leaned back in his rocker, smoothed out his blonde mullet, and finished off his drink.

Betty stood ready, scanning the field. After about three minutes of silence, she whispered, “Jack!”

“What?” I stiffened. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” she said. “What do you want for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Books in the shitter!” Kyle exclaimed. “There are books in the shitter again. We can’t stare at our phones anymore while we’re doing our business. No internet for how long now? So we have to read actual books again. Something positive.”

“We have that venison,” Betty said, “or I could kill a chicken.”

Kyle and I leapt from our rockers as two silhouettes appeared in front of the flames and approached the house. I recognized one as Mina and what looked like another dog running next to her. She guided a tall, mottled, floppy-eared mutt onto the porch.

“I thought I told you not to engage,” I chided Mina.

“Bringing this poor thing to our home was hardly engaging,” she scoffed.

“Hello,” I said to the stray, “my name is Jack. What’s yours?”

“I am a dog,” he replied.

“Yeah,” Kyle said, “we can see that. I’m Kyle. Do you have a name?”

He barked and said, “I am a dog.”

“That’s all he says,” Mina sighed.

“Are you hungry?” Betty asked.

The mutt cocked his head and smiled, “Food? I am a dog.”

“We can get you some food,” I said. “Do you have a family? Where have you come from?”

“The other place,” he panted. “I don’t like the other place now. Food?”

“Let me try again,” Mina said. She barked and squeaked and groaned at the newcomer. He answered in their natural language.

“Well,” Kyle prodded, “what did he say?”

Mina cleared her throat, “He said, ‘The other place had food but now it is bad. I don’t like the other place. I am a dog. I like meat. Carrots are good, too. Hey, you are a dog. I am a dog!’”

“So it’s not a language barrier,” Betty confirmed.

“No,” Mina agreed, “he’s just stupid.”

The radio crackled, “Gray House; Sentry East. Betty, did you find out what that was? Everything okay?”

Kyle pulled his radio from his robe pocket, “East; Kyle. It was just a dog, Billy.”

“Son of a bitch!” Billy scowled. “Why are you scaring us like that, Betty?”

“Will you fuckers shut up and go to bed already?” Susan Draper squawked from nine houses away. “And you’re supposed to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking. Over.”

Billy replied, “I’m just doing my goddamn job, Susie. Over!”

“Okay,” I rubbed my eyes. I snatched the radio from Kyle and keyed it, “Enough. It’s over. Over!”

“What about him?” Betty asked me as she petted the new dog.

“Feed him, water him, and find him a blanket,” I said. “We’ll sort this out in the morning. I’m drunk. I want to go to bed.”

Betty and Mina brought the stray into the house. I went to follow, but Kyle stopped me.

“You still owe me an affirmation of positivity,” he said as he took back his radio.

I collected my thought from earlier and nodded, “Right now… Right now there are people in the world who are fucking. Some of those people will make babies, even if that isn’t their goal. They think they’re fucking because they’re bored and what else is there to do? But that’s the wrong question, isn’t it?” I paused. I was doing a poor job of making my point, so I clarified, “Now that I’ve accepted that there isn’t a future for any of us, I’m finally free. It’s total war, and I love it so.”

Kyle laughed, “Lighten up, dude.”

From within the house I heard my son shout with glee, “Is that a new dog? Did we get a new dog? I love him! What’s his name?”

Kyle took one more shot of Scotch and pulled on his cigar. “There it is,” he chuckled. “Right there…” He stumbled off my porch. “Right there, Jack!” he repeated as he staggered across the driveway toward his house.

“What?” I called after him.

“Positivity!” Kyle yelled back without turning. “Learn from your son.”

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This has been Episode 2 of River Zombies, a serial survival tale steeped in comedy, horror, and misery. A new episode is published every two weeks. To start from the beginning, please click here. Find all previous episodes in the archive.

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