Waking Up Dead

“No. They don’t think like that, Jack,” he said slowly. “Don’t give them qualities they don’t possess.”

Buildings flashed by and Jackson shifted slightly in her seat to watch the procession of smashed up windows and broken doors. It was weird but she could actually feel the emptiness of those buildings without even needing to check if anyone was inside—not that anyone was, of course. Her gaze moved from the doors all the way up to the roofs. Nothing looked out of the ordinary to her, well ordinary in this world.

“Qualities?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“Like deep thinking,” Luke said. “Trophy collection means they know on some level what’s happening around them, to them. They’d collect them for a reason and it suggests a humanness to them. Serial killers used to collect trophies didn’t they? They knew what they were doing and they knew why they shouldn’t be doing it. The zombies don’t even have that excuse. They don’t know what’s happening, not really, because they’re not human any more, Jack. They’re dead and somehow brought back to fucking life. They’re not us anymore.”

“I know that,” Jackson said. “I know they’re not us.”

“They don’t think the way we do,” Luke added as if she hadn’t spoken. “They can’t, else they wouldn’t be able to eat us would they?”

“Bits of them have to think something,” she said. “To open doors and smell us. So yeah, okay, they might not think exactly like us but they are thinking still. Something goes on in their brains.”

“But that something is not like us.”

“Maybe not,” Jackson agreed. “But you don’t know how they think, not exactly. No one does and that’s why we’re in this mess.”

…

But Luke did know how they thought. He was sure of it. All that time alone in his bunker? He’d spent a significant part of it trying to work out the zombies. How they hunted, how they tracked people. If he hadn’t gotten some sort of understanding he’d be dead now. He knew he would.

“They think like animals,” he said. “Maybe that’s why they hunt in packs. Even so, this new intelligence of theirs changes nothing beyond our own goals. They’ve lost their compassion, their empathy, their very humanity.”

“Luke—”

“Serious, Jack,” he said. “You need to understand this.”

“I do,” she replied. “Two years and then some has been enough for me to get the whole I’m-gonna-eat-you thing. But what goes on in their minds is a mystery. I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about it, because what else is there to really think about, and I can’t even begin to imagine.”

“I can. Let me tell you about Mr. Jenkins.”

“And he was?”

“Hold on…” Luke slowed the Batmobile and pointed to the top of a four-story building. “Did you see something up there?”

“No, and if I did, I wouldn’t slow down, I’d speed up. Gas it and tell me about this Mr. Jenkins.”

Luke complied and took a left turn.

“He was my neighbor. I don’t know exactly how old he was, but sixties at least. He was a war veteran, though he never spoke about it. His favorite hobby was tending the garden, front and back. He grew these amazing flowers. I don’t remember what they were called, but in the summer they’d grow everywhere and they smelled great. I was going out on a date once and he gave me a bunch to take—she loved them.”

Luke swung a right and then regretted it. The buildings surrounding them were a good few stories high on both sides. He accelerated and took a quick left before returning to Mr. Jenkins.

“He’d chide me constantly that I left my garden in such a state.” Luke shook his head at the memory. “He mowed my lawn when I was at work and I’d tune his car when he was at his club—I knew his war pension would barely cover the cost of regular repairs. Neither of us mentioned it. He was too proud and it was just something we did.”

“He sounds like a nice guy,” Jackson said. “But, Luke, I should tell you here and now that while I’m happy to hear about Mr. Jenkins, I don’t like talking about the people I knew from before. Maybe you haven’t picked up on that yet, but it’s something I tend to avoid.”

“The people from before?” he said, baffled by her words. “Everyone we knew was from before.”

“Exactly.”

Luke shook his head and shot Jackson a quick look. She was stiff on her seat, eyes darting to the view outside. Her fingers were rubbing up and down her machete’s hilt in an almost compulsive fashion. He’d seen her do that many times and wondered if she was even aware of it.

“But if we don’t talk about them how will we remember them?” he asked.

“We won’t. That’s kind of the point,” she replied. “What’s the use in remembering them? They’re all gone.”

“The use is because they make us feel things and often they illuminate things, which is what Mr. Jenkins here does.” The image of his gray-haired neighbor entered his mind and Luke smiled as he paused to negotiate the car through a thin gap where two large sedans had smashed into one another, wondering as he did so, why he hadn’t picked up on the fact that Jackson actually had never mentioned a single person from before. Sure, she talked about the books she missed, the drinks she’d tried, but the people, no, never the people…

“So tell me, Jack,” he said now that they were through the wrecked cars, “apart from gardening and going to his club to play checkers or whatever he did there, do you know what the thing Mr. Jenkins most loved was?”

“No,” Jackson said, drawing the word out. “I have a suspicion this is not leading me to a nice place, though.”

“Well I’m going to tell you because it is important. So for once let me do that, please.”

“For once…”

“He loved his grandchildren,” Luke said, ignoring her words. “He had two. Two little girls. Bethann and Louise. They were six and eight. I know because every time they came to visit he would show them off like his most-prized possessions. Damn, he loved those children.”

“Luke…”

Ignoring the plea in Jackson’s voice, Luke continued. “The girls were visiting when the first zombies found their way to our neighborhood. Chicago was one of the epicenters of the outbreak, so it was bad luck all around, though I didn’t know this until later. I’m guessing we were one of the first bunches to even see a waking dead. What a wonderful thing to brag about, eh? Anyway they broke through Mr. Jenkins’s windows first, three of them —they hadn’t started forming their packs yet. I grabbed a mallet. It was all I had, and ran around, thinking they were burglars or something. It was one of those awful moments where you can’t actually believe what you’re seeing is real…”

Luke trailed off as he remembered the faces of those first snarling dead. It had been like something out of a horror movie, and even as he’d brought the mallet down to smash in one’s head he hadn’t really believed it was real. You’re going to get arrested…that was the thought that had ran through his mind.

“Together we killed them all, again, though we didn’t know that at the time. Me, Mr. Jenkins, and his son, well, me more than them, if I’m honest. I just sort of bashed away at them until they stopped moving,” he said giving himself an inward shake. “We barricaded ourselves upstairs in my house, put the news on, and kept guard against any others. The news told us nothing of course, wild rumors, talk of terrorists—absolute nonsense. So we thought we’d wait till daybreak and make a run for it until we could figure things out. I wanted to leave immediately, get to my parents. But Mr. Jenkins was in his sixties and his son was a complete wimp. I couldn’t just leave them.”

“Luke…”

“We discussed all sorts of scenarios,” he continued. “Could it be druggies? Could it be some sort of weird joke? But in the back of our minds I think we all had a suspicion.” He sighed and gripped the steering wheel, memories overwhelming him. “And I checked, kind of sneakily, to make sure no one had been bitten. I’d watched enough movies after all, and though I felt like a total dick doing it, I looked all the same. I didn’t see anything