I had caught a ripe one; a zombie who had only very recently transformed. It was active and powerful, fervent in its attempts to strip me of my life and flesh. He used to be a young male, probably twenty-eight or nine, and was full of piss and vinegar. My catchpole was just long enough to keep me out of reach as he struggled against the noose. His fingers crawled through the air as he bellowed and grunted, trying to grab me. The zombie’s efforts were so terrifying and hysterical that I laughed as my heart skipped and shuddered. I had never been as close to death as I was with him, and he had been such an easy snare.
I had been perched on our old van, still burned-out and crashed downtown. The deady had walked up, sniffing the air and searching for me. Before he figured out where I was, I had looped him, and then the fun began. He fought so hard I would have sworn he was half bull. I twice thought he was going to drag me to the ground and he nearly had me convinced that I couldn’t get him back to the cage. When we finally did make it back to the mill, Peter looked at me as though I had wrangled the Devil himself. We decided to skip the cage and immediately chain him up, which so far was the smartest choice we had made. Looking back, there was a perfectly good chance that he would have destroyed the cage and eaten us both.
The Devil himself.
He fought the bonds and tried desperately to get those teeth of his around whichever of us was dumb enough to get too close. All of his struggling was for naught, though. Once Peter had him chained and bound, I lifted the noose from his neck and stepped back to admire our prize.
He was a lion.
He was a shark.
He was a killer.
He was ours.
I looked at Peter with a wide smile, and found the man visibly shaken by the mere existence of this zombie. Was he reminded of the last fighter? I didn’t know, and to be blunt, I didn’t care. I felt like a big game hunter. I had captured a live rhino, and now it was time for the kill.
For the last few zombies we had been experimenting with torso punctures and small, calculated wounds. Now it was time to try the same techniques elsewhere. I selected my homemade spear and laid the point to the right of the zombie’s Adam’s apple. He growled, bit, and flexed against the chains and I sank the blade into his neck.
Then he did something that gave us both pause.
He spoke.
“Ow,” he grunted.
Not really a word. More of a sound in truth, but neither Peter nor I had heard anything like it from a dead-head.
“What?” Peter asked in a quaking voice.
The zombie growled and glared at us with the point of the spear still lodged firmly in his neck.
So I gave the spear a twist.
“Ow,” he repeated. “Eat.”
“My god,” Peter replied. “You can talk.”
“Eat,” he replied. “Ow.”
I pulled my spear from the zombie’s neck, and it seemed to Peter that the creature became more relaxed. The wound was already filling with jelly and very little blood had leaked out.
“Eat,” the zombie repeated.
“What was your name?” Peter asked in an airy voice. I shot him a look of disbelief.
We’re interviewing them now?
“Eat. Ow.”
I rammed the spear just under the chin and to the left of the esophagus. The creature roared and thrashed against its bonds, and Peter called for me to stop.
“Can’t you see?” he asked. “Can’t you see that he feels that? That he’s still alive in there? That he’s trapped?” Peter looked from me to the zombie, and asked me to remove my spear from its resting point.
“Ow,” the zombie says again.
“It’s broken,” I protest, refusing to withdraw the spear. “It’s not a person, Peter. It’s not alive. It can’t feel. It’s dead.”
“You don’t know that!” Peter roared, and the zombie answered with one of its own. “These are the actions and words of someone who is thinking, and feeling, and alive. He’s sick!” Peter insists, extending a hand at the zombie.
And that was all it took.
The zombie yanked so hard against the chain that it broke its own hand. Thumb flailing loosely he grabbed Peter by the shirt and dragged him, chair and all, to his mouth. Despite my screams, the zombie stuffed Peter’s shoulder in its mouth and took away a bloody chunk of meat. Peter railed and cried. I jammed the spear into the zombie’s eye. Our undead captive twisted his head, wiggling the spear around in its own socket and loosening the weapon enough to reach and bite Peter’s neck.
I knew he was dead. Both of them were. The one in chains and the one in the chair.
Peter was about to test his own theory, and he knew it.
“No,” he sputtered, his life dumping out of his neck and a new one filling the hole. “No.”
Of all the methods we had tried, fire was the only real way to stop a zombie. You could smash them to nothing, but any piece left over could still contaminate you. Fire was the only purifier.
I lifted my spear and took aim at Peter’s eye. The zombie latched down again on my friend and mentor’s neck while he stared at me and mouthed a single word.
“Yes.”
I rammed the point into his skull, and the life within him faded. The zombie looked up at me with a drunken grin.
How could Peter think this
