Surrounding the prime cut of brains was a football huddle of young strapping zombies. One still had a slight pinkish hue; he couldn"t have been undead for more than a few hours. His hair hung over his eyes in a s.h.a.ggy surfer wave, blond, silky, and straight. I nicknamed him Brad Pitt Zombie, and although he was muscular and handsome, I had something Brad Pitt Zombie lacked: cognition.

I wrested a leg bone from a feeble feeding group. Mostly children, they were lying down and suckling like grotesque kittens. Candy from babies. I held the bone aloft, arms raised to the roof of the cage, like the ape in the opening scene of 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey. I heard the movie"s theme song swelling in the background as I swung the bone in a circle, sinking it into soft flesh, knocking down rivals. The triumphant drums pounded.

Thus Spake Zarathustra.

I battled my way into the middle of the huddle, gripping the bone like a baseball bat. A few zombies shuffled away; some continued feeding. I jabbed and poked and made caveman noises, scattering them all. Except for pink-cheeked Brad Pitt. He munched on those brains as if they were his due. Finally I took aim and smashed his pretty cheek, which split open, a perfect fissure like a fault line. He retreated.

I grabbed my prize, a brain the size of a basketball, and hobbled to a corner of the cage. Striking a defensive posture with my back to the wall, I sank my face into the spongy gray matter.

Aaaah...sweet mystery of life, at last I"ve found you.

When I looked up, chunks of brain clinging to my beard like canned ham, Eve stood in front of me. I ripped off a handful and extended it to her.

As she accepted my offering, a faint light flickered in her dead eyes. Call it respect. Call it grat.i.tude. Call it victory. I called it love.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SUDDENLY AND LIKE that, the world was different. Reality shifted once again. Normal science was disrupted; weird science began. that, the world was different. Reality shifted once again. Normal science was disrupted; weird science began.

Like they say in bad movies with cheesy voice-overs: That afternoon changed my life.

There was another like me.

The convoy had been stopped for a few hours; we were sated from the meat, although it wouldn"t last long. Eating animal remains is like chewing Nicorette or shooting methadone. Ask any addict: Ain"t nothing like the real thing.

I was reclining on the floor, absentmindedly sucking on a bovine spine. I was becoming quite a connoisseur of the fluid contained therein. It is bitter and salty, reminding me of oyster sauce and caviar. Eve was on her side next to me, her pregnant belly resting on the metal floor. Since I shared the victory brain with her, she had not left my side. She looked at me in a way I read as coquettish, but it was probably brutish and blank.

Oh, the lies lovers tell themselves.

Ros and Guil opened the gate. There was a minor scuffle as the corpse catchers struggled to contain the newbie. Ros and Guil shot at those trying to eat them, nailing a few in the head and dragging them out to be burned. I barely looked up from my bone.

"You corpses oughta like this one," Ros said as he turned the key in the lock.

I glanced her way and I was saved.

She stood in the center of the crowded cage, resplendent in a knee-length white dress, white stockings, white shoes, and a white cap perched jauntily on her gray bun. In her hand she carried a doctor"s bag.

A simulacrum of a nurse; I didn"t even know they wore those uniforms anymore. Of course, hers was torn at the shoulder and her stockings were stained with blood and a piece of finger clung to her bun, but that gave her the patina of a war nurse. Like Whitman.

She turned in a circle, a.s.sessing the scene, searching, I realized later, for the most critically wounded among us. And she found him: Brad Pitt Zombie. He was leaning against the wall, his cheek ripped open, revealing a bone to die for.

I felt guilty. My blow had been intended to "kill" a fellow zombie. But he simply wanted his evening meal just as I did. He was not my oppressor; humans were.

And didn"t we all learn to share in kindergarten?

The nurse pulled a needle, thread, and swatches of fabric out of her bag. I walked over to her, Eve close behind me.

Her name tag said JOAN JOAN. A fitting name for a leader and a saint.

Joan stood next to Brad Pitt Zombie, so close that her Nurse Ratched breast touched his arm. Her bitten knee poked through her stocking; it was patched with suede. I bent down and touched it, rubbing the fabric; it was creamy and soft.

I dared to look up at her and my heart almost began beating again from sheer joy. Because her eyes were a miracle. Divine. The eyes of Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa. Botticelli"s Venus rising out of the ocean. There was light in them, a positive glow, a corona of higher cognitive function.

Brains! The woman had brains.

She cupped my chin and nodded. I grabbed her hand and kissed it, and she patted my head before turning her attention back to her patient.

Hallelujah! I would have wept, if zombies had tears.

I sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Joan work. She coaxed Brad into a sitting position by caressing his primary bite site, which was on his still-firm bicep. With her other hand, she pressed on his shoulder and he sat, docile as a baby lamb, while she worked her magic.

Her skill was immediately apparent, her fingers more adroit than most surgeons", let alone us uncoordinated zombies. She selected a black leather patch and sewed it onto Brad"s cheek with an attention to aesthetics. Although the final result resembled some new S&M trend more than a post-op bandage, it would prolong Brad"s living death.

Joan was a stout zombie with a curvy, matronly figure. A meaty hourgla.s.s shape. She was in her mid-fifties, I guessed, with what they call a handsome face-a square mannish chin, a prominent Mediterranean nose, and the puke-green skin of the not-so-recently turned.

It was love at first sight, and I worried the guards might recognize her as a threat, but they were intent on the horizon. What"s more, the crush of corpses at the bars gave us privacy. The perimeter of our prison was at least two undead deep.

In my professor pocket, I had saved a brain treat. I wished I had a silver platter to put it on for her. She deserved better than my outstretched palm. Eve grabbed for the brains with her good hand and I slapped her away. Joan seized the golf-ball-sized chunk and swallowed it in one gulp.

"Mooooaaah," she said, licking her fingers. In zombish, that means thank you.

JOAN CARRIED RESURRECTION in her bag. Amongst the b.u.t.tons and needles, leather and linen, there was rebirth and life, survival and hope. All three of the fates were in there too, weaving us into existence: Clotho spinning the threads, Lachesis measuring the length of our lives, and Atropos cutting the thread at the time of death. in her bag. Amongst the b.u.t.tons and needles, leather and linen, there was rebirth and life, survival and hope. All three of the fates were in there too, weaving us into existence: Clotho spinning the threads, Lachesis measuring the length of our lives, and Atropos cutting the thread at the time of death.

Add a fourth fate to the cla.s.sic trio: Saint Joan, old crone, spinster extraordinaire, sitting on her thanatopsis throne creating destiny for zombies.

My shoulder, once mere bone, was transformed.

When Joan rubbed her fingertips in circles on my scapula, it felt good and I understood how she rendered Brad pa.s.sive. It was the most sensual experience I"d had since my transformation and I couldn"t wait to touch Eve on her thigh.

After examining my wound, Joan put her finger to her lips and rested her chin on her thumb. I knew the pose well-it connotes critical thinking. Problem solving and decision making. Cogitation.

Together, we could help our people. We might even change the world.

Joan opened her magic bag and pulled out a hockey mask. A Jason Voorhees Friday the 13th Friday the 13th mask. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, what can you do? A slight smile crossed her lips. mask. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, what can you do? A slight smile crossed her lips.

O Captain! my captain! You have a sense of humor.

The mask was made of hard, st.u.r.dy plastic, the kind that is supposed to glow in the dark but rarely does. She wrapped the elastic straps underneath my armpit and sewed them into the flesh with string for good measure. My shoulder was secure and protected, and once I put my shirt and tweed jacket back on, it looked almost normal.

Jason on my shoulder was better than an angel. A monster on a monster, the hockey mask confirmed that our historical moment was unprecedented: Legend had become reality, fiction was finally fact.

Yes, Virginia, there really are zombies. Like Jason Voorhees, they rise from the dead.

JOAN COULDN"T TALK and neither could she read. I showed her my notes and she shook her head. Poor old gal. Illiterate zombie. and neither could she read. I showed her my notes and she shook her head. Poor old gal. Illiterate zombie.

We devised a language, however, a signifying system of "natural" signs. Our communication was simple and childish: A pat on the tummy meant hunger. Nods and shrugs meant yes, no, I don"t know, or whatever, depending on context. Making a gun with our hands meant Ros or Guil and making a cradle with our arms meant Eve or the baby. We scissored our fingers to indicate running or walking. And we tapped each other"s shoulders to point out particularly idiotic zombies, the ones engaged in mindless repet.i.tive actions like bashing their heads on the floor. A few of these unfortunates had eaten their own fingers, which resulted in horrible indigestion. They lay clutching their abdomens, vomiting up rivers of goo.

At least Joan could decipher diagrams, pictograms, and caricatures. These codes and signs held meaning for her. A drawing of a bull meant bull; a stick figure meant human; a slumped or lopsided figure meant zombie. I showed Joan a newspaper photo I"d found of Stein back at the Travel Center and she exhibited all the outward signs of comprehension. A thoughtful nod, a meaningful look, arms akimbo.

That was how I planned our escape. In pictures. I prayed I wouldn"t run out of paper.

Saint Joan was like Jesus among the lepers; there were simply too many for her to heal. And some weren"t worth it. With my help, she selected a choice group. Apostles, you could call them. We left the ones clutching the bars alone-we needed them to shield us from the guards, and anyway, they were thoughtless thugs, nothing more than meat-seeking missiles.

Our core group was small: Eve, Joan, Brad, and me.

And then came Guts.

Joan was examining Eve, pressing her hands and putting her ear on Eve"s stomach. She must have heard or felt something, because she gave me the thumbs-up. Eve"s primary bite site, her thigh, was in good shape as well. I tried to indicate to Joan that it was I who had bitten Eve and that I attempted to keep the wound small and contained in order to prolong her living death. I pantomimed the biting action, but the nuances were lost, and I don"t know what Joan thought of our relationship.

Eve"s wrist was a much more serious injury. To this day I regret losing control.

Joan was wrapping Eve"s bones in gauze when Guts separated himself from the herd. His round brown face was spotted with scabs and pus like severe chicken pox, but his eyes were wide and white, not filmed over with the yellow mucus of the unseeing undead. He was only as tall as my waist; he would never get any taller.

He was stepping on his intestines.

Guts went straight to Eve"s thigh and touched it. She leaned into his caress, closing her eyes. If she"d had breath, she would have sighed. But it was Guts"s face that convinced me: This kid"s a prodigy. He stays in the picture.

Cherubic doesn"t go far enough to describe him. Neither does cute. He was every black street urchin in every TV show, from Buckwheat to Arnold. A child of the projects, wise beyond his years, spewing honest precocious wisdom to the foolish adults.

Of course, for all I knew he was more middle-cla.s.s Cosby Cosby than ghetto than ghetto Good Times Good Times in "real" life, but he can"t contradict me. And I"m the one writing history. in "real" life, but he can"t contradict me. And I"m the one writing history.

Whatchu talkin" "bout, Jack?

I"m talkin" superheroes, Arnold. This was my Team America, my own Justice League: me with my amazing ability to read, write, and plan; Saint Joan with her healing bag of magic; Guts with his empathic touch and alive eyes; Eve the maternal, the one who brings forth new life; and Brad, well, he was the expendable one. He would be the first to die again. He had only his life to offer the group and he"d make that sacrifice, if I"d read the script correctly. And I had.

Things were finally looking up.

Guts touched Eve"s stomach and made a cradle out of his arms.

"Baaaay," he said. I nodded and tousled his braids, which were crusted with dried blood, leaves, twigs, and tiny lengths of veins.

I pinched Joan"s elbow and pointed to Guts"s guts. She rummaged in her bag, whipped out a roll of duct tape, pushed the guts back in, and motioned for me to hold them in place. They were dry and powdery, more like an old man"s half-hard chalky d.i.c.k than the wet, gooey, squishy, and delicious intestines of the living. Joan taped up his stomach, reinforcing the edges with her needle and thread. Good as new. No, better than new. Joan used embroidery thread, goldenrod, and it shone against his dark skin.

I spent the night touching Eve"s thigh while she lay languorous and gloriously pregnant. Her stomach had grown and I planted my metaphorical flag on it, claiming it as England claimed India, as France claimed Africa. As America claimed the moon. I planned to teach all I knew to what was inside-not about linguistics or Walt Whitman or anything else academic, but about zombie slayers and triage healing. About surviving and leading. Issues of real importance, not hi-lo pomo masturbatory bulls.h.i.t.

"Expecting" is an apt word for the state we were in. There was antic.i.p.ation in the air. The baby filled me with a sense of potential and promise, a new beginning. I planned our future: Escape from this prison and find Stein. Under his protection, secure our right to exist. "Live" happily ever after. Roll credits.

Guts was curled next to Eve and me. Our hearts were stopped; we didn"t breathe, bleed, sleep, or s.h.i.t. We ate brains for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we were a family. Where there is love, there is hope.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CAGE REMAINED motionless for days. I didn"t try to figure out why. I spent the time building alliances within the horde. Guts and I visited zombies with Joan and while she sewed up gashes and pushed eyeb.a.l.l.s back in sockets, we fingered bite sites and fluttered our hands, flapping our arms like birds. motionless for days. I didn"t try to figure out why. I spent the time building alliances within the horde. Guts and I visited zombies with Joan and while she sewed up gashes and pushed eyeb.a.l.l.s back in sockets, we fingered bite sites and fluttered our hands, flapping our arms like birds.

"Bird" as a symbol of freedom is a preverbal Jungian archetype; it"s ingrained in human consciousness. Think Lynyrd Skynyrd"s "Freebird" the American eagle soaring high and "free as a bird" think Maya Angelou"s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, even Poe"s oppressive raven; think the phoenix rising from the ashes. even Poe"s oppressive raven; think the phoenix rising from the ashes.

Some of the more aware zombies appeared to understand that our gestures meant liberty and escape. A dim light shone in their eyes. Others were so far gone, it was useless. Probably dullards as humans as well, they were now catatonic brain-eating machines with no semblance of their former selves. Even fondling their bite sites produced only a mild reaction.

The guards were getting lazy. One day they simply herded a cow into our cage. A fat, lowing, and confused Bessie. With her long eyelashes, dewy brown eyes, and cla.s.sic cow hide-white with brown splotches-she looked like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for milk.

"Don"t have a cow," Ros said as he locked the gate behind him.

Oh, the way we fell on her. Bite sites on fire in a bovine gang bang. A revelry of blood and all those stomachs and did you know cow brains are very big? Which seems counterintuitive since there"s not much thinking going on in there. The hide was tough and the skull was strong, but Joan whipped out her trusty scissors and plunged them into the heifer"s head. All of us, fifty or sixty zombies, swarmed Bessie like ants on a corn dog, flies on s.h.i.t, bears on honey, like any cliche you can think of.

"Look at "em," Ros said. "It"s hard to believe they were once human."

"There but for the grace of G.o.d...," said Guil.

"Not to mention this a.s.sault rifle."

"G.o.d does help those who help themselves."

"Roger that."

Those fools. That aphorism"s not in the Bible: G.o.d helps those who help themselves G.o.d helps those who help themselves. Ben Franklin said it and it has since become the American creed, justification for American greed and unchecked capitalism. The Bible, on the contrary, the New Testament, more specifically, tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to feed the sick, the poor, and the hungry.

I stuck my hands into the hole Joan"s scissors made, ripped open that cow"s hide, and sank my face in. Like the frat boy I never was, I braced my hands on her horns and lifted my legs up over my head in a cowstand. My face was deep in her cranium, my forehead touching bone. I stuck my tongue out as far as it could go and licked.

It was b.e.s.t.i.a.l brainilingus and it tasted good.

When I put my feet on the ground, my tribe was watching-either in awe or stupefaction, it"s hard to tell with the zombietariat. Eve walked over and licked the blood off my face. She and Brad were holding hands.

"Moohaaah," she said. I understood her to be expressing delight at my joie de mort and I tickled her wrist in return.

Turning my attention back to the cow, I motioned for Brad to grab hold of one side of the skull. I took the other and together we pulled at the bones. Others joined in-those who had been bandaged by Joan: a man in overalls, a woman in a summer dress, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker-and soon we were pulling as a team, a machine, a giant zombie nutcracker.