The Zombies Of Lake Woebegotten (27 page)

“I do,” she said. “It’s important.”

“But, ah, that is…” Daniel couldn’t think of a way out. Julie had obviously decided to confess her sinful lifestyle, which was probably good for the soul though no one really needed to hear a thing like that, it was better left between her and God, but the more pressing problem for Daniel was that confessing her sin might mean mentioning
him
, and that wouldn’t do good things for his standing in the community. And he felt, sinfulness aside, he could still do the people of Lake Woebegotten good. If nothing else he was a small moderating influence on Father Edsel’s apocalyptic furor. “I’m not so sure…”

“Spit it out, Pastor,” Edsel said, mopping up the last of his hotdish juice with one of those heat-and-serve dinner rolls that in Daniel’s opinion tasted better than fresh homemade bread.
 

“Ah, I seem to recall your grandfather telling me the basement was… flooded. And that there was a rat problem.”

“I wouldn’t worry about… rats, Pastor,” Julie said, giving him one of those maddening half-smiles that could have meant anything at all. “It’s quite nice down there. Except for… well. You’ll see. Come along.” She stood up from the table, lit a lantern, opened the wooden door to the basement, and descended the stairs. Daniel could imagine the glint and gleam of bits of metal and shiny leather in that lantern-light. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then stood and followed the others downstairs. Might as well face his fate like a man then.
 

The nice thing about having an affair—no, not an affair, he’d never slept with her, it was an
arrangement—
with Julie was that it both satisfied his desire for sexual release (even if it was all technically self-gratification, doing it in front of her made it so much better) and assuaged his guilt over such improper behavior, since beforehand she hit him with switches and called him a dirty little bitch and made him lick her boots and otherwise compelled pre-emptive penance.

He kept his eyes forward as he descended the stairs, not looking down, not wanting to see the reaction of his fellow council members when they saw Julie’s dungeon, but he did think they were awfully quiet—Edsel at least should have been shouting about something or other—so he risked a peek. Julie was lighting other lanterns around the room… and none of her, ah, equipment was in sight. There were lots of things pushed to the edges of the walls and covered with heavy painter’s dropcloths—including the tall round-topped thing in the far corner that must be some kind of cage or even, shudder to think, an iron maiden—and she’d moved a ratty old orange couch and a coffee table scattered with magazines down here. Daniel’s heart started beating normally again, and he felt like he’d just had a narrow escape, sort of like when you successfully pretend you’ve already tried the lutefisk at Christmas time and manage to avoid being given a second helping, which would really have been the first helping, which would really be one helping too many.
 

“What’s all this?” Eileen said, gesturing at the draped shapes by the walls. “Antique furniture?” Daniel resisted the urge to shout “It’s nothing!” because, well, that would probably get him funny looks at best and provoke further inquiries at worst.
 

“Just grandpa’s old junk,” Julie said. “This is what I want to show you.” She went to the far corner, to that tall drape-covered thing, and Daniel thought,
I’ll finally see it
, though he was worried it was going to be something
really
hinky, or kinky, or however you said it.

Julie pulled the dropcloth down, revealing the object beneath.

Everyone was silent, except for Mr. Torkelson, who whistled.

Father Edsel finally spoke, and he said, “Where’d you get the cage?”

It was awfully dim in there, but Daniel though Julie was maybe blushing herself a bit. “You’d have to ask grandpa. It was down here when I moved in.”

“Okay, then,” Stevie Ray said. “Then where’d you get the
zombie
?”

That interested Daniel a little more, too. The object in the corner was a human-sized cage with a circular base and iron bars curving upward into a domed top like a birdcage, and the cage door was closed with a big padlock. Inside a zombie stood swaying, dressed in rags, bound at the wrists and ankles, gagged, and with a blindfold tied around its eyes.

“Found it wandering in the yard a while back. I figure it’s one of the bus crash zombies, must have gotten separated from the pack of them somehow. I’ve been studying it.”

A while back?
Daniel thought. He and Julie had been down here, in this basement, doing… all sorts of things… and all the time there’d been a zombie in the corner? He shuddered.

“Probably a law against keeping dead bodies in your basement,” Stevie Ray said. “But I guess I can let it slide.” He shook his head. “Damn dangerous, though.”

“I thought it was important,” Julie said.

“Studying it. Interesting.” Edsel paced before the cage, arms clasped behind his back. “And when I say ‘interesting’ I don’t mean it in the conventional Minnesotan sense of bad, disturbing, or in poor taste. I mean… interesting. You’ve brought us here to share your results?”

Julie nodded. “I have. This zombie has been in my care for some months now, and it’s just as lively as it was when I first caught it, even though it hasn’t had anything to eat. It
is
decomposing, though not as fast as a corpse should, nowhere close, even considering how cold it’s been. I’d sort of hoped all the zombies would just rot away if they didn’t feed, but whatever they’re subsisting on… it’s not food. And maybe they will rot away, but not quick enough to do us any good. And by ‘us’ I mean humanity in general, I guess. The dead outnumber the living—”

“No they don’t,” Eileen said promptly. “The number of people alive on Earth today are more than all the people who ever lived before. Because of the baby boom. Population growth. Like that. I read it on the internet.”

Eileen looked terribly pleased with herself, but Julie just shook her head minutely and said, “No, that’s just one of those bits of nonsense that gets spread around because it sounds good, even though there’s not a bit of truth in it. The best estimate of the number of people born on Earth, from the time we first became recognizably human to now, is around one hundred and six billion. Since the total population is a bit over six billion—well, a lot less than that now, I’d say, all things considered—the living only equal about six percent of the dead. In other words, the dead outnumber the living about seventeen to one.” She shook her head. “Those are pretty bad odds in any war. On the bright side, we’re not contending against all the dead who’ve ever lived. To become a zombie, it looks like you’ve got to have a brain in your head, and since corpses rot pretty fast, the vast majority of the planet’s dead are nothing but dust now. We only have to worry about the freshly dead. What I wonder about… is the dead in their graves.”

“I said cremation was the way to go,” Edsel said darkly.

“What do you mean?” Daniel asked.

“The embalmed dead, you mean,” Eileen said, getting a nod of approval from Julie. “Huh. Were any of the bodies that got up in the Mathison Brothers Funeral Home embalmed?”

“They were,” Stevie Ray said. “Huh. Wish one of the brothers was still around to tell me how long the brains stay intact in an embalmed body.” He frowned. “And how long people have been embalming bodies. And, oh Lord, and how many embalmed bodies with embalmed brains are buried in the ground in the three, no, four cemeteries in and around town.”

“You think the dead will rise from their
graves
?” Edsel said, with that wild-eyed prophet look on his face. “And seek to kill the living?”

“It occurred to me this morning,” Julie said. “When I stepped out my front door and my boot squelched down in muddy dirt instead of thumping down on frozen dirt. The ground is thawing. It might be a good idea for us to dig up a couple of graves—from five years ago, ten, fifteen, twenty—and see what we find. Figure out how many graves might be holding things that are hungry. The ground’s going soft, and the zombies are
strong
, and tenacious. I don’t necessarily expect the lawns to start sprouting zombies like wildflowers, but… it’s a concern, wouldn’t you think?”

“You did right to bring this to our attention,” Stevie Ray said, “but why did you need to bring us down
here
?”

“To show you something else I figured out. About how the zombies hunt. See how he’s trying to get at us?” The zombie in the cage was pressed against the bars, thumping its head against them, trying to reach out with manacled hands.
 

“Sure,” Daniel said, wanting to contribute something.

“But it can’t see—it’s blindfolded. So if it’s not hunting by sight…”

“Maybe by sound?” Edsel said, thoughtfully.

“Let’s see,” Julie said, and unlocked the cage. Everyone else stepped back, Stevie Ray going for his gun, but Julie said, “No, it’s okay, he’s restrained.” The zombie lurched out at her, tripped, and fell—but the chain around its neck caught it short, so it sort of leaned out, legs tangled, in a position that would have strangled something that had to breathe. Julie picked up a pair of bulky earmuff-looking things from one of the covered tables. “Noise-canceling headphones,” she said, and slipped them over the zombie’s head. “Now it can’t hear anything. But watch.” She stepped back to the others, and the zombie found its feet—and lurched for them, the chain jerking it up short again.

“Smell?” Edsel said, and something in his tone was utterly abhorrent to Daniel—like he was
enjoying
this.

“Smelling salts,” Julie said, taking a caplet from her pocket. “When this hits your nose, you can’t smell
anything
else.” She cracked one under the zombie’s nostrils, releasing a pungent odor that made Daniel’s eyes water even a few feet away… and the zombie didn’t react at all, but just kept trying to get at Julie, its toothless mouth doing its best to open and close ceaselessly over the rubber gag, but its best wasn’t much good, so it was more like a lip quiver, really.
 

Julie turned to face the others, spreading out her hands. “It’s not smell, or sight, or hearing, or even tasting the air like a snake, not with that gag in. So how is it sensing us?”

“Touch? Minute changes in air currents and pressure from our presence?” Edsel said.

“Possible, and hard to test.” Julie went to the table and picked up a yardstick with a hunting knife lashed to the end with duct tape. “But it doesn’t seem to respond to touch much otherwise—” She suddenly jabbed the zombie in the ribs with the improvised spear, and it didn’t react particularly at all. “And they can track us even outside, when changes in the air wouldn’t be noticeable. Look, let’s move across the basement.” Julie herded them to the far side of the big basement, then led them on a slow walk around the perimeter… and the zombie followed their progress, straining at the end of its chain, pointed toward them as unerringly as a magnet drawn to metal.
 

“It’s using some other sense,” she said quietly. “I’m almost certain. It can somehow sense
life
. Look, Stevie Ray, Mr. Torkelson, Father Edsel, Eileen, you walk over there—Daniel and I will stay here.” She pointed, and the four of them went to the other side of the basement. This time, the zombie followed them, ignoring Daniel and Julie. “It always goes for the bigger life form, or the more numerous lives. I brought my grandfather’s cat down here—the cat wasn’t happy about that, by the way—and, when I was at the top of the stairs, the zombie tried to get at the cat. But as soon as I came within a couple dozen yards, the zombie immediately tried to come after me instead. I think the zombies are biotropic.”

“Whatever that means,” Eileen muttered, glaring around at the world in general.

“Drawn to life,” Father Edsel said. “So all those people crammed together at Ingvar’s…”

“Moths to a flame,” Julie said. “Man-eating moths. Or flame-eating moths. And the flames are humans. Sorry. The comparison doesn’t really work. But, yes: they seek out life. Knowing that, it seems to me, has certain implications for our security.”

“I should post a lookout on top of the granary tower,” Stevie Ray said. “Because this town still has several hundred inhabitants, and if there are hordes of zombies roaming the prairie looking for life and destroying it as they go, they’re sure to find us eventually.”

“I’ve been thinking about perimeter defenses,” Julie said. “Trenches. Walls. Guards. If we’re going to make Lake Woebegotten a green zone, we’ll need to protect ourselves from the outside. And we need to think long and hard before we have any big all-town meetings in the future, knowing that kind of group is catnip to zombies.” She glanced at Eileen. “If that sounds all right with the mayor.”

“Stevie Ray’s our head of security,” Eileen said, voice dripping sugary venom. “If he sees merit in your plans, I’ll certainly support them.”

Edsel clapped Daniel on the back, almost hard enough to send him sprawling. “Shall we round up the boys?” he said. “We’ve got bodies to dig up and ditches to dig and lookouts to post.” He took a deep breath. “I love springtime. You can finally get out and
do
things again.”

3. Bear Shi(r)t

B
igHorn Jim grew weary of waiting for the bear to awaken, and didn’t find any
draugr
to dispatch—he entirely missed the battle of the bus crash zombies, which was more disappointing than getting to a potluck supper and finding out there was nothing left but a dish of lutefisk and some burned lefse—so he decided to take matters into his own hands. He dressed himself in his best warrior garb, including a good pair of insulated boots, a leather football helmet—no horns, this wasn’t for show—and the wolfskin cape he’d bought off the internet back when there was such a thing, even though he had his doubts about the actual wolfiness of the pelt, which seemed more beaverish to him if he was being completely honest. Then he took the genuine reproduction
breið-øx
—a battleaxe with a crescent-shaped blade about 18 inches long and a three-foot-long wooden handle—and strapped it to his back. He’d found the axesmith on the internet, too, a guy who specialized in making weapons for Renaissance Faire melees, though Jim had sharpened the blade into a razor edge himself. The axe hadn’t been cheap. It had cost him the last of his settlement money from the accident at the light bulb factory, where he’d worked before his near-death and subsequent conversion to Norse fundamentalism. He’d completely given up light bulbs after leaving the factory. It was all firelight for him after that.