Sacred Cows: An Irreverent Zombie Novel Page 2

  My mother resorted to her soothing, no-nonsense voice. “Now simmer down, Sylvia—you’re letting your imagination run wild. You should get some rest and stop worrying about these things. My doctor said that everyone should be immunized. After all, I am in my seventies. We older folks can’t fight infection like you young people can.”

  …Run along now…

  “Mom, I know you don't believe what Omar says, but I read the inserts for myself. The Smartvac shot has toxins in it: formaldehyde, MSG, mercury, and aluminum. Not only that, but—”

  She interrupted, “Now Sylvia, calm yourself down. Don’t let your fears get the better of you.”

  “Mom—I’m trying to help you.”

  “Sweetheart, haven’t you seen the posters? They’re all over town.”

  “Of course I have—Don’t get infected: get protected—it’s a pack of lies! What if there is no Simian Influenza?”

  “Sylvia, I’m sure the American Medical Group wouldn’t lie to the public. They have to be accountable. Now I really must hang up because I have to get to the clinic. The lines are very long and I want to get back home to catch the news before dark.”

  “Mom—?”

  “I’m sorry: doctor’s orders. And by the way, your father would've wanted you to check on poor Nina. Goodbye darling.”

  Omar was out on a supply run when a heavy snowstorm swept in without warning. Hours passed and still he did not return. The house felt so empty. I was all alone. No friends, no pets, no music, just my thoughts for company. Regret nibbled away at my sanity. I should have gone with him—he did ask me to—but I just couldn’t face the cold.

  Leaning against my defunct Maytag stove, I longed for the past. If only we still had weather reports. If only there were stores and traffic and people and telephones. If only life was the way it used to be. If only Omar wasn’t stuck somewhere, freezing his butt off or possibly dead.

  But there was more to it. I was extra frazzled that day, close to tears. Something truly harrowing had happened early in the morning, and I needed to talk about it:

  Before the first snowflakes fell, I ‘d been in my upstairs bedroom when suddenly I heard a noise outside. Someone was screaming “help!” I ran to my window and peeked out. On the front porch of the house across the street I saw an old man with gray hair banging repeatedly on the door. He needed help, fast! I flew out of my bedroom, leapt down the stairs, and got to my front door just as his cries abruptly ceased. That could mean only one thing, and it wasn’t good. I looked through the peephole. The man was being torn to shreds. His blood was spattered everywhere: on the porch swing, the eaves, even on the fake palm tree beside the door.

  Dashing off a silent prayer, I scurried around the house, checking the locks. The first-floor windows were securely covered with plywood, and all of the doors were bolted. That night, praying that the cruds couldn’t sense the heat or smoke from the wood stove, I slept fully clothed. My backpack was loaded. If necessary, I was ready to flee.

  To my great relief, Omar returned at last. He got back late, guided by the light of the full Wolf moon. His wet, snowy embrace warmed me like the heat of a thousand suns. Exhausted and famished, he scarfed down two cans of chunky soup and then fell asleep for hours. When he awoke later, craving more food, we shared some pork rinds and Toasterdoodles. (Vile, yes, but all food was a Godsend now.)

  The snow finally ended the following morning, and there was at least a foot. “You were right,” Omar said, stirring non-dairy creamer into his tea. “That was one heck of a blizzard.”

  “I’m always right,” I teased. “Did you find anything?”

  “Not much. It was a waste of time.” He’d walked north to Granby, searching the hardware stores for parts to build a bicycle-powered generator.

  “Well, thanks for trying. Did you see any cruds?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s good,” I said, kneading his muscular shoulders. I picked up his winter attire and hung it by the wood stove to dry. We spent the rest of the morning talking in hushed tones and cleaning our guns. The house was as quiet as a morgue, even with both of us at home. Sometimes it was safer not to talk or even breathe audibly―and playing the piano was right out.

  Declan arrived on our doorstep shortly before dinner. He’d been trapped since December in West Hartford Center, where he owned a liquor store. There’d been too many cruds wandering among the upscale restaurants there, and he simply couldn’t get out. Fortunately for him though, there was a gourmet market next door to his shop, so he broke through the wall and weathered the crud invasion with some dignified fare.

  The long trek across Avon Mountain and up Route Ten had done nothing to slim him down. Declan looked like a younger version of Santa Claus, except that his head was wreathed in a mass of flame-red curls. But unlike jolly old Saint Nick, he was prone to depression and often fixated on his obsessions. I never knew what he and my sister Nina saw in each other, but during the course of their five-year marriage he’d been like a brother to me. After the divorce I thought I’d never see him again, but here he was in our kitchen. The good news―he’d brought two bottles of French Cabernet Sauvignon.

  I warmed a bottle of tomato sauce and boiled some pasta. Omar set the table while Declan washed his hands and face. My husband frowned at me as I prepared the spare bedroom, but we both knew that overnight guests were inevitable at the end of the world. Omar was as averse to having company as most people are to having a root canal.

  “Where’s Nina?” Declan inquired, warming his gargantuan hobbit feet on a stool by the wood stove as he twirled spaghetti around his fork.

  “No one knows,” I replied. “We had a letter from her months ago—back when there was still snail mail.”

  “Where was she when she wrote you?”

  “In Hartford. She worked at the hospital.”

  His green eyes widened. “Oh no—tell me you’re not serious. Hartford is the worst place to be!”

  “I know,” I nodded, “but there’s nothing we can do. All the roads are blocked. The phones are dead, so it’s not as if we can call her. We don’t know where Mia is either.” Both of my sisters, lost in the maelstrom…

  Declan was getting inebriated. He sat quietly for a while, plying himself with wine and spaghetti. At length he said, “You know, I was stuck all alone in my store for months on end, not knowing whether I’d live or die. Minus craic, that’s for sure. Too much time to think, especially about Nina. She was my whole life, but I have no clue why she left me. I miss her so much.” His eyes were tearing. “I just have to survive long enough to tell her that.” He sniffled, “Where is she? I really thought I’d find her here. What if she’s dead?”

  “Hopefully not,” said Omar, uncomfortable with all the emotion.

  Declan wailed, “It’s been so tough living without her. I don’t even remember why we broke up. She meant the world to me, but now I’ll never get the chance to say it.” The fact that he was repeating himself was a harbinger of tomorrow’s hangover. He drained his wine and poured himself another glass. “If only humanity wasn’t so short-sighted, we could’ve avoided this mess! We should’ve cut our greenhouse gasses! We should’ve been better global citizens!” His eyes were red and swollen. He blew his nose into his shirtsleeve.

  Omar winced and handed him a tissue. “C’mon, Declan, do you really believe all that?”

  “Of course I do,” Declan replied. “They said it on the news—global warming will kill us all. Overpopulation. Humans are like cockroaches: a plague on the Earth.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Omar thrummed his fingers on the table. “The puppet masters were champing at the bit to exterminate us, and now it looks like they’ve succeeded.” He sipped his wine. “And, as for warming, just look outside―there’s a foot of snow!” Both men glanced over at the plywood that obscured the kitchen windows.

  “Declan,” asked Omar, “do you remember what else they said on the news?”

  “No. What?”

 
“They said that a virus was here, that the Simian influenza would wipe out ninety percent of the population—worse than the 1918 flu. They said that the only way to be safe was to get vaccinated: health care workers, kids, the elderly, pregnant women… Everyone was entitled to a free shot, courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

  “Aye.” Declan had stopped crying. “So what?”

  “So, did you get your vaccination?”

  “Naw. I was going to, but I was too busy working in the liquor store.”

  Omar’s brown eyes gleamed. “And you’re alive! You aren’t one of THEM! You didn’t make the connection?”

  Declan blinked, “What connection?”

  “Didn’t you talk to anybody before everyone started dying? People who took the shot turned into something less than human; it’s obvious.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” Declan asked. “And why? Are you saying the government was to blame?”

  “It goes way beyond government,” said Omar, “but the good news is this: your ex-wife is as stubborn as a mule. If Hartford Hospital mandated the shot, she’d oppose it out of sheer cussedness. Nina does as Nina pleases.” He put his fork down and pushed his chair back.

  “Wow,” said Declan, “that makes my brain hurt.”

  Just then, I heard something in the distance: groans, rising and falling like a siren. It was a bloodthirsty mob of the Dead, of course, and it freaked me out, so I tried to make a joke. “Red, don’t say the B-word—they’ll hear you.”

  “B-word?” He looked confused.

  “Brain,” I said, rising to clear the kitchen table.

  Omar and I washed the dishes while Declan remained in his chair, staring intently at a photo of Nina. Was he telepathically willing her to come home? He was very drunk, but at least he wasn’t drooling. We banked the fire, bid him goodnight, and climbed the stairs to our room.

  I dove into bed in order to get warm as fast as possible. The heat from the two wood stoves never seemed to make it up to the second floor. Our ice-cold bedroom reminded me of the North Pole: white sheets and duvet cover, a fluffy faux polar bear rug, and yards of billowy cotton batting draped from the ceiling for extra insulation. A seven foot artificial Christmas tree in full holiday regalia graced the far corner.

  Because the upper windows of the house were not covered with plywood, moonlight streamed in through the open curtains. Omar peeked outside to check for signs of danger. Not seeing any, he closed the curtains and handed me two pairs of wool socks so my feet wouldn’t freeze in bed. He knew I’d had trouble falling asleep since January, when the electricity failed and there was no more white noise. “Hey, Sylvia—you awake?”

  “Yeah,” I said, snuggling closer. “What’s up?”

  “I was wondering what happened between Declan and Nina. Why did they break up?”

  I whispered, “It was his Save the Earth obsession. Declan would badger her to no end if she didn’t recycle. And he was always undermining her. If she bought regular laundry detergent, he’d go back and exchange it for some green brand. He even coerced her into using roll-free toilet paper, and those stupid eco-friendly mercury-filled CFL light bulbs.”

  Omar groaned, “Oh, the ‘Smartbulbs’—such an Orwellian name. When one of those things breaks in your house, you need a full HAZMAT team to clean it up.” He rolled over to face me. “Back to Declan and Nina—why did she marry the guy? She knew all that stuff when she first started dating him. She used to complain about it all the time.”

  “Yes,” I continued, “but he got even worse after a few years of marriage. Do you remember Nina’s friend Carla Jackson? A few years ago, she and her husband found out they were going to have triplets. I’m sure you read about them in the Hartford Courant—that couple who already had a set of two-year-old twins.”

  Omar snapped his fingers. “I remember that family! Everybody called them the Jackson Five. The local supermarkets were hosting diaper drives.”

  “Exactly. But get this—as soon as Declan found out about the triplets, he went to the Jacksons’ house to try and talk them into aborting. He got really adamant, to the point where he actually accused them of being socially irresponsible. He was like a raving lunatic, saying things like ‘the Earth is too crowded already.’”

  “Seriously? He did that?” Omar sounded horrified.

  “Yeah,” I sighed, “but Nina was already disgusted by that point, so she left Declan the next day.”

  Omar rolled onto his back. After a few yoga breaths he said, “Well, just about everybody's dead now. The dating options are seriously limited. Maybe she’ll take him back.”

  I shuddered, “If she’s alive, that is.”

  My husband’s inhalations slowed to a crawl and soon he was snoring away. I closed my eyes to rest them and was an inch away from sleep when I heard a screeching noise outside. I bolted upright. “Was that a car?”

  Omar jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Parting the curtains, he whispered, “I heard it, too; a car or truck going south on Hopmeadow!”

  “But the road is choked. How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered, “but we should keep a low profile. This house is too close to the main road.”

  The snow was almost gone, but Declan lingered. His presence in our home was like a migraine headache that throbbed every time I moved my neck. He gorged himself to excess, slept until noon, and mooned over photos of Nina, droning on and on about how much he missed her. This went on all day, every day. It drove Omar so crazy that he started hiding out in the bathroom under the pretense of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

  That left me in the hot seat. Declan needed to vent, and I had no choice but to be his sounding board. Listening to his lamentations hour after hour brought me to my absolute wit’s end. This man had to be kept busy. He needed something to do. So I sat down at my desk and wrote up a comprehensive list of chores to leave on his pillow. It was mostly muscle work: pumping water from the well, hauling tree branches for tinder, chopping firewood, hoeing the garden, sowing potato and onion seeds for next year’s crop. His favorite task of all was the rubbish detail. He buried most of it in the swampy patch of woods behind our house. But anything remotely recyclable was hauled back to the garage, where he built a monument that he called “Trash Mountain.” It was an Everest of metal, plastic, and cardboard. My husband went splenetic when he discovered it, but Declan had an excuse all ready and waiting: “Town ordinance: No debris in the wetlands.”

  February barreled in with murderous winds and a deceptively cheerful sun that set later and later each day. On the fourteenth, Omar surprised me with the best Valentine gift ever: a brand new Gerber Tanto knife that he’d picked up on his last foray into Granby. It was clean and razor-sharp, not covered in blood like my other blades. Upon opening it, I threw my arms around his waist and praised him for being such a bloody romantic. In return, I gave him the last coveted package of Twinkies, along with a homemade card. Poor lonely Declan looked as downcast as a whipped dog, so I handed him a six of Smithwick’s Ale and an old picture of Nina on roller skates that I’d carefully trimmed to excise one of her many ex-boyfriends.

  Dinner that night was very bland: baking powder drop biscuits and some El Cheapo beef stew. Padding into the kitchen in search of a matchbook, my husband sniffed the aromas in the air. “Smells good,” he smiled, but when his glance swept the empty cans on the countertop, his expression changed. He said resignedly, “So we’ve sunk that low...”

  I rose up on tiptoe to kiss his lips. “It is what it is, my dear; we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. It was either this or the instant ramen noodles—again.”

  We filled our bowls and all ate together by candlelight at the kitchen table, listening to the wind whipping the rosebushes. Omar’s look of revulsion dissipated after the first bite, probably due to the flavor-enhancing neurotoxin, MSG.

  “Tastes O. K. to me, Sylvia,” said Declan, sharing his six-pack of beer. “That is—I mean—it’s not terrible.”

&nb
sp; Omar popped open a bottle, took a swig, and sat back in his chair. “This meal gives me an idea,” he said. “We’re running low on food, so how about a supply run to Fitzgerald’s Market?”

  I sucked my breath in. “Uh—when?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? But we can’t go tomorrow; tomorrow is laundry day!”

  Omar’s brown eyes widened in disbelief, but he held his tongue. He knew me well. The laundry was just an excuse.

  “Fitzgerald’s? Where’s that?” asked Declan through a mouthful of stew.

  “On Hopmeadow Street,” said Omar. “But who knows—it may’ve already been ransacked. We’ll bring some empty backpacks just in case: plenty of room for whatever goodies we might find.”

  Declan bit into a biscuit. “How far away is it?”

  “Not far.”

  “Wait!” I cried. “This whole thing makes me nervous. I used to love going into town, but not anymore.”

  “Why not, Syl?” Declan ran a hand through his red hair.

  “Because the town center is where most of the cruds seem to congregate. It’s too dangerous. And I hate running into people I used to know.”

  Omar laughed, “Let me guess—they’re not very good at making conversation.”

  “I’m serious, Omar. Remember the last time we went to town? I had to put down the Simsbury High School principal and half his staff!”

  Declan raised his beer bottle. “Nina hated high school. She’d love that story!”

  “I’m sure she would,” I agreed, “but it scares the hell out of me. I’m in terrible shape. I can’t run fast without gasping for breath. I should be doing exercises, like push-ups and jumping jacks, to build up my muscles, but who has time? And what really worries me is this―what if one of us gets bitten?”

  Omar shrugged, “Blood loss, infection… It’d be a pretty gruesome death, but you know what they say: everybody’s ‘gotta go sometime.”

  “Well, maybe you can be glib about it,” I sighed, “but I want to stay close to home. I think I have post-traumatic agoraphobia.”