In Laymon's Terms

James Futch

HE ZOMBIES WERE on the move. Aimless yet relentless, they shuffled onward until one of them would trip and fall to the street. Advancing zombies then stumbled over the fallen, groaning incoherently as they writhed in a heap of soft decay.

Lyle Benning took advantage of these collapses to rest. He learned to snooze amid the slowly rocking pile of animated cadavers. It was like drifting on a gentle ocean, rotting corpses for waves. Eventually, the pile would begin to separate as the zombies, along with Benning, clambered to their feet and resumed the shuffling walk of the dead.

The masquerade was actually quite easy. He kept his facial features as emotionless as possible. With his mouth hanging slightly agape, he sporadically rolled his eyes around or crossed them. His arms hung limply at his sides. He occasionally let out a moan of agony. He shuffled about as though intoxicated. With the make-up, the disguise was complete. Benning had successfully walked undetected among the dead for a month now, maybe more. He had lost track of the time.

At first, Benning was dubious about pulling off the trick of fooling the zombies. But he soon concluded that it was only a matter of time before he was found and eaten. There were simply too many of them in the city and nowhere left to hide. So one night, he used the cosmetics in a dilapidated pharmacy to turn his face and hands the bluish green pallor that characterized some of the “fresher” zombies.

Benning had waited in the alley beside the pharmacy and when a group of the corpses walked by, he shambled forward and joined the procession. It was just that simple. And it proved that the zombies hunted by sight. They went after anything that looked alive, anything animated.

The sight of a fast moving human being had a dramatic effect on the sluggish zombies. For a bunch of dead bodies, they could move.

Two things posed a problem for Benning. First was his need to eat. So far, he had been lucky enough to periodically break away from the zombie parade to forage for food and drink. He would then either catch up with the group or wait for another. The risks were high, chief among them being eaten himself.

The second problem was tolerating his rather odious company. Nearly all the zombies he had encountered were in advanced stages of decay and they stank to high heaven. Benning had only thrown up a few times (the vomit on his shirt actually enhanced his disguise) and by now he had learned to suppress the urge.

In addition to the smells were the sights. Here was a zombie dragging most of its bowels behind it, the intestine trailing like a slimy tail from its rectum. There was one with a gaping hole in its chest, the lungs exposed and overflowing with writhing maggots. Beside him was a female zombie with what appeared to be her entire uterus swaying from her vagina like a swollen oriole’s nest.

Worst of all, he was forced to touch these hideous beings. He walked shoulder to shoulder with them. He fell down into their fetid heaps, losing himself in a tangle of rotting limbs. As he jostled and rubbed against the cold flesh, he battled revulsion, doing everything to keep from screaming. From showing emotion.

To do so would be to blow his cover. And until he got out of the city, that was his goal: to keep from blowing his cover.

The sun was hot on this particular morning. Benning wanted badly to remove his jacket, but did not dare. This was the suit he had been wearing when he descended the front steps of his girlfriend’s apartment and saw the first of the zombies. By the time he made it back up to her room, more of them were already there. That fateful morning seemed like such a long time ago, his girlfriend eaten by corpses, his old life gone forever. Now there was only horror...and survival.

He moved along with the procession, dead bodies that for reasons unknown refused to stay dead. It was this mystery that Benning pondered as they inched, moaning and groaning down the street.

He felt a shiver go through the loose cavalcade. The dead began to moan excitedly and their torpor vanished. He was pushed forward as they lurched into faster motion. He rolled his eyes forward and saw the cause for their agitation. A second later, he heard the scream.

People! Living people!

A young man and a woman were running up the street, away from the zombies. The woman appeared to be injured. She fell twice and each time the man had to double back to help her. The third time, he was too late. The first of the zombies to grab her was pulled to the ground by her struggles. It held fast to one of her ankles and sank its teeth into her calf.

The woman let out a long wail filled with the despair of the hunted.

More zombies took hold of her arms and another grabbed the remaining leg. They each began to feast hungrily on the girl’s limbs, ripping away small chunks of flesh. Blood gushed from the mouth-shaped wounds. Her companion was waging his own futile struggle with the decaying eating machines. A symphony of screams echoed off the empty buildings.

Benning was shoved forward. His feet tangled with fallen zombies and he fell face first on top of the girl. She gasped from the impact. The zombies looked up drunkenly from their feast. One of them continued to gnaw feverishly on the man’s left hand, his fingers nothing but glistening bones now.

Benning and the girl stared at each other and she felt his warmth. Her eyes widened in horrified comprehension.

“You!” she shrieked. “You—you’re alive!”

Benning did not answer. He lowered his head and sank his teeth into her throat. He bit down on her larynx and tore out the entire works, reducing her screams to a wet gargle, blood bubbling forth in a small, red fountain. Benning chewed and swallowed. It was a close call, he thought, taking another bite.

She nearly blew his cover.