I, Zombie

Jeffery felt the pull of those towers, that place, that zero ground, that wharf where his old man wrapped lines around bollards and greeted passengers while the captain stood on the deck smoking cigarettes. He felt the pull of those towers, a Pylon full of life pointing toward the heavens, one full of despair driving deep into the earth.

He had spent hours looking at that picture, but he had never seen them with his own eyes.

A block away, as he leaned south, guiding his limbs like water around a pier, he heard the sounds of a fight, the familiar pops of gunfire that used to mean grabbing your helmet and running off to kill someone. Sounds that now meant there were still people alive and able to put up a fight. Jeffery could smell living meat and fresh fear in the direction of the gunfire. Most of the tottering undead around him angled that way, picking up the pace, pushing deeper into the heart of the financial district.

But not Jeffery. He leaned on the walls of the hollow thing he’d become, this walking fist of hunger, this shell grown exhausted from not sleeping. He steered toward the unfinished skyscraper standing in the empty space where two other towers once stood, an incomplete boy trying to stand proud now that its parents were gone. He saw Winter Garden, a glass dome his father had described in whispers, these landmarks a simple walk from his home, but he had never taken the time to visit. All within reach, a long walk, that place where those towers stood, those Pylons near where his father worked, but he had never taken the time to visit. Not even back when he could.

29 • Jeffery Biggers

Jeffery knew from watching unfortunate others that he didn’t have long. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? He’d seen it go fast for neck bites. Seen it take almost an hour for that big brother who’d lost a finger and had asked to be locked down with bike chains. Decisions. Damn. He had run this shit through his mind every possible way a thousand times, but it was different now with the clock tickin’, with the sickness spreading in his veins. Damn. Fifteen minutes to off himself or to crawl away somewhere safe where he wouldn’t be eaten, where he could slip off into that gazing stupor people went into until they came back as something else.

Fifteen minutes. He gazed at the smashed window he’d come through. The frustrated gurgles and hungry groans could be heard from the alley. The dumpster was still being knocked around out there. One dive back through, he thought. Give them what they want, make sure there was nothing left. Go be bones.

The kid kicked his legs on the sofa beside him, riding an imaginary bike. Jeffery looked over and watched the boy yawn, eyes puckered shut, tiny hands waving at the air. No one would ever teach him how to ride a bike. That shit was through. This kid had no idea what he’d been born into. In fact, he looked bored, like: let’s get this over with, motherfucker.

Jeffery looked around the apartment. No lurkers. Safe, not like that mattered. It was the typical wreck he’d seen the last weeks: cabinets standing open, drawers a-kilter, nothing put back in its place. The coffee table had been used as an ashtray. It smelled like the sink had been used as a toilet. The fucking world he lived in. Used to live in. How much longer?

The goddamn kid. Jeffery felt like his own father must’ve felt. A man, terrified, stuck with this kid. Shit. Shit. How do you blame a guy? A ticket out of there, and now what? Your life was over.

He felt old. Old and tired. Was this the sickness? Was this the first thing you felt when you got bit: old? All the damn stages of life, and now this one. The baby. His old man. Him—

The kid across the alley.

Jeffery sat up. Goddamit. Ten minutes left? Fuck.

He grabbed the baby and the stupid yuppie pack. The kid squealed as Jeffery pushed away from that busted sofa with its white foam guts hanging out. The ashes on the table stirred in his wake.

The door swung open, lock busted. He didn’t pause to listen for the dragging of feet, didn’t stop to sniff for that putrified smell that sometimes preceded an attack. He’d been through the building once before, and now it didn’t matter. Fuck. How long? His foot hurt like a sonofabitch, worse than anything that’d earned him those two Purple Stars. He dripped blood and limped his way up crooked stairs that could somehow still command any damn rent they wanted. Third floor. He needed the third floor.

On the landing of the second, someone banged a door shut. Another survivor. They were like rats scurrying from the sounds of each other. People living on top of people and pretending they weren’t there. Just like it’d always been. A hotel of strangers. The only sign of a neighbor the voices from their TVs seeping through ceiling and walls. Now, not even that.

Jeffery didn’t call out, didn’t ask for help. He didn’t know this person, this rat. The kid across the alley. That’s who. No one else.