Mr. Elkins and the Zombies of Elbert County (5 page)

“How long do think it’ll be?” Bertrand finally asked.

“Hard to say,” I replied. “It may be a while.”

“Are you sure they’re coming?”

“Well, they didn’t exactly RSVP us, Bertrand.”

Long minutes passed. The pensiveness settled into dulled frustration. Feet shuffled and shoulders slumped. Ms. Elkins checked her watch and scribbled some notes. Then her associate, Mr. Fitch turned to me.

“Mr. Bell, while we’re waiting, do you mind if I ask you few questions?” he asked softly.

The wind shifted. Down by the driveway, I noticed Seth stand up, with a focused gaze.

“Not just now, Mr. Fitch…” I said, stepping up to the railing and staring intently out into the darkness.

The first one was a large man, his flesh hanging in folds under his tuxedo shirt, his black bow tie askew. One side of his face drooped off, revealing his teeth and jawbone and a glint of a gold crown. He fumbled along, as if the certainty with which he had lived his life and organized the lives of those around him was a glimmer ahead of him. I heard one of the deputies unholstering his gun.

“Holy Jesus,” someone muttered.

“Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh…” muttered Felix as he stepped back, to glue himself against the wall of the house. I stole a glance at Bertrand, who took in the scene with a mixture of grisly fascination and the gravity that he was really looking at the walking dead. One hand behind his back twitched nervously.

The zombie paused, though not to look around. He stood there for what seemed like minutes, although I’m sure it was mere seconds. It was as if, confronted with the lights and onlookers, he stood like one of those mountain climbers methodically, painfully ascending Mt. Everest, gathering the resolve to continue. Then he did.

Another emerged from the darkness. A small black man with close-cropped gray hair. One cataract-glazed eye looked vaguely ahead, the other was rolled back in its socket. His once bright plaid shirt was torn at the shoulder and one suspender hung at his side.

Francine quickly turned and rushed into the house, hand to her mouth. She’d barely made it to the sink in time.

“P-P-Poppa?” stuttered Ms. Elkins. Her notepad dropped to the porch deck. She steadied herself on the railing, and stepped sideways slowly down the stairs to the lawn. All eyes darted back and forth between the two, incredulous at the possibility. “P-Poppa?” she repeated, hands tentatively reaching out and pulling back.

Just then, the deceased father halted, the cuff of his pant leg caught on a garden stake. He did not look down, as he would’ve done in his living years, to see what impeded him. He simply stood there, futilely attempting to move his leg forward.

Ms. Elkins looked horrorstruck at her deceased father’s dilemma, and began to move toward him. The large gentleman in the tuxedo, still leading the way, passed by her and she stepped back with downcast eyes, shaking visibly. Seth and the sheriff and his men all edged back from the driveway as the zombie shuffled past, and began to make his way up the driveway toward the news trucks. You could hear urgent voices, and the sounds of the equipment being jostled into position.

Suddenly, the lights went out, all of them—the lights from news trucks, the ones in the house, even the porch light. The sheriff and his men pulled out their flashlights, but not a one lit. A shudder of panic gripped everyone. We were suddenly blind in the immediate darkness. An eerie silence enveloped us all. Only moonlight showed what happened next.

Ms. Elkins looked back up at her dead father, still tethered by the garden stake. She walked with small slow steps out to within a few feet on his left and stood there, gazing at him softly, hands clasped to her quivering lips. Then, she stepped forward, knelt down at his feet, and, with trembling fingers, gently unhooked his cuff. The leg moved forward, and the small man took a step, then stopped. He seemed to sense the presence kneeling behind him, and I half expected him to turn to face his daughter, to help her to her feet and smile. But Death’s sleep had stilled his mind, leaving him with the barest recognition that some narrow shaft of light had penetrated his gloom. At long last, he moved on. His daughter remained kneeling, looking up at her father walking away from her for just the second time in her life. He shuffled to the bottom of the driveway and one of the deputies bowed his head. Sheriff Reynolds seemed to stand taller, as if out of respect for a fallen comrade. The former Mr. Elkins worked his way up the gravel driveway, into the silent waiting onlookers and kept going.

All was still, and only the sound of crickets marked time.

I walked down to where Ms. Elkins remained kneeling and placed my hand on her shoulder. She reached up to place her hand on mine. Again, that feeling came to all of us that the show was over. The sheriff and his deputies turned and walked solemnly up the driveway, followed by Bertrand, his hand still twitching, and a bit behind him, a mumbling Felix. Francine Rakus, I assume, had already left the house. Only Mr. Fitch stayed on the porch, eyes cast down, as if in prayer.

I’m not sure how long we stayed there, but the time passed easier than one might imagine. Finally, Ms. Elkins stood up and faced me.

“Where do they go?” she asked quietly. I just shook my head.

“I have to go help him find a new resting place.”

“I know,” I said. “Would you like one of us to accompany you?”

“No. Thank you, I’ll be okay.” And she looked off in the direction her father had taken, then set off.

I gazed slowly out over the moonlit field, then turned to Seth. From out on the street came the sound of cars and trucks starting up and patiently pulling out. I walked over to Seth and together we walked up the porch steps where Mr. Fitch still had his head bowed.

“Stay as long as you like, Mr. Fitch. We have a guest room if you care to spend the night.”

He raised his eyes to look at me. “Thank you, Mr. Bell, but I’ll be going.” He bent down to pick up Ms. Ellis’s notepad and started to leave, stopped and looked back. “God bless you.” Then he turned and walked away.

* * *

There never was a news report about the zombies that came to us through the night. Not in the papers, the radio, nor the TV. No cameras recorded any image, not even of the interview I’d given the previous morning. No tapes recorded any voice or any sound but crickets and the chittering of the dry cottonwood leaves on the night breeze. I suppose each in his or her own mind wondered what happened that night—had they imagined it or had the dead actually walked before them. Had a daughter really come to her dead father’s aid? And what was that feeling that we were left with that somehow seemed to replace all of the questions one assumes would need answering after such an event.

The next morning, Michael came down to the breakfast table and asked earnestly about the previous night’s happenings. He and his sister had fallen asleep by the time the lights went out, Cecelia in her mother’s lap in a rocking chair and Michael with his head buried under his tear-soaked pillow.

“Folks left without having seen what they came for,” was all I said, and he somehow accepted my answer. Cecelia came in, asked nothing, poured herself a bowl of cereal and ate contentedly. She wouldn’t find out until Monday when she walked into her new classroom that Ms. Peevey had gone back to Iowa to tend to her ailing parents, and that Mrs. Wheeler, a retired teacher, had stepped in to finish the year with the children. At parent-teacher conferences, Mrs. Wheeler told us she found Cecelia engaging and creative, and when we asked if there was still any teasing going on, she said nothing that first graders couldn’t handle.

“You know kids,” she assured us. “They play, they fight, they shed a few tears. Then they go back to playing as if nothing ever happened.”

We did receive a “Thank You” card from Patti Elkins, telling us that she had helped her father find a second final resting place. We didn’t share it with the two younger ones. After reading the card, a weight seemed to lift off of Ruth’s shoulders, and she seemed eager to get on with making her preserves.

* * *

One Saturday morning next February, I was filling up at the Loaf ’N Jug when Dwight Yarson drove up. When he saw me, he immediately walked over.

“Heard the sheriff and his men came out to your place. You know, I called them. Offered to help out, too, you know, for backup. Sam reckoned he and his men could handle it. I guess they took care of those…you know…”he looked around and lowered his voice, “those zombies for ya.”

I just smiled and nodded. I spied a mule deer in the back of his truck.

“Four pointer?” I asked.

“Five,” he corrected me. “Gonna do it up for the Wilsons. Yup, he’ll make a handsome mount.”

I considered the two fates—Mr. Elkins searching for his second final resting place or this soon-to-be-lazy-eyed buck mounted in the Wilson’s den. I think I would’ve chosen Mr. Elkins’.