Ravenous Ghosts (20 page)

The raucous laughter of youth has long been driven from the air by the ghostly smoke from the pipes of old men, who sit and grumble to themselves while watching the world outside their haven moving much too fast for their liking.

Wilder takes a seat by the grimy window and looks out at the cracked concrete parking lot, deserted but for a rusted pea-green Volkswagen with a flat tire.  With a grimace, Sam lowers himself into the seat on the opposite side of the Formica table and glances at Wilder. "So?"

Wilder raises a hand.
"Would you like something to eat?"

"
No, I told you Linda's making steaks."

"
Right. Coffee?"

"
Water."

Wilder seems content to wait on a waitress that isn
't coming.

Meanwhile Sam
's impatience is burning holes in the back of his eyes. "So?" he repeats, "what's the deal?"

"
The deal is, Sam, you're dead. You died Friday at around midday or eleven fifty-one if you want specifics while stuck in traffic on Route 32. Do you remember anything about that?"

Sam doesn
't want to think about it but feels an obligation to prove this madman wrong. When he casts his mind back, he sees himself sitting in his Oldsmobile, smoking a cigarette and swearing loudly at the driver of the Taurus who has cut him off. The heat is fierce and he is suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. The cigarette of course, isn't helping but it's the only thing keeping him relatively calm. He remembers honking his horn and…

"
Hmm."

Wilder leans forward on his elbows.
"Yes?"

"
I had a pain in my chest. Nothing special, I get them all the time."

"
Do you get them now?"

Sam hasn
't realized it until now but…he
hasn't
suffered chest pains in a while.

"
Do you even smoke now?"

Sam shrugs.
"The chest pains were particularly bad that day. I thought it might be a heart attack and vowed to quit smoking if it turned out to be nothing. It was nothing so I didn't smoke again."

Wilder gives a slight sad shake of his head.
"I'm afraid it wasn't nothing, Sam. It was a heart attack. A fatal one. The reason you don't smoke anymore is because the dead rarely feel the need."

Sam slams a hand down on the table.
"Will you stop saying that! I'm not d---"

They both watch the small fingernail skidding into the center of the table between them. Sam
's eyes widen, his gaze dropping to the little finger on his right hand.

His nail has come off, leaving a mottled indentation in its wake.

He stares at it a moment longer, mouth open, a moan sounding from somewhere deep in his throat. "That's not right," he says eventually and looks at Wilder, who doesn't seem at all surprised.

"
It is if you've passed away," Wilder responds calmly. "You shouldn't let it alarm you too much. This condition, this
reanimation
, isn't unique to you. An explosion of this type of phenomenon has appeared all over the country in the past six months."

Sam looks back at his finger, at the ugly warped space where his nail once sat.
"Phenomenon?"

Wilder looks over his shoulder and, satisfied that the old man near the counter is paying them no attention, he says in a low voice:
"We call them 'walking dead'. People who've died but for some inexplicable reason get up and walk around as if nothing happened, seemingly oblivious to their own passing."

Sam scoffs.
"That's crazy. I saw a movie like that. Zombies, staggering around a farmhouse, munching on human flesh. It made me sick. Are you trying to tell me that's what I am? A zombie?"

Wilder waves away the notion.
"I assure you, Sam. You won't find yourself strangely enamored by human flesh and although I detest the use of the word 'zombie', it is probably the closest description of what you are. Not a monster, we don't think of cases like yours as being akin to demonic resurrection, rather a sickness or a virus that leaves it's victim in a state of confusion."

"
But…" Sam continues to shake his head, waiting for the punchline so he can go home to Linda. "That's insane. I'm not dead. Dead people stay dead, don't they?"

"
They used to," Wilder says in a grave tone. "Until that meteor crashed in New Mexico. Since then it's been as you so succinctly put it 'insane'. I wish I had an explanation to offer you as to why you're sitting here listening to a stranger telling you you're dead, but I don't."

Sam
's eyes narrow. "You could be pulling some kind of con on me. How do I know you're not?"

Wilder surveys the room again.
"Put out your hand."

"
What for?"

"
Please, just do it."

Reluctantly, Sam slides his wounded hand across the table until it
's close to Wilder. Wilder reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small black cylinder.

"
What's that for?"

He hears a click and a six-inch metal blade springs from the top of the cylinder. He flinches and prepares to pull away but Wilder clamps a hand on his wrist and in an instant brings the blade down like a guillotine, severing the tops of four of his fingers, only the thumb remaining intact. The fingertips hop and scatter across the Formica.

"Oh sssshhhit!" Sam moans and inhales enough breath to power the scream barreling up his throat.

Wilder raises a finger to his lips and Sam catches the scream behind his teeth.

The old folks at the head of the diner look in their direction, shrug and go back to complaining.

"
Look," Wilder says and points at Sam's ruined fingers. "Do you see any blood?"

He
's right. Sam watches them for a moment. No blood, just dry stumps. More significant still, he feels no pain. Nothing. Not even the slightest ache.

I
'm in shock
, he tells himself but knows it not to be true.

He looks at Wilder who is busy collecting the fingertips and wrapping them in a pristine white handkerchief.
"I'm dead?"

Wilder nods.
"I'm afraid so."

Sam
's face droops and he begins to blubber, Wilder's hand suddenly appearing on his shoulder. "I'm here to help you Sam."

Sam looks up; eyes dry because there are no tears available.
"This
sucks
."

* * *

"What happens now?"

They are standing outside Sam
's house, Wilder looking the picture of dignity, Sam looking dejected, shoulders hunched and head low.

"
A car will come for you at dawn. There's no need to pack, anything you might need will be provided for you at the clinic."

"
Clinic?"

"
Yes, consider it a rest home for the undead. You'll be taken care of there."

Sam frowns.
"What will happen to me?"

"
We'll monitor the progress of your…decomposition and do our best to compensate for it. You'll be made to feel at home."

"
You mean I'll…rot?" Sam asks, his voice brittle.

Wilder nods solemnly.
"As all dead folk do. The only consolation is you won't feel it. There will be no pain whatsoever and you'll be doing science a favor."

"
How?"

"
By studying your post mortem brain functions, we can try to determine the cause of this most peculiar phenomenon and perhaps attempt to find a cure."

"
What do I tell Linda?"

Wilder looks at the house and back to Sam.
"As little as possible. If you were to stay with her, she'd be forced to watch bits and pieces of you dropping off until you were nothing but a talking skeleton. That would be a hell of a lot more traumatic for her than your sudden 'disappearance' don't you think?"

"
I guess."

"
I guarantee it would."

Sam shuffles toward the steps leading to his front door. He stops, turns.

"What happens when the study is over?"

But Wilder is already walking away.

* *
*

At the dinner table, Sam finds himself completely repelled by the sight of the bloody sirloin swimming in his plate and turning his potatoes a dark maroon. The longer he looks at it the less human he feels.

But I
'm not human, am I? According to Wilder, I'm a zombie
.

The thought makes his undead stomach turn.

As he scrapes his chair back from the table, Linda fixes him with a puzzled look. "Something wrong with the meat?"

"
Uh…" Sam begins, struggling to think of a convincing excuse. "No, it looks delicious. I'm just not feeling very well this evening."

"
What happened to your fingers?" she asks, pointing at his bandaged fist.

"
I…"

"
What have you been up to Samuel? You have that look in your eyes that tells me you've been up to something."

"
Nothing. Some idiot at the diner slammed the door on my hand. It was an accident."

"
What were you doing at the diner?"

"
What?"

"
You never go there anymore. Why today?"

"
Just felt like it, that's all. Jesus, what's with the third degree? I can't go for a coffee anymore?"

"
We have plenty of coffee here."

"
So I wanted to get out of the house for a while, okay?"

She levels him with a gaze brimful of suspicion.
"I see. So you go to a diner you haven't been to in years, hurt your hand and now you won't eat your dinner. Would you not be at least a little suspicious?"

Sam shrugs.

Linda clasps her hands beneath her chin. "Who was that man today?"

"
What man?"

"
The one you were talking to outside."

"
Nobody."

"
He certainly seemed to upset you."

Sam looks at her, incredulous.
"You were listening?"

"
I thought it might be important."

"
It was nothing. Life insurance."

"
I see." Linda says, but it is clear she doesn't buy into his stuttered explanation. She recommences her assault on the meat before her; filling her mouth with the almost raw sirloin, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Sam looks away in disgust.

"
I'm off to Bingo in about a half hour. Want me to stick your dinner in the oven until you feel up to it?" she asks when she's finished.

A butterfly of panic flutters against Sam
's chest. "Bingo? Tonight? Do you have to go? I thought…"

She gets up from the table.
"Thought what?"

He shrugs, defeated and gets to his feet, wincing inwardly at the crack of his knees as he does so.
"Nothing. I…maybe you can skip it just for tonight, eh? We'll have a quiet night at home."

"
I never miss Bingo," Linda says, frowning.

"
Well, one night wouldn't kill you would it?"

"
Just what is wrong with you, Sam? You look like death warmed over. Is something the matter?"

Wilder
's voice fills his head like Muzak on an elevator descending into the darkness:
If you were to stay with her, she'd be forced to watch bits and pieces of you dropping off until you were nothing but a talking skeleton. That would be a hell of a lot more traumatic for her than your sudden 'disappearance' don't you think?

"
No. Nothing wrong," he mutters and wrenches himself away from the table.

He shuffles into the dark living room, propelled forth by his wife
's exasperated sigh, and thumbs on the television. The white noise fills his head like angry wasps.

With trembling hands he slides open the cabinet beneath the television and squints to make out the titles of the videos stacked atop one another in uneven piles. At last he finds the one he
's looking for and, trying his best to ignore the gruesome pictures on the cover, he shoves the tape into the gaping maw of the VCR.

Swallowing dryly, he clicks the button on the remote and eases himself into a recliner. His bones feel like kindling as he struggles to get comfortable.