I, Zombie

The speaker gurgled with wet sounds. Something was adjusted. The doctors leaned close as if they heard a whisper. Darnell could only hear her pleading screams in her head and the amplified, bodily noises her thrashing made.

HELP HELP HELP.

There came a trickle of tears from her exertion. Wrinkles faded as eyes widened. And Darnell felt the strangeness of a connection, of a person reacting to her thoughts, the thrill of communication. Her chest and neck felt sore from trying so hard to scream, it coming out no more than a hissing whisper. But it was enough. The cord was extracted. The doctor stood. Equipment was gathered, and once again, Darnell was left alone for what felt an eternity.

••••

They returned with a roll of paper, a gently curving line etched down the middle, nearly flat, something from one of their useless machines. It was just paper, now, something to write on. That’s all it would ever be.

With a fat black marker, the same kind they’d used to draw on her flesh before cutting it, something was written:

1 for Yes. 2 for No.

Darnell felt a flush of hope. The wire slid back into her mouth, as welcome as that suction tube from the dentist. More writing.

Can you read this?

Darnell tried to blink, but couldn’t. She screamed YES in her mind, felt like she could hear it in her cheeks. She yelled ONE. She yelled YES YES YES, and heard mostly gurgles. The doctor seemed agitated, anxious. Darnell worried she should have only tried yelling a single word. Maybe that’s what they were after. A length of paper was torn off. The doctor tried tossing it to the side, but it stuck to her rubber gloves. One of the men helped her. She pressed the marker back to the roll with that gentle, wavy line.

Is there anyone in there?

Darnell imagined taking a deep breath. It was more a pause of thought. She gathered her will, all her imagined strength, and tried to force it out all at once, to erupt in a mighty roar, all the screams she’d ever felt inside while sitting in her tub, clutching her shins, trying not to let Lewis hear her cry:

YEEEEESSSSS

There was a moment of stillness, a place that heartbeats used to fill. The other doctors came into view as they crowded around, as they bent over to peer at her. The marker squeaked against the glossy paper.

We want to help you.

Darnell felt a wave of anger rather than relief. Parts of her were missing, were sitting in plastic tubs and containers. Her wounds, the damage to her flesh, could still be felt. She felt exhausted from the effort of crying out. Her chest was empty in more ways than one. She was exhausted from the long death she was suffering, but Darnell summoned the last of her will.

KILL! she yelled, sensing that these people could hear, that the screams in her head were quiet words that leaked out their box and into the room; they emanated like some pale echo deep in her throat.

KILL ME! DIE DIE DIE DIE!

Like the gulls by the pier while Lewis cleaned fish:

DIE DIE DIE DIE!

The birds floating on the air, swooping for scraps, for flesh torn mindlessly from bone:

KILL KILL KILL KILL!

The doctor straightened. Darnell collapsed within herself, her consciousness drained, the animal within her taking over her limbs again, writhing against the bonds while doctors in puffy suits stood around, lips moving, conferring.

They were going to help her, she thought. Darnell had done it. She had made a connection, had reached out to another human being and made contact. She sobbed without moving, cried without shedding a tear. And when the paper appeared above her with the simple question: You wish you were dead? she could do little more than emit a soft gurgle, a dry croak, a whisper from her sturdy tomb.

The room fell deathly quiet. The cord was removed from her throat, the speaker scratching the table as it was pulled away, the little wires and itchy cups pulled from her skin, and Darnell thought they were going to do it, right then, somehow. She prayed they would bring mercy on her, that they would bring mercy upon them all.

47 • Lewis Lippman

A gray dawn broke over the destroyed encampment. Falling from the sky was what Kyle liked to call a “fighting snow.” It was those fat flakes that came down the size of silver dollars and laden with moisture. Lewis had seen them get palm-sized back home, even as big around as dinner plates. When a few inches of these flakes gathered, you could scoop up a snowball in your hand, give it a squeeze, and hurl away. With enough work, you could compress it down to a ball of ice that’d leave a bruise or dent a car.