Breathers (17 page)

If you've never woken up in a mortuary with a cannula inserted in your carotid artery while your face inflates like a helium balloon, then you probably wouldn't understand.

After removing the makeup with a hand towel and a bottle of 2005 Napa Valley Pahlmeyer Chardonnay, I'm wide awake and looking for something to keep me occupied. With my two options pretty much reduced to television and wine, I pick up the remote control and flip through the channels, attempting to repeat the dialogue from different programs as I work on my enunciation. But after fifteen minutes of watching
Walker
,
Texas Ranger
and
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
, I can't take any more.

I don't want to sit inside and watch the Hallmark Channel or Nickelodeon. I want to play tennis or go for a bike ride or stagger around the streets of downtown Santa Cruz. The thought of Breathers screaming and running away at the sight of me gets me laughing and before you can say
Night of the Living Dead
, I'm out the cellar door for an early morning stroll.

Walking around past two in the morning is a good way to get yourself dismembered. But staying cooped up in my parents’ wine cellar is beginning to feel more and more like a prison sentence. And after the field trip to Sigma Chi to try to retrieve Tom's arm, I'm feeling emboldened.

Still, I'm not completely brain dead. So I stick to the shadows and play homeless drunk whenever a car drives past. Sure, I'm still having to pretend I'm something other than one of the undead in order to be seen in public, but I feel exhilarated—the sense of freedom, the black sky filled with stars, the cold November air on my face. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I can almost see my own breath.

At first I start walking with no particular destination in mind. Just your average zombie out for a dead-of-the-night stroll. But then I find myself staggering along Old San Jose Road, taking the path I've worn out countless times since the accident. Except this time, rather than continuing on to the Soquel Cemetery to visit my dead wife, my destination turns out to be the abandoned granary.

Ray is awake and tending a low, glowing fire while the twins sit to his left, leaning against each other, their eyes half open and an empty mason jar nearby. Although I'd hoped they'd managed to escape the fraternity fiasco intact, I find myself relieved and almost overjoyed to see them.

“Mornin’,” says Ray, raising his right hand in a neighborly greeting that nearly gets me all choked up. Usually whenever anyone raises a hand in my direction, it's holding an expired-food projectile or a crucifix or a Taser baton.

I sit down across from the twins with a smile and a nod, happy to be out of the wine cellar and in the company of others who accept me. Even without the fire, it's warm here. Comforting. A place of refuge, free from the influence or the rules of Breathers. Even the weekly meetings at the Community Center can't offer that. After all, we're not exactly part of the community, the meetings are regulated by Breathers, and no one is going to invite us to attend the monthly Rotary Club Pot Luck.

I hadn't noticed it before, but it occurs to me that I'm hungry.

Before I can even ask, Ray gets up without a word, pulls out a jar of Resplendent Rapture and a bottle of Budweiser, opens both of them, then sets them on the ground next to me. When I reach for my pen to thank him, I realize I've left my dry erase board at home.

“Anks,” I say, the word coming out in a gravelly croak. More like a cryptic death rattle than an expression of gratitude. But the message seems to get across.

Ray looks over at me with a faint smile and nods. “Anytime.”

I dig in with my fingers, savoring the texture of the meat as I chew, aware of the taste that seems so rich and flavorful compared to anything else I've eaten in the past few months. Maybe it's the fire. Maybe it's the silence. Maybe it's the act of eating game meat from a jar using my fingers. But that sense of primal hunger I experienced the last time I was here feels stronger. More than that, it feels right.

For several minutes the four of us just sit there, the only sounds the occasional crackle and spit of the fire or the more frequent grunts of pleasure from me.

To my left, one of the twins lets out a belch and the other one giggles.

I finish consuming the contents of the jar, wiping my fingers on my jeans, and let out a long, satisfied sigh.

“That's a right pleasant sound,” says Ray, taking a pull on his beer. “It's the sound of satisfaction.”

I nod and raise my own beer in response.

“And there's nothing like a good meal and a beer to leave a man feeling satisfied,” says Ray. “Isn't that so, boys?”

Zack and Luke nod in unison.

“Of course, being satisfied can have its drawbacks,” says Ray. “You become too satisfied, too comfortable with your position, and you start to forget why you were unsatisfied in the first place.”

The twins, who were half asleep when I staggered in, are now sitting up side by side, their eyes locked on Ray, their heads bobbing to the rhythm of his words.

“Contentment breeds laziness,” says Ray. “And someone who tends toward laziness is likely to allow others to tell him what he can and can't do.”

Ray's words roll out, smooth and full of conviction, with the cadence of a sermon. He's kind of like a zombie preacher. A messiah for the undead. And Luke and Zack, sitting there bobbing their heads, are his disciples.

As I listen to Ray, I notice that my head has started to bob as well.

“You don't strike me as the lazy type, Andy,” says Ray.

I shake my head and say, “O.”

More like a groan of pleasure than a repudiation of my slothful ways. But I make my point.

“I didn't think so,” says Ray, draining the last of his beer.

Before Ray's empty bottle can touch the ground, Luke is up and handing him a full bottle, then hands one to me and returns to his brother's side, where they clink bottles and drink in unison, each a reflection of the other.

They're still kind of creepy, but in a warm and fuzzy sort of way.

“You can't afford to be lazy,” says Ray. “Satisfaction is a luxury. Contentment an extravagance. Like I always say, you can't wait around for someone to solve your problems or improve your lot. Sooner or later, you have to help yourself.”

As I listen to Ray, I can't help but think of Helen's words of encouragement and inspirational chalkboard expressions:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

I AM A SURVIVOR.

HOPE IS NOT A FOUR-LETTER WORD.

While I appreciate Helen's attempts to inspire us, to boost our morale, I think I understand what Ray's getting at. We are alone, so we need to be self-reliant. We can't be satisfied with simply surviving. And if we grow complacent, then there's nothing left to hope for.

Another one of Helen's sayings pops into my head, the one she wrote on the chalkboard near the end of the last meeting:

FIND YOUR PURPOSE.

Sitting here, listening to Ray talk, I almost believe that I can.

onight's meeting has a decidedly festive air to it, if you can use the word “festive” to describe a gathering of reanimated, partially decomposed corpses.

Our usual number has nearly doubled. Ray showed up as promised, bringing Zack and Luke with him, while Naomi, Carl, and Helen have chaperoned their own guests. The only one missing is Tom, who apparently felt too self-conscious about his mismatched arms to make an appearance.

No one else in the group knows about our attempt to get Tom's arm back. And since it hasn't been in the news, Jerry and I decided not to mention it. The three of us figured we'd make up a story about Tom going to the body salvage yard to get a new arm. It's not that uncommon for zombies to need a replacement for a lost limb and the salvage yard is zombie friendly, provided you bring a Breather and pay cash. The pickings there are pretty slim, so our story wouldn't be unbelievable. Hell, I've seen zombies with two left hands.

On the chalkboard, Helen has written WELCOME SURVIVORS, underlined and with exclamation points. All that's missing is a smiley face.

I hang out near the refreshment table, sampling pastries,
wishing I had the nerve to test out the few words I've learned to respeak. Actually, it's just two words:
Hi, Rita.
But the best I've managed to do is “I, Eeta,” which sounds more like a proclamation of hunger than a salutation, so I remain silent and satisfy myself with just watching the object of my newfound desire, who glances my way and smiles.

Tonight Rita's wearing a white turtleneck sweater with a matching white knit cap and white jeans. She looks kind of like a zombie snowflake.

The Breather liaison from the County Department of Resurrection, obviously overwhelmed by the sheer volume of zombies in proximity, stands with his back to the wall, as close to the exit as possible. To try to make him feel more at ease, I stagger up and offer the liaison a pecan tassie. He blanches until he can almost pass for one of us.

A few minutes later, he leaves.

Except for Ray coming up to say hey, none of the newcomers approach me, so I just watch everyone mill around, eating cookies and pastries and drinking punch, making small talk.

“How did you die?”

“Were you embalmed?”

“Where were you supposed to be buried?”

“Dude, are you wearing makeup?”

Jerry is standing in front of me, his hat on crooked and the crotch of his pants hanging down to his knees. Before I can come up with some kind of lame excuse to write on my dry erase board, Rita appears on my right.

“Andy's wearing makeup,” says Jerry.

“Really?” says Rita.

She turns to look at me, studying my face, her eyes dark orbs in her own pale face. I suddenly don't care about anyone else. As far as I can tell, no one else is in the room.

With her right index finger, Rita reaches up and touches
the side of my nose, pressing against my flesh and running her finger across my cheek. She holds up her finger, a thin residue of concealer and foundation on it, then puts her finger in her mouth and sucks it clean.

“Mmmmmm,” she says. “Yves Saint Laurent.”

Jerry looks at Rita, his mouth open, then closes it and looks at me. “Dude.”

“Okay,” says Helen. “If everyone would please take a seat, we can get started.”

Rita, Jerry, and I sit together. Ray sits on one side of us with his backpack while Zack and Luke sit on the other, sliding their chairs closer like sibling cats seeking warmth. I half expect them to start grooming each other.

Next to the twins on one end is Carl and his guest, a fiftyish looking woman named Leslie. She has an English accent and no visible scars, though she has a pale, bluish tint. But then, don't we all?

I don't know Leslie's story or how she and Carl met, but from the way Carl keeps fidgeting in his chair and fighting to keep a nervous smile off his lips, I swear that he's smitten with Leslie. Plus there's his lack of attitude that he usually brings to the meetings, so I know something's up.

On the other side of Ray is Naomi and a teenager named Beth, who was killed in a car accident. I'm not sure of the details, other than the fact that she took the brunt of the impact with her face.

Next to Beth sits Ian, who looks to be about my age. Ian came with Helen and that's about all I know. In the blue suit he's wearing, he looks more like a Breather than one of the undead. And he wears a lot of cologne.

“First, I'd like to welcome our newcomers,” says Helen, spreading her arms toward our enlarged semicircle of plastic chairs and animated cadavers. “I know for some of you coming
here tonight was difficult, perhaps even frightening, so I want to thank you for taking that first step and reaching out to us.”

Carl applauds, then stops when he realizes no one else is applauding and absently picks at one of his knife wounds. The rest of us, especially the regulars, just stare at him.

“Thank you for your enthusiasm, Carl,” says Helen. “Now before I get into tonight's theme, I'd like to ask everyone, newcomers and regulars alike, to share with the group your story of survival. Carl, since you seem so eager, why don't we start with you.”