Breathers (9 page)

Not all zombies suffer through the same indignities as me. A lot do. Some suffer worse. But I'm the epitome of a zombie, the poster child for the undead, lurching along, dragging one foot behind me, my face a quilt of flesh and stitches. I may as well have a sign stapled to my back that says
Abuse Me.

At the official boundary of the village, the shoulder turns into a sidewalk and stores appear along the road on either side. I stop in front of Crawford's Antiques, which is closed on Sundays. In the front window I see my reflection again, partially obscured by the curving letters of the store's name but clear enough to see what I look like, covered in discarded food, and this time I wonder what the hell I'm doing.

I don't belong here. I'm not a Breather. The world of the living no longer belongs to me, no matter how much I want it or miss it or think I can just stroll through it without consequences. And I don't want consequences. I just want to be left alone, given some space, provided the freedom to be what I choose to be and to do what I choose to do. But I'm not allowed to do that. I'm a nonhuman, soulless freak. I may as well not even exist.

I stand there staring at my reflection and realize coming here was a huge mistake. Whatever impetus has driven me this far is gone. Now I just want to get home before people start throwing something at me that will do more damage than a bucket of KFC.

Before I turn from the window to make my way back home, another reflection appears next to mine. For an instant
I freeze, stuck in a moment I wasn't expecting, with no idea what to do next. All I can think of is that I'm glad I went for a walk.

The reflection smiles at me, runs a finger across my poncho, puts her finger in her mouth, and says, “Needs more salt.”

My own reflection smiles, then turns away from me as I face Rita.

She's wearing a royal blue V-neck sweater over a black T-shirt with blue jeans and black boots. Her lips are Juicy Pink. They look like they're coated with bubble gum.

She's not wearing a scarf. Nor any gloves. The stitches across her throat and her wrists are on display, black against her pale skin for everyone to see. She looks stunning.

We smile at each other, neither of us saying anything. Rather, Rita doesn't say anything and I don't grunt or groan, but we recognize that we both came here because some intangible notion compelled us. Why both of us? Why today? It doesn't matter. What matters is that we've come this far. What matters is that we're not afraid.

Taking my right hand in her left, Rita leads me away from Crawford's and down into the village. I'm wearing a constant smile. It's like I'm on a first date that I can't believe is real. I'm nervous and excited and filled with a confidence I haven't had since before I died. I'm all that and more. But mostly I'm smiling. I glance at Rita and notice she's smiling, too.

We remain silent as we walk down the street, keeping to ourselves, doing nothing to create a scene, yet we're magnets for attention. It's like we're walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards, except we're not exactly Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Gasps of surprise and horror follow us like applause. Insults explode like flashbulbs. Someone throws a Styrofoam drink container, splattering me with root beer. Someone else throws
a jelly doughnut. Another person is on a cell phone, calling the police. In the distance I hear sirens, growing louder. Moments later, the Animal Control van comes squealing around the corner, headed our way.

This is the greatest day of my existence.

ll zombies are expected to register with the County Department of Resurrection, at which time we're issued an identification number. A license. Like the type you'd get for a dog or a cat. My license has my name, address, phone, and ID number, which is 1037. That means I'm the one-thousand-and-thirty-seventh member of the undead in Santa Cruz County to be issued a license.

Typically, the license is worn on a chain, like a dog tag, which I'm sure is an insult to military personnel and dogs alike. Some zombies wear ID bracelets, while other, more anarchist zombies refuse to wear an ID tag. After all, in addition to providing a convenient way for zombies to be identified and returned to their homes, the ID tag helps to track troublemakers. Not every zombie wants to be found. Not every zombie has a home to return to. Not every zombie has parents as understanding as mine.

“Two hundred dollars!” my father shouts from behind the steering wheel as he drives my mother and me home, his face red with rage. “Two hundred dollars!”

That's how much it cost to bail me out of the SPCA.

My initial trip to the shelter was a freebie, since I'd reanimated
without my parents’ knowledge. Any subsequent visits, however, require a fine to help pay for my accommodations and for the Animal Control shuttle. Tip and tax included.

“Do you have any idea how much you embarrassed me today?” says my father, looking at me in the rearview mirror as he pulls to a stop at the signal. “Did you think about that before you left the house?”

“I don't think he meant to embarrass us, Harry,” says my mother, turning to look at me from the front passenger seat, smiling like June Cleaver. “Did you, honey?”

To be honest, I don't know the answer. Maybe some part of me did want to embarrass my father. Ever since I've come home he's done nothing but denounce me. He's offered no support. No sympathy. No parental love. Maybe I'm like the ignored child who screams for attention, only instead of screaming I get captured by Animal Control and thrown into a cage at the SPCA.

I almost nod in response to my mother's question, then I shake my head and smile. There must be something unsettling or mischievous about my smile because my mother's own smile falters, then becomes strained before she turns her attention to the traffic crossing the intersection ahead of us.

In the car next to us, a young boy is staring at me through the back window, his eyes wide and his mouth open. I stick my tongue out at him and he starts to scream.

“Just what the hell were you doing in the village, anyway?” asks my father as he accelerates through the green light.

My dry erase board is on the seat next to me. I put it on my lap, pull out the black marker, and write
Taking a walk
, then pick up the board and turn it toward my parents.

“Taking a walk?” says my father. “You can't just take a walk whenever you want. On Sunday, of all days. Jesus Christ, it stinks in here.”

“Harry, don't be so hard on him,” says my mother. “He's had a rough day.”

“I don't care,” says my father, rolling down the window. “That doesn't give him the right to go gallivanting all over town and costing us money. Not unless he wants to get shipped off to a research facility.”

My father's been threatening to get rid of me ever since I came home.

“Maybe he was just bored,” says my mother. “After all, he spends most of his time cooped up in t he wine cellar watching television. I'd get bored, too.”

“Too bad,” says my father. “He has a place in society and he better learn to accept it if he wants to continue to stay in my house.”

More often than not, my parents discuss me as if I were in another room. But today it doesn't frustrate me or make me want to wave my good arm and shriek. I'm still feeling high from the rush of getting snared with Rita while being assaulted with obscenities and disparaging remarks. I can still hear Rita's laughter as we were loaded into the Animal Control van. The laughter wasn't nervous or contemptuous, but full and free—the way someone would laugh on a roller coaster when they forgot their fear and realized it was much more fun to enjoy the ride.

At the SPCA, Rita and I were given separate holding cages across from one another. Kind of like Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison in the original
Planet of the Apes.
As we stood at the front of our cages, holding on to the bars with our faces pressed against the metal, both of us smiling and not saying a word, I half expected a uniformed gorilla to walk past and beat us back into our cages.

Rita's mother came to get her not long after we arrived. Before she left, Rita came over to my cage and asked me if I
was okay. I nodded and gave her a thumb up. Then she motioned me forward, leaned up to the bars, and kissed me on the lips.

“I'll see you soon, Andy,” she said, and then sauntered away like a goddess.

When I smile at that memory, there's no sense of the mischief my mother saw in my previous smile. But neither Mom nor Dad notice. They're too busy talking about me in the third person.

… thirty-two … thirty-three … thirty-four …

I'm sitting in my therapist's office, watching the red numbers on the digital clock tick off the silence again second by second. Nearly five minutes have elapsed since I sat down in the chair and Ted just sits there over my right shoulder, tapping his pen on his notepad, making little faces. He has fewer wrinkles than last time, which means he had another Botox injection.

The air freshener in the corner hisses, releasing a breath of lilac into the room.

“How are you feeling today, Andrew?”

I think a moment, then scribble my answer on my dry erase board:

Anxious.

Another two minutes go by. I hope we're not going to sit here for the entire session like this. Otherwise, I could have stayed home and watched
Mystic Pizza
on FX.

… seventeen … eighteen … nineteen …

“You felt anxious last time as well, didn't you?” he says.

At least I know Ted's taking notes. Either that or he's projecting
his own anxiety onto me. After all, he is sitting in a room alone with a zombie.

“Perhaps we should explore the source of your anxiety,” says Ted.

I sigh. It doesn't take much exploration to determine that someone who's been made an outcast from society and spends most of his days watching cable television and drinking wine and coveting freedoms prohibited by law might suffer from occasional anxiety. I've done my best to accept my situation and all of the trials it entails. One of Helen's favorite sayings is:

ACCEPT YOUR REALITY.

So I try. But ever since Halloween, I've had a harder time accepting mine. I thought the feeling would go away but, if anything, it's grown more pronounced. Over the past few days I've found myself venturing out after my parents have gone to bed, wandering through the gully, barely making it back to the wine cellar before curfew. It's as though I'm searching for something and I can't figure out what it is.

Ideally, that's what a therapist is supposed to help you with. Understanding yourself and your behaviors. Your motives. Your desires. I'm thinking most Breathers who need that kind of help don't end up sitting in an office with an artificially preserved, self-absorbed therapist whose idea of personal growth is reconstructive surgery.

Ted's tapping his pen on his notepad again and making faces. I glance up once more at the digital clock, at the seconds counting away the minutes, at the minutes consuming the hour, and I wonder if Ted is ever going to get around to exploring the source of my anxiety.

“What was your childhood like?” he asks.