Life Sentence (30 page)

Will and Rachel drove up to the dock with their two
fellow exiles, Truman and Blue Eye. They unloaded their few
possessions into it—including, I was surprised to see, what I
thought were the cases for a violin and a typewriter. It was only
later that I found out what these things were doing there. When
they were through, there was a long and very desperate farewell
between Will and his parents. Ms. Wright tried hard to control
herself, but you could tell her anguish was unbearable, and in the
time I’ve known her since, she often seemed not the same person,
but withdrawn and less full inside.

While they were saying goodbye, Rachel and the two
zombies were sort of left alone. It was a good moment for me to
speak to them. I walked over and hugged Rachel with all my
strength. I pressed my face into her beautiful red locks and we
both wept softly. “You take care, kid,” she said. “You be strong
and keep an eye on these people. You’re good at that.”

I stepped back, nodding and dabbing my eyes. There
was nothing I could say to her to take in the enormity of her
decisions. I felt little fear for her. Everything she did, she
seemed to do out of love and hope, so what fear or regret could
either of us have?

I turned and handed Truman the little pack that Will
had given me when he went off in pursuit of the men he thought had
attacked us. “Will gave me this to hold on to,” I said. “I don’t
know whose they are, but perhaps you’d like to take them with
you.”

Truman took it and opened it, and he looked very
happy to have it back, though he held back a smile. As with the
typewriter and violin, I only found out later what the pack
contained.

Truman set down the pack, and Blue Eye helped him
get out a sheaf of papers from a bag he was carrying. They handed
them to me.

“You wrote this?” I asked. He nodded. “You don’t
want it?”

He shook his head. He slowly put his finger on my
chest and pressed.

“You want me to have it?”

He nodded.

All I could do that day was thank him for it. Later
I would find out what he had written and all they had been
through.

They then got on board the boat. It was a good sized
sailboat, which the people of the River Nation, despite all their
bellicose bluster, had helped us equip. Mr. Caine and my dad helped
with the lines, and the boat pulled away, slowly at first, till the
current nearer the middle of the river picked them up and they
started moving faster. They left us behind, drifting serenely down
the huge waters of the river—Rachel and Will, together with Truman
and Blue Eye, who I later learned was called Lucy, though I suppose
she herself would never know that name.

After that day, I spent the rest of the summer with
the people who train our city’s guard dogs. Sometimes I even had to
wear the big, padded suit while the dogs learned to bite, hold, and
take down an assailant. With my intense fear of canines, it was a
punishment both more and less traumatic than I could’ve imagined.
When I first heard of it, I could barely breathe, I was so
terrified. And for the first several weeks that I worked with the
animals, I’d come home and sob uncontrollably till I fell asleep. I
almost succeeded in driving a wedge between Mom and Dad, and nearly
got her to relent. But she had been so aghast that my silence had
endangered me that she resisted my crying till it abated. Those
weeks left me with a vivid memory of pain and fear to remind me
never to ignore or keep secrets from others. But once I was past
the first few weeks, working with the dogs was just another part of
my life in our community, a necessary job, one that most of the
time was more enjoyable than some others. I never got to like dogs,
but I respected and valued them after that.

Since that summer, I have often imagined all the
adventures they must be having. I only imagine good ones—the lost
cities they rediscover, the other people they meet, even other
smart zombies who befriend them. It’s wishful thinking, of course,
and they may well all be long dead by now. But it is a hope, and as
Milton said, of all other virtues or feelings, hope—together with
love—is the one we rely on the most in our world. I think those
four people had a purpose—first, to leave us a record of what they
went through and learned that summer, and then to leave us with
such a hope that their learning and growth were not for nothing,
that it enabled them to accomplish more.

In my imaginings, they never stop or settle down,
but just keep going. They find a bigger boat and cross the ocean
and they take the paintings off the walls of the Louvre before they
rot away completely; they hang them on the bridge of their ship so
they can enjoy looking at them, and also so they can show them to
others. Everywhere they go, people think what a strange and
wondrous group they are—two living, two dead—and they send them on
their way with more stories and good wishes—like an Odysseus,
Dante, Ishmael, or Gulliver. They are always wandering, because, of
course, they never quite fit anywhere they go, as they couldn’t
quite fit here among us. In that way, they’re more like another
wanderer, Cain, but I always feel that their road is quite
different from his.

If they were marked by us for exile, I like to think
they were also given a protective mark by something higher, more
permanent, and wiser than we are. It was just that our rules, our
categories, couldn’t understand or accommodate people who were
uncomfortable in society, or people who felt more comfortable with
those of the other group than they did with those of their own.
Will had been right—we do tend to treat the dead as either precious
idols, or deadly demons. That they were still just people is too
hard for us to comprehend; dealing with the few living people is
complicated and confusing enough.

In my head, they don’t just wander, of course. They
each find their own happiness in their little ark. Lucy plays her
violin to crowds all over the world, and people remember what
beauty is and they want more of it. Truman keeps reading and
learning, till eventually he writes new books and they drop these
off at new ports for people to learn from. And Will and Rachel have
a brood of children who grow up knowing this strange new world and
only the good possibilities of it. For them, death and life coexist
without fear or ignorance, and only killing is a terrible mystery
they fear and shun. And for them, freedom is more a reality and
necessity than we can ever know in our community.

Our life here in the city after they left has been
much less adventuresome or dramatic than any of my fantasies. The
people of the River Nation lived quite differently than we did.
They had retained some government, strangely loose and harsh, and
at times more restrictive and burdensome than we could tolerate or
understand. And although everything was still traded by barter
among them, because their villages had been spread out along the
river, they also had a more complex, varied economy than ours.

When I later read Truman’s journal, I smiled at
Will’s cornsilk cigarettes; tobacco became widely available once we
began to trade with the River Nation, since their colonies extended
down to southern areas where they could get the deadly but
comforting little weed. Little by little, our lives have become
intertwined and melded with those of this other “nation”—one nation
combined with one non-nation, forming something for which we still
have no name or word.

As we adapted to their economy, so they took up our
ways of dealing with the dead. They realized that much of their
growth and safety had been due to Milton clearing the dead out of
nearby areas, and they were grateful to us, and also eager to give
up their own practices of cruelly executing the deceased.
Eventually, Milton got too old to constantly be out in the
wilderness, rounding up the dead, but by then there were enough
people that it could be done without him. The dead were also
getting slower, tired, more fragile, and increasingly posed less
and less of a threat.

Of course, my own individual life bears little
resemblance to my fantasy of the four people who left us that day,
except in the one detail of begetting children. I grew up and
married, one of the first brides of our time to wear a real dress,
one we had salvaged from the dead city; even though it was meant
for the prom, it was beautiful, its sequins catching the sunlight
just right. I sit here writing this now, my belly huge with my
first child. I suppose that’s part of what made me want to put
everything down on paper—so the story of Truman, Lucy, Will, and
Rachel wouldn’t be lost for my children, but they would always know
of the sacrifice, difficulties, wisdom, and mistakes of those four
from years ago. It is my tribute to them, because I know I’m here
only because of them, and as I learned that summer, gratitude and
reverence are as important as hope, and as potent as love.

Critiques of this story were offered on a
chapter-by-chapter basis by Robert Kennedy and Marylu Hill. Both
brought their particular gifts of insight to the narrative and
improved it. Specific points related to the handling and use of
firearms were provided by the ever-efficient Scott Field, the
indefatigable Christopher Iwane, and Douglas Wojtowicz.

I again thank my editors at Permuted Press, Jacob
Kier and Dave Snell. They are a rare and true pleasure to work
with—for their efficiency, love of the genre, and encouraging and
positive personalities.

Of my new friends in the horror community, I would
like to extend special acknowledgement and thanks to Aaron Bennett,
Joe Branson, William Carl, Ron Dickie, Bob Freeman, Fran Friel,
Lynne Hansen, Kelli Jones, Tracy Jones, Brian Keene, Karen Koehler,
Steve Lukac, Jonathan Maberry, Nick Mamatas, Joe McKinney, David G.
Montoya, Christine Morgan, Paul Puglisi, Mary San Giovanni, Nikki
Threat, Victor Voyles, Doug Warrick, Dave Wellington, Zoe Whitten,
and Drew Williams. All went out of their way to welcome me into
their community and help me with my writing. Many helped with quick
answers to technical questions by posting on the greatest
horror-related message board, The Other Dark Place. I may well have
given up on my dream of being a novelist were it not for the help
of such kind and talented people during the last year.

And as I have promised often in the last few
months—I’ve tried to incorporate the comments of reviewers, most of
which I thought offered very constructive and perceptive criticism.
I hope you enjoy the story of Zoey and Truman, and that it casts
some light on your own life.

Finally, I have dedicated this book to five of my
teachers from middle and high school—Marion Finch, Louise Holladay,
Ruth Meeker, Lois Sharp, and Marylou Williams. My twenty year high
school reunion put me in mind of them, and how much I owe to their
patience, sternness, intellect, and dedication. Though only Mrs.
Holladay and Mrs. Sharp taught English, all five worked long and
hard to discipline my immature mind, and whatever successes I have
achieved at analyzing literature or producing my own are due in
large part to them.

Kim Paffenroth

Cornwall on Hudson, NY

April 2008