List Of Events I

List Of Events I: Events I - V

Event I

So what do I remember? My first clear memory is the best argument both for and against a more common diagnosis of hysterical-post-trauma amnesia. This is all the way back to yesterday. I’m standing in an office. I can tell right off the office is in a warehouse because it has those warehouse-type windows that yuppies like to have in their lofts. It’s pretty typical for a warehouse office: kinda dirty, not too large, maybe 15 x 15, one door with a window. An old and battered gunmetal-gray desk with a computer and lots of paperwork piled on it, filing cabinets, a phone. I’m standing with my back to the desk and filing cabinets. The windows are to my left. The door is in front of me and a little to the right. The memory is so sensual it’s like it’s happening to me now.

Re-living. My new word for the day. Oh, I am a laugh a minute.

It’s nighttime. Directly in front of me is a worn and battered old leather sofa with most of some surprised-looking dead chick on it. Lots of blood. Her skull is laid open like a jack-in-the-box and blood is everywhere, the floor, the wall; the door and my clothes are covered in it. In my left hand, I’m holding a stapler. You know, one of those old-fashioned industrial ones with the

(bloody)

metal attachment for removing staples. In my right hand, I’m holding a half-eaten brain.

And I’m chewing.

Do the math.

Obviously I had just checked in right after some major trauma. There’s your for. Against? If I had hysterical-post-trauma amnesia, I think I would have dissociated for a few more minutes.

At least until after I swallowed.

Even though I can’t remember, I think I can pretty much say that I had never considered how I would react if I suddenly found myself standing in an office eating someone’s brain. I know I’m spending a lot of time on this one thing, but I am a little taken aback at how amazingly calm I feel, even now.

So I stand there for a minute trying to take all this in; I mean, there’s a lot to try and absorb. My stomach rumbles. Without thinking, I take another bite.

The chick had probably been reasonably pretty before the top of her head got hacked off, even if she was dressed like something out of a really cheap porno magazine. You know, black leather, stiletto boots, the whole bit. She filled it out well: maybe 5’ 7”, big tits, full hips, legs to the armpits.

Clue To Identity #1: I’m either gay or not a necrophiliac.

She has…had blonde hair. It looks natural, but I’m no expert…that I know of. She’s lying mostly on the sofa like either she fell there or she was trying to get up when, OK lets face it, when I popped her top like a can of Pringle’s. Her long neck is tilted back at a really uncomfortable-looking angle and there are dark marks that it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to guess my hands made.

She’s real white. I don’t know if it was the bad lighting, her natural coloring or just because she was dressed all in black and lying on a black sofa. There is that pesky little lack-of-blood thing to consider, too.

I took a good, long dispassionate look. I guess you can blame it on shock if you want to be charitable. About this time is when I notice the stapler in my left hand. It’s hard to open my hand; the blood has partially dried like glue, but I finally manage to shake it loose with a little feeling of panic. That’s the first time I remember feeling any kind of emotion. I had to have noticed the brain in my right hand sometime before this, because by this time it’s history and I’m sucking the blood off of my fingers like gravy.

I try to generate a little revulsion. I even bend over and fake a dry heave or two—you know, just on general principals, but I’m completely unfazed by the fact that I just had some chick’s brain for lunch. I wonder if this is how Dahmer felt. I mean, right then I think that, like it’s some kind of discussion-group topic. What a cold-hearted son of a bitch. I’m thinking that right then, too.

That’s about the time—when I think Jeffry Dahmer--that I realize I don’t know who I am. Remember Mr. Panic? Knowing I’m a murderer? Zero on the react-o-meter. Not knowing my name? Now that’s a real problem. Whoever I was before, I’m a real winner now.

So I stagger around the room for a while like I’m looking for something. What, I don’t know. Maybe I think she wrote my name in all that blood somewhere. Unfortunately, Agatha Christie did not write this scene. After maybe thirty seconds of this, I calm down a bit and do the rational thing and check my pockets for ID. First, I had to drop the stapler again. I must have picked it back up when I freaked out. We all have our security blankets.

I’m dressed in some kind of unisex coveralls, the kind that they wear in labs where they don’t want you to take anything in or out. These aren’t white, though; before they got all covered in blood they had been industrial gray. I discover that I have no pockets. No name tag either. Of course. No clues to who I am, so I do the next best thing and try and figure out who she is . . . was.

I start with the paperwork on the desk. I see a lot of names on receipts and bills of lading and stuff, but none of them ring a bell. From the letterhead, I figure out that the name of the company is South-West Merchandising, and they ship cheap crap to a chain of dollar stores. No bells. Next, I check out the laptop on the desk. Fortunately, it’s not password protected. Unfortunately, there’s just more of the same: Spreadsheets, business stuff. The browser’s homepage is a pay-for-porn site. Straight.

Clue to identity #2: Either I am a necrophiliac or I’m gay.

The filing cabinet turns out to be similarly unenlightening, though I do find the petty cash box with a little over two-thousand dollars in it. It hits me that I’m going to need money, whatever I do, so I take it out and set it on the desk for when I find something with pockets to carry it in. No, all this time I never think of calling the police or turning myself in. Not then, not now. Sure, I obviously am a murderer, but I don’t feel like a murderer (how does a murderer feel?) and I figure I’m missing something here and I don’t want to leave it in the hands of the two-solved-of-two-hundred-murders-last-year police. Sue me.

Thinking I’ve about exhausted all of my options in the office, I skirt the puddle of blood to the door. Locked with a deadbolt, the kind that needs a key on both sides. Since there’s no keys hanging conveniently from the lock, none on the floor and I hadn’t seen any keys anywhere else, I reluctantly turn to my last option. The dead girl.

Event II

I have no choice but to walk through the blood. I notice that there are already bloody footprints all over the office floor, but I am oddly reluctant to step into the rapidly-congealing pool of the former girl’s life. Odd, that is, for someone whose stomach is still rumbling for another serving of brains and eggs minus the eggs. Making a decision, I take a deep breath.

That was a mistake.

In all the books, people talk about the metallic smell of blood. Sounds clean, doesn’t it? In my admittedly limited experience, it doesn’t smell like any metal I can think of; it smells like rot and death.

Now I gag.

I briefly consider just breaking the window in the door, but I don’t know if there is anyone else in the building and I don’t want any (more) surprises. Besides, it’s got that honeycombed-pattern of safety glass.

I try not to think about the sticky, slurpy sounds that my rubber-soled Keds are making and get close enough to get a good overall visual of the body. I find it easier to think the body, not the dead girl. It doesn’t quite cancel out the smell, but it helps.

Gingerly leaning to each side so that I don’t have to move my feet any more than I have to I check around the sofa. I can find no evidence of a purse or keys on the floor. I turn my attention back to the body. It may not come as any big surprise to you, but I was a bit peeved to discover that pockets are evidently not standard on leather bustiers. I put one hand on the back of the sofa and lean over to get a better look behind the body's back. I can’t see anything and I realize that I’m going to have to move it.

I lean inwards, putting more weight on one hand and very reluctantly reach over with the other and take the body by its shoulder.

And die.

My right hand, the one touching the body, goes stiff and cold. The coldness creeps up through my arm to my shoulder and spreads to the rest of my body. The anticipation of it stops time and I feel as if I am caught in an exquisitely slow trap; in truth, the whole process probably takes less than a second. As death hits each joint, I feel the terrible cold arthritic ache of the grave. I try to pull my hand away, but it is excruciatingly painful and unresponsive. I feel my face go rigid. I stop breathing. I stop thinking. I am a corpse.

But I live.

My brain slowly grinds back into action, but it takes effort to think. I sense motion to my left and I rotate my eyes. It feels like are covered with grains of sand. Finally, they orientate on my slowly moving hand. It is still tightening its hold on the body’s shoulder, apparently following the last clear signal from the brain.

I hear the sound of the shoulder joint as it is crushed.

I don’t think about this, though, or the fact that my arm—disconnected from my consciousness as if it belongs to someone else—is still moving, my hand still tightening on the shoulder, because I can see. And I can hear. And smell. And dear God forgive me, taste.

The aftertaste of the brain is like the sweetest memory on my tongue. The aroma of the blood like the bouquet of the finest wine. I am suffused with hunger; it is like a living organism that has taken hold of me demanding to have its way. Every microscopic trace of blood stands out in bold, almost neon color. The hunger is seeking satisfaction, but there is nothing alive here that can satisfy my desire.

As if the realization that there is no satisfactory prey in the immediate vicinity has freed my mind, my thoughts return to the here and now. I notice a flickering image, like a double exposure of the body. I stop my arm from where it has almost pulled it off of the sofa and the flickering also stops. With great effort, I coordinate my actions and rock the body back and forth. The doubled images are identical, and not.

The body is solid, its features unmoving, but there is another image. Whiter, more ethereal. Understanding comes. It is the girl’s soul.

The soul image (like I think of the body, not the girl, I think the image of the soul and not her soul) is still moving. Now that I know what it is, I no longer have to manipulate the body to see it. Now it is there, overlaid. I can see both clearly. The soul’s eyes are the same startled blue, but clearer, less glassy. Its face has the same outraged look of surprise, but its lips are soundlessly moving. I concentrate and with effort I can read them. She is saying three words over and over.

“John. Zombie. No.”

So I that's how I know my name is John Zombie.

The knowledge gives me no comfort.

Event III

Suddenly, I am tired of this. I take my hand away and the body tumbles off the sofa and lands face down in the pool of its own drying blood. A cloud of the blood’s odor puffs up like dust, but it is souring, old. I ignore the set of keys I now see clipped next to a set of handcuffs. They are irrelevant now. I concentrate until I am able to move towards the door. It is not graceful. I lurch into motion and more shamble than walk. I grasp the door handle and my fingers sink into it like putty. I pull, and the door, frame and all, comes away from the wall. The sound is sudden, startling and loud, but I know that there is no one who can hear it. With no more effort than turning a page, I lean the door against the wall and move through the gap.

I find myself on a second-floor landing like a balcony. A rickety set of stairs leads down to the cavernous warehouse floor. Below me, I can see long rows of shelves stretching away into the depths of the building. I see motion. Dead bodies are staggering around below. Some are shuffling into the rows of shelves. Others are shuffling out, their arms filled with merchandise. They hand the things to others who pack them into boxes that still others take from them and stack on wooden pallets near a set of bay doors. The doors are open so that the semi parked outside can be loaded. I can leave. I can smell the fresh night outside and I know that out there is where I will find that which will feed my hunger.

I stagger into motion and almost fall down the stairs. I find that I have to concentrate everything; stairs are much more complicated than the floor. Halfway down I have my first flash of memory. Not clear, but it is there.

I am standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up. She is a vague form at the top of the stairs. She is talking.
“Good John. Very good. You looked up. You can see me. Oh, you do have promise. Now, come up the stairs. No. Stop. Take hold of the rail with your right hand. Good. Put your foot on the stair. No. Bad. You have to bend your knee and raise your foot. No. Not so high. Good. Now, move it forward and set it down on the first step. Oh! Very good John. Very good. I am very happy with you. You want me to be happy with you, don’t you. (It is not a question. She knows I want her to be happy with me.) Now, lean forward and put your weight on your right foot. Good, now lift your left…”

The force of the memory has brought me to a stop. It stirs anger in me and with that emotion I come back to myself. In the space of a breath, I am alive and thinking clearly again. I stumble and almost fall. It is as if I have been trying to push through a thick soup and have come through to the thin air on the other side. Gracefully, I catch myself on the stair rail and stop myself from falling. With great relief I realize I can no longer smell the girl’s blood and that the all-consuming hunger of a moment ago has receded to a manageable ache.

At first I think I have gone blind, but then my eyes slowly adjust to the sudden darkness. I can see the vague shapes still stumbling along in their mindless toil and the lesser darkness of the night through the open bay doors. With that other sight, I had seen in the darkness as if it were full daylight. I can't think of that right now. I need to leave. I remember that my clothes are covered in blood and that I will need the money on the desk upstairs.

Though I can’t see as clearly anymore, I remember the layout well enough. I know now that I have spent some time in this building, but that this was the first time I had gone upstairs. I have an instinctive memory of the ground floor and I know where I can find what I believe to be a locker room.

I feel my way cautiously down the stairs and along the wall at the bottom until I come to a door. I go inside and shut the door behind me. I feel along the wall until I find the light switch and turn it on. On the wall against my left are the lockers and through a door to my right I can see the showers. Quickly, I strip off my soiled coveralls. I leave them where they fall and almost run to get clean. As if.

Event IV

That shower was pure heaven. The warmth of the water, even the feel of the spray worked like a medicine. If I hadn’t had a nagging low-level anxiety, a sense of urgency telling me to hurry, I would have stayed until I had exhausted all the hot water, no matter how much there might have been. As it was, I spent a good deal of time there scrubbing until my skin was red and wrinkled.

When I come out, I move to the lockers and in one of them I find some jeans. In another a shirt that fits me. The sleeves are too short for my arms, but I roll them up. There are no socks or shoes and I reluctantly put the sneakers back on after I wash as much of the blood off of them as I can. They are dark gray and the blood has dried to an unidentifiable dark color that I hope nobody will notice.

Dressed and refreshed, I move to leave. Some instinct makes me turn off the light first and give my eyes time to adjust before opening the door. When I can see the faint moonlight coming through the window in the shower room, I open the door, move out and close it behind me.

I realize that something is different right away. I can’t hear anything but the sound of my own soft steps. In the marginally lesser darkness of the warehouse, I look around. I can see the white faces of the mindless workers; they are all turned towards me. While I have been in the locker room, they have stopped working and I am surrounded on three sides. Several of them have their heads slightly raised and are making snuffing sounds like dogs catching a scent. The closest to me is a woman. The moonlight reflected off the concrete floor illuminates her eyes. She is looking directly at me. Her mouth is working, she is saying something. I strain to hear.

“Jídlo.”

The single word, almost whispered, still rings loud as a gunshot in the echoing space. I have no fucking idea what it means. As if by command, they begin to move towards me en masse. Adrenaline surges through me and heightens my senses—not as much as before, but enough that I can see there is no way to reach the outside doors before these things reach me. They have already blocked off any chance of retreat to the locker room. The stairs are my only hope. I know there is no escape from the second floor and I have destroyed the door that would have shut me off from my attackers. I discover that even a few seconds of survival are infinitely preferable to immediate death and leap towards the stairs.

I take the stairs two and three at a time only stopping when I reach the landing. None of the things
(zombies)

below are following me anymore. They are just milling about at the bottom of the stairs. Slowly, they move away and resume their tasks as if nothing had happened. I realize that they have forgotten me completely. I flash back on the memory of the dead girl talking me up the stairs and I understand that these things

(zombies)

(like me)

do not have the mental capacity to even look up, much less walk up stairs. I am safe, for now.

Nagging thoughts are pulling at my attention, but I don’t have time for them now. I step into the office, carefully avoiding as much of the blood as I can. When I reach the desk, I pocket the money and after a moment’s hesitation, I close and unplug the laptop and tuck it under one arm. I mean, I’m a murderer already, what’s a theft charge on top of that? Hell, for all I know, it’s my laptop anyway.

I move back to the landing and survey the scene below. In the dim warehouse I can only see vague shapes

(zombies)

moving about below. They move slowly and more stumble along than anything. I know that there are more of them

(ZOMbies)

than there appear to be. I gauge the distance from the foot of the stairs to the open bay doors. There are a lot less of those things

(things like ME)

near the doors than anywhere else. I wonder if I can make it. If I can sprint I think I can outrun them.
(ZOM-BIES)

I am shaking. I have to hold onto the rail just to keep from falling. Everything catches up with me, all at once. My head feels lighter than my body, and I can’t focus. All the events since I woke up in the office spin in disjointed order through my mind. I can only think one clear thought:

Those things are fucking zombies.

And straight on the heels of that thought:

I think I am a fucking zombie.

My knees sag and I think I’m going to pass out. And with that thought, I panic. If I pass out now, I’m dead. Someone will find me. Me and the dead body in the office. Somehow, I don’t think whoever finds me is going to be very happy. I also don’t think that they are going to do the civilized thing and call the police. Call me naïve, but I’m thinking they are not going to want the police to know about the zombies.

Fear is sometimes a very good thing and I use it now like a tool to help me get up and get going. OK, maybe I’m a fucking zombie. Maybe all the stupid movies I watched as a kid have somehow come to life. OK. But I can’t think of that right now.

I. Can’t. Think. Of. That. Right. Now.

Denial is wonderful. Peaceful. The decision made, I am able to move. I tuck in the shirt and slide the laptop and cord inside. It’s cumbersome and the shirt’s not going to stay tucked in with that weight pulling on it for too long, but hopefully it will hold until I get outside. Other than carrying the filled wooden pallets in and out of the semi trailer, it doesn’t look like the zombies are able to leave the building. I’m no zombie scholar, but I seem to remember that they have to obey orders. I don’t think they can follow me out the door.

Event V

As quickly and quietly as I can, I move down the stairs, but truth be told, I think I could have made as much noise as a drum and fife corps and it wouldn’t have made any difference. As long as I was on the stairs, I was out of their reach. Out of reach, out of mind. Zombies appear to be very pragmatic.

I hit the floor running. With my adrenaline-heightened senses, I could hear the change in the shuffling gait of the things around me, but I was faster than they were. I would have made it too if, just as I reached the open bay doors, two zombies hadn’t stepped out from where they had been loading the semi trailer. As it was, I still almost made it. I skidded to a stop and twisted around them like a star running back and dove for the steps that led down from the loading dock.

I felt a crushing weight hit my shoulder. I didn’t feel any pain, but I was wrenched all the way around.

And I died.

Again.

I was getting really tired of this.

I lay there on the loading dock. I am on my back. The light of the moon is now so bright that it is hurting my eyes. I am so hungry. I try to get up, but my right arm isn’t working. The two zombies are just standing there shifting their weight from foot to foot and looking around. One of them, I kid you not, starts crying.

“Don’t go out. Don’t go out. Don’t go out.”

I just lay there watching him loose it. The other one turns to him and speaks in heavily accented English, “Shut up.”

“Don’t go out. Don’t go out. Don’t go out.”

“SHUT UP”

Proving that zombies aren’t nearly as stupid as you might think, the second zombie shuts up. Then, they just stand there ignoring me. I can hear the other zombies moving in the warehouse, but they are not coming out. They have all returned to work. I realize that, even though I am hungry and obviously my food of choice is composed of at least one human body part, the nearby zombies do not register on my food radar. Obviously, now that I am “dead,” I don’t register on theirs, either.

My brain is not working too quickly, but something is different from the first time this happened. I am able to think of something more than the incredible hunger I feel. For example, I am able to think that I have to get up and get out of here. Right. Now.

I have an idea. “HEY. ZOMBIE. WALK FORWARD TWO STEPS.”

They both take two steps forward. How cool.

“BEND OVER AND STRETCH YOUR ARMS OUT STRAIGHT.”

Reaching up, I’m still not able to grab the nearest one’s outstretched arm and use it to pull myself up. I feel like a flipped-over tortoise. My joints are incredibly stiff and painful and unresponsive.

“GRAB MY ARM AND PULL ME UP.”

I should have been more specific. Both zombies immediately reach down and take me by each arm and pull. The pain in my right shoulder is outstanding. I make it to my feet, but I am unable to do anything for a minute but hunch over my poor right arm and whimper like a beat puppy.

“GO. BACK. INSIDE.” It’s hard to get enough air to make the command as forceful as it needs to be, but after two or three tries, I finally manage. They immediately, if somewhat clumsily, turn and go back inside the warehouse. Dreading the effect on my shoulder joint, I take a few calming breaths and straighten up.

Very little pain. I make a few experimental flexes with my right hand. I can move it. Whatever they did when they tried to catch me, they must have undone when they pulled me up. Relief floods me and the lights go out.

I staggered forward a little and the sensations of the night returned. I was alive.

Again.

I need to get out of here before someone with more on the ball than a zombie comes along. I don’t know if whoever is in charge can order me around like a robot, but I don’t want to stick around and find out. I have no memory of anything outside of B movies to go on, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a fair murder trial is not in the cards for zombies.

I turn for the steps leading down from the loading dock and almost trip over the laptop. It must have fallen out of my shirt when I went down. There’s no time for more than the most cursory of visual inspections, but it doesn’t appear to be too damaged. I tuck it under my arm and start moving. In the distance I can hear muted traffic sounds. The night has taken on that expectant quality it gets just before dawn. I have somehow wasted an entire night.

With one last quick look at the empty bay doors, I pick a direction at random and start running.