The Dead walked the earth.
Tortured, ragged souls rambling and shambling down backcountry roads and abandoned interstate highways. Eyes black as pitch, feet, limbs, and tattered pieces of moldering rags fell all around them as they struggled. Blood dripping from rapine chins; mindless, gnawing hunger torturing bloated bellies. Nothing would satisfy their unclean, macabre craving. Nothing but one thing. The only thing that would fill the empty, black void in their desiccated, rotting shells…brai…
Brains, Jerry? Seriously? That is such a cliche! I thought zombie porn was so, like, 2015. Or was that the shiny vampire-werewolf thingies? I can’t keep track!
Sighing, Jerry Lasater slammed the laptop shut. The voice was loud this time. It took many forms when he wrote, but it was pure, unfiltered Chelsea tonight. Not the tolerable version of his ex-wife he’d grown to respect as a good friend over the past ten years or so. No, this was Chelsea circa 2014, right before the divorce. Chelsea, all spitting mad and full of righteous fury, especially about his writing. She always was his fiercest critic.
“Get ye back, Satan’s daughter!” he said out loud to the large, empty house, raising his bourbon high into the air in tribute. “You have no control here, wee daemon!”
Can it, Jer. We both know when the writing is shit. You know it, I know it, even the Great Catsby knows it. Just look at him!
The enormous black Persian cat on the table gave a multi-syllabled meow before jumping down in annoyance, away from this lame, imaginary conversation.
“Et tu, Brute? Ya traitor, ya!” Jerry slurred in an exaggerated Irish brogue perfected from years of mimicking Barry Fitzgerald in the classic movie, “The Quiet Man.” Lasater glibly drained the glass, laughing at his cleverness as he watched his enormous cat prance out of the room.
“Yeah, well until you learn how to operate the can opener, I suggest you be nice-ya bugger!” The cat’s only response was a huge bushy tail held high and a fully exposed rear end. Jerry shook his head in amusement. Chelsea and the Great Catsby had a lot in common.
The late afternoon sun set early, winter solstice in full swing. Jerry usually relished the darkness, but tonight, it and the imaginary version of his ex-wife conspired against his peace of mind. He sat, feet propped up, crystal tumbler in hand, surveying the neighborhood as day thickened to dusk.
Lasater lived in a good-sized, cookie-cutter suburban home with vaulted ceilings and a large picture window facing the street. He sure as hell didn’t need five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and an oversized corner lot, but at one time he harbored visions of normalcy. Wife. Kids. Golden Retriever. 0 for 3, Jer, a perfect losing record!
Although the Great Catsby was much more dog than cat, Lasater thought, fetching strange, random items and delivering them at the most inopportune moments. He once dropped a bright green cat’s eye marble into his outraged ex-mother-in-law’s third scotch and soda, launching the cat to instant rock-star status in Jerry’s book. The Great Catsby weighed over twenty-two pounds and had a serious attitude, but then again, so did Lasater. You two are a match made in heaven, Jerry, a fine pair of misfits! Lasater waved Chelsea’s voice away and yanked the laptop open again.
Brains. Slimy, glorious brains! In every size and capacity, the undead relentlessly pursued their mindless, frenzied desire…
“Mindless,” Jer? That pun is waaaay cringe…Lovecraft, you are NOT, and King would laugh in your face…
“Catsby, would you kindly tell your dear mother to piss off!”
The cat nuzzled Lasater’s arm, giving him a brief moment of solidarity before running down the basement steps, deep into the bowels of the large house. The Great Catsby was a true hoarder- he had an impressive stash of odds and ends ripe for fetching down there. A lost cuff link, Chelsea’s bright blue scrunchy, plastic milk-bottle rings, crumpled up cigarette packs from Lasater’s smoking days- nothing was off-limits for his felonious feline. It became a game between them, Jerry throwing one item and waiting to see what lost treasure was returned to him.
Sighing, Jerry folded his hands and rested his forehead on them, trying to get his bearings. The Chelsea voice wasn’t wrong, damn it. He knew he had to rework the story. Refilling his glass, Lasater leaned back, loving the feeling of his bare, dirty feet on top of Chelsea’s fancy dining room tablecloth when he saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his left eye.
The Great Catsby returned to unceremoniously spit a beat-up, old popsicle stick into his glass. Lasater sighed in resignation before tossing back the bourbon, neatly catching the stick in his teeth. He grinned around it, looking like a raving Cheshire Cat lunatic with a shiny prize. Catsby appeared to nod in approval before raising his hind leg and frantically licking.
Gross, Jer! Do you know where that stick has been? Wait, don’t answer that…
“Och, demon woman. Everyone knows that Wild Turkey is the world’s greatest sanitizer!”
Lasater caught a healthy glimpse of himself in the picture window. With wispy, graying hair askew, a ratty old sweatshirt, and bloodshot eyes, he slowly spit the stick into his hand, slicked back his wayward hair, and did his best Nicholson impersonation.
“All work and no play makes Jer a dull boy! Hahahahaha! Chelsea….I’m home!!!!”
A flash across the street instantly froze his impromptu performance. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, but it was unnerving every time. You’d think in this neighborhood, with the fascist HOA and overpriced fees, it wouldn’t be allowed, but it would seem tonight, the show must go on. He vaguely wondered which one of them would be the headliner.
The window was on the second floor of the house across the street. Bright lightbulbs framed it like an old-fashioned movie set. From the sparseness of the walls and the overly bright illumination, Lasater guessed it was a bathroom. Possibly the one attached to the master bedroom. It simply had to be a bathroom because every time a person moved into the window frame, what Lasater was beginning to think of as the “Main Stage,” they appeared to be in some state of undress.
Pale white body parts crossed the stage, back and forth, again and again. The frosted panes created enough cover for what Lasater could vividly see in his fevered writer’s imagination. He didn’t know this set of neighbors, never bothering to get involved in the details of his day-to-day surroundings. They could be any age or type, the Blurry People were impossible to decipher.
Lasater couldn’t bear to think of them as old or saggy or full of creases. In his mind, they were somewhat youngish and fit, but not too much so. Mature and comfortable in their own skins, only lightly touched by the ravages of time. Primal and free. Every time one of them passed by, he felt a hot sting of shame that he was a participant in this nightly production.
Catsby let out a plaintive cry. Jerry vaguely remembered that he still held the popsicle stick in his hand. Without taking his eyes off the Main Stage, he threw the stick hard across the room, hearing it plunk down each basement stair to Catsby’s Lair. The cat tore after it like a shot, his back legs spinning like an old Looney Tunes cartoon. It was a marvel of nature, a cat of that size moving so fast.
He turned his attention back to the Main Stage, watching the couple, leaning over what Lasater guessed to be a sink, or sitting in front of a ghostly mirror putting on invisible makeup. Some nights, he could see one of them lowered down on what he suspected to be a toilet or standing in place for an ethereal shower. At times, it seemed they wore random bits of clothing, but mostly they were in the altogether, just as they were tonight. Lasater swallowed hard, hopelessly trapped in his thoughts.
Whoa there, Jerry. You need to take it down a notch, hon. A deep breath, now another…
Lasater groped blindly behind him, lowering himself back into the chair, letting Chelsea’s imaginary voice guide him. He closed his eyes before reaching for the tumbler and taking a deep, fortifying drink. On the Main Stage, the Blurry People came together, arms held out and embracing as Lasater attempted to control his breathing. Trance-like, the figures began to sway in unison, clasping hands as Lasater retrieved the laptop and began to type.
Their bodies were still tender, supple, and just beginning to turn. The barest traces of decay, a slight, sweet odor. Not at all, the mindless, hunger-filled, dumb monstrosities of yore. Instead of tearing and gnawing, they came together gently in shared longing. Dead but not so much so that they lost that wavering, final human connection, holding on until the last possible moment. Mouths gaping, the first pangs of hunger gnawing away at the shreds of their fading humanity…
That’s it, Jer, keep going with this… don’t stop…
The Main Stage was eclipsed with the Blurries, bodies melding together before separating. He could see one of them lean back, laughing as they twirled and spun in complete, oblivious abandon. Jerry’s fingers flew across the keys, completely entranced by this vision and his ex-wife’s disembodied voice softly purring into his ear, egging him on.
Human, they’d no longer be, but the imprint of their former essence was still there, enough so they could keep dancing before the disease finally took over. Before the ravages of time, nature, and circumstance turned them into immortal monsters. They held out as long as they could, these poor, wretched, beautiful beings, dancing faster and faster in wild abandon until…
The Great Catsby broke his trance, jumping up with a solid thud on the table. Lasater watched as the Blurry People finished their impromptu dance and melded back into shadows. The Main Stage went dark; this evening’s show mercifully concluded. Jerry sighed and stroked Catsby’s soft, black fur as the giant feline spat a tiny, desiccated bone into Lasater’s cocktail. Sighing, Jerry fished out Chelsea’s pinky and used it to stir his Wild Turkey.
Lasater laughed, mildly amused but not surprised that the Great Catsby had finally made his way to the part of the basement where his ex-wife was housed. God only knew what Catsby might bring him next; maybe it was time to do a little rearranging down there.
So what happens in the story, Jer? How does it end? Maybe you should pay the neighbors a visit for more inspiration…
“Well, I was thinking it has something to do with….BRAINS!! Ah, just kidding, Chels! You were always an insufferable nag, darlin’, but that’s not a bad idea; it might just move the story along. All in due time. None of us is going anywhere. You certainly aren’t.”
Jerry Lasater reluctantly closed the front window blinds, double-checking the locks and windows in his nightly routine. Washing and drying his favorite tumbler, he unlocked his grandmother’s antique china cabinet, replacing the glass for another day before retrieving his wife’s well-loved, indented skull from its silken pouch in the back drawer.
On his way up to bed, he gently stroked his ex-wife’s skull with one hand and the Great Catsby with the other and decided to let the Main Stage, his marriage troubles, and the direction of his latest story percolate for another day.
“All the rewriting and work was well worth it, darlin’, dontcha think?”
For once, Chelsea stayed mercifully silent.
Lasater sighed. like the great novel said, tomorrow was another day. It was his last coherent thought as the Great Catsby ran up the stairs into his darkened bedroom, and they all settled in for a long winter’s nap.
A. Elizabeth Herting
Image: the middle keys ona kayboard (GHJKL) flanked by the rows above and below in black with white lettering. From Pixabay.com
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