It was even worse at the farmhouse. They had flyswatters on hand constantly. It was really annoying. I guess that’s one of the prices you pay for zombiedom though.
I came to the front and pounded on the screen door. The wood door behind it opened and I saw Trevor’s mentor, an apron wrapped around her stout waist, and a cloth tied around the top of her head. She was drying a dish with a rag, and she gazed down at me with a closed-smile. She was always glad to see me.
“Kind of late, isn’t it Zellner?” she asked, pushing open the screen door for me.
“Not too late, I hope, Mrs. Kushner,” I replied. “I was thinking of spending the night.”
She raised a thick eyebrow at me. “Is that okay with your mentor?”
“Sure,” I said. “He’s on patrol anyway. He won’t even know I’m gone.” It was pretty much the truth.
“Well, you know we love having you over, Zellner,” Trevor’s mentor said. “Trevor!” she hollered upstairs. “Your friend Zellner’s here!”
The sound of feet stamping upstairs echoed down at us.
“I swear that boy could wake the uninfected dead,” Mrs. Kushner mumbled.
Trevor pounded down the stairs and hurried toward me, extending his wrist so I could hit it with mine. “Thriller!” he cheered.
“What are you boys up to tonight, then?” his mentor asked. “It’s a little late to go out.” She viewed us expectantly.
Trevor’s mentor was a little uptight. She was sort of overprotective and kind of neurotic, but she was pretty nice. Trevor complained about her a lot, but she was always doting over us and making sure we had enough brains. You could tell she had been a mother in her mortal life.
“We’re just going to do homework together,” Trevor answered. “Nothing special.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. I want you two staying out of trouble,” Trevor’s mentor said.
“We don’t know the meaning of trouble,” Trevor replied with a grin.
“That I believe,” his mentor quipped. “But you boys do worry me sometimes. I wonder how two innocent kids like you ever became zombies in the first place. Your brains should have been eaten right through, you’re so frail and fragile.”
“Oh, come on,” Trevor sighed. We had both heard this before.
“Well, isn’t it true? How you ever survived a zombie attack to become zombies yourselves I’ll never know. Your mentor I understand, Zellner. He’s tough as nails. But you boys, my word, you must have had zombie Jesus watching over you!” Trevor’s mentor made the sign of a cross over her chest out of respect.
“Zombie Jesus? Don’t be ridiculous!” Trevor laughed.
“You watch your mouth, young zombie!” she chided. “Don’t you dare mock the zombie lord in my house, you understand?”
Trevor shrugged. “That’s hum stuff.”
“It’s more zombie than you think,” she returned. “He died for our sins. And then what happened? Go on.”
“He rose from the grave,” Trevor monotoned.
“That’s right! He died and rose from the grave, undead as can be. Now doesn’t that sound like a zombie to you? It certainly does to me! It was a sign of things to come. The zombie lord has blessed us, Trevor. He knew of our arrival all the time. He paved the way for us. Don’t you dare mock the name of the zombie lord in my house, you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Trevor relented.
“Good,” his mentor said.
“Come on, Zell, let’s go study,” Trevor motioned with his head toward the stairs.
“Hold on a minute,” his mentor interrupted. “Trevor, don’t forget, you still have your chores to do. Remember, you said you were waiting for Zellner?”
“Oh, right. I forgot,” Trevor said, smacking his palm to his head. “You mind helping me, Zell?”
I shook my head. I actually kind of liked Trevor’s study. And his mentor thought I wasn’t half bad at it, too. Sometimes I wished I had been chosen to be the apprentice of Trevor’s mentor instead of mine. But there wasn’t anything I could do about that now. My study was human tracking, and that was my future.
“Go suit up,” Trevor’s mentor said. “You too, Zellner. You can never be too careful.”
We nodded and went to the closet to get our gear. Trevor’s mentor kept an extra suit for me, since I came to visit Trevor so often and help out. It was really nice of her.
“I shouldn’t have let you wait so late,” Trevor’s mentor sighed. “I’m sure they’re starving by now. I should know better. A happy human is a procreative human. That’s the first thing any breeding mentor will tell you.”
“I know, I know,” Trevor called as he slipped on his safety gear.
I pulled my gear, a form fitting rubber suit and gloves and a small round helmet with a see-through pane in front, on and followed Trevor outside of the farmhouse toward the barn in the back.
“And make sure you watch them eat!” his mentor called to us as we went.
Trevor groaned. “Will you feed them, Zell? I’m not cut out for this.”
I nodded. I didn’t mind. Trevor didn’t like it much. He thought humans were really annoying. But I found it kind of interesting. Anyway, there were plenty of worse studies than human breeding.
9. HUMAN BREEDING 101
I slid open the barn door, which squealed with displeasure as it normally did. The sound of flies buzzing flooded the interior of the room. I let the chains holding the doors together drop. The room stretched back, barred stalls lining the walls. The humans were in the farthest stall on the right. There were only two on hand right now. They had captured the woman more than a month ago. They had captured the man about a week ago. They were the only humans brought in by our community’s trackers in the last two months. The last one found before them was a little boy whose mother had been killed by Stiffs. He was used as fodder. It would take way too long for him to mature to breeding age. We didn’t have that kind of time.
Trevor stood just behind me. He waved his hand in front of his face. “Jeez, it stinks in here,” he complained.
It was the human’s excrement. Zombies didn’t defecate or urinate. Our bodies didn’t process food because our organs were dead. If we did eat or drink anything besides brains (which wasn’t recommended) the stuff just collected inside us until our stomachs eventually burst. Yeah, pretty gross. That’s why we mainly stuck to brains. Every month we had to go to a tailor to have our stomachs drained. It was kind of a hassle, but it was better than letting our guts fill up until they exploded.
We weren’t used to the smell of feces and urine. Blood and rotting flesh, yes. Feces, not so much.
“You’re not exactly a bed of roses yourself,” I cracked. “It comes with the territory.”
“Not for me it doesn’t,” Trevor replied. “Take care of it for me, huh? I’ll meet you back at the house. I’ve done enough feedings this week.”
I nodded as he handed me the lock to the main door and turned and stepped out of the barn. I breathed out, and then proceeded to creep quietly to the back of the barn, turning to face the humans’ stall.
I gazed in through the slats of the cage. The stalls were decent. They were originally designed by humans to hold horses and other large animals, so they were fairly roomy. The floor was carpeted – that was put in especially for the humans – and they had a double bed in one corner, a table in another, by the wall of the cage’s door, and a bucket for taking care of any human needs. All in all, there were far worse places to live, especially since the zombie awakening.
The humans sat apart in the same stall. The woman was curled on the bed, a blanket pulled up around her form. She was thin and boney, and had long brown hair. The man sat in the opposite corner, his back pressed against the wall. He had his legs pulled up and his arms wrapped around them. He was average, a little pudgy with a round face, and hairy, with a strong beard. Both humans were naked. We didn’t generally dress stock. Clothes got in the way of breeding.
The man shivered. The barn was pretty cold.
The last time I was here, Mrs. Kushner had said she expected the humans to get together anytime now. It was the one blanket method. She gave them only one blanket to keep warm with. It meant that if they both wanted to stay warm at the same time, they’d have to share it. Bringing humans together was the first step to initiating breeding. So far, though, it didn’t seem like these humans were cooperating. They were still taking turns. Mrs. Kushner said the woman was stubborn.
“Dinner time,” I said through the cage.
They were used to the routine by now. They would leave their cups and bowls on the table by the cage door. If they weren’t waiting for us on the table when we came, they didn’t get fed. They got two meals a day, and an extra cup of water every few hours if they left their cups on the table to be refilled.
I watched the humans carefully. They didn’t move. I slowly extended my hand forward through the slats of the cage door and picked up the two cups. Trevor and I were never to open the cage door under any circumstances. Only Mrs. Kushner was allowed to deal with the humans directly. Whenever she did, she would chain them first. The humans would have to put their arms through the slats of the cage and she would chain them together before she entered, to ensure they wouldn’t try to attack her or try to escape. She did this every few days to clean out the humans’ bucket, clean their stall and wash them down so they didn’t get an infection, and give them clean blankets. When she was first captured, the woman resisted for a week and a half before