Zombies Don't Cry Page 3

  “Not really,” she admitted. “Even the ones who go off too soon and don’t do much damage to others generally succeed in blowing their own brains to smithereens, so the question of moral entitlement doesn’t arise there. The Jarndyce case was adjourned again while you were comatose, though. No one’s entirely sure which way it will go.”

  Blaise Jarndyce was a paedophilic serial killer dying in Broadmoor of liver and pancreatic cancer. According to the newsblips, he was a goner—but once the tumors had been cleaned out of his dead body, he might be a candidate for resurrection, and the fact that zombies sometimes developed personalities totally different from those they’d had in life was likely to work in his favor. The case had already dragged on more than somewhat, and looked likely to run to run to epic lengths if stopgap measures were put in place when the evil sod actually kicked the bucket. No one knew how long a person might be able remain suspended in a post-mortem coma, neither dead nor afteralive.

  “The stupid thing is,” I said, “that the ED didn’t have any reason to hate me before, given that I was born white, but now that, thanks to them, I’m whiter than white, they will hate me, because they don’t like Olde English zombies any more than they like Englishmen of Jamaican or Pakistani descent. Ironic, eh?”

  “Ironic,” she confirmed, humourlessly. “I have to go now. I have other patients to attend to.”

  “Be thankful you’ve got a job,” I said. “All the zombies I ever met were unemployed, and bitter about it. It wasn’t a representative sample, mind—I worked for the OO.” The past tense slipped out without my noticing it.

  “There’s actually a demand for zombie nurses,” she told me. “Resurrection Ward has made sure of that, at least. I was unemployed before, but I was accepted for fast-track retraining with no trouble at all, and taken on at the Berks as soon as I finished. Ironic, eh?”

  She turned to go, not waiting for the echo, but there was still one more question I needed to ask.

  “It is okay, isn’t it, for us to call ourselves and one another zombies? But not for them.” The them slipped out too. I suppose I should have congratulated myself for the speed of my adaptation.

  “It really doesn’t matter,” she told me. “We are what we are, and we have to find out what that is before we can get used to it. It doesn’t matter what standards of political correctness the living invent, or how conscientiously or otherwise they observe them. Whether they call us zombies or the afterliving, we are what we are.”

  I wondered, briefly, how the other living patients in the ward—apart from the guy with the symbolically-inclined index-fingers—might be reacting secretly to being nursed by a zombie, but I figured that they would mostly be well aware that they ought to be grateful for any care at all. I wasn’t so sure about the living who had been numbered among my own former clients, many of whom had been ED sympathizers or people the ED wanted rid of. In either case, they might well have felt a trifle uncomfortable at having their appeals against the perceived injustice fielded by a victim of collateral damage to an ED suicide-bomb.

  That wasn’t an irrelevant consideration, so far as I was concerned, even though my contract of employment had been voided by my death. In theory, there was nothing to stop me reapplying for my old job—or, of course, from taking the matter to the Ombudsman’s Office if I were rejected, on the grounds of unfair discrimination. After all, I knew the drill as well as anyone.

  I wasn’t left alone with my thoughts for very long, though. As Pearl had said, the doctors still had tests to do, and they were used to working unsocial hours.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The question most frequently asked about the afterliving is whether zombies still suffer from angst, and, if so, how their angst differs from the angst of the living. Well, not really—only joking. In an ideal world, though—meaning one in which people took existentialist philosophy as seriously as it deserves to be taken—that would probably be one of the most frequently-asked questions.

  Naturally, I’ve developed my own approach to the question.

  I contracted myopia in infancy, when I was alive. It was corrected by laser surgery as soon as it was diagnosed, but it’s difficult for adults to figure out that a kid’s vision is blurred and difficult to measure the extent of the blurring, until he’s learned to recognize the letters of the alphabet, because that’s what standard eye-tests involve, so it wasn’t until I was five that I was diagnosed. One of the side-effects of infantile myopia—which can’t be corrected by subsequent surgery—is that the blind spots around the junctions of the optic nerve and the retina increase in size in the still-developing eyes. The fact that eyes have blind spots doesn’t make all that much difference to normal vision, because a pair of eyes can get enough information between them not to miss objects in the environment. If you close one eye, though, small objects at which you look directly do tend to disappear from view—and that phenomenon is much more marked in the once-myopic. The odd thing is, however, that you’re not conscious of any gap in the field of vision; you can only become aware of the disappearance if you rotate your head from side to side, so that the object alternates between visibility and invisibility. It’s not that the brain fills in the gap but rather that it refuses to register the fact that there is a gap.

  When my afterlife began, I assumed that the situation would be similar with respect to zombie consciousness. Like the once-myopic, I figured, the once-living simply wouldn’t notice the voids where fragments of their former selves had gone missing. That made me suspicious of myself, and suspicious of my sensation of being the same self as I’d ever been. So yes, in a word, the afterliving do suffer from angst—a cognitively fundamental fear of death—even though the prospect of death is behind them instead of in front of them. They suffer from an inherent fear of what Death the Sneak-Thief might have done to them.

  As for a counterpart to angst, which hasn’t yet been definitively named, any more than what the afterliving do instead of dying…well, I guess we have that too, even though the as-yet-unconfirmed possibility exists that, barring accidents and acts of extreme violence, afterlife might last forever.

  So, even though I didn’t feel any different from the way I’d felt when I was alive, I did stop taking myself quite so much for granted, even while I was still in hospital. Although I seemed to myself to be exactly the same person I’d been before, I was careful, from the very beginning, as any conscientious ex-myopic individual would be, to remind myself continually that I’d probably feel like that even if I wasn’t the same person, because my brain would simply ignore the gaps where the aspects of the old me had been that weren’t there any more.

  What I didn’t doubt, however, was that the bits of the old me that were still there were still the same. I was convinced that I’d still be able to play football like a Sunday morning maestro, no matter how difficult it might be to get a game, and I was absolutely certain that I was still in love, with Helena. And that, I thought, was the most important thing of all.

  Was I a fool? I don’t think so.

  The real situation, I must admit, isn’t quite as simple as my myopia analogy implies. The afterliving individuals whose brains need to be restored by the all-conquering superstimulant stem-cells don’t just have “gaps” where they were patched up, because the neuroarchitecture of the brain does far more than store memories. Zombies don’t just have issues with forgetfulness, but with the dispositions of their personality. Indeed—although it might, of course, be mere propaganda invented by the living to justify stripping the afterliving of their property, their social status and their human rights—it seems to be an arguable case that “passing on” invariably and necessarily involves alterations in that sort of disposition. But continuity survives, even so. The once-myopic eye can still see, and the once-living mind can still understand. We might be different people, but we’re also the same.

  Zombies don’t cry, and nobody laughs at their jokes, but zombies can still love the people they loved in life, and can still b
e in love with the people they were in love with in life and nobody—not even the most skeptical philosopher in the world—is entitled to doubt that, or reckon it less than a tragedy if that love becomes suddenly unrequited.

  * * * * * * *

  Mercifully, there wasn’t a great deal of poking and prodding while the Mighty Burkers of the Royal Berks examined their handiwork and pronounced it good. There were no jabbing needles at all, except for the drip that was still attached to my arm, even though I was no longer nil by mouth. They even took the catheter away, eventually.

  Mostly, they wanted to see what I could do on my own; they tested the wiggle in all my fingers and toes, and gradually moved from the extremities inwards, checking sensation and co-ordination. They tested my hearing, my speech and my eyesight as well as my sense of touch, and even did a sniff test of sorts to ascertain whether my sense of smell could still recognize such crude indicators as amyl acetate and Jeyes fluid. They weren’t big on answering questions, though. While the tests were in progress, the Mighty Burkers were way too busy, and when the tests were concluded, they were in way too much of a hurry. They had other dead people to resurrect, other minds to remodel, other albinos to throw on the dole.

  When they addressed me at all, they called me “Mr. Rosewell” or “Nicholas,” as if to emphasize that I was a new man. I didn’t bother to tell them that my friends called me Nicky. After all, I thought, if there was ever a good opportunity to seize the reins of my own destiny and renickname myself “Nick,” this was it.

  Did I want to take it, though?

  I wasn’t sure—but for the time being, I thought, I’d let my friends continue calling me Nicky, for old time’s sake, and I decided that I’d always be Nicky to Helena…and I’d let the Resurrection Men continue calling me “Mr. Rosewell,” or “Nicholas.”

  “Must be stressful coping with the extra work-load,” I said to one harassed junior who lingered longer than most. He wasn’t wearing a name-badge but had introduced himself, in a mutter, as Dr. Hazelhurst. “You probably had enough work when you only had to cope with the living, without having to tend the needs of the afterliving as well.”

  “Actually,” he told me, “it’s far from being a nuisance. Afterlife medicine is the hot specialism right now—other areas of expertise haven’t exactly run out of ignorance, but it’s hard to make any sort of major breakthrough on such well-trodden ground. Afterlife is wide open, saturated with unknowns and conundrums. No one knows much about its patterns of pathology yet, let alone its treatment spectrum. It’s where big names are going to be made in the next ten or twenty years—and the more we understand about afterlife, hopefully, the more we’ll understand about life. It’s a very competitive field, but I’m hoping to go into it full-time when I’m fully qualified.”

  “Much competition from zombie doctors, is there?” I enquired, mildly. Rivalry between living and afterliving doctors was a significant minor theme on Resurrection Ward.

  “Hardly any, as yet,” he admitted. “The requalification requirements are too tight. So far as I know, there aren’t any afterliving doctors in England outside of London.”

  “Discrimination by any other name would smell as rank….” I murmured.

  “It’s a bit soon to be getting militant, Mr. Rosewell,” he said, sternly, “but if marching on parliament’s your thing, you’ll probably feel right at home with the lunatic fringe at the Mount Pleasant Center. At any rate, we’d better see what we can do about getting you back on your feet a.s.a.p.” And with that, he was off.

  Nurse Pearl didn’t get the promised laptop to me until just before lights out on day two, with strict instructions not to disturb the other patients with the glow of the screen or any sound-effects. By then, I was too tired to throw myself wholeheartedly into assiduous research. I didn’t want to comb the web for information on the side-effects of zombification and the availability of local support services. I wanted to see Helena. Mum too, and Kirsten, and even Dad—but mostly Helena.

  After lights out, I couldn’t sleep, even though I’d meekly taken my prescribed sedative like a good boy.

  It seemed a trifle unfair, somehow, that zombies needed sleep. Surely, I thought, that ought to have been an affliction of life, a larval matter…like weeping. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether my zombie dreams would be the same as the dreams of the living me, and whether the afterliving forgot their dreams just as easily as the living.

  Everything was up for reappraisal; even phenomena that seemed the same, at first, might turn out in the fullness of time to be subtly different. I tried to convince myself that it was a really exciting prospect, but I was too tired.

  Eventually, though, I did go to sleep—and if I dreamed, I forgot what I had dreamed as soon as I was awake.

  I passed the following morning’s psych evaluation with flying colors. It wasn’t that much different from the others I’d undergone recently, by virtue of being certified as a civil service employee fit for face-to-face contact with members of the public. The trick is not to pretend to be absolutely normal, but to show tolerant awareness of one’s own eccentricities, and to suppress one’s natural inclination to make jokes. Like everyone else, I knew all about the trick questions designed to surprise latent schizophrenia or lurking Asperger’s, and ducked them with ease.

  I didn’t feel guilty about cheating; arguably, there’s no better proof of sanity than the ability to fake it. What is sanity, after all, but competent performance in the drama of life? Or afterlife.

  Once they’d had the ludicrously-delayed go-ahead, Mum and Dad came in together; inevitably, Mum started off doing most of the talking. She was every bit as wary as Dad, though—entirely understandably, given that I no longer looked like my old self, and that they too must have been poring over assorted websites for hours on end, reading horror stories about personality changes in the afterliving, and the awful prescience of Frankenstein.

  “It’s okay,” I assured them, when the fussing had died away to an acceptable level—which didn’t take long. “I died young, but not so young that my brain hadn’t fully developed. I was complete, as a person, but still relatively fresh. There’s no reason why the stem cells should have reconfigured my neural pathways to any significant extent—unlike my face, apparently. Who would have thought that faces were so malleable? Just think of it as fancy plastic surgery. How’s Kirsty taking it.”

  “Quite well, all things considered,” Mum assured me. “She’s at work just now, but she’ll pop in on her way home.”

  “And Helena?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t really seen much of Helena—our paths don’t cross outside the hospital corridors. Your Gran and Uncle Bill sent their good wishes.”

  “Thank them for me,” I said, absent-mindedly. “I expect I’ll be out before the weekend—the hospital will want the bed. I’ll have to come back to you initially, if that’s okay, but I’ll try not to out-stay my welcome. I’ll get in touch with my landlord as soon as I can—I can’t do it from here without a phone or email. I know my lease has been voided, technically, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t re-let the flat to me, and it would save him the hassle of finding a new tenant.”

  “We had to collect all your stuff,” Dad put in. “I don’t know if the flat’s been re-let yet, but it’s certainly been cleared out.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mum assured me. “You can stay with us as long as you want. I’m not having you going to any hostel. There’s no rush about finding another place of your own.” If you can, she was careful not to add.

  “I suppose they sent you all my stuff from the office as well,” I said.

  “There wasn’t much,” Dad said, as if that might somehow be of comfort to me.

  “No,” I said. “Well, I’ll be reapplying for my job as well. I’ve got the experience. In an open and fair competition, I’d be bound to get it.”

  “There’s no rush,” Mum repeated. “You’ll need a rest first. I’ll take a few days off myse
lf, until you’re settled. I’ve only got four days owing, mind, and I can’t afford to lose pay. There’s a program, though—the social worker explained it all to us. You’ll be able to go to the local Afterlife Center every day—it’s the old Salvation Army Hall, so it’s only a short walk even if your Dad or I can’t drive you. You’ll get physio and counselling, and you’ll be able to meet….” She trailed off, but then added: “The nurse seems nice.” There was no ambiguity as to which nurse she meant.

  “A veritable Pearl,” I said. Nobody cracked a smile. “I passed the psych evaluation,” I pointed out. “I’m certified compos mentis. Once I’m out, I’m out. Nobody can stop me trying to get my job back—and the flat.”

  “You can’t get another flat until you get a job, son,” Dad told me, sadly. “Even if we stumped up the deposit for you, you couldn’t get a flat until you have a bank account, and you can’t get a bank account until you have an income to feed it. The dole won’t stretch, and the bank won’t give you an account on the strength of a dole slip. I’m not sure you’ll even be able to get a new phone, unless you get a pay-as-you-go model.”

  “All that may be true,” I admitted, “but let’s look on the bright side—my student loans have been cancelled along with my credit rating. How many people of my age can say that they’re debt free, eh?”

  “That’s right,” Mum hastened to agree. “You’re better off than a lot of….” Again she left it at that.

  I was better off than a lot of the recently reborn. Not many of the older afterliving had parents young enough to take them in and lend them support—and some of those who did were refused, even if they hadn’t tacitly insulted their families by topping themselves. If Mum and Dad hadn’t been willing to take me in, I would have ended up at the former Bail Hostel on South Street, which was now an Afterlife Hostel, conveniently located only a couple of hundred yards from the old Salvation Army Hall, now the local Afterlife Center—which was itself, presumably not entirely by virtue of coincidence, only half a mile from the Royal Berks Burking Unit. All very cosy.