Although he knew the phantoms were only figments of his overwrought
imagination, although he had no idea what they might represent to him or
why he should be afraid of them, he was afraid. And at times,
mesmerized by shadowfires, he heard himself whimpering as if he were a
terrorized child.
ZOMBIE BLUES The dark rage passed, and Eric Leben regained his
senses-such as they were-in the debris-strewn bedroom of the cabin,
where he had smashed nearly everything he could get his hands on. A
hard, sharp pain pounded through his head, and a duller pain throbbed in
all of his muscles. His joints felt swollen and stiff.
His eyes were grainy, watery, hot. His teeth ached, and his mouth
tasted of ashes.
Following each fit of mindless fury, Eric found himself, as now, in a
gray mood, in a gray world, where colors were washed out, where sounds
were muted, where the edges of objects were fuzzy, and where every
light, regardless of the strength of its source, was murky and too thin
to sufficiently illuminate anything. It was as if the fury had drained
him, and as if he had been forced to power down until he could replenish
his reserves of energy.
He moved sluggishly, somewhat clumsily, and he had difficulty thinking
clearly.
When he had finished healing, the periods of coma and the gray spells
would surely cease. However, that knowledge did not lift his spirits,
for his muddy thought processes made it difficult for him to think ahead
to a Food. Although his genetically altered body was capable of
miraculous regeneration and rapid recuperation, it still required proper
nutrition-vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins-the building
blocks with which to repair its damaged tissues. And for the first time
since arising in the morgue, he was hungry.
He shuffled unsteadily into the kitchen, shambled to the big
refrigerator.
He thought he saw something crawling out of the slots in a wall plug
just at the edge of vision. Something long, thin. lnsectile.
Menacing. But he knew it was not real.
He had seen things like it before. It was another symptom of his brain
damage. He just had to ignore it, not let it frighten him, even though
he heard its chitinous fret tap-tap-tapping on the floor.
Tap-tap-tapping. He refused to look. Go away. He held on to the
refrigerator. Tapping.
He gritted his teeth. Go awQv. The sound faded. When he looked toward
the wall plug, there was no strange insect, nothing out of the ordinary.
But now his uncle Barry, long dead, was sitting at the kitchen table,
grinning at him. As a child, he had frequently been left with Uncle
Barry Hampstead, who had abused him, and he had been too afraid to tell
anyone.
Hampstead had threatened to hurt him, to cut off his penis, if he told
anyone, and those threats had been so vivid and hideous that Eric had
not doubted them for a minute. Now Uncle Barry sat at the table, one
hand in his lap, grinning, and said, “Come here, little sweetheart,
let’s have some fun,” and Eric could hear the voice as clearly as he’d
heard it thirty-five years ago, though he knew that neither the man nor
the voice was real, and he was as terrified of Barry Hampstead as he had
been long ago, though he knew he was now far beyond his hated uncle’s
reach.
He closed his eyes and willed the illusion to go away.
He must have stood there, shaking, for a minute or more, not wanting to
open his eyes until he was certain the apparition would be gone. But
then he began to think that Barry was there and was slipping closer to
him while his eyes were closed and was going to grab him by the privates
any second now, grab him and squeeze His eyes snapped open.
The phantom Barry Hampstead was gone.
Breathing easier, Eric got a package of Farmer John sausage-and-biscuit
sandwiches from the freezer compartment and heated them on a tray in the
oven, concentrating intently on the task to avoid burning himself.
Fumblingly, patiently, he brewed a pot of Maxwell House. Sitting at the
table, shoulders hunched, head held low, he washed the food down with