Zombie Pulp

9

Again, the same scene: a group of shifty-eyed, borderline neurotic people packed into the dining hall, whispering, praying, chain-smoking, or just staring into space with a steely silence that spoke volumes. You could smell the stale sweat, the feverish anxiety, a fear that was bright and hot coming off every one of them and I had to wonder if that’s what it smelled like in those packed cattle cars bound for places like Treblinka and Sobibor during World War II. There was very little talking. Now and then a peal of almost hysterical laughter that was sharp as a pin would break out amongst the condemned.

Because we were condemned, you know.

Each and every one of us who stayed and played that awful fucking game were most definitely condemned. It was only a matter of when sentence would be passed.

Before we filed in there, Shacks pulled me aside and said, “I keep thinking about the things you’re saying, Tommy…I mean, really thinking about them. Maybe I never did before. Maybe I never wanted to. But…but to be tied up out there, alive, while those things feed on you…Jesus.”

And that’s exactly what needed to happen: every one these goddamn scared rabbits in Doc’s personal warren needed to do some thinking. Some real thinking. They just couldn’t go on like this, hiding behind a crumbling wall of denial that it would never happen to them while their odds dwindled and dwindled.

I sat by Maria and stared at Doc. “Well, let’s get going, Doc. Let’s find out whose ass is raw meat.”

“ Tommy-”

“ Why don’t you shut up?” Sonny said.

“ You think they start with your throat or your balls?” I asked him. “Which do they bite into first?”

Ape glared at me with full menace and I smiled at him. “You better cold-cock me, asshole, because I won’t shut up. But don’t damage me…Dragna likes his cold cuts fresh and chewy.”

An elderly woman named Peggy began to sob and her husband made a low wailing sound that put chills up everyone’s spine: it was the sound of bitter, broken finality, of life accepting death and it was eerie.

“ Please everyone,” Doc said. He cast me a look that tried unbelievably hard to be tolerant and sage, but it was wearing thin and Doc was getting very fucking sick of me and my mouth. I think as far as he was concerned, I was guilty of treason and sedition. He was probably hoping that I’d draw the X and he’d be rid of me.

The cigar box made the rounds.

People either tore them open with a mad, suicidal glee or held them out in trembling fingers like they were poisonous spiders.

“ Hallelujah!” Sonny cried out in the giddy voice of a nine year old on Christmas morning, born again on the spot. “It’s not me! It’s not me!”

“ Me either!”

“ My skin is saved! Ha! I’m staying!”

I can’t say that they were all as piggish, crude, and insensitive. Many just took the verdict quietly and calmly with a modicum of self-respect. But others jumped for joy, pigs wallowing in the full glory of their filth.

One by one by one, people held out empty pieces of paper. There were only two that had not had been checked and those belonged to Maria and I. The knowledge of that nearly suffocated me. I felt sweat break open on my face, the neurons of my brain ready to overload and burn out.

All eyes were on us…there was pity in them and guilt. But in some there was a twisted, vicious euphoria. It wasn’t them so now it was a game to see who went on the spit, high drama and nail-biting suspense.

Maria and I looked at each other and the others pressed in, all of them now, eyes wide and shining, licking their lips, some of them nearly drooling. They were eager for it, I tell you. Hungry for it. Like crazed villagers filled with manic glee at the idea of burning one of their own as a witch. I saw the innate brutality and bestiality of the human race at that moment.

And I hated.

God, how I hated.

I swore to myself then and there that I would kill each and everyone of them if I got the chance. I prayed it would be me. I really did. But even before I opened my slip I knew it would be blank. And it was. Maria opened hers, smiled thinly, held up her slip with the X on it. “It’s me,” she said quite calmly. “I’m the one. I’m chosen.”

Everyone sighed…that unbroken circuit of tension died.

They were all safe and the fun was over.

But, without knowing it, they had just signed their own death warrants.