March 14 2013 - Mount Holyoke College

March 14, 2013
(Can you find Meg’s face?)
Welcome to the second edition of the new Chimera! We have
submissions to show you! Also rules, but the submissions are
so much more exciting so you should check them out! Well,
you will, because you’re reading this, and you should keep
reading despite the rambling! Sorry … weird day.
Upcoming Events
BARDIC REBELRIES REVELRIES!!!!!!
● PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE think about something to do!
● It’s like a talent show with no competition … or talent!
○ Jk, all of you are beautiful, talented people
● EVERYONE HAS A TALENT! FIND YOURS AND SHOW IT OFF! OR
ELSE! (also jk)
● Do we have a date for this? … Not as of yet, no. BUT SOOOOOON
● You can dance, sing, recite stuff, do a skit, present a cosplay, do
a rubix cube, WHATEVER YOU WANT (within reason. No killing
people on stage. That would be rude.)
CONBUST
● IT’S AWESOME! YOU SHOULD GO!
● March 29th-31st
● It’s at Smith, $15 for 5 college people
Hello, Science Bard here to announce the Chimera’s internet
counterpart, the Bellerophon! The Bellerophon will accept any and
all relevant content that we can’t publish in the Chimera. Simply
submit your work at thebellerophon.tumblr.com/submit. Most of
the rules for submission still apply, but as it’s a constantly
updating tumbly blog, there are no deadlines. Meta/poetry/other
short form writing and safe-for-work art/fanart will be accepted
as is. Any longer writing or NSFW content will be placed under a
“read-more” Please follow The Bellerophon if you’d like to see
more wonderful works by your beautiful fellow Bellas!
Just so everyone knows how the Chimera works, here are a
few extra guidelines (these are actually more like rules, so
pay attention fo’ realz this time よ.)
● We will accept one submission per person per medium per
newsletter.
○ i.e., you can submit a story and an illustration to appear in
the same newsletter, but not two illustrations or two stories.
If you do, we’ll split them up over several publications.
● If you submit something, IT MUST BE YOUR ORIGINAL WORK OR
YOU MUST HAVE THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE
CREATOR TO PUBLISH IT IN THE CHIMERA.
○ If you’re recommending something, you don’t have to get
their permission. We aren’t publishing it, just providing a
link or a title.
● We will have deadlines. *general groans from the readers*
○ I know, but the editors need time to go over what you’ve
submitted. It would be unfair to expect something you
submit on Wednesday night to appear in Thursday’s issue.
○ THAT DEADLINE WILL BE: the Tuesday before the newsletter
comes out on Thursday. We will tell you when the next issue
will come out in the issue immediately prior. THAT MEANS
YOU HAVE AT LEAST TWO WEEKS NOTICE.
We also came up with guidelines for the editors, and we want you to
see them, so you don’t think we’re feeding small children to a mythical
beast in exchange for this. I know, this is pretty magical, but we didn’t
make a pact with an actual chimera.
● Editors can’t review or approve their own works.
● If a submission is unintelligible, we will work with the creator to
make it intelligible.
● If we don’t think something is appropriate for the Chimera, we
will suggest submitting it to the Bellerophon (the Tumblr
counterpart, see above) instead.
As for how submissions will be published, we will give each
submission a rating, taken from the movie ratings system we
are all so familiar with. The submissions will appear in the
order they are rated, G to NC-17. … Except for this issue,
because we don’t quite have all of this hammered out yet. (It
was midterms, give us a break!) We haven’t really come up
with any clear conclusion about NSFW stuff … Right now, it
depends on the submission. Sometimes, we’ll be like “That’s
awesome! Put it in!” and other times, we’ll be like, “That’s
awesome! Put it on Tumblr!”
LELOUCH VI BRITANNIA COMMANDS YOU … SUBMIT!
(stuff to us... >.>)
Prompts
1. Imagine your OTP: Imagine Person A has turned into a mythological
creature of your choice without rhyme or reason. They just wake up
one morning with tails, claws, feathers, scales, etc. Person B is as
usual.
2. Alternate Universe: A royal court in which at least one character is a
jester.
3. Include this phrase somewhere in a story: “But if anyone asks, tell
them we’re fine.”
Librarian Recommendations
Books
The Goblin Wood - Hilari Bell (2003)
● Makenna, a young hedgewitch, flees her village when her mother
is killed by the other villagers. She makes a deal with goblins, who
promise to help her. Tobin, a young knight, goes on a mission to
clear his brother’s name, and that mission is to rid the northern
lands of goblins. Drama ensues.
Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations - Arthur C. Clarke
(1972)
● This is a collection of really awesome short stories by Arthur C.
Clarke (obviously), including one in which Martians are observing
Earth, aka Planet Three.
The Ring of Truth - David Lake (1984)
● … All I can find on the internet (stupid internet) is that it’s set in a
world in which gravity repels rather an attracts matter. BUT IT
REALLY DOES SOUND INTERESTING IF YOU READ THE BACK
COVER WHICH I DO NOT HAVE WITH ME AT THE MOMENT.
Heritage of Flight - Susan Schwartz (1989)
● Pauli Yeager is a senior fighter pilot for the battleship Amherst
(haha), but she’s struggling with her new post on planet Cynthia.
Aliens vs. Humans, neither may live while the other survives, but in
a way in which neither side wants the other to die.
Manga
Cardcaptor Sakura - CLAMP (2000)
● Sakura Kinomoto is an ordinary 4th grader until she opens a
strange book and releases dozens of powerful magic cards into
the world. Now, it’s up to her to recapture them, while balancing
her normal life. Except each card is actually alive, and powerful!
*gasp*
DVD
Millenium Actress - Directed by Satoshi Kon, produced by Studio
Madhouse (2001)
● TV interviewer Genya Tachibana has tracked down a closed movie
studio’s greatest star, Chiyoko Fujiwara, who has been a recluse
since she left acting around 30 years ago. Tachibana delivers a
key to her, which causes her to reflect on her life.
Next Issue Publication Date: 3/28 (Deadline for
Submissions: 3/26)
Submissions
Grandma Groa - Erienne McCray, ‘15
Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire
Art and Writing: Mookie
Recommendation from Camilla Yohn-Barr, ‘15
There’s no easy way to explain exactly what this flat-out fantastic
webcomic is about. I try to write a concise rec, I end up with a page-long
essay. In my defense, Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire is not only my first
webcomic but also the only webcomic I have never once stopped reading
or fallen behind on (which means I’ve been following it faithfully for a solid
6 years) so there’s a lot of sentiment on my end.
If you like the D&D brand of fantasy with all the magic and orcs and
stuff, beautifully written story arcs, well-developed characters, solid
world-building, and
purposefully bad puns/wordplay, then chances are you’ll love Dominic
Deegan just as much as I do. For the most part, the comic focuses on the
title character, a seer who is pulled again and again into dangerous
situations where he and the people in his life are the only ones who can
save the day. Dominic doesn’t rescue/repair the magical world of Callan
and the countries around it because he wants to be a hero, mind you – in
fact, he generally dislikes people and prefers to just live quietly. But he
also doesn’t want various powers of evil and/or chaos to take over reality
and subjugate the masses, or for everyone to die any number of horrible
deaths, so hey, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.
Don’t let that description mislead you – while Dominic Deegan has its
fair share of well-done drama, it’s mostly upbeat, goofy, adorable, and
very funny. It’s just hard to
sum up nearly 11 years of webcomic without getting carried away.
Dominic Deegan is currently wrapping up – possibly even in the midst
of its final arc – but it won’t be going anywhere once it’s done. Unless you
can marathon it over
spring break, I definitely suggest waiting until the school year is over to
pick it up.
Overall Rating: 10/10 (A+ should read)
Art: Typically black & white. Be advised that Mookie’s had 11 years of
drawing practice, so the art in the beginning is very different.
Writing: Fantastic! Compelling character arcs, believable and varied cast,
actual exploration of the storyverse and how it works, killer plot – this
one’s got it all.
Update Schedule: Monday-Friday
Perfect if you like: D&D-brand fantasy or fantasy in general, magic
shenanigans, humor; I think the Homestuck crowd would get a kick out of it
as well.
Warnings: 3 or 4 references to/attempts at suicide early on, 1 reference to
rape, periods of fantasy violence, and occasional character death.
Feels?: YES (But oh will it hurt so good).
Angelic Witness Protection
By Meg Wallace, ‘14
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Genre: Origin story
Gabriel was fed up. He'd moved out of Heaven after Lucifer fell, but
had still done his job when his dad called him to. Lately, though, everything
had really gone to shit. In the centuries since Lucifer was trapped in the
cage, Michael had gradually become more and more controlling of the
younger angels. He dealt with Lucifer's betrayal by convincing himself that
he didn't love his younger brother, and didn't feel as though a big chunk of
his grace was in the cage with Lucifer.
After the Jesus debacle, God pretty much goes out to buy milk and
doesn't come back. Michael and Raphael were the only angels in regular
contact with him, so they manage to keep it quiet, but Gabriel takes his
father's absence as his cue to cut himself off from Heaven. The only
problem with this plan is that the angels can easily recognize him, should
they come looking. Even if he acquires some other source of power so he
can conceal his grace, even the humans know his current vessel, a Bronze
Age woman called Jossa.
As he's contemplating angelic witness protection, Gabriel hears a
prayer.
As an archangel, Gabriel can easily tune out the vast majority of the
prayers directed at him. Even he would be overwhelmed if he had to listen
to all of them. However, there are certain situations in which an angel will
always hear prayers. One of these is if an angel's true vessel is making a
last desperate plea for help. Given that it's now AD 341 and he's due for
another true vessel to be born, Gabriel guesses that's probably what's
happening. He flies to what will eventually become Northern Denmark to
see what his vessel needs.
Materializing in a small, windowless house, Gabriel sees a man lying
on a pallet and staring at the fire in the middle of the room. The man was
about average in size for a Norseman at 5'7", with reddish-brown hair and
beard and brown eyes. In his late thirties, he was probably one of the older
men in his community still capable of physical labor, or he would be if he
was healthy. Even if he couldn't feel the man's life force, Gabriel would be
able to smell the festering gash across the man's hip. Without help, he'd be
dead of septic shock inside a week. Gabriel made himself visible and
reduced the man's fever enough for him to be lucid.
"Did I just die?" the man asked, sounding dazed.
"No," Gabriel replied, "I healed you so we could talk. You prayed for
help."
"Are you a goddess?"
Gabriel hesitated. While he'd always been a bit irreverent, he didn't
particularly want to commit sacrilege. Deciding that if Dad had a serious
problem with pagan gods, he'd have bothered to do something about
them, he answered the man. "That remains to be seen. Why don't you tell
me what's going on? Let's start with your name. I'm Gabriel, by the way."
The man looked a bit confused about Gabriel's godliness remaining
to be seen, but started explaining anyway. "I am Loki Jǫtunnsonr--"
"Son of a giant?" Gabriel interrupted.
The man, Loki, rolled his eyes. "Of course not. Not literally, anyway. My
father was simply nicknamed that because he was very tall. At any rate, my
village, as I am sure you already know, is very small."
Having teleported directly into the house, Gabriel had no idea what
the village was like, but he nodded and Loki continued.
"We do not properly belong to any particular tribe, which has never
really been a problem before. We fish our stretch of coast and raise barley
and goats and we are self-sufficient. In the last two years, though, the
Danes to the South have been kidnapping men from my village. I know they
trade with Rome, and I believe they are selling captives as slaves in
exchange for Roman goods."
"Is that how you were wounded, they tried to take you as a slave?"
Gabriel asked.
"Not me. My youngest just had a baby, so I was helping her husband milk
the sheep, and a raiding party took him. I tried to fight them off, but
Torbjorn was taken and I will die and Eydís will have no one to help her care
for her son, since her sisters are already struggling with being
newly-widowed."
Gabriel had pretty much made up his mind to help Loki's village, even
if Loki didn't agree to be his vessel, but he would try to get Loki to say yes
first.
"Look, Loki, I have god-like power, but I need to inhabit a human from
a specific lineage. I heard your prayer because your lineage is the one that
my vessels come from. The woman I'm wearing now, she's held me since
before your people settled here and I'm ready to let her move on. I can help
your village, but I need a new vessel. If I can stop the raids on your village,
will you allow me to inhabit you?"
Loki looked as though he was trying not to get his hopes up. "Can you
bring back Torbjorn and the others who have been taken?"
Gabriel grinned. "I'd be a pretty sorry excuse for a god-like being if I
couldn't."
Loki smiled peacefully. "Then yes."
Having gotten consent, Gabriel moved into Loki's body and sent
Jossa's soul on to her afterlife. Her body, he reshaped to look like Loki's so
if any angels came looking, it would appear that Loki had died of his
infection. Just housing an archangel was enough to heal Loki's body of all
injuries, scars, and even things like wrinkles and damaged teeth. Gabriel
replaced Loki's bloodstained clothes with higher quality wool pants and
tunic with sturdy leather boots and rabbit-lined cloak. He then completed
the outfit with leather armor, a helmet adorned with some of his own
primary wing coverts, and a six-foot-long fourteenth-century bardiche.
Gabriel was not going for subtle; he wanted the Danes to fear godly
retribution for attacking Loki's village.
Gabriel's first order of business was to find the men responsible for
selling Loki's friends and family into slavery. He wasn't picky, he just
located the Danes whose souls were most tarnished with human
trafficking. He watched as each one was lured away by a siren; a beautiful
woman or a lost but wealthy-looking foreigner or a friend offering free
drink. Once each man had abandoned his family for whatever vice Gabriel
offered, Gabriel put them in chains and stuck them in limbo until he had
someplace to leave them.
The families of the stolen Danes told stories of the warrior who had
lured their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers away before vanishing
with them. The rescued men of Loki's village told rather different stories.
No matter where he'd ended up, each one told his family about the man
(who looked remarkably like Loki would've if he'd been a warrior instead
of a farmer) who appeared with a fluttering sound and a Dane in shackles
and took him home, sans the Dane. Eydís and her two older sisters
mourned their father's death but were glad to have their husbands back.
The Romans who'd ended up owning the villagers were very confused when
their slaves were replaced, but the replacements were equally sound and
non-Roman, so it was a pretty even swap once they were trained to do
whatever jobs the previous slaves had had.
*****
After finding that he quite enjoyed punishing the assholes who'd
been raiding Loki's village, Gabriel had spent the last few years hanging
around Northern Europe and giving assholes their just deserts. He'd
always had to behave himself so he didn't give angels a bad name, so
being able to have horse thieves trampled to death and child molesters
raped was especially liberating. Gabriel was indulging his sweet tooth with
some baked apples when a large Norse-looking man walked in. Given that
he'd built his home on a mountain where one could only reach it by flight or
teleportation, Gabriel figured it was a safe bet that the man wasn't human.
"Can I help you?" Gabriel asked. Let it never be said that he was
incapable of hospitality.
"You're the fellow who's been punishing the wicked with tricks," the
man said brusquely.
"I am," Gabriel answered him.
"I'm trying to establish a pantheon for these parts, and we can't have
someone running around being godly without being one of us, but we've
got space for a trickster."
Gabriel smirked. "Are you offering me a job?"
"Yes. Interested?"
"Depends. Who are you?"
The man bowed. "I am Odin, leader of my little group."
Gabriel stuck a hand toward him before remembering that
handshakes weren't really a thing yet. "Loki," he said, using his vessel's
name for lack of a better one, "I'd be delighted to be your trickster."
Burning Ambitions
Chapter One: Rekindling (Part One)
By Lauren Tilley, ‘15
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (manga/Brotherhood)
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama
Kaliq’s POV
Four years ago, General Roy Mustang and his men moved to Ishval to
begin the reconstruction of our homeland. He brought Major Miles and me
along so that our people will have a voice in the decisions for how to
proceed. Mustang’s team has been invaluable to us during this time.
Thanks to Capt. Heymans Breda and Capt. Jean Havoc, we’re taking full
advantage of our natural resources, building an economy for ourselves in
trade with both Amestris and Xing. Our crops, wheat and cotton, are
flourishing, and we have enough to keep stores as our population grows.
Second Lieutenant Kain Fuery has been irreplaceable in reaching out to
our brethren scattered around the country in slums, and thanks to his
diligence, more and more refugees are returning home every day. First
Lieutenant Vato Falman, because of his experience in Briggs, has put his
shoulder to the wheel wherever he is needed: one day helping draw up a
list of necessary materials for accommodating new arrivals, and the next,
helping to separate the cotton fibers from the seeds. Lieutenant Colonel
Riza Hawkeye, while she never leaves the General’s side, knows every
Ishvalan by name and always makes an effort to welcome each new
arrival.
The General himself, while he is often heard complaining about his
workload, always completes every task ahead of schedule. Some
speculate this to be the work of Lt. Colonel Hawkeye, but I know he does it
out of his genuine desire to help the people of Ishval. After completing his
work, he always takes time to make sure every one of his subordinates
feels useful and supported. He is well loved by his men, as well as the
Ishvalans.
In an effort to further his knowledge of the Ishvalan culture, he
regularly sits down after dinner with Major Miles and me, sometimes
asking questions about what he’s observed, and other times, just listening
to our stories. When others heard about these little chats, many came to
join us, my master the most often visitor. Mustang listened to every story
with deep interest and compassion, leaving every conversational partner
feeling that their voice had been heard. It was on one such night, after my
master had left, that the general had revealed his true plan to me.
“Scar, there is something I want to discuss with you.” he said as the
curtain settled from my master’s departure. Scar was my former name, the
one I had taken up when I left Ishval to take revenge upon the State
Alchemists. His eyes had turned hard, a change from the kindness he had
when he listened to my people. Saying nothing, I sat down on the mat
across from him and waited for him to continue. He closed his eyes briefly
and looked down at the floor, a slight frown on his face. “You have the
right to know what my true ambitions where, why I was aiming for the top.”
Lt. Colonel Hawkeye glanced at him, surprised. It was obvious he had not
told her that he was planning to tell me this, which was unusual for the two
of them. Most of the time, it seemed as if they shared one mind in two
bodies.
I nodded, feeling that a verbal response would be inappropriate.
Gen. Mustang sighed. “Hawkeye, you may as well sit down.” The woman
knelt down on the mat next to him, keeping her back straight as she
lowered herself, as Ishvalan women do. “You know Fuhrer Grumman is
returning this country to a democracy?” he asked.
Again, I nodded. It was often a topic in our discussions. Mustang
smiled distantly. “Yes, I suppose we’ve talked that one to death, haven’t
we? That was one of my original goals. But I intend to take it further when I
reach the top.” He drew a deep breath and released it. “I intend to hold
trials for all of those responsible for what happened in Ishval.”
He stared directly into my eyes, trying to garner my reaction. I didn’t
move and returned his stare. I was surprised to see that his eyes had lost
their hardness and were replaced with the look of a man who carried
immense grief. I had seen that look on many of the older Ishvalan refugees,
and I’d seen this man turn that look into one of hope. When he didn’t speak,
the Lt. Colonel looked at him with concern. She’d heard all of this before,
and I could tell from the way she held herself that it was a difficult subject
for him.
When he spoke again, he lowered his eyes from my face and clenched
his fist. “It is my intention to bring justice to the Ishvalans. I want to do
more than just restore your homeland. I want to set a standard for this
country, and ensure that nothing like what happened here ever happens
again. What was done here was an abomination.” His speech was halting,
presumably out of shame.
By this point, I had realized where he was going with this little speech.
“And what of you, Mustang?” I asked. From the slope of his shoulders and
the expression in his eyes, I knew he felt the weight of what he had done in
Ishval to this day. I remembered hearing stories about the Flame Alchemist
during the war. Even his own comrades were terrified of him. In some ways,
he was more terrifying than the Crimson Alchemist, whose laughter would
fill the streets of his destruction. The Flame Alchemist was quieter, more
distant, when he killed you. Many of my brethren thought he might not have
been human, back during those times.
He drew breath as if to speak, but released it again. Straightening up
his back and shoulders, he looked me in the eye; the hardness had
returned. “I intend to stand trial for the crimes I committed in this land.” No
longer did the great general who led the coup against the homunculi sit
before me. No, he was replaced by a young State Alchemist, accompanied
by an even younger sniper, facing an Ishvalan monk, shame and guilt in the
way they held themselves. I admired them, for facing me as they did. They
did not run away from what they had done; they didn’t mitigate it by
considering their contribution to rebuilding the land they had destroyed.
I let out a soft chuckle at the odd situation. Mustang blinked, and
Hawkeye looked confused. “If that is your intention, then do not back
down, Flame Alchemist. Look your decision in the eye and accept it.”
Hawkeye’s eyes widened at my comment.
“Is that your opinion?” Mustang asked.
“My opinion doesn’t matter. You don’t carry my guilt, and my life
won’t change if you go through with this.” We understood each other, and
smiled. I was familiar with the need to be held responsible for what you
had done. I had felt the same thing when I returned to my homeland after
living in a world of hatred.
Mustang smirked. “No insisting that I’m foolish? No pleading for me
to change my mind? I’m hurt.” Hawkeye chuckled and rolled her eyes, and I
grinned at the general.
“I won’t shed a tear for you, General. Besides, we all know water is
your downfall. I would have killed you that rainy day if the Lt. Colonel here
hadn’t interfered.” Laughing, the general and his subordinate stood to
leave. “General,” They both turned to look at me. I dropped my smile as I
said, “Thank you for confiding in me.” I nodded my head in respect, and he
gave me a sad smile as he left.
I was left wondering at the honor of a man who has achieved so
much, yet can’t move past the mistakes he’s made in his younger years. For
all that I had done, I had never been brought up on trial. And here was the
Hero of Ishval, given medals for something he was now trying to undo.
We the Living
By Charlotte Kugler, ‘14
Original Fiction
Warning: Minor Gore
Before she died, my daughter once asked me how to tell the
difference between the living and the undead. She must have been around
eight years old then. I told her that you can’t, not until it’s too late anyway.
“But there’s got to be some way,” she insisted, “or else no one would
still be alive.” She was smart, that girl, even at a young age. Not a day goes
by that I don’t remember some clever witticism or insightful observance on
the world that she made.
“Well,” I’d replied, considering, “there are the eyes.”
“The eyes?”
“Intense. They stare at you, like they’re looking through you into your
mind. Makes your spine feel crawly. You see someone looking at you like
that, you run far away.”
She’d nodded solemnly. It was a normal fact of life for her, the
existence of the undead, like the presence of rattlesnakes and scorpions
might be for someone who grows up in the southwestern states. A danger
to be avoided, but not anything unusual. I knew different, of course. When I
was a boy her age, death had held no place in my thoughts. It had been
only an idea, a concept, not a reality.
I guess I first became aware of death once it ceased to truly happen.
The process was gradual, but that didn’t make it any less shocking. It
started with a few bodies returning here and there, and then eventually
there remained not a place in the world where it wasn’t happening. I
remember that during the first year (2034, I believe it was) the society of
the living pretty much ground to a halt. Global economic depression,
people living in ways little better than the corpses that mingled among the
crowds in the city streets. I say mingled because that’s what they did, the
dead – they blended in. When people think of zombies, they picture
grotesque, rotten bodies shambling hungrily along. But this was different.
These looked like regular folks stuck in hard times, and you wouldn’t
realize they were dead unless you’d personally known that they had died,
or unless one got you alone and came close enough so that you could see
those eyes of theirs. They didn’t hunt in mindless packs; they were smarter
than that, as smart as they had been when alive. If they collaborated in
their attacks, it was by choice and deliberation, not animal instinct. But
most of the time, they stuck with their own individual devices. Harder to
get caught that way.
That’s how they took my girl. See, if you were to spot a large group of
people coming, you’d be pretty suspicious and would try to get away.
However, if a lone man shows up at your door one night, out of breath and
begging for a safe place to sleep, you’re suddenly vulnerable. For, amidst
the chaos of the undead, some of us who were still living ended up
discovering for ourselves what humanity could mean. Once you’re
confronted with a common danger, you automatically seek out others who
fear it as well. You survive through your protection of each other; you raise
each other up. The undead were the ones who suffered in isolation, not we
the living. To let a stranger into your home is to take a risk, for sure. But to
turn him away is to invite the agony of guilt into your conscience. You’ll
wonder for the rest of your time alive what became of him, if he died the
next day because you refused him a refuge.
That night, our house already had three other people in it, a man and
two women. Their homes had been destroyed by one of the many gangs of
looters that had quickly arisen in the city following the outbreak of the
undead. So, as most other people did who were not in a gang, we had
invited these displaced souls into our home for the time being. My wife and
I kept the fire in the woodstove stoked and they and our teenaged
daughter sat around it, eating canned stew and bread. Then the sound of
the doorbell interrupted our quiet meal.
“Who could that be?” my wife asked, looking up.
“I’ll go see.” I’d developed the habit of carrying my handgun in the
back pocket of my pants, even though I knew it was pointless. As I’d told my
girl, you usually don’t realize you’re facing one of the undead until it’s too
late. But I rested my hand on the gun anyway as I went to the door.
I opened it to reveal a shivering, lanky man standing on the front
step. He had nothing with him, only a worn brown coat and a knit hat. I took
my hand off my gun as he launched into an apologetic explanation of his
presence.
“Sir, I’m so sorry, I saw the light on in your window and I ain’t able to
run much more…one of ‘em nearly got me back there at the old church.
Please, if you could help me –”
I had already moved aside, gesturing for him to enter. “Come in,
come in! You must have had a mighty scare.”
He stepped forward gratefully. I led him into the kitchen where my
family and our other guests sat eating.
“We’ve got plenty more food, so I’ll get you something to fill you up,” I
said.
My wife recognized the man as another hapless survivor. She handed
him a bowl of stew and he joined the group. He didn’t say much after
coming inside; he just kind of huddled into himself and picked at the food
with his spoon. As the night deepened, we all began to yawn, and I settled
the new man in the living room with our other male guest. The two women
shared our spare room, my daughter went to her own room, and my wife
and I went to ours. Sleep came quickly.
I don’t know how long it was after I went to bed that I heard the first
scream. Since the undead came, I haven’t been able to keep track of time in
the same way I did as a young man. You end up living from moment to
moment, day to day, when you’ve got to watch your own back as well as
your family’s at all times even when doing simple things. Naturally, the
screaming jolted us awake. I grabbed my handgun as soon as I realized the
sound was coming from my daughter’s room, and my wife and I ran down
the hall.
The man – no, the corpse – who’d come that evening had her pinned to
the floor. A pool of blood glistened around them. He had jerked his head
up from her neck with a snarl when I threw the door open, and I stood there
immobilized by the sight of my daughter, barely a young woman, thrashing
and crying against her fate. I felt the gun pulled from my hand. I saw a
flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I heard an echoing bang,
and at the same time the splatter of the man’s blood and brains against
the bedroom wall.
My wife dropped the gun and rushed towards our girl, whose
struggles and screams had turned into twitches and chokes. “No, no,”
sobbed my wife. “My beautiful baby. Not like this. Look at me!”
I stepped shakily towards them, still unable to speak. When I reached
my wife’s side, I stretched out my hand to touch my daughter’s tangled
hair, and I collapsed on my knees. Glazed, blank eyes stared up at us. A
howl unleashed itself from my throat, a wild animal sound. I clutched at her
bloody shirt and saw my world go dark.
Minutes crept by. The others had gathered around us, forming a
huddle of horror. I closed my eyes, barely aware of their whispers.
“How did…?”
“That man, he was…”
“What about…?”
“We need to…”
It was these last words, from one of the women, that broke through
the ice that had frozen my mind. “We need to take care of the girl.”
My wife paled. Shooting the man who had been trying to kill her child
had been automatic, an instinct. But mutilating the body of the child?
In my moment of clarity, what I figured was that we had two choices. Do it
now, while our sweet girl rested peacefully, or do it later, when she got up
and fixed us with the gaze of her new eyes. I picked up the gun and my hand
didn’t shake once as I pulled the trigger.
They helped us carry the bodies outside. We worked all night to dig
two holes in the small yard behind the house. When the work was done, we
threw the man into the ground unceremoniously, but it was different with
my daughter. Under the canopy of the sky I stood next to my wife and
spoke a few words over the limp body that we both held in our arms.
Nothing fancy, just simple words of simple love. A few tears dropped onto
her bloodied face, and I don’t know if they were my wife’s or my own. Then
the others came forward to share in our grief as we lowered the girl into
her place of rest. The silence, the warm closeness of my wife and these
people whom I barely knew, brought the promise of eventual repose.
We’d keep going, never forgetting. Together we’d face tomorrow and all
that may come. That’s what we do now, we the living.