Falling to Pieces
by Norm Cowie
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
“This is the stupidest class ever,” Nick said, his teeth chattering.
Brian frowned. “Yeah, I got to give it to you. Dumb. What good are swim lessons for zombies?”
Nick swiped at the water, splashing a couple other kids who flinched away. “No zombie can swim.”
“My mom said it’s so we don’t develop a fear of water,” Brian said, peering morosely into the pool’s depths.
“Then why don’t they teach us to swim?” Nick said. “All we do is just stand in the shallow side.”
“We sink. Also, I think they’re afraid our parts will just float off.” Brian looked over at the deep end of the pool, remembering a time when he used to love swimming. He frowned at his friend. “Why are you shivering? Your nerve endings don’t work.”
Nick grinned, “I know, but I’m hoping Mr. Flump doesn’t figure it out. If he thinks I’m suffering, maybe he’ll let me out.”
Brian snorted. “More likely he’d extend your punishment. He’s a sadist.”
“Maybe,” Nick said, hugging himself as if he were freezing. “But it gives me something to do rather than just standing here wrinkling.”
There wasn’t really any answer to that, so they both stood there, wrinkling.
A loud whistle.
“Okay, swim lessons over. To the showers,” Mr. Flump shouted. “Make sure you rinse thoroughly. Chlorine will eat away your skin.”
“I can’t believe a school would make us do something that can hurt us,” Nick said.
“I think it’s just their way to force us to get clean,” Brian said.
The class of sodden, unhappy zombies surged towards the single ladder in the shallow end.
* * *
That night, Brian sat on the back porch swing, staring into the marsh bordering the backyard. In the past, there would be the rustling and little sounds of small animals hunting, chasing and escaping each other. Tonight though, there was little noise. With the land’s major predator having turned on itself and, after having decimated its own population, brusquely eliminating other animals in its quest for brain matter without care or worry about conservation of species, small animals had suffered as never before. There were no more raccoons. No more rabbits. No more predators who hunted those rabbits. All of this cascaded onto the bugs, particularly those that fed on the animal kingdom.
So Brian felt some surprise when a mosquito landed on his arm. Bemused, he stopped swinging and studied the small blood-sucker. Mosquitoes didn’t bug zombies, who no longer had healthy blood flowing through their veins, preferring instead to target the carbon emissions of healthy blood-filled beings. Brian couldn’t remember the last time a mosquito had bitten him.
It was so tiny, with fragile wings, spindly legs, its back legs stuck straight in the air as if to counterbalance the tube-like proboscis the mosquito was levering into position to insert into his arm. Brian was mildly amazed that the little insect was bothering with him.
Brian thought through what he knew about mosquitoes. Most people knew only the female fed in order to obtain the amino acids that helped her make eggs. He also knew that the itchiness commonly associated with their bite was an allergic reaction to the saliva she pumped in to thin the blood.
Brian also knew they were a common carrier of many diseases that had ravaged the human race over the years, including yellow fever, West Nile, malaria and encephalitis. He snorted. Were any of those worse than the disease that had wipied out the human race? He wondered if perhaps the zombifying disease had also started with the humble mosquito.
The brown-striped insect humped over as it probed hopefully for a rich vein. Brian grinned and determined that when it gave up its futile search, he would swat it anyway, if only on principle.
But it crept on his skin with its needle-like mouth posed like a divining rod. Then it paused, hunched its shoulder and deftly inserted the needle into his skin.
Brian felt nothing. Then, to his absolute amazement, red fluid began to swell the mosquito’s abdomen.
Brian was so stunned, he didn’t even notice when she stopped feeding and buzzed away to go create baby mosquitoes.
Blood? It had found blood? He’d been told he had no more moving blood. He had no heartbeat, so what would have moved the blood along? Had the mosquito mined some little pocket of corpuscles that had somehow survived years of inactivity? Impossible. Maybe it would have been possible for a short time after his conversion. But years later? It made no sense. But neither did zombies, whose existence also ran contrary to everything known about life.
He swung for a few more minutes, staring at the spot where the mosquito had fed. It didn’t itch, but it did begin to swell. Proof he’d seen what he thought he’d seen. He thought about showing his mother, but decided against it. He decided to show Mr. Bitten, who was the smartest zombie he knew.
* * *
The next morning, Brian’s eyes flew open. He waited for the normal confusion of waking up to go away, but realized he hadn’t woken up in his normal zombie fugue. Vaguely surprised, he swung his legs over the bed and felt numbly for the floor. To his surprise, there was a faint sensation of contact. He shook his head: Weird.
He shuffled to the bathroom and peed. While washing his hands, he looked up at the mirror. Things looked clearer, as if he had gotten a better prescription on the glasses he wasn’t wearing. He looked in the mirror. Even his eyes looked bluer. More weirdness.
Shrugging it off, he clumped downstairs with a bit more life in his steps than normal.
In the dining room, his morning oatmeal had already been set out by his mother, who had scattered a layer of dead moths over the oatmeal. She claimed bugs were better than trash because even dumb bugs had some rudimentary brain activity. Tasted gross, but it was out of love.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, letting gravity pull him into his seat.
“Morning, dear,” she said from down the hall where she was sorting laundry. Though they wore raggedy clothing, cleanliness was still important.
Brian took a bite of the oatmeal and chewed thoughtfully. The moths tasted even worse than usual. He spat the mouthful back into his bowl and looked back up at his mother. She was still sorting. Quietly, he took the bowl and dumped it in the trash, covering it with a small layer of paper towels.
“I gotta get to school, Mom,” he said.
“Brush first,” she called back.
“Fine,” he said sourly. What good was brushing? His teeth were a mess. He went back to the bathroom, squeezed some toothpaste onto the brush and, careful not to knock any teeth out, brushed carefully.
On the way out the door, his mother caught up. “Not so fast, little man. You don’t get out without a kiss from your mom.”
Brian grimaced and withstood the hug and a smooch on the top of his head. He waited for her to let him out of her embrace, but it wasn’t happening. “Uh, Mom. I need to get to school.”
“You smell good,” she said.
“Um.”
“I mean really good.”
“That’s great, Mom. But really, I’m late.”
He pulled from her hug and, deftly avoiding her grasping hands, escaped out the front door.
As he pulled it shut, he heard her moan from the other side of the door, “Brains.”
* * *
Brian shoved his arm in Nick’s face. “Check it out.”
They were standing near the front entrance of the school.
Nick drew back from the Brian’s scaly arm. “What, eczema? Looks pretty bad, dude.”
“No, not that, this,” Brian pointed at the tiny lump.
Nick pushed up his glasses and peered. “So what? You have a bump. I have tons of them. You should see my butt.”
“That’s bad rash from no circulation. But this” — Brian gestured at his arm — “is a mosquito bite.”
“No way,” Nick shot back. “Mosquitoes don’t bite us. That’s something else.”
“I thought that too, but I watched it feed. And it got blood from me.”
“Maybe you got something from it, too,” Nick said. “You smell funny today.”
“We all smell bad. We’re zombies.”
“No, not funny, like grotesque funny. More like... well, I sort of hesitate to tell you.”
Brian frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, well, you smell... um... good.”
“What? I mean, wh... Mom said something like that this morning, too.”
Nick’s eyes lost some focus. “I mean good, like tasty.”
Brian pulled away. “What are you—?”
Nick took a step towards him, his eyes rimy and dull behind his glasses. “Br—”
Brian backed away, noticing more kids turn dull eyes his direction in the alert way of predators scenting prey.
“I smell something wonderful,” Nick said haltingly, his voice thick. “Like... brains.”
They had everyone’s attention now. “Brains,” another kid said, filmy eyes drawn to Brian.
“What’s up with all of you?” Brian said, retreating into the building, realizing at the same time he was limiting his paths of retreat.
“Brains,” another moaned.
“Brains!”
“Brains!”
Brian bolted into the building, shocked with the realization that his speed and reflexes seems abnormally fast.
His classmates moved as a body, but were slowed as they smushed together trying to jam into the small doorway.
“What’s going on?” Brian panted as he ran through the second set of doors next to where a cop used to sit to keep terrorists out. Ever since everyone turned zombie, the cop was no longer necessary.
As Brian skidded to a stop, marveling at his own speed and dexterity, he heard the voices behind him, calling out for his cerebellum, temporal lobe and medulla oblongata. It would be more accurate to say they were calling for his brain, but these phrases simply popped into his mind, coming from memories from before when it was easier to think.
Then he remembered those parts of the brain responsible for memory: the amygdala and hippocampus. He’d learned the parts of the brain in school back before being zombified. Afterwards, taste mattered way more than scientific classification.
“Brains!” This came right behind him.
“Auck!” He forgot about the kids already in the school.
“Brains!” The kids at the door had finally unclogged themselves and were pushing their way through.
“Auck!”
He wheeled around, espied the stairs and skipped up past slow-moving zombies who hadn’t yet gotten the memo about whatever it was about him that was stirring up the other students. When he gained the top, he peered over the railing at the horde trampling up the stairs, sweeping along other zombies like flotsam. “Hah, you’ll never catch me.”
They looked up with dull eyes. “Brains!”
He ran down the hall, heading for the other set of stairs, blowing past zombies who were like statutes compared to him. His speed was exhilarating, mind-blowing. How had these stupid, slow zombies taken over the entire planet?
“Brains!”
Auck! There was another horde coming up the other stairs.
“Brains!” And they were coming out of the classes now. They were all aware of him now, moving after him in a coordinated fashion as if a single mind had taken over their bodies.
“Brains!”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” he growled, his heart thudding.
Then he noticed his heart was pounding. When had it started beating again? But there was no time to ponder that development.
The kitchen! Lunch was over, so it was probably empty.
Behind him a door kicked open. It was the three Plastic Homecoming princesses.
“Brains,” they moaned.
A scaly hand grabbed his arm. One of the princesses had him. She didn’t look as hot anymore. Now he noticed how vacuous her eyes looked, her mottled green skin poorly covered with concealer, bare spots on her scalp broken up by stringy greasy hair hanging unhappy like weeds that had been sprayed with weed killer. “Brains,” she moaned.
“Get off me,” he cried, trying to shake her off.
But something about being a zombie made her strong, and he couldn’t shake her grip.
He kicked and pushed at her, trying not to watch her rancid face leaning at him in an attempt to bite his head.
“Get, I said,” he screamed, hitting at her head, the force of his blows smushing her head with a hollow “splut” and sending one of her ears spinning away to plop into the face of one of the other Plastics.
Neither of them noticed. “Brains,” they cried.
“No!” he shrieked. He yanked with all of his might, and her arm simply popped out, sending Brian flying backwards, slamming into another zombie and knocking loose another zombie’s arms and a couple fingers that tumbled to the ground.
Ignoring its lost appendages, the zombie grabbed him with both arms, not realizing it was missing one. Brian easily spun free, tearing a few more of the zombie’s fingers in the process and whirled around.
He was surrounded. But he was closer to the kitchen door than the closest zombie, so he scampered to it and slammed though like a gunfighter in a saloon.
Inside, Ms. Evelyn was lifting a large metal tray into the refrigerator.
Brian got a peek. Uncooked cat brains. Yuck.
Still though, maybe they could provide a distraction.
He jumped over the counter and snatched the tray from Ms. Evelyn.
“Hey,” she said. Then she caught a whiff of whatever it was that had changed in Brian. “Brains!”
Ignoring her, Brian wheeled and flung the tray on the floor in front of the zombies who were struggling to fit through the cafeteria door. If they were being controlled by a single mind, it wasn’t good at coordinating entering a room properly as a group.
Still though, it worked, but not in the way he imagined.
Ignoring the cheap cut of cat brain in favor of the far more exciting sirloin of human brain in Brian’s head, they sloshed through the wet congealed, mash of cat brains which proved to be not merely adequate for making felines ambulatory. They were also very slippery, which the zombies found out as the first ones through the door suddenly lost control of their legs, scattering to the floor, upending the other zombies eagerly pushing in behind them.
Brian savored his brief triumph.
“Brains!”
Darn, he’d forgotten Ms. Evelyn.
Ducking under her heavy swaying arm flaps, he flitted towards the back of the cafeteria into the dining area which was empty of zombies for the moment. Behind him, he could hear the grunting and groaning of zombies as they tried to regain their feet.
“Brains!”
Darn, he’d forgotten Ms. Evelyn again.
She lumbered into the dining room, and Brian easily avoided her by scampering around the tables. Eyes on him, she ignored the tables and tried to go through a long table that had sixteen small stools attached to them with bars of metal. At night, they were folded into an A-frame shape and wheeled to the corner so the usual mess made by students could be easily cleaned.
But only about half were folded up, and Ms. Evelyn was having trouble navigating her way around the other ones scattered throughout the dining area. Her eyes were blank and dull with the absolute lack of cognizant thought as whatever was left of her mental acuity was swallowed by lust for brains.
Easily avoiding her, Brian dashed for the other door.
“How did you zombies take over the entire world?” he yelled. “You’re so dang slow.”
The door he was heading for suddenly slammed open, with a horde of zombies trying to squeeze through. Brian veered, heading for the other door leading to the hallway. Then a group of zombies burst through that door.
“Erp,” Brian said.
Only one more exit, the one leading to the dishwashing area. He zipped towards that one, only to skid to a stop when that one flew open propelled by another large group of zombies. Zombies were also flooding through the dining room door.
“Oh,” Brian said, at this demonstration of how zombies had taken over the world. All of the exits were cut off by ravenous zombies. “Brains!” they called.
“There’s not enough for all of you!” he cried.
“Brains!” they called.
His eyes darted frantically around the room. The windows!
A hand grabbed his arm. He looked up, Ms. Evelyn. Her mouth dripped strings of saliva as she reached for him with her other arm.
“No!” he shouted. His flailing hand slammed into something hard. It was one of the folded tables. With adrenaline-aided strength, he spun the table at her, its wheels audibly crunching her toes as it slammed into her face, an edge of the table catching her arm and tearing him from her grasp.
Startled, he fell backwards, but made it back to his feet, just in time to duck the grasp of another zombie: it was Heather Williams, one of the school’s cheerleaders. “Brains,” Heather moaned.
For the first time in his life, the sight of her brought something other than heady excitement. “Eeuu, get away from me, you hag,” he shouted.
Zombies moved in the window, and he cut around another table, three zombies shuffling madly behind him. Two others reared up in front of him, and he evaded them by sliding between their legs like a baseball player. Jumping to his feet, he dodged two other slow-moving zombies. He was fast, but there were too many of them.
Then his frantic glance saw that a momentary path had cleared between him and the window. Without a thought, he ottered into the opening, ducking flailing arms and grabby hands clutching at his shirt. He made it through successfully and jumped onto the window sill.
Copyright © 2026 by Norm Cowie
