Suzette's Dead Brother

A Story by Mike

Suzette has seen it all, but how will she deal with her brother becoming a zombie? Caution, this story has zombie violence, language and gore.

Suzette awoke on the living room couch and tossed an empty Ambien container in the wastebasket. It was 3:00 a.m., and she had zero refills. Piling kindling in the fireplace, she touched it off with a match and watched the blaze flicker in the darkened windows. Shiksa and Ben-Gurion came from the rooms’ chilly corners to join her at the blaze.

"Bad Ocelot's," she whispered, stroking their coats.

An October wind rattled the roof-flashing and whistled through the fields of silage stubble surrounding the ranch house. She slipped on a cardigan and wandered to a north-facing window, searching the moonlit fields for signs of what Cutie Niels claimed she’d seen several days before--but there’s no such thing as zombies.

A crush of stars glimmered in the cosmos. Icy ripples swept across the irrigation pond as she recalled a deputy sheriff at her front door, the terrible news he'd brought three months before, a collision on Highway 56.

***

She'd dreamed that evening of a young girl wandering sunlit corn fields, a princess locked in a tower, a brightly decorated balloon carrying her family's souls into the heavens, and a breeze whispering a song in the corn.

When a body meets a body

coming through the rye…

***

A star streaked across the night sky. Dawn began its ascent. Suzette ran a finger along the cool windowpane, then headed toward the kitchen. Reaching into the overhead racks of Mauviel copper, she selected a piece for polishing.

***

Suzette’s parents, Max and Jen, had practiced culinary arts. Max was a vulcanologist who’d hit the New York Stock Exchange big-time before dropping out, dragging the family to Colorado and moving them into the ten-thousand-square-foot prairie mansion. Jen had been a debutant at the Waldorf Astoria. A pang touched Suzette’s heart as she remembered her younger brother, Ray, a virtuoso pianist, a young man of boundless potential and generosity. But that was yesterday.

***

She rinsed her hands and, starting down a hallway, passed empty bedrooms before a mixture of impulse and grief made her grab a porcelain statue and shatter it against the black Italian tiles. She fell to her knees, her chest heaving, a terrible ache in her throat.

“I love you, Ray Ray!” she cried, then pulled herself up--stepping over broken Esmerelda as she started for the house's lower level. The L-shaped expanse had a library at one end and a home theater on the other. She locked the French doors as Shiksa and Ben-Gurion charged down the stairs.

Ray was remote in the days before the crash, overwhelmed by small disappointments in his practice sessions. Inconsolable.

"Bad cats!" she scolded, "Don't chase."

Grabbing a duster, she worked along the garden-level windowsills. There was a playbill on the theatre door, The Postman Always Rings Twice. She slid the door open and rotated a dimmer switch. Sunset-colored light glowed in the recessed light fixtures. She sat in a luxurious leather seat. Everything was new, but they'd never screened anything because of the accident.

A shiver ran down her spine as she stood.

This is no good.

A bang on the French doors startled her.

What the f**k?

She glanced at her watch. It was 6:24 a.m. Her closest neighbor was a half mile off. She slipped out of the theater and started up the stairs, pulling a pistol from Max's gun vault and chambering a round into the breech before going to a back window to peer down. A feather might have knocked her over. It was Ray, barefoot in the early light, wearing the burial suit she'd picked for him a day before the funeral. Her heart swelled with momentary joy.

It'd all been a twisted mistake! But where were Max and Jen?

She tossed the gun aside and ran down the stairs, slapping the patio light switch, throwing the bolt, and opening the doors.

The undertaker's wax had come off Ray's face, revealing deep gouges he'd suffered in the crash. She stumbled back, swallowing her revulsion, holding her ground while Ray pushed stiffly past and let out a horrifying wail. He stank. Ray was a f*****g zombie, and she had a problem. She watched him stumble through the library door.

Strange to think he'd been the good son.

Ray would have attended Julliard that fall. Suzette had flunked out of beauty school and had two abortions by the time she was seventeen. Yet the good son had taken his parents for a ride across the centerline into the path of an oncoming cement truck. She pulled up a chair, then sat with her head in her hands, listening while Ray played a sonata. She gathered her nerve and pulled the library door open.

"Jesus, Ray, you're dead as f**k, but you're still family. Can I get you anything, another set of clothes?"

She waved a hand before her face to brush the stench away. Ray jacked his mouth open and pointed at his face.

"Oh, sick," she said, looking away.

She ran to the utility closet, grabbed a can of disinfecting spray, and hurried back.

Ray was still pointing to his gaping mouth.

“Stop pointing at that freakin’ hole of a mouth, Ray! I don’t know what you want.”

She directed a long blast of aerosol in his direction.

"Are you hungry for something? I guess that would make sense…you are a zombie, after all."

He shook violently.

"Is that zombie-speak for, yes?"

"B-B, Brains," he moaned.

"What the f**k, Ray! After all the s**t I've put up with around here. You killed yourself and our parents, and now you show up dead and wanting brains! My God, Ray, what’s happened to you--apart from the obvious?”

Suzette hesitated.

“Ray, do you remember bringing the emotional support rabbits to the senior center?”

“Snowball,” Ray said with a crooked smile.

“That’s right, Ray, Snowball, she was everybody’s favorite. Oh, Ray, you two were so adorable together.”

“Snowball!”

“Ok, ok--hold your horses, Ray, she’s in the hutch. I’ll be right back.”

She went to the hutch and returned a moment later holding Snowball. Ray reached for his squirming friend.

"Gently, Ray.”

“Snowball--brains?”

Ray tore Snowball out of Suzette’s hands and bit her head off. He chewed it up and sneezed Snowball’s brain matter out of his nose.

"What’s next, Ray, egg salad?" Suzette asked in disgust. “That's the limit, Ray. Next time you need something.…go dig up our dead mother if it's the service you're looking for?”

She bounced the aerosol can off his head and burst into tears.

"She was the perfect mom… right? Only she wouldn't give me the time of day. She was too busy fawning over your…. your…. your f*****g aptitude!"

She slammed the library door. "Stay in there, you b*****d; what goes around comes around. Isn’t that what they say? What’s good for the sheep is bound to be bad for the wolf?” She yanked the door open again and said in her sweetest voice, “We'll deal with this later. Try to understand I’m conflicted here. And Ray… I'm sorry for what's happened to us both."

She went upstairs and stood under the shower.

***

In the following days, Ray continued to wail for brains. Suzette had run out of support rabbits. He’d gobbled up all fourteen and twenty game hens as well. She was doing everything she could, but he was voracious. He devoured anything he could chew. Dead, alive, rotten, roadkill, it didn't matter if he could sink his teeth into it.

The cleanup was hell, primarily because of the zombie s**t, a lumpy, decaying, undigested mash that filled buckets. Hair knots. Eyeballs that missed mastication. She'd put plastic sheeting on the floor to catch the gore. Every few days, she'd clean it up, first yelling him into a corner, then rolling up the plastic along with the feathers, fur, and raccoon paws. She'd replace the plastic sheeting, then use a shop vac for any overspill. Where will I find his next meal?

***

She tapped her nails on the kitchen counter and looked out a window. A morning haze blurred the fence lines along the driveway to County Road 5. Tumbleweeds had come in on a windstorm and cluttered the paddocks.

Those will take hours to collect, crush and burn, thanks for the extra work, wind b***h.

She made a mental note to get a burn permit, then started down the driveway to her mailbox. But there was Cutie Niels, her tubby body atop an ATV parked near the end of the drive. Cutie scratched her a*s and smacked her lips salaciously while admiring the swing of Suzette's hips.

Cutie's upper lip had wiry hairs. Her mouth was wet in the corners, and she had a skin disorder, hundreds of little bumps that made Suzette think of spider eggs in barn corners.

"Expecting a box today, Suzette? You get boxes most every day, ain't that so? It's no wonder a pretty thing like you gets everything she wants."

"I don't know what you mean," said Suzette, stepping up to the mailbox and yanking the lid open.

"I'll bet those delivery boys get ideas about you."

With that, Cutie laughed and wheezed until a tear dripped from one of her eyes.

"Oh, God," she coughed, "I wish I had your backside. You’re built like a young mare. I get warm as toast just from looking. I swing both ways, honeypot. But nobody wants me on account of my years and my acid reflux."

She let go with a sour belch.

"I have to go," Suzette said, holding her hand over her mouth.

"Did I see you collecting roadkill a couple of days back? Strange."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Suzette said, noticing Cutie had stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her overalls and was rubbing the tops of her thighs.

"You sure are pretty, Miss Suzette," said Cutie lasciviously. "I'd pay for it."

You'll pay for it, all right, especially when you meet Ray.

"Are you propositioning me, Cutie? It's four hundred, and I don't do anything back."

"You got yourself a deal, sugar tits. But I get to take my time with it for that kind of money."

"Cash."

"I don't have that on me."

"Not my problem. Go get it."

***

Suzette's doorbell rang an hour later. It was Cutie holding a wad of cash.

"I'm sorry if I've seemed unkind in the past, Suzette, and I'm sorry about your family." Cutie’s eyes went to Suzette’s hips and lingered there. “Yes, ma’am, you sure are pretty.”

"So what now? Should I freshen up?"

Suzette plucked the cash out of Cutie's hand.

"I like it sticky, nail cakes."

"Follow me," said Suzette, turning and heading for the stairs.

"Your bedroom's down there?" asked Cutie, suddenly suspicious.

"You don't want to now?"

"Whoa, I didn't say that twatsy--lead the way."

Suzette danced ahead of Cutie, unbuttoned her jeans, and stepped out of them.

Cutie followed, slowly making her way down the stairs. An expression of dumb adoration spread over her face as she reached the lower level and saw Suzette in her panties. Suzette backed seductively through the library door, smiling, saying,

"Come in here and be nice to me." Cutie started clumsily forward. But then she stopped and trembled.

"Why, it smells down here, sweetie. What is this? I think I should go now,"

She tried to retreat, but Suzette stepped quickly forward, striking Cutie behind the ear with a head-stupefying punch. Cutie went down hard, and before she could cry out, Suzette put her weight behind a sledgehammer kick.

The air rushed from Cutie's lungs.

"Nobody can save you now, b***h!"

Suzette dragged her into the library, then slammed the door as Ray shambled forward, digging his fingers into Cutie's throat and eating the side of her face off. He tore a huge flap back. Cutie's jaws opened and closed like squashed spider's legs; her molars exposed. Ray tore the flap off and stuffed it into his dead mouth, swallowing and grunting while his gassy burps fouled the air. Pieces of bridgework fell out of Cutie's face tear. She drew a breath, and arterial blood sprayed.

Suzette turned away to avoid the splatter. Cutie soiled herself and died.

"How do you like me now, TWATSY!"

But Suzette needed to get cleaned up, so she stood in the shower and watched pieces of Cutie go down the drain.

***

After several days spent binge-watching her favorite shows, moping around the house, hanging out in windows, and watching while the bird feeders went empty and the mailbox overflowed, Suzette acted. She knew she couldn't let it continue forever. She went to the library and found Ray picking Cutie over. Ben-Gurion rushed past her, swatted at Ray, and then scampered out. Ray didn't react; he was focused on the bits of meat still hanging on Cutie's ribcage.

"I gotta clean this up, Ray. Do you understand?"

Clearly, he didn't know how to get to Cutie's brain.

"Ok, Ray, do you need help with the brain?"

At the mention of brains, Ray jumped up and performed a coltish jig.

"Ok, Ray, I can break her skull open if that's what you want, but after that, she's gotta go. I'll need to get the sledgehammer and that eight-inch block of railway tie. After you've had your brain, it's time we got you cleaned up a little. I can hose you off on the patio."

With the splitting of Cutie's skull, her brain tumbled out like blackened walnut meat. Ray grabbed it up but hesitated, extending a piece toward Suzette. She held up a hand. "I'm all good, Ray. Have at it."

But she noticed he was eating slower than usual.

"How's it tasting, Ray?"

He shrugged, then shook his head as if to say, "Don't ask."

"Listen, we can clean you up later, but we must bury Cutie's bones first. I'll spray you down with the pressure washer as soon as we’re done. I'll get you a change of clothes. I'll back the truck to the patio doors when it's dark.

Suzette went upstairs and watched Lost reruns while waiting for the sun to set. When the sun had finally dropped behind the Rockies, she backed the truck in and yelled out for Ray. Suzette and Ray piled Cutie's remains into the back of the truck and then drove along the Little Thompson River, looking for a suitable disposal spot. In the end, they tossed her remains in whitewater rapids and began the drive home, returning just after midnight. Suzette set the pressure washer up and instructed Ray to remove his clothing so she could clean him up.

She set the pressure to low, but the water stream cut both of Ray's ears off on the first pass. She dropped the pressure wand and covered her mouth.

"Oh, my God, Ray, I'm so sorry."

Ray held his hand up, motioning for Suzette to follow him through the patio doors.

He led her into the library, where he grabbed a music sheet and wrote on the back. He handed it to Suzette:

Not your fault. I'm dying again. This time forever. I came to bring you home, baby girl.

When Suzette looked up, black tears were streaming down Ray's cheeks.

"Oh, s**t," said Suzette, now crying her own tears. “Ray, am I dead, too?”

She sat on the floor, reached out to him, and held his head in her lap until morning.

As the sun rose, Ray died for the final time. She put a hand over his stone-cold heart and lay herself down beside him.

***

Ray takes up the reins of their chariot as it hurtled across eternity. She slides an arm inside his elbow and looks up with affection.

"I love you, Ray Ray."

***

Suzette's Song

There is no grandeur in the recesses of her

unconscious. Lost in the confines of her sunken fortress,

she does not sense the sun-drenched landscapes or the

Pacific sprays. There is immutable silence, the tiara she wears

on her brow, a parchment with a poem rolled, tied, and fallen

from her hand. She is dressed in taffeta and does not dream

of escape. Nor will she ever.

© 2023 Mike

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Reviews

1809 Black Plague Decem..

Hello, Mike, loved it, I consider it spycho-trauma-horror.
It is psychological, trauma as that it entails urges, feeling, sensations of someone who is hurting in the mind. Two characters I got curious, the wild cats, but it didn't move into it; maybe you should make it into a book and elong a journey. Her father and her turn out to be the heroin and protagonist. It's so well famously written of you...(slept beside him). The lyrics are perfect and ever haunting, great write! -----Maynard