Un-make a Zombie by Remy Chartier

Un-make a Zombie in These Easy Steps

fiction by Remy Chartier

Doctor Ebner didn’t prevaricate—meat was meat, and she told me as much when I left her clinic in the endless September rain, clutching her instruction sheaf in my hand. Gloom spattered the pavement, dotting the crinkled paper, but Doctor Ebner used the fancy kind of pen, the kind of rounded, gliding ballpoint that didn’t bleed everywhere at the hint of moisture. “Reanimation is a complex process,” she’d said. “I can’t guarantee these rituals will work. You have to want it.”

Did I want it? I certainly didn’t not want it. That’s why I’d dragged myself in to see Doctor Ebner. But that wasn’t the same thing. Not sprinting into traffic isn’t the same as checking both ways before you cross the street.

My shoebox studio had a slick of water by the windowsill, and I slid the glass closed before I even took off my shoes, squelching footprints across the hardwood. I kicked them off, shrugging out of my damp hoodie, and leaving both to join the heap on the floor. I picked my way around socks and empty Cup Noodles, brushing the comforter off my desk chair so I could sit down. I flattened Doctor Ebner’s paper on the tabletop. I took a breath.

Breathing is a little like moving. One at a time, one foot in front of the other, heel to toe. In and out. An instinctive movement that becomes shambling in a corpse as the body shuts the instincts down, conserving power.

I turned on my desk lamp, one of those fancy Vitamin D heat lamps that social media influencers think are all the rage. My parents sent it to me as a belated apartment-warming present. I mostly just left the curtains open. Doctor Ebner didn’t have the stereotypical chicken scratch of her position: the instructions were tidy, printed so legibly she might have typed them out. “It will take time,” she’d said. “There’s no lightning strike, no one moment where everything starts working again. You just pick something and do it a little bit every day. The body remembers. Eventually, it will start

waking up again.” She smiled at me, as rounded as everything else in her office. “If it doesn’t, we can try something else. There’s no one right way to do this.”

The list seemed so reasonable. Reanimation wasn’t much different than preparing your apartment for a kitten. Pick up the tripping hazards. Don’t let the dishes – or the Cup Noodle Styrofoam - grow mold. Stock up on canned things, preprepared to tip into the microwave or ready to eat raw and slimy. Make the environment a good place to have a body. Then make the body a good place to have. I stared at the list. My last houseplant had died months ago, and reviving chloroplast was easier than reviving meat. I hadn’t even accomplished that much. The evidence was on my nightstand, in ceramic containers of shriveled brown leaves and potting soil.

“I know you don’t like the idea of medication,” Doctor Ebner had said, “but I’d like us to keep that option open. It’s just like wearing glasses: there’s nothing wrong with needing that kind of help.”

Doctor Ebner made everything sound apologetic. I wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, or who she was apologizing to. I traced my finger over the imprints in the paper, the path of the ballpoint pen. I didn’t keep pencils in the apartment anymore. That was something I could control.

I looked at the duvet at my feet, then at the bed. The sheets hung half-off the frame. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d washed them. The mattress held a deep indent in the center, the tell-tale sign of a body, and the long hours it had spent there. There were more Cup Noodles on my desk, one only half-eaten, the fork still stabbed into it. I wasn’t sure how old it was. I dipped my finger into broth, then lifted the digit to my lips. I sucked on it. Ice cold, but in this weather that didn’t mean much. The salt prickled on the back of my tongue. The heat lamp washed over my skin. It was nice, I guessed. I hadn’t sent my parents so much as a thank you text.

The other thing Doctor Ebner said was about socialization, like a body really was a kitten. “It can be overwhelming,” she’d acknowledged. “But friends, family…they can make it easier to cope.”

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Everything on my phone was weeks old, or older.

I folded my arms on the desk, resting my forehead against them. I closed my eyes. In for four. Hold for four. Out. Hold. Repeat. I’d gone to Doctor Ebner because I’d been through this before. The September rain still tapped against my window, as if disgruntled I’d denied it access to my floor. I sighed, then did another square. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Repeat. A body in motion stays in motion. It’s the momentum that’s hard.

Slowly, I stood up. I picked up the Cup Noodles off the desk. I put the fork in the sink. I put the Styrofoam in the trash. I picked up a few more cups. I threw them away. I left the heat lamp on, the only light source other than the pale grey sky beyond my window. I gathered up the comforter in my arms and sat down on the bed, hugging it to my chest as I looked around the shoebox space. There wasn’t much difference. A little more oxygen, maybe.

I closed my eyes. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Repeat. Deliberately, I set the comforter down. I pushed myself back to my feet. One foot in front of the other. One at a time. Heel to toe. This wasn’t a lightning storm, but the flesh remembers electricity. The corpse remembers alive.

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