Nathan"s bizarre but factually correct response completely floored his father. His response, like many parents who lose an argument with their child, was to ignore him.
"Not going out. End of talk."
The dark came again, then the light, then the dark. The family had barely moved in hours but, as dawn broke on the fourth day after death, Simon was forced to take action. When the bright sun was finally strong enough for him to be able to see out with his increasingly weak and useless eyes, he saw that the front of their house was surrounded.
He staggered towards the window and squinted out. The number of dead people crammed into their crowded cul-de-sac had continued to increase. During the night just ended, the size of the crowd must have reached critical ma.s.s. The gate had finally given way and their block-paved driveway was now filled to capacity with rotting flesh. There were hundreds of them out there, faces pressed against his his windows and doors. Furious and frightened, he hobbled over to one side and pulled the curtains shut. windows and doors. Furious and frightened, he hobbled over to one side and pulled the curtains shut.
"What matter?" Janice croaked from where she lay slumped in a puddle of herself on the floor.
"Outside," was all he said as he limped past her and headed for the hall. Janice picked herself up and followed, her rapidly escaping, putrefying innards leaving a trail on the carpet behind her. Nathan watched his parents disappear into the gloom of the rest of the house.
In the hall, Simon looked at the front door. He could see them moving on the other side. Barely able to coordinate his movements, he purposefully collided with the coat stand by the mirror, knocking it sideways. It clattered down and, more through luck than judgment, became wedged across the full width of the door. Janice bent down and started to pick up the bags, coats, hats, and scarves which had fallen off and lay on the floor.
"Windows," Simon groaned, already moving towards the next room. Janice followed, desperately trying to keep him in focus as he stumbled into his office. She saw him grab at the venetian blind with bloated hands. His stiff, twisted fingers became caught in the metal slats and he fell, pulling the blind down and revealing another ma.s.s of cold, emotionless faces outside. Janice tried to help him up but she couldn"t. When he crawled away from her she dropped to her knees and tried to pick up the blind.
"Out!" he mumbled, pulling himself back up, using the door frame for support. Janice, momentarily confused and disorientated, managed to work out where he was standing and shuffled towards his voice. Once she"d gone past him, Simon made a grab for the door handle, catching it with his fourth downwards swipe and managing to pull it shut.
They stood together in the hallway, leaning against each other, unsteady legs constantly threatening to buckle. Simon concentrated hard and forced himself to swallow air.
"Back door," he said. "Then safe. All blocked."
He pushed Janice away so that he could move again. She toppled back, then lurched forward, her face slapping against the wall like rotten fruit. Instinctively she took an unsteady step back and tried to wipe away the stain she"d left behind. She was still rubbing at it several minutes later when Simon limped back towards her.
"In," he wheezed, his voice barely audible now. Together they crashed back through the living room door. "Block it."
"Careful," she mumbled as he moved towards the bookcase adjacent to the door. "My things..."
She began trying to pick precious items and heirlooms off the shelves-a trophy, a crystal decanter, a framed photograph of the three of them-but Simon wasn"t interested. Summoning all the effort he could muster, he pushed and pulled the bookcase until it came crashing down across the living room door, trapping them safely inside. Janice stood and looked at the mess. Simon collapsed. He aimed for the sofa but skidded in another rancid puddle and ended up on the floor. He was past caring.
They were safe. The house was secure.
After a while, he looked around the room. Something was wrong. He knew his eyes were failing, but he could still see enough to know that someone was missing.
"Where Nathan?"
Janice and Simon lasted another eighteen days together. They sat slumped on the floor at opposite ends of the living room for more than four hundred hours, longer than anyone else for several miles around, still recognizable when most others had been reduced to slurry.
It felt like forever; hour after hour, after silent, empty hour, they sat and remembered who they used to be and what they did and how they"d miss all that they"d lost. Had they been capable of feeling anything, the end would have finally come as a relief. More than a week after they"d died, first Simon and then Janice"s brain activity dwindled and then stopped like batteries running flat.
Nathan only lasted a day after going outside. His dad had been right about one thing: by staying indoors, in cool, dry conditions, their rate of decay had been slowed dramatically. But Nathan hadn"t wanted to sit there doing nothing. In his one long day, he played football (after a fashion), made friends with a frog, chased a cat, tried to climb a tree, and explored that part of the garden that Mum and Dad didn"t like him exploring. And even when he couldn"t move anymore, when everything but his brain and his eyes had stopped working, he lay on his back on the gra.s.s and looked up at the lights and the clouds and the birds and planned what he was going to do tomorrow.
Therapeutic Intervention By Rory Harper
Rory Harper"s short fiction has appeared in Asimov"s Science Fiction Asimov"s Science Fiction, Amazing Stories Amazing Stories, Far Frontiers Far Frontiers, Aboriginal Science Fiction Aboriginal Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Pulphouse Pulphouse, and The Year"s Best Fantasy and Horror The Year"s Best Fantasy and Horror. His first novel, Petrogypsies Petrogypsies, was published in 1989 and was recently reissued by Dark Star Books.
Harper currently blogs at the zombie-themed site eatourbrains.com, where this story originally appeared. Also of interest to zombie lovers might be his two zombie songs, "Fast Zombie Blues" and "Nothing Else Better to Do," both of which are also available at eatourbrains.com.
Some of the major schools of psychotherapy are psychodynamic, psychoa.n.a.lytic (e.g. Sigmund Freud), Adlerian, Cognitive-behavioral, Existential, and Rogerian or Person-Centered Therapy (PCT). In PCT, the therapist repeats key phrases that the client has said, which invites the client to elaborate and gradually reveal a wide swath of their thoughts and feelings. Author Blake Charlton, whose parents are both therapists, recently wrote a humorous piece about the first time he had a girl over for dinner, and how his parents would ask her things like, "Tell us about your relationship with your mother" and "So you"re disappointed that your mother works so hard in the city?" which finally led Charlton to exclaim, "No Rogerian therapy at the dinner table!"
Our next story also deals with a counseling scenario, albeit one that"s a bit more macabre. The author says, "Zombies are on my mind pretty often. I was also an addictions counselor for about seventeen years. A lot of my sessions bore some similarity to what takes place in this story-more so than you might think. There are a fair number of counselor in-jokes in this story, and one reader suggested that it be made into a short film for counselors in training, because of the way it ill.u.s.trates proper responses to common issues, and ill.u.s.trates how good counselors offer empathy and unconditional positive regard to their clients."
Even if your client is a zombie.
Transcript of counseling session with Michael R.-May 12, 2019
Good afternoon, Michael. I see you have a new bucket with you.
Hi, Mr. Harper. You like the h.e.l.lo Kitty on the side?
Very much. [Pause.] So, what would you like to talk about today, Michael?
Nothing much happening. Same old, same old, you know.
How"s your program going?
Um, work was pretty busy. I did a meeting on Thursday.
I think you told me last time that you might have found a new sponsor.
Yeah, he"s a good guy. Been clean three years now. You gotta respect that.
Yes.
It"s hard, you know. Sometimes I think about the old days. Back when I was all crazy. I"m a lot better now, but-
But what, Michael?
It"s like... I dunno... I just don"t feel... happy hardly ever any more.
That"s the brain changes, Michael. Everybody struggles with it. When you give up your bad habit, and all the intensity that goes with it, it takes time for your brain to adjust. It"s okay to not be happy while you"re working through it. You have to honor your loss, and learn to move onward. It takes time.
Yeah, I know... I just... Is this all there is? Just making it from day to day? Is this any way to live?
You"re still not sure it was worth it.
Yeah.
You"d probably be in the ground, Michael.
Sometimes I don"t remember so good, but I was wild and... and free, you know? Going b.a.l.l.s to the wall like nothing else mattered. On a terminal buzz twenty-four seven.
I understand. You"re having euphoric recall. You"re remembering the good parts, but not the bad ones.
It was so great!