windows were tinted black and hid anyone inside. It disappeared behind a house, and the boy felt a chill, felt that the driver had waited for him to see and only then left.
He looked over at the neighbors' house, the Robinsons', hoping in vain to find someone outside. He scanned the town, what could be seen from the porch, and found no one. No cars, no lawn mowers, no one walking, nothing.
And then he smelled bacon, realized the odor had been there since he opened the door, felt his stomach rumble and saliva flow into his mouth despite the fear, and thought with joy that he’d been mistaken, that his mother was in the kitchen cooking and that somehow he’d gotten on the porch before he’d really woken up. All of this wasn’t real. Not a dream, exactly, but like that show about people that walked in their sleep.
He became aware of something on the floor of the porch right inside the door, a lump under a paper towel with a stain of grease breaking up the floral pattern. The smell came from there. He looked around again, didn’t see the van or anyone else, and advanced slowly towards it. When he crouched down next to it, he could make out the rim of a plate under the cover. He reached out his hand as if it were the snapping turtle he and Jake had found out by the swamp, that had appeared to be dead, but proved itself quite alive and intent on removing his fingers.
The boy poked at the paper towel until it slid off of the plate, revealing bacon, scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast neatly arranged as if ordered at Denny’s. Also on the plate was a small piece of paper. Written in block letters in a large, childish hand was one word. EAT.
Eric heard a knock on the door and saved his work, then shut down the laptop. He had a vague idea of the story’s path, but at a certain point it became murky. This was unlike the way he usually worked, normally mapping out the story from beginning to end using notecards for scene summaries, then testing the plot for holes and inconsistencies and impact. He would then run it by his circle of writer friends to see if they saw anything he’d missed, or to tell him the whole thing stunk. The actual writing was like putting flesh on the skeleton. He couldn’t do that this time, because it was his story, and he didn’t know the end. And he had begun to fear that by facing his childhood demons, it might impair his ability to continue on in the horror genre.
With the actual mourning of Adam, he didn’t feel the same urgency and connection. It wasn’t so much this loss that concerned him. Sure, he had a career going, and since he possessed no other real marketable skills than writing, he would continue on wherever it went. Maybe he could switch to mysteries, or actually do the historical work minus the ghouls. Other authors had pulled it off, but their names were bigger than his and he knew he might not survive the transition.
But he was still relatively young, and at thirty-two, he could learn another trade if necessary, even go back to school and get his Masters Degree, possibly teach. He would always write, if only for himself.
The most troubling aspect of this was what would fill the vacuum in his life. Writing "intellectual" horror had driven him this far, given him a sense of purpose. Would anything he did after burn within him, force him out of bed at three in the morning to work while the city slept? Or would the fire go out for good, leave him hollow and soulless, a wraith himself and as good as dead. No matter what the popular culture portrayed - and Eric had avoided adding to that canon - he believed real zombies walked among us in just this manner, living for nothing and dying only a formality. It all led back to the God question. If He did not exist, these zombies might actually be the agents of the truth, the ones with symptoms too far along to hide and the rest of the world deluded by ultimately meaningless hopes and dreams.
He
He looked over at the neighbors' house, the Robinsons', hoping in vain to find someone outside. He scanned the town, what could be seen from the porch, and found no one. No cars, no lawn mowers, no one walking, nothing.
And then he smelled bacon, realized the odor had been there since he opened the door, felt his stomach rumble and saliva flow into his mouth despite the fear, and thought with joy that he’d been mistaken, that his mother was in the kitchen cooking and that somehow he’d gotten on the porch before he’d really woken up. All of this wasn’t real. Not a dream, exactly, but like that show about people that walked in their sleep.
He became aware of something on the floor of the porch right inside the door, a lump under a paper towel with a stain of grease breaking up the floral pattern. The smell came from there. He looked around again, didn’t see the van or anyone else, and advanced slowly towards it. When he crouched down next to it, he could make out the rim of a plate under the cover. He reached out his hand as if it were the snapping turtle he and Jake had found out by the swamp, that had appeared to be dead, but proved itself quite alive and intent on removing his fingers.
The boy poked at the paper towel until it slid off of the plate, revealing bacon, scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast neatly arranged as if ordered at Denny’s. Also on the plate was a small piece of paper. Written in block letters in a large, childish hand was one word. EAT.
Eric heard a knock on the door and saved his work, then shut down the laptop. He had a vague idea of the story’s path, but at a certain point it became murky. This was unlike the way he usually worked, normally mapping out the story from beginning to end using notecards for scene summaries, then testing the plot for holes and inconsistencies and impact. He would then run it by his circle of writer friends to see if they saw anything he’d missed, or to tell him the whole thing stunk. The actual writing was like putting flesh on the skeleton. He couldn’t do that this time, because it was his story, and he didn’t know the end. And he had begun to fear that by facing his childhood demons, it might impair his ability to continue on in the horror genre.
With the actual mourning of Adam, he didn’t feel the same urgency and connection. It wasn’t so much this loss that concerned him. Sure, he had a career going, and since he possessed no other real marketable skills than writing, he would continue on wherever it went. Maybe he could switch to mysteries, or actually do the historical work minus the ghouls. Other authors had pulled it off, but their names were bigger than his and he knew he might not survive the transition.
But he was still relatively young, and at thirty-two, he could learn another trade if necessary, even go back to school and get his Masters Degree, possibly teach. He would always write, if only for himself.
The most troubling aspect of this was what would fill the vacuum in his life. Writing "intellectual" horror had driven him this far, given him a sense of purpose. Would anything he did after burn within him, force him out of bed at three in the morning to work while the city slept? Or would the fire go out for good, leave him hollow and soulless, a wraith himself and as good as dead. No matter what the popular culture portrayed - and Eric had avoided adding to that canon - he believed real zombies walked among us in just this manner, living for nothing and dying only a formality. It all led back to the God question. If He did not exist, these zombies might actually be the agents of the truth, the ones with symptoms too far along to hide and the rest of the world deluded by ultimately meaningless hopes and dreams.
He
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