Death by dumb

“I will be voracious, mindless, and decaying. Beyond that veil, I might never venture. This is it: either I need to end my life in a way that leaves no trace of myself, or I embrace a shift in personality that may take me to places I’ve never been, never dared. Immortality, provided against my will. Corruption.”

Horace Angest sat on his hotel bed. Legs up, head down. A kind of seated foetal position. It was most likely his last day as him. He could feel it now, mind wandering. Memories clouded. Life, draining. He’d been bitten. He looked at the wounds on his arm. Several bites.

“I don’t know how to fix this. I can’t undo it,” Horace whimpered. “Regardless of how hard I’ll try, I am infected.”

He wanted to cry, but his tear ducts had dried up. Probably as a result of his ongoing transformation. Without in-depth knowledge of the process, he had seen enough films to accept that there was no way out of this. He was going to turn into a zombie.

“Horace? Hoooorace?”

The people growling on the other side of the door had already turned feral. They could only speak in single words, if any. None of those words, however, had been “brain”. Yet. One of them was his old friend and business partner, Fran. Zombie-Fran—now. She had bitten him, as he tried to help her.

How could they have known?

Covid-19 had been a breeze compared to the next one, Chikunga. So many dead. And so quickly. Too quickly for sustained transmission: people died before they could pass it on.

This one, however, this was different. Everyone knew it was man-made. It had to be. Still, everyone joked about it, memed it. It had a numeric, scientific name, but people called it the T-virus. From some old game. Until the game’s publisher sued a newspaper for using it. That, apparently, felt like the right thing to do as modern civilisation collapsed.

This virus didn't kill; it never did. Reanimation, that was its thing. Spreading through society via bites and scratches. From humans as well as animals. Fran had been bitten by a damned pigeon on her way back from work.

“Keep calm, stay normal” had been the government’s mantra. The only thing worse than a zombie apocalypse would be a destabilised stock market. Apparently.

Horace wasn’t sure any of this was real; it was all too surreal. Fran sounded less and less like herself on the other side of that door, and more and more like an animal. She wasn’t a threat, though, as Horace had successfully barricaded the door using the hotel room bed and wooden cupboard. He’d sleep on the floor with just the mattress. It wasn’t his biggest dilemma, at present, but he was a creature of comfort. The minibar would keep him afloat for a couple of days. His disgust at the dilapidated bathroom had turned into an opportunity when he’d been quick to clean the bathtub and then fill it with water. Between those thirty gallons of water, fifteen chocolate bars, four beers, some nuts, and his own 350-pound body, he could probably outlast them.

At least, he hoped so.

“Weed. Weeeeeed.”

Fran’s motives had changed. Some urges trumped hunger, it seemed. Horace had enough weed to torment her a bit. As luck would have it, he and Fran had travelled the country promoting their brand of weed, Wharf Weed of Whitestone, or W3, and he carried the samples in his bag. He had papers, of course, but crafting a bong was the least of his problems after twenty-five years of getting baked, and he had about fifteen lighters packed.

“Fran, I’m lighting up for you in here,” he said, as he lit up near the door. He exhaled the smoke towards the door. After a brief while, Fran was getting even more upset.

“Weeed. Weeeeeeed.”

Horace sat down with his back against the barricade. Life could be worse, he thought. He had a fridge full of snacks, enough water to drown a horse, and some company, albeit a monotonous and brain-dead one. He was in his mid-thirties, and so he had learnt to embrace life when it wasn’t too bad. It could’ve been the weed affecting his mind, but he actually managed to relax a bit, sitting in a barricaded hotel room somewhere he’d never been. W3, the weed with a hint of harbour, could solve any problem anyone ever had. By making you forget about it.

Horace was proud of what the two of them had built. With nobody’s help but their own. They weren’t book-smart, or well-connected. They had a killer friendship, and a life clouded in legalised weed. Life, come to think of it, was so much easier when you had softened your brain with Wharf Weed of Whitestone. He smiled.

W3: the wonderful weed—that was their current tagline.

No, they had to change that. All weed was incredible in his mind, so it was a bit hypocritical. And in their stuff, that seaside wind came through sometimes as you smoked it. An acquired taste, but he loved it. And nobody complained about you not being smart enough, or well-connected enough to… well, do whatever. No, not if everyone was high. Fight stupid with dumb, that should be their slogan, he thought and broke into solemn laughter.

“Toke. Tooook-k-ke.”

Fran would not give up. She, and what had to be the other lodgers, had begun to scratch the door. A foolish endeavour, in Horace’s mind, as the door was made of some kind of laminate, or vinyl. A human nail would do nothing to bring that down.

“You’re not going to make it in here, Fran,” Horace said loudly, before putting his joint down in one of the complimentary glass bowls. He needed something to chew on, and a couple of gulps of water. He’d hold off on the toilet water and start off with one of the bottles provided by the hotel, standing on the rather pointless old desk, next to the bed.

While taking a rather large sip of what was supposedly “mountain fresh” water, he noticed that the sound from outside his door had dampened. He walked up to it, to listen. Were they looking for other ways in? He wasn’t worried; in his state he couldn’t be, but some of that curiosity that killed cats was coming his way.

“Fran?”

After asking for his old friend, he noticed a complete silence. Then another door opening, or maybe just banging against a wall. Footsteps. Dragging, heaving. Then the sound of a weapon being cocked.

“Fran? What are you up to out there, girl?”

More silence.

“Police.”

It was the sound of the police. Although the voice was slow, and raspy, it did say police.

“Officer? You have no idea how happy I am to hear you out there,” Horace began. But before finishing his sentence, the same voice suddenly, and in an almost questioning way, joined the chorus: “Weed? Weeeeeeed.”

“Oh, good,” Horace said out loud. The police officer started banging on the door, continuing a quest for weed that had been going on for a few hours.

“Weeeed.”

Losing whatever hope he had built up, Horace moved away from the door and up to the window. It was a good view of the street outside, and there were zombies walking around here and there. Aimlessly, haphazardly—yet effectively. Without a brain, Horace wasn’t sure he himself would have what it took to stand up. He’d probably just crawl places.

“Give. Weed. Weeeeed.”

Horace turned around. That police zombie managed to put two words together. Peculiar. And worth investigating.

“I have weed, yes,” he said loudly so that they would hear him on the other side. “I might be willing to share if you’re willing not to eat me. Shall we strike an accord?”

“Weed. Weed, eh. Share weed.”

“And no eating me?” he replied.

A bit of a pause.

“Munch.”

“No, no munching either. You can eat no part of me.”

“NO! Munch. Weed. Munch.”

“Oh, you mean munchies? Yes, I have some snacks available too. Do you eat chocolate? It contains both nuts and gluten, if that’s a problem.”

A break in communication. Horace assumed that they had to talk it through. Somehow.

The zombies’ urge for weed increase their brain capacity. Even if there wasn’t a conference going on out there, they did seem to try to find a solution to their lack of, of all things, weed.

While gazing out, time slowing for each puff, the sound of a shotgun echoed through his room, as wood, plastic, and pellets sprayed around him. A lovely ringing started in his ears. Had he not been so relaxed, he would’ve hit the floor and gone for the cover of his bed. But, as it stood, he remained calm and simply turned around. Part of the bed near the door handle was gone, the remains smoking, if not on fire. There was a hole where the handle had been. Another shot, clearly of a shotgun, sent a pressure wave through the room and removed the last of the locking mechanism. Someone stupid on the other side squatted down and looked through it. A large face pressed to the hole from the other side, distorting itself, caring not about the splinter risk of the shotgun-made opening. A calm, deep voice started over again.

“Weed. T-toke.”

“Fine, you want it that bad? I’ll give you a joint. You doped-up idiots. I don’t have enough to keep you all baked for too long; I hope you understand that?”

Horace was a bit annoyed; they were very pushy, but no longer that scary. More people should toke up when in a scary place, he thought as he rolled up a joint. A bong might be too complex for these people. People? Zombies. Zombie-people. Zomplies. Zomplie’s? Whatever.

His brain was starting to malfunction, and he could feel it. But he couldn’t decide what to blame. He was turning, definitely, but if Fran’s transformation had been anything to go by, he should still have a few hours left.

He lit up and passed it out through the new opening in his door. While over there, he also poured some water on the burnt cloth in his barricade. For good measure.

The first hand that reached for him was very ‘grabby’ and twitchy. It didn’t go for the weed, instead it went for him. But the chunky zombie in a police outfit pushed that one away. Instead, he went for the joint. Clumsily. He had to use both his hands. That hand–eye coordination was clearly impaired by their current situation.

“I… mmm.”

The police officer sat down on his bum, like a toddler, while puffing. A weird grin over his face. A couple of chunks of flesh were missing from his neck. Clearly, his transformation had not been a pleasant one. But he seemed content now. Problem-free.

“Mmm, mmm… Magic dragon,” he said and passed the blunt to Fran, who had also sat down next to him. Horace could see them both through the hole, and he did experience a warm feeling to see her happy. Her face was pale, blood was seeping from the left corner of her mouth, but now she seemed content.

Weirdly, the weed seemed to have the opposite effect on these zombies, Horace noted. Their mental abilities were slightly raised, making it possible for them to communicate. Albeit briefly, and still at a very low level.

The rest of the zombies followed Fran and the police officer, and Horace passed out a few more joints. This was it, he thought. This was the advertisement the world needed. Wharf Weed of Whitestone—your guide in the brain-dead night. He started filming with his phone, while repeating the new tagline. As it turned out, there were countless people spending the apocalypse watching reels instead of panicking, and after about fifteen minutes, his live feed had over half a million followers. Far more than the company’s usual thirty thousand followers.

“Fight stupid with dumb,” he said. “Kill cravings with… Wharf Weed from Whitestone.”

He found it harder to speak and decided to cut down on the good stuff for a bit.

“Horace. Hooorace,” exclaimed Fran. “Th… thanks, du… dude.”

“You’re welcome, Horace,” he replied.

“No, you Horace. I… I Fran,” she retorted, snappier, more fluent.

“Wha… whaaaat?”

Horace had definitely smoked too much; he was having a hard time grasping the severity of the situation. He stared at Fran through the hole. Then past her. Into emptiness.

“Yeah,” he said, under his breath.

“You dumb now, I smart. Stupid Horace.”

Neither of them was completely clear on what was going on, but they both started laughing. It was contagious, and the other zombies soon joined in with disturbed laughter. He couldn’t explain it, but something in the weed made zombies a bit smarter. This could be the unexpected cure for the apocalypse, he thought.

He had to tell everyone.

While telling everyone on his live feed, he removed the barricade and grabbed his bag. Once he’d cleared the space between him and the door, he opened up to the now slightly smarter zombies outside.

“We can do this,” he told them, “we just… y’know, eh, make sense again. We do this!”

He laughed, out of both happiness and relief. Fran wasn’t doomed—and neither was he.

“We… do this!”

But, less stupid or not, the zombies were still hungry, and as soon as they saw him step out of that door, they overpowered him and ate him alive.