Some, like Alice, were obviously cared for by the living. Alice’s mother always made sure that her clothes were clean and her hair was combed.
But others were not so comfortable with their dead. On finding her husband in bed with her, Sam Jenkins’ widow had at first moved into the spare room, but having a dead man in the house soon became too much for her and she changed the locks, with the result that her dead husband spent his nights standing on the front lawn. It was around this time that I first heard the word “zombie” being used.
The first thing that happens when the dead start waking is not that they go on a rampage like you see in the movies, it’s that you find out all your insurance policies are worthless. Sam Jenkins had a life insurance policy with his wife as the beneficiary, but the insurance company refused to pay out because they said Sam didn’t meet their definition of dead.
Then Alice’s mother got a huge bill from the hospital because her daughter—being officially deceased—was no longer covered by her health insurance.
The second thing that happens is property values plummet. Sam Jenkins’ widow, unable to pay the mortgage, tried putting the house up for sale. But nobody wants to buy a house with a dead man standing on the lawn. Even if—like Sam’s widow—you try to make the dead man a selling point by explaining he deters burglars.
The third thing that happens is church attendances rise. The fourth thing is they fall again as everyone comes to the conclusion there’s no point in worrying about the afterlife if you’re only going to spend it hanging around the park.
The fifth thing is all the jobs go, as businesses tend to prefer locations where the dead stay dead.
The next thing that happens is the town itself begins to die as everyone who can get away gets as far away as possible, until the only people left are the dead and those few who refuse to abandon them.
Sometimes I go to the park and watch the dead together. Despite being all different ages and backgrounds, they seem at ease in each other’s company.
The silence of the dead when faced with the living can seem awkward, but when the dead are together, their silence is a comfortable one, their blank faces not so much vacant as serene.
And though their faces are far from expressive, I was there one day as a newly deceased came to join them for the first time, and I am sure I saw recognition in their eyes.
Five years ago, there were more than three thousand people in this town. Now there are less than three hundred. As the town’s living population continues to move away, more of the dead are being left to fend for themselves.
With no one to dress them or comb their hair, some of them were getting into quite a state until a woman named Hilary Frentzen stepped in. The first thing Hilary did was to get a shelter built so the dead would have somewhere to get out of the rain. Then she set up a charitable foundation to collect donations of food and clothing, which she distributes in the park.
The dead do eat, just not a lot. Every day Hilary hands out slices of day-old bread donated by supermarkets, and watches as the dead take one or two bites and then scatter the rest on the ground for the pigeons. Of course the pigeons—being dead themselves since the town council poisoned them all a couple of years ago—are no more interested in the bread than they are. Not even the insects are that interested since the park was sprayed, so every day before she leaves, Hilary picks up the leftovers.
She’s tried giving them vegetables, but the dead won’t touch them. If you ask her, she’ll tell you that no matter how hard she tries, she cannot get the dead to eat broccoli.
Once, as an experiment, Hilary bought a dozen chocolate cakes and took them to the park. The dead didn’t leave a single crumb behind. She told me she can’t afford to do that every day, but now once every month or so, she’ll buy them some chocolate cakes as a special treat. (Even dead wasps perk up at the smell of chocolate, which is another reason she doesn’t bring it too often.)
Hilary used to get very annoyed when tourists turned up with portable sound systems playing Thriller at full blast, or shouting: “They don’t want bread, they want brainzzz!” but that kind of thing has been happening less and less since the state barricaded the highway and put up all of those “Quarantine” signs.
And there’s hardly been a single crime since the day a guy who was stripping the lead off a dead person’s roof slipped and fell, breaking his neck. He’s been in the park ever since, walking sideways with his head twisted over one shoulder.
I don’t think the dead feel any pain. When I used to visit Alice in her room, I’d always ask her: “Do you feel any pain? Do you feel anything?”
But she’d never answer.
Then one day as we sat with me talking and her staring into space, I picked up a pin and jabbed it, hard, into her arm.
She moved her head slightly, just enough to look down at the pin.
“You felt that, didn’t you?” I said. “Does it hurt?”