Hailstone

The world was ending again. Hailstone barricaded himself inside his basement. The world ended every couple years or so, and was reborn shortly after. This time he’d stocked up on cough syrup, Red Bulls, Dostoevsky novels. He was running out of beer. There were other survivors, but he was rather reclusive and tended not to associate with them. He was running out of beer. If he ran out, he’d have to associate with them again. This, unfortunately, was not an option.
And then there were the zombies. Every time the world ended everyone who perished in the holocaust would reanimate themselves into zombies. The zombies didn’t care to feed on humans; they weren’t normal zombies. They were alcoholics. All of them. Every liquor store was raided, if the liquor even was delivered to the store. Probation was initially put in effect, but all the human alcoholics objected. Hence, liquor was transported via airway.
The zombies were not addicted to other drugs e.g. heroin, cocaine, etc. However, Hailstone didn’t have access to these drugs because he did not associate with people except for clerks at Duane Reade, where he bought cough syrup to quench his addiction for alcohol.
The zombies had supernatural senses; they could smell liquor from almost a mile away. They could see it in the dark, they could see it through walls, they could feel it when they were close to it; the exact proximity. Hailstone had an assault rifle, three shotguns, two bazookas, and a .40 caliber magnum. And a machete.
He was lonely.
Very lonely.
Sometimes, during the morning, he’d leave a beer outside his basement door, as the zombies were much easier on his anxiety to associate with. The stress gnawed at his bones and in his emaciated state, they were brittle.
He’d dropped out of college, but each year that passed by he remained unschooled it became even more difficult for him to consider reapplying. Even if he did go back to college, it wouldn’t be easy, with the world ending so constantly these days.
Some zombies were more humane than others. If he wasn’t an alcoholic he’d probably mingle with some of the zombies that had some of their brains preserved post-reanimation. Some of them were actually, well, fashionable, and wore clothing. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them and humans. If it wasn’t for their ravenous, frenzied thirst for liquor, humans and zombies could probably congregate peacefully. However, due to the colossal impact alcohol companies have on the economy, and alcohol on humans, zombies are often shunned, ostracized, and brutally attacked. They are reluctant to fight back and are relatively harmless creatures.
Hailstone picked his nose. He sipped on a beer, then as it was almost empty, chugged the rest of it. He got up and paced around the room, staring at what was left of his supply. It was only 3:37 in the afternoon. Why couldn’t he get a better night’s sleep instead of counting the hours he was awake? Awake wasn’t really the right word for it. Coping, perhaps—insufferable withstanding; something along those lines.
Suddenly he heard a screeching pounding against the basement trapdoor. Zombies. He grabbed one of his shotguns and leaned against the wall adjacent to the trapdoor, pointing the shotgun upwards, legs spread apart. The maniacal scratching clawing and pounding become increasingly maddening; the chains strung across the door rattle—the bolted lock jars. The trapdoor begins to moan and creak, about to buckle. Hailstone positions himself, stricken with adrenaline though calm with terror, preparing to fire.
The door breaks open. He fires. Once. Twice. Blood spatters onto his chest; he sees a dismembered limp flinging in the air. He keeps firing until he runs out of shells then hastily grabs his assault rifle and sprays aimlessly. When he stops he begins to pant, hanging his head. He fires another round even though there’s no sign of any zombies except for their remains. He gets up, puts the rifle down on a coffee table, and takes off his shirt, using it to wipe the blood off his face and arms. He examines what’s left of the zombies.
Except they’re not zombies. They’re humans. Five of them, their bodies strewn in a grotesque manner, as if they were dead contortionists. He scrambles for his flask and drops it, fumbling ravenously in panic. He reloads his gun, staring at the ground where the flask broke as if he’d wet the bed. This strikes a tinge of despair within him; he tries to reload his gun again but realizes he’s already loaded it.
He reaches for a bottle of vodka stashed behind a loose-leafy bookshelf.

Drunk now, outside. He’s changed his clothing and showered. He hasn’t been this drunk in awhile, but he figures the occasion justifies it. You don’t kill people every day. He laughs. What else is there to do?
He could turn himself in. No. He couldn’t. He’d rather kill himself than turn himself in. It was more rational.
He spies a pack of zombies not too far off; they have a shuffling gait that makes it easy to recognize them. One of them hunches over to Hailstone, smelling his lips; it makes a cute shirking movement whenever he reacts to it shoving its nose in his face. He brushes the zombie aside, pouring some liquor onto the ground. The gaggle of them swarm over, heatedly lapping it up.
He sets off for the general store. He figures he’ll remember what he has to buy when he gets there even though he knows he’s already forgotten. Overhead the choppers pass by, transporting bottles and bottles of liquor. Sometimes they’re followed by cargo-planes. He should have taken a jacket with him. He goes over in his head again what he did to discard of the bodies. It’s not like anyone would find out, but even so, he couldn’t get what had happened off his mind. It helped to tell himself he was involved in some ghastly accident, one which did not involve him unintentionally murdering five people.
He passed by a young woman who looked like she had tried to kill herself at least three times. She had a bottle of beer in her hand, struggling to twist it open. A zombie prowled out from behind her; she shrieked, it shirked. Hailstone saw a bottle-opener in the zombie’s hand: was he trying to help her? Hailstone had never seen anything like this before. The zombie was trying to gesticulate that all it wanted to do was open the bottle; it moaned pathetically as the woman hit him with it.
“Stop,” Hailstone shouted. “Stop it.” The woman kept beating the zombie until the bottle shattered and she started stabbing it, as if it wasn’t a living creature—it wasn’t, he remembered. But it acted like one. “Why did you do that?” Hailstone stammered.
“Wouldn’t you’ve?”
The woman looked at him with disgust and walked away.
Hailstone didn’t understand love. He lived most of his life knowing he should be doing something else. He had no concept of time, routine, or responsibility. He always seemed to be lost in thought, somewhere else, perhaps where he knew he should be. He had no friends; people confused him, sometimes even repulsed him. He didn’t understand their social cues and habits, their need for attention and self-definition. He found amusement in nothing except his own thoughts, which were often why he was thinking about what he was, or what he didn’t want to think about. He had talents in the arts, but took no delight in indulging in them as he was indifferent to his expression to others. Often he struggled with having nothing to express. He couldn’t manage with the toils of daily life; they confined him.
He longed to be a zombie, as he was more similar to them than humans. He drank because his thoughts embarrassed him, or worse, tormented him. It all seemed pointless. Appointments, education, currency, murder. The only downside to being drunk was that he became vulnerable to loneliness, but he would drink it away. He pitied people whose emotions controlled them. As he cared about nothing and was always distracted by his thoughts, you could trust him, tell him anything without having to worry about him sharing it with someone else. He was a great listener because he didn’t care; he had too many thoughts to store permanent ones.
Drama entertained him. He engaged himself in it because he found it ridiculous. Even though he had no friends and was mostly reclusive, people would tell him their dilemmas and life-stories, all as perverse and fervid as the next. He wanted to have sex but couldn’t bring himself to because he couldn’t have sex with someone he didn’t care about, and he cared about no one, except occasionally zombies. Sex boggled him. People that had too much sex were complacently dull, bored, and usually having sex with multiple people to find novelty. And yet everyone loved sex. They even loved each other because they loved the sex they had with each other. He was fascinated by the feats people would perform to impress others to have sex with them when they probably just had to ask.
Hailstone didn’t enjoy sex. It gave him no pleasure, and depressed him afterwards. He’d rather drink instead, and whenever he had sex, he’d drink beforehand. He didn’t find people beautiful and wasn’t deceived by superficial means and motives.
He continued to walk to the store, reaching into his pocket for a bottle of amphetamines. He needed to take speed to walk to the store; it was too much for him to handle. His thoughts were so relentless and heavy that he was bed-ridden; speed made him focus; not always, sometimes it exacerbated his thoughts and he would think so much about what he wanted to do that he could never do it, only think about it, dread it. He’d also take speed to tolerate people, another reason he drank. Unlike most people, he found no pleasure in these things; they enabled him.
When he reached the store he bought as much liquor as he could carry home and beer to occupy the zombies so they’d stay away from his liquor. He knew that everyone in the store didn’t know that he’d just murdered five people, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that they could know. What would they do if they did know? What would he do? Would he even care? His whole life was already a cell.
He raced back home, laying down bottles of beer for the zombies. He stared everyone intently in the eye, making sure they didn’t know about what he’d done; the knew the longer they stared at him, the more suspicious they became, so he couldn’t stare for very long. He passed by a man who would probably threaten to kill his wife if she ever shared the videos of him stripping for her; unknown to him, she already was. Hailstone was perspicacious and cynically skeptical enough to assume these things. None of them were true.
When he got home he sat down on the couch and closed his eyes, enjoying the thoughtlessness that the speed induced upon him. He didn’t want it to go away, which caused him to start thinking about losing it, so he opened a bottle of vodka and began to drink. Whenever he thought about what he’d done, he’d drink more. Murdering someone was something most people only dreamed of doing, just often not to strangers. Hailstone began to grind his teeth. He hated that, but it kept him secure.
Someone knocked on the door; Hailstone jolted up, his eyes bloodshot with paranoia. The loudness of the knocking vexed him; he needed it to stop, so he opened the door.
A female zombie was standing before him.
“I just wanted to thank you for leaving that bottle of beer for us. It was very kind of you.”
Hailstone didn’t know what to say. She ogled at him and smiled. There was the possibility that if she was human they could have sex together. But since she was a zombie, there was no risk involved, and to cease the awkwardness of welcoming her, he offered her to come inside. She blushed and skittered in, immediately taking a seat on the couch. He poured her a glass of whisky, to the brim. She continued to ogle at him. He still didn’t know what to say.
“I wish someone would do things in my life for me so I wouldn’t have to do what I already don’t do,” she blurted out.
Hailstone stared at her, fascinated.
He took a large gulp of vodka from his bottle. He took another one because he took the first.
“Me too,” he said. He didn’t look at her. He wasn’t afraid if she knew he’d murdered five people because she was a zombie. His eyes wandered around his room, trying to find something suitable to fixate on. There wasn’t anything worth opening his eyes for. He was terrified that nothing in life mattered.
The zombie drank the whole glass of wine in one swig. He poured her another. They sat in silence. She made faces that insinuated conversation. He was somewhere else, desperately trying to find meaning in the moment. He knew he enjoyed her company and he hated it. He knew she was going to say something and he’d have to reply. She was cute. Every time he looked at her he remembered he’d just murdered five people. Maybe if he gave her more to drink she wouldn’t say anything. Maybe life was easier going around looking for people to save because you can’t save yourself. Maybe life would be easier if there was nothing to entertain us, and we’d have to do it ourselves. Maybe it was better that the world ended when it did otherwise no one would ever know when to put it to a stop.
His thoughts made no sense. He was coming off the speed, jittery and anxious, immobile. He wondered what it would be like to kiss a zombie. If he was drunk enough, he’d probably do it.
“So what’s your name!” she smiled.
“Hailstone,” he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“You certainly are nice inviting me into your house like this. In fact, I don’t think anyone ever has before.” She wouldn’t stop smiling.
It’s weird to take drugs in front of people, Hailstone thought. Thinking about death passes the time. Hailstone hasn’t had a legitimate conversation with someone in a long time, just the words you say to avoid them. He took more amphetamines. He needed to fill the gap between them. Talking to people wasn’t good enough anymore, it’s why he no longer did it. He thinks about what he should say; all the reactions that could happen from what he could choose to say.
“So what’s it like being a zombie,” he asks, regretting it.
She taps her chin for a second, glancing upwards “Kind of like being black.”
A racist joke? He chuckles. “I’m not black, but I’m probably kind of like you.”
She laughs. “I bet you’re probably kind of not. You’re more of a wreck than I am.”
“How so?”
“I don’t have to pop pills to have conversations with people, nor do I need to hide my liquor.”
“I wasn’t even aware zombies could rationally have conversations,” he replies, abashed.
“Oh, don’t be ashamed. Most people aren’t. It’s almost an advantage to be neglected and looked down upon unconditionally. You can get away with what people already assume, and then bang!, big surprise.”
He’s taken too much speed. His jaw is locking up. He’s becoming more and more restless. He’s used to excess; there’s nothing to be afraid of, he tells himself. I’m not going to say anything I shouldn’t. There’s nothing I could say that I shouldn’t anyway. He’s so high that if he starts talking every short story is going to become really long. He drinks more. He can’t make her stop smiling; she just won’t stop.
“You sure do think a lot. It’s like a game on one of those nifty cell phones, trying to figure out what you’re expressing via facial expressions. Too bad you don’t have one.”
“Shut up,” he barks. “I just killed five people.” He stands up, mad with energy, then sits back down. “I didn’t mean to say shut up. I didn’t mean to say that.”
Despite his actions, she hasn’t stopped smiling. She regards him like a work of art, as if he weren’t human and she was. “Well you said it. Sometimes it’s comforting to know I’m already dead.”
“It was an accident. I wouldn’t kill you.”
“But you’re still a killer.”
He drinks more. He can’t even talk now. She gets up and crosses them room, props herself up next to him. He tries to speak but nothing that comes out is legible. She folds her arms. Finally he fumbles for words.
“I don’t know what your intentions are but I’d rather you leave me alone. I mean, leave my home.”
“Why do you care?”
“Care about what?
“That you just killed five people.”
“Should I?”
She giggles. “You’re asking the wrong person, but it’s not so bad being dead. I acted more dead when I wasn’t, just like you.”
He notices she’s not even getting drunk. He begins to feel desire for her then remembers she’s a zombie. It’s difficult to tell. He never follows through with what he commits to anyway. He wouldn’t dare tell her he doesn’t want her to go away, but she will. He supposes he could kill himself and perhaps become a zombie and then kissing her wouldn’t be so wrong; he could also just stay dead. The people he murdered didn’t become zombies. If he wasn’t so drunk and high he wouldn’t even be talking to her. After awhile it’s easy to tell when you’re not rational and when you’re going to lose your inhibition. You already lose it before the excuse. When you’re nobody, you can’t be yourself.