I knew something was different about Brett Nostrund the minute I saw him, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the
time. It wasn’t that he had aged much since I last saw him. That had only been about seven years earlier at our high school
graduation party when he showed up with that beautiful Cheryl Swenson (hate her!), and I was stuck with Wayne Ozorkiewicz.
Back then I always got stuck with losers like Wayne because I didn't have enough confidence in my looks--except for my eyes.
Aunt Amy always used to tell me I had beautiful eyes--amber, like my father's. But this story isn't about me; it's about Brett, and
that day he looked sort of ... well, sort of spooky. Of course, after living in L.A. for the past few years, "spooky" didn’t faze me, but
now that I was back in Wisconsin for a few days, it was kind of unexpected.
You see, it was the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, and there I was, bored out of my friggin’ skull in a town that’s
just a pimple on the map of Wisconsin. I was sitting in the local Dairy Queen, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, and trying to get
the autumn chill out of my bones while I waited for Aunt Amy. She was across the street at the grocery store picking up a few
things she’d forgotten for Thanksgiving dinner, like candles shaped like turkeys or something like that. I was surprised she
had forgotten anything--she’s usually much better organized--but maybe having me home for Thanksgiving threw her off. I
could have gone into the store with her, but I didn’t feel like getting into pointless arguments about things like tacky table
decorations. Besides, I knew there’d be a hot chocolate with my name on it at the DQ.
I was staring out the dingy windows of the Dairy Queen, counting cars passing through town on Main Street--and I was still in
the single digits--when I noticed Brett step out of the gloom of a small stand of pine trees about fifty feet down the road. Of
course, after so many years, it took me a minute to recognize him, and when I did I was pretty surprised. Nearly everyone I’d
grown up with had moved to warmer climates or at least to more interesting places, which is not hard to do when you come
from this dinky town.
I’d had a crush on Brett in our senior year at Lincoln High School, but looking down from the football-hero pedestal that all the
girls put him on, he’d barely even known I was alive back then. Well, six years later, and he still looked drop-dead gorgeous
with that black-as-night hair and those ice-blue eyes. Unfortunately, he was looking a bit haggard, like he’d been partying too
hard the last few years. Not only that, but his clothes looked like he’d slept in them, and what's more, he was way too pale. At
first I thought it was just that I had gotten used to people having perfect California tans so that everyone in Wisconsin in late
November was bound to look a bit peaked by comparison. But it was more than that. Brett was white as a sheet, and I almost
thought I was seeing a ghost. I wasn’t, but at the time I didn’t know how close that was to the truth.
While I was thinking all that, I was also wondering if Brett would recognize me. At first I thought, Oh, right, Maya. Fat chance,
because even though he was staring right at me, there was a glazed look in his eyes, sort of like he was looking at something
a thousand miles behind me. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in Hollywood, it’s that you never know ’till you try. So I flashed
him my best starlet-in-training smile--the one on my head shots--just to see if I could reel him in a bit closer. And damned if
he didn’t smile back at me! Okay, maybe it was more like a grimace, but I was sure he meant it to be a smile. I motioned to
the seat across the table from me, inviting him to join me, and he took a couple of staggering steps in my direction. It looked
like the poor boy had twisted his ankle or something, and I smiled inside. Nothing like a little mothering to break the ice.
Then, just when it was beginning to look like there was going to be some spice in this bland vacation after all, Aunt Amy
walked into the DQ carrying a bag of groceries and wearing a scowl. I started to feel bad that I hadn't gone with her to the
store. After all, she was going all out to make a big, old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner for me, and maybe I could have helped
her with the shopping. She quickly threw a wet blanket on that generous mood though when she shot a withering look at Brett
and coldly said to me, "Maya, let’s go!"
I smiled, a little embarrassed, hoping that she’d catch the drift of what was going on and remember what it was like to be
young. I whispered a sotto voce protest, something like, "Geez, Aunt Amy, I’d like to stay here a while and try to talk to that cute
guy." She cut me off with a curt, "Now, Maya!" in a tone I hadn’t heard since I was a little girl trying to stay up past my bedtime.
As we drove away, I looked back toward the Dairy Queen, but Brett was gone. I asked my aunt, "What was that all about?"
She feigned ignorance, giving me a frosty, "What was what?"
I knew better than to resort to rational arguments when she got like that. Better to wait until she felt like discussing this, so I fell
back on an old standby. I pouted. I hadn’t been home for more than two days, and we’d already settled into old, familiar
patterns. Honestly, I’m not usually one to sulk, but nobody could bring out the petulant child in me better than Aunt Amy.
Suddenly I felt as if I’d never left home and moved to L.A.
#
It seemed like I hadn’t lived in L.A. for more than a week when Aunt Amy started a letter campaign to get me to come back for a
visit. Of course, the holidays were the worst. The whining, the pleading, the cajoling--seems like there wasn’t anything I
wouldn’t do to get her to stop badgering me to come home for Christmas. After all, when you live in sunny Southern California,
the last thing you want to do for Christmas is freeze your ass off in Wisconsin. So I kept promising, "For sure, next year" and
"Maybe in the spring." And then, in spite of all my good intentions, the years piled up, and I hadn't made it back to good old Red
Hills, Wisconsin even once.
But when Moomie had a stroke last September, I knew I had to go back and visit my only living grandparent before she died.
Aunt Amy, of course, wanted me to come home for Christmas, but I dreaded the prospect of snow-covered sidewalks begging
to be shoveled and cars turning into ice sculptures overnight, so I compromised and came for a week’s visit at Thanksgiving.
Sure, it can be cold enough in November, but the probability of getting snowed in--with two old ladies, no less!--was a whole
lot lower at Thanksgiving than it would be at Christmas.
My mistake was in coming for a whole week. I knew Moomie’s stroke had taken a toll on her health, but I hadn’t expected the
feisty old lady I remembered from my youth to be so completely shattered. I found myself holding my breath every time she
gasped for one of her own, fearing that each one might be her last. Even worse, I didn’t know how to relate to her anymore.
When I was young, she always used to joke around with me, a ray of sunshine through the gray overcast of Aunt Amy’s
perpetual gloom. But her stroke had dulled her, and now she was bewildered by my sense of humor. She was withdrawn,
and there was often a look in her eyes like that of a caged eagle. It was as if her spirit, trapped in her frail body, was longing to
soar free.
Being so feeble, Moomie couldn’t negotiate the stairs up to her bedroom anymore, so Aunt Amy had moved her into the den
downstairs, not losing any time taking over the master bedroom of the old family house. In fact, she hadn’t lost any time taking
control of all the household operations, promoting herself to the rank of Commandant. And I was an escaped prisoner, newly
recaptured and returned to camp.
Don’t get me wrong; Aunt Amy’s always been like a mother to me and I love her to death. For some reason, which she refused
to ever talk about, she never married and had children of her own, so she was always there to take care of me whenever my
parents were out of town. And they were often out of town. Seemed like when they weren’t away somewhere with Greenpeace
or something like that, they were marching on Washington, D.C. to protest for human rights or animal rights or whatever.
My parents were larger-than-life heroes to me, always coming home with incredible tales of adventures in strange, exotic
lands, then running off again to strike another blow for freedom. And Aunt Amy, the childless spinster, was always there to
take me in, even though she would complain that Mom and Dad seemed to care more about the problems of total strangers
than they did about their own kin. (I’m not sure though if "kin" meant me or her.)
I remember when my parents were leaving for Africa in 1986 to work on a famine relief mission, and Aunt Amy told them, "You
two think you can save the whole world, don't you."
My father just smiled and said, "No, but I think we can change some of it." I've always remembered how his eyes twinkled
when he said that. I was 12 years old then, and it was the last time I ever saw my parents alive.
So after my parents died my aunt "brought me up by hand," to quote Dickens. She could be harsh as a Wisconsin winter
sometimes, but she cared about me. You see, I was a surrogate daughter to her as much as she was a surrogate mother to
me. But now at 24 I was a grown woman, and Aunt Amy was having a hard time letting go of the child I used to be.
#
Thanksgiving Day was overcast and windy, but even bright sunshine would have been hard pressed to warm the atmosphere
in our dining room. I wasn’t exactly giving Aunt Amy the silent treatment, but until she explained what that little scene at the DQ
was all about, I didn’t intend to chat with her like nothing was wrong.
When she finished carving the turkey, Aunt Amy sighed and sat down. I don’t know why she cooked a whole turkey for just the
three of us, but there it was, and I resigned myself to the prospect of eating turkey salads, turkey soups, and turkey
sandwiches for the rest of my visit. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to do it in silence the whole time.
As usual, Moomie said that we shouldn’t start eating until Poppy got home. Aunt Amy explained that we didn’t know how late
my grandfather would be, so we should start eating before the food got cold. Since Poppy died in a boating accident on Lake
Michigan eons ago, that made sense to me. With that out of the way, Aunt Amy started cutting up Moomie’s turkey for her while
I blew on a steaming spoonful of dressing and steeled myself for a painfully quiet meal.
I kept hoping that Moomie would start some sort of conversation. But every time she finished chewing a bit of meat, Aunt Amy
was right there to shovel in another one, saying something like, "You’re eating well today, Mother." Moomie would just nod, her
mouth too busy massaging her food to reply.
Finally she put a napkin to her lips to block the next delivery from the gravy train, and she looked at me, her jaws still moving
slightly--from inertia, I guess--and said, "M ... Maya, dear." Then she paused to catch her breath. The poor thing stammered
badly since her stroke, and she seemed self-conscious about it. I looked encouragement at her as her quivering lips wound
up again. "Are you d ... dating any nice young m ... men out there in Ca ... California?"
I clasped one of her purple-veined hands and gave her a warm smile. I said, "Why no, Moomie, I’m not." I glanced across the
table at Aunt Amy, who had conveniently focused her attention on cutting Moomie’s food into bite-sized morsels, getting ready
to launch one into my grandmother’s mouth as soon as possible. I patted Moomie’s hand and added, "But thank you for
asking."
I bit into a piece of candied yam, tasting it melt in my mouth like sweet butter, then told Moomie a little bit about men in L.A. I
was tempted to tell her they only want you for one thing, and they can’t make any commitment beyond breakfast the next
morning, if even that. But Moomie didn’t need another stroke, so I just told her I wished I could find a guy who needed me--you
know, as a person. Then I said, "Seems like whenever I find a good one, turns out he’s married, just out on bail, or a divorce
lawyer."
Aunt Amy suggested that maybe I should move back to Wisconsin, making it sound real casual like she just thought of it. I
shook my head and said, "Too cold." So she sucked her teeth and said that winters didn’t ever bother me before, and I
shrugged and told her that my blood must have thinned or something. Then Moomie had a coughing fit.
Aunt Amy rushed over to her and rubbed her back until the coughing stopped. When she smoothed a wisp of snow-white hair,
damp with perspiration, off Moomie’s forehead, I started to feel guilty about how I was acting and decided I should be more
straightforward. I swallowed a bite of Aunt Amy’s tart cranberry sauce and asked, "Aunt Amy, remember how in high school I
had that crush on Brett Nostrund?"
Before I could say another word, she clicked her tongue and said, "Vegetables! I knew I was forgetting something." I started to
protest, to tell her we already had enough to eat, but she held up a hand to stop me and hurried into the kitchen.
I shook my head sadly and started telling Moomie about seeing Brett the day before. Pretty soon Aunt Amy came back with a
ceramic bowl filled with succotash, just as I was getting to the part about her swooping down on me like some sort of
avenging angel. She plunked down the bowl and stood looming over me. With her lips pursed and her arms akimbo, she cut
an imposing figure, and I sighed, set down my fork, and braced myself for a storm.
She hesitated though, like she wasn’t sure where to start. Finally she said, "Maya, there’s something you have to know. Brett
is dead."
I had to laugh. I said, "Aunt Amy, what do you mean? I saw him. Yesterday. That was him over by the Dairy Queen. He’s not
dead."
My aunt’s eyes searched heavenward, like she always did when she thought I was being obtuse. As usual, that bugged the
hell out of me, and I was about to start protesting again when she said, "What I mean is, he’s one of the living dead now. A
zombie. Him and his whole family."
You know, it’s funny. I’ve found that even in the most crucial conversations, we rarely hear exactly what other people say. We
hear either what we want to hear or what we’re afraid to hear. Right then I was listening with my fears, and I latched onto that
"family" part. "He’s married?" I asked. "Shit. I should have known."
Aunt Amy exhaled sharply, a sure sign that even divine inspiration had failed her. She said, "No, Maya. His parents, both his
sisters, a few aunts and uncles, some cousins. His whole family. They’re all zombies now."
I couldn’t believe she was serious, standing there calmly talking about zombies like they were as ordinary, and unpleasant, as
uninvited guests with boorish manners. All I could do was give her a blank look, my jaw hanging open, so she gave me a
quick 4-1-1 on the situation.
About six weeks earlier, a piece of space junk fell to earth next to a sauerkraut factory a few miles outside of Milwaukee. It was
just a piece of a damaged communications satellite, but near as anyone can figure out, when it fell from outer space it brought
back some microbes or something, which infected some of the factory’s sauerkraut, which ended up at a local Octoberfest
picnic. Luckily, sauerkraut is so disgusting that most people won’t eat it--I wouldn’t touch the stuff if my life depended on it--but
Brett’s family, for some reason, loved it, and it killed them all ... for a while.
I had a hard time swallowing this zombie story, so I suggested, only half humorously, that maybe Brett and his family were
ghosts instead.
Aunt Amy said, "Maya, there’s no such thing as ghosts."
"Yeah, right. But there are zombies?"
My aunt sat down--finally--and shook her head like, how could I be so dense? She said, "Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t you
know the difference between a zombie and a ghost? Didn’t you ever see Night of the Living Dead?"
I said, "Yeah, but I don’t think it was a documentary."
I thought for sure she’d get mad at my being flippant, but she didn’t. She got quiet and seemed to soften a bit, like she'd just
realized how tired, or maybe how scared, she was. She said, "I never took it seriously myself, until all this tainted-sauerkraut
business came up. Now I think maybe it was one of those dramatizations. You know, like those cop shows on TV these days."
I started to say something cute, but she cut me off with a long, low sigh. She said, "Maybe you don’t believe me, but they’re
here. They crawled right on up out of their graves, and they walk around with a queer look in their eyes, and they eat people
raw. What would you call them?"
I couldn’t imagine Brett chowing down on someone’s entrails, so I asked her if she ever saw any of them actually eat
someone, raw or otherwise. She hadn’t, but Henry Andersen had gone missing a few days after the Nostrunds all sprang up
out of their graves like so many human Pop Tarts, and everyone was sure he’d ended up as the main course at a zombie
brunch, even though there were no eye witnesses to the ghoulish act. I said, "Well, that doesn’t prove anything. That old fool,
Mr. Andersen, probably went off on another drinking binge in Milwaukee. I remember how he used to disappear for weeks at a
time when I was a kid. He’ll be back."
But I didn't feel as sanguine as I tried to sound. I remembered how strange Brett had looked, and I was starting to get weirded
out by this.
#
Continued on page 2
time. It wasn’t that he had aged much since I last saw him. That had only been about seven years earlier at our high school
graduation party when he showed up with that beautiful Cheryl Swenson (hate her!), and I was stuck with Wayne Ozorkiewicz.
Back then I always got stuck with losers like Wayne because I didn't have enough confidence in my looks--except for my eyes.
Aunt Amy always used to tell me I had beautiful eyes--amber, like my father's. But this story isn't about me; it's about Brett, and
that day he looked sort of ... well, sort of spooky. Of course, after living in L.A. for the past few years, "spooky" didn’t faze me, but
now that I was back in Wisconsin for a few days, it was kind of unexpected.
You see, it was the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, and there I was, bored out of my friggin’ skull in a town that’s
just a pimple on the map of Wisconsin. I was sitting in the local Dairy Queen, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, and trying to get
the autumn chill out of my bones while I waited for Aunt Amy. She was across the street at the grocery store picking up a few
things she’d forgotten for Thanksgiving dinner, like candles shaped like turkeys or something like that. I was surprised she
had forgotten anything--she’s usually much better organized--but maybe having me home for Thanksgiving threw her off. I
could have gone into the store with her, but I didn’t feel like getting into pointless arguments about things like tacky table
decorations. Besides, I knew there’d be a hot chocolate with my name on it at the DQ.
I was staring out the dingy windows of the Dairy Queen, counting cars passing through town on Main Street--and I was still in
the single digits--when I noticed Brett step out of the gloom of a small stand of pine trees about fifty feet down the road. Of
course, after so many years, it took me a minute to recognize him, and when I did I was pretty surprised. Nearly everyone I’d
grown up with had moved to warmer climates or at least to more interesting places, which is not hard to do when you come
from this dinky town.
I’d had a crush on Brett in our senior year at Lincoln High School, but looking down from the football-hero pedestal that all the
girls put him on, he’d barely even known I was alive back then. Well, six years later, and he still looked drop-dead gorgeous
with that black-as-night hair and those ice-blue eyes. Unfortunately, he was looking a bit haggard, like he’d been partying too
hard the last few years. Not only that, but his clothes looked like he’d slept in them, and what's more, he was way too pale. At
first I thought it was just that I had gotten used to people having perfect California tans so that everyone in Wisconsin in late
November was bound to look a bit peaked by comparison. But it was more than that. Brett was white as a sheet, and I almost
thought I was seeing a ghost. I wasn’t, but at the time I didn’t know how close that was to the truth.
While I was thinking all that, I was also wondering if Brett would recognize me. At first I thought, Oh, right, Maya. Fat chance,
because even though he was staring right at me, there was a glazed look in his eyes, sort of like he was looking at something
a thousand miles behind me. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in Hollywood, it’s that you never know ’till you try. So I flashed
him my best starlet-in-training smile--the one on my head shots--just to see if I could reel him in a bit closer. And damned if
he didn’t smile back at me! Okay, maybe it was more like a grimace, but I was sure he meant it to be a smile. I motioned to
the seat across the table from me, inviting him to join me, and he took a couple of staggering steps in my direction. It looked
like the poor boy had twisted his ankle or something, and I smiled inside. Nothing like a little mothering to break the ice.
Then, just when it was beginning to look like there was going to be some spice in this bland vacation after all, Aunt Amy
walked into the DQ carrying a bag of groceries and wearing a scowl. I started to feel bad that I hadn't gone with her to the
store. After all, she was going all out to make a big, old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner for me, and maybe I could have helped
her with the shopping. She quickly threw a wet blanket on that generous mood though when she shot a withering look at Brett
and coldly said to me, "Maya, let’s go!"
I smiled, a little embarrassed, hoping that she’d catch the drift of what was going on and remember what it was like to be
young. I whispered a sotto voce protest, something like, "Geez, Aunt Amy, I’d like to stay here a while and try to talk to that cute
guy." She cut me off with a curt, "Now, Maya!" in a tone I hadn’t heard since I was a little girl trying to stay up past my bedtime.
As we drove away, I looked back toward the Dairy Queen, but Brett was gone. I asked my aunt, "What was that all about?"
She feigned ignorance, giving me a frosty, "What was what?"
I knew better than to resort to rational arguments when she got like that. Better to wait until she felt like discussing this, so I fell
back on an old standby. I pouted. I hadn’t been home for more than two days, and we’d already settled into old, familiar
patterns. Honestly, I’m not usually one to sulk, but nobody could bring out the petulant child in me better than Aunt Amy.
Suddenly I felt as if I’d never left home and moved to L.A.
#
It seemed like I hadn’t lived in L.A. for more than a week when Aunt Amy started a letter campaign to get me to come back for a
visit. Of course, the holidays were the worst. The whining, the pleading, the cajoling--seems like there wasn’t anything I
wouldn’t do to get her to stop badgering me to come home for Christmas. After all, when you live in sunny Southern California,
the last thing you want to do for Christmas is freeze your ass off in Wisconsin. So I kept promising, "For sure, next year" and
"Maybe in the spring." And then, in spite of all my good intentions, the years piled up, and I hadn't made it back to good old Red
Hills, Wisconsin even once.
But when Moomie had a stroke last September, I knew I had to go back and visit my only living grandparent before she died.
Aunt Amy, of course, wanted me to come home for Christmas, but I dreaded the prospect of snow-covered sidewalks begging
to be shoveled and cars turning into ice sculptures overnight, so I compromised and came for a week’s visit at Thanksgiving.
Sure, it can be cold enough in November, but the probability of getting snowed in--with two old ladies, no less!--was a whole
lot lower at Thanksgiving than it would be at Christmas.
My mistake was in coming for a whole week. I knew Moomie’s stroke had taken a toll on her health, but I hadn’t expected the
feisty old lady I remembered from my youth to be so completely shattered. I found myself holding my breath every time she
gasped for one of her own, fearing that each one might be her last. Even worse, I didn’t know how to relate to her anymore.
When I was young, she always used to joke around with me, a ray of sunshine through the gray overcast of Aunt Amy’s
perpetual gloom. But her stroke had dulled her, and now she was bewildered by my sense of humor. She was withdrawn,
and there was often a look in her eyes like that of a caged eagle. It was as if her spirit, trapped in her frail body, was longing to
soar free.
Being so feeble, Moomie couldn’t negotiate the stairs up to her bedroom anymore, so Aunt Amy had moved her into the den
downstairs, not losing any time taking over the master bedroom of the old family house. In fact, she hadn’t lost any time taking
control of all the household operations, promoting herself to the rank of Commandant. And I was an escaped prisoner, newly
recaptured and returned to camp.
Don’t get me wrong; Aunt Amy’s always been like a mother to me and I love her to death. For some reason, which she refused
to ever talk about, she never married and had children of her own, so she was always there to take care of me whenever my
parents were out of town. And they were often out of town. Seemed like when they weren’t away somewhere with Greenpeace
or something like that, they were marching on Washington, D.C. to protest for human rights or animal rights or whatever.
My parents were larger-than-life heroes to me, always coming home with incredible tales of adventures in strange, exotic
lands, then running off again to strike another blow for freedom. And Aunt Amy, the childless spinster, was always there to
take me in, even though she would complain that Mom and Dad seemed to care more about the problems of total strangers
than they did about their own kin. (I’m not sure though if "kin" meant me or her.)
I remember when my parents were leaving for Africa in 1986 to work on a famine relief mission, and Aunt Amy told them, "You
two think you can save the whole world, don't you."
My father just smiled and said, "No, but I think we can change some of it." I've always remembered how his eyes twinkled
when he said that. I was 12 years old then, and it was the last time I ever saw my parents alive.
So after my parents died my aunt "brought me up by hand," to quote Dickens. She could be harsh as a Wisconsin winter
sometimes, but she cared about me. You see, I was a surrogate daughter to her as much as she was a surrogate mother to
me. But now at 24 I was a grown woman, and Aunt Amy was having a hard time letting go of the child I used to be.
#
Thanksgiving Day was overcast and windy, but even bright sunshine would have been hard pressed to warm the atmosphere
in our dining room. I wasn’t exactly giving Aunt Amy the silent treatment, but until she explained what that little scene at the DQ
was all about, I didn’t intend to chat with her like nothing was wrong.
When she finished carving the turkey, Aunt Amy sighed and sat down. I don’t know why she cooked a whole turkey for just the
three of us, but there it was, and I resigned myself to the prospect of eating turkey salads, turkey soups, and turkey
sandwiches for the rest of my visit. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to do it in silence the whole time.
As usual, Moomie said that we shouldn’t start eating until Poppy got home. Aunt Amy explained that we didn’t know how late
my grandfather would be, so we should start eating before the food got cold. Since Poppy died in a boating accident on Lake
Michigan eons ago, that made sense to me. With that out of the way, Aunt Amy started cutting up Moomie’s turkey for her while
I blew on a steaming spoonful of dressing and steeled myself for a painfully quiet meal.
I kept hoping that Moomie would start some sort of conversation. But every time she finished chewing a bit of meat, Aunt Amy
was right there to shovel in another one, saying something like, "You’re eating well today, Mother." Moomie would just nod, her
mouth too busy massaging her food to reply.
Finally she put a napkin to her lips to block the next delivery from the gravy train, and she looked at me, her jaws still moving
slightly--from inertia, I guess--and said, "M ... Maya, dear." Then she paused to catch her breath. The poor thing stammered
badly since her stroke, and she seemed self-conscious about it. I looked encouragement at her as her quivering lips wound
up again. "Are you d ... dating any nice young m ... men out there in Ca ... California?"
I clasped one of her purple-veined hands and gave her a warm smile. I said, "Why no, Moomie, I’m not." I glanced across the
table at Aunt Amy, who had conveniently focused her attention on cutting Moomie’s food into bite-sized morsels, getting ready
to launch one into my grandmother’s mouth as soon as possible. I patted Moomie’s hand and added, "But thank you for
asking."
I bit into a piece of candied yam, tasting it melt in my mouth like sweet butter, then told Moomie a little bit about men in L.A. I
was tempted to tell her they only want you for one thing, and they can’t make any commitment beyond breakfast the next
morning, if even that. But Moomie didn’t need another stroke, so I just told her I wished I could find a guy who needed me--you
know, as a person. Then I said, "Seems like whenever I find a good one, turns out he’s married, just out on bail, or a divorce
lawyer."
Aunt Amy suggested that maybe I should move back to Wisconsin, making it sound real casual like she just thought of it. I
shook my head and said, "Too cold." So she sucked her teeth and said that winters didn’t ever bother me before, and I
shrugged and told her that my blood must have thinned or something. Then Moomie had a coughing fit.
Aunt Amy rushed over to her and rubbed her back until the coughing stopped. When she smoothed a wisp of snow-white hair,
damp with perspiration, off Moomie’s forehead, I started to feel guilty about how I was acting and decided I should be more
straightforward. I swallowed a bite of Aunt Amy’s tart cranberry sauce and asked, "Aunt Amy, remember how in high school I
had that crush on Brett Nostrund?"
Before I could say another word, she clicked her tongue and said, "Vegetables! I knew I was forgetting something." I started to
protest, to tell her we already had enough to eat, but she held up a hand to stop me and hurried into the kitchen.
I shook my head sadly and started telling Moomie about seeing Brett the day before. Pretty soon Aunt Amy came back with a
ceramic bowl filled with succotash, just as I was getting to the part about her swooping down on me like some sort of
avenging angel. She plunked down the bowl and stood looming over me. With her lips pursed and her arms akimbo, she cut
an imposing figure, and I sighed, set down my fork, and braced myself for a storm.
She hesitated though, like she wasn’t sure where to start. Finally she said, "Maya, there’s something you have to know. Brett
is dead."
I had to laugh. I said, "Aunt Amy, what do you mean? I saw him. Yesterday. That was him over by the Dairy Queen. He’s not
dead."
My aunt’s eyes searched heavenward, like she always did when she thought I was being obtuse. As usual, that bugged the
hell out of me, and I was about to start protesting again when she said, "What I mean is, he’s one of the living dead now. A
zombie. Him and his whole family."
You know, it’s funny. I’ve found that even in the most crucial conversations, we rarely hear exactly what other people say. We
hear either what we want to hear or what we’re afraid to hear. Right then I was listening with my fears, and I latched onto that
"family" part. "He’s married?" I asked. "Shit. I should have known."
Aunt Amy exhaled sharply, a sure sign that even divine inspiration had failed her. She said, "No, Maya. His parents, both his
sisters, a few aunts and uncles, some cousins. His whole family. They’re all zombies now."
I couldn’t believe she was serious, standing there calmly talking about zombies like they were as ordinary, and unpleasant, as
uninvited guests with boorish manners. All I could do was give her a blank look, my jaw hanging open, so she gave me a
quick 4-1-1 on the situation.
About six weeks earlier, a piece of space junk fell to earth next to a sauerkraut factory a few miles outside of Milwaukee. It was
just a piece of a damaged communications satellite, but near as anyone can figure out, when it fell from outer space it brought
back some microbes or something, which infected some of the factory’s sauerkraut, which ended up at a local Octoberfest
picnic. Luckily, sauerkraut is so disgusting that most people won’t eat it--I wouldn’t touch the stuff if my life depended on it--but
Brett’s family, for some reason, loved it, and it killed them all ... for a while.
I had a hard time swallowing this zombie story, so I suggested, only half humorously, that maybe Brett and his family were
ghosts instead.
Aunt Amy said, "Maya, there’s no such thing as ghosts."
"Yeah, right. But there are zombies?"
My aunt sat down--finally--and shook her head like, how could I be so dense? She said, "Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t you
know the difference between a zombie and a ghost? Didn’t you ever see Night of the Living Dead?"
I said, "Yeah, but I don’t think it was a documentary."
I thought for sure she’d get mad at my being flippant, but she didn’t. She got quiet and seemed to soften a bit, like she'd just
realized how tired, or maybe how scared, she was. She said, "I never took it seriously myself, until all this tainted-sauerkraut
business came up. Now I think maybe it was one of those dramatizations. You know, like those cop shows on TV these days."
I started to say something cute, but she cut me off with a long, low sigh. She said, "Maybe you don’t believe me, but they’re
here. They crawled right on up out of their graves, and they walk around with a queer look in their eyes, and they eat people
raw. What would you call them?"
I couldn’t imagine Brett chowing down on someone’s entrails, so I asked her if she ever saw any of them actually eat
someone, raw or otherwise. She hadn’t, but Henry Andersen had gone missing a few days after the Nostrunds all sprang up
out of their graves like so many human Pop Tarts, and everyone was sure he’d ended up as the main course at a zombie
brunch, even though there were no eye witnesses to the ghoulish act. I said, "Well, that doesn’t prove anything. That old fool,
Mr. Andersen, probably went off on another drinking binge in Milwaukee. I remember how he used to disappear for weeks at a
time when I was a kid. He’ll be back."
But I didn't feel as sanguine as I tried to sound. I remembered how strange Brett had looked, and I was starting to get weirded
out by this.
#
Continued on page 2
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