Page 49 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

Ah. You ask about brains. The movies and comics are wrong about this, too. Your body craves brains, but you must avoid them.

Your mind is a mess. You remember words, phrases, impersonal knowledge, the kind you get from a textbook, screens, untethered to what it meant to be you: the Doppler howl of a speeding train, the blinding flash of a firing muzzle, objects in mirror are closer than they appear, the bits your brain clings to because they matter for survival. All that matters now is to survive.

But you don’t remember who you were, that life you lived.

So, you think that by eating enough brains, you’ll repair your mind and remember who you were.

But you can never cross back, to be alive again. You’re a monster. You’ve lost your friends, foes, lovers, family, neighbors, everyone you’ve ever known. If you see them again, they’ll run, scream, point a gun at you and pull the trigger. They’ll knife you, axe you, pour gasoline over you and fling a lit match.

If you still remember, you’ll stand there and let them do it. You’ll let your wife push you off a skyscraper; you’ll let your son machete off your head. You’ll be gone.

So as your brain changed, it disposed of memories from your old life like dirty dishwater down the drain in an act of mercy. Remembering what you lost will break you.

You lost your memories so you don’t lose your mind. Don’t eat brains unless you want to suffer.

Let me take you away from these streets. Away from anyone who might know you. Become a proper monster, and let the living become proper food.

Survive. This is all that’s left now.

2.

Let me teach you how to hunt. Before the living become food, they’re dangerous.

They’ll try to charge with a baseball bat, swing a two-by-four with rusty nails pounded through, empty a pistol magazine, pump a shotgun—always at your head, because everyone knows that’s the only way to really kill one of us.

Let me show you how to protect yourself. Yes, this is a football helmet, just like the one on my head. Always wear it when we prowl these streets that we’ve turned into our territory. If you suspect an ambush, drop down and hold up this mannequin head to draw their fire. Then, when they’re reloading, get up and charge.

Find yourself a shield. Good. This cast-iron pan will work well. Hold it up in front of you. One step. Another. Let them shoot you in the arm, chest, belly. Nothing there is fatal. You’ll barely feel it. Onward. You’ll heal with the next meal. Keep going.

It’s all right. You fell because you’ve been shot in the knee. You didn’t even notice, did you? I told you pain would no longer bother you. All you feel is that coldness in your belly, like a lump of ice. When you’re hurt, that hunger grows. All right, shield my head with that frying pan while I patch you up, so their bullets don’t make my head explode like a dropped watermelon.

See what I did there? Lots of rope and a shovel handle for a splint. This is how you make a knot that holds. Now you can shamble the way they expect you to. Keep at it. You’re bigger than me. They’ll be more scared of you.

Let me show you how to chase them down. They think they’ve gotten away. They don’t see us anymore. They run. They stumble. They bend over, breathing hard. They run. They pant. They are out of breath. They fall to their knees. They stop.

We shamble. We shamble. We shamble.

There, we’ve caught up to them. You smell that sour breath? You hear that desperate wailing at the end of the alley?

They’re off again, running, running, running. But they won’t run as far as they did last time; they’ll tire earlier, stop sooner. They’ll fall down, hungry, thirsty. We shamble. We shamble. We shamble. They’ll be roused, and we’ll do it again. Again. Again. They’ll get hungrier, thirstier, more exhausted. Their heads will droop, as if their brains have turned to mush. Their eyelids will weigh a pound each. They’ll stop. They’ll lie down against a dumpster. They’ll tell themselves that they just need to close their eyes for a second.

You’re not stronger than them. You’re not smarter than them. You are actually very slow, especially on that broken leg I patched together with rope and a shovel handle. Your mind is even slower, shambling along in this hell. But you don’t get tired. You don’t get winded. You don’t need water. You don’t need to close your eyes, not ever. This is why they’re afraid of us.

This was how I caught you.

Let me show you how we feast. Let’s go to them while they sleep. Open your jaws wide and bite down hard on the throat. Hold on. Hold on while they punch and kick and thrash and gurgle as they try to scream. Hold on. I told you pain will no longer touch you.

When you get better at it, you can also go for the soft flesh inside the thighs, where there are larger arteries. Maybe it will be easier for you. Less intimate. More primal. The way hyenas go for the vulnerable underside of the antelope. Drink. Drink the blood while it’s still hot.

Here, let me show you how to get to the succulent marrow in this femur. There’s nothing better to help your leg heal. It’s surprisingly hard to crack a bone. Use more force than you think is necessary. A barbell or hammer helps. If you find one you like, carry it with you, like an otter with its favorite clam-cracking rock. Funny what we remember, isn’t it?

You feel that coldness in your belly thaw just a little? You sense that tingling in your knee as the bones grow back? Listen. You can hear the muscles and sinews in your body weave together, a rustling like the singing of the stars. Go ahead, take off that helmet for a while. The bones we’ve strewn around our campsite will warn the still-living off. It’s nice to sit together like this, just listening, just waiting, in the dying embers of the world.

Not all forms of pleasure have been denied us. I don’t remember how love feels, but I’m glad I didn’t eat you.

3.

Let me show you how to find new hunting grounds. Food doesn’t like to stick around when predators move in. After a few days, you must find a new territory.