Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror, Zombies, Thriller, Contemporary, Psychology
ISBN: 9780061778919
Google: JX7BXjWIPLAC
Amazon: 0061778915
Barnesnoble: 0061778915
Goodreads: 11785
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 1995-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

34

Mowing Grandma’s lawn one Saturday in July & trimming the evergreen hedge & I heard kids shouting & laughing next door in the neighbors’ swimming pool. DON’T LOOK the voice said calmly. But it was a tease. It seemed to know beforehand. Five or six teenaged kids including one boy about fifteen just blew my mind, his swim trunks streaming water when he climbed out of the pool after diving a perfect dive & his young muscle-hard body like something shining I couldn’t take my eyes off. & I made my way along the hedge to get a better look & it went through me like a knife seeing his face. Enough like Barry’s face to be his TWIN! Except Barry was younger in my memory of course & dark-haired, & this boy was older, tall & lean & quick & loud & his hair a fairer brown like streaked from the sun.

Barry, my friend from seventh grade at Dale Springs Junior High which was just a mile or so from Grandma’s house!—the buff-brick building I’d drive by on my way to Grandma’s, only a block or so out of my way.

Barry who’d drowned in a swimming accident at the school, struck his head on the side of the pool & sank & so many kids yelling & wild tossing volleyballs it wasn’t noticed till we were almost all out of the pool. How many months, years later I overheard Mom say to one of her women friends on the telephone Quentin is still mourning that poor child’s death, I don’t think he will ever get over it.

Newspaper clippings I saved for years, photos of Barry alone & with his basketball teammates in the special memorial issue of the school newspaper, & a grimy sock of Barry’s I had taken from his locker, kept in one of my SECRET PLACES between my mattress & bed springs & one night reaching for the sock to fondle I discovered my treasure was gone. & whoever had taken it, Mom, or Dad, never spoke to me of it. Nor did I give any sign.

& NOW BARRY WAS RETURNED TO ME! But golden-shining in the sun & in fact better-looking, sexy that way young teenaged boys are so self-assured & swaggering with their buddies & showing off to girls. “SQUIRREL” was my immediate name for him, that blond-brown-streaked hair & his energy & clowning-around & loud giggle. “SQUIRREL” just came to me & so it was. This could not be just chance. Q__ P__ struck like somebody’d hit me over the head with a hammer. & my cock alert, in wonderment.

For here was my true ZOMBIE. No questions asked.

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