Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb

Author:Sharyn McCrumb [McCrumb, Sharyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0099356414
Published: 1992-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Why have you come here

to this place you say

you never liked, where

mockingbirds read your mind…

-DON JOHNSON

“The House in the Woods” from Watauga Drawdown

The reunion was only seven hours away, but no one was sleepy. The full moon shone on the newly resurrected Watauga River, which coursed again in its original channel, a ribbon of light in the muddy wasteland of the valley. In the long grass on the hill­sides above the shoreline, crickets chirped in a ceaseless drone. It was a peaceful night in the mountains, but no one forgot that when the sun rose to reveal the barren lake bed, the dead would be back among them. Indeed, one of them had returned already.

After Pat Malone’s invasion of the Lanthanides’ reunion, no one wanted to talk anymore about old times. Within a space of ten minutes, everyone at the reception in the Laurel Room had pleaded fatigue or the lateness of the hour, and had retired to their own rooms to ponder the evening’s events.

Jim Conyers had been unmoved by the encounter, and he felt a thickening in his senses that he knew was a craving for sleep, but Barbara, who was outraged, wanted to discuss it.

She sat on the foot of the bed, staring at herself in the mirror as she did her customary one hundred strokes a night with her hairbrush. Her shoulder-length curls-still a rich shade of chest­nut (now obtained from a bottle)-shone in the lamplight, and her face seemed as unlined as a young girl’s.

“That certainly was a performance tonight!” she remarked, brushing vigorously.

“Bravado,” said Jim, stifling a yawn. “The Lanthanides loved to make scenes. They used to remind me of a bunch of Shetland pony stallions: terribly fierce and sincere, but so insignificant as to be comical.”

“Well, it was a revelation to me,” said Barbara, checking out his expression in the mirror. “I never knew that all those sexual high jinks were going on up at Dale’s place.”

Conyers shrugged. “They weren’t, really. Jazzy Holt was some­body the others met at a science fiction convention. She never even visited the farm. They-er-got together at conventions, and spent the rest of the time writing soulful letters to her. She married Curtis after he left Wall Hollow, in ‘56, I think, and they divorced pretty soon after, about the time of his nervous break­down.”

Barbara sniffed. “Curtis Phillips was always crazy, if you ask me. Not that the rest of them were much of a contrast. Anyhow, it’s a good thing for you I didn’t know about such goings-on in 1954, Jim Conyers, or I’d have thought twice about marrying you.” Another thought occurred to her. “What about Earlene Riley and Angela Arbroath? You can’t say they didn’t visit!”

“Angie was a high school kid, and built like a pipe cleaner back then. Not exactly a femme fatale. Most of us treated her like a kid sister. And Earlene was a pudding-faced girl who used sex to build her self-esteem.”

Barbara stared. “Jim! Do you mean she thought she

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