The Family Meal

A Family Meal

“What you’re telling us here is nothing that we have not heard over and over again for the last twenty six years.
In case you’ve been living in a cave for that period of time we have a situation where the bodies of the dead are rising and eating the bodies of the living. This appears to be some kind of contagion as those attacked by the bodies, even the very lightest of injuries, will become walking bodies.
Anyone dying, even of natural causes, will rise and consume the bodies of the living.
These … ‘phenomena’s’ … cannot be stopped or killed. The bodies are entirely re-animated and they must be completely destroyed to annul the threat.
In the interim, society now revolves entirely around these creatures, they are the focus of all our conversations, all our theorems, both practical and abstract. No cure for the problem has been deduced, no remedy is in sight. We live amongst these things. Like a plague.
All dead bodies must be handed in to the authorities as soon as they have passed away. The holding of dead bodies is highly illegal and carries the heaviest of penalties.
Despite the massive emotional pain this causes we must all work together to beat this. No-one must create a weak link in the chain.”

Edgar and Robert walked home together. They followed the wall that ran along the perimeter of the city, they always walked home this way. The two boys were quiet. Edgar was still upset about Mr Pitt’s outburst in front of the class. Robert still felt a little guilty for what happened. They separated at the old chemical factory. Robert gave Edgar an attempt at a reassuring grin, but he did not reciprocate.
Edgar arrived home; his mother was putting her coat on in the hallway. She smiled at him as she brought it up over her shoulders with a shrug.
“I’m just taking Danny to the doctors. He’s running a fever. Do you want to come?”
Edgar felt as though his face was still stinging from the slap he had received from Mr Pitt earlier that day. He felt as though his eyes were red raw from crying. Why did his mother not see this, how was it beyond noticing?
“No… I’m going to stay here.”
He cast a nervous glance at his grandmother’s door.
“Don’t worry about Nana.” His mother said gently. “She’s tied up tight. She just gets noisy sometimes.”
Edgar forced a small smile and went to his room.

“What you’re doing is suggesting that the things have thought, that they are capable of thinking, denoting higher intelligence, that’s something that most people just aren’t going to believe.”

“All I’m saying is that in recent studies, they would rather eat live animals than dead. And they don’t even look at the prospect of eating each other. They have a sense of camaraderie amongst th…”

“Camaraderie!? You’re talking about the idea of race, of family almost. The idea that these creatures are anything other than monsters is a disgrace to your profession.”

“Of course, of course, you want science to back up your petty bigoted ideas, your far right, narrow minded opinions made fact. That’s what you want science to prove but sometimes you have to realise that there is a process of learning within the field. That’s what you’re scared of, that’s the fact that you just don’t want to hear.”



Edgar was drawing in his room. A picture of Mr Pitt. Following his ritual humiliation at the hands of the teacher earlier that day he pleasured himself with this interpretation of a possible future. Several of the creatures had surrounded Mr Pitt, they were clawing at him. Tearing his body piece from piece.
He had several posters on his wall from the television programme ‘Blood Bowl.’ It was the top rated show of the last ten years. Teams of
humans would attempt tasks against ferocious hordes of zombies.
Edgar thought it was similar to entertainment that had existed in
Roman times, but he was a huge fan all the same. Most children of his age fixated on the human contestants of these programmes. But Edgar was more interested in the recurring zombies of the series. ‘Bloodchain’ was a figure who had been kitted out in S+M gear. Nobody knew if he was always the same zombie as his face was partially obscured by a gimp mask. Some of Edgar’s classmates believed ‘Bloodchain’ to be a series of zombies, others thought he was a genetically engineered zombie, some people even believed him to be a human. Edgar was convinced he was not a living person and had enough pictures of him to piece together a series of studies on his teeth, which he found to be similar enough from show to show to convince him that it was always the same zombie under the mask.
It was this involvement in the task that kept him from hearing the most noticeable of sounds. The lifting of chains, tearing of metal from wood. The long slow creak of a distant door opening.
Just as Edgar was putting the finishing touches to Mr Pitt’s empty eye sockets, the door to his room began to open. This caught his attention hurriedly. He remembered how this scene would play itself out only a year previously. His Grandmother would slowly open the door to steal her way in and kiss him goodnight. His friends at school often spoke about how they would shirk the affection bestowed upon them by their elder relatives. Something about wrinkles and white hair, soft lilting voices and shuffling footsteps. Edgar didn’t feel the same. Although there was a certain discomfort from the appearance of age, the unconditional love that he felt from her would always make those night-time visits something special.

“We must not fear the dead! These are not our enemies; these are our Brothers and Sisters, our family. They are a part of us just as we are a part of them. They are no different in death.”

“Father… I … have to disagree with you there, these are our families? I don’t know about you, but a family who tries to decimate and mutilate me every time I see them is not my kind of a family. I mean… I don’t know if that happens round your table at Christmas but it’s not like that at mine. At mine, we eat some food, perhaps there’s an argument, a few heated words, but no limbs torn off, no flesh chewed, nothing. What you might say, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You’re missing the point my friend, these, ‘creatures,’ if you prefer, are from us, they are human, they were made by God and this end result that is happening is something not so far removed from where we are at now…”

“I gotta butt in here, you’re so full of shit it’s coming out your ears…”

“Raymond! Let the Father have his word, we’re not going to fall prey to petty name calling here, I won’t have this discussion become a farce.”

“You won’t have this become a farce? Then what did you ask this asshole on for? I mean, I’m a Catholic, but I’ve got to draw the line at what you’re saying Father, we can’t live with these creatures we have to wipe them out. Obliterate them totally.”

“How can we obliterate them when they are us? How can we kill ourselves? That is the root of my argument, that is why I say we have to live and let live.”

“Live!? Father, for us to live we have to get rid of these things, they are everywhere, there isn’t one part of this damned planet that they haven’t infested. They are taking over and we have to do something now. We’ve already given them too much and we have to take back the planet now!”

There was a ritual to the movements and the actions, from both of them. His Grandmother would always call him by the same name. ‘Cootchie Coo.’ A name reserved for him, solely for her use. She would always leave him with the same words.

“Goodnight… sleep tight… don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

This movement could not have been any more different.
Accompanying the sound of the door creaking open was the dead breath that his Grandmother took with the exertion of pushing the door. Chains clattered about her like so much showy jewellery. Her hair was wild, standing out in every direction. Mouth gaping, opening and closing like a fish’s. She inhaled slowly, catching the scent of the room. Edgar was unable to move.
Her eyes stared up at the ceiling as she led herself through the doorway with her nose. Creeping evermore into the room. Edgar clawed together the pens he had been drawing with and prepared them as a weapon. He was always ready to fight. He had none of his Mother’s shortcomings in recognising his Grandmother as a threat. He was less vague about people after they had died. Very slowly he stole upright on the mattress. From here he could run in any direction. He was also higher than the creature now (he found it hugely reassuring to call it the creature and to avoid all connections of family). Still she advanced into the room, reaching out with both arms in a circular shape. Almost possessive of a grace despite her advanced degeneration. Her eyes were still quite clear, the milky white marbling spreading slowly like a cataract. Her flesh still fairly taught and with some fat left on the bones. From a distance perhaps she could have passed for a living person. But at such close range there was no such illusion for Edgar.

Suddenly he dove. Stealing the moment and slipping like a bird into the air. He grabbed onto the top of the doorframe and used it to hurl himself up and over, jumping down into the corridor, just behind his Grandmother. She spun and grabbed at him, catching only the material of his pyjamas, tearing the lower part from him. He fell to the floor. He fell to the floor. He took off running, leaving the creature with the scraps of cloth that she held in her hand. She brought them up and looked at them with her dead eyes before springing into life and moving with more
agitation than before.

Edgar ran into the kitchen, grabbed a knife from the rack and held
it in his free hand. If he could only get to the bathroom he could lock
the door and be safe until… until his mother came home. He realised that he would not be able to do this. If he locked himself away his
Grandmother would turn on his unsuspecting mother and baby
brother. He had to fight this thing.

She slothed into the kitchen, Edgar held his two weapons out in
front of him and was suddenly seized by doubt. At that moment he
was flooded with memories. Awash with them. The thought of
stabbing his Grandmother repulsed him suddenly, he couldn’t bring
himself to do it.

The moment of pause was enough, she fell on him like a dead
weight. Her teeth gnashing, hands scratching at him. Edgar’s head
started to go light, he could see light spots exploding in front of his
eyes, but still he struggled. If he gave up for a moment he was gone. It
took everything he had to keep her head away from him, to stop the
teeth clamping down and infecting him. That would be it.

Just as he thought he could go on no longer hands clasped
themselves around the head of his Grandmother. He glimpsed a sight
of his Father dragging her from the room before he lost consciousness.


“What we’ve seen recently suggest that there are examples that
can be made within groups of the creatures that relate more to mood
and … ‘feeling’ … than simple instructions. These … ‘feelings’ … are
shared between subjects who go through a group experience. A mood
can swing through them, being shared equally, as one moment, rather
than a passing of information… the evidence is non-conclusive, but the
findings are too important to our understanding of the creatures to not
widen the depth of knowledge being brought to it.”


“Non-conclusive… I’ll say that alright, what you’re coming to us with
is a bunch of hippy mumbo-jumbo about a ‘shared feeling’ between a
group of monsters…”

“Monsters is not the term to use here…”

“You’ll be damned if I don’t use the term! What we need to be doing
is finding a way of wiping out the monsters. What you scientists keep
coming back to us with is all very interesting for your little theories and
papers that you circulate amongst yourselves, but, as is so frequent
amongst members of your field, you keep missing the bigger picture. We are living in Hell, and you people are one of our last chances to get rid of them. This crap about…”

“John, there’s no need for…”

“GOD DAMNIT I’LL TELL YOU WHAT THERE IS NO NEED FOR! You
people are pissing away our money, and our resources and our GOD
DAMN time when that is all we have left. You want to fuck around
with zombies nodding at each other then go do it on your own time
Doctor, don’t use public money and resources to squander on your God
damned world wide tests, In Maui and New Zealand and whatever. We
need results, we are running out of food, we are running out of people
and we are running out of time. We need results that we can use,
something to hold on for”

Edgar’s father turned the television off. He sat down at the table.
Edgar’s mother brought in a steaming bowl of vegetables.

This was what family was about.

Edgar could not keep his eyes away from the creature that was his
Grandmother, who was tied to her chair at the head of the table. His
Father noticed the glance.
“Now don’t you go worrying. What happened today was something
that will never happen again.”
Edgar met his Father’s words with silence. His Father changed his
tone to create more sincerity.
“Now look… there’s nothing I can say that’s going to take away
what happened today, but it won’t happen again … okay? You’ve got
my word on that.”

Edgar stayed silent. His Father looked up at his wife who
made a half smile and passed him the potatoes.