Last night, Shoe dreamed about zombies. It wasn’t a particularly disturbing dream, subject matter aside, but it had struck him deeply enough that he checked the news the moment he woke up, just in case. He had spent some time letting himself come out of his funk before he left the house, but when he went to tell his mother that he was leaving, the feeling still hadn’t completely gone away.
Dead things made Shoe feel cold inside. As a child, he had found a dead cow while playing in the fields near his grandparents’ house. The poor thing had been out in the sun for a while, and the smell reminded him of the tuna casserole his mother always brought to church picnics in the summer. He had run screaming back to his grandmother.
At the time, his young mind knew that the cow was in heaven. After Shoe grew up and heaven’s wispy charms evaporated, he thought back on the cow from time to time. He felt bad that, for no particular reason, the poor creature’s consciousness had blanked out, and rather than float off to some heavenly reward, it remained where it fell, disintegrating back into the earth.
What bothered Shoe most about the dead wasn’t that life had left them, but that death had entered. They weren’t the empty shells his mother said they were, with spirits departed to better places. They were just lumps of skin and fluid and meat, and all they did differently than the living was fall apart, stink, and not think.
Shoe’s dream had managed to chase off his already shoddy sense of direction. He was unsuccessfully maneuvering through the endlessly repetitive country roads, his journey helped in no part by the featureless north Texas landscape. While his mind trailed off into the realm of the dead and undead, he and his truck veered miles off course. He was lost in a sea of sun-dried, yellow grass, lined by rows of scraggly mesquite trees.
He knew the roads were laughing at him as he doubled back and forth. With names like FM 862 and CR 1748, how could they take anything seriously?
You have to ask somebody for help, he thought to himself. People are nice. Mostly. Just stop somewhere and ask.
Shoe's face went hot at the thought of approaching a stranger in a place he didn't recognize, but the more he drove, the more sure he felt that he was absolutely lost. Houses were appearing farther and farther apart from each other, and he felt that he was dropping off the edge of civilization.
There was a little house with a big yard up on the right. Beyond that, there was nothing. Shoe took a breath and turned off the highway.
The wizard sat inside his house, staff across his lap, staring at a dead cat on the coffee table. It almost looked like it was sleeping, if you ignored the unnatural way its head was turned. The wizard scratched its head.
“You’re lucky,” he said to the dead cat. “I can’t die, you know. I keep trying and nothing works."
The wizard sighed. His bones ached. His soul ached. Immortality was a burden, one that he was tired of carrying. A person's mind could only tolerate so many experiences. When he was young, he was thrilled at the idea of living forever. There would be so much to learn and do, with no limit and no ending. Now, his head hurt when he tried to sift through everything in it. He had met so many people that he could never keep them straight, and he confused one for the other all the time.
It was better here, in his isolation. Around others, he became confused so easily. The house he used to live in was too busy. It didn't suit him. This house was exactly what he needed. It was quiet enough that he could rest, which was almost as good as the quiet of death that he wished for.
The dead cat's lifeless eyes looked at him.
"No, I've tried," the wizard said. He grabbed at his beard and scratched. "I'll be alive until I can trade this curse out with somebody else."
The dead cat didn't move.
"Because that's how it works. That's the magic. Unless you have any better suggestions."
The dead cat was silent. The wizard wouldn't find any answers there. Another cat, orange and alive, rubbed up against his leg. It hopped up onto the couch and curled up next to the wizard. He scratched it behind the neck.
There was a noise outside. A vehicle had turned off the highway. The wizard stood up, hoisting himself up with his staff. He shuffled across the dirty carpet and looked out the window. A truck was rolling up the driveway.
"Are we expecting visitors today?"
The orange cat mewed in response.
"I didn't think so. Although, maybe I could use this person. Maybe this one will be the one who finally works."
He looked back at the orange cat on the couch. It licked its paw and rubbed its face. A gray cat lay dead on the coffee table. The wizard squinted at it.
"How did you get up there?"
The dirt driveway looked to be about 200 feet long. As Shoe followed it to the house, he saw the rusted remains of cars and other machines rotting in the yard like monstrous fossils. He parked next to a propane tank and walked up to the door. There didn't seem to be any lights on inside the house, but it was still early afternoon. Shoe paused and listened, but heard nothing. He knocked on the door. After only a few seconds, the doorknob turned. It jiggled, apparently stuck, and then burst open, startling Shoe.
The old man who answered the door looked as tangled and ancient as the machines in the yard. His hair and beard fell in dirty, gray knots around his head like an upright mop. He clutched a tree branch in his right hand, and he was leaning all of his meager weight onto it. The old man stared at Shoe, but said nothing.
"Hello," Shoe said awkwardly after the silence became too painful for him to stand. "I don't mean to bother you, but I'm lost. I'm trying to get out to Byers."
"Byers?" the old man said. His voice sounded like mesquite branches rattling in a hot, summer wind. "No, son, you're lost. This is Hart County."
"Can you tell me how to get there from here? Please."
"Why don't you come inside? Sit down and rest a minute."
"I really can't," Shoe said. This was a bad idea, he thought. "I'm already late. Thank you, but I can't."
"Sure you can. That'll be a long drive, and you look like you need a meal. Some coffee, at least."
The old man turned back into the house, leaving the door open. Shoe watched him hobble back into the living room. The sun outside was so bright that his eyes couldn't make much sense of the inside of the house. Shoe hesitated, then followed him inside.
"Just have a seat, I'll get you something," the old man said over his shoulder. He disappeared into the kitchen.
The front room was filthy. A window to his left was shattered, and warm air blew in. The floor was covered in boxes, stains, and shredded paper. A gray cat was sleeping on the coffee table. An orange cat watched him from the couch, which was torn along the side. The carpet under his shoes made the slightest squishing sound. Shoe had absolutely no intention of sitting anywhere in this house.
The old man came out of the kitchen, holding a mug in one hand and leaning on the tree branch with the other.
“Thank you,” Shoe said as he stood up and took the mug out of the old man’s shaking hand.
"What's out in Byers?" the old man asked.
Shoe looked down at the mug. It was room temperature, and it smelled like coffee, but there were circles of mold floating on top of the dark liquid.
"Just where I'm headed."
The old man's gaze made Shoe uncomfortable. He felt like he was being studied. Sized up. He set the mug down on the coffee table, and noticed that the gray cat's head was turned strangely on its neck. Its eyes were open, and it wasn't breathing. Shoe's heart started pounding.
“I really need to get going,” Shoe said. Nothing about this place felt right. “This was nice, but I have to go. I’m so late.”
"I can give you all the time in the world," the old man said.
"I have to go."
Shoe ran to the door, unconcerned about how ungrateful it looked, and turned the handle. It stuck, and he jiggled it. It wouldn't open. He pushed harder, but it only barely moved. Something heavy struck him in the back of the head, and he fell to the ground.
Shoe could barely see when he finally opened his eyes. He was stretched back on a hard surface, and when he tried to move, he found that his arms and legs were tied down. He pushed and thrashed against the restraints. The old man was flipping through a phone book. The thin pages crinkled as he searched.
“Sit still now,” the old man said. “I need to concentrate. I don’t want to mess it up. It’s been so long since I’ve done any magic."
"What the hell is this?" Shoe asked. His heart raced, but he couldn't break free.
"You just have to die once. There's nothing to be afraid of. You won't even remember it."
"What the fuck?" Shoe yelled. He pulled against the restraints. "Untie me!"
The old man tossed the phone book to the ground.
“You’re a young man. You can enjoy immortality. I’m so tired of it.”
The old man picked up a brick from a workbench behind the table Shoe was tied to.
“It’s better if it’s quick,” he said. “I don’t want you to suffer. I was hoping you'd stay asleep for it.”
Shoe screamed as loudly as he could for help. This isn't happening, he thought. The old man lifted the brick. Shoe could smell the dead cow from his childhood. The old man stumbled toward him and dropped the brick onto his face. There was a crunch, and the smell vanished.
“Not so bad, was it?”
The wizard watched red drip from under the brick. He waited, but nothing happened.
“Didn’t work,” he muttered to himself, looking down at the floor. "Again."
The basement was hot and wet, and he was starting to get uncomfortable. An orange cat mewed at him from the stairway. The wizard smiled at it and hobbled across the basement with his staff. He reached down to pet the cat, and it shut its eyes and pushed its head towards his hand. When he looked back toward, he saw a young man lying on a table, his face smashed in with a brick.
“What’s this?” he asked. The young man didn’t look like he would recover. The wizard watched the blood start to drip off the table. He wiped his brow, slick with sweat.
“You’re lucky,” he said to the young man. “I can’t die, you know. I keep trying and nothing works."
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