You know that a conversation is deep when the taut acid smiles relax from your faces. Roger and I were sitting in the attic of Jane's parents' house. Our wacky laughing brains had reached that higher level where everything has become clear and calm, but a peculiar euphoria pervades even the sensation of impending doom. We heard Jane downstairs, breaking things.

'I think she's moved from the living room to the bathroom,'� said Roger quietly.

'No, the bathroom is right below us,'� I said, almost whispering. 'She might be in the hallway.'�

A muffled crash of glass from below. Then two more.

'She's pulling the pictures off the wall in the hallway and breaking them,'� I confirmed.

Roger looked me in the eye and whispered, 'She's way zombied.'�

'I know,'� I said. 'At this point we should just get to the car and go.'�

'And leave her like that? Her parents are supposed to be home tonight.'�

Jane was my girlfriend. In the summer after we graduated from high school, she told me she was pregnant. We decided that I would join the Navy. That way, I could support Jane and the baby financially while we decided if we wanted to get married. I talked Roger into joining with me. While we were in boot camp, I got Jane's letter saying she wasn't pregnant after all, and Roger, ironically, got a letter from his girlfriend saying she was pregnant from another guy. So they broke up.

Now we were ten days into our fourteen-day leave, which the Navy gives you after boot camp to remind you of the freedom you left behind; or to put it another way, eight days into partying and deep philosophical discussions, just like the old days, peppered with new discussions about fleeing to Canada or Switzerland.

The first couple of days home, Roger and I each slept at our parents' houses, got up and ate the breakfasts our mothers cooked, then went over to Jane's house, because her parents were out of town. It wasn't long before we were crashing at Jane's house instead of going home. Roger was in no hurry to start a new relationship, especially seeing the predicament we were in with crazy, violent Jane downstairs.

I don't hear anything, now,'� I said.

'Maybe she went outside,'� whispered Roger. 'Where are the car keys?'�

'Oh, shit,'� I said. 'I think they're in my kit bag with my toothbrush and razor. In the bathroom. I think.'�

Another loud crash!

'That's in the kitchen,'� said Roger.

Plates breaking against the wall, silverware ringing malignantly like tuning forks from hell.

How did this begin? Last night, we watched Jane's bootleg copy of Dellamorte Dellamore (known in the United States as 'Cemetery Man'�). We started talking about zombies and voodoo.

Things like, 'Is voodoo for real.'�

'If someone is hypnotized, they might believe they were a zombie.'�

'If someone were drugged, they might think they were a zombie.'�

'Drugged AND hypnotized!'�

'Well, if they think they are a zombie, then they really ARE a zombie. You are what you think!'�

'No, you can think you're a wolf, but are you really a wolf?'�

'I heard about people who take peyote, or maybe it's mushrooms, and they wear a wolf skin over their body, and go out into the countryside at night like wolves.'�

'But are they really wolves?'�

'We were talking about zombies. Zombies come back from the dead.'�

'My uncle came back from the dead.'�

'Bullshit.'�

'No, really. He was in a car wreck, and the doctor said my uncle's heart stopped beating, and he stopped breathing, and then they revived him. And he saw that light in the tunnel and all.'�

'He was probably on morphine.'�

'Well, doesn't voodoo use some kind of drugs?'�

'I heard they actually give someone a drug, and then bury them in a coffin under the ground, and when they dig them up, the person that got buried believes they are a zombie, and they obey the commands of who-ever dug them up.'�

'Yeah, you know why they obey? They don't want to get buried again!'�

'Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!'� we all laughed at that one.

'Did you ever hear about the guy they found dead ' it was a bondage thing that went too far ' he was encased in Plexiglas or something.'�

'I could fold up the couch with you in it.'�

'Give me a bong hit.'�

'That music sounds like it's playing in slow motion.'�

'Voodoo is not just drugs; it's religion.'�

'My parents have a Bible. We could read it upside down.'�

'Open the other bottle of wine.'�

'G-nibby, eth, nyeer. . . this is stupid. You can't read upside down.'�

'Read it backwards. Not each letter. Each word.'�

'It's dark out here.'�

'How many tabs did we do?'�

'The ground is weird, like a sponge.'�

'Sponge-worm! Sponge-worm!'�

'Eeeuuwww! Shut up. Hahahahaha.'�

"Sponge-worm! Ahhhhh,hahahahaha!'�

'Ow! Be careful! Ha, ha, ha, ha!'�

'Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!'�

'I can't get in there. It's dark.'�

'Light a candle.'�

'Please, God. Don't let it be that we really buried Jane under the ground.'�

'I thought you dug her up.'�
Jane appeared in the doorway, wild-eyed and covered with dirt from head to tow, hair and matted with blood for some reason. She was barefoot and her dress was torn and hanging halfway off her body. Spittle foamed through her gritted teeth as she lurched into the room. In one hand, she clutched a big rock. Her head jerked toward me and I almost lost control of my bowels.

There was no calming her down. She threw the rock at me. I tried to dodge it but it tagged my arm and hurt like hell.

Roger approached her softly, saying, 'Janie, Janie, honey . . . '

But she sank her teeth into his hand. He freaked out, yelling, 'IIIIII!'� and hit her square on the forehead with his fist, and jerked his arm out of her mouth. Jane stood cross-eyed from the punch, with Roger's blood on her teeth. Then her eyes refocused and she picked up the glass-top coffee table and threw it at us.

We couldn't leave the house because Jane was blocking the door, so we ran down the hall, into a bedroom, and locked the door. That's when we saw the panel on the ceiling, over the bed. I jumped up on the bed first. The mattress felt like I was walking on the moon. I stepped up onto the headboard, arm up-stretched, and pushed the panel open. Roger, who is taller than me, stood on the bed and boosted me up through the square opening into the attic. Then, he gripped the sides of the opening and pulled himself up with my help. We replaced the wooden panel.

Down below, Jane was making animal growling noises and still breaking shit.

'Is she mad at us?'� asked Roger, unable to stifle a bemused smile. 'Or has she gone crazy?'�

'I don't know,'� I said. His smile was making me smile. 'Maybe she IS a zombie.'�

That's when our smiles melted away, but our minds remained sharp.

It was daytime now because slits of light shown through the attic vent on one end of the house. We crept over to the vent.

'The bathroom is right below us,'� I said in a state of calm transcendence. 'I'm going to get the car keys. I'll need your help.'�

We removed the vent panel. I squeezed through feet first. Once I got my legs, ass, and torso outside, Roger gripped my right hand.

'Don't let go,'� I said.

'I've got you. Don't worry.'�

I slid the rest of the way out, so now I was dangling on the side of the house, suspended from falling by Roger's grip on my hand. I had envisioned swinging into the bathroom like I've seen people do in movies, but hanging there, both of our arms fully extended and Roger's drooping shoulder protruding as far as it could go out the vent opening, my feet didn't quite reach the bathroom window. I felt my grip slipping. Then I remembered this was only a one-story house, so I let go and fell with a jarring thud onto the ground.

I stood up quickly tried the bathroom window. It was unlocked. I raised the window and climbed awkwardly into the bathroom.

There was my old, worn-out leather kit bag on the side of the sink, unzipped and vaguely warped as if it were smiling at me. I spread open the zippered maw and looked at the contents in its belly. Razor, shaving cream, toothpaste, bottle of Tommy Hilfiger cologne that Jane had given me (this was her favorite cologne for me to wear), and ' yes! ' my car keys!

As I dropped my keys into my pocket, I turned, and nearly jumped out of my skin. Jane was standing in the doorway of the room, staring at me with insane eyes. She had a sharp kitchen knife in her hand.

I was still holding the kit bag. I reached in, grabbed the bottle of Tommy Hilfiger cologne, and pulled out the stopper. Jane raised the knife to stab me. I whipped the bottle in a sideways arc across her face, splashing cologne into her eyes.

Jane screamed like a wounded bobcat, dropped the knife, and put both hands over her stinging eyes. I felt terrible about this, but what happened next was a lot worse.

Jane lowered her hands, eyes still closed, and started sniffing the air. Her nostrils undulated at the strong fragrance of the cologne. A hideous smile came to her face as she said my name.

'Bill,'� she croaked, recognizing the smell of my cologne. 'Bill!'�

I watched in horror as Jane sank her thumbs and forefingers into her eye sockets, pulled out both aromatic eyeballs, and plunged them into her mouth.

I am ashamed to admit this, but I felt some sensual arousal when she spoke my name through the mouthful of eyeballs.

'Mmmmmmmmmm . . . Bill,'� she said, rolling them around in her mouth.

It was a miracle that she didn't bite through the stringy nerve strands, which still connected her eyes to her brain. We later heard that her saliva prevented total blindness by washing off the cologne before doctors re-inserted the eyeballs into their sockets.

'Come on,'� said Roger, who was standing outside the bathroom window.

I climbed out the window and we ran to the car. By now it was broad daylight but I don't think anyone saw us.
Roger and I reported to our duty stations a couple for days early, he aboard the USS Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier, and me in at the Naval Air Station Rota, Spain. The more time that goes by, the less likely it seems that I'll be contacted and questioned about the incident.

tHe EnD

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