Free Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos by James Marshall

become afraid of that which I’m capable of doing: to stop it; to stop it. The strain. “We’re zombies, right? We like chaos. The more disorderly, the better.”
    “Sure, we like chaos. Look.” The director grabs a golden telescope pointed out the floor-to-ceiling windows. He turns it to the side and lifts it and its stand over his head. He stumbles away from the windows, toward the wall opposite. Then he hurls the telescope and its stand. “I’m throwing something against the wall and, what do you know, it makes a hole and I think that’s terrific but that’s not the way things work.”
    “Of course it is.” Why am I arguing? Why do I want to cling to the world I loathe? Why am I scared of mayhem unravelling? “Destruction is key,” I insist. “That’s the zombie code. Nobody understands why we live by it, but everybody benefits from it. Destruction leads to reconstruction. Wrecking and rebuilding the same things, over and over, leads to innovation: new and better ways of performing necessary tasks. Using your example: Somebody makes the telescope you threw. You bought it, broke it, and now you’re going to buy a new one. It’s good for the economy. Additionally, people will be hired to repair or replace what’s been damaged. By punching a hole in the wall and, in the process, ruining the telescope, you created jobs. The unemployment rate dropped. The good news will be reflected in the stock market. Investors will be rewarded. Furthermore, the newly employed will need to buy tools and materials. Whoever makes those tools and materials will see an increase in sales. They’ll hire more workers to keep up with demand. The new workers will have disposable income to invest or spend. Whether they invest it or spend it, it’s good for the economy. And we put money into research and development every time we destroy something. People will either make it so the telescope you throw either doesn’t create a hole in the wall, it doesn’t break when you throw it, or both. People will develop ways to more quickly and more effectively patch any future holes caused by the telescopes you throw or anything else for that matter. People will ultimately render themselves completely unnecessary and there will be no jobs at all because things will run so smoothly and then the future will be destroyed because it will all be pointless and that’s what we want, right?”
    “Buck, Buck, Buck,” sighs the director. He taps his finger against his temple. “They’re in our heads. Our heads . We only use ten percent of our brains, right? Who uses the rest? They do. They control us. They show us what we see. They tell us what we hear. They make us do their dirty work for them. We’re powerless. They let us think we’re in control.”
    “Who does?” I gasp.
    “That,” he says, pointing at me, like I’d got to the matter of the heart, “is the right question to ask.”
    I think of zombie computers: powerless computers that do what other computers tell them to do: spread the virus. The strain; the strain. “Who’s using our brains?” I cry.
    “Albinos!” exclaims the director.

CHAPTER
NINE
You Might Act In A Way Contrary
To Your Best Interest
    Neither of us says anything. Finally, because I’m completely and thoroughly convinced the director isn’t going to speak until I do and because I can’t think of anything else to say, I say, quite calmly, “Albinos?”
    “They were just in my office,” confirms the director. “We here, in upper management, have suspected for a long time there was a group of people, beings, or entities, maybe even a mix, in charge of us, because if there weren’t, we, the zombies, would’ve ruined everything a long time ago. We didn’t know who they were or what they wanted but we assumed we were on the right track because they never intervened. That’s all changed now. They were in my office.”
    Again, because I can’t think of anything else to say, I say, again,