The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(135)

I woke up and—goddamn if I’m not king of Mount Perverse: I had an erection.

In spite of my hangover I managed to eat and keep down a reasonably healthy breakfast, determined to find the girl. I don’t like being haunted but she was doing just that. What would I do when I found her? Would she still shrink away or would the native hunger zombies seem to have—hey, I’m no expert—present itself? If so, would I flee or just let it happen? This whole survive-just-for-the-sake-of-survival thing isn’t that great. It’s only been weeks and already my joie de vivre is pretty well kaput.

I mounted up and hit the dusty—well, moist, actually—trail. The mist was icy and I had to keep my eyes squinted tight to prevent ocular abrasion, but I was resolute: I would find this zombie girl and either court her or exterminate her, depending on her receptivity to my companionship. Maybe she just wanted a tuna sandwich. Maybe this human flesh eating was just a phase. Again, I’m no expert. Maybe she needed a hug. I know I did. I’d just like to spoon again. Be in bed and feel the small of a woman’s back against my stomach, my crotch nestled against her tush.

As I pedaled I felt more and more conflicted about this loopy notion of bedding down a zombie. And it wasn’t even a sex thing at the moment. I just wanted to snuggle. What man just wants a cuddle? A crazy, lonely one, that’s what.

Calling out would be a no-no, she being the shy type, so I just kept my eyes peeled and pedaled slow. I skipped Point o’ Woods and beyond. I just couldn’t envisage the zombie girl lofting herself over the high chain-link fence. So, block-by-block I explored Seaview, pausing only to pick up a few provisions, including a visit to the liquor store. In each town I dismounted and checked the nearby beach. Nothing. Well, nothing but skanky deer. At each encounter I mused it was a good thing for them I wasn’t fond of venison.

Yeah.

The first frost came in early December. Maybe my zombie heartthrob had succumbed to the elements or starvation or decomposition. I had no idea how long an undead individual lasted, with or without sustenance. How often did they eat? Could they subsist on grubs and squirrels? I hated not knowing. I hated that I couldn’t log onto the Internet and Google “zombie, feeding habits, lifespan.” I needed to Ask Jeeves, but couldn’t. Like everything else, the ’net was down. I never realized how addicted I was to outlets of mass communication. I missed TV, radio, and the web as much as I missed human contact. Sick. Books and backdated magazines were not cutting the mustard, no sir. My nights were a debauched stag party for one, the time split between drinking to excess and masturbating when I could manage it.





It was while walking my bike through that town whose name I loved so well, Lonelyville, that I stumbled upon—literally—the undead object of my desire, but now she was just plain old dead dead, her stiff, supine body glistening with ice crystals. I knelt down beside her and stared, my grief indescribable. Her tank top had disappeared, and her bra was torn, one cup shredded revealing a pale, translucent yellow breast. Her face was angelic, at least it was to me at that moment, and I felt shame for having fostered lust for this creature. Not because it was unnatural—you can debate that all you want—but because she looked above such secular desires. Tears began streaming down my cheeks but I didn’t wipe them away. I felt more loss here for this stranger than I had for my own wife, maybe because my wife’s demise was in the abstract. I hadn’t been there for it. I’d also been in a blind panic like everyone else.

Now, in this tranquil wintry setting, I had the luxury of time to grieve. I let it all out for this strangely captivating zombie girl, for my wife, for all of humanity. I bawled and right there in the road, lay on my side and spooned her, my body shaking not from the cold but from previously unimaginable loss.

And as we lay there a grizzled stag stepped onto the road, staring at us, its eyes black and unknowable. Steam pumped from its craterous nostrils and it grunted with bestial authority, like we were trespassing.

We. I so badly needed to be a part of “we” again. Does that make me codependent? My vision blurred by anguish, my mood black as pitch, I glared at this four-legged interloper. It grunted again and scraped a hoof against the pavement. The effrontery was too much. It was this goddamned filthy animal that was trespassing on this scene of human loss.

I disengaged from the girl’s cadaver—and that’s all it was now, just a plain old regular garden-variety corpse—and stood up, my fists vibrating with barely contained mayhem. I wanted to hurt this threadbare excuse for a deer, its antlers cracked and collapsing, its fur a mat of mud and grime and abrasions. I stepped toward it and it shook its head back and forth, its right antler threatening to drop off with each motion.

“I hate you miserable bastards,” I hissed. “I’ve always hated the deer on this godforsaken island, but now you, you really put it in italics. Can’t you see this is a private moment? I know it’s beyond your feeble peanut brain to show any goddamn respect, but so help me if you don’t get the hell away from here I’ll bash your skull in!”

It stood there, steaming away in the sleet.

So I took a swing at it. Not the brightest thing I’ve ever done, but I was a tad overwrought, shall we say? Open handed I made to slap it right across the muzzle and it bit me. And then it hit me why these deer looked so spectacularly putrid: they were dead. Undead. Whatever. They were animated corpses. Humans aren’t the only ones circling the drain. It’s all life. All of it.