The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(196)

I watch the fire from the coffeehouse as I eat pancakes and ketchup. The waitress, Gina, says, “Billy Martin, I swear you have no taste,” just like always. Then, like always, she glances at my shotgun and moves off.

It’s coming on fall now, and the dead slow down in cool weather. They’re no good at all in winter. I’ll have to start curing meat to put by while the hunting’s still good. Gina has no idea, saying I have no taste. After all, isn’t my salt mixed with parsley and thyme?

Life is easier these days. I don’t have to dig the dead up anymore, or worry about getting caught; and no one wants to watch me roast zombies, especially when one might be their own dearly departed. Still, I’m discreet. Only the dead know my secret, and I doubt they’ll judge.

People say I just have a natural way with the dead, and I think that might be true.

That, and the secret really is all in the salt.





Tameshigiri

By Steven Gould





A Hugo and Nebula Award finalist, Steven Gould is the author of the novel Jumper, the basis for the recent film of the same name. Other novels include Reflex, Blind Waves, Helm, Greenwar, and Wildside. A new novel, 7th Sigma, is scheduled for May 2011. Gould is currently working on another entry in the Jumper series. His short fiction has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and Tor.com. When not writing, Gould spends entirely too much time killing zombies on his Xbox 360.





Ninjas were spies, saboteurs, and assassins in ancient Japan. In Japan the equivalent term “shinobi” is more common, but Westerners prefer the sound of “ninja.” Ninja was an officially recognized job, and only those of a certain income were allowed to keep ninjas on the payroll. Ninjas commonly wielded swords (katanas), throwing stars (shuriken), and chain and sickle weapons called a kusarigama. While popular imagination pictures ninjas clad in black, in real life ninjas probably tried to blend into the local population by dressing as priests, entertainers, and merchants. Much of Japanese architecture was originally developed as a defense against ninjas, including the use of gravel courtyards and nightingale floors that made it difficult for intruders to move about silently.





Gould says that this story is all my fault: “I made the mistake of saying on Twitter something like ‘Ninjas awesome. Zombies awesome. Ninjas and Zombies? Double awesome!’ John Joseph Adams saw it and asked if I was writing such a thing. I wasn’t, but I said that I could.”





A student of Iaido—the Japanese sword as a martial art—for over twelve years, Gould didn’t need to do much research for the story, but he says he did stand out in the middle of his backyard with a bokken (wooden sword) for a while, working on some of the moves depicted in the story.





Why zombies? “The scary thing about zombies, slow or fast, is that there will always be more,” Gould says. “It doesn’t matter how many you kill, eventually more will arrive. Zombies are a palpable, biting representation of our own mortality. And mortality stinks. And it has rotting flesh.”





In medieval Japan there was a swordsmith who volunteered to execute a felon so he could perform tameshigiri—test cutting—on his latest blade. When the convicted man saw the sword maker he said, “If I had known it would be you, I would have swallowed stones to ruin your blade!”


Some days you’re the sword maker, slicing cleanly through flesh and bone, and some days you’re the poor bastard forcing rocks down your throat right before they put the steel to you. Sure you’re going to die, but you don’t have to go easy.





We walked twenty minutes through the kitchen gardens before we got to the southern wall. The gate wasn’t manned but we only had to wait a few minutes before the guard walking the parapet got there, slung his rifle, and came down the ladder, huffing and puffing.

He checked Sensei’s pass and then Richard pushed forward, like he does, to be next. The guard glanced at Richard’s pass and then up at his face. “Richard Torres? You look like your brother. Didn’t he go missing a few weeks back?”

“You think?” snapped Richard. “Why do you think—”

Sensei touched Richard on the arm. “No sign of Diego, I take it?” Sensei said to the guard.

“Not on my watch, no.” He gave Richard back his pass, took Lou’s, looked at her, and blinked. They all do when they see her. I mean she’s gorgeous most days but for some reason, today she glowed.

“Louise Patterson? I think I knew your sister in high school. How is she?”

“Dead,” said Lou.

Nine out of every ten died in the infestation. You’d think he’d know better.

He swallowed, gave her back the pass, and took mine. “Hello. I don’t think I’ve met you before. New to town?”

I laughed sourly. “You sat behind me in Algebra, Danny. You kept copying my work.”

He took a step back and stared down at my pass. His free hand touched the opposite elbow. “Wow, Rosa. You’ve, uh, filled out.”

“Yes,” I said. I was skinny back then but now I had curves. He was stocky before, and still was. Surprising, that, considering the rationing. I didn’t comment, though, about his weight or what had happened back in high school. We wanted to get through the gate after all.