Ten minutes later, the storm has launched into its big opening movement, and we are getting soaked. The convertible was a poor choice for a day like this. Neither of us can figure out how to put the top up, so we drive in silence with heavy sheets of rain beating down on our heads. We don’t complain, though. We try to stay positive.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Julie asks after about twenty minutes. Her hair is matted flat on her face.
‘Yes,’ I say, looking down the road at the dark grey horizon.
‘Are you sure? ’Cause I have no idea.’
‘Very . . . sure.’
I prefer not to explain why I know the route between the airport and the city so well. Our hunting route. Yes, she knows what I am and what I do, but do I have to remind her? Can we just have a nice drive and forget certain things for a while? In the sunny fields of my imagination we are not a teenager and a walking corpse driving in a rainstorm. We are Frank and Ava cruising tree-lined country lanes while a scratchy vinyl orchestra swoons our soundtrack.
‘Maybe we should stop and ask directions.’
I look at her. I look around at the crumbling districts surrounding us, nearly black in the evening gloom.
‘Kidding,’ she says, her eyes peeking out between plastered wet clumps of hair. She leans back in the seat and folds her arms behind her head. ‘Let me know when you need a break. You kinda drive like an old lady.’
As the rain pools into standing water at our feet, I notice Julie shivering a little. It’s a warm spring night, but she’s saturated, and the cab of the old convertible is a cyclone of freeway wind. I take the next exit, and we ease down into a silent graveyard of suburban grid homes. Julie looks at me with questioning eyes. I can hear her teeth chattering.
I drive slowly past the houses, looking for a good place to stop for the night. Eventually I pull into a weedy cul-de-sac and park next to a rusted mini-van. I take Julie’s hand and pull her towards the nearest house. The door is locked, but the dry-rotted wood gives way with a light kick. We step into the relative warmth of some long-dead family’s cosy little nest. There are old Coleman lanterns placed throughout the house, and once Julie lights them they provide a flickering campsite glow that feels oddly comforting. She ambles around the kitchen and living room, looking at toys, dishes, stacks of old magazines. She picks up a stuffed koala bear and looks it in the eyes. ‘Home sweet home,’ she mumbles.
She reaches into her messenger bag, pulls out a Polaroid camera, points it at me and snaps a shot. The flash is shocking in this dark place. She grins at my startled expression and holds up the camera. ‘Look familiar? I stole it from the skeletons’ meeting room yesterday morning.’ She hands me the developing photo. ‘It’s important to preserve memories, you know? Especially now, since the world is on its way out.’ She puts the viewfinder to her eye and turns in a slow circle, taking in the whole room. ‘Everything you see, you might be seeing for the last time.’
I wave the picture in my hand. A ghostly image begins to take shape. It’s me, R, the corpse that thinks it’s alive, staring back at me with those wide, pewter-grey eyes. Julie hands the camera to me.
‘You should always be taking pictures, if not with a camera then with your mind. Memories you capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones you pick up by accident.’ She strikes a pose and grins. ‘Cheese!’
I take her picture. When it rolls out of the camera she reaches for it, but I pull it away and hide it behind my back. I hand her mine. She rolls her eyes. She takes the photo and studies it, tilting her head. ‘Your complexion looks a little better. The rain must have cleaned you up a bit.’
She lowers the photo and squints at me for a moment. ‘Why are your eyes like that?’
I look at her warily. ‘Like . . . what?’
‘That weird grey. It’s nothing like how corpse eyes look. Not clouded over or anything. Why are they like that?’
I give this some thought. ‘Don’t know. Happens at . . . conversion.’
She’s looking at me so hard I start to squirm. ‘It’s creepy,’ she says. ‘Looks . . . supernatural, almost. Do they ever change colour? Like when you kill people or something?’
I try not to sigh. ‘I think . . . you’re thinking . . . of vampires.’
‘Oh, right, right.’ She chuckles and gives a rueful shake of her head. ‘At least those aren’t real yet. Too many monsters to keep track of these days.’
Before I can take offence, she looks up at me and smiles. ‘Anyway . . . I like them. Your eyes. They’re actually kinda pretty. Creepy . . . but pretty.’
It’s probably the best compliment I’ve received in my entire Dead life. Ignoring my idiot stare, Julie wanders off into the house, humming to herself.
The storm is raging outside, with occasional thunderclaps. I’m grateful that our house happens to have all its windows intact. Most of the others’ were smashed long ago by looters or feeders. I glimpse a few debrained corpses on our neighbours’ green lawns, but I’d like to imagine our hosts got out alive. Made it to one of the Stadiums, maybe even some walled-off paradise in the mountains, angelic choirs singing behind pearl-studded titanium gates . . .
I sit in the living room listening to the rain fall while Julie putters around the house. After a while she comes back with an armful of dry clothes and dumps them on the love seat. She holds up a pair of jeans about ten sizes too big. ‘What do you think?’ she says, wrapping the waist around her entire body. ‘Do these make me look fat?’ She drops them and digs around in the pile, pulls out a mass of cloth that appears to be a dress. ‘I can use this for a tent if we get lost in the woods tomorrow. God, these folks must have made a fancy feast for some lucky zombie.’
I shake my head, making a gag face.
‘What, you don’t eat fat people?’
‘Fat . . . not alive. Waste product. Need . . . meat.’
She laughs. ‘Oh, so you’re an audiophile and a food snob! Jesus.’ She tosses the clothes aside and lets out a deep breath. ‘Well, all right. I’m exhausted. The bed in there isn’t too rotten. I’m going to sleep.’
I lie back on the cramped love seat, settling in for a long night alone with my thoughts. But Julie doesn’t leave. Standing there in the bedroom doorway, she looks at me for a long minute. I’ve seen this look before, and I brace myself for whatever’s coming.
‘R . . .’ she says. ‘Do you . . . have to eat people?’
I sigh inside, so exhausted by these ugly questions, but when did a monster ever deserve its privacy?
‘Yes.’
‘Or you’ll die?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t eat me.’
I hesitate.
‘You rescued me. Like three times.’
I nod slowly.
‘And you haven’t eaten anyone since then, right?’
I frown in concentration, thinking back. She’s right. Not counting the few bites of leftover brains here and there, I’ve been gastronomically celibate since the day I met her.
A peculiar little half-smile twitches on her face. ‘You’re kind of . . . changing, aren’t you?’
As usual, I am speechless.
‘Well, goodnight,’ she says, and shuts the bedroom door.
I lie there on the love seat, gazing up at the water-stained cottage-cheese ceiling.
‘What’s going on with you?’ M asks me over a cup of mouldy coffee in the airport Starbucks. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m okay. Just changing.’
‘How can you change? If we all start from the same blank slate, what makes you diverge?’
‘Maybe we’re not blank. Maybe the debris of our old lives still shapes us.’
‘But we don’t remember those lives. We can’t read our diaries.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next.’
‘But can we choose that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’re Dead. Can we really choose anything?’
‘Maybe. If we want to bad enough.’
*
The rain drumming on the roof. The creak of weary timbers. The prickle of the old cushions through the holes in my shirt. I’m busy searching my post-death memory for the last time I went this long without food when I notice Julie standing in the doorway again. Her arms are folded on her chest and her hip is pressed against the door frame. Her foot taps an anxious rhythm on the floor.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Well . . .’ she says. ‘I was just thinking. The bed’s a king-size. So I guess, if you wanted to . . . I wouldn’t care if you joined me in there.’ I raise my eyebrows a little. Her face reddens. ‘Look, all I’m saying – all I’m saying – is I don’t mind giving you a side of the bed. These rooms are kinda spooky, you know? I don’t want the ghost of Mrs Sprat crushing me in my sleep. And considering I haven’t showered in over a week, you really don’t smell much worse than I do – maybe we’ll cancel each other out.’ She shrugs one shoulder, whatever, and disappears into the bedroom.
I wait a few minutes. Then, with great uncertainty, I get up and follow her in. She is already in the bed, curled into the foetal position with the blankets pulled tight around her. I slowly ease myself onto the far opposite edge. The blankets are all on her side, but I certainly don’t need to stay warm. I am perpetually room-temperature.
Despite the pile of luxurious down comforters wrapped around her, Julie is still shivering. ‘These clothes are . . .’ she mutters, and sits up in bed. ‘Fuck.’ She glances over at me. ‘I’m going to lay my clothes out to dry. Just . . . relax, okay?’ With her back to me, she wriggles out of her wet jeans and peels her shirt over her head. The skin of her back is blue-white from the cold. Almost the same hue as mine. In her polka-dot bra and plaid panties, she gets out of bed and drapes her clothes over the dresser, then quickly crawls back under the covers and curls up. ‘Goodnight,’ she says.
I lie back on my folded arms, staring up at the ceiling. We are both on the very edges of the mattress, about four feet of space between us. I get the feeling that it’s not just my ghoulish nature that makes her so wary. Living or Dead, virile or impotent, I still appear to be a man, and maybe she thinks I’ll act the same as any other man would, lying so close to a beautiful woman. Maybe she thinks I’ll try to take things from her. That I’ll slither over and try to consume her. But then why am I even in this bed? Is it a test? For me, or for her? What strange hopes are compelling her to take this chance?
I listen to her breathing slow as she falls asleep. After a few hours, with her fear safely tucked away in dreams, she rolls over, removing most of the gap between us. She’s facing me now. Her faint breath tickles my ear. If she were to wake up right now, would she scream? Could I ever make her understand how safe she really is? I won’t deny that this proximity ignites more urges in me than the instinct to kill and eat. But although these new urges are there, some of them startling in their intensity, all I really want to do is lie next to her. In this moment, the most I’d ever hope for would be for her to lay her head on my chest, let out a warm, contented breath, and sleep.
Now here is an oddity. A question for the zombie philosophers. What does it mean that my past is a fog but my present is brilliant, bursting with sound and colour? Since I became Dead I’ve recorded new memories with the fidelity of an old cassette deck, faint and muffled and ultimately forgettable. But I can recall every hour of the last few days in vivid detail, and the thought of losing a single one horrifies me. Where am I getting this focus? This clarity? I can trace a solid line from the moment I met Julie all the way to now, lying next to her in this sepulchral bedroom, and despite the millions of past moments I’ve lost or tossed away like highway trash, I know with a lockjawed certainty I’ll remember this one for the rest of my life.
*
Sometime in the pre-dawn, as I lie there on my back with no real need to rest, a dream flickers on like a film reel behind my eyes. Except it’s not a dream, it’s a vision, far too crisp and bright for my lifeless brain to have rendered. Usually these second-hand memories are preceded by the taste of blood and neurons, but not tonight. Tonight I close my eyes and it just happens, a surprise midnight showing.
We open on a dinner scene. A long metal table laid out with a minimalist spread. Bowl of rice. Bowl of beans. Rectangle of flax bread.
‘Thank you, Lord, for this food,’ says the man at the head of the table, hands folded in front of him but eyes wide open. ‘Bless it to our bodies. Amen.’
Julie nudges the boy sitting next to her. He squeezes her thigh under the table. The boy is Perry Kelvin. I’m in Perry’s mind again. His brain is gone, his life evaporated and inhaled . . . yet he’s still here. Is this a chemical flashback? A trace of his brain still dissolving somewhere in my body? Or is it actually him? Still holding on somewhere, somehow, somewhy?
‘So, Perry,’ Julie’s dad says to him – to me. ‘Julie tells me you’re working for Agriculture now.’
I swallow my rice. ‘Yes, sir, General Grigio, I’m a—’
‘This isn’t the mess hall, Perry, this is dinner. Mr Grigio will be fine.’
‘Okay. Yes, sir.’
There are four chairs at the table. Julie’s father sits at the head, and she and I sit next to each other on his right. The chair at the other end of the table is empty. What Julie tells me about her mother is this: ‘She left when I was twelve.’ And though I’ve gently probed, she has never offered me more, not even while we’re lying naked in my twin bed, exhausted and happy and as vulnerable as any two people can be.
‘I’m a planter right now,’ I tell her father, ‘but I think I’m on track for a promotion. I’m shooting for harvest supervisor.’
‘I see,’ he says, nodding thoughtfully. ‘That isn’t a bad job . . . but I wonder why you don’t join your father in Construction. I’m sure he could use more young men working on that all-important corridor.’
‘He’s asked me to, but ah . . . I don’t know, I just don’t think Construction is the place for me right now. I like working with plants.’
‘Plants,’ he repeats.
‘I just think in times like these there’s something meaningful about growing things. The soil’s so depleted it’s hard to get much out of it, but it’s pretty satisfying when you finally do see some green coming through that grey crust.’
Mr Grigio stops chewing, blank-faced. Julie looks uneasy. ‘Remember that little shrub we had in our living room back east?’ she says. ‘The one that looked like a skinny little tree?’
‘Yes . . .’ her dad says. ‘What about it?’
‘You loved that thing. Don’t act like you don’t get gardening.’
‘That was your mother’s plant.’
‘But you’re the one who loved it.’ She turns to me. ‘So Dad used to be quite the interior designer, believe it or not; he had our old house decked out like an IKEA showroom, all this modern glass and metal stuff, which my mom couldn’t stand– she wanted everything earthy and natural, all hemp fibre and sustainable hardwoods . . .’
Mr Grigio’s face looks tight. Julie either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
‘. . . so to fight back, she buys this lush, bright green shrub, puts it in a huge wicker pot, and sticks it right in the middle of Dad’s perfect white-and-silver living room.’
‘It wasn’t my living room, Julie,’ he interjects. ‘As I recall we took a vote on every piece of furniture, and you always sided with me.’
‘I was like eight, Dad, I probably liked pretending I lived in a spaceship. Anyway, Mom buys this plant and they argue about it for a week – Dad says it’s “incongruous”, Mom says either the plant stays or she goes—’ She hesitates momentarily. Her father’s face gets tighter. ‘That, um, that went on for a while,’ she resumes, ‘but then Mom being Mom, she got obsessed with something else and quit watering the plant. So when it started dying, guess who adopted the poor thing?’
‘I wasn’t going to have a dead shrub as our living room’s centrepiece. Someone had to take care of it.’
‘You watered it every day, Dad. You gave it plant food and pruned it.’
‘Yes, Julie, that’s how you keep a plant alive.’
‘Why can’t you admit you loved the stupid plant, Dad?’ She regards him with a mixture of amazement and frustration. ‘I don’t get it, what is so wrong with that?’
‘Because it’s absurd,’ he snaps, and the mood of the room suddenly shifts. ‘You can water and prune a plant but you cannot “love” a plant.’
Julie opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it.
‘It’s a meaningless decoration. It sits there consuming time and resources, and then one day it decides to die, no matter how much you watered it. It’s absurd to attach an emotion to something so pointless and brief.’
There are a few long seconds of silence. Julie breaks away from her father’s stare and pokes at her rice. ‘Anyway,’ she mumbles, ‘my point was, Perry . . . that Dad used to be a gardener. So you should share gardening stories.’
‘I’m interested in a lot more than gardening,’ I say, racing to change the subject.
‘Oh?’ Mr Grigio says.
‘Yeah, ah . . . motorcycles? I salvaged a BMW R 1200 R a while ago and I’ve been working on bulletproofing it, getting it combat-ready just in case.’
‘You have mechanical experience, then. That’s good. We have a shortage of mechanics in the Armoury right now.’
Julie rolls her eyes and shovels beans into her mouth.
‘I’m also spending a lot of time on my marksmanship. I’ve been requesting extra assignments from school and I’ve gotten pretty good with the M40.’
‘Hey, Perry,’ Julie says, ‘why don’t you tell Dad about your other plans? Like how you’ve always wanted to—’
I step on her foot. She glares at me.
‘Always wanted to what?’ her father asks.
‘I don’t – I’m not really . . .’ I take a drink of water. ‘I’m not really sure yet, sir, to be honest. I’m not sure what I want to do with my life. But I’m sure I’ll have it figured out by the time I start high school.’
What were you going to say? R wonders aloud, interrupting the scene again, and I feel a lurch as we swap places. Perry glances up at him – at me – frowning.
‘Come on, corpse, not now. This is the first time I met Julie’s father and it’s not going well. I need to focus.’
‘It’s going fine,’ Julie tells Perry. ‘This is my dad these days, I warned you about him.’
‘You better pay attention,’ Perry says to me. ‘You might have to meet him someday, too, and you’re going to have a much harder time winning his approval than I did.’
Julie runs a hand through Perry’s hair. ‘Aw, babe, don’t talk about the present. It makes me feel left out.’
He sighs. ‘Yeah, okay. These were better times anyway. I turned into a real neutron star when I grew up.’
I’m sorry I killed you, Perry. It’s not that I wanted to, it’s just—
‘Forget it, corpse, I understand. Seems by that point I wanted out anyway.’
‘I bet I’ll always miss you when I think back to these days,’ Julie says wistfully. ‘You were pretty cool before Dad got his claws into you.’
‘Take care of her, will you?’ Perry whispers up to me. ‘She’s been through some hard stuff. Keep her safe.’
I will.
Mr Grigio clears his throat. ‘I would start planning now if I were you, Perry. With your skill set, you should really consider Security training. Green shoots coming through the dirt are all well and good but we don’t strictly need all these fruits and vegetables. You can live on nothing but Carbtein for almost a year before cell fatigue is even measurable. The most important thing is keeping us all alive.’
Julie tugs on Perry’s arm. ‘Come on, do we have to sit through this again?’
‘Nah,’ Perry says. ‘This isn’t worth reliving. Let’s go somewhere nice.’
We’re on a beach. Not a real beach, carved over the millennia by the master craft of the ocean – those are all underwater now. We’re on the young shore of a recently flooded city port. Small patches of sand appear between broken slabs of sidewalk. Barnacled street lamps rise out of the surf, a few of them still flickering on in the evening gloom, casting circles of orange light on the waves.
‘Okay, guys,’ Julie says, throwing a stick into the water. ‘Quiz time. What do you want to do with your life?’
‘Oh, hi, Mr Grigio,’ I mutter, sitting next to Julie on a driftwood log that was once a telephone pole.
She ignores me. ‘Nora, you go first. And I don’t mean what do you think you will end up doing, I mean what do you want to do.’
Nora is sitting in the sand in front of the log, playing with some pebbles and pinching a smouldering joint between her middle finger and the stub of her ring finger, missing past the first knuckle. Her eyes are earth brown; her skin is creamy coffee. ‘Maybe nursing?’ she says. ‘Healing people, saving lives . . . maybe working on a cure? I could get into that.’
‘Nurse Nora,’ Julie says with a smile. ‘Sounds like a kids’ TV show.’
‘Why a nurse?’ I ask. ‘Why not go for doctor?’
Nora scoffs. ‘Oh, yeah, seven years of college? I doubt civilisation’s even gonna last that long.’
‘Yes it will,’ Julie says. ‘Don’t talk like that. But there’s nothing wrong with being a nurse. Nurses are sexy!’
Nora smiles and pulls idly at her thick black curls. She looks at me. ‘Why a doctor, Pear? Is that your target?’
I shake my head emphatically. ‘I’ve already seen enough blood and viscera for one lifetime, thanks.’
‘Then what?’
‘I like writing,’ I say like a confession. ‘So . . . I guess I want to be a writer.’
Julie smiles. Nora tilts her head. ‘Really? Do people still do that?’
‘What? Write?’
‘I mean, is there still like . . . a book industry?’
I shrug. ‘Well . . . no. Not really. Good point, Nora.’
‘Sorry, I was just . . .’
‘No, I know, but you’re right, it’s dumb even for a fantasy. Colonel Rosso says only about thirty per cent of the world’s cities are still functioning, so unless the zombies are learning how to read . . . not a great time to get into the literary arts. I’ll probably just end up in Security.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Perry,’ Julie says, punching me in the shoulder. ‘People still read.’
‘Do they?’ Nora asks.
‘Well, I do. Who cares if there’s an industry behind it? If everyone’s too busy building things and shooting things to bother feeding their souls, screw them. Just write it on a notepad and give it to me. I’ll read it.’
‘A whole book for just one person,’ Nora says, looking at me. ‘Could that ever be worth it?’
Julie answers for me. ‘At least his thoughts would get out of his head, right? At least someone would get to see them. I think it’d be beautiful. It’d be like owning a little piece of his brain.’ She looks at me intently. ‘Give me a piece of your brain, Perry. I want to taste it.’
‘Oh my,’ Nora laughs. ‘Should I leave you two alone?’
I put my arm around Julie and smile the world-weary smile I’ve recently perfected. ‘Oh my little girl,’ I say and squeeze her. She frowns.
‘What about you, Jules?’ Nora says. ‘What’s your pipe dream?’
‘I want to be a teacher.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘And a painter, and a singer, and a poet. And a pilot.
Nora smiles. I secretly roll my eyes. Nora passes the joint to Julie, who takes a small puff and offers it to me. I shake my head, knowing better. We all gaze out at the glittering water, three kids on the same log watching the same sunset, thinking very different thoughts while white gulls fill the air with mournful calls.
You’re going to do those things, R murmurs down to Julie, and he and I swap places again. Julie looks up at me, the corpse in the clouds, floating over the ocean like a restless spirit. She gives me a radiant smile, and I know it’s not really her, I know nothing I say here will ever escape the confines of my own skull, but I say it anyway. You’re going to be tall and strong and brilliant, and you’re going to live for ever. You’re going to change the world.
‘Thanks, R,’ she says. ‘You’re so sweet. Do you think you’ll be able to let me go when the time comes? Do you think you’ll be able to say goodbye?’
I swallow hard. Will I really have to?
Julie shrugs, smiling innocently, and whispers, ‘Shrug.’
In the morning the storm has passed. I am lying on my back in a bed next to Julie. A sharp beam of sunlight cuts through the dust in the air and makes a hot white pool on her huddled form. She is still wrapped tightly in the blankets. I get up and step out onto the front porch. The spring sun bleaches the neighbourhood white, and the only sound is rusty backyard swing sets creaking in the breeze. The dream’s cold question echoes in my head. I don’t want to face it, but I realise that very soon this will be over. I will return her to her daddy’s porch by dark, and that will be it. The gate will boom shut, and I’ll skulk away home. Will I be able to let her go? I’ve never asked a harder question. A month ago there was nothing on Earth I missed, enjoyed or longed for. I knew I could lose everything and not feel anything, and I rested easy in that knowledge. But I’m growing tired of easy things.
When I go back inside, Julie is sitting on the edge of the bed. She looks groggy, still half asleep. Her hair is a natural disaster, post-hurricane palm trees.
‘Good morning,’ I say.
She groans. I try valiantly not to stare at her as she arches her back and stretches, adjusting her bra strap and letting out a little whimper. I can see every muscle and vertebra, and since she’s already half naked I imagine her without skin. I know from grim experience that there is a beauty to her inner layers, too. Marvels of symmetry and craftsmanship sealed away inside her like the jewelled movements of a timepiece, fine works of art never meant to be seen.
‘What are we doing for breakfast?’ she mutters. ‘I’m starving.’
I hesitate. ‘Can probably . . . get to . . . Stadium . . . in hour. Going to . . . need gas . . . though. For Mercey.’
She rubs her eyes. She begins to pull her still-damp clothes back on. Once again I try not to stare. Her body wiggles and bounces in ways Dead flesh doesn’t.
Her eyes suddenly flash alert. ‘Shit. You know what? I need to call my dad.’
She picks up the corded phone, and I’m surprised to hear a dial tone. I guess her people would have made it a priority to keep the phone lines running. Anything digital or satellite-based probably died long ago, but the physical connections, cables running underground, those might endure a little longer.
Julie dials. She waits, tensed. Then relief floods her face. ‘Dad! It’s Julie.’
There is a loud burst of exclamations from the other end. Julie pulls the phone away from her ear and gives me a look that says, Here we go. ‘Yeah, Dad, I’m okay, I’m okay. Alive and intact. Nora told you what happened, right?’ More noise from the other end. ‘Yeah, I knew you’d be looking, but you were way off. It was that small hive at Oran Airport. They put me in this room with all these dead people, like a food locker or something, but after a few days . . . I guess they just forgot about me. I walked right out, hot-wired a car and drove off. I’m on my way back now, I just stopped to call you.’ A pause. She glances at me. ‘No, um, don’t send anyone, okay? I’m in the suburbs down south, I’m almost—’ She waits. ‘I don’t know, somewhere close to the freeway, but Dad—’ She freezes, and her face changes. ‘What?’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Dad, why are you talking about Mom right now? No, why are you talking about her, this is nothing like that. I’m on my way back I just – Dad! Wait, will you listen to me? Don’t send anyone, I’m coming home, okay? I have a car, I’m on my way, just – Dad!’ There is silence from the earpiece. ‘Dad?’ Silence. She bites her lip and looks at the floor. She hangs up.
I raise my eyebrows, full of questions that I’m afraid to ask.
She massages her forehead and lets out a slow breath. ‘Can you go find the gas by yourself, R? I need . . . to think for a minute.’ She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. Tentatively, I reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinches, then softens, then suddenly turns and embraces me hard, burying her face in my shirt.
‘I just need a minute,’ she says, pulling away and recovering herself.
So I leave her there. I find an empty gas can in the garage and begin working my way around the block, looking for a vehicle with a full tank to drain. As I kneel beside a recently crashed Chevy Tahoe with the siphon tube gurgling in my hand, I hear the sound of an engine starting in the distance. I ignore it. I focus on the taste of gasoline, harsh and astringent in my mouth. When the can is full I walk back to the cul-de-sac, closing my eyes and letting the sun flood through my eyelids. Then I open them, and just stand there for a while, holding the red plastic can like a belated birthday gift. The Mercedes is gone.
Inside the house, on the dining-room table, I find a note. Something is written on it, letters I can’t assemble into words, but next to it are two Polaroids. Both pictures are of Julie, taken by Julie, with the camera extended at arm’s length and pointed at herself. In one of them, she is waving. The gesture looks limp, half-hearted. In the other one, she is holding that hand against her chest. Her face is stoic, but her eyes are damp.
Goodbye, R, the picture whispers to me. It’s that time now. It’s time to say it. Can you say it?
I hold the picture in front of me, staring at it. I rub my fingers on it, smearing its fresh emulsion into rainbow blurs. I consider taking it with me, but no. I’m not ready to make Julie a souvenir.
Say it, R. Just say it.
I set the picture back on the table, and leave the house. I don’t say it.
I begin walking back to the airport. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me. Full-death? Quite possibly. After the commotion I caused, the Boneys might simply dispose of me like infectious waste. But I’m alone again. My world is small, my options are few. I don’t know where else to go.
The journey of forty minutes by car will be a day-long trip on foot. As I walk, the wind seems to reverse direction, and yesterday’s thunderheads creep back onto the horizon for an encore. They spiral over me, slowly shrinking the circle of blue sky like an immense camera aperture. I walk fast and stiff, almost marching.
I walk off the freeway at the next exit and climb into a triangle of landscaping between the road and the off ramp. I crash through the brush and duck into the little cluster of trees, a mini-forest of ten or twelve cedars arranged in a pleasing pattern for overstressed commuter ghosts.
I curl into a ball at the base of one of these trees, achieving some degree of shelter under its scrawny branches, and close my eyes. As lightning flickers on the horizon like flashbulbs and thunder rumbles in my bones, I drift into darkness.
I am with Julie on the 747. I realise it’s a dream. A real dream, not just another rerun of Perry Kelvin’s syndicated life. This is coming purely from me. The clarity has improved since the blurry sludge of my brain’s first attempt back in the airport, but there’s still an awkward, shaky quality to everything, like amateur video to Perry’s slick feature films.
Julie and I sit cross-legged, facing each other, floating above the clouds on the plane’s bright white wing. The wind ruffles our hair, but no more than a leisurely ride in a convertible.
‘So you dream now?’ Julie says.
I smile nervously. ‘I guess I do.’
Julie doesn’t smile. Her eyes are cold. ‘Guess you had nothing to dream about till you got some girl problems. You’re like a grade-school kid trying to keep a diary.’
Now we’re on the ground, sitting on a sunny green suburban lawn. A morbidly obese couple barbecues human limbs in the background. I try to keep Julie in focus.
‘I’m changing,’ I tell her.
‘I don’t care,’ she replies. ‘I’m home now. I’m back in the real world, where you don’t exist. Summer camp is over.’
A winged Mercedes rumbles past in the distant sky and vanishes in a muffled sonic boom.
‘I’m gone,’ she says, staring me hard in the eyes. ‘It was fun, but it’s over now. This is how things go.’
I shake my head, avoiding her gaze. ‘I’m not ready.’
‘What did you think was going to happen?’
‘I don’t know. I was just hoping for something. A miracle.’
‘Miracles don’t exist. There is cause and effect, dreams and reality, Living and Dead. Your hope is absurd. Your romanticism, embarrassing.’
I look at her uneasily.
‘It’s time for you to grow up. Julie has gone back to her position, and you will go back to your position, and that is the way it is. Always has been. Always will be.’
She grins, and her teeth are jagged yellow fangs. She kisses me, gnawing through my lips, biting out my teeth, gnashing up towards my brain and screaming like a dying child. I gag on my hot red blood.
My eyes flash open and I stand up, pushing dripping branches out of my face. It’s still night. The rain is still pummelling the earth. I step out of the trees and climb up onto the overpass. I lean against the railing, looking out at the empty freeway and the dark horizon beyond it. One thought pounds in my head like a migraine of rage: You’re wrong. You fucking monsters are wrong. About everything.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a silhouette on the other side of the overpass. The dark form moves towards me with steady, lumbering steps. I hunch my muscles together, preparing for a fight. After wandering alone for too long, the unincorporated Dead will sometimes lose the ability to distinguish their own kind from the Living. And some are so far gone, so deep into this way of life, they just don’t care either way. They will eat anyone, anything, anywhere, because they can’t fathom any other way to interact. I imagine one of these creatures surprising Julie as she stops the Mercedes to get her bearings, wrapping filthy hands around her face and biting down on her slender neck, and as that image ferments in my head, I prepare to tear this thing in front of me to unrecognisable shreds. The primordial rage that fills me every time I think of someone harming her is frightening. The violence of killing and eating people feels like friendly teasing compared to this consuming bloodlust.
The towering shadow staggers closer. A flash of lightning illuminates its face, and I drop my arms to my sides.
‘M?’
I almost fail to recognise him at first. His face has been torn and clawed, and there are countless small chunks bitten out of his body.
‘Hey,’ he grunts. The rain streaks down his face and pools in his wounds. ‘Let’s . . . get out of . . . rain.’ He walks past my leaky trees and climbs down the slope to the freeway below. I follow him to the dry space under the overpass. We huddle there in the dirt, surrounded by old beer cans and syringes.
‘What . . . doing . . . he . . . out . . . out here?’ I ask him, fighting for the words. I’ve been silent less than a day and I’m already rusty.
‘Take . . . guess,’ M says, pointing at his wounds. ‘Boneys. Drove me out.’
‘Sorry.’
M grunts. ‘Fuck . . . it.’ He kicks a sun-faded beer can. ‘But guess . . . what?’ Something like a smile illuminates his mangled face. ‘Some . . . came with me.’
He points down the freeway, and I see about nine other figures moving slowly towards us.
I look at M, confused. ‘Came . . . with? Why?’
He shrugs. ‘Things . . . crazy . . . back home. Routines . . . shook.’ He jabs a finger at me. ‘You.’
‘Me?’
‘You and . . . her. Something . . . in air. Movement.’
The nine zombies stop under the overpass and stand there, looking at us blankly.
‘Hi,’ I say.
They sway and groan a little. One of them nods.
‘Where’s . . . girl?’ M asks me.
‘Her name is Julie.’ This comes off my tongue fluidly, like a swish of warm camomile.
‘Ju . . . lie,’ M repeats with some effort. ‘Okay. Where’s . . . she?’
‘Left. Went home.’
M studies my face. He drops a hand onto my shoulder. ‘You . . . okay?’
I close my eyes and take a slow breath. ‘No.’ I look out at the freeway, towards the city, and something blooms in my head. First a feeling, then a thought, then a choice. ‘I’m going after her.’
Six syllables. I have broken my record again.
‘To . . . Stadium?’
I nod.
‘Why?’
‘To . . . save her.’
‘From . . . what?’
‘Ev . . . rything.’
M just looks at me for a long time. Among the Dead, a piercing look can last several minutes. I wonder if he can possibly have any idea what I’m talking about, when I’m not even sure I do. Just a gut feeling. The soft pink zygote of a plan.
He gazes up at the sky, and a faraway look comes into his eyes. ‘Had . . . dream . . . last night. Real dream. Memories.’
I stare at him.
‘Remembered . . . when young. Summer. Cocoa . . . Puffs. A girl.’ His eyes refocus on me. ‘What . . . is it like?’
‘What?’
‘You’ve . . . felt. Do you know . . . what it is?’
‘What are . . . talking about?’
‘My dream,’ he says, his face full of wonder like a child’s at a telescope. ‘Those things . . . love?’
A tingle runs up my spine. What is happening? To what distant reaches of space is our planet hurtling? M is dreaming, reclaiming memories, asking astonishing questions. I am breaking my syllable records every day. Nine unknown Dead are with us under this overpass, miles from the airport and the hissing commands of the skeletons, standing here awaiting . . . something.
A fresh canvas is unfurling in front of us. What do we paint on it? What’s the first hue to splash on this blank field of grey?
‘I’ll . . . go with,’ M says. ‘Help you . . . get in. Save her.’ He turns to the waiting Dead. ‘Help us?’ he asks, not raising his voice above its easy rumble. ‘Help save . . . girl? Save . . .’ He closes his eyes and concentrates. ‘Ju . . . lie?’
The Dead quicken at the sound of the name, fingers twitching and eyes darting. M looks pleased. ‘Help find . . . something lost?’ he asks in a voice more solid than I’ve ever heard from his tattered throat. ‘Help . . . exhume?’
The zombies look at M. They look at me. They look at each other. One of them shrugs. Another nods. ‘Help,’ one of them groans, and they all wheeze in agreement.
I find a grin spreading across my face. I don’t know what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, or what will happen when it’s done, but at the very bottom of this rising siege-ladder, I at least know I’m going to see Julie again. I know I’m not going to say goodbye. And if these staggering refugees want to help, if they think they see something bigger here than a boy chasing a girl, then they can help, and we’ll see what happens when we say Yes while this rigor mortis world screams No.
We start lumbering north on the southbound freeway, and the thunder drifts away towards the mountains as if it’s scared of us.
Here we are on the road. We must be going somewhere.
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