The Living Dead 2

The Summer Place by Bob Fingerman

Bob Fingerman is the author of several works of zombie mayhem, including the recent novel Pariah and the graphic novels Zombie World: Winter’s Dregs and Recess Pieces (which has been described as “The Little Rascals meets Dawn of the Dead”). Other recent works include an illustrated novella called Connective Tissue and the post-apocalyptic “speculative memoir” From the Ashes. His first novel was Bottomfeeder and other graphic novel work-for which Fingerman also provided the art-includes Beg the Question, You Deserved It, and Minimum Wage. Fingerman has also provided art for periodicals such as Heavy Metal and The Village Voice and did covers for Dark Horse and Vertigo Comics.

Fire Island, just off the southern coast of Long Island, is a bit of a mystery-no one really knows how it got its name. Historian Richard Bayles has proposed that the name resulted from a confused understanding of the Dutch term for “Five Islands,” as there are a number of small islands in the vicinity. Other stories suggest that the name comes from the fires built by pirates to lure passing ships onto the sandbars, or from the island’s rich autumn foliage, or even from the rashes caused by the poison ivy that grows there.

Our next story, as you might have guessed, takes place on Fire Island. “My wife and I used to rent a summerhouse on Fire Island and it struck me what a great setting for a horror story it would be during the off-season,” Fingerman says. “Come October it’s pretty desolate. And there are no cars. It’s a weird place, like a sand-strewn version of The Village from the old series The Prisoner.”

Fingerman never was a bike messenger like the protagonist, but as with much of his work, elements of autobiography found their way into the protagonist’s personality. One way they’re alike is that they both have some sympathy for zombies. “They didn’t ask to be what they are and even though they want to eat humans, there’s no malice,” he says. “They’re the average schmuck of the monster world. I can relate.”

I’m looking at the red ring of fresh, shiny tooth marks on my right palm, some highlighted by small dots of blood. Not a lot of blood; in fact, quite little. But enough to have me concerned. It’s times like this I get nostalgic for tetanus. Remember tetanus? When you were a kid and you’d go tearing around a vacant lot, some future construction site or some such, and you’d catch your tender young dermis on a rusty nail. Tetanus! Adults had warned you! You’d get visions of lockjaw and freak out. The grownups had cautioned you that infection with tetanus would cause severe muscle spasms and that those would lead to “locking” of the jaw so you couldn’t open your mouth or swallow. It could maybe even lead to death by suffocation. Tetanus! Ah, the good old days.

Tetanus is not transmitted from person to person.

I wish I could say the same for this current unnamed affliction.

That part also sucks. I don’t even know what to call this. The scientists and doctors hadn’t come to a consensus by the time the broadcasts had ceased. So, what’s the official classification? What’s the name? I never understood the concept of naming a disease after yourself just because you discovered it. Why would you want your name associated with pain and suffering evermore? What was Parkinson thinking? If I was a doctor and I chanced upon some terrible malady I’d name it after someone awful-Hitler’s Syndrome or Bush’s Complex. At any rate, what would you call this latest-and likely final-pathosis? Zombification sounds kind of stupid. And if it’s brewing, if you’re infected but zombification hasn’t blossomed into full-blown zombiehood, what then? What do you call its period of gestation?

I’m not man enough to go all Bruce Campbell on myself and lop off the offending extremity. Not yet. But why bother? It’s in there, doing its thing, circulating. I guess. I remember hearing about this guy who was bitten on the ankle by some totally poisonous snake-in South America I think it was. Anyway, he knew he had about three minutes before the poison killed him. The guy was a lumberjack or something-maybe he was decimating the rain forest. Maybe the snake was protecting its turf. I can’t remember that kind of detail. But he acted decisively and took his chainsaw to his leg and cut it off at the knee. And he lived. The guy lived. He cut it off before the poison could reach his heart. I couldn’t do that. I can’t. So I’m a-goner.

Why should I be any different?

Still, I feel so stupid.

I bandage the bite, more for the psychological comfort it provides. I just don’t want to keep staring at it. Still, there goes my sex life, not being one for ambidexterity. I step out onto the porch and look down at the asphalt walkway. I’d call it a road, but no cars were permitted here. Sure, the occasional emergency vehicle was allowed-they didn’t call it Fire Island for nothing-but no civilian automobiles. During the summer, just a few short, endless months ago, this road was teeming with the pasty and the tan, the fit and the flabby, all making their circuits to and from the beach, most of the guys toting coolers and cases full of cheap, low-octane suds. I never saw anyone with food. All of these beachgoers, the rare quiet ones and the common boisterous types, seemed to sustain themselves purely on beer and greasy wedges from the local pizzeria.

I’d kill for one of those mediocre slices right now.

The walkway is mostly obscured by slushy sand-just patches of buried blackness showing through here and there. I used to sit on this porch, reading-or at least pretending to read-and scoping the hotties. Right before the current, ultimate, nameless pandemic came and ruined everything, the Girls Gone Wild epidemic had swept the nation. Formerly normal girls, ones with a modicum of propriety, would suddenly whip off their tops and bounce up and down. All it took to loosen them up was massive quantities of alcohol, a bit of flattery, and the materialization of a video camera. How many parents cried themselves to sleep at night because of those DVDs?

Guys with oversized Dean Martin fishbowl snifters of frozen margarita would chant as these local girls made bad would frown, then giggle, then comply and let their boobs out to Neanderthal choruses of “Whoo-whoo-whoo!” Maybe that was a portent of the looming bestial decline of mankind. Nah. But it’s amazing how fast a sexy girl can become an abject object, all desirability drained away in mere moments.

I don’t know.

I thought coming back to Fire Island would be a good idea. Isolated, especially in the off-season. I liked the whole no cars thing. Back in the city, when it was really beginning to get soupy, the maniacs in their cars were more dangerous than the zombies. The roads were choked with panicky motorists attempting to flee, causing all kinds of mayhem along the way. What did they expect? Light traffic? Idiots. Of course all the roads were clogged. And every poor pedestrian schmuck one of these amateur Dale Earnhardts nailed would rise as one of the undead. Brilliant. Broken dolls peeling themselves off the pavement to wreak havoc on the ones who struck them down. Or whoever was convenient.

I used to be a bike courier, right after that movie Quicksilver came out-but not because of that movie. Never let it be said I was influenced to take a job because of a movie. Remember that thing? Kevin Bacon as a hotshot bike messenger, for the like five minutes Hollywood was convinced such a lame-ass job was cool. All those dumb movies about urban iconoclasts. Anyone for Turk 182?

Anyway.

Even after I moved on from that gig I remained an avid cyclist. My legs conditioned for endurance, I avoided the main arteries and biked all the way from Elmhurst to Bayshore, Long Island, which is a pretty long haul. I don’t know how many miles-my odometer fell off somewhere along the way-but a lot. Especially when you consider the meandering back road nature of the trek. None of that “as the crow flies” convenience. En route I could see things worsening citywide, the zombies increasing their numbers at a dizzying pace. Be fruitful and multiply, I thought, ever the heretic. Even taking this shunpike route I avoided many a close call and witnessed many horrific sights. Amazing how many variations on the themes of evisceration and dismemberment there are. I splashed through more than a few puddles, and I’m not talking water. Having learned the hard way how to avoid hitting pedestrians, getting doored in traffic and other hazards of the bike courier’s trade, I managed to eschew ensnarement by the hungry undead.

At least the zombies are slow.

And can’t ride bikes or drive cars.

Yet.

When I got to the marina-actually, that sounds a bit grand. The wharf? The dock? Whatever-where the ferries left for the island, I realized there wasn’t exactly going to be regular service. What was I thinking? Panic doesn’t make for cogent planning, but you’d think on that interminable bike ride I’d have flashed on the notion that maybe ferry service to the island was terminated. Oddly, the ferries were still docked. Empty. No one was around, which was rather eerie. Not a creature was stirring, not even a zombie. Forgive me, but Christmas is coming. Call me sentimental.

Anyway, I boarded one and got as far as the bridge before I realized I had no idea how to pilot such a craft. I don’t even know how to drive a car. And I had the brass to think those anxious drivers idiotic. Here I was, way out in Long Island, not my bailiwick, with no plan and nowhere to go. I was exhausted, too. I walked over to the vending machine to score a refreshing beverage. I’d earned that. The machine was dead, not accepting currency, paper or coin. I kicked the machine, shook it, then basically beat the hell out of it. I needed to vent. As it lay on its side, its front came undone and it spilled its innards in a cacophony of tinny-or would that be aluminumy-clanks. I chugged three cans in a row of Ocean Spray cranberry cocktail and felt better. I then stuffed a bunch in my backpack, and as I was about to check the grounds for more comestibles I spotted some interested parties dotting the periphery.

Not human.

The ruckus I’d made was the clarion, the dinner gong. I might as well have shouted, “Come and get it!” while tinkling a comical outsized triangle. If I’d entertained even fleeting hope that these callers were reg’lar folks, their herky-jerky locomotion quashed it in a trice. I gathered up a few more cans-delicious refreshment could double as solid projectile, if need be-and mounted my bike. But I wasn’t sure where to go. I made a few quick figure eights around the parking lot, then made for the private boats. Many of those were missing, but a shoddy-looking motorboat was moored to the jetty. I stepped down into it, and when I didn’t go straight through the bottom decided I’d be a seafaring boatnik after all. I grabbed my bike and loaded it into the dingy little dinghy, then tested the motor. A few yanks on the cord and it sputtered to life just as the lifeless approached. Mazel tov!

I’d never steered a boat of any size before, but for a first-timer I didn’t do too badly. I managed to follow the basic course I’d remembered from all our trips on the ferry and within, oh, maybe two hours or so I made it to Ocean Bay Park, the dinky community we’d rented in.

We.

I remember the concept of “we.”

“We” was pretty sweet. I was part of a “we.” I had a wife. But guess what? She became one of those things right at the onset. On her way home from work she got bit. Well, more than bit. Consumed. I got a call from a cop who kept pausing to vomit noisily on his end of the line. He vomited, I wept. Then she came back and tore into the officer. Or at least I think that’s what was going on. It sounded crunchy and wet. He kept screaming until, well, until he stopped. It was a really moist call. I’m being flippant, but sue me. It’s all I have left. If I’m not flip about losing her I might just…

Anyway.

I might just what?

Kill myself?

That’s a laugh.

All I know is I heard her moaning before I got disconnected-moaning and chewing. I got the picture, even without the benefit of a camera phone.

So after ramming into the side of the dock-starting it up I could work out, stopping not so much-I got out of the boat, dizzy and nauseous. I lay there for a while gasping, trying not to hurl. I must have looked like a fish out of water. It was mid-October, still not too bad temperature-wise, but drizzling. A good alternative name for Fire Island would be Rust Island. Back in the day people would ride their bikes all over, but always these ratty, rust-speckled wrecks, and here I was with my almost top-of-the-line mountain bike. Like it mattered. But at the moment I felt annoyed that my precious bicycle was going to be ruined by the elements. Priorities, young man, priorities.

Fog was rolling in, obscuring everything. If there were zombies afoot I wouldn’t see them coming-or hear them. I hastened my pedaling and raced to our house. I say “our,” but really it was just a rental. And now that I was no longer part of a “we,” “our” seemed moot, too. I approached the dwelling that was little more than a shack and slowed as I heard footfalls.

Not human.

Deer.

Fire Island is rotten with these skanky, tick-encrusted deer. They’re not beautiful, cute, or charming. They’re the animal kingdom’s answer to skid row vagrants. Dirty, infested with chiggers and lice and all manner of parasites. Their ears look like warty gourds, festooned with ticks so engorged they look fit to burst. These deer root around the trash, knock over garbage cans, mooch for scraps when you’re eating outside. Where’s Ted Nugent when you need him?

I got inside, locked the door, checked all the windows and then collapsed onto the naked mattress and into a nightmare-rich slumber, assuming the island to be pretty much deserted.

I was almost right.

The next morning I checked the pantry, though why I can’t say. At the end of the season we cleared out all our edibles so I kind of knew it would be empty, which it was. I guess it was wishful thinking. Maybe cupboard elves had left something to gnaw on. Whatever. What else is life but hope? What would propel us forward but the inborn combination of hope and masochism? After hydrating myself with tap water I snatched up a blackened iron frying pan, cracked the front door and took a gander. Still drizzling but the coast was clear.

I tiptoed down the short flight of creaky wooden steps to the dirt path and stepped onto the sandy asphalt. Sandy Asphalt. Sounds like the name of a third-string stripper of yore. I digress. To my left was the beach followed by the ocean, a mere hundred or so feet away; to my right the ferry dock and the bay. The island’s about thirty miles long, and at its most expansive only about three-quarters of a mile wide, just a long strip of sand. I mounted my bike and bay-bound made for the general store, a weathered gray clapboard number that had overcharged for everything. Ocean Bay Park-what in its heyday I’d referred to as Lunkhead Central-was silent apart from the patter of rain. Granted, even before this apocalyptic turn of events off-season would have been pretty calm, but this was different. The store’s screen door hung open, not swaying on its corroded hinges. Even a rusty creak would have been reassuring. The silence was unnerving. Unnatural.

I jiggled the doorknob. Locked. A swing of the frying pan through the window later I was inside, stuffing my face like a little piggy with beef jerky, chips, and lukewarm Pepsi. I filled my pockets with snacks and potables and hit the road in search of I don’t know what. Other survivors? More food? A gun? Yeah, all of the above. Inland, such as you’d call it, the roads were much clearer so biking was easy. The fog was burning off so visibility wasn’t bad. I cut through Seaview and approached the larger-in relative terms-town of Ocean Beach, relishing the pleasure of riding my bike where the town ordinance had been “no bicycles allowed.” The jolly scofflaw in a world where law is passé. Fun. I did a couple of laps around the center of town, checking out the spoils: general store, hardware store, a couple of shops devoted to souvenirs and beachwear, a disco, some eateries, bars, and ice cream parlors. And the old movie theater, a wooden structure I’d avoided, something churchlike in its mien that had kept me away.

I broke into the hardware store-funny how natural looting becomes-and selected a few lethal objects: a small, wieldy ax, a 12-volt battery-operated nail gun, and plenty of ammo, namely nails. I also grabbed a heavy jacket and rain slicker that were hung on a peg behind the counter. What can I say: I packed light and forgot a few things. After knocking on doors and shouting, “Is anyone there?” till my throat was raw, I rode back to the crib and charged the nail gun. It would have to do until I found a real gun. If I found one, that is. At least the power was still on.

As I ate a dinner of processed foodstuffs I heard a noise outside. The indicator light on the battery charger was still flashing, so I grabbed the ax and snuck up to the front door. Even with the porch light on I couldn’t see anything. I heard the noise again. Something was moving out there. Had my light attracted it? Likely. I pulled on the heavy jacket and opened the door a hair, casting a focused beam from my flashlight into the hazy darkness. This fog was getting tiresome. The crunch of underbrush drew my attention and straight ahead was a ratty stag, one antler broken and dangling, the other an elaborate six-pointer. Listen to me trying to sound like the great outdoorsman. The deer on Fire Island were a protected species. They were completely unafraid of humans, so certain were they that they’d remain unharmed, like city squirrels.

It was a little early in the season for this buck to be shedding its antlers. Maybe it had gotten caught on something or been in a fight over a doe. Satisfied it wasn’t a zombie I closed the door and resumed my repast, savoring each salty morsel of dry beef and chips. Amazing how salty American snack foods are. Stomach full of delicious garbage, I fell asleep easily, legs sore from all the abuse I’d heaped on them.

Over the course of the next few days my notion of retreating to Fire Island proved both a prescient blessing and shortsighted curse. It was indeed quite empty, but too empty. I was hoping to find some other refugees from the world. A young or even not so young widow. A couple with the swinger ethos. Maybe just a guy to hang with. I rode southwest through Robbins Rest, Atlantique, the aptly named Lonelyville, Dunewood, Fair Harbor, Saltaire, and Kismet. I stopped there because I didn’t want to get too close to the Robert Moses Causeway, the bridge linking the island with the mainland-or at least Long Island proper. I was afraid that where there were cars there might be problems. Zombies and people in quantity.

I felt like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man, Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth, both mediocre adaptations of Matheson’s I am Legend. Oddly, the one that felt the least like the book was the one that used the actual title. Go figure. Anyway, tooling around like a tool on my ten-speed I was nobody’s legend, that’s for sure.

As a boy I’d been pretty self-sufficient, at least in terms of my ability to have fun alone. Often I’d play games like I was the last person on the planet. I’d deliberately choose routes to and fro bereft of people. I’d walk beside the tracks of the Long Island Railroad or along the traffic islands down the median of Queens Boulevard. Sure there’d be cars whipping by, but for miles I could walk without encountering another person in the flesh. My dad accused me of having a morbid fascination. I liked horror movies too much. Now, looking back, I reckon it was all a rehearsal for what was coming. Look at me, the Nostradamus Kid.

The loneliness was eroding me from within.

I tried heading in the other direction, which proved tricky. Point o’ Woods was fenced off from Ocean Bay Park-no doubt to keep out the riffraff, of which in its day OBP had been densely populated. Unable to negotiate my bike over or around the fence, I climbed over and made the rest of my slog on foot. I’d never explored any of the other parts of the island back when it was alive. Sunken Forest was just that. Pretty, but creepy like everyplace else. Sailor’s Haven wasn’t. The super gay Cherry Grove was a bust. Hell, not that I’d have made a lifestyle change, but I craved camaraderie and so long as it was platonic I was up for anything. Anyone.

But there was nothing. No one.

I was so tired and dispirited I didn’t bother schlepping to The Pines and points beyond. This was a ghost island, and I suppose as crushing as that fact was, ghosts were less harmful than zombies-at least physically. I’d managed to evade being literally consumed only to end up consumed by crippling melancholy. This was living?

There was no television, not even a test pattern.

Radio was fine if you enjoyed static.

I embarked on a house-to-house search for reading matter. I needed something with which to keep my mind occupied. Crossword puzzles. A Game Boy. Anything. The problem with summer rentals is that people don’t leave stuff year-round. Sure I found some romance paperbacks-which I read, I hate to say-but nothing edifying. I found a cache of techno-thrillers, you know, Tom Clancy garbage. I read those, too, but stultifying doesn’t begin to describe them. The bodice-rippers were better. I was in and out of almost every house between OBP and Robbins Rest before it dawned on me that I didn’t have to stay in my trifling little shack. What the hell is wrong with me? Seriously. I had the run of the land and I spent my first three weeks in that drafty dive.

What a goon.

I took up residence in a sturdy and significantly more comfortable five-bedroom ranch-style number. The little pig had wised up and abandoned his straw hut for the brick palace. There was even a stash of porn in the master bedroom. I’d found my roost. With the power still on I kept my drinks cold. There was booze, and though I’d always been pretty much a teetotaler I began indulging. I’m not saying I became a drunkard, but every night after sashaying around my new demesne I took the edge off. And if that sometimes meant ending the night flat on my back, the room spinning like Dorothy’s house on its way to Oz, so be it. Sobriety had lost its charm.

On a ride back from the market in Ocean Beach my front tire blew and I wiped out, spilling ass over tit into a shallow ditch opposite the ball field. Maybe I was a little hung over. It’s possible. Not being a seasoned inebriate I was still defining my limits. For the first time in weeks the sky was cloudless and the sun was blinding. Even before the tumble my head ached. Now it throbbed, my palms were scraped raw and my vision was impaired. Even behind dark glasses I squinted against the glare, sprawled in the dirt angry, and even though there were no witnesses to my slapstick, embarrassed.

But there was a witness.

Hiding behind a water fountain near the bleachers was a zombie. How could we have missed each other this whole time? I scrabbled to my feet, groping for whatever weapon I could find, but in my pie-eyed complacency I’d left them all back at the ranch. All I could manage was my tire pump, which was pretty impotent.

The thing is, the zombie just cowered there, maintaining its position. Still wobbly from the fall and residual spirits, I stumbled backwards against a staple-riddled lamppost, gauzy remnants of weather-beaten notices for past community events clinging like scabs to the splintery surface. We stared at each other for what felt like eternity, neither of us doing anything. I began to wonder if this was a zombie or just a hallucination. Maybe the spill had given me a concussion. But it wasn’t. My vision cleared, yet the zombie remained, staying put. Not attacking.

“Hello?” I asked, feeling stupid for doing so. “Can I help you?”

It recoiled at the sound of my voice. The zombie was female, and had been fairly young when she was alive-maybe a teenager or slightly older, judging by its apparel more than anything else. I’d never gotten to study one up close, most of the ones I’d seen a blur as I’d whizzed by them in transit. Her facial epidermis was taut, not slack as I’d pictured it in my mind, and the color of raw chicken skin, only the yellow wasn’t quite so robust. Her deep-set eyes were filmy and lacked focus-in my present condition I could relate-yet her gaze never drifted from me. Her mouth hung slack, her breath slow and wheezy. Two things struck me: one, she was breathing, and two, her teeth were toothpaste commercial white. In the movies zombies are always snaggletoothed, their enamel grossly discolored. This undead chick had a movie star grill.

She also seemed impervious to cold, considering her bare feet and midriff, low-rider relaxed-fit jeans and thin tank top. I could see a pink bra under her low-cut white top. She had cleavage. Was I appraising this animated corpse’s sexual attributes? Yes. Yes, I was. I was wondering if sex with a zombie constituted necrophilia. Who could say? The definition of necrophilia is an obsession with and usually erotic interest in or stimulation by corpses. But what of ambulatory corpses? What then? Though her body skin was a bit loose-relaxed-fit skin?-she was well preserved. Was it loneliness or madness that motivated these thoughts? Not to mention a surge of blood into my groin? Both.

“Uh, hello? Can you, uh, you know, uh, understand me?”

She cocked her head like a dog, her brow creased in concentration. It was almost adorable in a sick, macabre kind of way. Against my better judgment I took a step in her direction and she flinched, then began to back away. I took this as a sign to curtail this insanity and make tracks. I righted my bike and walked it home, looking over my shoulder at my hesitant new companion who did likewise.

I didn’t drink that night, but I must have jerked off a half-dozen times.

Maybe that’s too much information.

The next day I replaced the inner tube, grabbed my nail gun and hit the road. The weather had turned much colder over night and the gray misty gloom had rolled back in. As I pedaled, it began to drizzle. Soon snow would come. I considered gathering wood for the fireplace but was focused on finding the zombie girl again. I tried the ball field, of course, but she’d vacated the area. Still, I thought, slow moving as they seem to be, how far could she have gotten? Was she a local? Did she retain knowledge of her surroundings? Was she capable of anything beyond rudimentary mentation? Or even that?

As I approached Lonelyville, two does broke through the brush and blocked my path. They looked unwell, to put it mildly, even by Fire Island standards. Their fur was patchy, the bald spots scabby and oozing. Tumid ticks, as per usual, enshrouded their ears. In the rain they steamed; the smell was not good. I slowed, hoping they’d clear the way, but they just stood there looking unsure what to do next. I didn’t have some fruity little bell to ring at them so I braked and shouted, “Hey, clear the road! Go on, beat it! Scram!” I made those nasty noises through my teeth that shoo cats away, but no dice. They tottered, looking drunk. I felt a flash of envy, then yelled at them a few more times, but the filthy beasts were unyielding.

I didn’t feel up to a hassle with nature, so I made a U-turn and wended my way back home, zigzagging the streets up and down, looking for you-know-who to no avail. That afternoon I emptied a bottle of vodka, polished it off with a variety of mixers, then disgorged the contents of my stomach into the kitchen sink. Thank goodness for the garbage disposal. I managed to clean up before passing out on the linoleum floor.

Flashes of Days of Wine and Roses and Lost Weekend flickered behind my throbbing eyelids. When I awoke it was the middle of the night and I was disoriented as hell. At first I thought I’d shrunk-The Incredible Shrinking Souse or Honey, I Shrunk the Drunk, to keep up with the movie theme of this bender-my sightline being that of a man whose face is stuck to the floor.

I literally peeled myself from the sticky surface, rubbing my face, which had been imprinted with the texture of the linoleum. I felt like crap, but upon seeing my pattern-scarred punim in the mirror began to laugh until the choking curtailed my mirth. Symmetrical red striations etched the right side of my face. What a boob. I stumbled into the bathroom, urinated painfully, then gargled away the sour booze-vomit aftertaste. It hadn’t been that long. Why was I falling apart like this? Could it be something to do with the death of humankind, especially my family, and most of all, my precious wife? Could it be because I was pining for the company of a female zombie I thought was passably attractive? Yeah, maybe that justified this rotten uncharacteristic behavior. There have been worse rationales for hitting the sauce.

I managed to get to the bed before surrendering to dormancy again.

I dreamt of a threesome with my late wife and the undead girl. Both stripped me naked and led me to a bed in the middle of the baseball diamond. The sky was black. Not nighttime dark, but black. A void. Eyes glowed from the bleachers accompanied by a chorus of chirping crickets. The two women began to run their tongues up and down my body, my wife working my upper portion, the living dead girl south of the waistline. The thing is, both of them were in that zombified state, but it was blissful-until they started devouring me. I didn’t wake up. I just lay on my back watching them consume my flesh, opening my abdomen and pulling out my innards. I was paralyzed. They looked so contented.

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.

So now I’m looking at the fresh white gauze wrapped around my right hand, a ring of small red dots seeping through. Not a lot of blood; in fact quite little. But enough to have me concerned.

And back on that road lies the undead girl of my dreams. I didn’t bury her.

I guess I’m infected.