"But Zev, we know there's some of the old personality left. I mean, they stay in their home towns, usually in the basements of their old houses. They go after people they knew when they were alive. They're not just dumb predators, Zev. They've got the old consciousness they had when they were alive. Why can't they rise above it? Why can't they ... resist?"
"I don't know. I've never had the opportunity to sit down with one and discuss it. Maybe they can't resist. To tell the truth, the question has never occurred to me. A fascinating concept: an undead refusing to feed. Leave it to Father Joe to come up with something like that. We should discuss this on the trip back to Lakewood."
Joe had to smile. So that was what this was all about.
"I'm not going back to Lakewood."
"Fine. Then we'll discuss this now. Maybe the urge to feed is too strong to overcome."
"Maybe. And maybe they just don't try hard enough."
"This is a hard line you're taking, my friend."
"Maybe I'm a hard-line kind of guy."
"You didn't used to be, but it seems you've become one."
Joe felt a flash of unreasoning anger and gave him a sharp look. "You don't know what I've become."
Zev shrugged. "Maybe true, maybe not. But did you see the face of the one that attacked me? I'm sure he didn't look like that before he was turned. They seem to change, at least some of them, on the outside. Maybe on the inside they change too."
"If they acted like mindless beasts, I'd agree. But they're intelligent, they can reason. That means they can choose."
"Do you truly think you'd be able to resist?"
"Damn straight."
Joe wasn't sure why he said it, didn't even know if he meant it. Maybe he was mentally preparing himself for the day when he might find himself in that situation.
After walking a block or so in silence, Joe said, "What I don't get is how these undead get away with breaking all the rules."
"Meaning what? Laws?"
"Not civil laws—the laws of physics and chemistry and God knows what else. I've never had a problem reconciling science and belief. God designed creation to run by certain rules; science is merely man's attempt to use his God-given intelligence to understand those rules."
"So you don't take Genesis literally."
"Of course not. It's not natural science. It was never meant to be. The Bible is the story of a people and their relationship with their God."
"A God who seems very far away lately."
Joe sighed at the truth of that. He'd felt abandoned for some time now. The air cooled as they neared the ocean, the briny on-shore breeze carrying the eternal rumble of the breakers and the calls of the seagulls as they wheeled over the jetties. Some things, at least, hadn't changed.
"It seems the undead are exempt from the rules God laid down for creation. The flying ones, for instance. You said you were attacked by one the other night. I've seen one or two gliding around on a moonlit night. How do you explain them? I'm no expert on aerodynamics, but those wings shouldn't be able to support them, yet they do. And where do the wings go when they're not using them?"
Zev shrugged. "These are questions I can't answer."
"Here's another. I was around when a gang of locals chased one down. He'd ripped up a woman's throat but he didn't get away fast enough. They blinded him with holy water, held him down with crosses, and drove a stake through his heart. Then they cut off his head."
"The traditional method, as opposed to the new Cahill method. And of course he was dead then. Truly dead."
"Right. But he didn't bleed."
"So?"
"If he doesn't have blood to feed his muscles, how do they move?"
"A mystery."
"It's as if the laws of our world have been suspended where the undead are concerned."
"Suspended by whom? Or what?"
"There's a question I'd like answered."
"All very interesting," Zev said as they climbed the front steps of the retreat house. "Well, I'd better be going. A long walk I've got ahead of me. A long, lonely walk all the way back to Lakewood. A long, lonely, possibly dangerous walk back for a poor old man who—"
"All right, Zev! All right!" Joe said, biting back a laugh. "I get the point. You want me to go back to Lakewood. Why? What's it going to prove?"
"I just want the company," Zev said with pure innocence.
"No, really. What's going on in that Talmudic mind of yours? What are you cooking?"
"Nothing, Father Joe. Nothing at all."
Joe stared at him. Damn it all, his interest was piqued. What was Zev up to? And what the hell—why not go? He had nothing better to do.
"All right, Zev. You win. I'll come back to Lakewood with you. But just for today. Just to keep you company. And I'm not going anywhere near St. Anthony's, okay? Understood?"
"Understood, Joe. Perfectly understood."
"I'm not getting involved with my old parish again, is that clear?"
"That such a thing should ever enter my mind. Feh!"
"Good. Now wipe that smile off your face and we'll get something to eat."
* * *
Later, under the climbing sun, they walked south along the deserted beach, barefooting through the wet sand at the edge of the surf. Joe had his sneakers slung over his shoulder, Zev carried a black shoe in each hand, and acted like a little kid, laughing at the chill of the water as it sloshed over his ankles.
"I can't believe you've never been to the beach," Joe said. "Not even as a kid?"
"Never."
Joe shook his head in dismay and gestured at the acres of sand. "This is Manasquan Beach. You should have seen this place on a summer weekend. Wall-to-wall people. Probably never see that again. Probably be as empty as this even on the Fourth of July."
"Your Independence Day. We never made much of secular holidays. Too many religious ones to observe. What would people do here besides swim?"
"Lie in the sun and work on their skin cancers."
"Really? I imagine that sunbathing is maybe not the fad it used to be."
Joe laughed. "Ah, Zev. Still the master of the understatement. I'll say one thing, though: The beach is cleaner than I've ever seen it. No beer cans or hypodermics."
Zev pointed ahead. "But what's that?"
As they approached the spot, Joe saw a pair of naked bodies stretched out on their backs on the sand, one male, one female, both young and short-haired. Their skin was bronzed and glistened in the sun. The man lifted his head and stared at them. A blue crucifix was tattooed in the center of his forehead. He rolled over, reached into the backpack beside him, and withdrew a huge, gleaming, nickel-plated revolver.
"Just keep walking," he said.
"Will do," Joe said. "Just out for a stroll."
As they passed the couple, Joe noticed a similar tattoo on the girl's forehead.
"A very popular tattoo," he said.
"Clever idea. That's one cross you can't drop or lose. Probably won't help you in the dark, but if there's a light on it might give you an edge."
He noticed the rest of the girl too. Small firm breasts jutting straight up despite the fact that she was on her back, dark fuzz on her pubes. He felt a stir within and looked away.
"How do you do that?" Zev said.
"What?"
"Look away from such a beautiful sight."
Are you watching me that closely? Joe wondered.
"Practice, practice, practice."
"How do you turn it off? Or does it just die?"
"Believe me, the sexual impulse doesn't die. I've always had one. I remember having crushes as a kid. I remember one girl, Eleanor Jepson, that I was infatuated with. I'd think about her night and day, I'd write poems to her - which I'd immediately tear up for fear someone would find them. I'd ride my bike past her house at least ten times a day hoping to catch a glimpse of her; I learned her schedule at school and I'd run through the halls so I could just happen to be passing her locker when she'd stop there between classes.