The Good Book.
Books.
That’s why they were making this expedition.
As they slogged west, Karl was reminded of the annual Puerto Rican Day parade, which commenced here on East Eighty-sixth. The crowd pushed back as Mona and he trekked up the center of the street, ankle deep in rotting limbs and rubbish. Maybe this was a little less festive. Karl surveyed the crowd. His mind was swimming, overstimulated. Their path was serpentine, weaving between forsaken vehicles and countless zombies. Inside one car a zombified child in a car seat thumped its head mindlessly against the window, the glass glazed with coagulated grue. That withered tot had been trapped in that car for nearly half a year and was still animate. Karl shuddered. The seemingly eternal question once again flitted into his head: How long will it be before these things just run out of steam?
Books.
Let’s do this.
Let’s do this.
“I need to hit the bookstore.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah. Abe said he wanted some books to better himself. Yeah. That’s something, a man his age. I guess that’s kind of admirable. ’Course he could just be bored, but still.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need some further scriptural reading, too. To maybe find some answers.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You really never encountered any other survivors during your travels?”
“Nope.”
“That’s so weird. You ever try calling out? Seeing if maybe you got any response?”
“Nope.”
She might be lying. If she were a demon it would be her duty to lie, to please her unholy master. Karl cleared his throat, then hollered, “Is anyone out there?” as loud as possible. He repeated it a couple of times but the only reply was increased agitation in the zombies that flanked them. Mona punched Karl on the bicep and squinted.
“Don’t,” Mona said. “Riles ’em.”
“It’s just, if there was anyone out there I…”
“Just don’t.”
“Okay. Sorry. I was just… Sorry.”
On they trudged, the zombies hanging back, frustrated. The experiment so far was a success. Karl hadn’t been eaten. Big success. Huge. This could change everything. As they neared First Avenue, Karl felt buoyed by their progress. The sun no longer felt amplified, it felt invigorating. His leg muscles felt purposeful. He looked up at the sky, which was clear and blue, and felt glorified. He felt closer to God than he had in ages. Or at least fonder. Midway between First and Second, the shrink-wrap around Karl’s midriff burst and pinkish brine splashed the pavement. Mona whipped her head around, startled by the wet sound. She stared at the puddle at Karl’s feet.
“Your water just break?”
Mona cracking a joke was almost as alarming as the amplified interest the zombies displayed. The scent of his natural soup was like sounding the dinner gong. Though they hung back, their rancor was heightened. The sounds emanating from their cracked, broken faces threatened to void Karl’s colon.
“Oh God. Oh Jesus,” he whimpered. He wanted to drop to his knees and pray.
“Keep moving.”
With stinging liquid dripping from his back, Karl followed Mona’s edict. The trip back to the building now seemed like miles rather than a couple of blocks. Long blocks. Avenue blocks, which were at least double the length of north-south ones. Abe and his books. Abe. What had Abe ever done for him? What was he thinking, volunteering for this madness?
Volunteering?
He’d suggested it.
Karl wanted to strangle himself.
Don’t blame Abe. You wanted that pill book. You did. Blame yourself.
“Get the fuck offa me!” Alan shrilled, swatting away Abe’s palsied hands.
Abe moaned from the pits of his collapsed lungs, pushing up plumes of stale, mucus-scented reek. This wasn’t what Alan had expected when he came a-knockin’ on Abe’s door. Ever since Ruth’s demise, Alan felt bad for the old guy, up here all alone. But this was bullshit. At first, once he’d gotten Abe’s door open, he’d thought the old man was just disoriented, the way he was bumping up against the windowsill. Maybe too much Valium. But once Abe had turned around Alan knew he’d joined the ranks of the undead. And now here he was, wrestling with a zombified oldster in a fusty apartment that smelled of mothballs and something worse.
Alan managed to knock Abe to the ground, upon which he heard Abe’s hip splinter. Abe grasped at Alan, but like the old commercial, he’d fallen and couldn’t get up. Alan felt queasy. This wasn’t comfortably impersonal like his relationship to the things below. This was Abe. Abraham Fogelhut, bearing out the cliché that when one half of an elderly couple perishes the other usually follows in close order-only now they came back. Alan scanned the room, looking for something to put Abe out of his misery, but saw nothing obvious. With Abe scraping brittle nails against the grain of the rug, trying to rise and failing, Alan reached the door, stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him. He felt pretty certain Abe wouldn’t be mastering the doorknob, let alone getting himself up and about any time soon. Alan gulped some deep breaths, smoothed the front of his shirt, and then headed down to let the others know about Abe’s condition.
36
“It gets merrier and merrier around here,” Ellen said, sourness sliming off her tongue. “So what do we do?”
“We have to get rid of him, obviously.”
“It’s come to this. Evicting our senior citizens,” Ellen said, her wryness not abating.
“Well, yeah,” Alan agreed.
“Ugh. The peachiness of this whole situation is really beginning to wear on me, you know? You die, you come back as one of those. Delightful. Being alive is just the next step to being undead. You think anyone just stays dead any more? Or is that passé?”
Alan shrugged.
“Some must stay dead,” Ellen continued. “They must. I mean it’s not like there’s eight million zombies out there. The streets are packed, but not that packed. But maybe they are. Like I know anything. There are probably apartments all over the city packed with zombies too stupid to let themselves out. Fuck. I thought I knew where we stood on this but we don’t know anything. I thought it was rat bites or poison gas or some communicable germ or whatever, but it’s just how it is now. We come back. Awesome.” Ellen took a sip of tepid herbal tea and repositioned her hair clip. “This tea is supposed to calm the nerves.” She let out a derisory laugh. “So whattaya think? Is Karl doing great or does Mona return a solo act?”
“Um.”
“Yeah, well, if Mona makes it back-and I see no reason to doubt she will unless Karl’s managed to fuck up her good thing-she’s bringing me a little something special to take care of our situation. So, maybe I’m a little edgy. Just a little. A tad.”
“What situation?”
“Don’t be fucking obtuse, Alan. The baby.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh.’ It’s the kind of situation that merits that kind of response. And don’t worry. I don’t hate you. You’re right. When you’re right you’re right and you’ve been right all along to think having this baby was wrong. It’s wrong. So today I make it right and take care of it. It’ll be taken care of.”
Alan let out a long breath, half relief, half sympathy, half something else. That was one too many halves, but the sigh was full of subdued emotion. He didn’t know what to do. Pat her on the back? Give her a hug? He stepped over and extended his arms for the latter, but Ellen made no effort to accept the embrace.