She’ll come to understand that the men, women, and children (though they really have to be understood as former men, women and children) are actually looking for something in the pages of those books, something that matters to them a great deal. They’re not just going through the rote motions that had obsessed them in life. But what exactly are they seeking?
She watches them eagerly, intently, knowing that if she could only figure out what they sought, that she would find something meaningful there for herself as well, something that had waited just one step ahead of her her entire life.
Somehow it would all start to make sense. All of it.
No, forget that. Forget about Laura and her mother and the stale taste of fortune cookies. That’s no way to begin this. It doesn’t seem right at all. There’s got to be a better way.
I’m going to start over, which is something that’s a lot easier to do here on this page than from where I’m standing.
How about this for an opening, then?
The day the zombies came, Emily was dropping by the library (yes, there’s that library again; it’s important; you’ll see) to visit her friend Rachel, which also means that it was the day that Rachel died. But as Emily arrived to take her friend to lunch, she doesn’t know that yet. She knew that there was something odd about the day though. In fact, as she parked her car and fumbled for change for the meter, she wondered, what with the strange news reports that had been coming over her car radio during her drive, whether the two old friends should postpone their outing for another day.
Maybe I’ll even have her pause for a moment and think it a hoax. She’ll wonder whether this was just like that old-time Martian invasion that drove everybody mad when it was first broadcast on the radio, or man’s supposed landing on the moon. (Which will have you wondering for a moment which of us didn’t believe man ever made it to the moon, Emily or me. It’s Emily. At least, most of the time, it’s Emily.) And then she’ll think, whether the broadcasts were a ratings trick or not, did it really matter? Regardless of the dangers of this world, life had to go on. She knew that. Life happened, and you had to happen, too. There would always be disruptions worthy of locking the doors and pulling down the shades, if you wanted to find them.
As you can tell, Emily is the sort of person who lives in two worlds, both this one, the one we all agree upon as reality, and another one, one slightly askew, to keep that first one at arm’s length. She always felt that though a person had to live in the world, it did not mean she had to be of it. One should be able to keep the world at a distance so that it did not disrupt one’s plans, and live as if all life’s problems were on the other side of the world, as if she lived in a hut somewhere, her husband out most of the day poking at yams in the soil. Together they would be happy, less because of any affinity they had for each other than because of their separateness from society and its ills. They would live in ignorance of headlines and be bound together by that simplicity. The beating drums of the world would appear muffled and distant.
Emily survived many tragedies that way. Compared to her divorce, dealing with the resurrection of the dead would be a snap.
As she walked up the steps of the library, approaching the intricate wrought-iron gates at the entrance, wondering whether she and Rachel should do Chinese or Italian, a man ran toward her and then past her, screaming as he headed for the street. Blood spurted from one shoulder. In Emily’s shock, it took her a moment to edit that initial thought to, no, not from his shoulder, but from the place where his arm used to be. She was ashamed to admit to herself that she felt relieved when he passed by her without spattering blood on her new blouse, which she had bought just for this occasion.
As she stood frozen, halfway between the street and the library entrance, one of the undead stumbled out the gates above her after its escaping prey. Its skin was grey, and its clothing still spilled clods of earth from its disinterment. Blood dripped from its mouth. Emily will do her best to force her legs to move before the dead thing shifts its focus to her, but her internal struggle proves unnecessary, as the shell of a man totters as it tries to move from one step to the next, loses its balance, and then rolls past her, tumbling down the length of the stairs.
After it finally struck the pavement, it lay motionless for a moment, and Emily thought it could be taken for a pile of cloth and bones, but then, as she watched, it slowly rose to its feet and looked up at her, really looked at her, she thought. She’d heard the radio hosts surmise that these undead things were beyond thought, but it certainly seemed to her to be thinking, almost considering for a moment whether it could make its way back up those steps to her.
Before it turned from her and shuffled down the street, in search, apparently, of an easier target, Emily would have sworn that it shrugged.
Emily rushed inside, calling out her friend’s name. There’ll be some personal detail seeded into the text before this so that you’ll know that even with what Emily has been handed in life, she is still an optimistic sort, one who even in the face of what she has just seen expected to find her friend alive. (Maybe you’ll learn of a lost dog who made its way home, or a parent whose cancer scare passed. Let’s make it the dog. I’ll have her see one on the street earlier as she parks her car so that there’ll be a reason for her to wistfully remember a few details. People are often taught more lasting lessons by pets than by parents.)
From across the room, Emily could make out that Rachel stood where Emily had always found her, behind the counter where she checked out books, but by then, Rachel was no longer Emily’s friend. A bite that had been taken out of Rachel’s neck had allowed blood to spill down the front of her blouse. Her skin was not yet grey; it was deathly pale, but not yet the color of the creature who had fallen past Emily on its hunt, so perhaps it had happened not so long ago. Emily will think that if only she had arrived a half an hour earlier, perhaps she would have found her friend alive. It does not occur to her to think that if she had arrived a half an hour earlier, maybe they would both be dead. But that’s just the kind of person Emily is.
(Thank the dog.)
Emily did not enter the vast room to approach her friend. She hung back in the hallway and noted that no one else remained there, neither human nor zombie. That was a good thing. Emily took that to mean that perhaps she could be safe there, in a building at the top of stairs which seemed untenable to the dead. It all depended what her friend had turned into. It did not seem to Emily as if Rachel had become a predator. Her friend had always been gentle. Could she ever become anything but, whatever the circumstance? Emily did not think that death necessarily had to be a life-altering experience.
Emily noticed that the whole time she watched, Rachel stayed by her station, her fingers on her keyboard, her dull eyes looking straight ahead, waiting… but for what? Did some spark that still glowed somewhere inside her still expect customers to come? Maybe she was merely doing what had always been expected of her in life, out of a habit that transcended death. Or was she waiting for Emily, only for a different reason than she would have been waiting earlier, cannily hoping to entice her close, too close, with a feigned calmness that was truly no longer hers? If only Emily could figure it out, unravel the suddenly mysterious why of her friend, she felt that somehow everything would then make sense, and she’d know, with or without a dog, with or without a husband who poked at the earth with a stick, how she was meant to live her life from that day forward.