Chris ate little at mealtimes to avoid getting fat, which was a quad’s worst enemy (other than pressure sores and bladder infections).
“What’s left?”
She held up two cans. “Corn or Spam.”
“Crap.”
“You are always grumpy at lunch and dinner. Why do—”
She screamed, dropping the cans.
“What?” Chris’s eyes darted back and forth.
“What’s wrong?”
“The cactus.” Francesca’s face was pale. She pointed to a small pot on the windowsill. “It’s moving.”
Chris tried to stay calm. “The trash. Throw it in the trash.”
She did, holding the cactus pot at arm’s length. Then she went through the rest of the house and did the same with the other plants. The philodendron’s long vines wrapped around her arm, the heartshaped leaves caressing her skin. When it was over, Francesca wept.
“Maybe you’re right,” she cried. “Maybe no one is coming to save us.”
“Come here.”
She did. She sat in his lap. Chris’s cushion made a farting noise. They both giggled.
He wheeled them back to the big window, and the chair finally died.
“Well,” he said. “I guess this is as good a spot as any.”
Twenty-five feet away, on top of a four-foot high hill in the front yard, was a huge waterfall with a pond. Water splashed over several big rocks that Chris’s father had put there years before. A huge, black cloud hovered over the rocks.
Mosquitoes. More mosquitoes than either had ever seen. Another cloud, larger and darker, swooped down from above. Bees. The two groups began battling.
“What’s happening?” Francesca draped her legs over the side of the chair. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s spread. Think about it. First, it was the humans and the animals. But that stopped. Remember the zombie that just fell apart on the sidewalk two days ago? That was the end of that…
wave. But now it’s affecting the plants and the insects. Look. They’re going after each other, just like the other zombies did.”
Francesca stayed silent. She shifted against him, and though he couldn’t feel it, her soft buttocks cradled Chris’s groin.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too.” Her breath tickled his ear. She stroked his thinning hair.
Outside, the yard grew thick with praying mantises, ants, hornets, ladybugs, and other insects, all fighting to the death. The grass struck out at them, but the sheer number of insects was overwhelming. Francesca stirred. “Can they get inside?”
“No,” he lied. “We’re safe.”
Chris knew he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. He felt safe. Secure. Warm. He sensed that Francesca was beginning to feel the same way. She relaxed, snuggling against him. He wrapped his left arm around her.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told her. “Do you know that?”
“As are you. I’d be lost without you, Chris.”
“I’d be lost without you, Francesca. You’ve given me so much. You taught me how to live.”
“You taught me how to love.”
“You’re my reason to live.”
They kissed for a long time. When Chris opened his eyes, the insects were crawling over the window. Sitting in the chair from which Chris had spent so much time, from which he’d viewed the world around him, viewed life itself, the two of them held one another and watched the world die. They were content and happy and unlike everything around them, their love was eternal. It did not die.
AMERICAN PIE
The Rising
Day Thirty
Drammen, Oslo, Norway
“I’m so glad you speak English,” the American said. “I haven’t talked to anybody alive in almost two weeks.”
Trygve Botnen nodded. “I haven’t seen anyone either. Just the dead, and I don’t like talking to them. But yes, having visited forty-six different states in the last six years, I’d like to think my English is pretty good.”
“You go there on business?”
“Vacations,” Trygve said. “I’m the…I was the Vice President of ABN AMRO Asset Management’s real estate division, but when I went to the states, it was mostly for pleasure.”
“Ever been to New York?”
“Sure.”
“I’m from New York. Came over here on vacation. I’m an angler. I’ve fished all around the world. Wanted to fish the Drammen River, all the way down to the Svelvikstrømmen. I rented a cottage, and was here two days when it happened. I waited a few more days before deciding to head back to the States, but I couldn’t go home, because by then, there was no home to go back to. They’d stopped all air travel.”
There was a rustling sound outside and both men immediately fell silent. Trygve crept to the window and peeked. A brown, desiccated vine dragged itself across the wall, slowly curling. As he watched, it stopped moving.
They were hiding in a gift shop outside the world-famous Spiral Tunnel. Trygve had arrived an hour ago, wearing a beekeepers outfit to protect him from the marauding undead insects, and a flamethrower to contend with the zombie plants. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty, and when he found the American, his spirits soared.
“I’m Don, by the way.” The American stuck out his hand. “Don McClain.”
Trygve shook his hand. “Wasn’t there an American singer with the same name?”
Don nodded. “Yep. ‘Bye bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.’
I think he spelled his last name different though.”
Trygve’s stomach rumbled. “I could go for some American Pie right now. Any kind of pie.”
Don laughed. “I don’t have any food, but there’s water, if you’re thirsty?”
“Please.”
Trygve brought the canteen to his lips. The water was warm and oily, but it was the sweetest he’d ever drunk.
“So,” Don asked. “Any ideas on what to do next?”
“They are dying off.” Trygve sealed the canteen and wiped his lips. “The zombies. The people and animals stopped moving a few days ago. They’re just regular corpses again. And the same thing seems to be happening with the plants and insects now. They’re moving slower, not attacking. The last few miles here, I wasn’t attacked by anything.”
“What if they come back? Maybe this is some form of hibernation, or transformation.”
Trygve shrugged. “My plan all along was to make a wilderness walk up Kjøsterudjuvet. Get high up into the mountains, where there is snow all year, and live there.”
“But the zombies would find you there, too. The mountains are just as dangerous as the cities—
maybe more.”
Trygve shrugged out of his beekeeper’s outfit and coat, and leaned back against the wall. He performed a cursory check of his weapons: flamethrower, two pistols, and a long, sharp knife.
“I don’t think they would,” he said. “What are the zombies? Reanimated corpses. Cut off an arm or a leg, and they keep coming. They’re dead. But yet they move. Function. My theory is this—if I get to some place where the temperature is below freezing, the zombies can’t move. After all, since they’re dead, they have no body heat, nothing to keep their blood and tissues from freezing. If they tried to invade such a region, they’d stop in their tracks, frozen into place.”
His stomach rumbled again. It had been five days since Trygve had last eaten, and fourteen days since he’d had more than a mouthful at a time. He’d lost weight, and looked much older than his thirtythree years of age. The last month had been hard on him, to say the least.
Don looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m not a biologist or a scientist, but I guess that makes sense. If their blood and stuff freezes, then they can’t move. Could we make it into the mountains?”