The zombie approaches the photos warily. She stands in front of them, staring with mouth slightly agape.
A girl climbing an apple tree. A kid spraying his brother with a hose. A woman playing a cello. An elderly couple gently touching. A boy with a dog. A boy crying. A newborn deep in sleep. And one older photo, creased and faded: a family at a water park. A man, a woman and a little blonde girl, smiling and squinting in the sun.
The zombie stares at this mysterious and sprawling collage. The sunlight glints off the name tag on her chest, so bright it hurts her eyes. For hours she stands there, motionless. Then she takes in a slow breath. Her first in months. Dangling limply at her sides, her fingers twitch to the music.
‘R.’
I open my eyes. I am lying on my back, arms folded behind my head, looking up at a flawless summer sky. ‘Yes?’
Julie stirs on the red blanket, scooting a little closer to me. ‘Do you think we’ll ever see jets up there again?’
I think for a moment. I watch the little molecules swim in my eye fluids. ‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
‘Maybe not us. But I think the kids will.’
‘How far do you think we can take this?’
‘Take what?’
‘Rebuilding everything. Even if we can completely end the plague… do you think we’ll ever get things back to the way they were?’
A lone starling swoops across the distant sky, and I imagine a white jet trail sketching out behind it, like a florid signature on a love note. ‘I hope not,’ I say.
We are silent for a while. We are lying in the grass. Behind us, the battered old Mercedes waits patiently, whispering to us in sizzles and pings as its engine cools. Mercey, Julie named it. Who is this woman lying next to me, so overflowing with vitae she can grant life to a car?
‘R,’ she says.
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you remember your name yet?’
On this hillside on the edge of a crumbled freeway, the bugs and birds in the grass perform a tiny simulation of traffic noise. I listen to their nostalgic symphony, and shake my head. ‘No.’
‘You could give yourself one, you know. Just pick one. Whatever you want.’
I consider this. I thumb through the index of names in my brain. Complex etymologies, languages, ancient meanings passed down through generations of cultural traditions. But I’m a new thing. A fresh canvas. I can choose what history I build my future on, and I choose a new one.
‘My name is R,’ I say with a little shrug.
She twists her head to look at me. I can feel her sun-yellow eyes on the side of my face, as if trying to tunnel into my ear and explore my brain. ‘You don’t want to get your old life back?’
‘No.’ I sit up, folding my arms over my knees and looking down into the valley. ‘I want this one.’
Julie smiles. She sits up with me and faces what I’m facing.
The airport spreads out below us like a thrown gauntlet. A challenge. There was no global transformation after the skeletons surrendered. Some of us are on our way back to life, some are still Dead. Some are still lingering here at the airport, or in other cities, countries, continents, wandering and waiting. But to fix a problem that spans the globe, an airport seems like a good place to start.
We have big plans. Oh yes. We’re fumbling in the dark, but at least we’re in motion. Everyone is working now; Julie and I are just pausing for a moment to enjoy the view, because it’s a beautiful day. The sky is blue. The grass is green. The sun is warm on our skin. We smile, because this is how we save the world. We will not let Earth become a tomb, a mass grave spinning through space. We will exhume ourselves. We will fight the curse and break it. We will cry and bleed and lust and love, and we will cure death. We will be the cure. Because we want it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you, Cori Stern, for discovering my stories at the bottom of the Internet swamp, and forcing me to write this book which has changed my life. Thank you, Laurie Webb and Bruna Papandrea, for pushing it out into the world, and my brilliant agent Joe Regal for helping me shape it into what it’s become. Thank you, Nathan Marion, for supporting all my artistic endeavours throughout the years, for believing in them and your brother even when both seemed crazy.
About the Author
Isaac Marion was born in north-western Washington in 1981 and has lived in and around Seattle his whole life, working a variety of strange jobs like delivering deathbeds to hospice patients and supervising parental visits for foster-kids. He is not married, has no children, and did not go to college or win any prizes. Warm Bodies is his first novel.
Copyright
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409016915
Published by Vintage 2010
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Isaac Marion 2010
Chapter heading illustrations from Gray’s Anatomy modified by author © Isaac Marion 2010
‘Heart rose’ illustration on title page © Isaac Marion 2010
Isaac Marion has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Excerpt from GILGAMESH: A Verse Narrative by Herbert Mason. Copyright © 1970, and renewed 1998 by Herbert Mason. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Last Night When We Were Young Lyrics by E.Y “Yip” Harburg, Music by Harold Arlen Copyright © 1937 (Renewed) Glocca Morra Music and S.A. Music Co. All Rights for Glocca Morra Music Controlled and Administered by Next Decade Entertainment, Inc. All Rights for Canada Controlled by Bourne Co. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
Something Wonderful Happens In Summer Words and Music by Joe Bushkin and John DeVries. Copyright © 1956 (Renewed) Barton Music Corp. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
Vintage Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099549345
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at: www.rbooks.co.uk/environment
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD
Спасибо, что скачали книгу в