ONE

A zombie lurched across the lawn wearing a red, white and blood letterman’s jacket. Pimples glowed on the pale face of the once living teenage boy.

Jeremy, seventeen years old himself, aimed a revolver out of the upstairs window of the cookie-cutter suburban house he called home.

“All right, you rotter…”

Jeremy centered his sights on the zombie‘s head, pulled the trigger…and missed.

“Frak!”

The revolver blasted a second time, and the zombie’s ear disappeared. The undead goon shuffled in an aimless circle, perhaps confused by the gunshot’s echo. The books said they followed noise.

Jeremy bit his lip and steadied his aim. This time the bullet didn’t even take out an ear. Jeremy had no idea where it hit.

“Damn it!”

The zombie reached Jeremy‘s house. Its moans sounded like the forlorn notes of a didgeridoo.

Jeremy couldn’t hear said moans because the pistol left him with ringing ears. Earplugs didn’t show up in the movies. Characters simply pulled out their guns and performed headshots with cool proficiency.

The gun grew heavy. Sweat tickled Jeremy’s forehead. The zombie bumped into the house over and over again, apparently trying to walk up the wall.

“So stupid,” Jeremy said, pleased to label someone else for once. The zombie looked up, and Jeremy finally managed to shoot it in the skull. No cool spray of blood, just red fluid bubbling up with no more pressure than a drinking fountain. The creature collapsed in a lifeless heap — well, a more lifeless heap.

Fictional characters usually got sick after their first zombie kill, but Jeremy felt nothing but a jazzy accomplishment. He assumed this made him stronger than the average zombie apocalypse survivor.

Holstering the revolver, Jeremy hurried downstairs. The weight of the gun pulled his pants down, and he had to hitch them up. From now on, the pistol never left his side. Close-quarter combat against the undead was generally inadvisable, but the revolver would even the odds (a sword would make a cool weapon, too), and if the odds became too great, Jeremy could save the gun’s last round for himself.

Both garage stalls stood empty. Jeremy’s parents worked at the hospital, and he guessed they would not return. Hospitals were always the first to go as zombie victims were brought in, turned and attacked the medical staff. Jeremy’s emotions fluctuated between vague sadness and vague guilt at this — sadness because he felt he should miss his parents and guilt because he didn’t. For the last four years, they looked upon the disaffected, black-clad, heavy metal/horror fan their son had become with a mixture of confusion, uneasiness and a perhaps a dash of disdain.

Jeremy grabbed a crowbar from his father’s tool rack. A regular handyman was Joe Mears. He built a birdhouse the spring before and asked Jeremy to help. Jeremy said no and watched TV instead.

Jeremy climbed up on a chair and wedged the crowbar into a seam between the particle boards that made up the garage’s ceiling. Each board was three feet wide and five feet long. This made them perfect for barricading the home‘s lower windows.

The crowbar refused to breach the seam, and Jeremy’s shoulders soon ached from working with his arms above his head. He rested a moment and spotted a hammer on the tool rack. He retrieved it, used it to pound the crowbar into the crack between boards and started prying.

Sweat poured down Jeremy’s face. He thought he was in decent shape. Sure, he didn’t look as trim as the jocks, but he knew he could be as good as them. He didn’t get a fair chance is all. He tried out for basketball in seventh grade, and the coach had him sit on the bench. Finally, Jeremy got sick of it and quit.

After struggling to get his fifth board loose, Jeremy realized he forgot something.

Water!

Utilities probably wouldn’t break down while he barricaded the house, but if they did, he needed to have at least some water saved up.

Jeremy moved into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of bleach from under the sink. Outside, a dozen zombies shuffled down the street. The ghouls swatted at SUVs and Hondas filled with accountants and soccer moms trying to flee the city. One of the undead jaywalkers hopped onto the hood of a Toyota and tried to chew through the hard shell of its windshield to get to the soft, gooey drivers inside. The Toyota weaved, attempting to throw the zombie off. Another ghoul, who might have been a grocery store worker judging by his apron, was clipped by the rearview mirror of a passing Accord. The impact spun him into the path of the Toyota. The vehicle hit the zombie dead center, and the driver lost control. The car went up and over the curb and crashed into a house.

Jeremy gave a grim shake of the head. People were better off staying home and trying to wait it out at this point. The roads would be packed with everyone trying to leave the city, and stranded motorists made themselves easy targets for the undead.

Leaving the window, Jeremy ran upstairs, filled the bathtub and added bleach to keep the water from growing unsafe to drink. On the way back to the garage, Jeremy passed the kitchen phone, remembering a call he recently tried to make.

Jeremy’s zombie apocalypse fantasies always included the same things: coolly dispatching ghouls, looting whatever he wanted, collecting caches of food, outfitting the Mears home into a fortress (hiding out in a mall would be the ultimate, though), rigging up his father’s generator so he could play video games and watch movies (which he looted in large quantities), foraging for miscellaneous items (like a sword, perhaps), being tricked out with guns he would find somewhere (MP-5s, shotguns and Berettas, oh my!) and cool SWAT gear like gloves, Kevlar vests and fireproof Ninja masks. Of course one would also come across a beautiful girl (or, much better than an anonymous beautiful girl — Julie) who would need protecting. At first she would be stand-offish, but once she realized how much her protector cared and how competent he was in the undead world, she would need to be held in the dark while she cried. And perhaps that holding would lead to more…

But first things first.

Jeremy finished prying boards. Carrying them into the house and laying them before their respective windows left him lightheaded. He went to the refrigerator for a drink. The orange juice went down cold and burned in his stomach, making him feel sick. The effects of physical labor surprised Jeremy. Then again, the only exercise he got was standing in front of the mirror, sucking in his gut, flexing his biceps and thinking he was pretty buff, all things considered.

Night fell as Jeremy finished the windows. He decided not to barricade the doors, just keep them locked tight. If they could keep a burglar out, they could keep a brainless zombie out.

Exhausted, Jeremy staggered to the basement. Outside, sirens swelled. Gunshots and screams followed. Jeremy locked himself in his bedroom and turned on the TV to drown out the sounds of doom. One channel still ran a Seinfeld episode. The others were either off the air or showed disheveled newscasters reporting what Jeremy could already guess.

The zombie pandemic began two months earlier, with vague reports of a plague in Mesopotamia. The cradle of civilization gave birth to the casket of humanity. Some said the plague was a virus that started with a monkey attack on a human. Others said a new germ evolved deep in the jungle. Regardless, the pathogen came into contact with man and found him good. A village was the first to be infected, and the epidemic could have perhaps ended there. Instead of doing the prudent thing, however, like firebombing the area, scientists donned biohazard suits and went in to study and collect. Suffice it to say, they screwed up. The disease escaped and followed Horace Greeley’s advice about going west, young man — and east, north and south.

Jeremy finished his junior year of high school when the newscasters started showing grainy footage of native ghouls munching on their grass-skirt wearing buddies. The skepticism of John Q. Public shrank in inverse proportion to the resolution of these videos. Grainy footage equaled no way, uh-uh, but once viewers saw the homeless hordes of New York City lurch up from the subways and attack business folks out for their noon luncheons on 1080p high-definition plasma screens, skepticism went the way of the dodo bird.

Jeremy’s belief never wavered, however. For years prior to Z-Day, he watched every zombie movie he could find, often getting down on his hands and knees to search the lower racks of the video store’s horror section. He watched every zombie movie that showed up on cable. In addition, he read all the books, the short stories and even wrote his own fan fiction.

The moans, the pallid faces, the hordes, the foraging, societal collapse, I have seen the enemy, and he is us, and the entrails, my god, the entrails — Jeremy knew them all and loved them all.

On a practical level, Jeremy realized a zombie apocalypse was a terrible thing. On a darker level, he dreamed about it happening. The removal of all rules, roles and expectations appealed to him. In a zombie apocalypse, resourcefulness became the measure of a man rather than social standing. In a world of the undead, Jeremy believe he had a chance to have a life.

TWO

By morning, Seinfeld gave way to static. Were Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine out there, staggering around with insatiable appetites for human flesh? That more than anything drove the reality of the situation home to Jeremy. A calamity wasn’t real until it affected TV characters. Jeremy wept when Buffy went off the air. He never shed a tear when his grandfather died.

Jeremy sat up and groaned. Bone-deep pain wracked his body. He always thought jocks were wimps when they complained about aching from workouts. One time he missed a bus and had to walk eight blocks. His hips and thighs were sore the next day, but he didn’t whine about it. This pain was ten times worse, however.

Jeremy doddered his way to an upstairs window. Plumes of smoke rose in the distance, widening at their tops and making it look like tornados besieged the city. The car that crashed into the house was still there, and three other cars now sat abandoned and windowless in the middle of Cottonwood Avenue. Splotches of blood marred their paint. Otherwise, the neighborhood was empty — no zombies, joggers, walkers or early commuters.

Stomach growling, Jeremy hobbled down to the kitchen. The house still had electricity, so he fixed himself a bowl of oatmeal. Somewhere far away, yet on the threshold of hearing, a person screamed.

“Help!”

Jeremy sprinkled cinnamon on his oatmeal.

“Please!”

Jeremy forced the oatmeal down his dry throat.

“Don’t!”

Jeremy drank some water. Oatmeal churned in his guts. A flush came over him.

“No! No! No!”

Jeremy’s face pinched in on itself. The screamer should have been finished by now. One scream, engulfed and torn apart by the undead — that’s how it worked in the movies, not this dragged-out shrieking and begging. Jeremy couldn’t tell if the victim was male or female. Desperation turned the voice genderless.

Jeremy spooned another clump of oatmeal to his lips, and his belly gave a gurgling lurch. He just reached the toilet in time. First, stuff came out while he kneeled. Then stuff came out while he sat.

And still the screams drifted in from far away.

“Stop! It hurrrrrrrts!”

Jeremy fumbled for the shower radio his mother received the previous Christmas. Most of the channels were static, but at least it was noise. Jeremy found a channel still on the air. A voice trying not to be frantic spoke a recorded message.

“If they are able to travel safely, survivors should try to reach one of two safe zones. One is located at Federated Coliseum and the other is at the Windfair Soccer Fields. From these safe zones, survivors will be transported out of the city. Please do not try to use the expressway. If you cannot reach a safe zone, stay inside, lock your doors and board up your windows. Troops will try to reach you.”

Safe zones. Yeah right. More like all-you-could-eat buffets for the undead. The Windfair Soccer Fields stood four blocks away, but Jeremy had no intention of trying to reach them. Rather, he took the radio back to his room. He held it next to his ear as he crawled back into bed. That way he couldn’t hear anything else.

Jeremy’s mind turned in on itself for comfort, thinking about a day in tenth-grade English. He often got to class early. He didn’t waste time in the hall between bells, talking about stupid stuff like weekend plans and dates. He stood looking out the window at the perfect spring day. Trees and grass grew green. The sun threw the dappling shadows of leaves across the scene. Even the cars looked like something out of a Rockwell painting. And Julie — nice-girl Julie — who talked to everyone, including guys named Jeremy whom everyone else called “Germ-y,” came and stood next to him.

“What are you looking at?” Julie asked, all sapphire eyes and golden hair. When she looked at Jeremy, he saw possibility in her gaze.

“Not much,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy wondered where Julie was now. Once the question occurred to him, it wouldn’t go away. He rolled over, grunting at his aches and pains, and grabbed his phone. He received the phone for his sixteenth birthday. His parents looked pleased and expectant as he opened the gift, like they believed they just gave him the key to being cool. But they were wrong. First, everyone knew cell phones were way cooler than land lines, but Jeremy’s parents were so far behind the times they didn’t even have a computer. Second, Jeremy had no one to call anyway. He used the phone only once, shortly after that day in tenth-grade English class. Jeremy dialed and hung up, dialed and hung up for over an hour, each time losing his nerve between pushing the last digit of Julie’s phone number and waiting for the receiver to ring on the other end. At last Jeremy did let it ring, every nerve ending tingling with the anxiety being secreted by his stomach. A woman answered — Julie’s mother, Jeremy presumed. He tried to speak, and all that came out was a broken croak. He hung up and didn’t try again.

Now Jeremy picked up the phone and dialed without hesitation. The rules had changed. It was no longer about who was cool or not cool. It was about who was surviving. The phone rang four times, the final ring truncated by the click of a connection.

“This is Scott, Melissa and Julie Anderson,” a male voice said from an answering machine. “If any loved ones are trying to contact us, we are going to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. We will get a hold of you as soon as possible. God bless and protect you all.”

Jeremy hung up.

A church, he thought. That was almost as bad as a hospital or safe zone. How long until the religious kooks inside started measuring each other with sidelong glances, marking who would be the blood sacrifice to appease god’s wrath?

That’s how it happened in the books and movies.

“Julie,” Jeremy whispered.

THREE

Guns crackled in the distance, along with the occasional explosion. The city’s last stand had started. It was a losing battle, Jeremy knew. Sooner or later the undead hordes would overwhelm any fighting force.

Jeremy stood in front of his mother’s full-length mirror. He wore black jeans (he tried warm-up pants, but their nylon material swished when he walked) and a black sweatshirt. The pistol was belted around his waist, along with a fanny pack that held a multi-tool, paper, pencil and extra bullets. Jeremy also wore his school backpack, which contained a first aid kit, granola bars, a thermos and garbage bags for loot. Jeremy pulled on a pair of gloves and a ski mask and admired his proficient appearance. Satisfied, he drew the revolver and pointed it at his reflection, emulating SWAT poses he had seen in various movies and magazines. Despite the soreness of his muscles, he felt empowered.

Ka-pow! Ka-pow! Ka-pow!

Then the lights went out.

Jeremy calmed himself, thinking of the generator in the garage. His father bought the generator after the east coast blackouts. The salesman bragged the device operated at noise levels no louder than human speech. With the garage and its doors insulated, that volume of sound shouldn’t attract zombies. All Jeremy had to do was turn the unit on, and he’d be watching his horror DVDs while other survivors stared at the wall and got cabin fever. Jeremy headed for the garage, pleased with his handle on the situation.

The generator was a squat contraption encased in a red housing. Jeremy didn’t have much experience with electronics or machines, but he considered himself intelligent enough to figure the device out. Sure, he had a C-average in school, but that was because he wasn’t interested in any of the classes. He knew he could get straight A’s if he tried.

The generator had a key and a push-button start. The gas tank was easy enough to find. Jeremy spun the cap off and found it full. A thick cord came out of the back of the generator. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it plugged into a special outlet mounted next to the home’s electric panel. Easy as one-two-three. Plug it in. Turn it on. And viola — power.

Jeremy plugged the generator in and turned on the garage lights. That way he could see if he had power once the generator started. Jeremy turned the key and cringed at the potential racket. The generator chugged into life with a combustion cough and idled at decibel levels that were indeed comparable to human speech.

The garage lights didn’t come on.

Frowning, Jeremy examined the generator. A lever said “run” on one end and “generate” on the other. It currently pointed toward “run.” Jeremy deduced he wanted “generate” and pushed the lever forward.

The garage lights glowed.

“Let there be light,” Jeremy said.

The garage lights flared white and exploded in a shower of sparks. Meanwhile, the generator cycled up and down. A buzzing sound came from the electric panel, and smoke rose from the cracks around its door. Frantic, Jeremy switched the generator off as something either overloaded or short-circuited.

And then Jeremy smelled it, faint but unmistakable — smoke. He rushed into the house.

The light above the kitchen sink had been on and exploded, as well. Sparks igniting the window curtains. Jeremy grabbed them, thankful he still wore his gloves, and threw them in the sink. He turned the water faucet on, but only a trickle came out. Thinking fast, Jeremy grabbed a jug of milk out of the refrigerator and dumped it over the flames. The crisis averted, he leaned against the countertop, breathing heavy.

Adrenaline made his senses hyper aware. Jeremy smelled the milk underneath the overpowering stench of smoke. His own sweat and the faint odor of apples that escaped the refrigerator also pricked his nostrils. He even smelled the low stink of decay that began to permeate the air a little more each day. Jeremy felt the pattern of linoleum beneath his stocking feet. He heard the wind, milk dripping down the drain and the cooling tick of the stopped generator. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the soft glow of lights in the living room and the bill holder hanging on the wall. He could even read the addresses on the envelopes despite the fact he stared straight ahead—

Soft glow of lights in the living room?

But the power is out…

Jeremy whipped his head around. Light came from the living room all right — firelight. Jeremy grabbed a half-full pitcher of Kool-Aid, along with two water bottles, and rushed through the doorway. Flames found their way out of an electrical outlet and climbed the wall with feeble yet determined strength. Jeremy doused them with the last of his non-bathtub drinking supply. The flames extinguished, Jeremy didn’t waste time celebrating. Other electrical fires could be working their way out of the wiring. He moved through the downstairs, checking each room and finding no signs of fire. Jeremy searched the basement next, nearly tripping and falling and braining himself on the stairs. The basement fine, he headed upstairs. Again, everything seemed all right.

But the dream of electricity was dead.

Jeremy pounded on the wall in frustration and winced. It wouldn’t do to break his hand. In these times a medical emergency was truly an emergency. Then Jeremy spotted a better way to vent his anger.

Jeremy opened a window as a zombie shambled past. The ghoul looked fresh. Its skin was nearly pink, and its limbs moved with a degree of dexterity. The zombie was male, probably in his early thirties. He wore a jogging suit. One sleeve was ripped away, and a bite wound was visible on the man’s bicep. Jeremy put the revolver’s sights on the man’s skull and pulled the trigger. He saw the bullet strike the zombie in the abdomen.

“What the hell!” the man cried, grabbing his belly, stumbling backwards and falling over.

Shocked, Jeremy pressed against the wall inside the window. The man was alive!

“You shot me!” the man said, incredulous.

Reaction shook Jeremy’s limbs. One word flashed red inside his mind: murderer.

It’s not my fault, Jeremy told himself. The guy shouldn’t be outside looking like he looks. What did he expect would happen?

“It’s okay,” the man said with a hoarsening voice. “I’m dead anyway. You can come out.”

Jeremy didn’t move.

“I mean it.”

Jeremy peeked around the corner. The man sat on the curb with a hand pressed over his bullet wound. The man’s head perked up when he saw Jeremy.

The man tried to smile. His cheeks twitched with the effort. “It doesn’t hurt. I can’t feel much of anything anymore. You just go numb. The only thing I feel is my head. It feels like it’s floating away.”

Jeremy stepped into full view. The man’s face went whiter as he watched, and his legs stiffened.

The man nodded at his bitten arm. “It was my wife. I shouldn’t have went back for her, but what could I do? She was my wife…” The man drifted off to silence. Eventually he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Jeremy.”

The man nodded with effort. “I’m Bob. You alone?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to be alone for this. Can you talk to me until it happens?”

“I guess so.”

“I can’t get my mind around it. You’re dead, but you’re not dead. Maybe that means you don’t have to meet God. I’m afraid to meet God. I don’t think I’ll measure up. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

The man started shaking and stopped talking.

Jeremy stepped back from the window so he couldn‘t see the man anymore. From this angle, with the sun shining, he could almost believe he was in tenth grade English class. Perhaps he got there early and now stood looking out the window, looking out on this perfect day. The trees were green. The sun threw the dappling shadows of their leaves across the grass and streets. Even the crashed cars looked like something out of a Rockwell painting. And Julie, a phantom Julie, who talked to everyone, even guys named Jeremy whom were called “Germ-y” by everyone else, came and stood next to him.

Jeremy went back to the window.

The man was gone.

What are you looking at? Julie asked.

“Not much,” Jeremy said.

FOUR

The food in the refrigerator turned rotten, not that there was much of it to go rotten. Jeremy’s mother bought groceries for the moment, not in bulk. Yet, it wasn’t nourishment that worried Jeremy the most. Water pressure was gone, the faucets useless. The bathtub was still full, but it wouldn’t last forever. Plus, Jeremy put too much bleach in it. Drinking it gave him diarrhea. To make matters worse, Jeremy no longer had a working toilet. He used a bucket. He couldn’t empty it outside either. The smell might attract zombies (some of the books said smell was how they tracked the living). Rather, Jeremy dumped it in whatever empty tin cans, jars or milk jugs he found in the recycling bin. Jeremy didn’t know what he would do when he ran out of those items. It was time to forage before things got to be an emergency.

Just go next door and check things out.

Yet, Jeremy couldn’t move. His brain told him to reach out and twist the lock on the backdoor, but his hand wouldn’t perform the function.

Jeremy spent the hour before doing reconnaissance from the upstairs windows. The occasional helicopter flew over, but that was all. Nothing moved on the block. Unlock…the…door…

Jeremy imagined Julie beside him. He did that more frequently lately. Jeremy always was prone to daydreams, but he never had imaginary friends as a child. Rather, he imagined he was friends with schoolmates, and they were with him as he played.

We need water, Julie said. Her voice was soft with desperation.

“I know.”

I’ll go with you. We’ll watch each other’s back.

Jeremy turned to the girl who wasn’t there and looked into her eyes.

“All right,” he nodded. “For you.”

Jeremy unlocked the door and stepped outside.

The swing set Jeremy outgrew stood in the backyard, its chains squeaking in the wind. It was early morning, gloomy and on the verge of rain. Jeremy had his sights set on the house next door. Its owners were named Larson or Leeson. Jeremy wasn’t sure which. Since he didn’t do much socializing at school, he didn’t do much socializing outside of school either. He never knew what to say to people, and their questions of “how are you?” (not cool) and “what do you do?” (nothing) didn’t give him much to work with, other than self-consciousness.

What do you think? Julie asked.

“Soonest begun, soonest done.”

Jeremy ran to the back of the Larson or Leeson house. He scanned the surrounding lots, desperate to spot an approaching zombie before it was upon him. Through the crack of an alley, Jeremy spotted an abandoned police car a short distance away. Such a thing would be worth checking out for the weapons and gear it contained, but that was for another time.

Jeremy peeked in the window of the Larson or Leeson garage. Empty. The backdoor was unlocked and he stepped inside. The place was neatly maintained and smelled of oil. A shelf of car-care products hung from one wall. A lawnmower, a baby stroller, bicycle, shop-vacuum and a stack of tarps rounded out the place.

Jeremy tried the door to the house — locked.

“Stand back, Julie.”

Jeremy kicked the door like the cops did on TV. It didn’t budge. Jeremy kicked again and again. Somewhere after ten tries, the door burst open. Breathing heavy, Jeremy stepped inside, looking at a kitchen through gun sights. Beyond the kitchen was a dining room. A hallway stretched from it to a den and what looked like other rooms. A stairway led to a second story.

Jeremy checked the refrigerator, and a grin creased his cheeks. “We’re in business.”

A six-pack of water sat on the bottom shelf. An assortment of food also filled the refrigerator: cheese, pasta leftovers, yogurt and various other items, but most of it had spoiled. Fortunately, Jeremy found canned goods in the cupboards. He removed his backpack and stuffed it full. His main goal accomplished, Jeremy decided to look further into the house.

Eager puffs sounded. Jeremy whirled, expecting a ghoul licking its chops. Instead three miniature poodles bounded down the stairway. Jeremy might have laughed in relief, but nothing about the dogs appeared funny. They came at him full speed, gaunt and with shining eyes. Hunger-crazed, they meant to attack.

One of them latched on to Jeremy’s shoe, growling.

“Hey! Get off me!”

Jeremy kicked. The dog yelped and sailed across the room. Another poodle came in like a furry piranha and sank its teeth into Jeremy’s ankle. He cried out, stumbling into a coffee table. The attacking canine was dislodged, but the other two came in fast and furious. One leapt for Jeremy’s thigh. He twisted away, tripped and fell on the couch. The third poodle jumped onto the cushions and lunged for Jeremy’s face. He batted it into the wall with a panicked fist.

The dogs zipped around furniture and came in for another attack. Absurdly terrified, Jeremy drew his revolver. The gun’s blasts were deafening in the enclosed space. It felt like they blew Jeremy’s eardrums out of his skull like balloons. He no longer heard the dogs barking, nor could he hear himself screaming. Jeremy continued to fire, blowing holes in the carpet, exploding a vase and taking out the TV. Finally, the pistol clicked empty as the dogs fled back up the stairs. Jeremy limped for the exit.

“Poodles,” he muttered. A world full of zombies and he got attacked by poodles. The concept unexpectedly unsettled him. Zombies were one thing, but the loss of order to a point where poodles became life threatening was another thing entirely.

Jeremy hurried through the garage and crossed the lawn, trying to look everywhere at once. His ears still rang. Anyone or anything within two blocks, maybe three blocks, could have heard that racket. He wanted to get out of sight and fast.

Jeremy ducked around the corner of his house and straight into the arms of a waiting zombie. Jeremy shrieked as the ghoul’s cold hands scrabbled over his cheeks and gripped his shoulders. A road-kill smell made Jeremy’s eyes water, and he was aware of a cloud of flies surrounding the ghoul. The zombie was an old man, bald, with liver spots and wearing a flannel shirt and chino workpants with what looked like a soup stain in their lap. The zombie’s mouth opened wide. Jeremy saw fillings and bridgework.

“No!”

The zombie chomped down on the hollow of Jeremy’s neck and shoulders. Teeth worked at his sweatshirt, trying to gnaw through to flesh. The probing, violating sensation made Jeremy’s skin crawl. A rotten cheek rubbed against his own, and Jeremy dropped his revolver. He didn’t think of fighting back. He didn’t wish for a sword. He emulated a rape victim more than any hero from a book or a movie. Through the ringing in Jeremy’s ears came the eager moaning and slurping of the zombie — and then piercing in its hyperactivity and hunger, the barking of three poodles.

Two of the poodles latched on to the zombie’s pant leg. The other worried at Jeremy’s already wounded ankle. The zombie stopped chewing on Jeremy long enough to snarl at the animals with something close to kinship.

Jeremy’s paralysis broke, and he managed to squirm out of the zombie’s grip. He ran for his house, the third poodle still clinging to his ankle and being dragged along. The dog was dislodged as Jeremy bounded up the steps to his backdoor. He ripped it open, lunged inside and locked it behind him.

Mewling, Jeremy put a hand to his neck, grimacing at the cold zombie saliva soaking his sweatshirt. He ran upstairs, ripping his clothes off as he went. Jeremy’s insides churned with sick fear and dread. Visions of ragged wounds filled his head — gory holes pouring blood, blood that carried the infection that would turn him into one of the undead.

Jeremy stopped in front of the bathroom mirror. His skin was unmarked, other than a slightly red area where the zombie gnawed, unable to get through the material of Jeremy’s sweatshirt. Jeremy ripped open the medicine cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of alcohol, spun off its cap and poured the liquid over his neck. Then he grabbed a washcloth, scrubbing the skin until it was raw. Finally, Jeremy jumped into the bathtub, sloshing his hoarded water onto the tiles. He soaped his entire body repeatedly, sobbing.

FIVE

“This is Scott, Melissa and Julie Anderson. If any loved ones are trying to contact us, we are going to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. We will get a hold of you as soon as possible. God bless and protect you all.”

Jeremy dialed the number and let it ring in one try most of the night. Some things had become a lot less scary in the face of other things — like wondering if one was going to turn into a zombie. Despite what Bob said, it was never a pleasant process in the books and movies. A victim died piece-by-piece, feeling each part slip away, feeling the blood coagulate in their veins, feeling cold rigor mortis freeze their limbs one inch at a time, feeling the insatiable appetite for human flesh grow…

Jeremy’s fear made him sweat, and he wondered if the sweat was the first stage of the sickness. His brain exaggerated each nose sniffle into the onset of the resurrection plague and tricked him into thinking he had to cough every minute and that each cough was the beginning of the end. When Jeremy looked at himself, he wondered if he would want to bite himself and then worried that he did want to bite himself for wondering such a thing in the first place. The only distraction was trying to call Julie until the phone lines finally died in the middle of the night. The world itself was going piece-by-piece, communications the latest casualty. Eventually, morning came and with it exhaustion. Jeremy fell into a fitful sleep that lasted until noon.

When he awoke, Jeremy still felt human and figured he would stay that way if he had made it this far without any of the physical symptoms of becoming undead. Thirst needled him. He rued the loss of his bathtub water, which he had drained away in case it contained zombie germs. With no other recourse, Jeremy reached for his backpack and pulled out one of the water bottles. Jeremy gulped down half of it, thought he should conserve it, but finished it anyway.

Jeremy let the water bottle drop between his feet, and stared at nothing. A stack of schoolbooks sat on his desk. The top one was for psychology class, an elective Jeremy signed up for in the hopes that he could learn how to feel better about himself. Fat chance when he had Tim Hagen and Jason Thomas sitting behind him. They sang Winter Wonderland under their breaths in reference to Jeremy’s dandruff. Jeremy made sure he didn’t wear a dark shirt the next day, but it didn’t matter. If they lost one thing to make fun of, they found another. The worst was when they called him “Little Man” in the locker room.

Jeremy wondered where Tim and Jason were right now. Did they survive? If not, good riddance. Jeremy turned out to be the vindicated one. They thought him weird because he liked horror novels and movies. Well, now he knew what to do, and they didn’t.

You didn’t do so hot yesterday.

Jeremy shuddered at the recalled feel of the zombie’s grip. Then Jeremy went rigid at another aspect of the memory. The revolver! He dropped it, and it was still outside!

Jeremy rushed upstairs so he could have a clear view of the backyard. The gun rested on the lawn, undisturbed. Jeremy pressed his face against the glass, trying to see as far as possible in each direction. No sign of any zombie. No sign of anyone.

Jeremy descended to the backdoor, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“What do you think, Julie?”

I think it has to be done.

“Right.”

Jeremy opened the door — wincing at the smell on the wind — and sprinted across the lawn. As he snatched the gun up, the three poodles charged like a dinner bell rang. Jeremy beat them back to his house, got inside and sagged against the wall, shaking.

Get a grip, he told himself. It’s fine.

No it wasn’t. Nothing was fine.

The dogs pawed at the door, growling and yipping with ravenous hunger.

Jeremy ignored them and tried to eat. He didn’t have much appetite and settled for a jar of creamed carrots. He sat at the kitchen table and chewed with mechanical chomps. The carrots tasted overly sweet, and made Jeremy’s mouth pucker. What he wanted was a hamburger. Jeremy wondered how much meat was on a poodle. He shook his head when he realized what he was thinking. It was a product of loneliness, he discovered, to think strange thoughts that seemed rational. Jeremy had always been lonely, but this loneliness was different. It was more like a physical sickness than a mere feeling.

A cry drifted on the wind: “Is anyone there?”

Jeremy froze with a spoonful of carrots at his lips, looking like a rabbit under the shadow of a hawk. The voice came from the street, and it wasn’t just any voice.

It was a woman’s voice.

Jeremy rushed upstairs, a queasy excitement rolling through his belly. To just be thinking about loneliness and now this…it was too good to be true.

“Please answer me! Someone!”

Jeremy’s mouth fell open on its own accord, but he choked the response off before the words escaped his lips. He wanted to see her first. Maybe it was a trap. In one book Jeremy read, this guy went to aid a woman crying for help, and it turned out she was with a group of guys who were using her as bait to rob and kill Good Samaritans. Then again, maybe it was a woman who honestly needed help, a beautiful woman with flowing black hair and ripped clothes. Jeremy would take her in, help her get cleaned up and give her new clothes. Maybe she would pass out and he would have to help her out of her old clothes… The possibilities flipped through Jeremy’s mind, creating a strange mixture of anticipation and dread of mysteries too wonderful to comprehend.

Jeremy peeked over the windowsill.

The woman stood in the middle of the street, turning in a slow circle as she called out. The queasy excitement in Jeremy’s belly drained away. She was an obese woman, at least thirty years his senior. She wore a dirty muumuu. Her face was plain.

“Someone! Please help! Is anyone there?”

Jeremy ducked out of sight. He brought his knees to his chest and huddled there, listening to the cries of the woman fade away.

SIX

Jeremy stared at a pile of dirty cans and dishes. Flies infested the mess. Flies everywhere. Jeremy imagined dark clouds of them leaving the country for the population centers of the nation. No more road kill for flies. The country had become a smorgasbord.

Heck, the whole world…

The house seemed too small, and Jeremy felt like the bird inside of a cuckoo clock. Any moment now the clock would strike midnight, and he would burst out, bouncing at the end of a spring and shrieking.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

Something thumped against the front door.

A chill prickled the hairs of Jeremy’s neck. He listened for a time, but the sound didn’t come again. Jeremy rose like an old man, still toothache-sore from his physical exertions. Tiptoeing, Jeremy moved down the hall. He passed the row of hooks in the entryway where he always hung his jacket. A pair of his shoes rested on the floor mat, along with a pair of his mother’s sandals and his father’s work boots.

Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes, Jeremy thought. He replayed the thought over and over as he leaned in to look out the front door’s peephole. Did his father tell him that? His mother? No, he thought he heard it in a song. What did his parents tell him? Jeremy remembered vague things, and realized that they told him plenty. He just never listened.

And now the telling was done.

Jeremy later wondered if such thoughts were premonitions, because when he looked out the peephole, he looked into the rotting faces of his parents.

Joe Mears had purple skin. Part of his cheek was torn away, revealing the raw meat of tendons. His teeth were bloody from where he ate his lips. Beth Mears missed a large chunk of hair, and the white of her skull gleamed with ping pong ball luster. The fish eye lens in the door further distorted their faces into funhouse shapes.

Trace memory, Jeremy thought. Just like the stories. Zombies lost their intelligence but retained instinct. Sometimes familiar places drew them…

Jeremy knew what had to be done. He had seen this scene in pretty much every zombie movie ever made. He had read this scene in pretty much ever zombie novel ever written. It was the scene where the transformed family member/friend/lover had to be put down.

Jeremy drew his gun. The moment was always charged with emotion in the stories. Jeremy felt nothing, just an actor playing a part. Then he realized he never felt like anything but an actor playing a part — the outsider one step ahead of everyone else. They just didn’t know it. Or at least that is what he told himself.

It was better than the truth certainly.

Jeremy touched the doorknob. The muffled moans of his parents reached his ears. He pressed his forehead against the wood, and the moans grew louder. The revolver felt like deadweight in a hand a million miles away.

Instead of doing what had to be done, Jeremy had his first real conversation in years with the people who used to rock him to sleep at night.

“I saw a movie once,” Jeremy said. “Zombies took over the world, and this group of people were trying to get to Alaska. They figured the cold would keep the zombies away. One by one they died until only this guy and girl were left.”

Hands patted the door; whether eager or confused, Jeremy couldn’t tell.

“The guy and the girl were trapped in an attic at the end. They had a gun and one bullet. Both of them were bitten. That’s how it ended.”

The moans grew louder; whether hungry or urging him to go on, Jeremy couldn’t tell.

“That was one of my favorite endings,” he went on. “I liked bleak endings because happy endings seem fake. The stories I write all have bleak endings. You didn’t know I wrote stories, did you? You saw me do it once, though, dad. You remember that?”

Fingernails scratching.

“I was just learning how to read and spell. School was fun then. Everyone was the same, no jocks and stuff. I was typing a story on mom’s typewriter one night. It was about a goldfish that got flushed down the toilet and mutated. I was really proud of it. You came in the room, dad, and I said, ‘I’m writing a story!’ Then you said all grumbly, ‘You don’t want to write a story.’ So I felt like it was a bad thing. From then on, I always felt embarrassed when I tried to do something I liked.”

Teeth grated against the door.

“Why did you say that?” Jeremy asked his dad. “I always wanted to ask you that.”

How long Jeremy waited for an answer, he didn’t know. The grating, scratching and patting gradually stopped, but the moaning circled the house.

“I should have asked sooner,” Jeremy said.

SEVEN

You need to try it again, Julie insisted.

Jeremy stared at the wall, waiting for the day to end. Surely each minute was an hour, each hour a day, each day…forever.

You can’t sit here all the time. If you don’t go out, you’ll rot in here like they rot out there.

“There’s no reason to go out. We’ve got water…and some food.”

What about the police car?

Jeremy perked up a little.

MP-5s, shotguns and Berettas, oh my! And cool SWAT gear like gloves, Kevlar vests and fireproof Ninja masks…

Julie continued to prod. Jeremy appreciated the way she did it, though. She didn’t nag. She motivated him in a supportive way.

Eventually, Jeremy saw her point and rose to his feet. He felt a little more with it once he got moving. He got dressed and holstered his father’s revolver. Joe Mears bought the gun for home defense. It wasn’t a great gun, Jeremy had decided. It couldn’t hit anything with any consistency. One needed a good gun in a zombie apocalypse. The police car might have one.

Before going to the backdoor, Jeremy checked to see if his parents still waited at the front. Sometimes they circled the house, but not this time. They merely stood in front of the peephole and swayed with the breeze.

“You got my back?” Jeremy asked Julie.

Sure, it’s your best side.

“Not funny.”

Still, Julie’s humor helped lift Jeremy further out of his funk. He opened the backdoor and stepped outside. It was sunny. Birds tweeted. They went on with their lives despite the apocalypse.

You could learn a lesson from that, Julie said.

Jeremy crossed the lawn, head on a swivel for danger, and entered the alley leading to the police car. Bushes hedged him in on both sides. He caught glimpses of the undead through their leaves. One walked in a circle on a lawn, an older woman in a faded housecoat dragging a dog leash. The other was a girl who sat in the street, gnawing on what looked like a tree branch.

Jeremy reached the police car without incident. Before searching it he made sure an incident wouldn‘t sneak up on him. He saw only one zombie, moving away from him. It looked like a nurse…or maybe a dental aide.

The police car’s driver side door was open. Jeremy’s heart beat faster when he saw what was inside.

“You were right, Julie!”

Jeremy slid into the driver’s seat, eyeing the shotgun mounted to the dash in a vertical bracket. It gleamed cool and deadly. Jeremy grinned. He wouldn’t miss too many zombies with a weapon like that.

Jeremy grabbed the shotgun’s barrel and pulled. The gun didn’t move. He looked closer and noticed a lock on the mounting bracket. Jeremy’s eyes went to the ignition, and his grin faded.

No keys.

Jeremy hissed exasperated air through his nostrils. That familiar sensation began in his stomach and spread through his body, the same thing he felt in school, the same thing he felt when he thought of life outside of books and movies — futility.

“Now what?”

But Julie didn’t answer.

Snarling, Jeremy grabbed the shotgun’s barrel, pulling harder. The gun didn’t budge.

A high-pressure keening escaped Jeremy’s lips. He pushed and yanked with every bit of his strength, trying to work the shotgun out of its mount like one works a post out of the ground. The entire police car shook with Jeremy’s efforts, but the gun didn’t loosen from its locked position one iota.

An inarticulate cry of rage tore out of Jeremy’s throat. He pounded on the steering wheel with his fists. The car’s horn didn’t honk because the vehicle’s battery was long since dead. Jeremy went from pounding on the steering wheel to butting it with his head.

Eventually, Jeremy went home…to sit.

EIGHT

The smell of decay filled the air like a physical presence. Jeremy felt like he had a thin layer of mold growing on his body. He took his mind off that and other things by staring at a school yearbook. Julie’s picture was in the top corner of page fifty-seven. She wore a blue and white checkered shirt over a white tank top. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Low maintenance, Jeremy thought. The best kind of girl. Her teeth were even and white, a braces smile. The picture was black and white, but Julie’s eyes still had a shine to them that made Jeremy feel five degrees warmer.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church…

Jeremy wondered if Julie was still there. Sounds of fighting moved closer the past few days as the last stand began at the Windfair Soccer Fields. It surprised Jeremy the safe zone held out for so long. If they had, a chance existed St. Paul’s Lutheran Church had, as well. Jeremy wondered how bad it was for Julie by now. Surely, the women worked as slaves, perhaps even in harems because that is what the men told them God required.

“I have to save her,” Jeremy whispered.

Once the words were out, a flare went up in the dark recesses of Jeremy’s mind and everything became clear. No looting, no video games, no DVDs, no electricity, no gleeful zombie kills and no woman who needed to be held in the dark. That was the problem. The most important part of Jeremy’s zombie apocalypse fantasies were not about stuff. They were about not being alone…

Could he actually have Julie with him?

Jeremy shook his head. It was better to nip vain hopes in the bud. Nevertheless, Jeremy got up to get a phonebook and looked up St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. He made note of its street address and located it on the town map at the front of the phonebook.

The church was roughly nine blocks away.

A mile and a half…

A person could walk a mile in ten or fifteen minutes. The suburbs weren’t crawling with the undead. Most of them probably congregated around the distant fighting. Jeremy saw handfuls and stragglers, not mobs. His mother and father still circled the house, of course, but Jeremy knew he could avoid them.

“What do you think?” Jeremy asked the invisible Julie. As soon as he thought of her answering for real, he knew the answer to the question.

NINE

Jeremy crouched at the corner of a house, looking left and right. Steeling himself, Jeremy ran across the street, and a voice sounded in his wake.

“Hey, kid!”

Jeremy dove over a row of shrubs and huddled there. His eyes looked everywhere at once, and the smell of his sour sweat pricked his nostrils like ammonia. Chilled with adrenaline, Jeremy drew his revolver and cocked the hammer. Zombies weren’t the only danger in an undead apocalyptic wasteland.

“It’s okay, kid!” the male voice shouted. “We want to help you! We’re with the army!”

Jeremy didn’t answer.

“We’re trying to locate survivors!”

Jeremy spotted the owner of the voice. The man peeked around the corner of a house a block down. He held what looked like a Beretta pistol and wore a Kevlar vest over civilian clothes. A SWAT helmet covered his head. A partner looked over his shoulder, dressed the same but carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.

“Did you hear me?” the man called “Come with us!”

“Yeah right,” Jeremy said under his breath. The man lied. They were the types of guys who scavenged as much as they could for themselves by stealing from others, the types of guys who broke into other people’s shelters, executed the occupants and gorged on their supplies, the types of guys who would hold a woman prisoner and have their way with her every night, the types of guys who were worse than the zombies.

“What unit?” Jeremy shouted.

“What do you mean what unit?

“What army unit?”

“We’re not the army! We’re helping them! They’re busy enough! Come out!”

The man’s response increased Jeremy’s distrust. Like the army still functioned in any official capacity. The military only went one way in a zombie apocalypse. It fell apart. In fact, running across army guys was as bad as running across scavengers and religious people. Rogue military units took what they wanted and killed what they didn’t, mostly because they had the firepower to do what they pleased.

Jeremy stuck his pistol through the shrubbery and pulled the trigger.

“What are you doing?” the man cried, ducking out of sight. “Knock it off, kid!”

I’ll knock you off, Jeremy thought, knock you off the planet. He fired off the remaining rounds of his gun and ran. That kind of noise would attract the nearby undead for certain. He ran for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. There was no going back now. The armed men stood between him and his house.

Jeremy went two blocks before encountering four zombies. He darted behind a dumpster and looked back the way he came for signs of the armed men. Seeing nothing, he peeked around the corner at the zombies. They saw him and shifted their course like a flock of birds in flight. They lurched and shuffled with their arms held straight out, begging for a treat — him.

Jeremy tried to reload his pistol. He managed to snag a round out of his fanny pack and dropped it. Once he got it picked up, he realized he hadn’t ejected the spent cartridges yet. The zombies closed. Jeremy pushed six new shells in his gun and blasted them into the mass of zombies. Sparks whined off the pavement where rounds went wild. One zombie jerked with a thigh hit. None of them fell.

Jeremy retreated through a home’s backyard, dodging a sandbox. He passed through an alley, another yard and emerged in the street a block over. Two more zombies in fast-food attire spotted him and lumbered in his direction. Jeremy’s lungs flagged and his legs ached. He always thought people got in better shape as the apocalypse world hardened them. It turned out to be the opposite. Since he hadn’t been eating well and doing nothing but sitting around the house, he was even weaker than usual. Not weak, he reminded himself. He could have played football or basketball or whatever, too. He just didn’t want to waste the time.

Just when Jeremy thought he was going to keel over with cramps, he spotted a church steeple two blocks away. He covered the remaining ground with no members of the undead in sight — no armed men on his trail either. He jogged on, keeping a row of houses between him and the church. Jeremy didn’t want them to see him. When he found what looked like a good vantage point, he committed. No time to be choosy. He ran up the house’s porch steps and tried the door.

Fortune smiled upon him. It was open. Jeremy crouched inside the opening, revolver up, only then remembering it was useless since it was empty. Fortune smiled upon him again because the house also appeared to be empty. Jeremy slammed and locked the door. Then he ran upstairs, picked a room facing the church, shut and locked that door and huddled in the darkness of a corner. Eventually, he slept.

TEN

Jeremy watched the church for two days. He ate cold soup and stale saltine crackers. He drank from the water that collected in the home’s sump, just like he discovered he could do at his own house. It would work until the ground froze at least.

During those two days, Jeremy learned the church’s guard schedule. Every two hours a new pair of guards entered the steeple. First, the current duo descended some internal ladder. Then the new duo came up. Sometimes the steeple was vacant for as long as five minutes and never shorter than three.

The church was tailor made to withstand a zombie outbreak, it seemed. Perhaps its architect was a zombie fan and designed it according to his own fantasies. It was a squat building with a gently sloping roof. The north side faced Jeremy and was window free. That was good. They wouldn’t see him coming. All the north side had for features was an emergency exit. The church’s main entrance was on its east side. A cement walkway slanted up to double doors, which were boarded over. A smaller entrance marked the south side. There, boards covered a single door. The west side contained another set of barricaded double doors. Jeremy knew these details because he did a hurried recon of the church the night before. Windows on the east, south and west sides, all of them at least fifteen feet off the ground. Due to their height, they had not been boarded over.

Combining this data with what equipment he could find in the house he occupied, Jeremy formulated a plan. The things he needed stood ready to go in the garage: a collapsible ladder and two glass bottles filled with gasoline, which he drained out of a lawnmower.

Jeremy also found a machete. It wasn’t a sword, but it was close enough.

Prepared, Jeremy waited.

A couple of zombies walked the street: a toddler dragging a bloody blanket and a soldier missing his shirt. The soldier’s pallid chest looked scrawny in the twilight. He had no wounds that Jeremy could see. Maybe he died of a heart attack.

Jeremy felt nothing profound while watching the few zombies in the vicinity stagger along their routes. He drew no parallels between their slack faces and the faces of people who watched too much TV. He made no comparison between their aimless staggering and how some people drifted through life. Jeremy never asked himself who the real monsters were, and he didn’t equate their hunger for human flesh to socialism at its most extreme. The question of whether or not the world was better off with more dead people than living people never occurred to him. The fact that spotted owls would now thrive did not factor into his thinking. Nor did he quote Darwin, Nietzsche or even Robert Browning. He didn’t even curse the government. The only reaction the zombies elicited from Jeremy was when one of them tripped over a curb and fell on its face. It reminded Jeremy of a Jackass stunt, and he laughed. Even then, he didn’t think of something pseudo-philosophical like: if all the world is a stage, what’s the difference between a tragedy and a comedy? The answer — death is a tragedy and life is a comedy. Or was it the other way around?

Jeremy checked his watch and kept an eye on the steeple guards. At six in the evening the two men disappeared down the steeple’s ladder. Jeremy, who watched from the house’s garage, moved. He hurried out the backdoor with the collapsible ladder. It was made of lightweight aluminum and expanded to its maximum length. He toted the ladder across the street and up to the wall of the brown, wood-paneled church. There, he laid the ladder on the grass, close against the wall and out of sight. Then he sprinted back to the house from which he came. The entire operation took less than two minutes. No zombies spotted Jeremy. As far as he knew, no one from the church spotted him either. He made sure he had his revolver loaded. Next, he checked his Molotov cocktails and readied a book of matches.

The next two hours went surprisingly fast. Jeremy was ready for this act. It was for Julie, not for him. That made things easier. He always felt cut loose and drifting when he was alone, but now he was going to be with someone. His thought processes and will operated more smoothly as a result.

That’s love, Jeremy reasoned.

When the two hours were up and the guards ducked out of sight, Jeremy went into action. He popped a match, lit the cloth wick on one of the Molotov cocktails and ran across the street. He didn’t worry about the zombies seeing him. That was part of the plan. In fact, Jeremy fired two shots in the air to get their attention. Next, Jeremy arrowed for the church’s main entrance and tossed a gas bottle through the window. Shouts sounded inside. Jeremy rushed down the length of the building, leaned the ladder against its roof, fired two more shots into the air and climbed. The shingled surface sloped gently, and Jeremy hastened to the steeple. Once there, he descended and readied himself to shoot the guards. Even though they were human, Jeremy believed he could do it. He did it with Bob (even if it was an accident and ultimately didn’t matter). Plus, religious extremists were no better than zombies when one got right down to it.

Jeremy encountered no guards, however. They must have went to fight the fire. He found himself in an unfinished attic-like crawlspace. He passed through a door that led into a cramped room full of organ pipes. Through another door and Jeremy stood in the church balcony. Flickering orange light painted the ceiling, and smoke rose from the main floor. Jeremy went to the railing and saw a group of shouting men trying to extinguish the fire with blankets.

Satisfied that everyone was distracted, Jeremy reloaded his gun, lit his second Molotov cocktail and tossed it toward the front of the church.

Jeremy wilted for a moment under the stone gaze of the Christ statue suspended over the altar. Bob’s words echoed in his head: I’m afraid to meet God. I don’t think I’ll measure up.

Jeremy heard that Christ died for mankind’s sins to remedy that fear, and in that look, Jeremy could believe it. Christ’s gaze wasn’t accusatory. It contained pity and disappointment. Jeremy fled that gaze because it made him believe he might be wrong about everything. He ran down the balcony steps and took off down a candle-lit corridor on the guess that it led to the basement.

Men and women passed Jeremy, but they paid him no attention in the shadowy hall. Jeremy had discarded his urban excursion outfit in favor of more plain clothes. Plus, he held a handkerchief over his face.

“Fire!” he coughed. “We have to get out!”

If any of the men and women were distrustful enough to stop and look at Jeremy, his words, the smell of smoke and the sound of shouting dissuaded them.

The passing people encouraged Jeremy that he was on the right track. He figured the women would be kept in the basement, since religious people oppressed women and all that. At the bottom of a short flight of stairs, Jeremy passed through a meeting room and into a large kitchen/dining area.

Julie stood with three other teenagers and five younger children. In the candlelight, her hair was the color of spun gold — as Jeremy had seen the shade described in books. Reaching the goal at the end of a quest was a hard thing to assimilate. No celestial choir sang. No pang stabbed his heart. But it took Jeremy a moment to find his speaking ability, regardless.

“Julie!” Jeremy ran to her.

Julie turned, frightened and confused. “Jeremy? What are you doing here?” The dimness of the dining area gave her girl-next-door face a mysterious undercurrent. Jeremy had never thought she looked more beautiful.

“Mom and dad didn’t come home. I was alone. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started calling classmates. I heard the message on your phone, about how you came here, so I figured it was safe. I saw men surrounding the place, though. I tried to get through to warn everyone, but I couldn’t. Now we have to go!”

“Go where?” Julie asked, bewildered.

“Out!” Jeremy didn’t want to give her time to think. He saw a movie once where a guy had to deal with a brainwashed girl and that was the method he used.

“But mom and dad—”

“They’re evacuating!” Jeremy grabbed Julie’s hand. “We have to go, too!”

“I have to watch the kids—”

“Bring them with us! Before we’re trapped!”

Jeremy pulled Julie along with him. At first she resisted, then came more willingly as the group of kids followed, all needing the leadership Jeremy faked. He joined up with a line of perhaps twenty people heading for what he imagined was the emergency exit. He caught a glimpse of the fire on the way out. Flames raged among the pews. Jeremy wasn’t expecting a fire so large. Christ’s stare now seemed stern and followed Jeremy out the door. He was glad when he passed out of the statue’s view and into the darkness.

Night was a shock after the fire inside the church burned as bright as day, but Jeremy’s eyes adjusted to the gloom fast enough to see that it was the chaos he had hoped. People poured out of the church to see zombies converging on the scene.

Jeremy drew the machete from under his shirt as a mailman zombie lunged forward with a special delivery — gnashing teeth. Jeremy swung the blade. Instead of decapitating the undead postal worker, the machete chocked into shoulder and stuck there. The impact of the strike hyper-extended Jeremy’s elbow. Not phased in the slightest, the zombie reached for Julie’s screaming neck. Jeremy drew his revolver and shot the creature point blank in the temple, the first time he hit what he aimed for on the first shot.

Nearly disastrous, the encounter ended up having a positive effect. The shock of it removed all resistance from Julie. She only said two things as Jeremy got her running in the direction of his house.

“Wait!”

“There’s no time!” Jeremy said.

“But mom and dad!”

“We’ll meet up with them! I know someplace safe!”

ELEVEN

It’s one of those crazy things that never should have worked. Yet, there was Julie, in his house, with a world full of zombies outside. Something had finally gone right. It was as shocking as water dripping up. When was the last time something he cared about and put effort into worked? Not since he was a child and caring and effort went no further than seeing a particular cartoon or obtaining a certain toy.

Julie slept on the couch. The sight of her breathing mesmerized Jeremy. A petite fist curled against her cheek, and her jaw line was the most exquisite line in all creation. Thrust together in a world gone mad, somehow they would navigate their way through it. They just needed to hold on to hope and to each other.

Might as well start now.

Jeremy went to lie down next to Julie and pull her close. She would wake up and there would be that moment of resistance, of course, but then she would give in and thank him for saving her.

Julie’s eyes opened before Jeremy reached her. “What time is it?” she asked in a toneless voice.

“A little after eleven.”

“Are mom and dad here yet?”

“No.”

Julie’s calm façade cracked a little.

“It’ll be okay,” Jeremy said.

Julie rose. “Where can I see out?”

“Upstairs—”

Julie climbed to the second story and scanned the street through Jeremy’s sniper window.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon.” Jeremy followed at her heels. As Julie put a knee on the window sill to boost herself to a better vision angle, her pants leg pulled up. Jeremy noticed the cucumber hairs of unshaved legs. He quickly looked away.

“I don’t see anyone at all.” Julie’s voice hitched.

“It’ll be okay,” Jeremy repeated, like it was a magic phrase — the Open Sesame to Julie’s heart. He noticed the tension in her shoulders and reached out with a comforting hand. Julie shrugged it off, and Jeremy frowned. “You’ll like it here,” he said. “It’s better than the church. No one will make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’ll be safe.”

Julie scowled. “I was safe at the church. No one made me do anything. We took care of each other.”

“It would have broke down,” Jeremy explained with condescending patience. “It always does.”

“Always does? When has this happened before?”

“It’s happened—” Jeremy began and stopped. He wanted to say, lots of times. But only in books and movies. He changed the subject. “You’re upset.”

Julie’s voice took on a shrill timbre and her posture became defensive. “Of course I’m upset. Someone burned my church down. I don’t know where my parents are, and the town is full of zombies.”

Fortunately, Jeremy knew what women wanted. They weren’t objects. They had feelings. “Here,” Jeremy said and reached out his arms.

Julie pushed him away. “Leave me alone!”

“It’ll be okay,” Jeremy insisted.

“Stop saying that!”

Julie stomped down the stairs.

Jeremy followed, fists clenched. He noticed how dirty the house had become and how much it smelled. He tried to see it through Julie’s eyes, and it made him even more desperate to regain control of the situation. Things were not going as planned. Things were supposed to be better now. He wasn’t alone. Julie was at his side and was supposed to be cooperative and appreciative.

Julie sat at the kitchen table. She looked at Jeremy. Jeremy looked at her. Silence enveloped them like a wet sheet. Julie noticed the plate of bones on the counter.

“Where did you find a chicken?” she asked.

Jeremy lied about the poodle bones. “A neighbor kept some as a hobby.”

“Do you have any more?”

“No, but I’ve got some tomato sauce.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s a lot.”

“That’s not a lot,” Julie shook her head. “We had a lot at the church. We were collecting for the food shelf before all this happened, thank God.”

Jeremy rankled. He risked his life to save her. He was trying to make things better for the both of them, and she kept throwing his efforts back in his face.

“There is no God,” Jeremy said.

“You ever read Psalm fourteen?”

Jeremy had no intention of going there. He made a conscious attempt to calm down. “Look, we have to be strong for each other now. No one is coming to help us.” He tried to reach out again, and Julie batted his hand away. An distant observer might have thought they gave each other a high-five.

“Stop trying to touch me,” Julie grated.

Jeremy flushed with the heat of anger — among other things. “You’ll feel better.”

“Do you have any water?”

Jeremy ran a hand through his hair, resisted the urge to tear some out by its roots, and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, where he kept it out of habit. “It seeps into the sump,” he explained. There, that made him sound competent.

Julie drank. “Where’s the bathroom.”

Jeremy reddened. In that department, he had moved from the empty containers he found in the trash to the plastic shopping bags his mother had collected from the grocery store, but he couldn’t imagine Julie doing such a thing. Maybe she just wanted to check her hair. He lead her and vain hopes to the bathroom.

“Does the toilet work?” Julie asked.

“No.”

“Then I’m not going in there.”

Jeremy’s jaw clenched. He had a sudden impression of working with a mule. “What did you do at the church?”

“We had a generator for the essential things.” Julie’s voice went wistful, and Jeremy took it as an insult to his abilities. She’d have to learn to not live in the past. Jeremy pulled a pail his mother used for cleaning out from under the sink. Thankfully, it wasn’t the pail he used for his toiletries.

“We can throw it outside,” he said, changing his practice to suit her. Relationships were about compromise, after all. He would be the bigger person.

Julie grabbed the pail, pushed Jeremy out the door and shut it in his face. Jeremy leaned against the wall, waiting and wondering how to proceed.

“Go away,” Julie said through the door.

“I am away.”

“Further away. I don’t want you listening.”

Jeremy went back to the living room and flopped on the couch. He winced in pain as the movement jostled his wounded elbow. Perhaps he needed to try a different approach. Even with his lack of experience with women he recognized that he was fighting a losing battle. Despair and frustration fought each other for supremacy in his chest — despair because even when he could literally be the last man on earth (living, that is), he still wasn’t good enough — and frustration because Julie didn’t appreciate his efforts and none of it matched up to his fantasies or imagined conversations.

Jeremy rose and went to the bathroom door. He tried to inject understanding and sensitivity into his voice. They’d just have to talk it out. “Julie…”

“Why did you bring me here?” Julie asked point blank. “My parents aren’t coming, are they?”

“Sure they will,” Jeremy groped for words that tasted sour. “Come out.”

“No.”

Jeremy fished for a solution, any solution. “I’ll get you some new clothes.”

“I don’t need any new clothes.”

“Come out, Julie. It’ll be—” Jeremy caught himself and changed the worthless platitude into, “please.” He immediately regretted the plaintiveness of the request.

“No,” Julie answered as concisely as a guillotine.

Jeremy’s ire started to climb even higher. “You can’t stay in there forever.”

“I’ll come out when I’m ready.”

Gritting his teeth, Jeremy returned to the couch before he started beating on the door. That wouldn’t accomplish anything. Jeremy felt something ticking in the center of his forehead. A headache grew with each passing moment. He imagined something inside of himself imprisoned behind a great door, something unpleasant that pressed against the door with immense strength. The door started to bulge outward, bowing under the pressure, cracking, creaking…

Only then did Jeremy realize the creaking was real and not imagined. He turned. Julie had quietly exited the bathroom and now tried to tiptoe past Jeremy to the door. As soon as he spotted her, she started running, stocking feet peeling out on the polished hardwood.

“Don’t!” Jeremy cried, erupting from the couch. He chased Julie down and tackled her from behind. His shoulder hit the wall hard enough to put a dent in the drywall. He groaned with the pain.

“Get off me!” Julie fought against him.

“It’ll be okay.” Jeremy tried to wrap his arms around her. Julie clawed Jeremy’s face and drew blood. Jeremy’s hand moved on its own accord. The slap echoed through the room, and Julie’s eyes became dazed. “I’m sorry!” Jeremy whimpered, and put his arms around her, holding her close. His lips found her cheek on their own and kissed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Get away from me!” Julie screamed. Her knee came up and found Jeremy’s crotch.

White light pain.

Julie twisted free and went for the door.

“No!” Jeremy shouted.

Julie opened the door, and Jeremy’s zombie mother and father lunged inside. Julie stumbled backwards, shrieking, tripping over Jeremy and landing on her rump. Mottled arms reached. Jeremy rolled out of their grasp, piling over Julie. Somehow the two of them managed to get to their feet while Jeremy’s parents lurched at their heels, all hunger and rotten stink.

“Go!” Jeremy pushed Julie down the hall. He pulled his pistol, firing four shots wildly behind him and not looking to see if he hit anything.

Julie ran into the study of Jeremy’s father. An oaken desk dominated the room. Its surface was as Joe Mears had left it: blotter centered and nothing on it but a large lamp, pen and notepad. Bookcases lined the walls, filled with western novels and do-it-yourself manuals.

Jeremy and Julie sought safety behind the desk as Jeremy’s parents entered the room. Jeremy pulled the trigger of his revolver until the hammer went click. One of the last bullets hit the doorframe. The other tugged at Beth’s remaining hair. Crying, Jeremy threw the gun, forgetting the vow of the last bullet for himself. The weapon bounced off his father’s chest and landed harmlessly on the carpet.

Meanwhile, Joe and Beth Mears paused a moment, seeming to consider how best to capture their prey. Their carrion pit mouths opened and closed, like they were warming up the tendons for the chewing about to commence. Their waxy skin made them appear to glow in the windowless room. Whether it was strategy or an accident was unclear, but Joe and Beth split up, each coming around one side of the desk.

Jeremy felt his bladder let go. His hand found Julie’s shoulder and squeezed it in abject terror. This time she didn’t shrug it off, too frightened to notice his touch. This is how it ends, Jeremy thought. Good God, Jesus Christ, no, no, no!

“Help me!” Julie cried, breaking Jeremy’s paralysis. She had twisted around and tore one of the bookcases from the wall with a strength made possible by terror. Books tumbled to the floor as she levered the bookcase between herself and Beth Mears, whose head darted forward like a vulture’s to take a bite. Julie warded the woman off with the bookcase and pinning her against the wall.

Jeremy, in turn, pushed against Julie, his father’s hands snagging the neckline of his shirt. For a moment, Jeremy felt himself being pulled toward slobbering teeth. Then his shirt tore and Jeremy was free. Panic and fright sent him stumbling for the door. He reached it, slamming and locking it behind him.

Only then did Jeremy realize Julie was still inside.

“Let me out!” Julie pounded.

Jeremy sank to the floor. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

“Let me out!”

Tears wet Jeremy’s cheeks as he hugged his knees.

Julie screamed. Jeremy heard crashing, hungry moans and plodding steps as the zombies tried to corral her. Flapping thuds followed as Julie must have grabbed books and threw them at her attackers. Then Julie’s screams stopped being desperate and started being bloodthirsty. Jeremy heard a sound like a cantaloupe being struck with a wooden spoon. Then a thud. Then a second thumping sound and thud. Finally, a third thud.

Then silence.

How much time passed, Jeremy didn’t know. He heard nothing, no wet tearing, no chewing. Eventually, he opened the door and peeked through a cautious crack. His mother and father lay in a heap, their heads bashed in. Julie also lay on the floor, the lamp she used to brain Jeremy’s parents by one limp hand. She appeared to have fainted.

TWELVE

Jeremy finally brought himself to take care of the remains of his parents in the backyard. He doused them with lighter fluid and struck a match. The day was fine and clear. Smoke rose into the sky, blemishing it. Jeremy watched it rise. His face was harder now, the face of a person who had crossed some inner line. He thought of a Saturday not too long ago when his dad brought out the grill and asked for help cooking hot dogs. Jeremy said no, went to his room and reread his books. His mom came and knocked on the door, telling him it was time to eat. He said he’d come when he came. By the time he pulled himself away from his fictions, the meal was over.

Jeremy listened to the crackling of the fire.

Just hot dogs, he told himself. They smell good. Right, mom? Right, dad?

Jeremy looked at his watch. The day had a long ways to go, a lifetime perhaps when each minute was an hour, each hour a day, each day…forever. Well, at least he had a diversion now. Jeremy reentered the house, plodding through the mess. He noticed pictures on the wall that he had avoided noticing before. He didn’t like the way they reminded a person that the past always seemed better than the present and the future seemed without hope. But now he looked at the photos, distant enough from the people they framed to view them objectively.

One showed a boy beside a birthday cake with seven candles. He held a comic book, making a muscle with his arm like the hero on the cover.

That boy could grow up to do whatever he liked, Jeremy thought. The reflection of his face was superimposed in the glass over the boy’s face. The two still matched up despite the gulf of years. The only difference is one of them smiled. The other just stared.

Jeremy went upstairs, going to the guest bedroom.

Julie was asleep on the bed, tied up and half naked.

How far would he go this time? Jeremy didn’t know, but he knew there was no going back.

A noise grew in the street then.

Julie’s eyes opened, rolling with fear and the hope of rescue.

Jeremy ran to the window as the low grumble of engines drew nearer. An armored personnel carrier appeared at the end of the block. Troops with machineguns and flamethrowers marched beside it. People in civilian clothes rounded out a huge throng; some were armed; others looked weak and were helped along.

“Help me!” Julie screamed. “Someone please help me!”

Jeremy jumped on top of her, holding her mouth shut.

“Quiet!” he hissed.

Julie bit his finger. “Help!” Her voice seemed loud enough to shatter the world.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy growled. “They’ll—”

What would they do to her that he wasn’t already doing?

Jeremy shook the thought away, stuffed a sock in Julie’s mouth and hurried back to the window. Soldiers moved toward his house like they meant business, rifles raised.

Jeremy mewled and rushed downstairs, heading for the backdoor. As the front door burst open, Jeremy drew his revolver and fired. The soldier swore, ducked and his gun roared. An invisible sledge hammer slammed into Jeremy’s shoulder. He seem to float to the floor. When he hit, pain filled the world. Soldiers loomed over him, kicking away his gun.

“Stay down!” one of the troops yelled.

Jeremy watched soldiers go upstairs. Moments later they led Julie out, wrapped in a blanket. She cast Jeremy a baleful glance. Unlike that day in tenth grade English class, her gaze contained zero possibility.

“What do you got for hostiles?” a voice crackled over the soldier’s radio.

“Just a kid. He’s hit. We need a medic.”

Jeremy stared down the barrel of the man’s gun. It was an MP-5. He had trouble focusing. Things went black, and vision came back.

More soldiers came in and loaded Jeremy on a stretcher. They carried him out into the sun. People lined the streets as the armored caravan stopped. Jeremy saw the two men he had fired on when he traveled to the church. They stood over the obese woman he had seen crying for help, giving her a drink from a canteen and putting a hand on her shoulder.

Thank you, Jeremy read her lips.

It’ll be okay, the men answered.

And there was Jessica, enfolded in the arms of her parents. Their clothes were partially burned. A group of other soot-stained figures gathered round them.

Jeremy looked up into the boiling sun, letting its rays stab his eyes. That hurt less than the things he saw on the street, which proved everything he had thought was true was wrong. Then the sun was blotted out by a trooper with a Red Cross armband. The medic couldn’t have been many years out of high school himself. He cut Jeremy’s shirt open so he could get to the wound.

“What were you thinking?” the medic asked as he worked. The words came out confused, uneasy and a perhaps a bit disdained. “Why didn’t you go to a safe zone? Four blocks away. Food, shelter, transportation out of here. Instead you hole up here, keeping girls prisoner and shooting at soldiers.”

Jeremy couldn’t get his lips to form a response.

The medic shook his head and said:

“Not cool, little man, not cool.”

— END —