Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Anthony Giangregorio Page A

wheat. Her name was Martha Malinowski and her family had lived in Fort Durham for three generations. Martha was nineteen and had spent her entire life in the border area where southern Colorado shades subtly from browns and tans to the dark green mountains of northern New Mexico.
    Martha’s eyes were a startling blue that deepened or paled according to the season and her mood. Her temperament had begun to darken with the onset of early winter snows, and so her eyes began to reflect that. Now they appeared the color of the road ice that formed on the headlights and steel bumpers of the pickups lining the parking strip beside the Diner.
    She waited on tables for one, sometimes two long shifts each day at the Cuchara Diner.
    Occasional tourists speculated aloud that the Diner was more properly cal ed the Cucaracha.
    Henry Roybal, the owner, would gesture at the neon tablespoon suspended in the front window.
    That made little difference to the tourists who rarely understood Spanish. The locals around Fort Durham simply referred to the place as the Diner. The Diner itself was a sprawling stucco assemblage that had been added to many times over the decades. Its most notable feature was Henry Roybal’s pride and joy, an eight-foot-high neon EAT that flashed from red to green and back again while a blue arrow pointed down at the Diner’s front door.
    Martha Malinowski’s fair features haunted the il icit dreams of many in the community. She was largely oblivious to this and to the dreamers themselves. She ignored the ones she did notice.
    Her cap was set for Bobby Mack Quintana, the deputy sheriff. Bobby Mack was always cordial toward her, but that seemed to be about it. Martha wondered if he was just too shy to express his feelings.
    Then there was Bertie Hernandez who openly lusted after Martha. Crude, rude, and vital, his buddies and he were among Henry’s best customers. Martha was never glad to see them coming into the Diner. But a job was a job, and business was business in this world of sage, scrub grass, endless horizons, and Highway 159. Someday Martha would have saved enough cash to leave this place. Or if Bobby Mack wanted her, then perhaps she would stay. She was practical about romance, yet stil maintained her dreams.
    The men watched the little old ladies tap and scratch ineffectual y against the Diner’s thick plate-glass front window, their clawed fingers fluttering like the wings of injured birds.
    “Don’t look too mean to me,” said Bil y Gaspar, a strapping young man in a red plaid lumberjack shirt.
    “You don’t know squat about zombies,” said Shine Wil is, who was a few years Bil y’s senior and half a head tal er. “I was up to the Springs last week when a bunch of ’em came boilin’ out of a Greyhound bus downtown. They’re faster than they look, and stronger too. Especial y if they been eatin’ good.” He chuckled.
    Bil y looked a bit livid. “People.”
    “Yeah,” said Shine. “People.”
    Bertie Hernandez glanced up from his breakfast plate. “Gimme another side of bacon, Martha,”
    he said. “Have Henry make it good and chewy.” The radio above the cash register was blaring out the Beat Farmers’ cover of “Sweet Jane.” “An’ turn off that shit. I want to hear something good.”
    “Like what?” someone said from down the formica counter.
    “Conway Twitty,” said Bertie. “Good shit.”
    The radio stayed where it was set. The Beat Fanners’ record segued into Joe Ely’s “Crazy Lemon.”
    “Better,” Bertie said.
    “What we gonna do about the old ladies?” said Shine.
    “Where’d they come from?” Bil y Gaspar said. His fingers twitched around the handle of an untouched mug of cooling coffee.
    “Eventide Manor, most like. The nursing home.” Shine grinned mirthlessly. “Musta found a zombie in the woodpile sometime in the night, I’d judge.”
    “We gotta kil ’em?” said Bil y.
    “Too old to fuck,” said Shine. “Too tough to eat”
    Bil y’s