No, this flash of light cut right across his ceiling. From below.
What the hell?
Abe manually uncrossed his sleeping legs, flung himself out of his chair and hobbled on limbs of pins and needles toward the window. Just as he hung his head out a swath of light was cutting across the tops of all the cabbage-heads, forging south—
a flashlight beam!
“Jesus H. Christ! Jesus H. Christ!” Abe gasped. He ducked his head back in and shouted, “Ruth! Hey! Ruth!” Another small thunderclap swallowed his thin voice. “God damn it!
Ruuuuuth!
”
“What? What is it already?” Ruth screeched from the bedroom. “You’ll wake everyone!”
“Good! Come in here! Quick!”
“What is it?”
“Come in here!”
Abe was trembling all over. He leaned back out the window and shouted at the departing beam of light. As it receded down York the horde seemed to spread out before it, creating a path.
“Hey, wait!” he shouted, his frail voice swallowed by another burst of thunder. In his ferment he launched into a convulsive coughing fit, his watery eyes following the light until it disappeared from sight. Now his coughing tears mixed with tears of despair.
“What’s the commotion?” Ruth whined. Though she was shrouded in darkness Abe could picture her bitter, disbelieving face. “What’re you dragging me out of bed for?” Her mental image of Cary Grant faded into nothingness.
“There was a light out there!” Abe said, gesturing at the street below, wiping his eyes.
“A light.”
“A light, for Christ’s sake. A light! A light!”
“Abe, it’s thundering out there. Ever hear of a little thing called lightning?”
“It wasn’t lightning. It came from down there!
Down
there! Not
up
there!
Down!
”
Ruth sighed the sigh of a long-suffering martyr and waddled back to the bedroom, leaving Abe wondering if he’d dreamt the whole episode, his mind suggestible to the transcendental literary powers of Can-D.
Or Chew-Z.
13
“They’re beautiful in a hideous kind of way,” Ellen said, admiring Alan’s studies of the undead. A week had passed since their coupling and Alan had invited her to his studio to see his work. No one else in the building had been permitted into his sanctum sanctorum. “My God, there are so many of them.”
“And no two alike,” Alan said. “Just like snowflakes.”
“Not quite,” Ellen frowned.
“Fingerprints?”
“That’s a bit closer. It’s like you’re cataloguing them.”
“I guess I am. Passes the time. Cave paintings of the future.”
Ellen’s eyes roved over the dizzying cavalcade of renderings. Beyond their technical excellence, Alan had captured something she hadn’t stopped to consider about the things outside: their innate humanness. Those things weren’t always
things
. They had been Homo sapiens. Alan’s meticulous artwork, while unsentimental, betrayed an element of latent humanity in the subject matter. The tilt of a head, the softness of a brow, the turn of a mouth, all reminded herthat these empty vessels once had inner lives. They’d been friends and neighbors.
“I’m amazed at how unbiased these are,” Ellen marveled.
“They don’t hate us. They didn’t ask to be what they are.”
Ellen fingered the edge of a pastel of an armless male zombie with half its face missing. It had no pants and its penis was gone, but not its scrotum and testicles. She scanned the other images. Males, females, all dismembered in various ways. Not a single one was intact. How had she never noticed that before? She hastened to the window. Resting on the sill was a pair of binoculars, which she snatched up. Though they were packed together down there, she confirmed what Alan’s drawings portrayed; not a single one of them was complete. On some the damage was more evident than others—whole missing limbs were easy to spot—but all were mutilated beyond the general rot. It made sense. Most had been savaged when they were still people. They’d died and been
What the hell?
Abe manually uncrossed his sleeping legs, flung himself out of his chair and hobbled on limbs of pins and needles toward the window. Just as he hung his head out a swath of light was cutting across the tops of all the cabbage-heads, forging south—
a flashlight beam!
“Jesus H. Christ! Jesus H. Christ!” Abe gasped. He ducked his head back in and shouted, “Ruth! Hey! Ruth!” Another small thunderclap swallowed his thin voice. “God damn it!
Ruuuuuth!
”
“What? What is it already?” Ruth screeched from the bedroom. “You’ll wake everyone!”
“Good! Come in here! Quick!”
“What is it?”
“Come in here!”
Abe was trembling all over. He leaned back out the window and shouted at the departing beam of light. As it receded down York the horde seemed to spread out before it, creating a path.
“Hey, wait!” he shouted, his frail voice swallowed by another burst of thunder. In his ferment he launched into a convulsive coughing fit, his watery eyes following the light until it disappeared from sight. Now his coughing tears mixed with tears of despair.
“What’s the commotion?” Ruth whined. Though she was shrouded in darkness Abe could picture her bitter, disbelieving face. “What’re you dragging me out of bed for?” Her mental image of Cary Grant faded into nothingness.
“There was a light out there!” Abe said, gesturing at the street below, wiping his eyes.
“A light.”
“A light, for Christ’s sake. A light! A light!”
“Abe, it’s thundering out there. Ever hear of a little thing called lightning?”
“It wasn’t lightning. It came from down there!
Down
there! Not
up
there!
Down!
”
Ruth sighed the sigh of a long-suffering martyr and waddled back to the bedroom, leaving Abe wondering if he’d dreamt the whole episode, his mind suggestible to the transcendental literary powers of Can-D.
Or Chew-Z.
13
“They’re beautiful in a hideous kind of way,” Ellen said, admiring Alan’s studies of the undead. A week had passed since their coupling and Alan had invited her to his studio to see his work. No one else in the building had been permitted into his sanctum sanctorum. “My God, there are so many of them.”
“And no two alike,” Alan said. “Just like snowflakes.”
“Not quite,” Ellen frowned.
“Fingerprints?”
“That’s a bit closer. It’s like you’re cataloguing them.”
“I guess I am. Passes the time. Cave paintings of the future.”
Ellen’s eyes roved over the dizzying cavalcade of renderings. Beyond their technical excellence, Alan had captured something she hadn’t stopped to consider about the things outside: their innate humanness. Those things weren’t always
things
. They had been Homo sapiens. Alan’s meticulous artwork, while unsentimental, betrayed an element of latent humanity in the subject matter. The tilt of a head, the softness of a brow, the turn of a mouth, all reminded herthat these empty vessels once had inner lives. They’d been friends and neighbors.
“I’m amazed at how unbiased these are,” Ellen marveled.
“They don’t hate us. They didn’t ask to be what they are.”
Ellen fingered the edge of a pastel of an armless male zombie with half its face missing. It had no pants and its penis was gone, but not its scrotum and testicles. She scanned the other images. Males, females, all dismembered in various ways. Not a single one was intact. How had she never noticed that before? She hastened to the window. Resting on the sill was a pair of binoculars, which she snatched up. Though they were packed together down there, she confirmed what Alan’s drawings portrayed; not a single one of them was complete. On some the damage was more evident than others—whole missing limbs were easy to spot—but all were mutilated beyond the general rot. It made sense. Most had been savaged when they were still people. They’d died and been
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