Zombies in Love (5 page)

Jack liked Lisa’s apartment.  Not so much for the way it looked-- cheap old furniture, lots of photographs, lots of clutter, like she'd ended up with every single Alioto family heirloom-- but for the way it smelled.  Everything smelled of Lisa, like she’d lived there long enough for her scent to permeate everything, from the cushion on the sofa where she usually sat watching television to the clothes in the closet to the bed where she lay sprawled, half-covered in blankets, fast asleep.

Because this was the funny thing-- when he was alive, he would never have noticed Lisa.  Too tall for him; that short grey hair, not colored, barely even styled; the way she dressed, like a woman who stood on her feet all day.  Not his type, if he trusted his eyes. 

But after six months of undeath he’d realized that his eyes were stupid.  Because she smelled
so
good in ways that he couldn’t even describe, like the meal he’d eaten in Taillevant in Paris, put together with ingredients you could not identify into something much greater than any component part.  Transcentdental.  He felt more-- alive? no, that wasn’t the word-- vigorous? vital?--
faster
, just being close to her.  As good as he did in a really good run, powerful, almost bodiless, and focused to a point.

And her body heat!  She burned so hot he could feel her from across the room, and if they happened to brush against each other, he could feel her warmth sink into his body and only slowly fade away, like each component cell refused to let it go.

You couldn’t leave a woman like that without at least writing a note.  So why didn’t Lisa have any pens?  Or any paper?

And why did she have so many little ceramic angels all over the place?

He heard a rustling behind him.  “Jack?” said Lisa. 

“Yes?”

“What are you doing in my apartment?”

“You gave me a key.”

“So you could eat here, not so you could wake me up early on my day off.”  She sat up.  “What time is it?  Six?”  She snapped on the light and rubbed her eyes.

Jack sat down on the bed.  “I wanted to thank you.  For the job.  But I have to quit.  And leave town.”

“What?  Why?”  Her eyes narrowed.  “Did you eat somebody?”

He snorted and turned on the television.  The jolly music of the local TV news station blasted into the room.

“Ow,” said Lisa.

“Big baby.  Look--” and he pointed at the greyish, twitchy face on the TV screen. 

A reporter’s voice said, “Medical miracle Todd Masters has made few comments on his amazing recovery from drowning. When asked how he feels, all he’ll say is, ‘Hungry.’”

Then the reporter appeared onscreen.  “No discernable heartbeat, no respiration, and he’s still moving around and talking.  Has any condition like this ever been seen before?”

“Only in horror movies,” said the doctor.

"Horror movies?" asked the reporter.

"Have you ever seen
Return of the Living Dead?"
asked the doctor. 

Jack turned the TV off.  If they’d hired that reporter for something besides her enormous skull, she must have sniffed it out already-- the doctor hadn’t met with the hospital P.R. person yet.  Or he hadn’t paid attention when he did, because he was definitely saying things that would make Amy from P.R. very unhappy. 
Come on down and see our real live zombie! And bring all your media buddies! 
There wasn’t much that Jack missed from his old life, but oh how he wished he were there with his notepad and tape recorder, cracking that doctor in half like a walnut. 

Except for the fact that he had to get out of town,
now
, before anyone figured out that Boston was infested with zombies and started tracking them all down.  And as for where he’d go-- he’d figure that out once he was at the Greyhound station. 

What he wanted, of course, was to go home.  Charleston.  It almost might be worth it to see the look on Sam's face. 
Hi, Sam!  Surprise! 
And his dad would be happy to see him, at least outwardly, that big bluff, How-are-you-doing-son, thump you on the back, but that cold, appraising look in his eyes-- and his mom, who was looking more tired and wary every time he saw her, like she was just waiting for him to break her heart again--

No, he couldn't go home.  But where was he going?  Somewhere with a lot of cemeteries, he guessed. 

And then what happens?
Lisa had said. 
Are you going to live like this forever? 
Jack picked up a dirty sock from the floor and started chewing on it.

“That poor man,” said Lisa.  “They’re starving him, and they don’t even know it.”

“They don't care.”  He put the sock back in his mouth.  It was very soothing.  Maybe he could bring it with him.

“We ought to help him.”

Oh,
he thought.  Because he hadn’t come here to say goodbye to Lisa, had he?  He’d come here so she could talk him out of it.

But how was he supposed to--

A grin slowly spread across his face.

“What?”

“You want to help that man.”

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

“Do you want to do something really, really stupid?”

“Absolutely.”

“Can I borrow forty bucks to buy a used suit?”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

#

Prof. Leschke paced around the lab like a big, angry lion in a lab coat. 
Not good
, thought Ian. 

“Let me get this straight,” he growled.  “There were at least forty zombies, and you didn’t capture any of them?”

“I shot one,” said Ian.

“Did you catch it?”

Ian shook his head.  Sarah winced.

“Why haven't you fixed this yet?  What if one of your zombies eats somebody?"

“Well, technically, they’re not our zombies.  It’s not like they do our bidding.”

Prof. Leschke came up to Ian and rested his hand on his shoulder.  It might have looked friendly, but it felt like the prelude to a blow.  “Why don’t I kick both of you out right now?”

“Because you’re in just as much trouble as we are,” said Sarah. 

Prof. Leschke dropped his hand from Ian’s shoulder and turned towards her.

“Forget I said that,” said Sarah.

Yes, reflected Ian, this could get worse, if the Board of Overseers ever found out.  Ian didn't even want to think about what would happen if they knew the truth, but it wasn't just going to involve leaving with a terminal master's degree.  It was going to be a lot more terminal than that...

There was a story that one of the gargoyles on the outside of Memorial Hall had cracked and lost a wing, and embedded in the concrete, there'd been a human bone.  As if the gargoyle had been a real person transmogrified, mostly, into stone.  Another Leschke student swore he'd seen it with his own eyes, before the Winthrop guys in white jumpsuits cut the gargoyle off the building and took it away. 

It had to be just a story, right?  Right?

“Have you even tried the new antivirus yet?” said the professor.

“We’ve been having some trouble administering it to the test patient,” said Ian.  “He’s becoming increasingly unsuitable.” 
Please don’t make me go in the basement, professor. 

“Do it,” snarled Prof. Leschke.

#

Here Lisa was in the black suit she wore to funerals-- and looking wicked smart, if she did say so herself-- holding a satchel packed with a rotting human leg, and pretending to be a journalist from the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
. 

What a great way to spend her day off!  Usually all she did on Monday was her laundry.  And hockey practice, of course.  And then beer with the team, to celebrate the fact that they still had most of their teeth.

If Jack’s plan went like they hoped, she’d be out in plenty of time for practice.  She and Jack would enjoy the press conference with all the real journalists, and then when they were taken in to see the patient, she would abandon her enormous satchel in the room.  Hopefully Todd would figure out what to do with it before anyone got curious about what it was or how it got there.

And she’d learned something new about her employee: he’d done this before.  He’d been a journalist before he died, or something like it, because he’d known what their faked credentials should look like, and what to carry, and what to wear, and all the sort of things that you only learned by experience.  And he wore a suit like he was used to it. 
Money
, she thought. 
He used to be rich.

Another little nugget of information that she could chew over, as she whiled away the hours spending way too much time thinking about Jack.

#

Memphis
Commercial Appeal
, repeated Jack to himself.  If he didn’t watch out, he was going to slip up and say--

Here he was again, and he felt his body itch to take up its old habits.  Legal pad securely held in the left hand, black ballpoint spinning in the right, its metronomic shuttle calming him while he waited for the press conference to start.  It was times like this that he missed the thump of his heart in his chest.  It was so quiet inside him now!  No sound but his own thoughts,
Here I am again, Memphis Commercial Appeal
.

He’d been to Memphis once, but he couldn’t remember much after his first drink at the Tonga Club.  Part of that great dark smear of the last year of his life, like cockroach guts on white kitchen tile.  But all that was over and done now, and in another state, and it was over over over.

He was so jittery he felt like he could tear his skin in half, right down the middle.  If the press conference didn’t start soon, he was going to rip open that damned satchel and eat the leg himself.

#

Ian took the coin out of his pocket.  “Call it in the air,” he said, and tossed the coin.

“Heads,” said Sarah.

The coin landed on the lab bench.

“Shit,” she said.

#

As far as Lisa could tell, the doctor hadn’t said anything interesting yet.  Jack didn’t look impressed either-- his pen was flying around his hand like an angry hummingbird.  Then, with a jolt, the pen stopped spinning, and it rose to the ceiling in Jack’s hand.

What the hell are you doing?
she thought.

“Yes, you in the back,” said the doctor.

She watched Jack turn on every ounce of charm and charisma in his body.  He grinned at the doctor.  “Good morning, sir.  I’m Jack Kershaw of the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
.”  Now all the other journalists were watching him.  Drawn in like magnets. 
“
I’d like to know what you all have ascertained about the nature of his condition.”

"I'm sorry," said the doctor.  "Because of patient confidentiality..."

Jack held up his hand and interrupted.  "
Return of the Living Dead? 
One of my favorites.  What did they say in the movie?  'You have no pulse, your blood pressure's zero-over-zero, you have no pupillary response, no reflexes and your temperature is 70 degrees.'"

"You looked that up," said Lisa.

"Of course," said Jack.  "So, those are Mr. Masters's symptoms?"

"In the past, I may have spoken out of turn," said the doctor, watching the PR person's face.  "Because of patient confidentiality, I can't comment."
              "Then why are you here?" mumbled Lisa. 

Jack patted her on the arm. "If he's a zombie, does he eat people?"

The PR lady swiped the microphone.  "I can assure you, Mr. Kershaw, that all patients at MGH are given a diet standard throughout the hospital industry.  Soylent green not included.  Now if anyone else has a question..."

Let it go,
thought Lisa.  Where was Jack going with this, anyway?  He'd always been the one who said that zombies would be better off if no one knew they existed.  So what was he doing asking all these questions?

The same reason that every time she visited someone's house, she ended up in the kitchen, helping her hostess cook.  If you spend your whole life turning yourself into something, the training takes over.

"You know what I've never understood," said Jack, as if the PR lady hadn't spoken.  "Why would zombies eat human flesh?  There's nothing in there that you don't get from a ham sandwich.  Is there any kind of scientific explanation for zombieism?"

The PR lady was having some kind of coughing fit, but the doctor stared at Jack as if hypnotized. 

Hey, Mr. Let's-Stay-Underground?  Time to shut up now,
thought Lisa.  She kicked his leg, but he just ignored her, all his attention focused on the doctor.  She'd probably have to kick him a lot harder for him to feel it.