Free The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies by Jeffrey Littorno

way to the floor and slid the handle from P to D. 
         The Jeep lunged forward, and the thing doubled over the hood.  In the seconds it took to cover the few feet between rows of parked cars, I looked straight into the empty eyes of the thing and felt only disgust. 
         The next thing that I remember was finding myself surrounded by t he airbags of the Jeep. For an instant, I returned to my earlier idea about all of this being a dream.  I tried to believe … I wanted to believe that all of the things I had seen were just part of a strange dream.  But I knew none of it was a dream.  People were going crazy, and something resembling my wife was squashed against the front of the car.   
         I struggled to push the door open and almost fell out of the Jeep.  My knees went weak and were barely able to hold me as I stumbled toward the front of the car.  I slid my hand along the side of the car for support and for the sense of something tangible in a world that was fast becoming surreal.
         The Jeep had collided with a smaller dark green car and was leaking either gas or water or both.  The Bonnie-thing was squashed tightly between the two vehicles.  It was still draped over the hood, but now its head was twisted at a strange angle on the hood.  For some reason, I felt the need to study the body thoroughly.  The anger had cooled within me.  Perhaps it was shock making me feel more analytical than anything else. I looked carefully at the thing that had so closely resembled my wife.  There was the light brown hair pulled back with a golden brown butterfly-shaped clip.
         The hair clip took me to another place.  I remembered spending a weekend at the coast not long after I had started teaching high school.  Bonnie and I had only been married a couple of years, so it was before any of our problems began.  We had spent an afternoon walking around the gift shops of Santa Cruz.  There were lots of souvenirs and such.  I remember how excited Bonnie had become when she saw the butterfly hair clip.  I could not resist that smile and had gotten the clip for her even though she thought it was too expensive for our budget.
         I was suddenly back in the garage standing beside a lifeless body.  All at once, the overhead light sparkled off of something that caught my eye.  It was the gold ring with small diamonds that was on a dead finger lying on the car’s hood a few feet from the head. The idea of leaving Bonnie’s wedding ring on the finger of this repulsive creature was unthinkable.  At that moment, the only thing I knew for sure was I had to have the wedding ring. 
         Without thinking any further, I grabbed the hand from the hood.  It was shockingly cold and sort of wet feeling. Touching it made me queasy, but I forced myself to continue.  The ring felt stuck at first.  Then after forcing it around with my thumb and forefinger, it finally turned a little. I continued to spin the ring until it turned freely.  I slid the ring up the finger until it stopped at the knuckle. It refused to go any further.  With my right hand pressing the dead hand down on the hood, my left hand tugged on the ring. The force pushed the skin on the finger into a bunch around the knuckle but did not free the ring. 
         I stopped tugging and considered what to do.  In my head, I told myself, “It ’s just a ring.  Not worth spending all this time over.”   But even as the words were still echoing inside, I knew this was more than just a ring.  That little gold band with the tiny diamonds was all I had left of my past, my normal past.  I did not try to kid myself into thinking it was such a fantastic past because I knew it had not been. Better than some and worse than others. Still, it was my past, and from what I had seen so far that day, the future might not be all that impressive. 
          Of course, I was assuming there was even going to be a future.  In any case,