Aleta had come back to him, but even if she had turned why would she come here? Besides, if he was going to be honest with himself, an undead Aleta did not hold the same allure as a breathing Aleta.
Fred focused his vacant stare on the two women. The fat one was wearing filthy pink sweat pants with the word Juicy plastered across her ass.
Takes on a whole new meaning these days, doesn't it?
The other zombie, roughly shuffling in an opposing circle to Juicy, was younger, maybe nineteen. She wore denim shorts and was topless. A golf club in her right hand listlessly dragged across the ground. Fred saw what looked like matted hair on its business end. He supposed the breather she took it from had gone down swinging.
"Braainnnsss," Fred moaned.
After several attempts he managed to hit the power button on the microwave. Outside, the fat one was now sitting on the grass. It looked to Fred like she was staring at her feet. Maybe wondering what happened to her shoes. The young corpse continued her walk, orbiting around the fat one in erratic circles and staring up at the sky - the nine-iron softly bumping behind her along the lawn.
He wouldn't eat the popcorn of course, but the sound and smell would be a comfort - even to a zombie. Ever since accidentally eating Aleta - it WAS an accident - he'd been feeling nostalgic and a little blue. He missed a lot of things, like watching television and doing nothing. Ironically, all reality shows were now off the air - just when, as a zombie, he could really enjoy them.
After much trial and error Fred managed to turn on the television in the living room - now the unliving room. He was disappointed to find just two channels broadcasting. There was the government news station, dedicated to assuring the breathers that the zombie situation was under control. The other station still on the air was MTV; poor choices, even for a corpse.
I miss driving . It was a strange thought. There were plenty of cars around for him to use and he could remember driving when he was a breather. But he couldn't remember how he did it. Probably for the best. Zombies had a tendency to combust around gas stations and fuel trucks. Kind of like how trailers had a tendency to attract tornadoes.
Being undead sucked. He smelled awful - like a wet dog that had been dragged ten miles down a road paved with shit. Every day he had to count fingers and toes. He was hungry all the time now, and catching breathers was much harder than it used to be. Most of the slow and the stupid had been culled out of the herd by now. That left the quick and the smart, and they were always heavily armed.
In the beginning it looked like the breathers would go the way of the dinosaurs, or at least the way of the cattle. Now he had to admit that it looked like they were winning. Every day ZNN showed new video of breather squads hunting down the undead. Many were armed with flame throwers and Fred lost count of the number of times the news station, based in New York, showed video of flaming undead in Greenwich Village, staggering toward the camera until so much flesh had burned away they collapsed into small gruesome bonfires. Sure, it was fun to watch. But he could read the writing on the wall. The day of the zombie was coming to an end.
He looked down at the microwave. The bag of Orville's remained flat and silent, refusing to pop fifty percent more than the leading brand, as promised. He pushed the power button again. Nothing.
Damn it.
Outside, the naked corpse stopped walking and turned to face the kitchen window. She stared at Fred. He noticed that the fat one, still sitting, was also looking up at the window.
Weird .
He poked the power button again and again. Nothing.
Fuck.
He jammed his fist against the control panel and when that didn't work he hit it a little. All he wanted was to hear and smell something familiar - something that wasn't screaming or trying to kill him.
Is that too much to ask for?
Outside the window he saw