Free Mr. Elkins and the Zombies of Elbert County by Thom Adorney Page A

life after we die?” she asked.
    Here my wife took the opportunity for a mini Bible lesson, explaining that when people go to heaven it’s only in spirit, but with zombies it’s as if the spirit is gone but the body’s still walking around.
    “Oh,” was all Cecelia answered back, obviously satisfied with the explanation.
    Seth then began a series of eating, stopping to look at me, eating some more, then stopping and staring with the same awestruck and perplexed expression. It was 7:15 by this time and Ruth encouraged the children to finish in order to catch the bus, which would arrive in another five minutes. (Out here, you don’t miss the bus or you’ll be doing a lot of walking.) Seth, who’s normally bustling around, shoving down another slice of toast while loading his backpack and pulling out permission slips or what have you for us to sign that he’d let go to the last minute, perhaps intentionally, was walking around slowly, deep in thought, as if he’d hit a pothole in his morning that had flattened a wheel rim, every so often shooting me one of his still-perplexed glances.
    “I’m not going to say anything about this at school,” he finally said. He paused and nodded, confirming his decision.
    “That’s probably best for now,” I agreed.
    Then Cecelia chirped up. “Daddy, can I tell the teacher you saw a zombie in our garden last night?”
    Again, Ruth stepped in, as she often does with the young ones. “Let’s just keep it to ourselves for now,” she said kneeling down to look Cecelia in the eyes. “Until we’re sure,” she added. Cecelia shrugged and skipped out the door to catch up with Michael who was already out by the curb.
    When we sat down to dinner that night, no one mentioned the zombie, and we carried on with our usual tableside conversation about school, sports, and chores that needed doing. Later that evening, with the younger ones in bed, Seth, Ruth and I sat around the kitchen table sipping coffee, figuring we’d all stay up to watch for zombies. We’d never even voiced the thought, but, sure as the dawn, we each had the same intention. I suspected from the onset that there might be more than one because of the shuffling footsteps I had occasionally found. Raking them out takes longer when there’s more than one of them, you understand. We sat for a while at the table until Ruth got up and walked out onto the back porch. Seth and I followed, being careful to not let the screen door slam, so as to not wake up the younger ones. Ruth buttoned up her cardigan and I dug my hands deep into my pockets. Seth cupped his mug to his lips and sipped coffee.
    No one said a thing until Ruth, with a nod of her head toward the southwest corner of the yard said, “Here comes one now.”
    Sure enough, into the light, with the now familiar shuffling gait, came a zombie. Not the same one I’d seen before, but one just the same. Now, those of you who haven’t seen a zombie before may not know this, but when zombies walk or shuffle or drag themselves (some have two bum legs), they have the look of someone who is vaguely lost, at the same time knowing and not knowing where they’re heading, similar to those giant sea turtles returning to the sea after laying eggs on the warm summer nights down along the Florida coast. They always travel, at least on our property, in a northeast direction. You don’t want to say anything, perhaps instinctively knowing that they’ll become distracted and lose their bearings and head off in the wrong direction, possibly into your house. And then you’d have a whole new problem of how to get a zombie out of your house, to which I have given considerable thought in case the event should present itself.
    We stood there watching as the zombie shuffled through the string bean lines (that, I might add, Ruth had just re-stretched that morning), apparently not disturbed in the least by its feet getting loosely tangled in the strings and vines and dragging beanpoles