Free The Reanimation of Edward Schuett by Derek J. Goodman

started up and backed out into the street. Made sense, Edward supposed. He already looked suspicious enough as it was. It would look even stranger if someone saw that the cage held not only a regenerating zombie but also a normal human who didn’t look the least bit afraid. She stayed on the opposite side of the cage and kept “Spanky” pointed at him the entire time, but she left her finger off the trigger.
    “I’m Rae Neuman,” the woman said.
    Edward gave a half-hearted salute. “Edward Schuett.”
    “Right. You already said that.”
    “I also said I’m not a zombie, but… maybe you guys were the ones who were right on that one.”
    “Yeah,” Rae said. “I figured you haven’t actually had a good look at yourself yet, so I had Ringo grab a mirror before we came out to get you.” She reached into her pocket and gingerly pulled out a piece of glass that looked like it had once been part of a car’s rear-view mirror. She held it out to Edward, and he took it, careful not to look in yet.
    “I’m not sure that I actually want to see,” Edward said.
    “I really think you should,” Rae said. “It might be kind of a shock, but just be grateful you’re seeing yourself now rather than earlier.”
    Edward nodded and took a deep breath. He might have stopped denying that he had, at some point, been a zombie, but acknowledging that and seeing the proof of it were two different things. Everything up until now had almost felt like a dream to him, a terrible dream that just wouldn’t end, but seeing what he looked like would likely finally drive home the reality of it. A part of him wanted to hold onto the hope that it was a dream for just a while longer.
    He remembered Dana again, and her myriad little cuts and bruises from random acts of childhood. He’d always told her the best way to remove a Band-Aid was to rip it off quick and get all the pain over with. If he didn’t get this over with and look then Dana would have a hypocrite for a father. Wherever she was, if she was still alive somewhere (and the memory of her disappearance before Julia had bit him gave him hope that she could still be out there in some shape or form) then he wanted to continue being a good influence for her.
    He held up the shard of mirror in front of his face and forced himself to stare. The shard was small enough that he couldn’t see his entire face at once and doubtless didn’t get the full effect, but he was absolutely grotesque. He inhaled sharply and fumbled with the shard, almost dropping it, cutting the tips of his fingers when he caught it again. The blood that welled up from the cuts was probably darker than it should have been, but he didn’t pay it much mind. He was still trying to accept what he had just seen. With another deep breath he raised the mirror again, this time forcing himself not to look away.
    His eyes were the first thing he saw. The irises looked like they were the right color, but the whites were more of a dark gray, almost black in places. It dawned on him that they were probably bloodshot, but the dark color of his blood kept them from looking pink like they should. From there he moved the mirror, carefully chronicling all the disturbing details of his current face. He had not been an ugly man at all when he was younger, although he supposed to anyone other than Julia he would have been considered average rather than handsome. So he hadn’t been terribly vain. But now he couldn’t believe that he was actually allowing anyone to see his face. His skin was pale grey with veins of blackish green running through. His cheeks were sunken in, and in several places the skin was pitted with deep open sores covered in dark dried pus. His hair was patchy on his head, looking like a field of dead grass that had been salted in random places to keep life from growing on it. His lips were ragged and uneven, like something had eaten them away in places, and he supposed that was very likely exactly the case. His