They hadn’t seen a zombie for three days. The last one to approach the house had collapsed in the driveway, literally falling apart. The arms fell off and the abdomen popped like a balloon. When Francesca crept outside to investigate, she said the insects burrowing through the rancid flesh were fighting with each other. Chris had scoffed at this.
“So what is it? Not more zombies?”
She shook her head. “Something else…something…weird.”
Chris was thirty-eight years old and had been a quadriplegic for the last eighteen. He had good use of his left arm (except for the fingers), but very limited use of his right. He could not feel his skin or use any muscles below his collarbone.
He looked out the window, and gasped. The trees were dying. Their house sat in the middle of a flat square acre. As they watched, the grass died—and then came back. There was no clear way to describe it. Like a wave on an ocean, a patch of brown rippled across the lawn. In its wake, the grass then turned green again—but it moved. The grass moved, each blade waving like an individual tentacle. The same thing was happening to the trees— tamarack, pine, fir, and blue spruce—each died and was resurrected. They ripped themselves free of the soil and clambered away on their roots. Thankfully, none of them realized there were two humans less than twenty-five feet away.
“It’s spreading,” Chris whispered. “Maybe nobody’s going to come after all.”
“They’ll come.” Francesca wheeled him into the kitchen. “The Rising is over. We’ve stayed inside for twenty- nine days. All we have to do is stay inside for a few more.”
“Not like either one of us were social butterflies anyway.” Chris grinned, trying to take his mind off the strange occurrences outside.
Before Francesca came into his life, Chris had barely left the house in over ten years. They’d met online when he’d purchased some books from her on eBay. Like him, she was reclusive, wading through and waiting on life. After three months of phone calls and emails, Chris invited her to visit. A month later, Francesca left the east coast behind and moved in with him.
Every day since then was magic. Sunshine. Life.
Chris felt alive with her.
“I’ll make you lunch,” Francesca said. “It’s good that you don’t eat much. We’re almost out of food.”
Chris ate little at mealtimes to avoid getting fat, which was a quad’s worst enemy (other than pressure sores and bladder infections).
“What’s left?”
She held up two cans. “Corn or Spam.”
“Crap.”
“You are always grumpy at lunch and dinner. Why do—”
She screamed, dropping the cans.
“What?” Chris’s eyes darted back and forth.
“What’s wrong?”
“The cactus.” Francesca’s face was pale. She pointed to a small pot on the windowsill. “It’s moving.”
Chris tried to stay calm. “The trash. Throw it in the trash.”
She did, holding the cactus pot at arm’s length. Then she went through the rest of the house and did the same with the other plants. The philodendron’s long vines wrapped around her arm, the heartshaped leaves caressing her skin. When it was over, Francesca wept.
“Maybe you’re right,” she cried. “Maybe no one is coming to save us.”
“Come here.”
She did. She sat in his lap. Chris’s cushion made a farting noise. They both giggled.
He wheeled them back to the big window, and the chair finally died.
“Well,” he said. “I guess this is as good a spot as any.”
Twenty-five feet away, on top of a four-foot high hill in the front yard, was a huge waterfall with a pond. Water splashed over several big rocks that Chris’s father had put there years before. A huge, black cloud hovered over the rocks.
Mosquitoes. More mosquitoes than either had ever seen. Another cloud, larger and darker, swooped down from above. Bees. The two groups began battling.
“What’s happening?” Francesca draped her legs over the side of the chair. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s spread. Think about it. First, it was the humans and the animals. But that stopped. Remember the zombie that just fell apart on the sidewalk two days ago? That was the end of that…
wave. But now it’s affecting the plants and the insects. Look. They’re going after each other, just like the other zombies did.”
Francesca stayed silent. She shifted against him, and though he couldn’t feel it, her soft buttocks cradled Chris’s groin.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too.” Her breath tickled his ear. She stroked his thinning hair.
Outside, the yard grew thick with praying mantises, ants, hornets, ladybugs, and other insects, all fighting to the death. The grass struck out at them, but the sheer number of insects was overwhelming. Francesca stirred. “Can they get inside?”
“No,” he lied. “We’re safe.”
Chris knew he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. He felt safe. Secure. Warm. He sensed that Francesca was beginning to feel the same way. She relaxed, snuggling against him. He wrapped his left arm around her.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told her. “Do you know that?”
“As are you. I’d be lost without you, Chris.”
“I’d be lost without you, Francesca. You’ve given me so much. You taught me how to live.”
“You taught me how to love.”
“You’re my reason to live.”
They kissed for a long time. When Chris opened his eyes, the insects were crawling over the window. Sitting in the chair from which Chris had spent so much time, from which he’d viewed the world around him, viewed life itself, the two of them held one another and watched the world die. They were content and happy and unlike everything around them, their love was eternal. It did not die.
AMERICAN PIE
“I’m so glad you speak English,” the American said. “I haven’t talked to anybody alive in almost two weeks.”
Trygve Botnen nodded. “I haven’t seen anyone either. Just the dead, and I don’t like talking to them. But yes, having visited forty-six different states in the last six years, I’d like to think my English is pretty good.”
“You go there on business?”
“Vacations,” Trygve said. “I’m the…I was the Vice President of ABN AMRO Asset Management’s real estate division, but when I went to the states, it was mostly for pleasure.”
“Ever been to New York?”
“Sure.”
“I’m from New York. Came over here on vacation. I’m an angler. I’ve fished all around the world. Wanted to fish the Drammen River, all the way down to the Svelvikstrommen. I rented a cottage, and was here two days when it happened. I waited a few more days before deciding to head back to the States, but I couldn’t go home, because by then, there was no home to go back to. They’d stopped all air travel.”
There was a rustling sound outside and both men immediately fell silent. Trygve crept to the window and peeked. A brown, desiccated vine dragged itself across the wall, slowly curling. As he watched, it stopped moving.
They were hiding in a gift shop outside the world-famous Spiral Tunnel. Trygve had arrived an hour ago,
