“What?”
Mona stopped and looked at Karl with something approximating interest.
“Huh?” he replied.
“Am I demon from Hell?”
Karl began to sweat even more, his stomach doing flips.
“What?” he stammered, attempting to feign innocence.
“You said-”
Karl cut her off with a wave of his hand. “No, no, no. Not
“Uh-huh.”
Karl longed for his belt to give himself a few choice strokes. The sun seemed hotter down here than on the roof, like it was turned up or aimed by some giant sadistic kid with a magnifying glass-God as megabrat. The air didn’t move. Just the flies. Karl’s neck skin crawled and oozed perspiration. Between the mortification and fear, his back felt like it was covered with fire ants, the Saran Wrap bandage loosening as it filled with sweat, but hopefully not blood. It stung like the fucker of all mothers. Shouldn’t the weather be cooling down by now? No, it was still summer.
Yeah, humanity had somehow done this to itself.
Books.
As they slogged west, Karl was reminded of the annual Puerto Rican Day parade, which commenced here on East Eighty-sixth. The crowd pushed back as Mona and he trekked up the center of the street, ankle deep in rotting limbs and rubbish. Maybe this was a little less festive. Karl surveyed the crowd. His mind was swimming, overstimulated. Their path was serpentine, weaving between forsaken vehicles and countless zombies. Inside one car a zombified child in a car seat thumped its head mindlessly against the window, the glass glazed with coagulated grue. That withered tot had been trapped in that car for nearly half a year and was still animate. Karl shuddered. The seemingly eternal question once again flitted into his head:
“I need to hit the bookstore.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah. Abe said he wanted some books to better himself. Yeah. That’s something, a man his age. I guess that’s kind of admirable. ’Course he could just be bored, but still.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need some further scriptural reading, too. To maybe find some answers.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You really never encountered any other survivors during your travels?”
“Nope.”
“That’s so weird. You ever try calling out? Seeing if maybe you got any response?”
“Nope.”
She might be lying. If she were a demon it would be her duty to lie, to please her unholy master. Karl cleared his throat, then hollered, “Is anyone out there?” as loud as possible. He repeated it a couple of times but the only reply was increased agitation in the zombies that flanked them. Mona punched Karl on the bicep and squinted.
“Don’t,” Mona said. “Riles ’em.”
“It’s just, if there was anyone out there I…”
“Just don’t.”
“Okay. Sorry. I was just… Sorry.”
On they trudged, the zombies hanging back, frustrated. The experiment so far was a success. Karl hadn’t been eaten. Big success. Huge. This could change everything. As they neared First Avenue, Karl felt buoyed by their progress. The sun no longer felt amplified, it felt invigorating. His leg muscles felt purposeful. He looked up at the sky, which was clear and blue, and felt glorified. He felt closer to God than he had in ages. Or at least fonder. Midway between First and Second, the shrink-wrap around Karl’s midriff burst and pinkish brine splashed the pavement. Mona whipped her head around, startled by the wet sound. She stared at the puddle at Karl’s feet.
“Your water just break?”
Mona cracking a joke was almost as alarming as the amplified interest the zombies displayed. The scent of his natural soup was like sounding the dinner gong. Though they hung back, their rancor was heightened. The sounds emanating from their cracked, broken faces threatened to void Karl’s colon.
“Oh God. Oh Jesus,” he whimpered. He wanted to drop to his knees and pray.
“Keep moving.”
With stinging liquid dripping from his back, Karl followed Mona’s edict. The trip back to the building now seemed like miles rather than a couple of blocks. Long blocks. Avenue blocks, which were at least double the length of north-south ones.
Volunteering?
He’d suggested it.
Karl wanted to strangle himself.
“Get the fuck offa me!” Alan shrilled, swatting away Abe’s palsied hands.
Abe moaned from the pits of his collapsed lungs, pushing up plumes of stale, mucus-scented reek. This wasn’t what Alan had expected when he came a-knockin’ on Abe’s door. Ever since Ruth’s demise, Alan felt bad for the old guy, up here all alone. But this was bullshit. At first, once he’d gotten Abe’s door open, he’d thought the old man was just disoriented, the way he was bumping up against the windowsill. Maybe too much Valium. But once Abe had turned around Alan knew he’d joined the ranks of the undead. And now here he was, wrestling with a zombified oldster in a fusty apartment that smelled of mothballs and something worse.
Alan managed to knock Abe to the ground, upon which he heard Abe’s hip splinter. Abe grasped at Alan, but like the old commercial, he’d fallen and couldn’t get up. Alan felt queasy. This wasn’t comfortably impersonal like his relationship to the things below. This was Abe. Abraham Fogelhut, bearing out the cliche that when one half of an elderly couple perishes the other usually follows in close order-
36
